Outboard Brain and Windows

The main reason I’m linking to this post by Tom is that I thought the text was damn funny but also because it talks about the blog (and iBook) as an outboard brain. That’s one of the reasons I started a blog, to have a place to keep information in a more contextual way than just the bookmarks.

So far it’s working pretty good especially in the timeline aspect, thanks to the dates I can see what I found before what, how my tastes change and how long I’ve known about something without acting on it (or when I started getting involved or working on something). Eye opening sometimes to look through the archives and I’ve only been at this for 7 months.

I also keep a private blog where I post links that I want to look up at some point but dont blog because I dont know the quality or interest of it yet. Classic bookmarks are reserved for reference, stuff I know I’ll need to use again. And of course there is again the timeline aspect. I’ve been thinking of replacing this with a Wiki but havent made the move yet. First because I’m lazy but also because the private blog was mostly something I posted to from work, now that I work from home I either take care of it right away or keep it in a tab and get to it at some point. No need to have a “transfer” from work to home.

I could have kept the main blog private but then you enter another factor / quality to the information gathering and outboard brain: interaction. Reading something in your comments or on another site concerning your own post can be really fascinating and greatly enhance the simple information you read. Plus when you add conferences or local meetings it really does bring about interesting real life encounters based on common thinking discovered on blogs.

Back to the Windows aspect of his post, my favorite part:

What is central is the urinal of Windows machinery that, if I am thirsty for information, I must drink from. The internet that squeezes its way through task managers, continual crashing and word processors in browsers is not an internet I’m familiar with. It’s an ill-formed, thick and sticky horror – like Roast Lamb gone cold and congealed with fat. Coughed up by a used car salesman.

One Comment

aj July 23, 2003

that’s what iSync Bookmarks are all about…

ah well, Windows 2000 is *slightly* better-behaved than its siblings, but yeah – coming home to OS X is a blessed relief.

I mean, what OS makes you type alt-1-3-0 just to get a frickin’ e-accent-aigu?

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