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How to: Personal Knowledge Management

Note Taking, Writing Better, and Building a Knowledge Base And a review of the book "How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers" by Sönke Ahrens. Context Last year, I read a book called "How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning, and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers" by Sönke Ahrens to improve my writing and notetaking skills. This blog post is meant for anyone who has never heard the word "Zettlekasten" or "Commonplace Notebook", and wants to get better at extracting and maintaining the information they consume.  We need four tools: · Something to write with and something to write on (pen and paper will do) · A reference management system (the best programs are free) · The slip-box (the best program is free) · An editor (whatever works best for you: very good ones are free) — Sönke Ahrens
Recent posts

'A Single Man' by Christopher Isherwood

The book is in-line with the modernist version of the Woolfish 'stream of consciousness' style, characteristic of two prominent members of the Bloomsbury group. I haven't embarked on the voyage of a book that 'Ulysees' by Joyce is, but I am aware of his writing style and look forward to it having read most of Virginia Woolf's works. I absolutely loved the beginning of the book — it caught me off guard; it was so unique and unexpected a way to read about a character, and so poetic in its prose that I ended up highlighting most of the passages. Very much like 'Mrs. Dalloway', the story follows the life of the protagonist, George, over the course of a single day. Unlike 'Mrs. Dalloway', however, it isn't elaborate in the backstories of the other characters in the novel, and doesn't focus too heavily on the other themes underlying the main story of a gay professor in '60s America. There is some bit about the Vietnam War and minorities

A Brief Introduction to Solid State Storage

Note: I wrote this for the AICVS Blog in 2018. They have since then moved to a different website. Publishing this here incase the old one is deactivated (Weebly site) Old website:  https://aicvscummins.weebly.com/home/a-brief-introduction-to-solid-state-storage

Bad Poetry

 Just some bad poetry: --- On Covid: eyes burning  and not from crying is this covid help I'm dying --- For my friends: Ghana Is a place Meghana  Has a face --- Shellfish and cakes Michelle fishes And bakes --- An incomplete poem: (I'll treat anyone who comes up with the last two lines to a coffee) My head is filled with stuff Words are all just fluff And they garble in my mouth Yet I repeatedly spit them out They go back into my brain Through my ears and cause a drain Now my mind is full of crap And has thoughts my head can't wrap  So this poem's come about  On my fourth late night out --- Sad I never thought of a day  When you'd be so far away  I thought we connected  So foolishly, I expected  For you to be there  Waiting for me Read more: https://ruchipendse.blogspot.com/2019/10/sad.html

Book Recs

I like to read. I try to diversify the subject matter to fully utilize my time on Earth by reading the good work of my fellow Earthlings, and accruing knowledge to better understand how the world works.  This is a list of the books I highly recommend: Nonfiction - Simply Einstein: Relativity Demystified, Richard Wolfson - The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, Jonathan Haidt - Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, Matthew Walker - The Epigenetics Revolution: How Modern Biology is Rewriting our Understanding of Genetics, Disease and Inheritance, Nessa Carey - The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood, James Gleick - What is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics, Adam Becker - Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman - The Little Book of Talent, Daniel Coyle - The Demon-Haunted World, Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan - Business Adventures, John Brooks - When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi - Gut: The Inside Story

Creating new pages on Blogger

Blogger's support isn't great.  It took me a while to figure out how to create pages (and have them show up). It turns out that 'Pages' isn't the right place to go (☺☺☺).  How to make pages on Blogger and have them show up Don't go to 'Pages' Make a label you'll use to link the posts to the page Copy the link Go to 'Layout' Click on 'Add Gadget' Decide where you want your pages/subsections of the blog to show up Edit the gadget Click on 'Add External Link' Name the page and add the label's link (that you should've copied) Move pages around according to order preference Click on 'Show Pages' -> Save Et voila! You have pages now. 

2020 TBR: Redone!

Blarb (blurb + blab) There comes a time (usually the middle of the year) when a TBR (to-be-read) starts looking dull and uninteresting. To-be-reads or yearly reading lists tend to suffer from the current bias of being chosen for having great publicity, for being trendy due to societal disruptions, or for being a much-awaited addition to a series. Something of the sort happened to me mid-July [yeah, so not exactly the middle of the year, get over it]. Back in March, when I decided to add books to my 2020 reading list concretely , I thought I'd picked a fair assortment of non-fiction and fiction, of politics and climate change, of politics of climate change, of some core science books related to my domain of interest, and what would hopefully make for interesting reads by writers having a very different perspective than I. However, I soon got disenchanted with the fictional tales I'd chosen to read. I got annoyed at non-fiction authors for not coming to the point. I got deep int