Apropos of everything
Posted by ureadit
on 12/11/2005
ureadit
12/11/2005 3:47 pm
How did we ever get along without all of this marvelous PIM/Outlining/Info Storage/... software?
Why, way back when I was in high school and college, I always wrote without first having a physical or digital outline or overview. It was all in my head. If an outline were required, it came after I had finished the writing the prose.
Yes, it is far too easy to dump info into a PIM and end up with an unbelievable amount of junk that becomes so overwhelming that one doesn't use any of it. Pruning is often too time-consuming to be useful. The automated features of Zoot, Agenda, GV, and ??? help with this because you can set up rules that automatically assign key words, concepts, etc. to your information items. Plus, the ability to add new rules and have them automatically apply to old info items is a necessity. Programs that require manual assignment for each info item require too much time.
Of course software for writing can be a marvelous time saver. Moving things around digitally rather than with scissors, paste, etc. is wonderful.
-sc
Why, way back when I was in high school and college, I always wrote without first having a physical or digital outline or overview. It was all in my head. If an outline were required, it came after I had finished the writing the prose.
Yes, it is far too easy to dump info into a PIM and end up with an unbelievable amount of junk that becomes so overwhelming that one doesn't use any of it. Pruning is often too time-consuming to be useful. The automated features of Zoot, Agenda, GV, and ??? help with this because you can set up rules that automatically assign key words, concepts, etc. to your information items. Plus, the ability to add new rules and have them automatically apply to old info items is a necessity. Programs that require manual assignment for each info item require too much time.
Of course software for writing can be a marvelous time saver. Moving things around digitally rather than with scissors, paste, etc. is wonderful.
-sc
srdiamond15
12/11/2005 10:14 pm
There's a program available for the Mac that applies some form of AI to organize data. I'm not going to say the name, because I always confuse it with another program. Anyway, my point doesn't concern the program, which I really know nothing substantive about, but rather the opinions about sophisticated Mac users about this program. The opinion seems _sharply_ divided. Many speak superlatively of the program. Others disparage exactly the feature that is most praised--the AI, saying it just doesn't get it right--'and anyway, categorizing the data is the last thing I would refer to an algorithm.'
Well, it depends completely on how good the algorithm is. I am not on OS X, and I can't evaluate the product. But I can say that I find it very hard to imagine categorizing data automatically by a method of my devise--as _opposed_ to artifical intelligence--and having that characterization help me in any ways but trivial ones.
Stephen Diamond
Well, it depends completely on how good the algorithm is. I am not on OS X, and I can't evaluate the product. But I can say that I find it very hard to imagine categorizing data automatically by a method of my devise--as _opposed_ to artifical intelligence--and having that characterization help me in any ways but trivial ones.
Stephen Diamond
sub
12/12/2005 1:53 am
How did we ever get along without all of this marvelous PIM/Outlining/Info Storage/... software?
Ultimately, the human mind has tremendous abilities in information handling. I don't think all these tools are really necessary --but that they provide significant advantage in at least three areas:
(1) Speeding up the process of data retrieval, therefore increasing one's effectiveness by a factor of N
(2) Documenting one's own knowledge and understanding
(3) Turning tacit knowledge to implicit, therefore promoting skill-sharing
alx