Top all-time · #3217
Steven Berlin Johnson
Personal blog · stevenberlinjohnson.comwritingculturedesign
Steven Berlin Johnson's personal blog at stevenberlinjohnson.com covers writing, culture and design. Since 2007, 24 different Hacker News readers have linked it 58 times, most often “Tool for Thought (2005)”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
The linked posts cover ideas, note-taking, tools for thought, and a review of The Shallows. One commenter called an article enlightening; the other comments are bare links or citations.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Tool for Thought (2005)4 people · 25 mentions · first linked 2009-10-05
- Steven Berlin Johnson - The Glass Box and the Commonplace Book3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2010-04-23
- The Glass Box and the Commonplace Book (2010)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-05-14
- Tool for Thought2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-03-05
What Hacker News says?
I wonder if they're experiencing feature creep because they've satisfied users of the core features. I use a program called Devonthink Pro according to this method: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/0002... and in some respects my use hasn't changed that much. I use syncing features and some other pieces, and maybe the engine has gotten a little better over time, but mostly I do what I did with…
Comment linking /movabletype/archives/000230.html
on “Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices”Submitted Ray Ozzie on Lotus Notes and Slow Hunch Innovation (2011) as a story · 61 points
HN discussion1. I use Devonthink Pro for notes / research: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/0002... . 2. Many use Scrivener for writing, but I have never quite managed to agree with it properly, so I just use Word. 3. I use Bookends: http://sonnysoftware.com/ for citations. No one it seems really likes their citation manager, but I like this one best. See also http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2011/06/02/p…
Comment linking /movabletype/archives/000230.html
on “How I wrote and published my novel using only open source tools”Submitted Is Steve Jobs Repeating His Past Mistakes? as a story · 39 points
HN discussionThe think I miss most is the quality software. Apple users are willing to pay for software, so you have great apps like Scrivener, OmniFocus, Coda, etc Interesting that you say that: I just wrote to Literature & Latte (makers of Scrivener) asking about Linux, and they said they shut down development, which is a shame: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&... . I suggested a Kickstarter. On Lin…
Comment linking /devonthink-continued-94e972b6d2f
on “Panic’s Next Editor”Submitted Can We Please Kill This Meme Now as a story · 33 points
HN discussionYes please! Anybody needs such a thing for blogging anyway! I wrote this in another comment, but a tool like this already exists: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/0002... and has for about a decade. I drop all my blog posts in Devonthink Pro, and I'm often surprised by the connections that emerge.
Comment linking /movabletype/archives/000230.html
on “What if journalists had story writing tools as powerful as those used by coders?”Submitted Tool for Thought (2005) as a story · 24 points
HN discussionGreat article, and great idea. I'm not a journalist but I do a lot of writing, and I actually use a program called Devonthink Pro in the manner described here by Steven Berlin Johnson: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/2005/02/devonthink_cont.h... . It's surprisingly close to the tools Lindenberg is describing.
Comment linking /2005/02/devonthink_cont.html
on “What if journalists had story writing tools as powerful as those used by coders?”Submitted Thoughts on Steve Jobs, The Book as a story · 14 points
HN discussion>I used to keep a larger, more generic "spark file" but I found it got to be too big to navigate. So I throw away more ideas now, and only write down ones that have serious merit, placing them in specific files instead of a "kitchen sink" catchall file. You could also use Devonthink Pro, as described here: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/0002... as a placae for all this material, including th…
Comment linking /movabletype/archives/000230.html
on “How I Learned to Defrag My Brain”Submitted The Glass Box and the Commonplace Book (2010) as a story · 8 points
HN discussionI just found out that the founding father's intention of political system was modeled after the science movement in the 18th Century. This article and the video link below is enlightening. Thank you. http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/2009/01/a-video-introduct...
Comment linking /2009/01/a-video-introduction-to-air.html?cid=148860655
on “Keep Your Identity Small ”Submitted Old Growth Media And The Future Of News as a story · 4 points
HN discussionA lot of the comments here about memory, recall, and learning are dealt with in Daniel T. Willingham's Why Don't Students Like School ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/047059196X?ie=UTF8&tag=... ), which describes a lot of things, including how we move from a state of no knowledge to shallow knowledge to deep knowledge in particular problem domains. People with no knowledge and who have some introduced tend not to…
Comment linking /movabletype/archives/000230.html
on “Why read books if we can’t remember what’s in them?”Submitted Why Building The Geographic Web Is Hard as a story · 4 points
HN discussionOne of my favorite, unexpected benefits of blogging is it's like a time-machine/memory dump for your brain. I've had this experience too, albeit not in a coding sense. I will say, however, that I use Devonthink Pro according to Steven Berlin Johnson's scheme: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/0002... to archive my own posts, as well as other quotes, writing, and so forth, and DTP's "see also" a…
Comment linking /movabletype/archives/000230.html
on “Why Every Professional Should Consider Blogging”Submitted Tool for Thought (2005) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI get the analogy and see the value in it, but I'll point out where the TV isn't like a book: 1. Books are obviously composed of text, and, when you read, you're also imbibing the rhythms of the language you're reading (see http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2007/12/24/071... for more on this). 2. Related to number one, many more of us need to write than need to shoot and edit videos. Reading skill is rel…
Comment linking /movabletype/archives/000230.html
on “The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show”Submitted The Glass Box and the Commonplace Book (2010) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI use Devonthink Pro: http://devon-technologies.com/products/devonthink/index.html , which has a handy bookmarklet so I can highlight text, click a button, and have it automatically saved to my main database, along with the URL where it came from. I use DTP as described here: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/0002... .
Comment linking /movabletype/archives/000230.html
on “How to Raise Boys Who Read”Submitted Steven Berlin Johnson - The Glass Box and the Commonplace Book as a story · 3 points
HN discussionCan it be used in a way similar to the fashion Steven Berlin Johnson uses Devonthink Pro: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/0002... ?
Comment linking /movabletype/archives/000230.html
on “Evernote CEO to entrepreneurs: "don't do it"”Submitted Tool for Thought (2005) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIf a "Dropbox" style product would also index everything I send it so I could have a search experience like I do with Xobni I'd certainly pay extra for it. This sounds very similar to DevonThink Pro: http://devon-technologies.com/products/devonthink/index.html , which I use daily, mostly along the lines that Steven Berlin Johnson describes here: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/0002... .
Comment linking /movabletype/archives/000230.html
on “Stephen Wolfram Uses This”Submitted Tool for Thought as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIt's interesting to me that EN is apparently in deep trouble partially because of buggy feature releases. Three days ago I wrote this comment in response to the last article about EN: I wonder if they're experiencing feature creep because they've satisfied users of the core features. I use a program called Devonthink Pro according to this method: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/0002... and in…
Comment linking /movabletype/archives/000230.html
on “Evernote is in deep trouble”Submitted “How We Got to Now, the Book” as a story · 2 points
HN discussionMy rig is here: http://jseliger.com/2010/05/02/writing-space-2010/ . 24" iMac with an external monitor; will probably be replaced by a 27" iMac with an SSD in the coming months. Expanding screen real estate / secondary monitors are probably the two greatest productivity enhancements I've seen in the last ten years. Software: 1) Mostly Word, Textmate, and Mellel. The first for documents I have to send to others; the…
Comment linking /movabletype/archives/000230.html
on “Ask HN: What do you use?”Submitted Tool For Thought (2005) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
