# Memex: Today's Interesting Links (note taking & constraints) (2024-01-14)

**URL:** <https://pluralist.net/t/memex-todays-interesting-links-note-taking-constraints-2024-01-14/42>\
**Category:** breadcrumbs\
**Created:** [January 15, 2024, 2:17am UTC](https://pluralist.net/t/memex-todays-interesting-links-note-taking-constraints-2024-01-14/42 "2024-01-15T02:17:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![delyan](https://pluralist.net/user_avatar/pluralist.net/delyan/32/245_2.png) [@delyan](https://pluralist.net/u/delyan)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2024, 2:17am UTC](https://pluralist.net/t/memex-todays-interesting-links-note-taking-constraints-2024-01-14/42/1 "2024-01-15T02:17:41Z")

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- I find a lot of value in the [HN](http://news.ycombinator.com/) comments and [this thread](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38978435) on personal knowledge base does not disappoint.
  - this particular thread explores how user [tabokie](https://github.com/tabokie) keeps [daily notes (KB or Knowledge Lakehouse)](https://tabokie.github.io/non-fiction/2024/01/13/log-kb.html).
    - [Sam Bleckley](https://sambleckley.com/) has written similar article on [**Lab Notebooks**](https://sambleckley.com/writing/lab-notebooks.html)
      - Sam likes [Vela notebooks](https://velasciences.com/)

    - [Zotero](https://www.zotero.org/support/adding_items_to_zotero#saving_webpages) - OSS reference management software

- I love the idea of a [Eudaimonia Machine](https://business.adobe.com/blog/perspectives/eudaimonia-machine-blueprint-virtual-workplace) (from Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia, meaning the epitome of human capability)
- some of the links above touch on Cal Newport’s idea of [**Deep Habits: Work Analog**](https://calnewport.com/deep-habits-work-analog/) - “always work with printouts and a pen”
- similar to “work analog” is the idea that **constraints actually focus, accelerate & boost creativity**
  - specifically in photography: [Freedom Constraints in Photography | Karl Mortimer  
 ](https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2016/10/freedom-of-constraints/) - “Constraints can give a _photographer permission to focus_, permission to shut out other distractions and build themselves a creative framework”
  - [The Importance of Simplification and Constraints in Photography](https://www.apogeephoto.com/the-importance-of-simplification-and-constraints-in-photography/) -
    - “constraint[s] [are] necessary to improve your photography [such as] _using a fixed focal length lens_.”
    - “adding constraints to your workflow can increase your concentration levels and increase your creativity”

  - [using paper books vs screens](https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/why-you-should-ditch-your-digital-bible/) - “our memories are _ **visuospatial** _ in nature.[[1]](https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/why-you-should-ditch-your-digital-bible/#f2) We remember things not just by seeing them but by locating them spatially. It’s why we remember how to get to places via landmarks rather than recalling maps”

- [Bill Gates, Inside the Gates](https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2013/09/walter-isaacson-on-bill-gates-at-harvard) by Walter Isaacson (9.20.2013) - “Gates was furiously **writing the BASIC interpreter code on yellow legal pads**. ‘I can still see him alternately pacing and rocking for long periods before jotting on a yellow legal pad, his fingers stained from a rainbow of felt-tip pens,’ Allen recalled.”
- TIL about “line displays” such as that of the [PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1) computer at Harvard](https://www.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/graphics/). Turns out these line displays worked differently in comparison to modern pixel-based displays. The line displays were vector-based and displayed graphics & text by drawing lines directly between specified points on the screen, and not by illuminating individual pixels.
- the paper Bill Gates wrote with Christos Papadimitriou: [Bounds for Sorting by Prefix Reversal by William H. Gates (1979)](https://web.archive.org/web/20140308082430/http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~christos/papers/Bounds%20For%20Sorting%20By%20Prefix%20Reversal.pdf)