PICC: pragmatics of intellectual consumption and creation

1. Collation buffer

mastering your tool of expression and knowledge maintenance
iterating on your efficiency : finding better local optima over time
reading, writing : essential to any intellectual pursuits
- on the importance of reading and writing
hard and soft skills around getting good with text
- speed reading and touch typing
aspects of an intellectual pursuit
- calling upon a malleable and ever-growing context for separate domains and to be able to switch on demand
Interaction with your tools : efficiency and hiding the unnecessary details
- having the right set of tools that don't get in your way and allow to edit close to the speed of thought
- leveling it up to having a cohesive environment that allow you to maintain a uniform interaction experience.
how your data is represented matters a lot : should be easily exportable to several convenient formats
Having a process that allows you to capture thoughts conveniently without it being a burden in itself is a huge improvement

meta post about creating and consuming stuff : important part of any intellectual career out there.

why bother creating and consuming intellectual stuff?
why do you need to proactively maintain a good consumption and creation pipeline?
why bother finding better tools and not just settle for something that's good enough
- waxing and waning : improvement not a linear journey
  - take 2 steps forward, step 1 back, consolidate, repeat.
- over several years, you're faster with lower efforts and your tools aren't the bottlenecks towards executing an idea

how to choose between several tools solving the same issue?
how to maintain a balance between meta-improvements and actual project progress?

touches upon the basic skills that'll put you above average if you explicitly invest effort initially
- overcharging your basic cognitive IO : speed reading and touch typing
  - discuss ways to get going and maintain
- building an extensive knowledge base : has a vast cover and will allow you to explore boundaries of your current epistemological boundaries with relative ease than if you didn't have a system in place.
special section for programmers:
- ditching the mouse
- actionable steps to getting good with editing text
  - get used to the CLI
  - know the basics in a worst case scenario:
    - sed, awk, grep : if you want to quickly edit a config file in a minimal docker container without creating any more layers
  - vi :- the philosophy of treating text as an artform
  - customization :- bending the computer to your will
    - let your tools inherit your personality
    - while retaining one of its own
    - you shouldn't be using the tool
      - rather having a conversation with it
  - emacs :- freedom - an OS in itself
    - the point of this post is not to dive into the details of the tools themselves but to introduce their capabilities
    - deserves a post in itself

striking a balance between being aware, living under a rock (this is where I am in my default state) and being distracted is subtle.
delegate the work of finding quality posts to the community aka wisdom of the masses.
platforms that you know won't auction off your attention to sponsors is something you should actively maintain
- see really simple syndication

hope this post inspires you to look at your consumption/creation pipelines in a new light and sparks the same enthusiasm I harbor towards regularly sharpening the proverbial intellectual axe - do chop away : I'd be glad to read about your epistemological anvils and furnaces.