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Digital Tools I Wish Existed

jborichevskiy.com

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Re: Digital Tools I Wish Existed

#41

Post by Jeff_Brown »

eXpl0it3r wrote: post #37

What purpose does this collection of information really serve? I like having things organized neatly and easily accessible, but I have a hard time seeing what goal thousands of scattered annotations, text bookmarks, podcast bookmarks, etc. serve.

Yes -- but it's the scattering that's the problem, not the thousands. I believe the author wants what I want -- a system in which you can easily add any kind of data or meta-data, and easily search and sort those data in whatever manner you'd like.

In another comment[1] I describe software I've made that solves some of these challenges.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21665255

Re: Digital Tools I Wish Existed

#42

Post by Jeff_Brown »

flancian wrote: post #25

This is what I want as well. I feel as if this is the kind of thing Google might still be able to get right; "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" is still the company's mission, after all, although it's been diluted by ten years in the wilderness of developing products in what seems like all directions. If Google had not strayed Keep would be this. Assistant would be thi…

Sharing that kind of data would be really fun -- if it were open.

Re: Digital Tools I Wish Existed

#43

Post by Jeff_Brown »

angarg12 wrote: post #22

There was recently a post in HN called "There is too much stuff". It revolved around the massive amount of unnecessary physical goods we need to shift through to find what we are looking for. I believe the same thing happens with content. There is way more content out there that I would like to consume than my time allows. Is not rare to make my way through an article or a 1 hour talk and think 'oh well, that was a w…

I'm aiming for a federated system in which I don't have to read the whole book because I can read the best of the notes that others have taken. Like if Twitter and Wikipedia were one integrated navigable hypergraph.

Re: Digital Tools I Wish Existed

#44

Post by Jeff_Brown »

reilly3000 wrote: post #3

Agreed with all points, but especially the queuing system. I started my journey towards becoming a programmer to build something like that. Its been a long and winding road, but it might be time to follow up on that, unless somebody can point me to a project that already exists like described in the post.

> unless somebody can point me to a project

Maybe Hode interests you? I described it in another comment[1]. So far it lacks queuing.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21665255

Re: Digital Tools I Wish Existed

#45

Post by eXpl0it3r »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #41
eXpl0it3r wrote: post #37

What purpose does this collection of information really serve? I like having things organized neatly and easily accessible, but I have a hard time seeing what goal thousands of scattered annotations, text bookmarks, podcast bookmarks, etc. serve.

Yes -- but it's the scattering that's the problem, not the thousands. I believe the author wants what I want -- a system in which you can easily add any kind of data or meta-data, and easily search and sort those data in whatever manner you'd like. In another comment[1] I describe software I've made that solves some of these challenges. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21665255

I think, I have a hard time seeing the big use from such software, because my work doesn't really require such a reference library.

A searchable collection of data is great if you have a use case that actually depends on such a collection, like writing a paper, news article or doing (academic) research on some topic.

Maybe to ask a better question, what data do you want to collect and what are you using the data for exactly?

Re: Digital Tools I Wish Existed

#46

Post by Jeff_Brown »

eXpl0it3r wrote: post #45
Jeff_Brown wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes -- but it's the scattering that's the problem, not the thousands. I believe the author wants what I want -- a system in which you can easily add any kind of data or meta-data, and easily search and sort those data in whatever manner you'd like. In another comment[1] I describe software I've made that solves some of these challenges. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21665255

I think, I have a hard time seeing the big use from such software, because my work doesn't really require such a reference library. A searchable collection of data is great if you have a use case that actually depends on such a collection, like writing a paper, news article or doing (academic) research on some topic. Maybe to ask a better question, what data do you want to collect and what are you using the data for…

I haven't really migrated from Semantic Synchrony[1] to Hode yet. But my use case is almost everything that passes through my brain -- to-do lists, tech notes, things to read, people, places, jobs, companies, economics, artists, music theory, comedic theory, information theory, nutrition, love ...

[1] https://github.com/synchrony/smsn/

Re: Digital Tools I Wish Existed

#47

Post by robertk »

thundergolfer wrote: post #2

The "Queue Management for Inbound Content" section is exactly what I really want as well, so much that I've just started building it instead of waiting and hoping. For me, this is the lynchpin: > "all content I think my future self would appreciate me consuming." (emphasis mine) Current content feeds are optimized for engagement (ie. advertisement load) and thus won't conceive of a "future self", only what your curre…

I have been emailing links to myself tagged with a one word keyword for the last decade. They focus on things that I or my (unconceived, unborn) son or daughter would like to read, learn or understand “later”. I have about 10k sitting in my inbox (including this one) that I plan to convert into a critical path and consumption order once I take a sabbatical.

Sometimes the best systems are the simplest.

Re: Digital Tools I Wish Existed

#48

Post by Jeff_Brown »

eXpl0it3r wrote: post #45
Jeff_Brown wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes -- but it's the scattering that's the problem, not the thousands. I believe the author wants what I want -- a system in which you can easily add any kind of data or meta-data, and easily search and sort those data in whatever manner you'd like. In another comment[1] I describe software I've made that solves some of these challenges. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21665255

I think, I have a hard time seeing the big use from such software, because my work doesn't really require such a reference library. A searchable collection of data is great if you have a use case that actually depends on such a collection, like writing a paper, news article or doing (academic) research on some topic. Maybe to ask a better question, what data do you want to collect and what are you using the data for…

The details of what I record (in another comment[1]) might be idiosyncratic and uninteresting to you. Those details aren't important. The important point is that so much information belongs in multiple places. A single statement, let alone article or book, might regard all of economics, justice, common sense and beauty. It might be about parsing, Haskell, and keeping data types flexible. I'd like to be able to search based on any of those things.

If there were a clean distinction between entities and tags, existing solutions would be enough. But what if you want to draw a relationship between two relationships? Most sentences longer than three words, after all, are higher-order relationships. ("Birds #avoid beetles ##because beetles #are hard to digest", for instance, is a second-order because relationship joining two first-order relationships.)

The searches Mr. Borichevskiy imagined are, I think, good arguments for why you would want to be able to encode arbitrary higher-order information. I believe Hode is the simplest solution possible that allows it.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21665698

Re: Digital Tools I Wish Existed

#49

Post by curioussavage »

robertk wrote: post #47
thundergolfer wrote: post #2

The "Queue Management for Inbound Content" section is exactly what I really want as well, so much that I've just started building it instead of waiting and hoping. For me, this is the lynchpin: > "all content I think my future self would appreciate me consuming." (emphasis mine) Current content feeds are optimized for engagement (ie. advertisement load) and thus won't conceive of a "future self", only what your curre…

I have been emailing links to myself tagged with a one word keyword for the last decade. They focus on things that I or my (unconceived, unborn) son or daughter would like to read, learn or understand “later”. I have about 10k sitting in my inbox (including this one) that I plan to convert into a critical path and consumption order once I take a sabbatical. Sometimes the best systems are the simplest.

I started saving links and notes like this too. I type a subject that consists of any relevant tag words that come to mind

Re: Digital Tools I Wish Existed

#50

Post by eXpl0it3r »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #48
eXpl0it3r wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, I have a hard time seeing the big use from such software, because my work doesn't really require such a reference library. A searchable collection of data is great if you have a use case that actually depends on such a collection, like writing a paper, news article or doing (academic) research on some topic. Maybe to ask a better question, what data do you want to collect and what are you using the data for…

The details of what I record (in another comment[1]) might be idiosyncratic and uninteresting to you. Those details aren't important. The important point is that so much information belongs in multiple places. A single statement, let alone article or book, might regard all of economics, justice, common sense and beauty. It might be about parsing, Haskell, and keeping data types flexible. I'd like to be able to search…

How often do you look stuff up that's older than say a week?

Personally, I'm kind of glad to soak up information as I go and being able to just forget everything else. As opposed to constantly feeling the need to tag, sort, archive, reference, cross-reference, keep track of information, that future self will to 99.9% never actually need.

Yet, I wonder whether use cases start to materialize, once you start using it...

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