A visualization of browsing journeys—how a single spark becomes momentum, how curiosity tightens into flow, and the tender moment when we surface.
Over months of browsing, 3,560 distinct chains emerged—each one a path carved by attention.
Some are brief sparks: a single click, a fleeting question answered. Others are deep dives, spiraling down for hours, accumulating 283 pages in a single thread.
The longest journey lasted 4.8 days. The most intense consumed 9 hours of pure focus.
Analysis reveals three distinct textures in how attention moves:
One page → next → next. Deep focus, single thread. Branching ≈ 1.0
Return to index, open new tab. Configuration work. Branching 2-6×
Many tabs from root. Cataloging, surveying. Branching 10-24×
One page leads directly to the next. Pure flow state. Depth equals length.
September 13, 2025, 4:01 AM
Entry: in.pycon.org/2025/program/schedule
One talk catches the eye: "Data Morph: A Cautionary Tale". Click. 7.5 minutes reading. Back to schedule.
Then: "DuckDB is the New Pandas" (5 min) → back to schedule → "Memory is the Agent" (18 min) → back to schedule.
9 pages across 2 domains, with the schedule as persistent anchor. Each click flows from the previous decision—read abstract, evaluate, return, next talk. 6.3 hours of total engagement spread across the day.
While this has some backtracking, the overall progression is linear: evaluating talks one by one, building a session plan incrementally.
July 13, 2025, 10:23 AM
Entry: ICICI Bank e-Filing portal → redirect to Income Tax Department
The journey unfolds step by linear step:
71 pages across 4 domains (ICICI, Income Tax portal, authentication services). Every page is a required step—no parallel exploration, no backtracking. Pure linear compliance navigation. 8.9 minutes of focused form-filling.
This is the spiral of bureaucracy: one form leads inevitably to the next, depth equals progress, and there's no shortcut through the chain.
September 21, 2025, 6:08 AM
Entry: ICICI Bank corporate banking
The path: Login → Funds Transfer → Manage Payees → Add Payee → Confirm → Verification cycle
24 steps, each one a form submission or confirmation page. The pattern repeats: fill form → submit → wait for redirect → next page loads → fill next form. Multiple authentication tokens, session management, multi-step verification.
6.7 minutes navigating through corporate banking security layers. Every step mandatory, every redirect automatic. Zero branching—the system dictates the path.
Linear spirals dominate in transactional flows: banking, checkout processes, multi-step forms. The UX enforces the linearity.
Return to a central hub, open new tabs. Configuration, comparison, cross-referencing.
September 24, 2025, 1:46 PM
Hub: github.com/basecamp/omakub — Ubuntu setup by DHH
From the repo root, exploration radiates outward. Click
/applications → back to root → click
install.sh → back to root →
/install/terminal.
Pattern: examine file → understand → return to root → next file. Individual scripts explored: zellij, lazygit, Alacritty.
48 pages with 6× branching pattern. The root repository is the persistent hub—always returning there to launch the next exploration. 13.5 minutes of systematic survey.
Hub-and-spoke emerges when systematically exploring a structured resource—repository files, documentation sections, product catalogs.
August 17, 2025, 2:34 AM
Entry: firebase.google.com →
Console
What follows is methodical configuration work, returning repeatedly to hubs:
/notes/OymphbNDCi8V16CSeGO837 pages across 3 domains. Only 6 clicks deep, but with 6.2× branching. Each hub (Overview, Settings, Firestore) spawns multiple exploration paths. 2.1 hours of focused configuration.
Hub-and-spoke emerges when comparing options, checking settings across panels, building mental models of interconnected systems.
Many tabs opened from a single source. Cataloging, inventorying, rapid reconnaissance.
July 13, 2025, 11:05 AM
Landing: Gmail Inbox (4 unread)
From inbox root, rapid triage begins:
in:inbox [BULK] → identify bulk mailin:inbox "[MARKETING]" → find marketing emailsfrom:openai.com → check OpenAI notificationsfrom:google.com → check Google emails84 actions from just 7 clicks deep. Branching: 12×. The pattern is inbox → search/open → back to inbox → next search/open. 3.75 hours of email processing spread across the morning.
Email triage is a classic wide survey: many items examined from a central hub, each given brief attention before returning to the list.
Across 3,560 browsing chains, patterns of attention emerge:
This is not productivity theater. There's no shame in the 48-tab survey that lasts 13 minutes. There's no prize for the 6-hour deep dive. These are simply the textures of thought—the way attention moves when following genuine interest.
Every rabbit hole eventually ends. Not with shame, but with completion. A question answered, a need met, a configuration saved.
The PyCon schedule browsing ends when the session plan is complete. The Omakub exploration ends when the mental inventory is cataloged. The Firebase configuration ends when the document is found, the settings are saved.
These visualizations celebrate the deep dive—the willingness to open 48 tabs if that's what understanding requires, to spend 6 hours on 9 pages if that's what the question needs, to spiral down 247 clicks deep if that's where the answer lives.
This is the texture of digital thought: spiraling, branching, gathering momentum, and finally, tenderly, letting go.