What’s going on? What do you need to hear? How can you move forward?

Finding an answer may be as simple as swiping left or right.

Forget This Good Thing I Just Said is a new experience, based on an old kind of book – the collection of short sayings, or aphorisms. By combining several hundred original aphorisms with the ring-oscillator software used in random-number-generating technology, Forget This Good Thing I Just Said offers up a completely unique experience every time you open it.

It’s something literary, philosophical, and a little magical to brighten up your screens.

Available on the Apple App Store!

Forget This Good Thing I Just Said is also a book, and was named a finalist for the 2022 Big Other Book Award in for nonfiction, which you can buy now!

Could your phone

be a source of contemplation

and delight?

Forget This Good Thing I Just Said – FAQs

What it is

It’s a book, an app, a conversation, an oracle perhaps. But above all, it’s a series of chance encounters.

How it works 

A collection of more than 900 original aphorisms meets the ring-oscillator software used in random-number-generating technology. The result is that one aphorism follows another, but always in new sequences, so a reader never has the same experience twice, and no two readers have the same experience. As new patterns emerge, or seem to emerge, the import and meaning of the work changes over time. 

Why it exists

It’s an exploration. It’s an experiment. What it finds or helps you find is what it’s for. Let’s all find out together.

What it costs

The app is free, and collects no personal data. The book costs money.

Why it’s on your phone

Everything’s getting reduced to small noise on a small screen, from the King James Bible to the theatrical cut of Lawrence of Arabia. Maybe by starting with small noise on a small screen, something may grow.

What it’s like

A conversation with a smart, long-lost friend who has big news, and keeps changing the subject.

A reading experience so unpredictable

that even the author doesn’t know

what will happen

How to read it

The app is best. But the book is good if you’re trying to get away from screens. For the book, devise a way to get around it in a random fashion. This could involve flipping a coin, or feeling your way from page to page and line to line based on a tingle in your thumb.

Who made it

Matthew Dublin and Colin Dodds.

How random chance fits in

You can read about some of the thinking behind the app’s use of ring-oscillator technology to randomize the experience here.

Who gets those cool stickers

Anyone who asks nicely, and promises to share.

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