Eventually computing will become intelligent within 5-20 years but I doubt computers will be very creative at the beginning - add some more years… ;D
I tend to be optimistic about the future of technology (and people).
But there’s an old saying that 99% of everything is dreck. Actually, that’s a fundamental law of the universe that also applies to computers as authors. ;D
Myself is only optimistic about the future of some technology (e.g. I have still no idea if biogenetics will be good or bad) and sometimes about people (not that often lately but I’ve stopped watching or reading news 
).
Just curious - is "dreck" also an English word? 
I should think dreck found its way into american english via yiddish. Is it originally german?
briefly and drecklessly,
Eiron
"Dreck" is a German word too (meaning "crap" or "dirt")
Nope: U.S. usage comes from Yiddish.
I’m optimistic about what biotechnology will do for people – even some of the things that may seem scary now. Trained as a chemist (also logic and philosophy of science), I did bench research with some of the early leaders in molecular biology. Have spent the intervening years working in science policy and environmental administration. Most people – even in many of the developing countries – live better, cleaner and longer lives than was the case when I graduated from college (at 19) in 1951. [I’ve got a few years on you!]
I’m optimistic about most people, but not all of them. There’s fairly stong evidence that about 90% to 95% are "good" (fit productively into society), and the rest are not "good."
As to the news, it’s bad now. I’ve spent many pleasant times in Egypt and have friends there, but this wouldn’t be a good time to return. I had met a U.S. official who was assassinated in Jordan a year or so ago. He was a good and kind man. Someday, life will be much better for the people in the Middle East – but this is not yet that time.
But the news from DEVONtechnologies remains good, and I’m unreservedly optimistic about DEVONthink Pro. How about that? ;D
Well, I’m importing material from StickyBrain. All I really desire is the ability to import tab-delineated text files. Apparently a bunch of these note-taking apps import and export into one big RTF document with these:
¶----------------------------------------
in between each note. DT can import the entire document, but it’s like a 3MB document for me, and splitting it is not fast.
I brought my StickyBrain notes into DEVONthink long ago. StickyBrain searches had gotten slow, once the database grew past 300 notes, some rather large.
Try exporting categories one at a time from StickyBrain. That reduces the export file sizes. I did the "clipping" in TextEdit by selecting and cutting larger notes, then copied them from the clipboard into DEVONthink. For my own convenience, I didn’t bother clipping apart the many small notes that were left in the export files – just dumped the collections into DT, in a "StickyBrain Notes" group.
All this took about an hour, much of which involved organizing the material in appropriate groups in DT. The rewards included faster searches and DT’s "See Also" features.
I’ve mentioned this elsewhere in the forum, but here seems the best place to add my vote for DT or DN to import tab-delineated text from other apps – as separate notes. I didn’t use iOrganize long enough to generate much material, but I do have several hundred cards in a hypercard stack (anyone remember hypercard?) that was the best thing I could find for organizing info and viewing it in many different ways via keywords. Unfortunately the only way to get at that info, short of cutting and pasting each card, is to export the stack, as a huge, single tab-delineated text file. I’d love to be able to have DT or DN import that file and make each former card a note. It’d be even better if it could then arrange them in groups by my hypercard categories (I designated three categories – date, place, and style) but I realize that’s asking for the moon. If I could just easily transform my hypercards to Devon notes, I could finish this book in Devon, and never use Classic OS9 (which I only use now for Hypercard) again.
Since the topic was broached here, let me also second the motion for a sidebar outliner, like the one in Mellel, ZWrite, and CopyWrite. Unlike in Word or appleworks, I’d love to be able to see the whole (collapsible) outline out to the side while I’m working on the text of any one note (i.e. section/subchapter or whatever small piece of the larger whole I’m working on). Makes navigating around a large document (e.g. a chapter with lots of subchapters) much easier than switching in and out of outline view. You can kinda do this now in DT or DN by just using each notes as a section of the text, then merging it all when the piece is done, admittedly.
Finally, I also recommend that DT and DN support the use of user-designated keyword searches. By that I mean I’d like to be able to categorize each note (all of which represent historical events in my book) by its the date the event happened, by the place it happened, and by other categories relevant to the book. Then when I t ype a certain date or place in the search window, I get back a list of cards representing events that happened during that year or in that place.
I’m going to try to achieve this functionality (which I had in my Hypercard stack) using Labels, but I may have more categories than there are labels.
Thanks to Devon’s developers for such a great application, and for the freeware that led me to it!
This got me thinking and I just figured out a way… have posted it as it’s own topic under “Tips and Tricks”:
devon-technologies.com/phpBB … =5392#5392
Hope this helps…
Wow, thanks so much, Moses, for the suggestion. I won’t have time to try it till after the holidays, but I’ll let you know what happens if and when I do.