Outboard Brain

digital Notebook, second brain

Oct'2014: Thomas Dixon using Twitter as his prosthetic. Four years ago, Dixon was out for a run near his parents' house when he was struck by a car and injured so badly that doctors weren't sure if he would survive. He doesn't remember the accident, but it left a permanent and pervasive mark on his life: Since that day, his memory hasn't been the same. In particular, his episodic memory—specific, autobiographical details like where he was, who he met, what he ate and the like—has been compromised by the traumatic brain injury he sustained that late November afternoon.

Cory Doctorow, 2002: Blogging gave my knowledge-grazing direction and reward. Writing a blog entry about a useful and/or interesting subject forces me to extract the salient features of the link into a two- or three-sentence elevator pitch to my readers, whose decision to follow a link is predicated on my ability to convey its interestingness to them. This exercise fixes the subjects in my head the same way that taking notes at a lecture does, putting them in reliable and easily-accessible mental registers.