4 ms·

I Print-to-PDF everything I've ever found interesting to spend longer than 2 minutes lingering on .. and as a result, I've got 20+ years of Internet articles to

by aa-jv 4y ago

I Print-to-PDF everything I've ever found interesting to spend longer than 2 minutes lingering on .. and as a result, I've got 20+ years of Internet articles to go through and read offline, any time. Its very interesting to see the change of quality of technical writing over the last two decades. There's a definite, observable increase in click-bait style writing.

qabqabaca 4y ago
This sounds like a great idea. Do you have any system for tagging or sorting them? Other than date of course
- aa-jv 4y ago
  Nope, I just print-to-PDF onto my Desktop and then dump all my .pdf files into a "PDFArchive" folder once or twice a week. I've got over 70,000+ .pdf files in that archive now. Its very easy to query for data in this archive - ls is a surprisingly useful search tool when combined with a few |'s and grep's... and pdf2text is highly useful as well! One of these days I'll get around to making some word cloud tools or so, maybe scanning the archive to find my favourite 3rd party sites, etc.
ciroduran 4y ago
Now there's an article I would read :D
MezzoDelCammin 4y ago
just out of curiosity - have You read them all? Or is it a general archive of "interesting idea, could come in handy"?
- aa-jv 4y ago
  I have read them all. And I often go looking for articles in the archive. Its really quite handy to have every single interesting thing I've ever read, accessible this way. I suggest you try it out for a year and see for yourself!
  - nickstinemates 4y ago
    Do you print to pdf this interaction or is it not an archive of interaction but more an archive of articles? I am assuming the latter because the former would be too hard.
    - aa-jv 4y ago
      I don't understand how one would print to pdf an interaction? If I read something, and it holds my interest for 2 minutes or so, I print the article to PDF for archival purposes. I've done this now for 20+ years and have a huge history of things that have interested me over the years. Its extraordinary to see the change in the web, even in just the last 5 years, in terms of click-bait techniques and content.
      - nickstinemates 4y ago
        A lot of what I read, particularly on sites like HN and Reddit, are the comments section, which are usually more valuable than the article itself and where I have the most outsized reactions/learning/engagement. So I was thinking aloud/asking if preserving this type of content is a) worthwhile, b) straightforward
  - MezzoDelCammin 4y ago
    My personal flow is that whatever looks like an interesting article but is longer than a 2-3min read goes to Pocket. From there I try to read and save whatever interesting bits in Joplin (it's pretty rare that I'd find a whole article so inspiring that I'd like to keep the whole text). Downside of this is that I'm probably at around 30% rate of what I can treat this way (the highlighting / clipping is a bit more time intensive than I'd like and needs to be done at a PC, while for reading I prefer a Kobo e-reader). Upside is that in Joplin I can keep track of no matter what text, including the discussions on HN / elsewhere.

by aa-jv 4y ago

qabqabaca 4y ago

This sounds like a great idea. Do you have any system for tagging or sorting them? Other than date of course

aa-jv 4y ago
Nope, I just print-to-PDF onto my Desktop and then dump all my .pdf files into a "PDFArchive" folder once or twice a week. I've got over 70,000+ .pdf files in that archive now. Its very easy to query for data in this archive - ls is a surprisingly useful search tool when combined with a few |'s and grep's... and pdf2text is highly useful as well! One of these days I'll get around to making some word cloud tools or so, maybe scanning the archive to find my favourite 3rd party sites, etc.

ciroduran 4y ago

Now there's an article I would read :D

MezzoDelCammin 4y ago

just out of curiosity - have You read them all? Or is it a general archive of "interesting idea, could come in handy"?

aa-jv 4y ago
I have read them all. And I often go looking for articles in the archive. Its really quite handy to have every single interesting thing I've ever read, accessible this way. I suggest you try it out for a year and see for yourself!
- nickstinemates 4y ago
  Do you print to pdf this interaction or is it not an archive of interaction but more an archive of articles? I am assuming the latter because the former would be too hard.
  - aa-jv 4y ago
    I don't understand how one would print to pdf an interaction? If I read something, and it holds my interest for 2 minutes or so, I print the article to PDF for archival purposes. I've done this now for 20+ years and have a huge history of things that have interested me over the years. Its extraordinary to see the change in the web, even in just the last 5 years, in terms of click-bait techniques and content.
    - nickstinemates 4y ago
      A lot of what I read, particularly on sites like HN and Reddit, are the comments section, which are usually more valuable than the article itself and where I have the most outsized reactions/learning/engagement. So I was thinking aloud/asking if preserving this type of content is a) worthwhile, b) straightforward
- MezzoDelCammin 4y ago
  My personal flow is that whatever looks like an interesting article but is longer than a 2-3min read goes to Pocket. From there I try to read and save whatever interesting bits in Joplin (it's pretty rare that I'd find a whole article so inspiring that I'd like to keep the whole text). Downside of this is that I'm probably at around 30% rate of what I can treat this way (the highlighting / clipping is a bit more time intensive than I'd like and needs to be done at a PC, while for reading I prefer a Kobo e-reader). Upside is that in Joplin I can keep track of no matter what text, including the discussions on HN / elsewhere.