Index Cards and Writing Projects

Journaling

Following the leads of David and Marc, here’s the full transcript of the answers I gave for the WIRED News article via email last week.

As usual, I’d really hoped to play down the goofy “cult” label, but, oh well, I imagine that’s the angle some editor destined the story to have. So it goes.

Still it’s a good piece if it helps a few new folks get it together, and I certainly can’t complain about the exposure (and very considerate deep-linkage).

Thanks for the opportunity, Robert.

Excellent thread over on the Google Group about using a bike to commute to work.

Pocket Pen?

Feed2Podcast

Technically providing the opposite of what some folks have asked for on 43 Folders (jump to 4:04 or so), Feed2Podcast turns your garden-variety RSS feed into a series of audio files, which can then be subscribed to like a podcast.

• My paperless office - O’Reilly Mac DevCenter Blog - “I’ve been using DevonThink Pro Office to catalog and manage the PDFs that the SnapScan creates. So far, I’ve got about 1,000 documents spread between three DevonThink databases.” Cf.: Ryan's post from earlier this week.
• Basement.org: Enough With The Lists - “And speaking of lists, I’ve grown to hate the list-ification of information. ‘10 Things That…’ or ‘20 Reasons Why….’” I struggle to articulate how much more I loathe this genre of “writing” each day. Like lazy babysitters feeding pork rinds to fat kids. [via Chris Glass]
• Researchers: Ron Paul campaign e-mails originating from spambots - Paul’s people say they aren’t involved. But, to quote the Dude, “It’s like what Lenin said… you look for the person who will benefit, and, uh, uh…” Too bad spambots can't vote. Yet.
• Wired editor bans PR flacks - Boing Boing - I’m struck by the absurd antics people have to resort to in order to get these loathsome choads out of their inbox. To willfully, and by deliberate human means, continue to manually provoke people who have begged not to be provoked? That shit should be actionable in court. End of story.
• Brilliant recurring calendar events? | Ask MetaFilter - Great discussion of the kind of events you’d want to be reminded of periodically. Along the lines of the time change/smoke alarm heuristic.
• Jonathan Coulton - Thing a Week 46 - You Ruined Everything- “I compare the process [of becoming a parent] to becoming a vampire, your old self dies in a sad and painful way, but then you come out the other side with immortality, super strength and a taste for human blood. At least that’s how it was for me.”

Digital Filing System

Hello all.

I teach math and write out solutions to homeworks by hand. (It would take forever to typeset them, and I like to show the students that it really is possible to write out all the solutions by hand. If I can do it, they can do it.)

For now I'm scanning them and posting pdf files on Blackboard (a web thingy for education... students can access the files there).

When I make a mistake or want to revise the homework assignment for the next semester, I would like to be able to edit a file on my MacBook instead of cutting and pasting (literally) and rescanning.