Midnight Pub

Was hypertext a mistake?

~coldwave

I remember watching a documentary about "the internet" where this guy, seemed a bit crazy even for early techy Californian*, was very into how the multidimensional and nonlinear information display is the future and is going to change everything.

Maybe it's hard to read Wikipedia because my brain is busy planning a few steps ahead and remembering all the links from further up I want to click on next? How is this working for you people? Feel like it doesn't fit your brain?

\* possible a famous personality and I'm embarrassing myself


nargran

Nowadays for learning I usually stick to PDF/Djvu books from libgen. There's nothing like a well structured, professionally typeset book IMO

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whiskeyding

My 'solution', if you can even call it that, is to make my primary computer a Raspberry Pi Zero running a bash terminal :)

Your surfing becomes a rather dedicated affair at that point, since Lynx and w3m simply don't render a lot of pages in a readable fashion. I just stopped going to those pages.

I can get podcasts, gemini, weather, email, even texting via an SMS > XMPP gateway service. It's not always easy or convenient, but it does feel healthier than 'surfing' or god forbid, YouTube. The hours I've wasted...

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tlf

I tried that before but found I spent more time on configuration and searching the correct keyboard shortcut that I went back to save time. But for the more technically inclined it sounds really wholesome. I'd love something like that with an e-ink monitor.

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2pie

I totally get what you're saying (...writing ?). I guess that is why tabbed browser were invented, you can open links in the background while you read the page, and when finished you go to the next tab.

I don't like that though, I always feel oppressed by the new tabs waiting.

I tried tabless browsing a few month ago, and it felt great, calm and peaceful. You still have to remember to go this "link that looked interesting" when you're done, but you have to finish your page first.

Maybe a solution would be a tabless browser where you can add a marker to links ? As a reminder to visit it when you're done ?

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tlf

I'm working on that too. I don't know if I'll ever just have one tab, but I've gone from tens to fewer than five. Just have to remember to bookmark.

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analog

I find bookmarks worse than tabs. Bookmarks are where things go to die and take up space. My current working theory is unless they are just links to sites you use everyday for work or whatnot, instead of bookmarking a site, do something with it, for example write a journal entry about the information on the site, or start writing a program and just link the site in the comments of the code if you need it for reference.

Bookmarks are a way for your brain to lie to you saying "ya, i'll get to that later, I promise."

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tlf

These days my tabs arent usually coding related. A journal is a good idea, but personally I'm terrible at retrieval afterwards. I havé notebooks that get ignored, possibly due to an overdeveloped web-search reflex. So maybe it would be good to develop a new habit.

I can live with bookmarks hoarding since I don't browse those anyway. but they do pop up as suggestions when I begin typing something relevant in the url bar, which is helpful.

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analog

I had the same journal problem, so now I (try) to go through the past week of journal entries every week and pull out the parts I find important/useful , and create a digital weekly review page that I go back and skim over.

I'm trying to make my journal a less of a write it and forget it type of place, and more of a starting point for ideas. Use the journal as a playground, and then come through and curate out the good ideas into a more long term location.

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tlf

"write it and forget It"

Oh, that's exactly my problem :) So you review and summarize/reduce?

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analog

Yup, I put markers in my journal of the last place I ended my last review, and then I go from that point to the current end capturing all the key points in a digital file that I come back and review occasionally.

Currently it's all text, but I'm going to start taking pictures of the things of a more graphical nature that I want to save and improve on.

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tlf

That sounds like a good system, thanks for sharing. I try to use plain text files as much as possible. So I'm using Sublime Text with tabs running down the left side. But something like One Note would probably help even more - I just have a hangup about using silo'd things like that.

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2pie

I like this idea of taking notes while browsing and putting the links directly in the notes. It might help keeping focus and avoid zombie-browsing.

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analog

So I've had this thought to, and I think you should try it. Because if you are like me, you'll find that most sites have no content worth taking notes on. I set the bar even lower, just try to have the site give you an idea, any idea, but most sites couldn't even do that.

although I had another thought; when I browse the web, my brain switches from creator mode to consumer mode, and in consumer mode it's a lot harder to come up with ideas.

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