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What People Are Saying
If we want to improve on the iteration speed in scientific research, one of the more promising ways would be to incorporate methods from software engineering. Software engineering has gone from waterfall projects that release updates as standalone monoliths from a closed-source warehouse, to agile-developed remotely-updated differential improvements that may be supported a large community. Academic literature by contrast is still structured as it was in the early days of physical publishing, and has barely adapted (and this is putting it extremely kindly) for [[task]]s such as retractions or sharing data. Citations often do not distinguish between which works are being used as supporting material, which are discredited, which are being supported, or which are being used as examples (positive or negative). The idea of making techniques like revision control, bug-flagging, and dependency management available for scientific research (much like what software engineering uses) is a change I’m definitely in favor of. Some projects are already underway in restructuring scientific knowledge into these kinds of collaborative tools, such as [Roam Research](https://roamresearch.com/) or the [Polymath Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath_Project). Having a scientific literature version of [Knowledge Graph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Graph) would be a far superior alternative to the increasingly bureaucratic review and publishing process.
As We May Think
The historian, with a vast chronological account of a people, parallels it with a skip trail which stops only on the salient items, and can follow at any time contemporary trails which lead him all over civilization at a particular epoch. There is a new profession of trail blazers, those who find delight in the [[task]] of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record. The [[inheritance]] from the master becomes, not only his additions to the world's record, but for his disciples the entire scaffolding by which they were erected.
What People Are Saying
Roam [is] a brilliant new organizational and productivity tool in the form of a web app that is compatible with how the mind actually operates: networked thought. In your Roam account, you essentially build a personal wiki from the ground up with your own pages. You can create bi-directional links to any page and embed content from one page to another, so you no longer need to choose which singular location to put information-- if you put something on one page, **you can have it appear on any other page you'd like without manually editing each location.** Among other great features, it's like Google Docs in that **it automatically saves your work and allows for simultaneous collaboration**, it supports Latex, and it has a sidebar where you can open up/edit other pages so you don't lose your spot. The understated feature that I am most excited about actually is the graph view (see below), which is functionally just an overview of your pages, but to me encompasses the essence of Roam. **I see it as a productivity map of my brain, showing to me how I organize thoughts in my mind.** The reason why I consider this so powerful is because **I get instant feedback on the organization of my mind and as such it helps me organize thoughts and reduce the clutter in my head. This is something that no productivity or organization tool, including Google Drive and Microsoft Office, has ever offered to me before.** For me, **Roam is the productivity tool that I didn't know I needed**. It took about a day of getting used to before I instantly adopted it into my daily regimen. **I used to use a combination of written daily planners, Evernote, Wunderlist, Google drive, and Microsoft Office to record my thoughts, [[task]]s, notes, and research. Now I use Roam.** Although it's in its early stages and currently developed by only a two person team, it clearly has tremendous potential. I encourage anyone who's never been quite satisfied with their organization tools, especially technically-oriented, scatterbrained researchers like myself, to give Roam a try with an open mind.
What People Are Saying
For the last few weeks we've been testing a new tool for [[task]] management and bug tracking at Radix Motion. We've previously tried Asana and Notion and this works a lot better for us. It gives us structure and ability to track [[task]]s without inhibiting our creativity and getting bugged down by endless fields to fill out like Asana or getting lost in overly complex data structures like Notion. It's called Roam and it's the brainchild of Conor White-Sullivan and Joshua Brown who have been poring a lot of thoughtful work into it over the last few years. They are starting to take on more test users and I would highly recommend this for any small start up team or individuals trying to increase productivity. Looking at the graph overview structure at the end of every day is a pure pleasure for data driven junkies and a great way to self motivate. You can request access on the web site: http://roamresearch.com/
Roam White Paper
Besides reasoning and argument, dependency graphs have applications in education, self-directed learning, and general decision-making. Even a very complicated project can be traced backwards to a number of smaller [[task]]s. The user can see the tradeoffs involved in each pathway, map out which route is the fastest, and which path might bring them closer to other interesting goals. As the student marks their progress, they can discover new projects and pathways which make use of the skills they have acquired.
Book: Tools for Thought
Licklider's analysis of his research behavior showed that most of his [[task]]s were clerical or mechanical:Â "searching, calculating, plotting, determining the logical or dynamic consequences of a set of assumptions or hypotheses, preparing the way for a decision or an insight. Moreover, my choices of what to attempt or not to attempt were determined to an embarrassingly great extent by considerations of clerical feasibility, not intellectual capacity." #important
Roam White Paper
For most people, the problem of sorting signal from noise therefore involves finding trustworthy and accurate secondary sources of information. This difficult [[task]] is often frustrated by gated scientific journals, as well as search engine algorithms increasingly gamed by SEO-savvy content marketers.
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