A knowledge system based on what my Malagasy ancestors did — beads as pointers, chains as lists. Does it hold up?
Hey all — wanted your take on something.
For context: I've lived in OneNote for years, then Obsidian and Logseq, and a stretch of Emacs Org-mode — so this isn't me discovering linked notes for the first time. It's what I reached for after all of them.
I came up with an approach based on what my Malagasy ancestors actually did: they used beads (vakana, our only word for them) as a kind of Knowledge Management System. Each bead is a visual pointer that stands for a meaning — a person, an idea, an intent — you attach notes to it, and string them into chains that read like a story or a project, with links between beads. I ended up building a mobile app around it.
The image below sums up the system; the full story and where it comes from is in the article if you want the why.
Genuinely curious what the PKM crowd makes of it — does this hold up as a way to model knowledge, or am I reinventing something that already exists? And where would it break for your workflow?
The article: https://donovan-ratefison.mg/2026/05/31/My-Ancestors-Were-Writing-Lisp/
Posted Jun 2, 2026, 12:59 PM UTC