networkedthought.substack.com
Show HN: Petrarca: Voice first spaced repetition – track knowledge across bookshttps://networkedthought.substack.com/p/petrarca-an-intelligent-companionI've been struggling for years to get an overview (become literate) in history as an adult. I wanted all the names (Cicero, Caesar, Constantinople, Waterloo) to actually mean something, because reading books and deeper analyses becomes so much more interesting then.But I also didn't want an app that forced me to do all my reading on screen - I want to read physical books on the couch, listen to a history podcast when I walk, watch a documentary with my wife. And still track what I learnt, and maintain it...So I built an app that let's me track which books I am reading by taking a picture of the cover (it automatically researches them, inserts TOC and content, autosyncs with Kindle progress etc), and generates review questions based on book content and generated "curricula".But to map the things I already know, I designed a "knowledge elicitation" using voice - it gives me some prompts (what do you know about Plato), I talk into the mic while walking, and it maps what I know, my mistakeApr 7, 2026 12:22 PM