Pungent is a web-based note-taking app that I’m working on. I made this because I had a need for something to organize personal notes, but nothing I found was satisfactory. Right now it’s essentially a less-featured clone of Workflowy, but I plan to develop it further once I figure out what direction to go in. Development is on hold for the moment while I spend some time using it and figuring out what I want it to do.
I’m also working on a research project to try to understand how human cognition works. I think FAI is really interesting + important, but I’m baffled by the decision theory approach that seems to be popular around here. Not that I have strong reasons to believe that this line of inquiry should not be pursued, but every time I think about intelligent entities purely in terms of decision theory (i.e. as entites with a “utility function” that assigns values to “states of the world”, and then takes actions which maximize said utility), I notice that I am confused.
So I’m wading through neuroscience papers at the moment. Spatial cognition and memory seem like a well-studied phenomena that are likely to act as a foundation for other cognitive abilities, and so seems like as good a place to start as any. I don’t have a website up yet for my findings, but here’s what I’ve been looking at to start:
The Medial Temporal Lobe is a good review of structures in the MTL, which includes structures important for spatial cognition and memory.
I’ve also been looking at Jeff Hawkins’ work on Hierarchical Temporal Memory because it is not simply another neural network model, but is actually proposed to be a model of the neocortex. Even if his views on intelligence are wrong or highly incomplete, his methodology seems sound: his work is biologically-grounded, but he doesn’t get caught up in unnecessary details.
My goal for this project is to become less confused about Friendly AI. I’d like to set up a webpage to record my progress on this project, so I’ll likely edit this post when I have a link for that.
Anyway, it’s pretty darn amazing. I’ve hunted around a lot for various notes/todos solutions, probably like yourself—OneNote, EverNote, Google Notebook, TiddlyWiki, Monkey-Pirate-GTD-TiddlyWiki, TaskPaper (also pretty much what Workflowy looks like), Task Coach, iGTD...
Yeah, I’ve tried org-mode, but the problem isn’t that its Emacs-based (I use Emacs to write code), but it’s that it isn’t web-based. I wanted my notes to be accessible not only from both OSes I dual boot, but from pretty much any computer I might ever be at. I could make the file accessible I guess by putting it in a Dropbox public folder, but then there’s still the issue of “what if the computer I’m on doesn’t have Emacs”.
Also the time-intensitivity thing of rolling my own code isn’t a major drawback, as I’m trying to find a programming job at the moment and I needed something to add to my portfolio. :D
Good points, especially if you’re trying to get into programming anyway :)
Out of curiosity, could I ask how often you’re at a computer that you need the functionality of org-mode which doesn’t run emacs? I can’t really think of an occasion when I’d need the functionality that wouldn’t be my own computer. I’ve also run emacs successfully on Linux, Win, and OS X.
I keep my personal org-mode file on my OS X partition and edit it both from Linux and OS X (I keep it on OS X because Linux can read non-journaled HFS+, but OS X doesn’t read EXT4 and is touch with EXT2/3).
Lastly, I’ll actually often use git between work and home. I pull from either when I start up, edit my stuff, and then commit and push when I’m done.
I ask about the functionality because you can open the file with any text editor on any computer if you just need to get into your data here and there. You could also add headlines manually pretty easily. Again, you might have a far different use case than I do. I just can’t think of needing to access my org-mode file frequently from, say, a public library or a friend’s computer.
Pungent is a web-based note-taking app that I’m working on. I made this because I had a need for something to organize personal notes, but nothing I found was satisfactory. Right now it’s essentially a less-featured clone of Workflowy, but I plan to develop it further once I figure out what direction to go in. Development is on hold for the moment while I spend some time using it and figuring out what I want it to do.
I’m also working on a research project to try to understand how human cognition works. I think FAI is really interesting + important, but I’m baffled by the decision theory approach that seems to be popular around here. Not that I have strong reasons to believe that this line of inquiry should not be pursued, but every time I think about intelligent entities purely in terms of decision theory (i.e. as entites with a “utility function” that assigns values to “states of the world”, and then takes actions which maximize said utility), I notice that I am confused.
So I’m wading through neuroscience papers at the moment. Spatial cognition and memory seem like a well-studied phenomena that are likely to act as a foundation for other cognitive abilities, and so seems like as good a place to start as any. I don’t have a website up yet for my findings, but here’s what I’ve been looking at to start:
Place cells, grid cells, and the brain’s spatial representation system—decent, recent review article for spatial cognition.
Tracking the Emergence of Conceptual Knowledge during Human Decision Making is a recent paper with some findings that seem relevant to understanding “concepts”.
The Medial Temporal Lobe is a good review of structures in the MTL, which includes structures important for spatial cognition and memory.
I’ve also been looking at Jeff Hawkins’ work on Hierarchical Temporal Memory because it is not simply another neural network model, but is actually proposed to be a model of the neocortex. Even if his views on intelligence are wrong or highly incomplete, his methodology seems sound: his work is biologically-grounded, but he doesn’t get caught up in unnecessary details.
My goal for this project is to become less confused about Friendly AI. I’d like to set up a webpage to record my progress on this project, so I’ll likely edit this post when I have a link for that.
A free wordpress blog would probably work well as a research journal. They’re really easy and look nice.
Did you mean to respond to nhamann instead of me? He won’t get a message from you responding to my comment.
Yes—fixed and thanks for the heads up!
orgmode does this insanely well and looks like what workflowy does but less flashy and not web-based. You can narrow to a subtree (see C-x n s) and then un-narrow (see C-x n w). In addition, you can track todos, record data in tables, export to html, PDF, or even a Beamer presentation.
Anyway, it’s pretty darn amazing. I’ve hunted around a lot for various notes/todos solutions, probably like yourself—OneNote, EverNote, Google Notebook, TiddlyWiki, Monkey-Pirate-GTD-TiddlyWiki, TaskPaper (also pretty much what Workflowy looks like), Task Coach, iGTD...
Nothing has touched orgmode :)
I wrote a little bit about it on my blog HERE.
Emacs has a steep learning curve, but it can’t be any more time intensive than rolling your own code!
Yeah, I’ve tried org-mode, but the problem isn’t that its Emacs-based (I use Emacs to write code), but it’s that it isn’t web-based. I wanted my notes to be accessible not only from both OSes I dual boot, but from pretty much any computer I might ever be at. I could make the file accessible I guess by putting it in a Dropbox public folder, but then there’s still the issue of “what if the computer I’m on doesn’t have Emacs”.
Also the time-intensitivity thing of rolling my own code isn’t a major drawback, as I’m trying to find a programming job at the moment and I needed something to add to my portfolio. :D
Good points, especially if you’re trying to get into programming anyway :)
Out of curiosity, could I ask how often you’re at a computer that you need the functionality of org-mode which doesn’t run emacs? I can’t really think of an occasion when I’d need the functionality that wouldn’t be my own computer. I’ve also run emacs successfully on Linux, Win, and OS X.
I keep my personal org-mode file on my OS X partition and edit it both from Linux and OS X (I keep it on OS X because Linux can read non-journaled HFS+, but OS X doesn’t read EXT4 and is touch with EXT2/3).
Lastly, I’ll actually often use git between work and home. I pull from either when I start up, edit my stuff, and then commit and push when I’m done.
I ask about the functionality because you can open the file with any text editor on any computer if you just need to get into your data here and there. You could also add headlines manually pretty easily. Again, you might have a far different use case than I do. I just can’t think of needing to access my org-mode file frequently from, say, a public library or a friend’s computer.
Good luck on your quest for the perfect PIM :)