You don’t have to know what you’re going to say to start

If you wait until you fully understand a topic before writing about it you’ll never truly know what you think. If you want to read this whole post become a member. Members get all my courses included.. | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Tech CEO’s are Hallucinating

And as those of us who are not currently tripping well understand, our current system is nothing like that. Rather, it is built to maximize the extraction of wealth and profit – from both humans and the natural world – a reality that has brought us to what we might think of it as … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Greg – Apple’s Vision of the Apocalypse

I’m with Greg in thinking that Vision Pro is fairly dystopian. The only use I could see is as instead of a multi-monitor setup, but then $3499 USD for a “companion” to your $2k computer???? WTF!!! That seems crazy. I hope to never see this on the faces of the people around me. I … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Ben Brooks – We’ve lost our outrage

Ben has an excellent post about Reddit, Twitter, and Meta sucking. We should be taking a stand against assholes in hoodies (used to be suits) exploiting free labour and paid workers like these companies do. | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Cross Platform Snippet Management with Espanso

Since I added Linux to my operating system workflow I am no longer able to have all my text snippets, including code, only available on macOS. I need a cross-platform snippet tool and today we’re going to look at Espanso which is my current option for a cross-platform snippet man … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Should You Read How to Make Notes and Write by Dan Allosso

There has been a glut of note-making books in the last few years, some are decent, and some are thinly veiled attempts at generating intellectual property so the author can sell you on more courses. I’m happy to say that How to Make Notes and Write by Dan Alloso and SF Allosso is … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Reddit’s Headlong Dive into Enshitification

So Reddit is diving headlong into its enshitification cycle. Cory Doctrow popularized this idea which looks like this: Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abu … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

PKM Weekly June 11 2023 – Issue 073

Welcome to the PKM weekly newsletter. My goal is to round up good resources in the PKM space so you don’t have to. If you get value out of this newsletter consider supporting it by becoming a member. You can either get my weekly thoughts, or all my courses and my weekly thoughts. … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Knowledge Work is Leaky

The dark side of the freedom of knowledge work is that it’s leaky. To read this whole post become a member. Members get all my courses in addition to weekly research notes.. | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Matt Says Camcorders Were Weird Too

Matt says that camcorders were weird too and people tensed up when camcorders came out. Now technology has changed enough that a phone coming out to take a video changes little about the behaviour of most people. On some level, I agree. Vision Pro will change lots and people will … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

iPadOS 17 Supports 4k External Cameras?

According to Patrick yes it does support an external camera in the beta. This is cool, and in some ways I’m also over waiting for the iPad to get so many features it should have had for years. | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Live Book Note Session – On Work

This week I’m going to walk you through a live note session on the book On Work by Derek Thompson. Outside of the plugins I use, the biggest takeaway is that you need to make time to process your notes. Stop looking for shortcuts to building good notes and extensive knowledge. Pu … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

PKM Weekly June 4 2023 – Issue 072

Welcome to the PKM weekly newsletter. My goal is to round up good resources in the PKM space so you don’t have to. If you get value out of this newsletter consider supporting it by becoming a member. You can either get my weekly thoughts, or all my courses and my weekly thoughts. … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Do It Once – Do it Better – Then Do It Right

On a recent episode of Security Now I heard a great story1 about doing hard work. In this story Alex Lindsay had to do a hard 3D problem on a Commodore 64. His first shot at the problem took 4 months, then due to the unstable nature of computers at the time he lost all […] | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

How will your technology provide concrete benefits

Technology is full of hype. A few years ago crypto currency and the block chain was going to be “world changing”. According to proponents, we’d no longer use the standard currency of our country, we’d all want to be in on some crypto currency because it would be so much better th … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

In Depth Look at Reflect.app

This is a sponsored review. That means Reflect paid me to do it and provided a free account for the review. They didn’t get to see/approve any part of this before it was published. Today we’re going to take a deep dive into Reflect.app, a note-taking tool focused on your Daily No … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

PKM Weekly May 28 2023 – Issue 071

Welcome to the PKM weekly newsletter. My goal is to round up good resources in the PKM space so you don’t have to. If you get value out of this newsletter consider supporting it by becoming a member. You can either get my weekly thoughts, or all my courses and my weekly thoughts. … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

The Myth of Canadian Exceptionalism

One of the curses of being Canadian is our neighbour to the south. It’s easy to look at the United States, with regular mass shootings and rising overt white supremacy and think that quiet sleepy Canada isn’t nearly as bad as that so we’re “good”. But this isn’t the truth, and we … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Laptop Batteries as a Work Limiter

While this may be folklore, I heard about a programmer that used a laptop years ago and would work with it unplugged. After the 2 – 3 hours that the battery would last, he’d stop working and plug the laptop in. He was not allowed to work again until the laptop was at 100%. Then [ … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

PKM Weekly May 21 2023 – Issue 70

Welcome to the PKM weekly newsletter. My goal is to round up good resources in the PKM space so you don’t have to. If you get value out of this newsletter consider supporting it by becoming a member. You can either get my weekly thoughts or all my courses and my weekly thoughts. … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Forget Earning More – Purchase Your Time

This week I talk about the folly of thinking that earning more is “success”. I’d much rather purchase my time. If you want to read my weekly research notes become a member. Members get all my courses included.. | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Ghosted – I’m here for the comedy

Ghosted recently came out on Apple TV+ and I watched it because I figured it would be a mindless action movie where the guy needs saving instead of the girl. Yes that happened, but I’m here for the comedy. Multiple cameos of major actors that lasted less than 2 minutes of screent … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Physical vs Digital PKM

The question of what type of note-taking software you should use has been hotly debated. There are proponents of every piece of software out there. But maybe you should take one step back from which piece of software you should use to ask yourself if you should be using software … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

PKM Weekly May 14 2023 – Issue 069

Welcome to the PKM weekly newsletter. My goal is to round up good resources in the PKM space so you don’t have to. If you get value out of this newsletter consider supporting it by becoming a member. You can either get my weekly thoughts, or all my courses and my weekly thoughts. … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Does Technology Improve Learning Outcomes?

Weekly research notes are reserved for members. Members also get all my courses. This week we look at digital versus physical note-taking starting with an old study titled – The Pen is Mightier than the Keyboard – which showed that people taking notes on laptops did worse on test … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

BBEdit turns 30

BBEdit has been around for 30 years and they’re running a discount to get the software for $30 USD right now. I use NeoVim as my main code editor, but BBEdit is my secondary editor and until today I had just used the free edition. I got started coding on macOS with TextWrangler, … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Education Assistant turns to OnlyFans to feed her family

So let me get this straight. An Education Assistant in BC is so underpaid they had to turn to OnlyFans to make enough money to get by. Then, when some parent watches the content they may lose their job. This parent/adult is participating in OnlyFans clearly. You don’t just random … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Illinois seems to be heading the right direction

Illinois banned the ability to ban books, or at least get funding for your library or school library if you ban books. | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

PKM Weekly May 7 2023 – Issue 068

Welcome to the PKM weekly newsletter. My goal is to round up good resources in the PKM space so you don’t have to. If you get value out of this newsletter consider supporting it by becoming a member. You can either get my weekly thoughts, or all my courses and my weekly thoughts. … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

You Can be So Productive You Never Live Life

Today we talk about the dark side of productiivty, the lack of life. If you want to read these posts become a member. Members get my courses included.. | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Obsidian SNW plugin

The point to building a personal note system is to be able to find related thoughts in your vault. That can be hard at times as you have to be intentional about opening the backlinks panel or looking at the Graph Analysis panel. This is where the Strange New Worlds (SNW) plugin f … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

PKM Weekly April 30 2023 – Issue 067

Welcome to the PKM weekly newsletter. My goal is to round up good resources in the PKM space so you don’t have to. If you get value out of this newsletter consider supporting it by becoming a member. You can either get my weekly thoughts or all my courses and my weekly thoughts. … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

If Books Could Kill – Ruined my Reading

If you want to read these posts become a member. Members get my courses included.. | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Obsidian Symbols Prettifier

Today we’re going to take a look at the Obsidian Symbols Prettifier plugin. It does one simple thing, turns symbols like -> into pretty symbols that look like this →. If you use Canvases lots and want pretty symbols inside those, this plugin isn’t going to work for you as it does … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

PKM Weekly April 23 2023 – Issue 066

Welcome to the PKM weekly newsletter. My goal is to round up good resources in the PKM space so you don’t have to. If you get value out of this newsletter consider supporting it by becoming a member. You can either get my weekly thoughts or all my courses and my weekly thoughts. … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Don’t Believe the AI Hype

The current hype machine in tech is all around ChatGPT and other AI models, but is there much credibility to them? Should we even be calling them AI when they’re really large language models that can merely statistically predict word combinations? This is usually only for members … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Obsidian WordPress Plugin Updates

I looked at this plugin just a few weeks ago and I had two bigger issues with it. First, your passwords were not encrypted in your Obsidian vault. Yes, WordPress has it on its roadmap to allow password scoping so that we could assign an application password to only do some things … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

PKM Weekly April 16 2023 – Issue 065

Welcome to the PKM weekly newsletter. My goal is to round up good resources in the PKM space so you don’t have to. If you get value out of this newsletter consider supporting it by becoming a member. You can either get my weekly thoughts, or all my courses and my weekly thoughts. … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Process Always Wins

The tools you use matter so much less than the process you have built around using them. The latest note app won’t suddenly make you a great thinker, if you never spend the time needed on thinking. If you want to read these posts become a member. Members get my courses included.. | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Cider – A Comprehensive Apple Music Client for Linux Windows and macOS

Most of the devices in my house are Apple which means I pay for Apple One for the whole family to listen to music, play games, and have adequate storage for devices1. But with moving to Fedora Linux on one of my computers to work I no longer have access to Apple’s first party Mus … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

PKM Weekly April 9 2023 – Issue 064

Welcome to the PKM weekly newsletter. My goal is to round up good resources in the PKM space so you don’t have to. If you get value out of this newsletter consider supporting it by becoming a member. You can either get my weekly thoughts, or all my courses and my weekly thoughts. … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

I’m Traveling

No members specific content today. I’m traveling with my daughter (she was invited to a skating development camp). Turns out I don’t have time to write specifically this week. Course Supporter members should start looking forward to a revamp Obsidian course I’ve started. If you’v … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Open Source Contacts Made My Business Too

From Heather Burns: After years of dragging my arse to the only mildly tolerable option, an open source community meetup appeared – in the function room of a twee Oirish pub, no less – and what ensued didn’t so much pivot my business but my entire life. And on that evidence, it’s … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Goodbye DEVONthink

Now that I have a Fedora Linux laptop to do my work on I’m realizing that I have some vendor lock-in I need to deal with in my note-taking system. Specifically, I’ve used DEVONthink as my storage for research materials and “other people’s thoughts” for a long time. DEVONthink is … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

ASUS ROG Z13 – Better than the iPadPro?

Sure the iPadPro may be more powerful than this1 but this runs a full fat operating system. So it can be a tablet, and my full-time computer for all tasks. My iPad still doesn’t do code well. I never checked I’m simply guessing because M1/2 chips are so fast. ↩ | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Writing is a transit system for electrical brain sparks

From Analog Office: The magic is in the fact that writing is a transit system, which transports little electrical sparks in your synapses into things that affect shared reality. Yes I love Obsidian. Yes I write down most notes during the day in a notebook. | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

Matt Birchler – AI Hype is Like Chatbot hype from 2016

There is so much to agree with in Matt’s post. Tech hypes so much that will “revolutionize” our lives and lots of it fails to bring these innovations. How do we always forget the broken promises and blindly trust the new thing tech is hyping? | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago

How Will AI Change Note-Taking?

AI will solve the need to organize your notes!!! But will it really? Crypto was supposed to solve banking and make it modern. Instead it’s crashed a bunch and rich people got in early then cashed out and got richer. Ride hailing was supposed to revolutionize personal transportati … | Continue reading


@curtismchale.ca | 1 year ago