elsewhere
I've decided to index, as much as I can, comments I make as mistersquid on the Internet. I will eventually add a subdomain that keeps track of such items, sort of like "'type = "Internet postings"' AND 'author = "mistersquid"' NOT 'domain = "mistersquid.com"'".
Here's the first (and only) one I'll post here.
to #8: In the days of yore, people communicated with business employees by phone and, if you really wanted to get things done b2b or intracorporate, you or your proxy composed a physical artifact known by various names including "letter," "missive," "memo," and "fax."
That physical artifact would then make its way through a loosely connected series of automated machines, bureaucratic channels, and filing systems into what was called an "In Box," which had little resemblance to present day digital incarnations of the "In box" in email software both client- and web-based.
It is now anthropological consensus that such "In Boxes" were, in fact, instruments of torture designed to punish employees who actually used their vacation days (another unfamiliar concept which even Wikipedia has no concept of). Such "In Boxes" invariably filled with urgent messages in an employees' extended absence. The era during which such instruments were widely used is today variously referred to as "The Reagan era", "High Postmodernism," and "The good ol' days."
Mark this post and/or keep an eye on the sidebar (or use RSS already) to check for the subdomain once it's available. 
Comments
#1
Hi...this isn't a comment on your blog, but I couldn't find another way to get in touch with you. I'm writing in regards to your post on the Metafilter topic "The Future of Reading", to wit:
"All my research now exists as a database that can be annotated, searched, and extended, and PDFs (of books, journal articles, magazine articles, etc.) form the core of this database. (What I'm calling a "database" is actually an XML document I manage with Tinderbox, EndNote, and BBEdit.)"
I'm VERY interested in seeing what this looks like. Although not a Mac user, I'm familiar with XML and it seems to take care of so many info-storage problems nicely. In your opinion, are the capabilities of Tinderbox et. al. so wonderful that it's worth switching to a Mac? Or, failing that, is there an equivalent framework for Windows?
(As an aside, I've been dabbling with a web-based office program (Google Docs) for the last two months and I find myself turning to it more and more. Combine that with an online doc-storage mill like DivShare and it seems that I'd end up with something approximating your PDF-based research storage. Without all the extra functionality that XML provides, of course. Have you used any web-only service?)
Thanks for your attention,
Mark K.
mjklin (at) gmail (dot) com
Posted by: Mark Klingman | December 27, 2007 3:22 PM