“Welcome to Sherwood.”
That’s Erroll Flynn’s line after swinging out of the trees on a long vine and landing atop a great boulder in the wonderful 1939 film The Adventures of Robin Hood. As the title character, he is addressing the murderous Sir Guy and the lovely, but naive, Maid Marion, whom he and his band of merry men have just captured. This is a great tale of the underdog taking on powerful scoundrels and having fun doing it. And that’s more or less what I hope this blog will be.
I originally set this site up to rant about the Bush administration. During the Obama years, I switched mostly to writing about software and pop culture. I haven’t, so far, written about the foul homunculus now crapping in the Oval Office, because that would consume my every waking moment. Sticking with software is better for my mental health.
Welcome to Sherwood 
hey. this is your fiancee’s son.
she gave me your blog, so here I be poking you.
I like the attitude, robin hood is a fun persona, whimsical, and light hearted, but knows how to get things done, and has his heart in the right place.
ever talk of a utopian culture?
I sometimes wonder if it’s possible to wrestle americans from their coveted capitalist regime.
could they ever forego the aquisitius nature, in lieu of sharing what they have, and can do, in exchange for what they can share?
dunno if it’s even possible.
Hey, M!
Thanks for the comment — my first one. I don’t think America is ready or ever will be ready to lose its greedy sense of entitlement, but I have been wrong before, and hope to be wrong about this.
Hope you’re well and looking forward to a good new year.
S
wow, for a blog, that was a fast reply.
and you’re darn right, I don’t think entitlement is gonna fade quickly.
but it might be nice to see if one could create a community, isolate it from everybody….kinda like the shakers…but not so primitive. you know, their own power supply, food supply, every thing they’d need to live normal american lives…..but….not a penny of cash in the place.
no prizon to be found.
no lawyers. no bankers. no crime, no unemployment.
anyway, if you use msn or aol instant messanger you should gimmie a poke! mom and I chat on msn, sometimes.
oh, and be sure to set your blog’s time stamping to the correct time zone.
you’ve got it on england time….
Happy New Year, M!
Thanks for the headsup about the time thing!
Two points:
1) I followed James Fallows’ blog to here and want to ask: have you considered reviewing Devonthink Pro? I ask because I use it as described by Steven Berlin Johnson here and would like to know how it compares to programs like Personal Brain.
I’ve also written about Devonthink Pro here and elsewhere.
2) You might want to consider posting an e-mail address, even of the Sherwood [at] gmail ((dot)) com variety: I would’ve sent my first question through that medium, but I don’t see an address.
I have a little experience with Devonthink Pro, though I haven’t delved too deeply into all its features and functions. I’ve read Steven Berlin Johnson’s article and I don’t think you could do quite the same thing with PersonalBrain — at least not as easily. The note editor in PB is a bit weak. Also, PB is more hands-on. That is, you do most of the organization manually. Whereas, one of the strengths of Devonthink is that much of the organization as well as the relationships are built automatically.
I know I didn’t really supply much of a a response. Perhaps one of these days I’ll dive into DT more and write a review or at least a more thorough comparison.
BTW, I enjoyed your article about DT and Scrivener.
Steve
Steve –
I’ve enjoyed your articles about Tinderbox and about outliners. As a small thanks, I’m passing along this link to a beta application called Scapple, made by Literature and Latte. It’s a brainstorming app designed to go with Scrivener and, in the few moments I’ve spent with it, has seemed terrific.
I don’t want to go into the politics thing in any depth but it seems to me that comparing a candidate to perfection instead of to the other candidate is a recipe for bad decisions.
While I agree with you that in many ways Obama has been a big disappointment, I can’t see any way in which a Romney presidency – especially with a radical Republican House – could be better. At the very least, we’re looking at (most likely two) Supreme Court seats – if Romney is president, Robert Bork, who has kooky right-wing views, is going to be advising Romney about potential nominees, which means that Scalia and Thomas and Alito, instead of being the right flank of the court, are going to be its mainstream, and a lot of cherished protections for individuals are going to die ugly deaths. Environmental protections are going to be gutted the way they were in the Bush II era. Everything that isn’t nailed down is going to be “privatized” – i.e., handed over (for a song) to corporations. Concerned about mineral extraction in national parks and pristine wildernesses? Romney’s your worst enemy. Concerned about having proper government attention to health and infrastructure? Romney thinks the states have this under control. And so on.
We still haven’t recovered from the last GOP administration. A vote to make a point that’s going to turn the government over to another GOP cabal seems to me to be a luxury that we’re better off foregoing.
A more constructive alternative might be to get Obama re-elected and then stay on him on the issues that matter.
Best wishes
Stephen
Hi!
I’ve read with interest your thoughts on Tinderbox and TheBrain. Do you use both for similar or different types of things? As a research student I need to collect a lot of information. Sometimes my thoughts are extremely clear but other times I need to plot them out and then see how the puzzle fits together. For this reason I think (I don’t know because I don’t own it) that The Brain could be like a data collection, and then Tinderbox as a sort of creating the structure. So in a way The Brain is like a database like Devonthink but with more capabilities?
Your input would be appreciated!
Thanks!
Kaz, I’m sorry it has taken so long to respond. I just noticed that you had commented. If you’re collecting data from the web, TheBrain might be a better choice, but if you’re doing a lot of writing and analysis, then Tinderbox is probably better. There is a free edition of TheBrain that is pretty functional, and is not just a trial edition. You can give it a try and it never runs out.