Welcome to the Digital Garden
This is digital space for curating thoughts, research, and experience about AI, data, and the infrastructure underneath.
What is a Digital Garden?
Unlike a blog with polished posts, a digital garden is a living collection of ideas at various stages of development. Notes grow from seedlings (rough ideas) to evergreen (refined thinking). You’re welcome to explore the weeds.
About
I’m Mike — leader, published AI researcher, and lifelong learner. This garden grows from my M.S. work in Information Design & Strategy at Northwestern and ongoing work in AI/ML systems.
This site is built with Quartz, hosted on Cloudflare Pages, and maintained with a workflow involving Claude for note creation and refinement.
How This Garden Works
Knowledge Architecture
Notes follow atomic design principles:
| Type | What It Is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Atoms | Single concepts, definitions, principles | ”What is attention?” |
| Molecules | Frameworks, patterns, comparisons | ”RAG vs Fine-tuning” |
| Organisms | Complete articles, guides, essays | ”Building Production ML Pipelines” |
Navigation
| Element | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Left Panel | Browse by domain, then drill into atoms/molecules/organisms |
| Right Panel | See note properties, graph connections, and table of contents |
| Graph View | Visualize how ideas connect across domains |
Domains
Explore the nine knowledge domains:
| Domain | Focus | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| [index|Home] | Sources, references, entry points | 107 |
| [index|Human Centered Design] | UX, design thinking, user research | 51 |
| [index|Information Architecture] | Structure, taxonomy, organization | 50 |
| [index|Research Methods] | Methodology, analysis frameworks | 33 |
| [index|Data Engineering] | Pipelines, infrastructure, data systems | 51 |
| [index|AI Mechanisms] | ML/AI concepts, architectures, techniques | 350 |
| [index|Knowledge Engineering] | Knowledge graphs, ontologies, reasoning | 88 |
| [index|Cross Domain] | Ideas spanning multiple areas | 103 |
| [index|Professional Practice] | Career, leadership, ways of working | 22 |
Start Exploring
If you’re interested in AI/ML: Start with [index|AI Mechanisms] — the largest domain with 350+ notes on transformers, attention, LLMs, and more
If you’re interested in data systems: Explore [index|Data Engineering] — pipelines, architectures, and infrastructure patterns
If you want to see connections: Use the graph view (right panel) to discover how concepts link across domains
Last tended: January 2026