Wild Rye - Writing by Design

Time 2021-06-09 20:14:00

Web Name: Wild Rye - Writing by Design

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the mustard seed growing into a tree that I wrote about recently. I was reviewing my schedule, looking for small actions that might have big results.Then suddenly a light bulb went on. What if Jesus parable isn’t about small things becoming big? What if the point of the parable is that the mustard seed has life?We get tripped up because the text uses the word mikros, or “micro” to describe the size of the mustard seed. But if that was the only point of the parable there are other ways to describe something very small growing very large. A grain of sand is very small but it becomes a building.But a seed is alive. And when it unfolds it passes that life along to the birds that lodge in its branches.I did a little digging to see if I could find any other Jewish stories about mustard seeds, to find out if it was a common expression.I came up empty-handed but I did discover something interesting. In the 12th century there was a Jewish scholar and rabbi called Nachmanides who taught that the universe started out as a tiny speck…the size of a mustard seed.Was Nachmanides influenced by the teachings of Jesus? He lived in Catalonia so that is quite possible. But it is also possible that both Jesus and Nachmanides, separated by 1000 years, were drawing upon the same traditions and teachings.Whatever the origin, it seems that both men used a mustard seed to describe a tremendous unfolding process that is at the heart, directed by God.In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus tells a story about the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom is like a tiny seed. It starts small and then grows into a tree, spreading its branches to give shelter to the birds.I’ve been thinking about this parable a lot recently. Kingdoms typically spread by force and conquest. Jesus emphasizes instead the small gesture, and a steady unfolding process. He could have made things easier on himself if had said “the Kingdom of Heaven is like a fig seed.” Fig seeds are unquestionably small, and fig trees clearly grow large enough for birds to make their nests. Instead he chose mustard for his example. I imagine this choice was made in the moment perhaps he was on the shore of a lake next to a field of mustard plants. His audience could see the sparrows flying across the field. Now and then one of the birds would perch precariously on one of the taller stalks.There could have been more to his choice, though. Jesus’ parables were opaque on purpose, so that “they might hear but not understand.”Some people like to argue that Jesus was wrong. The mustard is not the smallest of all seeds. Orchids hold that distinction. I myself get stuck on the part where Jesus calls mustard a tree. In California wild mustard plants rarely get larger than four or five feet. Their soft, thin stalks can’t really support the weight of anything but the smallest sparrows. Maybe there was some kind of super-mustard in Jesus’ day. Or maybe he meant for his audience to say “hey, now, you’re stretching things a bit there, Jesus.”I think these simple stories were meant to rattle around in your brain, giving you something to ponder. I think that Jesus intended his parables to be something like a zen koan. Not easy bite-sized truths, but something that grows inside you, and changes you as you meditate on it.Here’s a hack that helps get your mind moving when it’s stuck on a problem. Start making a list. For some reason breaking a difficult or unclear situation into smaller pieces helps you work through the issue.Say you are thinking about having friends over for a barbecue. You have to do a lot of preparation and you re not sure where to start. Once you’ve got the pieces laid out it is much easier to put it all together in a plan, a project, a story, whatever it is you’re working on. Ripple Ventura Estuary | photo by Phil HoutzStarting a design with a sketch risks starting with too much information and information that is likely not a good fit with the project.There becomes a risk of working on and strengthening irrelevant parts of the structure at the expense of latent centers that are essential to the project.Christopher Alexander proposes starting with the fuzziest sense of the whole,the broadest, most global features of the emerging design. Often these “global” features will extend across the full diameter of the area being considered. At each step, another “ripple” introduces one more feature of the whole.Alexander’s preferred method for creating these ripples is to stand in the location and imagine the possibilities presented by the physical space, painting the picture with words. Words are a more fluid and flexible way to create imagery than drawing.—-Source: The Nature of Order Book II, Page 256A digital garden is a collection of online entries that are on public display and grow over time, not simply in number but also in complexity.So how does one go about setting up a digital garden? Is it simply a matter of setting up a bunch of notes and tending them, enriching them, expanding upon them. Or is there more to it than that?The garden metaphor implies a certain amount of design. Otherwise why not simply call it a digital seedbed?Here are some of the things to think about when designing a digital garden: Substance: Themes, topics, images, and the general content of the notes Structure: Page layout, sections, links, and overall architecture Process: The way of taking notes, putting them on the page, maintaining them, keeping the garden growing.Given the premise that a digital garden is something that starts small and grows over time, it seems that the design process must be able to accommodate this kind of evolutionary growth.Visualize possibilitiesSet down a planEleven step process15 structure preserving transformationsI grew up in a semi-rural suburb. Somebody was always working on something welding. Shoeing horses. Fixing tractors. You almost couldn’t help learning to use tools.Knowledge work on the other hand it’s mostly done alone in front of a screen. In private. You don’t get a chance to observe the way a writer hammers out a paragraph in the same way that you can watch a ferrier shape a horseshoe. Andy Matushack thinks that needs to change. Borrowing a phrase from Robin Sloan, Matushack says that he wants to “work with the garage door up” with his blog posting unfinished works in progress so that the community can learn together.It’s giving a lecture about the problems you’re pondering in the shower; it’s thinking out loud about the ways in which the project doesn’t work at all…This idea is similar to the idea of “Working Out Loud”, first popularized invery worthwhile blog post by Bryce WilliamsAndy Matushack coined the term “Evergreen notes” as a way to think about a process of note taking and enrichment that causes the note to “grow” over time, like a plant.This notion of growth makes Matuschack’s process conducive to the metaphor of Digtal Gardens.Matuschack cites Nikolas Luhman’s zettelkasten process as an inspiration, particularly for the atomic construction of each note. But the process of enrichment also seems to have a lot in common with progressive summarization.“Digital gardening” is a metaphor for knowledge management that involves low friction content enrichment such as tagging, linking, researching, and curation.Maggie Appleton traces the term back to a short impressionistic essay by Mark Bernstein called Hypertext Gardens.The gardening metaphor comes to play because the work “feels” like clipping, trimming, cultivating, pulling weeds, nurturing. The result is a knowledge system that grows in much the same way that a garden grows.If you are sitting at home during on lockdown, here is a short list of agencies that use volunteer help. Note that I haven t contacted these agencies so not all may be able to accept volunteers at the moment, but they should be able to put you in touch with someone who can.What Kind of Help is Needed?Everything from cash donations to gardening and repair work is needed. I m sure that some of these agencies could simply use help making phone calls. One of the most challenging problems in any disaster situation is finding ways to organize and mobilize people who are willing to contribute. So be patient and keep trying.UPDATEDNextDoorThe NextDoor app now as a Help Map where neighbors can list availability or request assistance. (So far I haven t seen anybody use this.)NextDoor Help MapMission Church VenturaMission Church has a COVID-19 response page with actions you take, including a place to share your story as a way to encourage others.Practical Ways to help Make care kits for seniors, snack kits for kids who might not get proper nutrition, game kits for your neighbors who are on house arrest with their kids, and other ideas.Mission Church COVID-19 Response PageOpportunities to provide help, deliver meals, assemble hygiene kits for homeless, places to donate bloodRAIN provides a clean and caring living environment, with nutritious meals, laundry facilities and transportation for job searches and employment.Meal Delivery: Due to the COVID-19 crisis we are accepting volunteers who are interested in delivering meals to elder adults that vulnerable to the virus and are taking precautions such as self isolation in order to lower their risks. Mileage reimbursement is available. Gardening: Senior Nutrition Garden, We grow organic produce that is used to feed Ventura seniors in need. HICAP: Provides counseling on Medicare A, B, C, D and Medigap (training required)Home Share: matches people looking for housing with people that have extra space and are looking for a roommateFall Prevention: We need local members of society that want to see positive changes occur within their city and help create a safer environment for all ages If you have strong Spanish, Mixteca, Zapateca or similar language skills, or particular knowledge of local agriculture there might be some volunteer opportunities here.Overview, Office Hours and Locations, Contact Information You can become a part of the Manna community by donating food, organizing a food drive, volunteering or introducing Manna to your friends, neighbors and business associates. Whatever your involvement, your participation helps bring Manna one step closer to ending hunger in the Conejo Valley. Ventura Promenade | photo by Philip HoutzSome cities are like stories. Others are more like poems. But every city has a kind of narrative structure that people experience as they move along the streets and past the buildings, first with anticipation, followed by the fulfillment of arrival and then a summary of the story upon departure.The building blocks of these stories are patterns each pattern is a particular solution to an architectural problem. For example, how do you make the shoreline accessible to the greatest number of people?One solution would be to apply a pattern such as PROMENADE Encourage the gradual formation of a promenade at the heart of every community, linking the main activity nodes and placed centrally, so that each point in the community is within 10 minutes walk of it. Put main points of attraction at two ends to keep a constant movement up and down.This idea of using patterns to organize and structure towns, cities and buildings was first proposed by Christopher Alexander and a team of researchers in the book The Timeless Way of Building.Ventura is One City, Many StoriesIf you enter the city of Ventura from the 101 freeway at the California Street offramp you are instantly faced with two distinct stories and two very different experiences. One story is that Ventura is a modern tourist destination. The other story is anchored in the early days of the 20th century when Ventura established itself as the financial center of a thriving agricultural region.The view to the south tells you that you are about to enter a seaside resort. Palm trees line the streets, hotels loom as destinations, surf shops beckon with the promise of adventure.View South, approaching Crowne Plaza in VenturaThe view to the north tells you that you are approaching a city that values history, architecture, and commerce. The view of City Hall, originally built as the Ventura County Courthouse, tells a story about 19th century reverence for civic virtue.View North, of downtown Ventura, approaching City HallThe way that multiple stories overlap and intertwine within any given city are what make patterns play out like poetry. The more complex and intertwingled the patterns are, the more poetic they become.What is a Pattern Language?Alexander and his associates studied the architectural structures in traditional cities, towns and villages to better understand what made a place feel alive. They identified 253 distinct patterns of organization that ranged from the layout of streets to the size of balconies. They codified these patterns in their book A Pattern Language.These patterns are designed to work together, the way nouns, verbs and prepositions work together to form a sentence.For example the pattern PROMENADE mentioned above can be strung together with other patterns such as ACTIVITY NODES, DANCING IN THE STREET, and PEDESTRIAN DENSITY. These patterns can guide builders to construct a walkway that connects shops and restaurants, is wide enough to accommodate street fairs and concerts, and has pathways to handle a large number of people.What makes this a language is the fluidity in which the patterns can be recombined. For instance, in 1995 when the city of Ventura widened the sidewalks on Main Street they used the pattern PROMENADE in a very different way, this time in connection with SHOPPING STREET, PEDESTRIAN STREET and NIGHT LIFE.A Pattern Language for the City of VenturaWhile Alexander s catalog of 253 patterns is comprehensive he makes a careful point to say that the patterns aren t definitive. The patterns can be changed and the language will evolve. Every city will have its own language or dialect of patterns.Every society which is alive and whole, will have its own unique and distinct pattern language; and further, that every individual in such a society will have a unique language, shared in part, but which as a totality is unique to the mind of the person who has it. In this sense, in a healthy society there will be as many pattern languages as there are people even though these languages are shared and similar. A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander et al.This means that the city of Ventura, California will have a different language from Paris, Mexico, Madrid and the other cities that Alexander and his team looked at.Over the next couple of months I m going to be exploring the city of San Buenaventura and the unique pattern language that makes up the city. As I uncover patterns I ll share them and link them together.The great thing about a pattern language is the way it can be used not just by architects and urban planners, but by people who are planning events, shopping for homes and redeveloping living spaces.To Learn More about Pattern Languages:Pattern Language on WikipediaWill Larsen s Notes on The Timeless Way of BuildingBuilding Beauty where you can see the principles in action Downtown Ventura, Street Fair, October 1900When I was working my way through college I had a part-time gig delivering phone books. In that line of work you got paid by the pound so it made the most sense to deliver to as many apartment buildings as you could.A lot of apartment buildings are dreary places long corridors of identical doors and windows. But I came across one complex that was different. The walkways meandered. Every entryway was offset so that it didn t stare directly into its neighbor. The place had a great feeling. Ever since that time I ve been fascinated by the way structure influences our emotions and behaviors.Looking for the Good PlaceReal estate economist Richard Barkham takes a stab at defining what makes a city feel like it has life in his post 10 Things that Make a Place. Barkham things like Safety and Security, Hearth and Home, all the way to Gobsmacking Buildings.In summary his list looks something like this:SecurityHousingBusinessDiningWelcomingParks and public spacesShoppingCultureUrban designArchitectureThese are undoubtedly crucial characteristics of a good city. But I don t think they are the essential ingredients.Shopping centers and suburbs modern development in VenturaFor instance look at the shopping malls of the 60s and 70s or the outlet malls of the 90s. These structures do indeed draw people to cities but they don t contribute to life in the city as a whole. In fact, mega-shopping can lead to parking issues and contribute to a sense of deadness in the surrounding areas.For a Place to Feel Alive It Must Be AliveCities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody Jane Jacobs.Urbanist Jane Jacobs saw the city not as a collection of buildings, but as a vast ecosystem that was itself alive. She saw that there are lifecycles within the neighborhoods of cities.Think about a hotel in an upscale neighborhood in the 1920s. By the 1930s and 40s the hotel starts to show its age and declines in popularity. If the hotel is not demolished this lack of popularity can be an asset to a neighborhood in decline now it becomes affordable housing. Over time the value of the building increases because now it has a sense of charm that is absent in newer buildings.Much of what makes a city feel alive comes not simply from the elements on Barkham s list but from the intersections between them. Business, dining and culture are richer experiences when they overlap.Patterns of Life in CitiesArchitect Christopher Alexander and colleagues did an exhaustive study of cities and places that feel alive. The result is a book A Pattern Language that is composed of 253 design patterns that work together to create vital structures that support every human activity.The patterns have functional names such as House Cluster, Cascade of Roofs and Beer Halls. They interlock and work together. For instance the pattern Web of Shopping reinforces Mosaic of Subcultures, and Scattered Work, ticking off three or four of the categories in Barkham s list but doing so in a way that is natural, complex and interwoven.Architecture critic Alexandra Lange wrote a great overview of A Pattern Language that you really should read if you ve made it this far.Where Am I Going with This?For some time I ve been interested in exploring and cataloging the parts of my hometown, Ventura, California, that I feel are alive. Ventura is a great example of a city that has unfolded over time. From the very first inhabitants, the Chumash, each generation has built upon the structures built by the generation before, and for the most part these structures are still visible, like the growth pattern of a tree.Something changed, however, in the 1950s and 60s and the city stopped growing naturally. New developments were imposed on the landscape with an industrial focus on modernization and efficiency. I ll be looking at these structures as well, looking at ways that modernism began creating structures that are not alive and doing damage to the city.I ll also be posting on Instagram and Facebook using the hashtag #LivingVentura.Until then, see you around Ventura. Santa Clara River estuary looking toward Ventura | photo by Philip HoutzThe Chumash people, so the legend goes, were created when the earth goddess Hutash planted seeds on Santa Cruz Island. The seeds became men and women. Over time the people prospered and filled the island. Hutash built a bridge using a rainbow and they crossed to the mainland, populating the area.Cities grow like seeds. An encampment becomes a village. The village attracts people from other areas, bringing in new ideas.Shelters become buildings which in turn become permanent features. The village grows into a town and the town becomes a city.The city of San Buenaventura is especially interesting because the unfolding process is clearly visible at every stage. Throughout the city you can see evidence of each stage of the city’s growth.The Process of UnfoldingA seed, as it unfolds, retains characteristics of the whole“A child becomes an adult without ever losing uniqueness or completeness,” writes architect Christopher Alexander in his four-volume essay The Nature of Order. “An acorn transforms smoothly into an oak, although the starting point and end point are radically different. A good building or city will unfold according to the living processes that generate living structure.”Alexander believes that certain processes of design and building will naturally create structures that feel “alive.” Essentially these processes are small steps that make a site a little better, a little more complex, a little richer. At each step careful consideration of the existing site comes into play. The result is a structure that feels whole and deeply connected to the surrounding area.Not every design will create this sense of life. Plans that seem to work on the drawing board without consideration of the surrounding area are unlikely to have this feeling of life when they are finally built. This feeling of not-aliveness is characteristic of many “futuristic” designs from the 1950s through the postmodern 1990s.The city of Ventura has clear examples of both types of processes along with a renewed commitment to redevelopment that is more likely to create the sense of “aliveness” that Alexander talks about.Unfolding VenturaThe growth of the city of Ventura took place over thousands of years, from the earliest arrival of the Chumash people. The pace of growth accelerated in 1782 when Spanish missionaries built their first structure.Here are the general stages of unfolding that the city of Ventura has gone through over the years:1st Unfolding Shisholop (1000 AD 1769 AD) Humans have lived along the California coast for 12,000 years. Archeological records show that the village of Shisholop (“muddy place”) was settled around 1000 AD by the Chumash people. They had a rich culture and traded with surrounding tribes.Shisholp village superimposed on map of archeological site2nd Unfolding San Miguel Chapel (1769 1782) Spanish missionaries, led by Junipero Serra, thought Ventura would be an ideal site for a mission. They were impressed by the basketry of the Chumash, which they took as a sign of high intelligence. San Miguel Chapel was the first outpost and was built close to the village of Shisholop, separated by a muddy tidal area.San Miguel chapel in relation to Shisholop village3rd Unfolding Mission San Buenaventura (1782 1822) The Mission San Buenaventura was built directly North of the Shisholop village, forming a new focal point and center of activity. Notice the rough symmetry of the orchard and vineyard areas in relationship to the chapel and native village.Site of Mission San Buenaventura in relation to Shisholop and San Miguel chapel4th Unfolding Mexican Land Grants (1833 1848) Following Mexico’s independence from Spain the Spanish mission system was secularized, meaning that land holdings belonging to the Church were divided and granted to private citizens. In 1841 Rancho San Miguel was granted to Raimundo Olivas and in 1846 the Ex-Mission San Buenaventura tract was given to José de Arnaz, forming the broad outline of Ventura for years to come.1904 map showing land grants of Mexican era the railroad being a later addition5th Unfolding Agricultural Period (1849 1919) After a long period of boundary expansion the city of Ventura began to fill in. The Mission remained a central point but new centers grew up around agricultural areas. Stores, businesses and government centers began to emerge around the Mission. The architecture changed from Spanish adobe style buildings to wood and timber Victorian structures.1888 map of Ventura showing parcels and tracts6th Unfolding Oil Boom (1920 1950s) The discovery of the Ventura oil field, a vast pool of oil that runs from East to West in the area between Ventura and Oak View, launched a frenzy of development in the area along Ventura Avenue. This boom brought banks and financial interests to town, changing the architecture from wooden buildings to quarried stone and brick.While it seems very industrial, look at the order and symmetry of the structures, how they have naturally unfolded in place and contribute to a sense of “aliveness.”Looking up West Ventura in the area around Shell Road, dominated by oil7th Unfolding Modern Era (1950s 1990s) Following World War II American planners and architects became obsessed with the future and began designing for machine-like efficiency. Social activities were divided and centralized tracts of housing in one area, schools and churches in another area, shopping in yet another area. Supermarkets promised one-stop shopping and were set back from the street to accommodate the necessary parking.The natural unfolding that began in the 1700s was broken by this new process of urban design, and each successive generation is almost guaranteed to reproduce the new dysfunctional and not-aliveness of the modern era.Shopping centers and suburbs modern development in Ventura8th Unfolding SOAR and Infill (1990s present) In the late 1980s to 1990s the city of Ventura went through an extensive period of surveys, audits, interviews that involved participation from the entire community. This process took place alongside a series of county-wide initiatives known as SOAR, Save Our Open Spaces and Agricultural Resources.The result of this process is the 2005 Ventura General Plan. The plan promotes growth without expansion, focusing on improving daily activities of residents. Initial parts of the plan have resulted in the revitalization of Ventura’s historic downtown area.Ventura 2005 General Plan promotes infill development as opposed to sprawlFurther Reading:Unfolding Cities Notes from an experimental seminarPattern Language Site exploring the work of Christopher AlexanderLA Times article STRUCTURES : Function and Grace : The Ventura High School campus is a mixture of Streamline Moderne and later ground-hugging styles.OK publishing from Ulysses to Substack is probably too easy to be worth a complete blog post. And yet I managed to mess it up on my first try meaning that I had to go back and re-format all my text and re-do all my hyperlinks.I really wish that someone had written a quick tutorial online explaining that it s just a quick preview as HTML and then cut-and-paste into your Substack. It would have saved me some grief.Substack is a relatively new micropublishing platform that is designed to provide an income for writers with small but loyal audiences. I’ve got a substack called “The Wilder I” which is a series of explorations into wildness, life and processes that are in some way “alive.” Check out “The Wilder I” here to get a taste of Substack-iness.If you’ve written on Medium then writing on Substack will be familiar. So why not just write your whole article there?Gremlins. I’ve had a buggy internet connection devour hours of work on WordPress more than once. Because Ulysses has a very good publish to WordPress function, including adding categories and tags, I now write all my online pieces in Ulysses.The other advantage to writing in Ulysses is that you’ve got your text with you even when you’re offline.Step 1. Set up your Substack newsletter in Ulysses the way you want it to appear, including all heading styles, bold and italic styling, the links and all the images you plan on using. Check your spelling, grammar, whatever.Step 3. Go back to Ulysses, click the Quick Export icon in the top menu (box with up arrow) and select HTML as your output type. Click Preview and you will see your Ulysses document in all it’s cascading glory.Step 4. Select All the content in the open HTML preview. Then paste this into your empty Substack doc. Boom. Well, you’ll have to fiddle with the header and subhead. But the rest of your text, images, and links will be intact.I sync Ulysses from my Mac to my mobile devices using iCloud. Inside my Ulysses folder I have a folder called Images, and that’s here I keep all the images I use for Substack. This way Ulysses can give me a preview of any pictures I have embedded in a document whether I’m on my Mac at home or on my iPad at the coffee shop.That’s all I have to say on that. If you’ve found this page through a web search I hope it helps.Like I said, check out “The Wilder I” on Substack, and feel free to post your comments. It helps me reach a wider audience.DEVONthink is great MacOS app for warehousing massive amounts of information and yet giving you easy access when you need it. This bestness comes at a price however a user interface that is a little hard to figure out at first.Groups are most obvious way to organize documents in DEVONthink. Groups appear in the leftmost pane of the application and look like an outline or file structure. A document can only be in one group at a time though as with everything DEVONthink there are exceptions to this rule. But let s keep this simple.Let s say you have a stack of documents in your DEVONthink Inbox. Pick one of these and decide what it s about. At the beginning you don t want to be too specific, but also not too general. You want to make it easy for DEVONthink s AI to understand the subject matter of your documents so that it can assist you in future classification.Suppose you want to group an article about raising guinea pigs as pets. Articles is too general and it will be difficult for the AI to distinguish between an article, a blog post or a note. Guinea pigs might be too specific, unless domestic rodents is your area of research. Pets is probably the best choice for a group name at this point.You can create a group by selecting your document in the main window, right-clicking and selecting Group Items . DEVONthink will put the document in a group and provide an entry field for creating the name. Drag the group icon from the main window to your open database in the left pane.If you ve got several documents that belong in the same group you can select all of them and group them at the same time.It turns out that in DEVONthink groups are actually a type of tag, meaning that they can show up in a list of all tags. It can be helpful to start groups with a capital letter and keep tags all lowercase so that you can distinguish between the two. You can also prevent groups from displaying with tags, but that s getting us out into the weeds.Once you have a document in a group you can use DEVONthink s poweful AI to see if there are other documents that might be a good fit for that group.See Also Classify is where you interact with DEVONthink s AI. This shows up in the far right Inspectors pane of the three-pane display. This used to be activated using DEVONthink s famous Magic Hat icon but now looks more like a disolving hamburger button. It s just to the left of the maginfying glass.The top of the pane shows the classify part a list of groups that the AI thinks might be a good match for your document. This list will improve over time as you add more files and group them.The bottom pane shows the see also part. Here is a list of other documents that the AI determined are semantically related to your selection. The selected document shows at the top of the list and related documents show in descending order ranked by relevance.In the screencap below you can see that I ve got an article called Birding gets new life and it is in a group that I ve named Nature. The AI has found two more articles that could be related to my selection, How to identify Birds by Sounds and Bird ID Skills. I move these into the Nature group and briefly consider renaming the group Birding until I come across a blog called Camera Trap Codger about photographing wildlife with remote cameras.Once you have have your groups populated with two or more documents the AI becomes much better at making selections. I tend to dump a lot of diverse things in my Inbox and then spend times when I m at low energy going through this inbox and classifying.While it s possible to select everything in your Inbox, choose Classify from the Data menu and cross your fingers, I think it s better to make selections from the See Also Classify pane on a case-by-case basis. Along the way I often find groups that I need to rename or reorganize. I also find many unexpected associations and come up with fresh new ideas.Before DEVONthink 3.0 this AI-assisted classification was only available within a particular database. But now you can classify items across databases.I am using three primary databases for my personal freelance writing one for notes (zettelkasten), one for all reference materials, and one that s a kind of workspace where I bring together notes, reference materials and ideas.So far DEVONthink 3.0 is making it easier to transfer documents back and forth between databases and making sure that things get put back where they belong. But I don t have many miles on this version yet, so we ll see how things change.DevonThink 3.0 is available right now as a free public beta. This is a great opportunity to give this Mac-based knowledge base an extended test-drive, seeing that you won t have to pay a penny until the beta period ends some time this summer.Here s the use-case for DevonThink: you write, study, or otherwise manage a ton of information. You constantly find yourself trying to find a citation, reference or other tidbit of knowledge that you are certain is squirrelled away on your hard drive but you can t find. DevonThink stores any type of media you throw at it, indexes it and lets you create rich metadata around your information. Then it uses a built-in Artificial Intelligence to help you find your stuff.That s just the tip of the iceberg. This new 3.0 release lets you perform actions with smart rules. For instance you can subscribe to an website s RSS feed through DevonThink and then have your iPhone notify you whenever the site posts an article about poodles…or whatever topic is on your radar.Another great feature and one that I need to use more often is the ability to analyze word frequency in a document and see how words and concepts relate to each other in your document. Think SEO analytics on steroids.

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