Nearly two years later, I’m reviving the idea of a Micro.blog meetup for analog tools like paper and notebooks, pens and ink, pencils, stationery, planners and journals, typewriters, index cards, etc.
Thirteen intrepid fans of analog tools filled out the survey last time, and the majority thought a one-hour Zoom meeting each month would be the best way to start.
Timing is everything, in so many realms, and this one is no different. I’m available to host this meetup every third Saturday of the month from 9-10 a.m. PST. That would make our first meetup on Saturday, January 20th.
TIL: 4,500 4 x 6″ index cards weigh 18.7 pounds. 🗃️🏋🏼
FireKing International manufactures a 1-hour fire protection filing cabinet with index card inserts, that has options for various locks, is rated for 30 foot drops, and is sealed against potential water damage. They offer both four and six drawer options with the larger clocking in at a massive 863 pounds. With each of the 18 sections on the 6 drawer model capable of 25 15/16″ of storage, this beast should hold about 64,800 index cards.
The rough news is that this king of cabinets, while providing great protection and security for your zettelkasten, runs a fairly steep $6,218.00. Despite the initial sticker shock, keep in mind though, that it should provide a lifetime of secure and worry-free storage for just under 10 cents per card.
Unless you’re into the older vintage wooden boxes which aren’t very good for protection against fire or water damage, there aren’t too many modern card index filing cabinet manufacturers out there, and this may be the most solid of the group. I’ll add it shortly to the ever-growing list at The Ultimate Guide to Zettelkasten Index Card Storage.
Someone was having a sale, so I might have just spent $18.65 for a massive haul of 4,500 4 x 6″ index cards. 🗃️ Happy New Year indeed!🥂🎆🥳
Could one go as far as to say that the ten commandments (numbered notes) presumably etched onto stone tablets (slips) and placed into the ark of the covenant (a box) and which coherently formed the basis of knowledge and living a good life for the twelve tribes was a zettelkasten?
Why not?
On the seventh day of the siege of Jericho, the Ark of the Covenant is carried around the city, horns are blown and the walls collapse (Josh 6:20-25).
Extract from Latin Psalter from England – BSB Hss Clm 835, fol. 21r. Oxford, 1st quarter of the 13th century
Source: München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Replied toa post by Pratik (microblog.pratikmhatre.com)
One more use for ChatGPT - enter all ingredients, including the type of alcohol you currently have, and ask it to suggest cocktails.
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🗃️ 🍸🥃 I have a section in my card index for that functionality:
Card Index Expenses 2023
Index card storage (boxes): $404.59
Index cards (3,650 cards) $87.56
Tabbed dividers/accessories $73.05
Total: $565.20
In the documentary Kevin Hart & Chris Rock: Headliners Only (Netflix, 2023) while preparing for a portion of their tour, Kevin Hart admires a portion of Chris Rock’s stand up comedy method and calls it “a science”. Chris Rock writes headlines for his jokes on slips of paper and then arranges them on either tables or small bulletin boards to outline his set list for presenting jokes for his performances.
If there are interesting contemporaneous news items which appear, he’ll include a newspaper or other material to represent the related joke for inclusion into his set. This makes a fascinating means of outlining his material and seems to fall within the realm of my search for zettelkasten output processes. Even if Rock doesn’t use index cards to write or store his jokes like comedians in the past have, he’s using a slip-based method for outlining and arranging them as part of his output process.
Kevin Hart: Chris, I’m so… I’m so, uh blown away by what I’m discovering that is your process.
Chris Rock: My process.
Kevin Hart: This all your shit?
Chris Rock: Well, this here would be, uh, bullet points for tonight. Every card represents a joke or a reference that I choose. I don’t wanna forget. You know what I mean? Like, you can remember all your jokes, but some nights, I’m like, ‘ehhh, I’m not gonna close with this one. I’m gonna close with that one’.
Kevin Hart: You have it down to a science where you can bullet point the time.
Chris Rock: You can. And by the way, sometimes, something happens in the news.
Kevin Hart: You got jokes on the bench.
Chris Rock: I have jokes on the bench.
Kevin Hart: I’m going to tell you I’m not only impressed by that, but I’m disappointed in myself. Because, uh, whatever I got, got to to fly.
Continuing on with my bullet journal-like Memindex practice using 4 x 6 inch index cards for 2024. Happy to continue answering questions about it for the curious.
@GMJuditPolgar, I’m doing some research for a book on note taking traditions, commonplace books, and zettelkasten/card indexes. In watching an interview of you with Christiane Amanpour from 2020 I noticed a photo of you next to a card index while playing chess. Do you have 15-20 minute for a short interview to talk about it and how you compiled and used it?
DrankAlexander No. 2 (Schumann)
Based on the classic Brandy Alexander, this creamy cocktail with nutmeg makes for an excellent holiday cocktail.
I’m slowly coming to realize that handwriting or typecasting to my website means that I am left with a permanent, physical copy of my post which I can archive into a physical card file. I can file them by date to create a version of a diary, and/or I can file them by taxonomy so that I might reuse the ideas at a later date zettelkasten-style.