“Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning and self-teaching) is education without the guidance of masters (such as teachers and professors) or institutions (such as schools). Generally, autodidacts are individuals who choose the subject they will study, their studying material, and the studying rhythm and time. Autodidacts may or may not have formal education, and their study may be either a complement or an alternative to formal education.” – Wikipedia.
That reads as impressive, no? All that to say, I enjoy reading, studying and figuring things out on my own, for my own enrichment. Over the years I am slowly fine-tuning the process. I have built my own personal knowledge database which houses decades worth of knowledge, thoughts, writings, white papers etc all in .txt, .pdf and .md formats.
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If you enjoy reading for knowledge, do you receive value for that time? How do you retain what you’ve read? How can you refer back to a specific instance that you came across but can’t remember where?
This is where my personal knowledge management database comes in. I call it “Grey Matter.” Others refer to their database as a “Second Brain.”
A visual graph of decades worth of inter-connected notes in my Grey Matter databaseLook at that web of connected notes!
After converting then, importing all your documents into the database, you then need to sort and organize in a way that seems logical to you. I choose to sort by year/month such as: 2023/03. If you take good notes, you should be able to sort by categories after that. An extra step for me is to backlink each note to another relevant note. Example: By typing double brackets, [[photo workflow]], the database then suggests previous documents with your suggested topic. As soon as you do this, the database generates a link to that document in your current document.
Back-linking for the win
When you perform a search for something you want to recall, look it up and every document with that tag or backlink will display and you can choose your relevant article. Neat, yeah?
Make connections to your thoughts scattered over time
As a self-proclaimed autodidact, I enjoy hybrid models of both, old knowledge and new knowledge. The challenge is discovering solutions to merge the two of them together for your benefit.
You could say I enjoy reading. But what good is all of that time spent if I do not retain that input? I need a system for transforming reading into meaningful action and lasting insight.
Auxiliary Activity-
Other people would call this “hobby reading” but what’s the point of reading if you cannot use expand your intellect and use alternative phrases? Fine, we’ll call it “reading for fun.” I use the Libby library app to connect to the three public libraries I am a member of. Here I can borrow any book title or audiobook that is available. Once borrowed, I will send the book to my Kindle e-reader for consumption. While reading, I can highlight text and even make a digital note about anything of interest to me. Anything I highlight or make note of gets automagically exported out of the Kindle and into my personal knowledge database that I call Grey Matter. From here I can link and backlink thoughts and ideas for later reference.
My Notes & Highlights exported from Kindle and displayed in Grey Matter
Reading For the Informed-
I also enjoy keeping up on the latest technology websites, photography trends, art trends and homegrown blogs like this one right here. I do that through the magic of RSS. With a website reader like Reeder or FeedBin, I can have hundreds of websites aggregate into one spot. They come to me, I don’t go to the websites themselves. From there I can read an article, then either discard or save to read it later as a reference. Notes and highlights are made in there too, and sent off to Grey Matter for when I am ready. Tom Critchlow, refers to it as “digital bricolage” or “web foraging”. Love it.
Highlighting, notes in the marginalia to the right and even the capability to listen to a written article. Cool!
This was first posted on my website back on May 31, 2022, and I’ve added some new thoughts.
Anyone else noticed that today’s WWW is insufferable? I don’t specifically know when it turned, or why most users became jerks, but I’ll go ahead and guess about 2010. Making money off of content became more important than the content itself. This is a long post, but in short, the best way to fix it is to write good stuff and to be nice to other people. As the WWW was intended.
In the past, enjoyed content-rich websites created by people from all walks of life. They built and hosted their websites and networked with others to share their stuff, and it worked. Internet = interconnected. We learned from others, and we benefitted from other’s unique knowledge. Nowadays, there are advertisements everywhere, clickbait headlines as well as the tracking and selling of your private data and browsing habits. Where did all that good stuff go? To Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. etc.
Content creators, webmasters, and anyone with a hobby blog generally gave up and went the easy route of 180 character tweets and generic posts about what they ate and where on Facebook. Boring. People used to write, or photograph, or paint stuff that others would want to read. People used to write blogs, whether they were read or not, no one knew. Aficionados of every imaginable topic would research and post their findings for all to see.
When the tech conglomerates started to gather and consolidate web properties, the content was squeezed out. These platforms were nicknamed Web 2.0 as if version 1 needed upgrading. Version 2 was not an upgrade in my mind, in fact, it made the internet worse. Ad-driven content became a thing. You had to pay to play. The more eyeballs and attention on your stuff can be monetized to the widest possible audience. The internet became deceptive and, oddly, less social. Users became mean and divisive because now there was perceived competition.
It is almost impossible to find good content on the WWW now. Type a topic of interest on a conglomerate-ran browser, and you’ll have to sort through at least two pages of the search to get to anything that isn’t ad-driven and would be relevant to your search. When you do come across an interesting link, you are bombarded with sneaky and not so sneaky tactics to get your attention and your data. Web windows will pop up blocking the content, asking you to submit your personal info and subscribe. Pleas to purchase something that is offered. Advertisements litter the site with most, overwhelming the content you want to see. “Like me on Facebook”, Comment! Subscribe! Retweet! That is just what we see, but goes unseen is the amount of personal data that is collected and distributed to the tech conglomerates. Did you do a search on a medical symptom? Well now, the next website you visit will have a pop-up advertisement on a specific cream to help remedy that. It’s disgusting, invasive, and intolerable.
Where are people writing now instead of their own homegrown webpage? Social media. If you write on Facebook or post images to Instagram, the only people who can see it our the users on the platform. Have a business and your “website” is only a Facebook business page? Half of your potential customers cannot see it unless they are a Facebook user. No, thanks. Instead, people are writing out their limited thoughts on a limited platform that does nothing to further a conversation. That is, if you can actually see it on the FB platform. Facebook’s algorithm guarantees your content will be buried in favor of something they claim is more interesting (read that as attention-getting and therefore more potential ad revenue for them.) I won’t continue on about how the political and social media outlets combined are divisive and spiteful. I stopped both after the 2016 election, and I am blissfully ignorant. All this wasted time, effort, content, and energy spent on these proprietary platforms do nothing for the individual except to make themselves money.
So, what’s the fix?
Create your own website. There are a few free (with ads) hosting options as a start. Or you can use WordPress on your own hosted site. Web hosting and your own domain name will make it yours and on the cheap.
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Write or post anything you’d like. It’s yours to do with as you please. Network. Reach out to other like-minded people and build each other up. If you must use social media, put your content on your site first, then distribute to those outlets. Add a link back to your website and point potential followers there instead. We call it POSSE: “Post On Site, Syndicate Elsewhere.” Send the website owner an encouraging email. Comment on a post of theirs. Subscribe to their RSS feed and don’t miss a thing. Use ad-blockers, browsers that promote privacy and mean it, and a VPN.
One of the pillars of the internet , next to e-mail, is the personal, humble blog. This is defined as the social internet, not social media. Creators, writers, photographers, video hosts, and podcasters all need to put their works on a site that they own and fully control as opposed to posting on restrictive social media outlets. These personal websites will then generate what is called a feed for syndicating their works out to the internet (RSS or Really Simple Syndication). That is step one.
Step two is reminding their followers, their fans and their audience to embrace RSS aggregators, or feed readers so they can continue to enjoy the creator’s content. Sounds simple, yeah?
These RSS readers pull the website owner/creator’s latest articles into an easily readable format that the individual controls. Think of it as a podcatcher…but for reading! Not some algorithms that are driven by social media control or advertising. RSS has no advertising unless the creator mentions their sponsors, that is. You are in charge of what you want to read, who you want to read it from and to save it later for reference- or discard. You are in charge of your intake.
Screenshot of my RSS feed aggregator of choice- Reeder 5
Start by adding sources you know and trust. A source is a place where information comes from. When you add sources to your feed reader, you’ll be able to monitor them all in one place. By sources, I don’t just mean news sites. Sources can include:
Websites/Blogs Subscribe to the RSS feed of any source or publication. Get new posts from industry thought leaders, medium authors, or personal interest blogs like this one.
Magazines Follow everything from major industry publications to niche magazines.
News publications Follow major news publications or local news sources.
Research journals Keep up with the newest literature in your area of study.
Twitter
Pull content from Twitter accounts, hashtags, Lists, and searches into your feed reader. No ads!
Newsletters
Get email newsletters delivered to your reader so you can declutter your e-mail inbox and read without distractions.
Reddit
Get posts from subreddits and searches in your feeds.
Youtube
Subscribe to YouTube channels or playlists and get new videos in your feeds. No Ads!
Podcasts
Follow podcasts and never miss out on new episodes of your favorite programs.
Which feed reader should you use?
Start simple and free- try Feedly ( no, this is not a paid endorsement) In fact, I started to use Feedly a long time ago but opted for a cleaner, more personal aggregate called Reeder and FeedBin. These are one time purchases for me. Feedly has iOS, Android and web apps so you can access your feeds. Your news, your way.
It is way past time to delete your social media accounts and rejoin the social internet, like we used to do. The World Wide Web is a much better place and it starts with all of us taking control of our websites and consuming them our way. And of course I would appreciate being one of the first web sources you add to your new RSS feed reader. When you do, drop me an email to let me know. It is the social internet after all. If you have a website, I’d be happy to subscribe to it in my feed too.
Finally, make good content to share for anyone who may take an interest and be nice to others.
After years of dragging my feet, I have finally purchased not one, but two, Amazon Kindle e-reader devices. The first was a cheap ($15) Fire tablet from a pawn shop. I had no intention of buying anything, just a passing curiosity, but then I saw it and thought, Why not have a dedicated reader? I liked it. Furthermore, I enjoyed having a smaller tablet to read myself to sleep with every night, rather than a large iPad or my phone. However, the weight of the tablet, the highly reflective, smudgy, glass screen and the fact that the tablet had the capability for distractions (apps) had me wondering if I should just go back to what I had using the iPhone instead.
I came across the Kindle Paperwhite edition yesterday and took another look at the possibilities. This is a minimal, reading-focused, no distraction reader that has a wonderful glare-free screen that weighs less than nothing. Perfect. So I left the store and stewed on it. Not two hours later, I went back and purchased.
After signing in to a new Amazon account (ugh, I despise Amazon) I realized there were constant ads on the Home Screen. Nope. After researching online, I discovered they can be removed for a $20 fee? I chatted up an Amazon rep, and they were able to waive the $20 instantly. Now it is perfect again. I have no intention of purchasing digital books from Amazon ever again. I learned this way back in 2013 when I canceled my original Amazon account and discovered I could not take my books with me. Digital Rights Management (DRM) be damned. For the past few years, I have enjoyed reading books from public libraries using their Libby app on my iDevices. But now I can read in their app or send to the Kindle instead. Brilliant. Now I need a solution to export all highlights and notes I make on the Kindle to other software platforms to use as a reference. I hope that with the proper tools such as the Kindle, I will be able to exceed my reading goals again.
After years of dragging my feet, I have finally purchased not one, but two, Amazon Kindle e-reader devices.
The first was a cheap ($15) Fire tablet from a pawn shop. I had no intention of buying anything, just a passing curiosity but then I saw it and thought, “Why not have a dedicated reader?”. I liked it. I enjoyed having a smaller tablet to read myself to sleep with every night as opposed to a large iPad or my phone. However, the weight of the tablet, the highly reflective, smudgy, glass screen and the fact that the tablet had the capability for distractions (apps) had me wondering if I should just go back to what I had using the iPhone instead.
I came across the Kindle Paperwhite edition yesterday and took another look at the possibilities. This is a minimal, reading-focused, no distraction reader that has an amazing glare-free screen that weighs less than nothing. Perfect. So I left the store and stewed on it. Not two hours later I went back and purchased.
After signing in to a new Amazon account (ugh, I despise Amazon) I realized there were constant ads on the Home Screen. Nope. After researching online, I discovered they can be removed…for a $20 fee? I chatted up an Amazon rep and they were able to waive the $20 instantly. Now it is perfect again.
I have no intention of “purchasing” digital books from Amazon ever again. I learned this way back in 2013 when I canceled my original Amazon account and discovered I could not take my books with me. Digital Rights Management (DRM) be damned.
For the past few years I have enjoyed reading books from public libraries using their Libby app on my iDevices. But now I can read in their app or send to the Kindle instead. Brilliant.
Now I need a solution to export all highlights and notes I make on the Kindle to other software platforms to use as a reference.
I hope that with the proper tools such as the Kindle, I will be able to exceed my this year’s reading goals again.
I just started and finished (33m) my first book of 2023 titled “Fushigi na Toshokan” or “The Strange Library” by Haruki Murakami. A fantastical illustrated short novel about a boy imprisoned in a nightmarish library. The story of a lonely boy, a mysterious girl, and a tormented sheep man plotting their escape from a nightmarish library, the book is like nothing else Murakami has written.
Although, at 96 pages with beautiful illustrations by Chip Kidd, I would consider this a short story, or micro fiction.
I have a particular hatred of American politics and its ability to worm its way into everything. During the entire Trump administration, even tech blogs managed to sneak in some snark and commentary. No thanks. All media and social media were covering the poison of politics (still do) and then infiltrating everything that large-scale services suggest I should read. Now, media outlets auto-suggests posts that they think I want to read, which means I don’t read as much. It is not clear how the recommendations work, but clearly, some people are reading these posts, but that person is not me.
Taking recommendations from a broad a selection of people, or making all the suggested posts human-curated. This may work for some people, but again, not I.
In a world of algorithms and intelligent services, you would think that someone, somewhere would be able to learn what I enjoy reading and recommend more like it. I do not want to live in an echo chamber, but I want to avoid having to put in as much work as I do to find enjoyable articles. This is precisely the type of useful application new technology should have instead of manipulating people on media and social media. Can I not just find things for me of interest to read?
Whether you are sick of social media, want to get away from endless notifications, or just want to read all your news all in one spot, an RSS reader can help. RSS stands for “really simple syndication.” It’s a protocol that allows an RSS reader to talk to your favorite websites and get updates from them. Instead of visiting 10 different sites to see what’s new, you view a single page with all new content. There are two parts to RSS: the RSS reader and the RSS feeds from your favorite websites. RSS has been around a while now, so there are a lot of very good RSS readers out there. Most of them feature built-in search and suggestions too, so you don’t have to go hunting for RSS feeds yourself. You just might discover some cool new sites to read, too.
Wired magazine
If you’re reading this, then you are most likely a someone who spends some part of your day reading. For as long as I can remember (2005?) RSS has been the backbone of my web reading experience. Reeder is my RSS client and GoodLinks is my read-it-later/bookmarks client. If you want to get started with RSS these are both great apps.
Once you discover how to consume content with RSS, I’m sure there is no going back because the user experience in RSS is so much better than consuming content on an advertisement-infested, tracker-filled website.
Not too many things can beat a free public library card paired with the Libby e-reader app. I’ve downloaded and read so many e-books from there this year that I’ve beaten my goal of twenty two books for 2022. I knocked out that goal by March and I am still going. I do want to try my luck and download the audio book to listen to during the day, and finish the day with the digital form as well but I haven’t been that lucky to get both at the same time so far.
Since cancelling my Apple One subscription, I’ve lost out on the News app which includes magazines. Well, thankfully they are available through the library/Libby app as well. Huzzah!
And here is another plug for book titles in the public domain. Project Gutenberg and Standard E-Books help fill in the gap on classic literature reading. My digital bookshelf is stocked.
