Yeah, I think ads can't really work well in our search + most users run adblocks already. We are still experimenting with ways we can monetise this project however in a way that doesn't reduce the value and quality of the product.
HN user
neurocroc
Moved to new account: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nikivi
Building https://learn-anything.xyz
I made an open source search engine that searches her user curated mind maps on the web. Here is the search :
Since everything is open source and I can't run ads or add any sponsored content, the only way to support it is through Patreon. I think it is a pretty cool idea and solves a big problem of not knowing how how best to start learning a topic or what learning some topic X is.
I hope people will find it useful.
I made a lot mind maps and then a search engine to solve this. It has been working pretty well so far. :)
Here is the search engine : https://learn-anything.xyz/
Computer science is a very rewarding field if you enjoy it.
We made a search engine (https://learn-anything.xyz/) that I think may be useful for choosing the path with which you can go to further study.
Author here.
I always wanted to create a search engine that allowed a person to linearly progress his learning and visualise everything in a way that makes sense. Representing information in this way is incredibly beneficial as it allows to cover any knowledge dependencies a person might have.
This way there should be no time wasted in finding the resources that are needed and allows the person to just learn.
Everything is open source and all maps can be improved by the community in case there is a better way to learn the topic or there exists some useful resource to aid learning of the topic.
I hope you like it. Would love to hear your thoughts on it.
Thank you a lot edotrajan.
We might add it so links open in a new tab. However I do like how it is now (it is the same as Google). The search engine is just there to get to the resource you need as fast as possible. If you want to open the link in the new tab, you can command + click. :)
I am really happy you are liking this search already. The most exciting things are yet to come.
I did. :)
Here it is (bit.ly/learn-anything-letter).
Oh I see. I think something like this has been done before and the results are usually messy. Although I do want to use algorithms and curate things in a more 'smart' way that I do now. A bonus point of doing it by hand is that I take in the time to understand the topic for myself and actually understand why that node goes there and not in some other place.
Hey Gary, I love what you have done with find lectures. I use it quite often actually to find material. I am thinking of perhaps making a newsletter for this project saying 'what is new' in the mind map. What do you think?
I do link to wikipedia articles on nearly all nodes. I just expand it with more learning resources after. I think wikipedia is always a great starting point for learning about any subject. Or you meant something else?
Currently the entirety of the mind map was hand picked and curated by me. I did use the internet a lot though as there are quite many threads online that have recommendations on what the 'best ways of learning X' is.
I also try to ask help from other people, ideally experts in their fields on how to best structure the content. Mathematics one is quite challenging just because everything is really so connected as far as ideas go.
I hope as this projects gets popular, more people will be willing to help and improve it. It is a collaborative process after all.
You can just click the link (http://bit.ly/learning-mind)
Choose a topic you would like to learn and click on it. Emojis have meaning and here is what they mean (https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/knowledge-map#documentatio...). I hope you find something interesting.
The search engine for this mind map is in works and will essentially do what you have described. User types a query and it will jump to the correct place in the mind map.
If you want to help create it, please do. There is a slack group for the project.
slack group: https://knowledge-map.slack.com/
search engine: https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/knowledge-map-search-engin...
You can also think of this project as an index of links similar to what Google has. Only instead, the index is human curated and it is an open canvas that all can explore.
If you do consider adding and improving this mind map, it would be amazing. Thank you for that. I want it to be a collaborative process where anyone can come in and propose a change.
Author here. I was greatly inspired by this website. It was my goal to actually combine metacademy's idea of solving the dependency problems of knowledge and do it in a similar way but visually.
Author of the project here.
I do agree with you that mind maps have their flaws and limitations. But I found most curated list and most content in general to be quite rigid in structure. These mind maps should let the users explore and be guided through arrows.
And the big problem that I find is that google and other search engines are a black box. You have to know what you want to ask for to get an answer. The poses a big problem because many don't know what to ask.
Wikipedia is great too but I found it to lack in the visualisation aspect. Everything is connected but many people don't know exactly how and where and with what it is connected. These kinds of visualisations are very popular on the internet (https://github.com/kamranahmedse/developer-roadmap is one example) because they do bring clarity as to what it is the person doesn't know. However this repository although great, it just shows an image.
With these mind maps I can replicate the same but make it interactive. Now users can not only see what they don't know, but if they do want to learn it, they don't have to waste time online finding resources, they just click on a link and see what the best way of learning the topic is. If any questions arise when they are learning the content, then the search engine of their choice will answer these questions.
I also try to solve the problem of dependencies of knowledge. For example if user wants to learn 'machine learning'. I show that machine learning requires knowledge of statistics and linear algebra (http://i.imgur.com/A75JMNt.png) and then give links to the mind maps of both of these topics so user can learn them. There should be no wandering around and wasting time finding resources and being lost.
You have to click on the link with the mind map (http://bit.ly/learning-mind).
Is it possible to have something similar to this (http://youtubeonrepeat.com/youtube-repeat-button/) for Souregraph. I use Safari and there is no extension that allows me to instance view github repo in source graph.
Is it possible to use something to make this work?
The latter. The mind maps are curated by hand and are 'human' approved similar to what various awesome lists on GitHub do.
I would disagree with you. For certain tasks, outlines are undeniably better such as presenting information in a file explorer.
However as far as links go, which is what these mind maps present (just a bunch of links connected with arrows), mind maps are perfect. At least for me, they have solved my 'bookmark managing' problem.
Before I saved a lot of links into safari bookmark manager only to then forget about them because it's just impossible to find it later or it takes too long. In this way, everything is sorted. I don't have to search for anything and I can just explore what I see. This is the fundamental difference between these mind maps and the search engine I am building to Google or DuckDuckGo.
In my case, the entire database that is being searched on is transparent and anyone can make a change to it. There is no black box and there is no problem of not knowing what to search or look for. You can just explore the mind map and see what you find interesting and what you don't.
I use Mind Maps for all my note taking.
https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/knowledge-map
I found it to be the most optimal format for this task.
I keep most of my bookmarks as a mind map.
I am building a search engine for a mind map I am working on.
(https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/knowledge-map)
I want to make a collaborative mind map where one can see all the knowledge of the world at a glance and be provided with the resources on learning any of the topics there.
I really dislike the black box nature of Google/DuckDuckGo where you first have to know the question before getting an answer. It would be amazing to actually visualise everything and let users explore rather than search and wander around.
I too agree on usefulness of KM. Can you share that KM macro please?
Yeah, this is a really wonderful site.
I do still think that it lacks visualisation of knowledge and all the different disciplines and fields you can learn.
I try to visualise it as best that I can (https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/knowledge-map).
I am quite excited about my project that I have been working on. Do you think presenting all the knowledge of the world in this visual way (https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/knowledge-map) can be of benefit?
Thank you for your feedback, I really appreciate it.
I plan to solve this issue with providing a web search engine in the future. I have laid out the plan here (https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/knowledge-map-search-engin...)
I understand your point. I try to implement it as a web of things though as indicated by arrows going through and between each of the nodes. Each node is a tree yes, but together they form a connected web of nodes and trees where each node is another graph that can go as deep as it wants.
And I do agree that linear algebra is not just a subset of math but is connected to all the varying disciplines and I try to indicate these connections with arrows. Most of the important ones at least, otherwise the graph will just get messy.
The idea is to expose knowledge in a visual way and attempt to solve the problem of discoverability on the web.
I use MindNode app (https://mindnode.com) to make the mind maps. It's macOS only though.