Recent Posts

376

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on October 06, 2020, 12:22 PM »

In Obsidian everything is updated with all changes.

377

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on October 06, 2020, 08:48 AM »

20201004 134652 Plasterboards
Or
Plasterboards 20201004 134652
Or
###### 20201004 134652 Plasterboards
Or
###### Plasterboards 20201004 134652

The first two being .md notes
The second two being headings in other notes, and so easily linked in Obsidian.

Obviously I don't bother if I'm not looking for a UID.
Which goes first depends on whether I expect to primarily search/link by date or title - only affects where they come in the list of options.
Also use it when I want to time stamp an entry.

378

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on October 06, 2020, 04:54 AM »

If you don't want the headache of renaming html files constantly....use the ID.md filenames
If you want a descriptive html filename...use a descriptive md file.

-superboyac (October 05, 2020, 12:43 AM)

I use PhraseExpress shortcuts to produce the zet style date/time UIDs, one in a ###### header. I can then add any title text I want either before or after  the ID. Any text expander should do this.

So, I can have descriptive titles and UIDs in the same title.

379

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on October 04, 2020, 05:05 AM »

first suggestion was Pico CMS...i tried it, it's good...I'm sticking with this one, it seems to check all the boxes.

-superboyac (October 03, 2020, 06:30 PM)

For Neuron, I really like it and want to use it. But I want it accessed through my domain, not my github site.  This is where I'm stuck.

-superboyac (October 03, 2020, 08:12 PM)

I tried syncing files, and it is working as I desired!!

-superboyac (October 03, 2020, 08:12 PM)

???
Both?
Or dumped Pico?

380

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on October 04, 2020, 05:01 AM »

Well done! Looks as if you've made a lot of progress with this stuff.

I don't have any interest in publishing my notes, so far at least. Obsidian has just brought out its paid for Publish service (still in its very early stages), so interesting to see these posts arrive at the same time.

381

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by Dormouse on October 01, 2020, 01:43 PM »

More toned down

-mouser (October 01, 2020, 01:26 AM)

So, less likely to distract your opponents.
I suppose that would be fairer ...
... if that's what you want.

382

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 29, 2020, 08:17 PM »

Institutional investors, being bound by concerns about fiduciary responsibility and reputation, need to be more cautious than individual and small investors who my chose to take an  occasional ‘flyer’ and hope for the best.

And who knows? Sometimes long shots do pay off. Just so long as you can responsibly afford the risk - and understand it’s more akin to gambling than investing - there’s no harm done.

-40hz (September 28, 2020, 09:01 AM)

And the opportunity is here:

Since our last update, veryone's been asking whether or not they can invest in Roam! We are currently preparing the paperwork, via WeFunder, and we'll be giving first dibs to Believers. We want everyone in the broader community to also have the chance to invest.

Since we don't want to go public, the government is making us jump through a lot of hoops to make equity available to those aren't accredited investors. So stay tuned as we jump through those hoops for you!

I noticed that the spellchecker didn't seem to be working. 

More seriously, I'd regard 'believers' as a financially vulnerable (but not poor, so an attractive target) group by definition.
My view is the the existence of robinhood etc already tempts too many people who don't know what they're doing into share trading and this makes me uncomfortable.

383

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by Dormouse on September 28, 2020, 06:12 PM »

I used that, and finished everything as if it were going to be seen.

-mouser (September 28, 2020, 12:45 PM)

A follower of Henry Ford I see
 “Quality means doing it right when no one is looking."

'Tis pretty spectacular
Sadly I've never had the patience for that level of practical perfection

384

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by Dormouse on September 28, 2020, 06:06 PM »

See if you can spot cody

-mouser (September 28, 2020, 12:55 PM)

Spoiler

Pride of place

 

385

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 28, 2020, 05:57 PM »

Another rabbit hole for me to go down!

-wraith808 (September 28, 2020, 01:47 PM)

It's a very powerful and successful technique. I wish you well.

But it takes some planning and a commitment to regular practice.

-40hz (September 28, 2020, 11:38 AM)

Indeed.
My experience is that people will take it up, overcome initial snags (possibly with some direction), and are amazed at how well it works.
But speak to them six months later and they've given it up. Finding things sometimes without effort is more seductive than a little effort and constant success.

It works as an example of Henry Ford's maxim : “Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success” and further explains why success is rare.

386

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 28, 2020, 05:45 PM »

It has echos of an older technique that’s usually referred to as a ‘memory palace,’

-40hz (September 28, 2020, 08:53 AM)

You're right. I hadn't made that link myself. But many common aspects.

387

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 25, 2020, 06:31 PM »

Just rearranging deck chairs,
trusting I'm not on a Titanic design.

I was heavily into tags and links with few folders. I came to realise that there was little gain from that when a tag was categorical with boundaries that were rarely crossed. So I've shifted notes around so that some are in sub-folders. Creates the option if making them vaults,  even if I don't see a need right now.

It's also highlighted the dependence of nearly all designs on folders, even where tags can do a better job. If I could cut and dice tag views in the same way I can folders, I would have had no temptation to change. As things stand with many programs, the most flexible visual options come from using both folders and tags together.

388

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 25, 2020, 02:04 PM »

I'm not sure whether it's just odd, but I do find it puts me into a better mindset for working. You'll maybe have noticed that there's a different vibe in each section.

I noticed someone on the Obsidian forums using a seedbox analogy, presumably with further steps leading to evergreen notes. So it's not just me.

The target with my overall system is removing frustrating friction and points where indecision creates stasis. And I expect the names to create a mental impression of somewhere I associate with the right type of productivity.

The one I'm least comfortable with is Nalanda because, as far as I know,  there was no contact between it and the Vivarium, though I'm sure they'd have been keen to copy their manuscripts if they'd access. Most accurate examples just have Library in their names which would have created a clash. Serapeum might be accurate, but was just a short-lived remnant of the Great Library of Alexandria. Pergamum would have been good (probably the second greatest Library in the Roman Empire), but the infamous Robert Maxwell named his publishing house Pergamon Press - later bought by Elsevier which I also dislike, so would have just irritated. So I  had to go further afield, and Nalanda works and had many similarities with the Vivarium.

Helps me be in the right mood like having music on.
But I know that doesn't work for everyone either.

389

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 25, 2020, 12:14 PM »

Hoard Archive (the large reserve pool)
Inbox Vestibule (small pool ready to power processing)
Sources Library (archive that's been processed in the production of Notes)
Scriptorium (notes and all other unpublished material I have written myself,  essentially work in progress at all stages)
Reading Room (my published work)
Attics (processed items not considered worth keeping in Library -  I realised that simply putting them in Archive (unprocessed) or throwing them away completely might mean that they were processed again in future because they give initial impression of being interesting).
Chapter House - for anything requiring action: todo lists, emails etc.

-Dormouse (May 31, 2020, 10:45 AM)

I decided to trial a switch to folders. Some advantages, some disadvantages  - but bulk changes are easy with a Text Editor. So there'll be no problem if I decide to switch back.

After some experience with the system, I've decided to extend it. Mostly to include more mundane issues: correspondence, todos & etc. Works best in the system because they sometimes need linking and it keeps everything in one place.

I've also given a lot of thought to names. It's important that I know instantly what a folder is for - so nothing I don't instantly recognise - and the physical analogies work well for me. They also need the right vibe because that helps me work better. Its a very personal set of preferences.

Papyri - all the notes, research etc
Vestibule - limited size space for new notes;
Library - all fully processed useful notes;
Archive - unprocessed notes squeezed out of the Vestibule because of limited space;
Attics - fully processed nites which have outlived their usefulness, or more frequently were deemed unhelpful from the start.

Vivarium - my own writing and research; creative, academic, practical etc.
Scriptorium - writing in progress ; includes all the planning etc.
Reading Room  - completed and published work
Bibliothekai - unattached or unused bits of writing

The Rolls - administrative records and documentation
Chancery - written records and correspondence
Exchequer  - financial records and correspondence
Chapter House - todo lists, emails etc - stuff for immediate or imminent action
Treasury - a separate secure vault only stored locally. This is for confidential information.

Nalanda - all the sources

Canary Wharf - anything work related. This vault is local only.

Explanation of name choice, if anyone is interested:

Spoiler

Papyri - it's the plural of papyrus, but mostly reminds me of the House of Papyri in Herculaneum.
Vestibule - a small room or antechamber in great houses and other buildings. Always small.
Library  - I  imagine it as like a private room in the Bodleian.
Reading Room - like the Reading Room in the British Museum
Archives  - the endless rows of books and manuscripts in the Bodleian stacks or the British Library,  many, if not most, entirely unread.

Vivarium - an early monastery and educational facility in the south of Italy. Attempted to copy and preserve old books and manuscripts from across the ancient world
Scriptorium  - the room, or space, in which monastic scribes worked.
Bibliothekai  - shelves and cabinets in the Great Library of Alexandria

The Rolls - formal charters and records kept as part of the governance of England from 1200 or so. The senior judge in the Court of Appeal is still called the Master of the  Rolls.
Chancery - the place where scribes wrote and stored government records
Exchequer - ditto for managing government taxes and revenues
Chaper House - the very large room in monasteries, used for daily meetings, task allocation etc

Treasury - the secure storage place for precious goods, used since ancient times.

Nalanda - renowned and very early Buddhist monastery and university in Northern India

Canary Wharf - huge (from a London perspective) set of office blocks east of the City of London, contains many banks and finance firms. The area is the Isle of Dogs. Artificial,  nothing organic about it at all.

390

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 24, 2020, 04:13 PM »

I'm also thinking about switching my rooms from tags into folders.
The original reason for tags was flexibility and speed. And that it would be most effective to keep everything in one folder (vault).

But I've been learning to appreciate a lot of value in Obsidian's capability with nested vaults. This means that I can have everything in one overarching vault, but still keep the nested sub-vaults separate. And i can have a couple of vaults in the middle too. And I can work either in a sub-vault or the overarching vault,  or both together in separate windows. Maximal linking in the overarching vault. Graphs to be viewed separately in each vault.

Just an idea until I've tested it out more. Has the advantage that folders map better on to my room analogy. Also removes the tension between these tags (strict categories) and all my other tags which are 'fuzzy'.

391

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 24, 2020, 12:29 PM »

you look at revenues over time to see the worth of a company

-wraith808 (September 24, 2020, 11:52 AM)

If you try to do this, you will end up losing money.
Sales are part of the picture.
Profits, if you are able to work out what they really are, make another part.
Assets a third.

But if you buy a business, you will never get the sales or profits it made in prior years. You only have a right to what will happen in the future,  so you have to predict.

The stock market, especially tech, had been too high for a few years before the dot.com bust. Buying at the top always loses you money for a few years however well you try and calculate value. Despite that, if you'd held a balanced portfolio of tech stocks then till now, do you really think you'd be poorer now?

The thing to remember about emerging industries is that it is very hard to predict which businesses will be the big winners. Some will stutter,  some will meander, but most will fail.

The Roam valuation is based simply on an evaluation that they might be a big winner. $9m is nothing to get in at the base level. The investors will be aware it will probably fail, but they know that the small number of bug winners more than pays for the losers.

392

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 24, 2020, 12:15 PM »

central banks are pumping money into economy like crazy

-panzer (September 24, 2020, 10:32 AM)

Yes, though not so much in Europe.
The key is that they are probably just printing that money, but they've arranged it so that the money can be unprinted thereby creating an uncertainty about the value of the money in the future.

The mechanisms have meant that a great deal has flooded directly into the markets, so valuations have risen in money terms.
The value of money has dropped, but most people haven't realised it yet from an everyday life point of view. And they may never see the usual consequence since the deflationary pulse is so strong. So most prices could stay about the same.
And in Europe even medium term interest rates are negative.

The rise in prices is justified to the extent that money is worth less, so the businesses must be worth relatively more. But there seem to be a lot of new investors who don't know what they're doing. They are acting like the typical private investor in Chinese markets.

And many companies are only staying 'afloat' because of the sea of cheap debt holding them up and central banks' money keeping the wheels of the economy turning.

393

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 24, 2020, 11:36 AM »

Back in the day valuations made sense

-panzer (September 24, 2020, 10:32 AM)

Valuations have never made sense, they're simply transactional. The point at which buyers and sellers are prepared to meet.

Tesla is worth 360 billion $ and it only made its first profit this year.

Madness.

-panzer (September 24, 2020, 10:32 AM)

Hmm. This is tougher.  The volatility in Tesla's price (up and down), plus the relatively low level of free stock implies that it would be more accurate to calculate a valuation range.

There's huge disagreement about it as a business. I know a number of investors who were heavily shorting the stock when the price was a fraction of the present price. Most got out on one of the dips (therefore with some profit) or when they realised they might never be proved right (loss) or some facts changed (manufacturing targets met - also a loss).
As Keynes said, the market can remain irrational for longer than you can remain solvent.

394

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 24, 2020, 11:20 AM »

I'd dispute that figure above, which is why I don't really count it as already there currently

-wraith808 (September 24, 2020, 10:21 AM)

Why would you dispute it?

It ought to be a simple calculation. Investors paying $9m for ? = $200m valuation means ?  = 4.5% of the enterprise, post investment. Always possible it was actually $9m for 5% of the business as it was, in which case the calculation ought to have been (9x20)+9 = 189 which is still pretty close.
Not seen anything about other conditions, options etc though I'd expect there are some. But it's hard cash he's already spending.

You can't get a better test of value than people paying hard cash for something.

395

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 24, 2020, 10:03 AM »

I've added a new room - Chapter House
For 'business' related notes and documents: todo lists, etc. Anything that requires an action. When documents are no longer current they will be filed away in the library.

(Not work related stuff; that goes in a separate building, Canary Wharf. In practice most real work related stuff is confidential,  and goes into a separate secure location.)

The Chapter House in a monastery was a very large room where they had daily meetings, allocated jobs etc. All the tedious stuff. The one in my local Cathedral is a pretty spectacular space.

396

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 20, 2020, 09:17 PM »

It might come in somewhere at the 100s of millions

-wraith808 (September 20, 2020, 08:12 PM)

Already there.
Notion is at $2bn.
Trello was sold to Atlassian for $425m over 3 years ago. Tech valuations have rocketed since then.
Evernote reached $1bn in 2011 before it took its eye off the ball.

Conor's vision is a big one. It will either reach over $1bn or crash. The odds being on crashing which is why the current valuation is only $200m. I'm certain all the investors believe it has a reasonable chance of reaching the billions, because the reward would not balance the risks otherwise.

397

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 20, 2020, 07:24 PM »

I don't know.
For my money, now that it has its foot in the door, I think it will get to being a $ billion company.

Conor has a vision, he's good at convincing people. I think the vision centres on collaborative and shared development of human knowledge. But he (wisely) keeps detailed ideas to himself.

The thing they are investing in is the feature users want the least, at least users like us.

-superboyac (September 20, 2020, 06:20 PM)

I don't think he has any significant interest in users who are interested in files. Or markdown. He's interested in knowledge and believes it is built better by people sharing (and I'd have to say there's any number of Obsidian users who just want to put their vaults on the web). I think he's aiming at being the primary host for that endeavour.

And, shorter term, teams are good for revenue - corporates will pay a lot more than individuals who are mostly good for creating the buzz. Look at the Trello and Notion business models. And their valuations.

At this point, I'd be more interested in investing in Roam than using it myself. I have concerns about some of things Conor says and does - but that's never held Elon back.

398

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 20, 2020, 06:04 PM »

the standard valuation of a company is 4 times revenue, and they aren't making $50m a year.

-wraith808 (September 20, 2020, 05:53 PM)

That very much depends on the company and prospects (and a host of other things).
Look at the current value of Snowflake

399

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 20, 2020, 04:31 PM »

WHOA

-superboyac (September 20, 2020, 02:06 PM)

You have to remember that no-one actually thinks it's worth $200m.
You have a group of investors placing a $9m bet that it will actually be worth a lot more. With Roam's owners trying to give away as little as possible in exchange for circa $10 m.

The key to the price was the success of the believers scheme and $15 a month subscription.

What happens next will depend on how successfully Roam deploy the money.
First steps seem to be teams (collaborations) and an API.

400

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on September 20, 2020, 03:34 AM »

It's  not his first podcast advocating Roam.

Strange thing is that you could achieve the same thing in Obsidian just as easily. There are things that work easier in Roam but he didn't hit on one of them this time.

There's a tendency for people trying to switch from Roam (usually because of cost, sometimes irritation) to try to carry their workflow with them. Most frequently blocks, but it includes a rigid concept of a page. Most of them have little concern about having their life's work in an online database that is specifically targeting collaboration and sharing ideas - so the genuine advantages of Obsidian etc pass them by.