This is an interesting perhaps meta-relevant topic for HN.
How many of us bookmark or otherwise record interesting posts from here and elsewhere?
How many of us ever refer that accumulated digital memory?
I have about 7,000 links with notes accumulated over the last few decades.
I’ve read a lot of them, but the hard to acknowledge reality is that even with a refined workflow, recording my links in a near perfect taxonomy, to a repository with full text search and spaced repetition reminder cards, the things I remember are those that I took the time to read.
I suspect most people here has a comparable metric to share.
> How many of us ever refer that accumulated digital memory?
I do all the time. Behold.
I don't have a particular refined process or taxonomy. Just Pinboard and tags.
One tool I use to keep things circulating is a daily script that emails me 5 random bookmarks from my Pinboard account each morning. Stole the idea from this HN post:
I've been fighting my ~3000 (~70% untagged) bookmarks for a while.
Right now, I've gave up on silly tags like "Postgres" or "Python".
Currently, I'm trying to adapt the bookmark concept into different uses cases. The main one is sessions, but I have a few others niche ones, like "read later" and "a tool a day".
Honestly, my takeaway from managing my bookmarks, is that, snapshotting a session, is the closest thing I have to a "hot" start. I instantly recognize what I was working on and I remember why I opened/kept open those tabs.
I used to meticulously sort and tag individual bookmarks but rarely review them. Storing sessions and other "playlists" of bookmarks puts them in a form that I actually return to.
Plus this method takes far less time and effort than tagging and bagging pages according to an ever-expanding set of custom taxonomies.
I'm sure others have been using bookmarks this way for a while but it felt like a revelation to me :)
I have a couple thousand bookmarks in Google Bookmarks, all meticulously tagged to aid categorisation. A while ago, I came to the realisation that I never ever actually went back and referred to any them. I no longer accumulate these bookmarks but I still regard them fondly, like a well-organised bookshelf of reference material that I enjoy keeping around without ever planning to use.
I have an idea for a todo list app that will basically fade your todo items away and delete them after a month if you don't do them. It's half app, half art project about the lies we tell ourselves that we'll complete our todos "some other time" just so we don't feel like slackers.
I don't think I've ever went back to look at any of my offline bookmarks I've been collecting over 10 years. I have this fantasy that one day we'll have electricity but no internet for a while and I'll be glad I saved all of my bookmarks for offline use. But it's really just a fantasy.
Frankly, I've realized offline bookmarking just feels good and lets me close the tab. I would wager this is most people even if they don't yet realize it.
If people's public bookmarks aren't available online, I'd encourage you to publicly post them somewhere. Even if they aren't useful to you anymore, they are good signal for good content, which I think is worth trying to preserve for future use.
I just... copy the links and paste them into Google Keep :D
Really fast and searchable, I usually find myself searching for the same shit after a while, so Keep is another destination.
But now I realized I may want to back them up somewhere... technically these notes aren't important and can be lost, but I'd like to keep them
My tools of choice for advanced bookmarking and offline read:
* org-mode [1].
* org-board [2] for offline archiving.
* Org Capture [3] for getting links or text chunks from browser.
* git repo for tracking history.
With org-mode I can create really complex connections between articles and citations, add tags, have TODO lists and many more. To visualize things and connections, org-mind-map [4] can be useful. Because everything is text, grep, ripgrep, ag, xapian and other similar tools works without problems.
I'm aware this setup isn't for everyone (you need to be Emacs user), but I still need to find proper alternative with this amount of flexibility, keeping everything in plain text format.
In the last week I’ve gone from using org-mode grudgingly in conjunction with a wiki, to just org-mode and realizing I’ll never be able to live without it again.
I have a similar setup for my note/bookmarking needs, I added abo-abo's org-download in case the page has an interesting image: https://github.com/abo-abo/org-download
About a month or so ago I moved to a new Mac. I had the option of porting over all my bookmarks, starting fresh, or sorting them out. I took a lazy Sunday and sorted through ~7000 bookmarks I'd accumulated in the 7 years I had the previous Mac.
About 50% of the sites or pages were now offline. 45% were irrelevant to me, either because I was no longer interested, they'd been superseded by something better, or they were outdated code snippets or examples, etc. 3% I (finally) read or skimmed, none of these changed my life. 2% were useful sites, mostly collections of things (stock imagery, audio samples) I would struggle to find in Google now or I don't manually type in frequently. I added keywords to the titles (you can't tag in Chrome) and sorted them into folders.
I was also a tab monster. I'd have ~150 or open at all times (thanks Great Suspender!) - usually things I wanted to read later or come back to.
I drew a line - tabs get 48 hours and then they're closed. Websites only get bookmarked if they contain something likely to last and I'd struggle to find if I Googled again. Both the tabs and the bookmarks created unnecessary mental load. Every suspended tab and "read me later" bookmark became another weight around my neck that screamed "still haven't got around to me, eh? Fail!" Now I'm working to the "read it asap or act on it asap - or it's not something you _really_ wanted." I guess a kind of Marie Kondo for my head, which is really rather freeing.
Perhaps Memex is a good middle ground. A chance to drag up the past as and when _my life_ is ready for it, without the future affecting the present. I'll give it a go.
Something I noticed when I use "Read Later" style applications to save pages is that I will, most of the time, forget about how I arrived at a certain page. This is important to me because it gives me the context to decide a perspective on the page.
If I was able to save pages while also knowing where I found them and maybe make a comment about why I found it interesting, then I would be able to organize my knowledge in a way that mirrors my train of thought.
I discovered Worldbrain Memex way into the development (unfortunately), but in the near future I will try to evaluate to which extent it's possible to mutually benefit, i.e. base Promnesia extension & backend on Worldbrain's, or contribute some of Promnesia's features to them (maybe even merge completely?)
https://histre.com/ has tree-style web history, taking notes on those web pages, and more. Disclaimer: I'm the founder.
It automatically creates a knowledge base for you. The paths you took to arrive at a piece of information is just one part of the puzzle that it puts together for you.
The main idea is that we throw away a lot of the signal we generate while doing things online and this can be put to good use for ourselves.
Some related features that Histre has:
- Sharing collections of notes with your teams
- Saving highlights
- Hacker News integration. The stories you upvote are saved in a notebook, which can be shared with your friends, or even made public.
I'm focusing on search. Most knowledge base apps have terrible search imho.
Hmm, I thought I was the only one who thought like that. I've just been exporting entire browser trees from Tree Style Tabs (with hierarchy) at once and attaching them to a page in my Zettelkasten or another part of my knowledge base.
It is great to have the entire context of my browsing session to go back to.
> then I would be able to organize my knowledge in a way that mirrors my train of thought
I made HowTruthful for organizing trains of thought. If that's the only way you want to bookmark, you could use it. It's just that every time you save a page, you have to associate with a statement that the page is a source for.
Like Memex, the free version uses localStorage. You don't actually need to sign in to start using the Cite bookmarklet.
Using Pinboard [0] I currently solve this by using tags like "via-twitter", "via-hackernews", or even people like "via-john". I also occasionally add a note to my pin (bookmark) to remind me why I bookmarked it.
I've been using Pocket for free since 2011: getpocket.com It's not great or perfect but it's good enough for "to read later" and keeping a running "grimoire"
I've tried other methods: chrome bookmarks, evernote, plain-text, etc but nothing provides:
1. Ubiquity with just one login
With Pocket, everywhere I browse I can add to pocket, including at work. I don't want to ever use my Google login at work b/c I don't want my work Chrome bookmarks (which are basically work-internal websites) to conflict with my personal ones.
Pocket is available on my phone, iPad, browser, and work browser quickly and easily.
2. Has tags.
I stick with about one tag per item. I don't need it to be fully tagged out, but just a general one. Typically by programming language or topic.
One special tag is "someday" which is how I get very long items (like online books) out of my short "To Read" queue.
3. exports
I haven't needed it but it's nice to know that I can easily export my bookmarks, with tags, to html. From there I can convert to something else if I want.
I've tried GTD and other "universal" systems and my current system is a bit of a mess (mostly because of the work-life dichotomy), but at least my "save to read later" flow is simple:
1. Go to hacker news
2. send to pocket
3. when I've got time, scroll through my to-read and pick one that packs into the amount of time I have
You could build this into the command script that's currently the top post, I wrote a program for universal file-system supported tags: https://finnoleary.net/koios-tutorial.html
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned https://web.hypothes.is/ --- it's a non-profit trying to solve the same idea. They are actually trying to advance on the ideas of the w3c annotation's working group and do everything open source.
Wow, I have been looking for just this tool. First, the ability to highlight and save interesting passages on the web. Second, something to give me value from my own browsing history. Third, an honest, open, paid service that aspires to the vision of the original Memex. I really hope this succeeds.
Readit News
How many of us bookmark or otherwise record interesting posts from here and elsewhere?
How many of us ever refer that accumulated digital memory?
I have about 7,000 links with notes accumulated over the last few decades.
I’ve read a lot of them, but the hard to acknowledge reality is that even with a refined workflow, recording my links in a near perfect taxonomy, to a repository with full text search and spaced repetition reminder cards, the things I remember are those that I took the time to read.
I suspect most people here has a comparable metric to share.
Maybe the best bookmark repository is nul:
I do all the time. Behold.
I don't have a particular refined process or taxonomy. Just Pinboard and tags.
One tool I use to keep things circulating is a daily script that emails me 5 random bookmarks from my Pinboard account each morning. Stole the idea from this HN post:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15451912
Run a local cron job (actually a local Jenkins job) and use this Python library:
https://github.com/lionheart/pinboard.py
https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/knowledge
And access everything super fast too using tool I made.
https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/alfred-my-mind
Right now, I've gave up on silly tags like "Postgres" or "Python". Currently, I'm trying to adapt the bookmark concept into different uses cases. The main one is sessions, but I have a few others niche ones, like "read later" and "a tool a day".
Honestly, my takeaway from managing my bookmarks, is that, snapshotting a session, is the closest thing I have to a "hot" start. I instantly recognize what I was working on and I remember why I opened/kept open those tabs.
I used to meticulously sort and tag individual bookmarks but rarely review them. Storing sessions and other "playlists" of bookmarks puts them in a form that I actually return to.
Plus this method takes far less time and effort than tagging and bagging pages according to an ever-expanding set of custom taxonomies.
I'm sure others have been using bookmarks this way for a while but it felt like a revelation to me :)
Frankly, I've realized offline bookmarking just feels good and lets me close the tab. I would wager this is most people even if they don't yet realize it.
But now I realized I may want to back them up somewhere... technically these notes aren't important and can be lost, but I'd like to keep them
* org-mode [1].
* org-board [2] for offline archiving.
* Org Capture [3] for getting links or text chunks from browser.
* git repo for tracking history.
With org-mode I can create really complex connections between articles and citations, add tags, have TODO lists and many more. To visualize things and connections, org-mind-map [4] can be useful. Because everything is text, grep, ripgrep, ag, xapian and other similar tools works without problems.
I'm aware this setup isn't for everyone (you need to be Emacs user), but I still need to find proper alternative with this amount of flexibility, keeping everything in plain text format.
[1] https://orgmode.org/
[2] https://github.com/scallywag/org-board
[3] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/org-capture/kkkjlf...
[4] https://github.com/the-humanities/org-mind-map
About 50% of the sites or pages were now offline. 45% were irrelevant to me, either because I was no longer interested, they'd been superseded by something better, or they were outdated code snippets or examples, etc. 3% I (finally) read or skimmed, none of these changed my life. 2% were useful sites, mostly collections of things (stock imagery, audio samples) I would struggle to find in Google now or I don't manually type in frequently. I added keywords to the titles (you can't tag in Chrome) and sorted them into folders.
I was also a tab monster. I'd have ~150 or open at all times (thanks Great Suspender!) - usually things I wanted to read later or come back to.
I drew a line - tabs get 48 hours and then they're closed. Websites only get bookmarked if they contain something likely to last and I'd struggle to find if I Googled again. Both the tabs and the bookmarks created unnecessary mental load. Every suspended tab and "read me later" bookmark became another weight around my neck that screamed "still haven't got around to me, eh? Fail!" Now I'm working to the "read it asap or act on it asap - or it's not something you _really_ wanted." I guess a kind of Marie Kondo for my head, which is really rather freeing.
Perhaps Memex is a good middle ground. A chance to drag up the past as and when _my life_ is ready for it, without the future affecting the present. I'll give it a go.
If I was able to save pages while also knowing where I found them and maybe make a comment about why I found it interesting, then I would be able to organize my knowledge in a way that mirrors my train of thought.
Are there any tools capable of doing this?
Here's a link demonstrating the usecase you want (40 seconds video): https://karlicoss.github.io/promnesia-demos/how_did_i_get_he...
I discovered Worldbrain Memex way into the development (unfortunately), but in the near future I will try to evaluate to which extent it's possible to mutually benefit, i.e. base Promnesia extension & backend on Worldbrain's, or contribute some of Promnesia's features to them (maybe even merge completely?)
Also, it would be great to see a Memex-to-Org tool from you.
It automatically creates a knowledge base for you. The paths you took to arrive at a piece of information is just one part of the puzzle that it puts together for you.
The main idea is that we throw away a lot of the signal we generate while doing things online and this can be put to good use for ourselves.
Some related features that Histre has: - Sharing collections of notes with your teams - Saving highlights - Hacker News integration. The stories you upvote are saved in a notebook, which can be shared with your friends, or even made public.
I'm focusing on search. Most knowledge base apps have terrible search imho.
It is great to have the entire context of my browsing session to go back to.
I made HowTruthful for organizing trains of thought. If that's the only way you want to bookmark, you could use it. It's just that every time you save a page, you have to associate with a statement that the page is a source for.
Like Memex, the free version uses localStorage. You don't actually need to sign in to start using the Cite bookmarklet.
https://en.howtruthful.com/i/
[0] https://pinboard.in/
I've tried other methods: chrome bookmarks, evernote, plain-text, etc but nothing provides:
1. Ubiquity with just one login
With Pocket, everywhere I browse I can add to pocket, including at work. I don't want to ever use my Google login at work b/c I don't want my work Chrome bookmarks (which are basically work-internal websites) to conflict with my personal ones.
Pocket is available on my phone, iPad, browser, and work browser quickly and easily.
2. Has tags.
I stick with about one tag per item. I don't need it to be fully tagged out, but just a general one. Typically by programming language or topic.
One special tag is "someday" which is how I get very long items (like online books) out of my short "To Read" queue.
3. exports
I haven't needed it but it's nice to know that I can easily export my bookmarks, with tags, to html. From there I can convert to something else if I want.
I've tried GTD and other "universal" systems and my current system is a bit of a mess (mostly because of the work-life dichotomy), but at least my "save to read later" flow is simple:
1. Go to hacker news 2. send to pocket 3. when I've got time, scroll through my to-read and pick one that packs into the amount of time I have
It does one thing and does it well enough for me.
You could build this into the command script that's currently the top post, I wrote a program for universal file-system supported tags: https://finnoleary.net/koios-tutorial.html
(Oli here from WorldBrain.io)
https://github.com/pirate/ArchiveBox/wiki/Web-Archiving-Comm...