Bullet points

If you read the previous entries in my journal / blog post / thought dumping substrate, you probably noticed the way of writing is special. id:: 693c7d29-1968-4ae4-97d4-8f6ddf35e0fe
  • It's probably not related to style, but to formatting
  • You may find it very annoying
    • maybe even clunky to read
  • And you're probably wondering when the next item in this list will be.
This is a semi-deliberate choice. I decided to give a go to LogSeq, a note-taking #OpenSource software that is built around the idea of "blocks". This mean that every content, every conceptual knowledge item is an item in a list. This allow to do funny things like linking to other blocks. That's completely overkill for a blog, and probably pointless. But I had to try to be sure. And adding constraints drives progress.
  • As a side note, I implemented part of the blog generation logic by myself. So they are missing features, and I'm not sure I will have the time / motivation to implement linking blocks. I will probably write a post about how this blog generator works in the future. id:: 693c81cf-36f5-484e-a37a-881806f52a7c
So let's list some advantages of list items
  • They are easy to display with html
  • They can be nested recursively
    • They can be nested recursively
      • They can be nested recursively (as deep as you want)
        • They can be .. ok I think you got the point
  • Because they are trees, they can represent a wide variety of data:
    • Dendograms
    • Typologies (classes and subclasses)
    • folders
    • very detailed tasklists
    • syntax trees
      • example:
        • because
          • representing
            • item lists
            • trees
          • being usefull
            • item lists
            • to
              • express
                • unambiguously
                • stuff
                  • grammatical
  • They force you to thing about structure first, content second
  • They can even be numbered !
    • 1) This makes you look serious
    • 2) This allows you to refer to previous points, which is more important than 1)
    • 3) But this can be a trap, because sometimes you realize a simple list would have been enough.
  • they are faster to type, and I have also noticed that they are easier to write than paragraphs when I'm brain-dead
  • They can be folded, which is very powerful for explanations
    • You can even use them to add details to something you write, like a footnote ! That's a great pedagogical tool.
  • They reflect the Dyck language. Make what you want from this information.
And some drawbacks:
  • Tree are less expressive than graphs
    • They can't handle cycles
    • They can't handle repeating repeating content, see ((693c81cf-36f5-484e-a37a-881806f52a7c))
    • They are directed. You can't have just 2 blocks that refer to each other like wikipedia pages
  • They can get very boring. If you sleepwalk into them. They kill narration and remove emotion. Here is an illustration:
    • List items can be boring
    • In particular when they repeat
    • In particular when they repeat
    • When there is no connection
    • When sentences are the same
    • When there is no rythm
    • They are boring as fuck
    • You may need this remedy
  • LLM love them. So you may LLMize yourself
    • I jailbroke myself LOL
    • Wait, actually it is not what the user want. Let's re-think about the situation
    • In conclusion, list items have advantages and drawbacks — You have to chose wisely when they should be used.
If you want even more discussion about "outlines" (another name for list item content), go read this blogpost from a friend of mine Ok, I think I will stop there.
  • Well, technically, you added a line after that 🧠
    • Shut up !