#tools for thought

[roxytonic]

what app/website is that astro web thing?

it's the graph view in Obsidian.md, a networked note-taking app: https://https://obsidian.md/

don't get too sucked up in the productivity/PKM culture! lol

[bjtitus]

Programmable Notes

Agent-based note-taking systems that can prompt and facilitate custom workflows

This idea of Programmable Notes is intriguing. I’ve been following Subconscious development and its concept of “geists” as scripting for your notes.

[javamonn]

its time to build

after shutting down sunspot, i've been enjoying the opportunity to not obsessively work on something for a bit, but also have been considering what to work on next. in hindsight, with everything i've built over the years, i always wish i had invested more effort up front to actually identify what I'm building, for whom, and how its positioned as a product relative to other software. an old colleague is going through a similar process and has a practice of sending a regular email with ideas and potential directions and commentary around it, which i'm going to adopt here, and post as i'm thinking through ideas.

a couple of things i've been thinking about lately:

audiobook tool for thought

idea: i consume a lot of audiobook content via kindle (specifically kindle app on android) and have identified a couple problems with my workflow. i dont have a good workflow around retention, notes, bookmarks, etc. i often wish i had a textual representation of the audiobook for search and capturing / annotating snippets. imagining an app that converts audible to mp3 and uses a transcription model to generate the text of the audio. player screen displays indicator in current textual position and can drag to highlight / snippet / annotate, along with usual time progression indicator and scrubbing. text enables view notes / annotations, search, etc. perhaps other audiobook specific functionality in an audio player app, but would need more thought

market: airr (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/airr-audio-conversations/id1355926315) is directionally similar, though positioned towards podcasts. the overall TAM for something like this seems relatively small though - how many people are "power users" of audiobooks?

cons: theres a ton of incidental complexity in building any sort of audio player - a lot of functionality would need to be reinvented just to get to something baseline with other apps, before thinking about going beyond. maybe theres some OSS lib that handles all the tablestakes tracking / position saving / player hud, etc. unclear user conversion pipeline, since the audible app will always have precedence on device as thats where you purchase content. unclear if theres a 10x product opportunity here. unclear if transcription models are price and time efficient enough.

pros: i do think theres a niche here with little direct competition, though a fair amount of indirect competition (apps focusing on podcasts, audiobook apps without the "tool for thought" emphasis). this is something i would personally use.

[mitchipedia]

Dave Winer on the limited appeal of “Tools for Thought.” People don’t see their jobs as “thinking.”

[chrisaldrich]

Acquisition: Remember It Now Tee

You might have gone down the rabbit hole on note taking practice nerdery when you’re getting note taking related t-shirts. Better than a mug I suppose…

[inthepynck]

All the Tools for Friendly Dining- Al Fresco

Side Plates and Trays from €4 -€10

Ribbed Carafe and Goblet from €3 - €10

Fun Anti-Gravity Chair

€40

[daytura]

Limitations of networked note-taking systems

one unpleasant topic i'm noticing is that we probably don't have a "one size fits all" way to study practically any topic we're interested in. i'm thinking about my (integral) Calculus class right now and so much of is applying concepts and variables.

using a Zettelkasten "properly", i'd at best be able to extract and patch together the philosophy of continuous change and discrete points, which is already a salient influence on how i think. meanwhile, application is dry and exact. you can't really draw parallels to the other problems you've done in the past as you're doing the problem.

it's really unpleasant because i did have this hope that networked note-taking would patch up the weak points in my thinking. i definitely need to figure out an alternate studying/learning workflow:

ArchLeucoryx: because what is learning, anyway? it's not memory; supermemorists aren't necessarily the best appliers. but it's not pure application either, just as it's not pure theory. and you can't brute force it since ... conscious cognition is naturally limited and brittle.

[roxytonic]

one of the more frustrating parts about atomized entries is that they're actually unintuitive to "synthesize" and get into the right mental context. intuitively, synthesis is the precise translation of an arbitrary mental context onto paper--often in linear form. but humanistically, synthesis is drawing constellations in your thoughts, pulling images and characters greater than the sum of their parts. synthesis is a gestalt is a set is a biology is a context