hamster-system VS computer

My "organization scheme" (as you call it) took me years to refine to match my brain/personality. Seems to be interesting to others also:

https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system

I mostly read HN. Unfortunately is like drinking from a firehose.. My take to stay sane:

- If it's interesting I upvote. If it's really interesting I bookmark on my browser. This still means ~20 links weekly..

- Once a week I copy/paste browser bookmarks to my markdown file[0] At least every month I tree shake them. Time passes and some stuff are not so relevant/interesting anymore. Eventually they move to my notebook[1] or to my news aggregator[2].

[0] https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system

[1] https://github.com/slowernews/notebook

[2] https://github.com/slowernews/slowernews

I have been using a ~/notes folder with markdown files edited with vim on my computer and markor on my phone synced with syncthing. That works well. But I am also a fan of paper notes and find that they "stick" better in my memory, and I am more conservative and intentional with what I physically write. However I end up with an out of sync feeling - some information stored digitally, some in a notebook. I've been considering strategies to address this.

One strategy I thought of is to use a single markdown file like the Hamster system [1] and alphabetize the sections; then I print this file and take handwritten notes onto the print out; then when the diff is large enough, I update the markdown file, print it again, and repeat. The main disadvantage is needing to reprint the full file for what could be small changes. To address that I have considered putting a page return between each letter of the alphabet, so each section starts on a new page.

Do you have any strategies to effectively synchronise paper with digital notes?

[1] https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system

I used to track it every month. I've loosen up to every quarter and then to semiannual

[0] https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system#hamster-budget-...

Completely agree. There's a myriad of note-taking apps looking for the holy grail of note-taking. AFAIK none has found it so the answer may be within us: keep it simple and steady.

I like to control so I dump everything in a plain text file. That's it. One long file is easier to manage than many short files. See it as a flat wiki and use built-in search for navigation.

This file is not write-only: progressively summarize and tree-shake it each time you iterate your notes. You'll leverage your excitement instead of forcing discipline. Ideally, notes are organized by project, not by category. It can be a catalyst for action and reviews. After several years I still think (personal) notes history is irrelevant. YMMV.

My take: https://github.com/slowernews/hamster-system

gs (ghostscript), mutool, ocrmypdf...

To add/remove: mutool merge -h

To split PDF pages: mutool poster -h

I made a script here that I use frequently for scanned documents: https://github.com/chapmanjacobd/computer/blob/main/bin/pdf_...

Shrink PDFs: gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile=out.pdf in.pdf

(or switch prepress to ebook to shrink more)

or to really shrink, b&w only:

gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sProcessColorModel=DeviceGray -sColorConversionStrategy=Gray -dDownsampleColorImages=true -dOverrideICC -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/screen -dColorImageDownsampleType=/Bicubic -dColorImageResolution=120 -dGrayImageDownsampleType=/Bicubic -dGrayImageResolution=120 -dMonoImageDownsampleType=/Bicubic -dMonoImageResolution=120 -sOutputFile=out.pdf in.pdf

I've been putting my whole home folder under git for almost a year [1].

I haven't seen any other repos on GitHub with a similar layout. Why do people rely on GNU Stow and other complicated tools to essentially do what git does? I haven't noticed any performance problems with just using git.

[1]. https://github.com/chapmanjacobd/computer/

with these settings: https://github.com/chapmanjacobd/computer/blob/main/.github/firefox/ublacklist-settings.json

The problem with a lot of these tools is there is no incremental escape hatch. I had 25,000 tabs last year which I saved as a line delimited text file.

Then every day I automate opening 7 tabs and I force myself to get through them. Sometimes it takes 2 minutes, sometimes it takes an hour. Sometimes it ends with me adding 50 more links to the text file. Sometimes the tabs are garbage but often they are worthwhile.

https://github.com/chapmanjacobd/computer/blob/main/.config/...

https://github.com/chapmanjacobd/computer/blob/main/.config/...

But over the past year I've gone through 2,555 tabs! So it seems like it is working. Maybe in 10 years I'll reach tab zero

autocrop.lua

I started doing this with my phone and it made formatting my phone painless. The hardest part is getting started. I still haven't added all my config files to git; I have a daily script that will remove one line from my home directory gitignore so I can incrementally add config files. And it has already brought me a lot of peace of mind even if I'm only like 30% of the way done on the desktop.