>it’s like we’ve attacked the “needle in a haystack” problem by focusing on the supply chain for delivering new hay every quarter-hour

I loved this metaphor. Unfortunately, I loved it so much that I just spent 7 minutes trying to come up with a witty rejoinder incorporating the word “fodder.” I’m going to slink back to productivity, now…

-robin

Mozart was writing music so he could pay his bills, just like Shakespeare was writing his plays, or Jack London or many others who made art in order to live. The last one mentioned was popular for paying people for giving him fresh ideas he could incorporate into stories. Is that maximum effectivenes or what?

Now let’s talk about philosophy for a second.

Descartes’ most popular work are the “Meditationes”. They are a big opus, logically coherent, a piece of art as much as some of world’s most influential philosophy. (Even if most philosphers and popular knowledge only rarely goes beyond something like Medidation 2 or 3, but that is a different subject alltogether.) There is no doubt that Descartes has used and would have used today a tool which was or is state of the art - why shouldn’t he? In his dayjob he was a bright and inventive mathematician, not some archaic pseudo-saint!

Now Aristoteles is a different subject alltogether. Actually the works we have from him aren’t his works but more or less collected writings from his students who had jotted down their Master’s thoughts and ordererd them like they thought appopriate. Is that Blogstyle or what? (Actually A. had written some books on popular science, his “exoteric” books, but they are lost alltogether.)

But why don’t we look at an modern philosopher - what about David Chalmers. He is “major league” for sure. You find his blog “Fragments of Consciousness” at fragments.consc.net.

In any case, listen up, writing folks: Use the tools that make YOU write good stuff. For some of us that may be a Moleskine (I use that for drawing), for some a Wiki or Devonthink. When is a tool “good”? When it makes YOU produce damn good texts. It’s that easy.

Rock on! :-)

shtikl

crap, lately I had been thinking about: “What tools would the great philosopher use if they live today.” So I commented on that. Now I see that the subject was slightly different. Sorry ;-)

[…] Amusing quote on 43 folders today, talking about RII - Repetitive Information Injury.  Know the signs. As described above, RII is when you’re stuck in a consumption loop. Your brain is thinking it’s more important to continue to find something to soak in rather than moving on to your next project. It’s tricking you into continuing with thoughts like, “Hey, it just takes a second to press that Get Email button… or that Refresh Feeds button…. go for it man! You never know when you’ll hit the information gold-mine!” Problem is, those seconds turn into minutes… and you’re suddenly staring at the same pages, listening to the same JUST DO IT advice, and suddenly 30 minutes have passed and you haven’t actually done anything… […]

RSS has made reading my information on the web through Bloglines so easy that it has become a distraction. Oh, I can’t come up with anything else on this design now, let me read some Ars Technica. Darn, my mind just can’t program any more, let me read the 80 Slashdot entries that have piled up. By the time I am through clicking through at least 1/3 of the stories (and their subsequent links) I can barely remember why I took a break in the first place.

I haven’t gotten a thing done in the past 5 years. But there is hope! I spend about eight hours a day searching for the golden tool to make it all happen! I think Im getting closer though ;)

Wasting time

Last night I was thinking how much I waste my time sitting on the computer. And as often is the case, a mere press on the Reload Feeds button brought me piles of hugely important and relevant information, in this case a 43 Folders post about time slipp…

Just think about it.. if you could all that energy you use towards a goal worth pursueing. I’ve been doing neurolinguistic programming to re-focus my mind, generally I think it is possible to change yourself, you just have to form new routines and stick with them… Ooh it’s just about time to stop commenting and work ;p

Thanks to you, I had finish my to-do list yesterday and come back this morning after starting to read this post and realizing I have this problem. I check my RSS reader way too many times when I am home and not doing much else. Same with my e-mail and usually, there is nothing for me to read because I already read it all four minutes ago.

Crap - this post reminds me to go check my RSS!