ThoughtBack

ThoughtBack

[brian powell]

https://thoughtback.com

Any thoughts? Useful to OrgMode users?

(MindMapping and remember.el (or whatever) are often linked to
GTD/OrgMode activities--by some users)

I'm in no way connected to https://thoughtback.com--nor do I know much
about it at all.

Re: ThoughtBack

[Bastien]

Hi Brian,

brian powell <briangpowellms@gmail.com> writes:

> https://thoughtback.com
>
> Any thoughts? 

Well, I don't give my email to services that don't even 
try to give a detailed idea of the service they provide.

Or did I miss something?

-- 
 Bastien

Re: ThoughtBack

[John Hendy]

On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 11:11 AM, Bastien <bzg@altern.org> wrote:
> Hi Brian,
>
> brian powell <briangpowellms@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> https://thoughtback.com
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>
> Well, I don't give my email to services that don't even
> try to give a detailed idea of the service they provide.
>
> Or did I miss something?

Don't think so. Googling produces little, either. I did find a link to
it on AlternativeTo.net, which lists EverNote as an alternative and
has this caption:
,-----
| The private, unfiltered, personally meaningful micro-journal that sends
| your thoughts back to you in unexpected ways. Try it - the effect is poignant.
| "Basically, it's a lightweight, more proactive version of evernote.
`-----

So... looks like notes + some other feature set that's unexplained?

John



>
> --
>  Bastien
>
>

Re: ThoughtBack

[Memnon Anon]

John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com> writes:
> On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 11:11 AM, Bastien <bzg@altern.org> wrote:
[...]
>> Or did I miss something?
>
> Don't think so. Googling produces little, either. 
[...]
> So... looks like notes + some other feature set that's unexplained?

I found some stuff, e.g.:
http://vimeo.com/16594128 [which I did not check]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k4CXVFcgDg [which I just watched]
http://www.facebook.com/thoughtback

But I wholeheartedly do *not* recommend it:

,----[ https://thoughtback.com/ ]
| Put Something In
| 
| Enter something in that you find important. Do it through your iPhone, Mac, or Browser.
| 
| Get Something Back
| 
! We store it and then randomly send you back something from the past. Keeping your brain flowing.
| ^^^^^^^^^^^
`----

Who would want to keep his data, especially when it is easily and
quickly captured (to use org terminology) - i.e. probably some very
personal stuff - to be saved "in the cloud"?

I did no serious investigation on this, please correct me if I am
wrong, I don't want to spread FUD about a new project!

Memnon

Re: ThoughtBack

[brian powell]

On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 9:00 AM, Memnon Anon
<gegendosenfleisch@googlemail.com> wrote:
> John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com> writes:
>> On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 11:11 AM, Bastien <bzg@altern.org> wrote:
> [...]
>>> Or did I miss something?
>>
>> Don't think so. Googling produces little, either.
> [...]
>> So... looks like notes + some other feature set that's unexplained?
>
> I found some stuff, e.g.:
> http://vimeo.com/16594128 [which I did not check]
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k4CXVFcgDg [which I just watched]
> http://www.facebook.com/thoughtback
>
> But I wholeheartedly do *not* recommend it:
>
> ,----[ https://thoughtback.com/ ]
> | Put Something In
> |
> | Enter something in that you find important. Do it through your iPhone, Mac, or Browser.
> |
> | Get Something Back
> |
> ! We store it and then randomly send you back something from the past. Keeping your brain flowing.
> | ^^^^^^^^^^^
> `----
>
> Who would want to keep his data, especially when it is easily and
> quickly captured (to use org terminology) - i.e. probably some very
> personal stuff - to be saved "in the cloud"?
>
> I did no serious investigation on this, please correct me if I am
> wrong, I don't want to spread FUD about a new project!
>
> Memnon
>
>
>
>
>

* I agree with your concerns Memnon and Bastien; but, I'll play
"Devil's Advocate" with you:

** Completely agree with the lack of help and documentation--major
reason I started the thread--fishin' for info!

** BTW: https://thoughtback.com/about/terms?/privacy

*** Your email address is one of the most public things you "own".  I
worry about giving out any information too nowadays.  But hacking into
someone's email can land you in jail--even if they previously gave you
their password and temporary permission at some point.

** I believe the idea is you put things like "Need to get a new ladder
#HomeDepot." or "Work on #OrgMode software."

*** Don't believe the idea is that you put in any private information.

* To me I see a free online service that is searchable and one can jot
notes, reminders and/or URL's in--it could be used as a NotePad app
for copy and paste, it is indexable and searchable--and (most
important to me) as a remote SMS messaging service:

** "The Future of Thoughtback":
http://blog.thoughtback.com/post/7630178945/the-future-of-thoughtback

"Our goal is to help people choose and organize the thoughts they want
to remember. Programming your mind to think and act the way you want
is not only powerful, but exciting. By constantly getting these
“thoughts back”, your mind begins to shape itself differently. These
form your actions, ideas, habits, and choices.

* So what’s the near-future roadmap look like?

An API for developers
SMS (texting) to send/receive thoughts
New settings for getting your thoughts back
Improved iPhone and Mac apps
Beta opt-in program to test new ideas"

* What does this have to do with OrgMode!?:

** ThoughtBack sends you random reminders from the thoughts you put in
(I'm thinking GTD)--I'm thinking maybe a mashup with MindMaps and
maybe OrgMode.

* At this point, to me: Its another (minor) tool in the toolbox--its
free, and always-on and available--as long as I have an Internet
connection.

** Its like Twitter I guess; but, it sends thoughts back to you rather
than the millions of Tweeters that probably don't care about how your
cat seems to feel or that you ought to get a new ladder--but to you,
these things may be important.

** This sort of thing, writing down things to do and/or thoughts or
ideas that may be useful in the future is a good thing to do--you can
stop dwelling on it, its often a worthless or obsessive thought but
the act of writing it down somewhere allows the mind to relax on the
subject and get back to what is more important at the time: I learned
this from a book by Tony Buzan: "Make the Most of Your Mind (February,
1984) ISBN 0-671-49519-4 "

*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Buzan : "Anthony "Tony" Peter
Buzan ( /ˈbuːzən/; born 2 June 1942) is an author and educational
consultant. He is a proponent of the techniques of Mind Mapping[1] and
mental literacy."

** In OrgMode I guess most people put in deadlines and schedules etc.;
maybe https://thoughtback.com could become a site one can use to put
thoughts that don't fit any structured category, time-lined project or
pressing to-do list.

Re: ThoughtBack

[Memnon Anon]

Hi Brian,

[BTW: Keeping it on list, because there still may be some 
      good results for org. Strictly speaking however,
      this is at least semi-OT. But I do not add OT to 
      the subject yet.]

brian powell <briangpowellms@gmail.com> writes:

> On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 9:00 AM, Memnon Anon
>> But I wholeheartedly do *not* recommend it:
>
> * I agree with your concerns Memnon and Bastien; but, I'll play
> "Devil's Advocate" with you:

Here we go :). Long mail, I select the points some points.

> ** I believe the idea is you put things like "Need to get a new ladder
> #HomeDepot." or "Work on #OrgMode software."
> *** Don't believe the idea is that you put in any private information.

My impression from the youtube video was, that it is extremely
convenient and fast to add a short note to self: Just like capture is
for org. Whatever the idea is, I think a user getting accustomed to it
(and not org which stores the data on the disk) will at some point need
some mental discipline to think: "Okay, important thought; do I want to
put this "on the cloud" or not". Thats simply not the case with org ;).
Mind you: "do *not* recomment it" was meant as: "I would not use it",
not "I am against implementing export/import or whatever with org".

> * To me I see a free online service that is searchable and one can jot
> notes, reminders and/or URL's in--it could be used as a NotePad app
> for copy and paste, it is indexable and searchable

Mhhh, so is org, isn't it?

> --and (most important to me) as a remote SMS messaging service:
> ** "The Future of Thoughtback":
> http://blog.thoughtback.com/post/7630178945/the-future-of-thoughtback
>
> "Our goal is to help people choose and organize the thoughts they want
> to remember. Programming your mind to think and act the way you want
> is not only powerful, but exciting. By constantly getting these
> “thoughts back”, your mind begins to shape itself differently. These
> form your actions, ideas, habits, and choices.

I do not get why this has to happen via SMS in the first place...
(But that could also be done via emacs: e.g I am working on a setup
to send SMS via gnus.)

But now we are in the area of how org could be set up or improved to 
provide this kind of functionality you see there;
I am still not sure I really understand what that quote above means.
To be honest, it *IMHO* sounds like marketing babble... :(

> ** In OrgMode I guess most people put in deadlines and schedules etc.;
> maybe https://thoughtback.com could become a site one can use to put
> thoughts that don't fit any structured category, time-lined project or
> pressing to-do list.

Again, please state clearly what it is you actually want; I have only a
vague idea. E.g., you could have a completely unstructured
"* Thoughbucket" where you put random ideas into. You could schedule
review of items or of the whole tree as you see fit: It would end up in
your agenda. You could set up a capture template, use a todo keyword
like someday/maybe. Agenda would show you everything you have.

I am just guessing so far... 
Tell us what you want this tool to do, and maybe we can figure it out
;).

Memnon

Re: ThoughtBack

[Bastien]

Guys,

AFAIU, the fun of using ThoughtBack is to get *random* ideas 
from the past.  This actually could fit in Org: get a random
agenda based on selected criteria.  

Would that be useful?

For the record, we already have some randomness through the
bulk command "scatter" -- where items are scattered randomly
over a definite period of time.

-- 
 Bastien

Re: ThoughtBack

[John Hendy]

On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 8:00 AM, Memnon Anon
<gegendosenfleisch@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com> writes:
> > On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 11:11 AM, Bastien <bzg@altern.org> wrote:
> [...]
> >> Or did I miss something?
> >
> > Don't think so. Googling produces little, either.
> [...]
> > So... looks like notes + some other feature set that's unexplained?
>
> I found some stuff, e.g.:
> http://vimeo.com/16594128 [which I did not check]
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k4CXVFcgDg [which I just watched]
> http://www.facebook.com/thoughtback
>
>
> But I wholeheartedly do *not* recommend it:
>

I agree and think that vimeo 1min video makes it look fairly stupid,
at least to me.

>
> ,----[ https://thoughtback.com/ ]
> | Put Something In
> |
> | Enter something in that you find important. Do it through your iPhone, Mac, or Browser.
> |
> | Get Something Back
> |
> ! We store it and then randomly send you back something from the past. Keeping your brain flowing.
> | ^^^^^^^^^^^
> `----
>
> Who would want to keep his data, especially when it is easily and
> quickly captured (to use org terminology) - i.e. probably some very
> personal stuff - to be saved "in the cloud"?
>
> I did no serious investigation on this, please correct me if I am
> wrong, I don't want to spread FUD about a new project!
>

Well, my take is about what one might want to get back. Regardless of
what it is, I think there are better ways.
- if it's learning material... use something proven to work like
spaced repetition methods/software (anki, mnemosyne, etc.)
- if it's GTD stuff, isn't that what calendaring (deadlines,
scheduling) is for? I wouldn't want important stuff coming back
*randomly*!
- I *could* see the point with inspirational messages or something,
but think that spaced repetition could do that just as well

I guess I'm just not sold on what, exactly, makes it useful except for
being a bit new/different and perhaps allowing interaction via the
web/mobile devices.


John


>
> Memnon
>
>
>
>