App Discovery: Karakeep (aka Hoarder) a web clip manager

If you go on the web a lot, you often come across articles that you want to reference later. So do you bookmark it, email it to yourself, or do something else? (Evernote? OneNote? Obsidian? Pocket?)

I personally had used various services including one called Omnivore, but that shut down a few months back. Then I read somewhere that if you host your own, you don't have to be EVER at the mercy of some other service provider.

As I find clipping to Evernote way too slow (up to 15 seconds per clip), I decided to look for something else. 

Then I found KaraKeep. 

How KaraKeep Works

KaraKeep is both an app and a service. It takes clippings of articles you can transfer to it via bookmarks, Android app, app share, iOS app, Chrome or Firefox extensions, and so on. It will take whatever you sent it (and optionally, run it against an LLM to extract keywords) so later you can go back and browse or search through via regular search and keywords. 

How to Install / Self-Host KaraKeep

What's great about Karakeep: it runs via a Docker Container, so there is minimal configuration if you already have Docker Container all set up. You simply download the whole package, and "run" it. Done. They have documentation online, and Discord channel as well.  

To make KaraKeep server available to you from almost anywhere, you setup a Tailscale distributed VPN, and enroll both your PC (whichever that runs the Docker container) and your smartphone (where you plan to clip from) to make sure they can see each other. And really, that's it. 

From now on, when you see an interesting article on the smartphone, simily do share >> KaraKeep. No need to choose keywords, no need to choose specific labels, no need to specify title... Share it, and forget it. It's clipped almost instantly, no matter where you are, and whether you're on cellular data or wifi. 

Run the app itself (or if you're at home, go to the machine running KaraKeep and browse to http://localhost:3000) and you can see what you've clipped, and use search and keywords to find what you clipped on that subject. 

If you want to use LLM to automagically pull out keywords for your searches, you need to configure KaraKeep (server, on your PC) by following this guide. 

Troubleshooting

Oh, and if you ever run into a problem with Docker, something about port 3000 is already taken, you need to restart hns, with "net stop hns" then "net start hns". You may also need to restart the Docker Container for Karakeep. Then it should work. 

If it fails on the smartphone side, make sure Tailscale is RUNNING. Obviously Tailscale needs to run for the VPN to work, and send your traffic back to your network to the KaraKeep "server". 

Now go have fun clipping everything you needed. 

The 5 Different Levels of Zettlekasten System: Summarized

Card Catalog, via Unsplash

Zettlekasten is a way of organizing information to make them more retrievable for your research. It's related to a LOT of similar concepts, such as GTD, Building a Second Brain, and so on. Yet it predates most of these modern concepts. 

There are many people who want to sell you classes and workshops and so on, but I think they are playing up the complexity of the system too much. Instead, I'll just show you what I have taken Zettlekasten to be... a multi-layer approach. I don't have fancy acronyms or backronyms. I'll just tell you the levels. 

Level 1: Acquire and file information (of various types) into the Slip-box (which is what Zettlekasten means). This has 2 parts:

1A: Do GTD's "brain dump"... Get all the stuff out of your brain to be processed later. These are call "fleeting notes" in ZK, as they are ideas, not information. They are topics or directions you should explore (see level 3), but are not information per se. 

1B: you also need to take literature / media notes, which points out interesting concepts, thoughts, quotes, and so on (with full bibliographical refs) as you consume all that info.  

If you have extra thoughts, well, make them fleeting notes and attach them to the lit notes you made in 1B. But they are SEPARATE notes. Keep information (immutable) separate from ideas (mutable). 

Periodically (nightly? Weekly?) perform level 2 action below. 

Level 2: Associate / Link the filed information to make them retrievable.

Initially you would not have much information to free associate, which is why you need to do this consistently over a long period to build up a large amount of information. It is essentially building a second brain to help you think. 

In level 2, there are also a few parts 

2A: Convert fleeting notes into permanent notes, by adding cross ref (if available) to relevant topics, or leave them on top as potential "todo" items if you want to look into them in the future

2B: Examine the new permanent notes and try to associate them with existing permanent notes, by adding forward links, backlinks, and index links. 

Most people simply stop here, as they think this is enough, but that's missing a final step:

Level 3: Explore the OTHER dimensions of association / linking. 

In level 3: we need to explore the "compass of zettlekasten". Most people, when they associate, they think of similarities. However, this doesn't address all the potential topics that one card can possibly related to. 

Here's what the cardinal directions refer to:

West: similar topics, usually related anecdotes, quotes, studies, that support this hypothesis

East: opposite topics, anecdotes, quotes, studies, that directly oppose this hypothesis

North: explore potential duality / theme in a new direction, where X come front? If we take it up 10000 ft, what topic would it cover? 

South: what does all these lead to? If we go down 10000 ft, what topic would it cover? What does X contribute to? What does X grow into?  

In Vicky Zhao's ZK example, she was reading "Range by David Epstein" subtitled "Why generalist triumph in a specialized world", can be summarized as "breadth is better than depth", and "Sampling Hypothesis", about child athletes should be allowed to experiment with many sports before they settle down to specialize in one thing. 

So "west" here would be a bunch of anecdotes and examples pointing out that a lot of the best experts, like Roger Federe in Tennis, Yo-yo Ma on music, are actually generalists before they became specialists. 

East then would be the opposite viewpoint, such as the "10000 hours to become expert", or perhaps, the Matthew Principle (how those who have initial advantage tend to keep that advantage, or "how the rich got richer")

North then would have topics such as "why can't someone be BOTH a generalist AND a specialist?" "What about the late bloomers, like Van Gogh, or Colonel Sanders?"

South where does all these lead? Example given is "paradox of personal monopoly". Personal Monopoly is the idea of "nicheing". The Internet, esp. Youtube, rewards nicheing, where you build your own personal brand/monopoly that nobody can copy because you are uniquely you. People can imitate you, but they cannot BE you. Yet to develop a personal monopoly, you need to try a variety of things before finding your niche. 

Oh, but wait, there's more!

Level 4: Synthesize new content

By this time, you may have enough information to create your end-goal: an article, a study, a research paper, a Youtube video... And you already have all the material at hand, so it's just a matter of putting it all together, no further research is needed. 

Level 5: Getting feedback from audience and fellow creators / collabs so cycle can be repeated (optional)

This should be quite obvious...

Cultural Baggage and Entrepreneurship, leading to debate on economy and cultural strengths

Recently I posted a hub about how your cultural upbringing can be "baggage" when it comes to entrepreneurship.

The conversation went from the topic and quickly devolved into comparing the eastern vs. western economies. :D

Read the hub and feel free to comment on the economy.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Ethnic-Culture-as-Obstacles-to-Entrepreneurship