February 2019 - Outland

If You’ve Got the Notion

How I Found Notion, i.e. The Endless Road to the Perfect PIM

In the Beginning

My dad was a programmer and as a result an early adopter of a lot of technology, from the first Mac and IBM/Tandy computers, to early public Internet access. When I was growing up he used a Personal Information Manager (PIM, a term that seems to have fallen out of favor somewhat) called AskSam to keep track of most of the important information in his life. So as I moved through my early years of adulthood I found myself wanting a similar central repository for all my info. Somehow it was only recently that I realized where this desire may have come from.

Mind and Body-Altering Parasites

I recently gave a short Ignite-style talk at Synapse Synopsis, focusing on a favorite subject of mine: Mind and Body-Altering Parasites.

I’m not entirely sure why these creatures and behaviors fascinate me so much. I do love being surprised by nature, and seeing adaptations that seem almost improbable (like leaf-mimic insects, for example), so that’s probably one aspect. I also think we can learn a lot about how our own bodies and minds work through seeing how these creatures are able to manipulate their host organisms. Last but probably not least, there is a morbid fascination here, perhaps my version of what horror-movie-lovers feel when they get a good jump scare. I get the willies reading about these things, but I still love it! I’m not a horror movie fan though. ????

The “personal card”

Over the past few years I’ve found myself meeting a lot more people at random out in the world than I was used to for much of my life. Some have given me their numbers, or friended me on Facebook, and some have given me their cards, both business and personal. It became clear that leaving the onus on the other person to reach out and provide contact info was needlessly limiting, so I decided to put together some kind of personal identity item I could hand out. I found myself potentially a little in-between business and personal, wanting to be open to and potentially showcase my skills and experience, or at least interests, but also to keep it casual and open-ended, as functional for a new potential work contact as for a possible date. And I didn’t want to carry two cards. So…