Jamie Todd Rubin's Blog, page 27

Audiobook Economics

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Recently, Audible had a site-wide sale where everything on the site was up-to 85% off. I love sales like these because they are a feeding-frenzy for buying books. But to make the most effective use of such a sale requires a bit of skill. I picked up more than a dozen audiobooks in the latest sale, and I thought I’d use that as an example of audibook economics that I have picked up in the 9+ years I have been using Audible.

The first thing to understand is my subscription to the Audible service: I have the Audible Premium Plus subscription. This subscription entitles me to 2 credits each month, a 30% discount of the prices of Audiobooks, access to anything in the “Plus” catalog, special discounts like the Daily Deal, and other features. For this I pay about $25/month.

At $25/month my credits are worth $12.50 each. So when I am browsing books to buy, if the book in question costs less than $12.50, I won’t use a credit for it. Instead, I’ll pay separately. Moreover, I can buy an additional 3-pack of credits for $35, which amounts to $11.60/credit. So in practice, my rule is that if an audiobook costs more than $12 I’ll use a credit; if it costs less than $12 I’ll pay separately for it. This is just common sense.

There are always exceptions, however. For instance, especially with nonfiction books (the bulk of what I listen to) I will frequently also buy the Kindle version. Often times, if you look at the Kindle page for a book, you will see an option to add the Audible audiobook version for a fraction of the normal price. For instance, the Kindle edition might cost $12.99 and there will be an option to add on the audiobook for an additional $7.99. That is a grand total of $21, which is more than the cost of a credit. However, because the audiobook add-on is only $7.99, which is less than my $12 threshold. In these cases, I generally don’t use a credit to pay for the editions. I justify this because I get more than I would for buying the audiobook alone. And besides, often times the audiobook alone wouldn’t be $7.99, but more like $20. It is only bundled with the e-book that is becomes discounted.

There are other deals I look out for. I always check out the Daily Deal, which usually offers an audiobook at a deep discount each day, normally in the range of $2-6. In these cases, I never use credits to pay for the book because the credits are worth more than the book. I’ll just pay normally for these.

Then there are the 2-for-1 deals that popup now and then. In these deal, you can use a single credit to get 2 audiobooks. These can be tricky. If I see books that I want, I have to weigh the cost of getting 2-for-1, over the paying separately for the Kindle edition, if I want it. In other words, I will look to see if the Kindle edition offers a discounted add-on for the audiobook and then weight the difference over the use a single credit. Sometimes it is worth spending the credit, other times, I pay without the credit to get the bundle with the Kindle edition.

At the time of the recent site-wide sale, I think I had 4 credits stored up. Here is how I ended up aqcuiring 16 books from that sale using the method detailed above (and using just one credit):

BookList PriceSale PriceI PaidGotham by Edwin G. Borrows and Mike Wallace$39.95$5.99$5.99The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal$29.95$4.49$4.49Collosus by Mike Hiltzik$29.95$4.49$4.49Fallout by Lesley M. M. Blume$17.00$8.49$8.49Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White$18.90$9.46$9.46Point to Point Navigation by Gore Vidal$24.49$3.67$3.67Index, A History of The by Dennis Duncan$17.49$8.74$8.74The Man From the Future by Ananyo Bhattacharya$31.50$20.331 CreditThe Gulf by Jack E. Davis$24.49$3.67$3.67The Death of a President by William Manchester$39.95$5.99$5.99The Hawk’s Way by Sy Montgomery (pre-order)$14.17$7.08$7.08Cuba by Ada Ferrer$33.07$5.95$5.95Fairy Tale by Stephen King (pre-order)$33.07$16.54$16.54A Man of Iron by Troy Senik$22.67$11.34$11.34Analogia by George Dyson$24.49$12.24$12.24Einstein’s Fridge by Paul Sen$18.89$9.44$9.44Total$420.03$137.91$117.58

For the 14 books I ordered, I paid just 28% of the list price. Note that I used a credit for the most expensive of the books on sale (The Man From the Future). Techically, that credit cost me about $11 so I saved $13 by using it, which means I should add the $7 to the price I paid. That brings my total to $124.58, which is still only 29% of the list price. I think that is a pretty good bargain.

That, good readers, is my theory of audiobook economics. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some reading to do.

Written on March 7, 2022.

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Published on March 13, 2022 05:00

Reading for the Week of 3/6/2022

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Today is one of those perfect days for reading. Windy and snowy with accumulations between 3-5 inches expected. I plan on trying to get through as much of The Rising Sun as I can. Meanwhile, here is what I read this week. Some of the articles/posts may require a subscription to read them. I also share my recommended reads on Pocket for anyone who wants to follow along there.

Books

The numbers in parentheses following each book represent: (a) the nth book I’ve finished reading this year, and (b) the mth book I’ve finished reading since January 1, 1996.

Finished Analogia: The Emergence of Technology Beyond Programmable Control by George Dyson (15/1143).In progress The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 by John Toland.Articles/posts Oscar Winner Tom Fleischman Resigns From Motion Picture Academy Over Controversial Telecast Plans (Exclusive) by Carolyn Giardina (Hollywood Reporter, undated)Open Window Season by Melanie Novak (blog, 2/6/22). Open windows are great. So are early morning walks in spring.Disney’s $5,000 Star Wars hotel and line-cutting fees: Some fans say the ‘magic’s gon by Hannah Sampson (Washington Post, 3/7/2022). We were at Disney World in January and while it was more expensive than 2 years ago, just before the pandemic, we still had a lot of fun.How to Avoid Nuclear War With Russia by Ross Douthat (NY Times, 3/5/22). I’m having flashbacks to those nervous days in the early 1980s when I used to worry about things like nuclear war. #current-eventsPutin’s Economic Miscalculation With Ukraine by Paul Krugman (NY Times, 3/4/22) #current-eventsA Plot Twist in the Milky Way by Marina Kohen (Atlantic, 3/6/22). #astronomyHow the Putin Shock Might Affect the World Economy by Paul Krugman (NY Times, 3/8/22) #economicsHarry Truman Helped Make Our World Order, for Better and for Worse by Beverly Gage (New Yorker, 3/7/22). David McCullough’s biography, Truman, is one of the best presidential biographies I’ve ever read. This one seems like a worthy candidate to pair with that one. I’m looking forward to reading this new bio.Why China Can’t Bail Out Putin’s Economy – The New York Times by Paul Krugman (NYT, 3/8/22)Major League Baseball pushes back Opening by Chelsea Janes (Washington Post, 3/9/22) #sports/baseballRussia’s ‘imminent’ default would be catastrophic. Here’s why. by Jacob Bulgage and Adela Suluman (WaPo, 3/9/22)An Acquisition Anonymous Amoeba by Mike Dariano (The Waiter’s Pad, 3/9/22’s Pad, 3/9/22)Endurance, Ernest Shackleton’s Ship, Lost in 1915, Is Found in Antarctica – The New York Times by Henry Fountain (NYT, 3/9/22). I really enjoyed reading Alfred Lansing’s Endurance on a December drive down to Florida four or five years ago. So I was delighted by the news that Endurance had been found 10,000 feet underwater.The Maltese Falcon (1941): “The stuff that dreams are made of” by Melanie Novak (blog, 3/9/22). The usual great film commentary, now with more Bogart #filmJohn McPhee’s Slow Productivity – Study Hacks – Cal Newport by Cal Newport (blog, 3/9/22). McPhee is a favorite of mine, and Cal Newport’s take on McPhee’s productivity (slow productivity) resonated with me. It reminds me of how I think of my own progress, small, incremental increases over long periods of time. #productivityYou Have Got to Be Kidding Me – JoeBlogs by Joe Posnanski (JoeBlogs, 3/10/22) #sports/baseballHallelujah! – JoeBlogs by Joe Posnanski (JoeBlogs, 3/11/22) #sports/baseballObsidian Roundup: Pin Preview Popups & an Intro to Dataview Guide by Eleanor Konik (Obsidian Roundup, 3/12/22). I’m very interested in experimenting with the Apply Patterns plug-in this weekend.

Written on March 11-12, 2022.

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Published on March 12, 2022 13:00

Road Time

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Several times a year we make long roadtrips. We drive to Florida or we drive to Maine, or we go on some summer excursion that takes us to places we’ve never been before. Road trips are great because there is no hassel of airports, airplanes, security checks, and baggage claim. We have the freedom to depart whenever we want, shorten or extend our trip as we see fit. We can divert easily to some place that catches our eye. The only limitation is time.

There is a strangeness to road time that I notice when we drive. We are generally not in a rush on these trips. Especially when driving long distances, we know that we will leave early in the morning and arrive at our final destination sometime the following afternoon. We have a hotel reservation, but no sense of urgency to get there. And yet, I find that as the drive progresses, the road creates its down sense of urgency.

I do the driving because I don’t mind it. It means I can listen to audiobooks for hours on end as I drive. Kelly handles “cabin resource managment,” which takes the strain of worrying about the kids off me as I drive. The beginning of the drive is always the worst part–driving out of any metropolitan area is tough under the best of conditions. Once we are south of Stafford, Virginia, however, we leave the metropolitan areas behind. This is where I began to relax. Our car has all sorts of features that make driving easy: progressive cruise control, blind-spot detection, lane drift detection. I set the progressive cruise control once we are on the open road, and I can go for hours without touching it again.

And yet… as the drive progresses, something about road time makes me want to go faster as time wears on. For the first few hours, I can settle four or five car lengths behind a truck that is doing 70 MPH in a 70 MPH zone and be perfectly content. After several hours, however, I’ll go to pass a truck or a car, and after that, settling back in at 70 MPH or 65 MPH doesn’t seem to cut it anymore. I feel like I am not making progress. I can’t explain why this is but I have theories. For instance, despite the highway signs that indicate speed saying “Speed Limit” we tend to treat those as minimums. Nearly everyone on the road is driving 5-10 MPH behind the “limit.” That alone gives a sense of urgency. If I am driving 72 MPH in a 70 MPH zone and nearly every car is passing me, I feel somehow like I am being left behind. Behind what, I have no idea.

Then, too, when I work out the math, there is no signfican different between driving the speed limit, or 10 MPH above it. Over the course of an 8 hour drive, driving 75 MPH instead of 70 MPH saves 5 miles every hour–which amounts to maybe 4 minutes per hour or half an hour over the course of 8 hours. In other words, driving 75 MPH gets me to my destination 30 minutes sooner than driving 70 MPH. But I am in no rush, so what’d the big deal about 30 minutes? It just means we’ll sit at the hotel 30 minutes longer. It also means 30 minutes more of audiobook listening. And yet, I still feel that sense of urgency as the hours slide past.

The trick is, it seems to me, not to pass cars. Find a spot and a decent speed, and stick to it. Relax. Enjoy the scenery. Listen to audiobooks. Chat with the family. There is no rush. And that sense of urgency a false one. All of this is good advice. I only wish I had the discipline to take it.

Written on March 6, 2022.

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Published on March 12, 2022 05:00

Early Morning Walks in Spring

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I was out the door just before 7 am this morning. It was already 60°F. I wore shorts because I wear shorts when the temperature is above 55°F. It felt wonderful out. It always feels good to go on early morning walks in spring1. After being cooped up indoors, with the heat running or a fire in the fireplace for most of the winter, the fresh air of an early spring morning is particularly refreshing.

Sunday mornings make for quiet walks, especially early. People sleep in later around here on Sundays. I expected to see lots of people out, given how nice it was, but for the first half of my walk, I saw only a single person and dog. The bike path on which I walk was otherwise deserted. It was just me and George Dyson who was talking about the evolution between analog and digital worlds.

People may have been nestled snug in their beds, but the birds were out in force, another sign of early spring. I could see some of them, but hear many more. The woodpeckers, in particular, were in top pecking form, ready to beat their beaks against the bark after the long, cold winter. Listening to George Dyson talk about the analog and digital worlds, and then hearing the percussion of the woodpeckers, I couldn’t help but wonder if they were sending some kind of signal to one another, or perhaps they were just as grateful for the spring as I was. I’ve frequently said it is hard to apprecite the spring without the winter.

Later, while on my walk home, Dyson was talking about time in the analog sense and the digital sense. It occurred to me, while listening to Dyson, that one of our strange quirks of time was almost upon us–Daylight Saving time–certainly another sign of spring. Daylight saving time begins here on the east coast in a week. It means it will be darker in the early morning again, at least temporarily, but lighter later.

More people were on the bike path on my return home. Runners were out running. Dogs were out walking their people. I imagine the park will grow increasingly crowded as the day wears on. It is supposed to be close to 70°F today, and nearly 77°F tomorrow. It is strange to think that it so warm, especially after returning from our recent ski trip, where the morning temperatures were well below freezing.

I’m already looking forward to my early morning walk tomorrow. There is some rain in the forecast, but it looks like it will hold off long enough to allow me to get in my walk. I always appreciate nature’s little courtesies in this regard.

Written on March 6, 2022.

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Technically (as my kids would say), it is not quite spring yet, but it is close enough for government work (as my flight instructor used to say about my landings). ↩

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Published on March 11, 2022 05:00

Our First Ski Trip

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I have never been interested in skiing. I can’t say why exactly. The only time I can ever recall being on skis is as a young child, in my backyard in New Jersey. They may have been toy skis, and I was probably four years old at the time. Between the intervening decades I have not set foot on skis. But we have friends that love skiing, and their kids ski, and we thought it would be a good idea to go on a ski trip to see if our kids would enjoy the sport.

Kelly made the arrangements and on a recent weekend, we made the 3-hour drive to the Wisp Ski Resort in McHenry, Maryland. Actually, in order to avoid crowds, were there on a Thursday evening and Friday, and returned home on a Saturday morning. Kelly strategically picked the dates because the kids got out of school early on the Thursday in question, and had no school on Friday. I had some afternoon appointments, after which we hit the road.

We arrived at the Wisp resort and checked into the lodge, and then headed over to the snow tubing slopes. All five of us participated in this particular event. We were told that the hills were particularly fast. I’d never been tubing before. They had something called a “magic carpet” which was like an escalator that took passengers and tubes to the top of the hill, very, very slowly. At the top were a series of lanes where people lined up with their tubes, waiting to be given the okay to head down the hill.

The snow-tubing hill, with the “magic carpet” to the right.

Our youngest was a little too nervous to head down the hill herself, so she and I lashed our tubes together and raced down the hill. It was far faster than I imagined. Along the way are two drops that sent us briefly airborn. As we approached the end of the run, I used my snow boots to slow us down a bit. There were these large garbage bags filled with I don’t know what that helped to slow people down. We stopped before those bags on the first run. I was more focused on the Littlest Miss’s reactions to really take in the ride down the hill.

We decided on another run, and so back up the hill we went. Once again, the Littlest Miss and I went together. This time, we were in the very first lane. That was a particularly fast one. On our next run, I tried to enjoy the ride down, but we picked up quite a bit of speed. The Littlest Miss grew increasingly nervous, and I was focused on her rather than slowing us down. We blew through the garbage bags, which didn’t do much to slow us down, and continued to a fence that ran across the end of course (and which prevented us from going off a cliff). I had turned so that I was backwards and hit the fence back first. The fence itself was springy, but there was a metal pole running across the bottom that caught me in the back. After that, I decided I’d had enough of for one day.

Kelly and the older kids rode the tubes a few more times, while the Littlest Miss and I people-watched. She also made quite collection of snow angels in the artificial snow. It was amusing to watch people come down the hill. On almost every run, someone lost something on the way down: hats, gloves, sunglasses. Afterward, we headed back to the lodge and got pizza.

The next day, the older kids were scheduled for lessons in the morning. Kelly had prescheduled all of this which made things easy. It helped that the place was not very crowded. We headed to the training center next to the lodge at 9:30am, filled out some forms, and then checked in. The kids got their rental equipment. Zach was snowboarding and Grace was skiing. They split into their various lesson groups, and then, for the next 90 minutes, learned their various crafts. Kelly took the Littlest Miss to find a place to go sledding, but I stuck around, watching Grace learn to ski. She seemed to take to it quickly, and by the end of 90 minutes, she was ready to hit the bunny slopes.

It was cold out–24 degrees when their lessons started–but the sun felt good. With the lessons over, Zach and Grace headed for the bunny slopes to practice. They made a few runs, and then we decided to have lunch. There wasn’t a great selection of food, but the chili was warm and tasted pretty good. After lunch, Grace headed back to the bunny slopes. Zach wanted to try a real slope. I wasn’t sure he was ready yet, and he agreed to make one more run down the bunny slope. Then he headed off to the lifts to make a run down a regular slope.

Meanwhile, I watched Grace complete run after run down the bunny slopes. There was a “magic carpet” like at the snow-tubing hill, so that she didn’t have to walk up the hill each run. Each time she came down the hill, I could tell she was getting better and better, building her confidence. The first few times, she was nervous about stopping and tended to “land long.” But eventually, she found her balance and was able to stop sooner, and even curve around as she came to a stop.

I watched skiers come down the black diamond slope, and couldn’t quite understand the nerve it must take to do that. Then again, I used to fly airplanes and it never bothered me, so I guess everything is relative. After more than an hour had passed, I realized that Zach hadn’t returned yet. I wondered what was keeping him. At one point, I saw a snowboard come down the mountain, sans rider. I began to worry. I tend to worry about these things and Kelly is far more calm about them than I am. In these cases, therefore, I outsource my anxiety to her. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what was keeping him.

Not long after, Kelly came out to find me. Apparantly, Zach had made it partway down the slope, fell, got nervous, and and tried to make it back up to the top. He didn’t have his phone with him, and so asked several skiers if he could use their phone to make a call. Surprisingly, most refused. He made his way back to the top of the mountain and found an employee, who allowed him to use the phone. He called Kelly who then drove up to the top of the mountain to pick him up. He was fine, but wanted to rest for a while.

Meanwhile, Grace was relentless, practicing her runs down the bunny slope again, and again. I’d have to guess that she went down the slope thirty times that day. Later, after resting, Zach returned to the bunny slopes.

That evening, faces sunburned, we headed to a nearby restauarant, The Greene Turtle, for dinner. I think we all slept well that night. The next morning we headed home.

Overall, I’d say the trip was a success. The kids had fun, and would definitely want to do it again. The Littlest Miss, who was half a year too young for lesson, also wanted to do it again. Next year, she’ll be old enough for lessons herself.

Written on March 6, 2022.

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Published on March 10, 2022 05:00

My Desert Island Bookshelf

Given how much I read, I am occasionally asked what my favorite book is. My answer is the same as when my kids ask me what my favorite food is: it depends. With books, especially, I’m no longer certain I can say I have a favorite. I don’t rate books because I don’t find much objective value in rating systems. Instead, I simply indicate if the book is one that I would recommend and/or read again.

Friends, however, rarely let me get away with this answer. They want something definitive. Again, it varies based on all kinds of factors. For instance, my favorite baseball book is currently Joe Posnanski’s The Baseball 100, which recently unseated W. P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe on my personal best-baseball book list. My current favorite fiction series is Craig Johnson’s Longmire books.

My clever friends try another tact: what if you were stranded on a desert island? What book would you want with you then?

Put that way, I have an answer. Indeed, I have a bookshelf just in case such a situation arises. Of all of the books sitting on the shelves in my office, there is a single shelf that I consider to be my desert island bookshelf. The shelf contains the 11-volume Story of Civilization series by Will and Ariel Durant, as well as four other books by the Durants, including their Dual Autobiography. If pressed, this would be my desert island bookshelf.

Why The Story of Civilization, the first of which was published in 1935 and the final volume in 1975? Certainly some of the material is outdated, and new discoveries have supplanted what is in these books. Even so, these eleven volumes provide a history of human civilization that is epic in scope and meticulous in detail. And best of all: I simply love Durant’s writing style. His style can make any subject seem interesting. Then, too, I feel for the Durant’s as I read each volume. You can see from the introductions to each book how the project grew far beyond their original expectations, but they kept going.

The books highlight the key figures of history, so I’d never been lonely for company. But the books also provide a picture of what life was like for the average person, too. The story of civilization is also the story of war and art and literature and science, and thus, I have all of these fascinating subjects as company. At more than 10,000 pages, it would take a while to get through the entire series, so that when I started over again at the beginning, the early parts would seem fresh and at the same time, I’d have additional context from the later volumes. It seems to be I could never be bored with these books on my island.

As it happens, I’ve considered the question of desert island books before. Way back in 2007, I mentioned Will Durant as an author whose books I’d want with me if I was stuck on a desert island for 20 years. In 2014, I considered this question again, and again come up with Will Durant’s Story of Civilization as my desert island books. And in 2017, I once again considered this question, and once again gave as my answer, the Durant’s Story of Civilization as the books I’d want with me on a desert island.

I am nothing if not consistent.

Now if I could only figure out how to take this bookshelf with me when traveling by plane over water, or by sea, so that I have it with me in the unlikely even that I am stranded on a desert island.

Written on March 5, 2022.

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Published on March 09, 2022 05:00

Practically Paperless with Obsidian, Episode 21: Tags in Theory and Tags in Practice (And Never the Twain Shall Meet?)

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Welcome to my blog series, “Practically Paperless with Obsidian.” For an overview of this series, please see Episode 0: Series Overview.

This episode is less of a “how-do-I” and more of a “how-I-struggle with…” post. I have been working with tags for more than a decade and still struggle with them. I wanted to give fair warning at the top in case anyone is expecting brilliant revelations about tagging notes in Obsidian here.

I can’t remember when I first learned of the concept of tags. As someone who grew up during the personal computer revolution, my approach to organizing information was naturally hierarchical. From my earliest days using computers, operating systems organized files in a hierarchical structure, and it seemed natural to follow that model.

Moreover, my schooling, which from 5th grade on paralleled my experience with personal computers–seemed to encourage a hierarchical form of information organization. Textbooks had tables of contents that were organized by Part / Chapter / Section. We used outlines to plan arguments. School notebooks were organized by tabs (remember Trapper-Keepers?). Even something as unbiquious as TV Guide was organized hierarchcally: by Date / Time / Station. Indeed. the closest thing to “tags” that I can think of were the indexes that accompanied many nonfiction books. Entries in these indexes (which themselves were sometimes hierarchical) spanned the hierarchy of the book itself. That is, an entry for “atmosphere, of Earth” might have references in multiple parts, sections, and chapters of the book in question.

First page of the index of the book The Nine Planets by Franklyn M. Branley, the first book I ever checked out of a library.

The first page of the index of The Nine Planets by Franklyn M. Branley, the first book I ever checked out of the library, and the book that introduced me to science and astronomy ,

The best I can say is that my awareness of tags probably came out of the various photo-storage apps and services that began to appear around 2004 or so, a decade after the Internet as we know it began to take shape.

Tags: In theory

These photo apps (Flickr was an early one I recall using) allowed users to “tag” photos with arbitrary keywords. This was a revelation to me. After living in a hierachical box for so long, tags introduced two ways that freed me from that box.

The keywords were completely arbitrary. There was no set list. I could make them up, or choose from words that had already been used.One was not limited to a single keyword. I could tag an image with multiple keywords, placing it in multiple categories at once.

The latter point especially was important. Hierarchies, by their nature, limit where you can place something. A photo, for instance, can be placed in a folder path called /Family/Trips/Italy, or in /Buildings/Cathedrals. To put the photo in both places requires duplicating the photo file and then maintaining it in both places. Tags compliment the hierarchy, allowing one to tag a photo as “Italy” and “Cathedral” simulatenously, without having to duplicate the file.

There was another dimension to tags that I found interesting: crowd-sourcing. Because I first discovered through Internet services like Flickr, tags were often crowd-sourced, meaning anyone could apply tags to photos, thereby creating a kind of public melange of the categorization of images.

At the time, I remember thinking how useful it would be to have the ability to artitrarily tag files in a file system. MacOS introduced such a feature in OS X 10.9 in 2013. When that happened, however, I didn’t jump on it and start tagging my files.

The problem for me was that tags seem like a great idea in theory, but are much more difficult to implement in practice. I discovered this in my first concerted attempt to use tags — back when I was writing my Going Paperless series for Evernote between 2012-2016. Evernote allows you to tag notes with an arbitrary number of user-generated tags. When I began using Evernote (around 2010) I did what I suspect many users did: I started tagging everything without a whole lot of thought about it.

Tags: In practice, a.k.a., by intuition

In practice, tagging has been tricky for me: a classic case of having enough rope to hang myself. It turns out that, for me, at least, tagging comes with the same problems as hierarchical organization: if you just start arbitrarily creating tags, you create a mess of confusion that it is difficult to escape from. Escape is difficult because the process is self-perpetuating, and once started, I find I’d rather go with the flow than to start over from scratch.

What is needed for tags is some kind of taxonomy: a set of rules to follow for when to apply tags, when to create a new tag, and how tags relate to the information they are organizing. Here, however, I come up against a limitation of personal knowledge and experience: I am not a researcher, nor do I have expertise in subjects like library sciences that might provide some kind of guidance in the development of a useful taxonomy for tagging. Ultimately, I am tagging by intuition, which is probably not the best approach.

So back in my Evernote days, I began to think about practical ways in which tagging fits into my note organization, and from that thinking.

1. Tags can span hierarchies

Hiearchical organization can be useful because its very structure provides a map for locating something. I discussed the practical utility (for me) back in Episode 18, when I talked about how I use folders to quickly locate Maps of Content notes. The main limitation to hierarchies from my vantage point is that a note falls into only one path.

Tags can span hierarchies. If you imagine folders and tags as two dimensions of a grid, then the organizational model of notes would look something like this, where folder hierarchies cross horizontally, and tags (in this case, notes tagged “#jamie”) slice vertically across all folders.

an illustration of hierarchical folders show on a horizontal axis and tags shows on a vertical axis

Tags, therefore, compliment hierarchies by allowing you to create categories of notes that span multiple hierachies. In a practical sense, this allows two quick ways of finding a note or collection of notes: by either following a path in a single hierarchy, or by tag for specific collection of notes that span multiple paths in a hierarchy.

2. Tags can be used to quickly identify an arbitrary collection of notes that have a practical everyday utility

I frequently have to find a note related to a specific person. Kelly might ask, “Do you have Grace’s 4th grade report card from the spring?” Or maybe I need my son’s “School Health Entrance Form” for a camp application. One practical arbritrary collection of notes, therefore, is to tag notes by person. I do this way many notes, and these notes often span multiple paths in my folder structure.

This kind of tagging allows me to quickly locate all notes tagged “jamie”, for instance no matter where they are located, and then quickly whittle those notes down to the specific note I am looking for by adding additional search criteria. In the above illustration, the tag #jamie serves as that arbitrary collection of notes.

Similarly, I use tags to identify document types: forms, statements, correspondence, receipts, confirmations, etc. Again, the documents themselves may be spread throughout a file structure, but if I am looking for all school-related forms for my daughter, Grace, then my search would begin with notes tagged “grace” and also tagged “form” — from that result set, I can quickly locate the specific forms in question, regardless of where they are in the file system.

3. Tags can be placeholders for future ideas and concepts

I’ve also found tags useful as placeholders for future ideas and concepts. I described one of these uses in Episode 20, where I illustrated how I tag task lines in my daily notes files with the “post-idea” tag for ideas that I want to write about here on the blog. I then use the dataview plug-in to collect all of the “incomplete” tasks with the tag “post-ideas” in a query that lists the open ideas in a single place.

image showing a checkbox list of blog post ideas, rendered using the dataview plugin and filtered by the tag

There are also subjects that I have a broad interest in, and I’ve taken to using a tag/sub-tag model for captuing notes related to these interests. A few examples include:

theme/theory-of-notestheme/theory-of-worktheme/value-of-readingsports/baseball

This provides a quick way for me to collect notes together around a theme or concept that I am interested in.

Tagging problems I still struggle with

Despite these practical uses, I still feel like an amateur when it comes to tagging, and no doubt this is reflected in my tag structure in Obsidian today. Indeed, just looking at my list of tags in Obsidian makes me cringe a little. It still feels too arbitrary.

There is a time investment required to tag a note, but at the time I tag the note, it is not clear whether or not there is a clear return on that investment of time. Adding a bad tag is worse than adding no tag at all because time invested to add the tag is either wasted or, worse, does not help in locating the tagged document later on.

Another problem is that, intuitively, I feel that I should be using the fewest tags required to find what I am looking for. And yet tags, like rabbits, seem to proliferate faster than I can wrangle them in.

All of this points to a lack of taxonomy. A clearly defined taxonomy provides a scope for tagging, and more importantly, removes any abiguity from the tagging process. In other words, there is no confusion between two tags, no flitting about wondering, should I tag this note using tag A or tag B. It is always clear from the taxonomy how best to tag a note. But a taxonomy requires knowledge and experience that I don’t have, and this comes to the crux of the tagging problem that I struggle with today:

I don’t know enough about what I need to know to define a useful tagging taxonomy.

I have started to tackle this problem using sub-tags to try to identify those areas of interest I want to collect, but even this seems tenuous at best. It is an ongoing process, and the better handle I have on what goes into Obsidian, the better chance I have of coming up with a reasonably useful taxonomy in the long-run.

For now, my biggest take-aways when it comes to tagging are to ask myself the following questions when tagging notes:

Does this tag help to locate the note or collection of notes that it takes?Is this tag clear enough that I will remember it in the future without much thought?Is tagging this note absolutely necessary? Can I find this note easily without a tag?

Outside of some simple, practical use cases that I’ve outlined above, I’m still wary of tags, and yet, ironically, I use them more than I should. I’ve been doing this for more than a decade with only small hints toward a useful taxonomy. Finding the taxonomy that works for me will be the information-theory equivalent of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Prev: Episode 20: Experimenting with the Dataview Plug-In.
Next: Episode 22: Daily Notes Revisited: The Best of Both Worlds?

Written on March 7, 2022.

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Published on March 08, 2022 05:00

Really Smart People

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I have always had a fascination with really smart people. There are kids who grow up wanting to be the next big baseball or football or soccer star. What always impressed me was smart people. I think I first realized this when I watched The West Wing for the first time in the late 1990s. It was a fantasy where the government was run by smart people, people who didn’t apologize for being smart. But I admired really smart people even as a kid. For the last 27+ years, I have worked at a place surrounded by incredibly smart people. When I first started there, I was almost overwhelmed. Everyone seemed smarter than I was. I learned something new from them every day, and that continues to be the case more than 27 years later.

I have met people over the years with smarts that almost seem like a superpower and I am always in awe of them. I have told this story elsewhere, but after selling my first story to Analog Science Fiction back in late 2010, then editor Stanley Schmidt invited me to lunch. I was going to be in New York for the SFWA authors and editors event, and so I headed into Analog’s offices in Manhattan and sat in Stan’s office chatting before lunch. Lunch was at a place called Baluchi’s and in addition to me and Stan, Carl Frederick and Jay Werkheiser were present. Listening to Carl and Jay talk–I can’t find the words to describe it. They went from one disparate topic to another smoothly and seamlessly: astronomy, astrophysics, writing, and even the grammar of Native American languages (both Stan and Carl spoke many languages).

I’ve often thought about why I am so fascinated by smart people. For one thing, it is a super power I wish I had. For another, I judge my own intelligence as about average. I’m not trying to be self-deprecating here. I’ve done very well in some areas, but it is not native smarts, but really hard work. Maybe really smart people also put in a lot of hard work, but when I meet them, or read about them, their abilities seem more like native talent than anything else. Indeed, most of my long-time friends seem far smarter than I am. They see things more quickly than I do. They put two and two together much faster than I can.

I made up for this lack of native talent by continually trying to learn new things. I do this mostly through reading. More than any other reason, this is why I have read more than 1,100 books since graduating from college. Not everything sticks, which is why I’ve been looking for ways to improve how I take notes on what I read. I’ve also learned to recognize what I don’t know. Sometimes, what I don’t know feels like awful lot more than what I do.

I’ve been thinking about this because I’ve been reading a wonderful new biography of John von Neumann: The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann by Ananyo Bhattacharya. Talk about smart! von Neumann seems off-the-charts. My fascination of really smart people has led me to read a lot about really smart people, with the hope of gleaning useful information and insights. von Neumann has to be among the smartest people in modern history. Smarts like that seem almost like a superpower.

I wish I had superpowers like that. I wish I could play multiple games of chess in my head the way the fictional President Bartlett did on The West Wing. I wish I could do advanced math in my head the way people like von Neumann could do. I’ve come to accept that I can’t. Instead, I try to make up with it by hard work and constant reading. I wish I could retain a lot more of what I read, for that matter. But I do the best I can..

As I approach 50, I’ve come to be satisifed with my own smarts, limited though they may be. I’d love to be a polymath, but I’ve accepted being a generalist instead, which is to a polymath what a minor league player is to a major league superstar. I still find myself processing things more slowly than my friends and colleagues. Frequently, in meetings, I will pause to think over something, puzzling it out in my head. These pauses are long enough that I usually have to say, “Hang on, I’m thinking.” I used to feel bad about this since most people I know didn’t do this. Now I’ve come to accept it as a natural limitation of the pathways in my brain.

There are a handful of things that I think I’ve gotten particularly skilled at and that give the illusion of smarts. I’ve been a software developer for about 30 years. Over time I’ve gotten the impression that people think you have to be smart to do this type of work. The truth it that it took me a long time to get a hang of the basics. I learned more or less on my own, from programs printed in computer magazines and spent countless hours writing my own programs to no other end but to learn. I am pretty good at what I do these day, but it’s taken me 30 years to get here. I think that, by definition, is the opposite of “prodigy.”

I find that I am still envious, especially when reading about someone of von Neumann’s abilities. But at least the years have given me the experience to know and accept my own limitations. And despite those limitations, I keep plugging away, trying to learn as much as I can, under the (perhaps false) notion that the more I learn, the smarter I become.

Written on March 2, 2022.

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Published on March 07, 2022 05:00

Little Lost Notebook

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Well, it finally happened. I lost a Field Notes notebook today. I don’t know exactly when it happened. Maybe on my early monrning walk. Maybe sometime later. But I can’t find my notebook anywhere. The good news: I’d just started this notebook a few days ago, so there wasn’t much in it. Also, I’ve gotten into the habit of transcribing important stuff into my daily notes in Obsidian each day. The bad news: it was a brand new “Heavy Duty” edition, which is one of my favorites.

This was bound to happen. Since June 2015, virtually no day has passed without a Field Notes notebook in my back pocket. That’s nearly 7 years. I’ve filled 33 Field Notes notebooks during that time without losing a single one. Until today.

Inside the cover of every Field Notes notebook is a place to record your name, address, dates, and contact information in case the notebook is lost. Maybe someone will find my notebook and try to get it back to me.

picture of the inside cover of a Field Notes Heavy Duty notebook. Places to write name, address, contact info.

The inside cover a Field Notes “Heavy Duty” notebook.

Even though I didn’t really lose anything critical, I was disturbed when I noticed the notebook was missing and I couldn’t find it anywhere. My notebooks is never more than a few feet from me at the most. If it is missing, it must be truly gone, and there was something both frustrating and disappointing about that.

The Heavy Duty editions had sold out for a while, but when Field Notes announced new production of the notebooks, I ordered a bunch of them (I did say they were my favorite) and so I have quite a few in my collection. I have since resigned myself to the fact that the one that I had this morning is gone. A brand new one is in my back pocket as I write this ready for its first ink.

I haven’t written in it yet, though. I keep telling myself that as soon as I write in it, I’ll hear Kelly’s voice from the other side of the house call out and say, “I found your notebook.” Eventually, though, I’ll have to give in, if for no other reason than to jot down the fact that this notebook is a replacement of the first Field Notes notebook I ever lost.

Assuming I lose one out of 34 notebooks, and assuming it takes me nearly 7 years to fill 33 notesbooks, I should expect to lose the next one on about November 6, 2028. If you are still following this blog then, ask me about it and I’ll tell you how things are going.

Written on March 1, 2022.

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Published on March 06, 2022 05:00

Reading for the Week of 2/27/2022

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Here is what I read this week. Some of the articles/posts may require a subscription to read them. I also share my recommended reads on Pocket for anyone who wants to follow along there.

BooksFinished Read

The numbers in parentheses following each book represent: (a) the nth book I’ve finished reading this year, and (b) the mth book I’ve finished reading since January 1, 1996.

The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy (13/1141). I think this one finally sated my desire for thrillers. When I finished it, I felt completely worn out (in a good way) and ready to move on to other things. The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann by Ananyo Bhattacharya (14/1142). Last spring, I read about dozen books on the history of computing and von Neumann kept appearing again and again. So when I saw this new biography on von Neumann, I jumped on it. It is an interesting bio in that it is less about the man than the ideas and concepts he fostered: mathematics, quantum mechanics, his involvement in the atomic bomb program, computers and computing, artificial life. I have a fascination with smart people, and he has to be one of the smartest people ever to live in the 20th century.In Progress Analogia: The Emergence of Technology Beyond Programmable Control by George Dyson. This is an example of what I call a “bridging book”–a book that will take a day or two to read, that takes on some of the concepts from The Man from the Future and gives me some additional insights before I start the next book, which is a big one on an entirely different subject. (Actually, I may squeeze in one more book after this and before the big one.)Gave Up Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy. Like I said, The Sum of All Fears sated me on the thriller for now. I started Debt of Honor but I could tell that I was read to move on to other things. A Short History of Ireland, 1500-2000 by John Gibney. I’m just giving up temporarily, until I am close to our trip, when I will be in a better mental place to focus on the history of Ireland.Articles/posts “It’s time to start…” – Melanie Novak by Melanie Novak (blog, 2/27/22). A typically funny post from Melanie on parental advice.The West’s Plan to Isolate Putin: Undermine the Ruble by Patricia Cohen and Jeanna Smialek (NY Times, 2/28/22)Very Quick Thoughts on Brandon Sanderson’s Mega Kickstarter by John Scalzi (Whatever, 3/1/22). I watched this happen. I randomly came across the live stream on Twitter. All I can say is, good for Brandon. As of this morning, with 26 days to go, the Kickstarted is up to more than $23 million. Brandon is one of those hard-working writers who really impresses me. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed his Stormlight Archive. Moreover, he is a machine when it comes to writing, and for him to squeeze in four “secret” books over the last two years among everything else he writes is simply astounding.A Bad Day, and a Bad Look – JoeBlogs by Joe Posnanski (JoeBlogs, 3/2/22). #sports/baseball.The Game I Love Is Losing Me by Ken Burkhalter (Blog, 3/3/22). My pal Ken has a lot to say about baseball today. I empathize with his frustration. I expressed my own frustration recently as well. #sports/baseballBilly Watson, Child Actor in ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ and ‘In Old Chicago,’ Dies at 98 by Mike Barnes (Hollywood Reporter). What a remarkable life! I love obits like this. #obituaryShow Us Your Work by Seth Godwin (Seth’s Blog, 3/5/22). “Show your work” was something I learned well from my 7th grade science teacher, and I think Seth captures another reason why there is value in this.Write Plain Text Filesby Derek Sivers (blog, 3/2/22). A good overview of the value of plain text files. #theme/theory-of-notesCalm Under Pressure: Here’s Another Example by James Fallows (Breaking the News, 3/4/22). Another great piece on staying calm and level-headed under pressure–using avaition as an example.Caps and Taxes by Joe Posnanski (JoeBlogs, 3/4/22) #sports/baseballObsidian Roundup: Dashboards, Dataview Tips, by Eleanor Kongo (Obsidian Riundup, 3/5/22)

Any recommendations for books, articles or posts I should read? Let me know in the comments?

Written on March 5, 2022.

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Published on March 05, 2022 13:00