Holy crap! I was listening to Faster Gun (I’m assuming you were referring to the Wrens song) when your entry popped up in NewsFire. Weird.

On the “just buy two” topic:

A friend from a previous startup referred to this tactic, when taken to an extreme, as “raising the vapor pressure”. E.g. ballpoint pens just sublimate and disappear into the environment. Solution: buy a box of them, and scatter them around the house. Once the vapor pressure is high enough, the pens no longer disappear…or if one pen does disappear, statistically, another one blinks into existence (or at least, your perception) right nearby.

I used this to great effect with utility knives. I bought about six or so from Enco or McMaster-Carr, or somesuch, and scattered them around my two workshops…now there’s always a knife around!

Merlin’s Miscellany?

Merlin’s Miscellany?

That might work, Ben.

My GF likes “Remainders,” as is, and I like “Merlin’s Leavings” a little more every time I read it. It’s just such a troubling image. :-)

Merlines?

You know, Merlin’s Lines, plus there’s a hint of Moleskine hiding in there somewhere. For differentiation, how about just “February Merlines” or “Christmas Merlines” or whatever; they don’t come out often enough to require daily distinctions, do they?

mercurial merlin’s meticulous meandering memes (5M’s for short)

You guys are killing me. :-)

I like “Remainders” as is also. Trust your GF, Merlin.

How about “Leftover Tabs,” as a reference to the whole folders thing?

Or Unfinished Files?

Anyone know the FutureMail developer well enough to be sure he’s not harvesting email addresses and mobile numbers? Am I the only one who wants to see a privacy disclaimer? Also is there any way to schedule email send times in Apple Mail or Gmail? Would that not do the same thing as FutureMail?

Seems like a fair question, Fran. I’ll let him know about the post and encourage him to respond here.

The 44th Folder.

You love it. Admit it.

Kung Hei Fat Choi Merlin, I was expecting your more thoughts on using Entourage 2004 for task management. :-)

Yes, two of those things. We just bought a second pair of scissors, a huge extravagance at two bucks. Now I don’t have to run to another room to use them. In a sort of ‘broken windows’ epiphany I bought a new TV remote control to replace the old one that would only change channels down for some reason. I did keep the old one for an emergency backup. My gas cap is firmly attached to the car with a litle lanyard (go Subaru) but yes, good idea in general.

Todd’s 44th folder is actually quite good….

i wanted to pitch “Merlin’s Microwave” (only sounds cool, no real usage i guess)

‘Always stock up’ is one of my core beliefs. Do it when you find shoes [socks, underwear, etc.] that are particularly attractive and comfortable.

FutureMail is really just a project I used to help learn a new development framework (Ruby on Rails). I have no desire to harvest email addresses or mobile numbers. I’ll put together a simple privacy policy and post it on the site.

Also, it’s not really about text messages, it’s just for email. However, if your mobile service gives you an email address for your phone, you could use it to send text messages.

Right now it only lets you specify a day, and it sends the emails every night. I was thinking of adding an hour option and timezone features, which would make it more useful for text messages.

I’ve been mostly using it with the RSS option and no emails, so I get everything in my aggregator. Of course, there are privacy issues with that since the feed is public. Maybe someday aggregators will support HTTP auth or some other auth mechanism.

Funny you should mention the “buy two” idea. For a long time I had three different plastic spatulas in my kitchen. One was by far my favorite. One day it dawned on me that there was no rule against having more than one of the same spatula, so I bought two more of the one I liked. I know it sounds insane that it took me so long to figure this out, but it did.

How about “Mann Droppings?” Its a bit Carlin-esque but I think its cool.

Or the Mann Hole?

Mann Hole. Awesome.

I’d been thinking I didn’t have enough stuff here that sounded like a really gritty gay pickup bar. :-)

I used to call such posts on my weblog “linkapaloozas.” :)

Might I suggest “Orts”. According to M-W, an ort is ” a morsel left at a meal”. It was used by Shakespeare: “Let him have time a beggar’s orts to crave”, which is pretty good company.

How about “The Slag Pile”? or “Tailings”?

For some reason or other these mining terms have always appealed to me…

Buy two: I heard that especially for a quality, good-fitting pair of shoes or hiking boots. There is an awfully good chance that by the time you need a new pair, they won’t be made any more or they will be made with inferior quality.

I suggest “Tickler File”.

You could even have “Tickler File YYYY-mm-dd”.

I’m actually surprised no one thought of it before. That probably means it’s stupid, but I’m always willing to go out on a limb.

Slashdot calls remainders “quickies” and just comes up with a different variation for the name each time (examples).

I like the distinguishing method for slashbacks better, however. They pick three descriptive words from the subentries and use those (examples).

How about “The 44th Folder”

A.

that makes 3 people saying/backin up ‘44th folder’ Merlin haha.

I like “jetsam” - according to m-w.com: the part of a ship, its equipment, or its cargo that is cast overboard to lighten the load in time of distress and that sinks or is washed ashore. Or “flotsam”: 1 : floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo; broadly : floating debris 2 a : a floating population (as of emigrants or castaways) b : an accumulation of miscellaneous or unimportant stuff

Punctuation run amok.