I don't know how long the program will survive, but I have enjoyed MN's educational benefit for 62+. Despite my overall senility I retain the skills of a medical student; I am good at doing school.
But I could be better. I don't know what I don't know, but I do know there are post-90s study skills I could learn.
Like today. I was thinking how annoying it is to take notes as I do my course reading [3]. Then ... well ... this is very embarrassing. But I'll do it.
It occurred to me that since I was last marginally connected to student work we actually got voice recognition working. I don't have to stop reading to take notes. I can just dictate a reference as I read then process that into my mindnode notes [1].
It's not like I don't use voice recognition every day. I dictate relatively long notes all the time. It simply never occurred to me to use it in this context.
That is Oldness for you. A rigidity of work habits and no social context wherein I can observe what others do [2]. Very annoying.
Yes, Fellow Old, I do remember Clippy. Even at the time I thought Clippy was the right idea, just extremely premature. I'm kind of hoping my personal ai guardian will begin cluing me in.
- fn -
[1] I like concept clusters and relationships; I still miss Apple's brief lived Project 2000 RDF concept navigator - something that even the AIs don't know much about.
[2] For some reason 19yo women undergrads, who seem to have the best advanced study techniques, are not keen on Old white guys watching how they work. I just can't understand that. Maybe I should ask my daughter.
[3] With my coffee and paperback in a pleasant setting, because I do too many screens.
Update 9/29/2025 - I created a Perplexity Space to generate productivity tips for me. It's Claude LLM for now and I'm evolving the prompt as I use it. So far pretty interesting.
