One of the articles this article links to cuts to the core of the issue:

http://prog21.dadgum.com/46.html

I couldn't agree more. Tech is a tool, wanting better tools and becoming better at using those tools makes sense when there's something non-tech related driving you forward, ideally something creative, social or altruistic.

That said, I do think Eve has the power to do some social good, so like the author of this article I hope it continues.

I was expecting spreadsheets.

> ...the idea that even relatively small investments of time/effort/organization can multiply into massive outcomes when steadily applied. I’m pretty excited to see what I could do with a more deliberate effort.

My first deliberate effort is in progress here - https://github.com/jamii/notes/ - aiming for around 15 books over 3 weeks.

Am I reading that right, you want to read 15 books in 3 weeks?

If you're out of work that's perfectly doable. I sometimes read books in a day or two even while having a full-time job. (Back-of-the-envelope calculation: at 1-2 minutes a page, a 300-page book takes 5-10 hours).

Something like www.amazon.com/dp/0521835402/ would take me weeks to read properly, but most of the books on my list are popular science or introductory textbooks. They just aren't that dense.

I'm also reading just to get an overview at the moment. I'm not following up references or carefully criticizing experiments. I just want to get an idea of what the main areas of research are and what I might enjoy studying in depth.

I wonder what workflow the author uses to take notes while reading? I prefer reading on a kindle or the iPad, but these devices are so geared towards consuming content that it's almost impossible to have a frictionless workflow taking notes.

When it comes to eBooks, Marvin for iOS has a great system where you can easily select/highlight entire sentences. If I want to add a note, I choose the highlight and annotate option and then dictate to siri what my note is. That works pretty well, and I can then easily export highlights and annotations to email (and then another system).

For pdf's I use Goodreader, and the same annotation technique.

Still not ideal though. I would be very interested in an app where I can highlight text and immediately dictate (or record) comments without an extra tap...

It's not at all well developed yet.

I've been using the Amazon web reader (mostly because I'm in Beijing at the moment and getting anything onto my kindle is a pain). I have the reader full-screen and Atom in Zen mode, and switch back and forth with i3.

For the books already there I took notes as I read. For the current book I'm trying out reading a chapter, writing down notes from memory and then skimming the chapter again to see if I missed anything.

For stuff I want to follow up I've been just putting TODO in the notes rather than breaking the flow.

Why did you quit?

great article