- Dec 2022
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infosec.exchange infosec.exchange
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https://infosec.exchange/@atax1a/109400028861061670
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- Oct 2022
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ashfurrow.com ashfurrow.com
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https://ashfurrow.com/blog/mastodon-technology-shutdown/
Mastodon.technology is shutting down by 2022-12-01 due to personal and admin tax related reasons. Sounds like it's being done in an ethical and reasonably kind way.
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- Jun 2022
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Local file Local file
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My parents noticed that I didn’tplay with LEGOs like other kids. Instead I spent my time organizingand reorganizing the pieces. I remember being completelycaptivated by the problem of how to create order out of the chaos ofthousands of pieces of every shape and size. I would invent neworganizational schemes—by color, by size, by theme—as I becameobsessed with the idea that if I could just find the right system, Iwould finally be able to build my magnum opus—a LEGO spaceshiplike the ones I saw in the sci-fi movies I loved
This is also generally an administrative problem in this space. People spend ages tinkering with their tools and not enough time using them for what the tools are meant for.
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- May 2022
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www.buildingasecondbrain.com www.buildingasecondbrain.com
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Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Choosing Your App
What are the common pitfalls when choosing a note taking application or platform?
Own your data
Prefer note taking systems that don't rely on a company's long term existence. While Evernote or OneNote have been around for a while, there's nothing to say they'll be around forever or even your entire lifetime. That shiny new startup note taking company may not gain traction in the market and exist in two years. If your notes are trapped inside a company's infrastructure and aren't exportable to another location, you're simply dead in the water. Make sure you have a method to be able to export and own the raw data of your notes.
Test driving many
and not choosing or sticking with one (or even a few)<br /> Don't get stunned into inaction by the number of choices.
Shiny object syndrome
is the situation where people focus all attention on something that is new, current or trendy, yet drop this as soon as something new takes its place.<br /> There will always be new and perhaps interesting note taking applications. Some may look fun and you'll be tempted to try them out and fragment your notes. Don't waste your time unless the benefits are manifestly clear and the pathway to exporting your notes is simple and easy. Otherwise you'll spend all your time importing/exporting and managing your notes and not taking and using them. Paper and pencil has been around for centuries and they work, so at a minimum do this. True innovation in this space is exceedingly rare, and even small affordances like the ability to have [[wikilinks]] and/or bi-directional links may save a few seconds here and there, in the long run these can still be done manually and having a system far exceeds the value of having the best system.
(Relate this to the same effect in the blogosphere of people switching CMSes and software and never actually writing content on their website. The purpose of the tool is using it and not collecting all the tools as a distraction for not using them. Remember which problem you're attempting to solve.)
Future needs and whataboutisms
Surely there will be future innovations in the note taking space or you may find some niche need that your current system doesn't solve. Given the maturity of the space even in a pen and paper world, this will be rare. Don't worry inordinately about the future, imitate what has worked for large numbers of people in the past and move forward from there.
Others? Probably...
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- Nov 2021
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www.rousette.org.uk www.rousette.org.uk
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While I still enjoy org-roam, things feel (to me anyway) a bit up in the air with it at the moment, as there are big changes coming in version 2 which will probably involve a bit of backwards incompatibility. I couldn’t decide whether to wait to make the changes, or transition to the new version now, and that indecision made me reluctant to add to my collection of notes.
Example of someone who doesn't want to use their digital notebook because of admin tax of pending future changes.
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- Aug 2021
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www.connectedtext.com www.connectedtext.com
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By contrast, a systematic ordering, which finds its contemporary equivalent in modern outliners, soon runs into difficulties. The anthropologist Alan MacFarlane noted some time ago that "one danger inherent in paper indexes is the amount of effort they take to add to and maintain. That means that more and more of the worker's energies go into the creation of the tools for research, and the less time there is to actually do the research and the writing." He traced this problem to the hierarchical classification that he thought paper makes necessary and complained that the system broke down at 40.000 cards because the preconceived categories proved inflexible. Luhmann's alternative avoids this problem.
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- Jun 2021
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jack.micro.blog jack.micro.blog
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Too many “Digital Gardens” end up as not much more than a record of someone dicking around with their note-taking workflow for a couple of months.
I've seen this pattern. I suspect some of the issue is having a clean, useful user interface for actually using the thing instead of spending time setting it up and tweaking it.
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- May 2021
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rusingh.com rusingh.com
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Ru does a retrospective about how much work and energy a static site can be to maintain a personal website.
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Yet, every time I open up my Eleventy codebase, I want to puke (figuratively). Having gained distance and perspective from the codebase, it now looks less like a personal website and more like software. Even if a lot of it is well-engineered, it feels overblown for what it is supposed to do.
Even for a smart and experienced programmer, maintaining a static website generator site can be a lot of work.
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