Exobrain, or āsecond brainā, or ābrain dumpā is something like public wiki where you can keep your bookmarks, notes, ideas and thoughts. Other people can search in your exobrain without having to physically interact with you. The point is not to avoid physical interaction altogether, but to scale collaboration and knowledge exchange with other people.
It also allows for quicker iteration in writing blog posts or developing thoughts ā I can just quickly publish it here, share it gradually, and receive immediate feedback.
You can find org-mode sources of the files here, and the code to process and compile it here.
My exobrain contains semi-curated notes, tasks and links.
You can read more about exobrain on on its project page.
Granted, there is lots of stuff here, and itās unclear what should you start with (if at all?). It might be useful to explore and overview whatās in my exobrain. Iām still figuring out a system to distinguish ālink dumpā pages for more interesting ones. For now Iām just marking the latter with emojis, like this ā. I imagine *search* as the primary means of interacting with the exobrain. The search yields you results as you type, which means incredibly fast feedback.Note that at the moment itās still in development.
You can also clone the org-mode repository and eplore it in emacs directly. Some pages are quite unprocessed, but hopefully enough to make sense, especially if you are looking for something specific. Note that not everything is my own text:some (if not most?) notes are just clippings Usually the clippings are quoted like this.
, so hopefully itās easy to tell apart whatās quoted and what are my own thoughts. If itās a clipping, doesnāt mean I agree with it, or think the information is true, just means that I found it curious or worthy further research.
Usually the content on the top of the page is somewhat curated and has higher information weight. In the bottom of the page the links Iāve refiled pile up, and itās a bit more chaotic. Usually I separate the two with============================.
For example, see page on python.
First, if they annoy you, can turn toggle them via the settings in the bottom of the page.- timestamps usually correspond to the time I created a bookmark/note, itās useful to assess how relevant is information (e.g. something from 5 years ago is more likely to be irrelevant to me now than something I added yesterday)
- priorities roughly mean how important/valuable I think a piece of information/todo is, for me or other people. Some bookmarks donāt have priorities, which usually means I either havenāt processed them yet.
- todo states (TODO/STRT/DONE) usually mean whether Iāve processed a bit of information, or itās in my queue
- do you really think that what you have here is interesting to anyone Yes, to some people. Itās also useful to me when I want to share something Iāve already written down with other people.
- isnāt it too much information? Yes, I have a certain kind of FOMO. But I think Iām managing it relatively well :)
- are you actually retaining any knowledge? Yes, in fact I canāt imagine learning without notetaking. I certainly donāt retail all of it (or perhaps even most of it). But even knowing where you can find some information in the form you like is a big part of learning process.
- arenāt you making yourself vulnerable by sharing too much unfiltered content? I donāt knowā¦ maybe? This is kind of inevitable with any form of public online communication. I do have beliefs/opinions from several years ago Iām not holding anymore or even cringe at. If you think something I have here is problematic etc., please feel free to reach out, and Iāll be happy to discuss, I realy am open for change.
- āEverything I knowā wiki by Nikita Voloboev
If you want to check out one exobrain, start with this. It was my main inspiration and got lots of high quality and curated stuff.
- xxiivv by Devine Lu Linvega
- h0p3ās Wiki
- Braindump by Jethro Kuan
- āOne Hundred Ideas for Computingā repository by Sam Squire
- more wiki examples from Nikita Voloboev