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Polar as a Personal Knowledge Repository

getpolarized.io

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Re: Polar as a Personal Knowledge Repository

#31

Post by pps »

cedex12 wrote: post #29
sj4nz wrote: post #2

Sounds very zettelkasten-esque.

even after visiting the website, I don't really understand what zettelkasten is really. Is it a software or a standard of sorts?

Polar has absolutely nothing in common with Zettelkasten. Zettelkasten is a method of creating and storing notes, optimised for creating connections between topics and for creative thinking. The creator of this method done that on indexed cards. It's hard to explain this in few words, this book is doing this better than anything I saw online https://takesmartnotes.com/ . You can also try this article if you don't want to pay http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2007/12/luhmanns-zettelkas...

Re: Polar as a Personal Knowledge Repository

#32

Post by elviejo »

lcuff wrote: post #16

I started keeping favorite quotes in Hypercard back in 1987. I didn't pay attention when Hypercard went extinct 15 years later, and failed to do the work to extract the data. Now I keep info in text files and grep is my friend. No spaced repetition, but tags go in as grep-able raw text too. Will Polar, or Evernote, or any other system, be around in 30 years?

"Will... any other system be around in 30 years?"

Yes, Emacs.

"The editor of a lifetime" https://youtu.be/VADudzQGvU8

Re: Polar as a Personal Knowledge Repository

#33

Post by sixtram »

bachmeier wrote: post #15

AFAICT, this is for PDF files on your computer and websites converted to PDF. There's no option to add, say, markdown files or locally stored email files. Don't get me wrong, I've tried it out and it's awesome. I'm just not seeing how it's going to take off as a knowledge repository with its limitations. The last thing I want is yet another place I have to look for my files, and I sure don't want to have to keep thin…

I've also downloaded this software and my impression is that it is far far from 95% to be an outstanding product. At least I bumped into small ui bugs the author should catched himself before a release.

At the same time I agree with his idea that a knowledge base + spaced repetition is a good combination, however outputting spaced repetition into a 3rd party app is not a good idea.

I see that burtonator is trying to push this product here every time a relevant discussion pops up, I don't have an issue with that. But I do think that this product is a long way from being useful for me in a daily setting. Right now it's nothing more than an electron wrapper around pdf.js and knowing how far I read a pdf.

Re: Polar as a Personal Knowledge Repository

#35

Post by tylerflick »

gallerdude wrote: post #4

I like the idea of the Personal Knowledge Repository, but I don't like having a 3rd party app for it. 3rd Party Apps are good for creating and editing content, because there's a lot of different ways things can be made. Yet there's no great reason to use one to store content, storing content is basically the same, and OS's do it well.

I'm not sure if it's an issue of 3rd party apps, but more 3rd party proprietary data stores. PDF is an open standard, and as long as POLAR isn't creating entries that are out of spec, your notes should transfer across all PDF viewers/editors.

Re: Polar as a Personal Knowledge Repository

#36

Post by prepend »

ausjke wrote: post #21
prepend wrote: post #19

This would be neater as a self hosted system. I have a haphazard way of managing notes and docs that has too much overhead. I would like a squirrel program to store and retrieve more easily and will eventually just write one. I think we need more tools that rely on self-hosting cheap nodes for data where the owner has complete control. Knowledge management systems are really personal and if third parties go away then…

I'm using gitea to self-host, works well for markdowns and code, but bad for anything that is binary(pdf,media files,etc), because of git, which really does not fit for binaries, and git-lfs is a PITA to use still

I have something similar (private github, but will move to self host soon).

The binary thing is a challenge for me as well as part of my filing includes always making copies of web sites and office and pdf to check for versioning and edits. I frequently try to remember or check if web sites changed info or released a new version so I need a link and a frozen copy. Git does not like this and gets real big, real fast.

Re: Polar as a Personal Knowledge Repository

#37

Post by prepend »

mherrmann wrote: post #17
lcuff wrote: post #16

I started keeping favorite quotes in Hypercard back in 1987. I didn't pay attention when Hypercard went extinct 15 years later, and failed to do the work to extract the data. Now I keep info in text files and grep is my friend. No spaced repetition, but tags go in as grep-able raw text too. Will Polar, or Evernote, or any other system, be around in 30 years?

What do you do about more structured data, such as Excel files?

Excel is a zip of xml now, so you can do basic text searches within them.

Re: Polar as a Personal Knowledge Repository

#38

Post by dunham »

_lbaq wrote: post #12

I started use evernote for this, but it dawned of me after a while that if evernote went down, all my data, diaries, notes etc etc was to be locked in and I have to start over. Therefore I'm using org-mode, its just a UTF8 encoded file, even if org-mode disappeared over night, I can still read the data.

Evernote isn't too bad - all the data is cached locally in xml files with attachments - one directory per document. It is almost xhtml - the top level content wrapped in an en-note tag and the images are en-media tags.

I agree that it's important to be sure you can get your data back out of whatever you're using. And another benefit of something like org mode that uses text files as a backing store is that you can edit/consume them with whatever tools you want.

Re: Polar as a Personal Knowledge Repository

#39

Post by nugator »

_lbaq wrote: post #12

I started use evernote for this, but it dawned of me after a while that if evernote went down, all my data, diaries, notes etc etc was to be locked in and I have to start over. Therefore I'm using org-mode, its just a UTF8 encoded file, even if org-mode disappeared over night, I can still read the data.

AFAIK the Evernote client caches your notes locally in a readable file format. I back up that folder in case Evernote goes down.

Re: Polar as a Personal Knowledge Repository

#40

Post by cedex12 »

pps wrote: post #31
cedex12 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even after visiting the website, I don't really understand what zettelkasten is really. Is it a software or a standard of sorts?

Polar has absolutely nothing in common with Zettelkasten. Zettelkasten is a method of creating and storing notes, optimised for creating connections between topics and for creative thinking. The creator of this method done that on indexed cards. It's hard to explain this in few words, this book is doing this better than anything I saw online https://takesmartnotes.com/ . You can also try this article if you don't wan…

Ah, sorry, I actually meant zettelkasten's website, as linked by a sibling comment. Thanks for the links!
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