A 50-something French dude that’s old enough to think blogs are still cool, if not cooler than ever.
https://thefoolwithapen.com
I appreciate your feedback and understand where you’re coming from. However, I believe
You’re more than welcome to believe whatever you want. That does not make it a fact. And certainly not something I’m interested in or I’m willing to consider worth discussing.
Have a nice day.
Although I must admit I would feel a bit embarrassed asking them as well 😂.
You, or someone else is paying for that prescription. There is nothing to be ashamed of in asking them to provide something readable.
My eye doctor is a very strange person as she uses that very novel piece of high tech called a computer and a printer, and never writes a prescription by hand. Oddly enough, nobody has difficulty reading what she writes :p
Hello Science Community, Thank you for taking the time to review this manuscript. While it includes philosophical elements, it also explores scientific ideas that I hope will spark thoughtful discussion and constructive criticism. I look forward to your feedback. Thank you again!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XuhV1MwntVU-Gsb7M69jxhudAwGuh4uEkw1Ri4ZkFt0/edit
You are sharing your personal opinion in that text (and, yep, I read it). That’s not science and it’s not philosophy.
Opinions are fine. I mean, we all have opinions and they can differ widely from person to person. That’s the reason why they’re called personal opinions. But they’re just that, opinions, aka the expression of personal judgments/values and personal preferences.
‘I don’t like bananas’ is a personal preference of mine. ‘I think bannas taste like shit’ is my personal opinion on them. My preference and my opinion say absolutely nothing about bananas and their qualities as a fruit. At best, they state a fact about me. Not about the bananas which, obviously, are perfectly fine fruits whether I like them or not.
Despite the intense dumbing down going on on in our societies, opinions and preferences don’t make a science. And if they can sometimes be considered a starting point to a (or some makeshift) philosophy , they still need a little more work — the important words in the latter definition being ‘system’, ‘analysis’, ‘theory’ and ‘understanding’, not expressing one’s opinions.
I would constantly log them out of all their social and turn off their phone — what a naughty ghost would I be :p
when you put them back in the boxes, how do you do it? Do you put them in chronological or alphabetical order?
Each card as a unique ID (it can take any form you fancy but it has to be unique) and I simply put each card back at its place following that ID, no matter the content of the card. What matters is the info you associate to each card, using its ID as a reference, in your index.
The index is a pile of cards alphabetically ordered that contain a list of keywords. Each keyword will then a have list of pointers to cards IDs and to other index entries to find any related content.
(For example in the D section of my index I will have a ‘Dinosaur’ entry and in my T section I will have a ‘T-rex’ entry. The Dinosaur index may points me to, say, the 222.1.1.10B card (in which I’ve written stuff about the latest attempts in recreating living dinosaurs) and to the 421.1 card (in which I have a few notes on my last visit at the natural history museum, where there are those great dinosaur fossils). It will also have refs telling me to go check the ‘T-rex’ and the ‘Diplodocus’ and so on index entries for more related cards, as well as say the ‘Meteor’ and ‘Species (extinction)’ entries.)
Using the index is akin to using Cmd/Ctrl+F to do a search on text: fast and almost instantaneous. This index is really the key to my Zettel.
Each of the card the index would have suggested I read may itself contain refs to other cards. Like you would have internal links between cards, using Obsidian.
Finally, I have my bibliographical references, an alphabetically-ordered series of cards. Those allow me to quickly find notes from any book and author I’ve read and to reference back to it, using its own unique ID. This also helps a lot when I’m reading to quickly take notes (on blank index cards, with that unique book ID written in one corner). So, while I’m reading it barely takes seconds to write down whatever idea or keyword I want to be able to find later on, plus the corresponding page number in the book. No need to reference the book itself, no need to write long comments or explanations (those will, or will not go later on in my main Zettelkasten cards, when I’m reviewing my reading notes) it’s really all about quickly jotting down a word or two + a page number, which saves a lot of time.
And when you want to find one again, do you have to search through hundreds of cards just to find the right one?
I use the index or the bibliographical refs, depending if I’m searching for an idea or a keyword in general or for some specific book annotations or author. Those point me to all relevant cards in my Zettelkasten. And like I told you each card can then also point me to other relevant/interesting cards on its own.
That said, at times I’ll randomly pick some cards and browse through them (just as a way to ’thought-provoke’ my own brain with random ideas and notions).
Regarding your first comment:
- Easy backups
I take pictures with my iPhone of all new cards from that day, those photos are then automatically converted by the scanning app into a PDF and saved to my iCloud storage, it’s real quick. All my iCloud being regularly and automatically backed-up on external drives.
The app I use is ‘Scanner Pro’ by Readdle (I purchased the license many years ago and the scanner still works perfectly with the latest iOS). It’s very simple aka quick to use, it does an impressive job at auto straighten the card no matter how poorly I present it to the camera, then it creates a PDF with all the day worth of images and then save it to iCloud, all by itself.
- No physical storage space required.
It’s not really an issue for me as my Zettel is not that large. That said, it does take space but I can use it without a computer/screen (which also takes space)… and for storage, old shoe boxes don’t cost much ;)
I might look up some tutorials next, but I don’t want to overcomplicate things. With any system there’s a point where you end up spending more time fussing with the scaffolding rather than just building the building, if you know what I mean.
100% agreed. If it works well enough, then it’s all one needs.
Watching a few videos to better understand the appeal of a digital Zettel myself, I realized it was something many ‘new’ users were not aware of and also something way too many video creators were not worrying enough about.
I mean, some of those videos are very well made but they’re also mostly empty chatting and/or trying to chase a unicorn by focusing on what to me seemed like insignificant details or an unrealistic desire for perfection. Doing so, they spend a lot of their time and energy, and a lot of their viewer’s time and energy too.
I do understand keeping the user watching as many videos as possible, for as long as possible, is the entire business model of making video on YouTube (more talking + more videos = more watching time = more ads viewed = more money) but as a user I don’t think it’s worth my time and efforts so I don’t watch them ;)
Is that normal in your opinion?
Imho, a better question to ask yourself would be to consider why you’re giving up quickly?
If you give up because you realize you can’t be bothered with whatever that activity is, fine. I tried a few things I realized had little value to me. No big deal.
If it’s because you don’t want to make the effort of learning to do it properly and/or because you can’t accept that, as beginner at it, your not already good and get not success. Then, it’s probably not a great decision.
I see two things our society as a whole (even more so when it is lived through social media lenses) tend to discourage younger people to reflect upon:
That’s also how we learn to read and to write. By doing mistakes. Not by picking up our first pen and writing the next best-seller.
So, to get back to your question, if you give up on something because you would want to be good at it instantly, you’re probably missing out on something.
Yep, it would have helped a lot. Back when I was in university, we did not even had a single note-taking/research course. We had to figure it out by ourselves, which i know a lot of my fellow students did not bother doing.
As for Obsidian, do not hesitate to share a few insights as I have yet to see how it can help me better than paper does. I mean, beside a faster search inside my notes (which is not what matters the most to me). For example, the fact I cannot manually/freely reorder my notes, in a note-taking app, is beyond me and it’s something I do all the time with my slip of papers. But I’m also willing to admit I’m missing out on something important.
What exactly would you call a federal government?
I would call it a (federal) government, not a country.
How would you call it?
I more than disagree with what our government is doing in my country (and how they are doing it), do you think I should dislike all the people living in it, and all the places of that country because of me disliking a bunch of politicians and their politics? I don’t.
Like, you’re taking it as “people from a country” and trying to be high and mighty about it. When literally no one else is having that conversation…
Like, do you really think it’s healthy to only answer what people are expecting?
and trying to be high and mighty about it.
In our days and age of constant hastily proclaimed condemnations, I can appreciate you taking the time to better know me before expressing your informed opinion on my person.
None.
Countries don’t have a unique identity I could like or dislike as a whole.
They can vary widely from region to region, city to city, block to block, street to street… heck even person to person. I may not like some people, or at worst some region because of this or that reason but that is all.
Not sure to understand your question but if it is about finding local stores, here is what I do:
I hope Lemmy doesn’t bow to the I want reward, I need my shiny recognition ribbon trend.
That’s 100% infantilization of participants. Even on the few reddit subs I’m subbed to (on average, those have real high value content), I can see a few people focusing on that karma thing and that’s sad to watch and, well, not flattering for them. It’s also a lot of useless work more to do for those mods that try to maintain a certain level of quality, which is not a great thing.
Imh(and admittedly naive)o, people should post based on what they’re interested in and based on what they think they can bring to the discussion and not in exchange of a tap on the shoulder, or some good grade — unless they’re still kids going to school, doing homework and passing exams but even there… maybe one day, we will realize focusing our attention on grades more than on understanding/learning was a huge and costly mistake.
Edit: mistakes and clarifications.
To be clear, Apple’s Support has its fair share of drawbacks and always had — I’ve been their customer since the mid-80s, there never was a magical period where they were perfect ;) — but what matters (to me, at least) is that while the product is under warranty a customer doesn’t have to worry too much on average (because, once again, there will be cases where support will fail the customer).
Outside of warranty, that’s an other story but then the real issue is in the way Apple designs its machines to not be upgradable or not easily fixable, if at all. That’s the real shame and that should be outlawed.
You’re welcome ;)
If you decide to give a try to a Zettelkasten and if I was to share a single advice it would be to keep it simple. Ignore all subtleties, you will know it when you need them.
The day I find a cabinet like that at the local “marché aux puces” I will probably do a paper Zettel as well. It’s beautiful and fulfilling.
Allow me to correctly rephrase that sentence of yours: “the day you find a cabinet like that at the local “marché aux puces” you instantly send me a message to ask me if I want it”. Which I am, and I will thank you wholeheartedly, even though I had no idea where I could put it in our small apartment ;)
Ah oui t’es un jlailu toi aussi, j’avais pas remarqué.
Neither did I realize you were too ;)
I do love my obsidian Zettel for one useless function: The graph view that looks like a brain with synapses etc 🤷🏻♂️
Obsidian has a lot of qualities. It’s just that… I find it was incredibly overwhelming when I first installed it. I spend an entire week just getting familiar with it and learning its base procedures. In comparison, getting familiar with a pile of index cards and a fountain pen took me… a few seconds.
And then everything is flat on a screen, and intangible and stuck withing that limited screen. You can’t touch it, you can’t easily put it in whatever order — or disorder — you fancy or drop it wherever you want. I like to spread my cards on a couple tables and then mix them as ideas and connections start to fuse. I also enjoy flipping through those cards like I would flip through the pages of a book (it’s generally when the most interesting surprises will happen) much more than I appreciate being able to Ctrl or Cmd-Search for an exact keyword.
Anything ‘collectible’ has become a no-go for me. Simply put, anything that is collectible has turned into a business, with more or less artificially created scarcity and with entire businesses thriving on people gullibility, FOMO and with their obsession with making a quick and easy buck. There is no way I want to participate in that scam.
On a more personal note and experience:
I was a book and comics collector for many decades myself. I started as a book-lover teen and and then as a student, selling used books and comics as a way to earn money and then pay for College. It was a lot of fun, back then. Like really. And exciting too.
Then, as a young adult earning more than a decent living, I started spending serious money in rare and original editions, this time without any idea to make money out of it. It was just my hobby and I earned enough to not worry, and it was still fun and exciting too. At least, it was fun in the beginning.
Still, a couple decades ago I donated my entire library (3k+ books) to a charity because… Well… Money was king everywhere. And what I used to love was now making me feel so sad.
Sure, I should be happy as I had accumulated a small fortune on my shelves but I did not enjoy it the slightest. People (like myself) were not giving a crap anymore about content or the authors they once genuinely admired, they only worried about the books value. Realizing I was that kind of person myself made me feel very ashamed of myself. I wanted to get back to what really matter, the content, the text, the art. and not their fucking retail value as collectibles.
Getting rid of my entire library (save for very few books, not even rare) was liberating and, so many years later, still feels like the best decision ever. I don’t care the slightest about those books potential resale value anymore. I barely own any books myself nowadays, I read most of them from the public library, and I’ve rediscovered the unadulterated and incomparable pleasure of enjoying reading.
Indeed. But I will remain on the older computer-less models. My latest acquisition is a Typestar 220, that is a replacing another but worse Typestar. Loving it ;)
:)
Thx, fixed
I don’t trust brands, I trust their customer support.
Any device/product can fail, no matter how excellent it is. To me, what matters is how efficiently the issue is dealt with by the support.
Like, I trust Apple customer support and now, after approx. 40 years being their customer, their customer support is the sole reason I’m still buying Apple stuff (I don’t like at all what they became and how they make their device unfixable on purpose, it’s a shame for a company that so much pretend to care about being eco-friendly). I’m also a fountain pen user and a collector, but the brands I trust the most are not the most hyped and expensive, far from it, they’re TWSBI and Lamy, because of their amazing customer support. Or, say, I mainly wear Merrell shoes for hiking (because they fit me well, obviously) because they have a fine customer support. And so on.
I have zero brand loyalty beyond that, and will not hesitate to change brand if they ever cut on their customer support.
Sketching, reading, writing, listening to music… not going out for a walk (because of a broken foot) and the, oh so incredibly exciting reinstallation of my Mac on a new and larger thunderbolt SSD.
Reinstalling macOS has become so slow and such a pain (even more so on an external disc), in comparison with older Mac and compared to reinstalling a Linux system. Luckily, I had a good book to read while I waited for macOS to reinstall itself :p