A folder full of trivia
Sometimes I run into people who, during a conversation, will throw in some trivia to spice it up: “There was a study that showed pangolins curl up when exposed to classical music.” Ask about the study, and these people will hem and haw about journals and universities.
I am that people, actually.
When I drop a bit of trivia, I promise i’m not making things up. I’m genuinely trying to remember something I read somewhere, but the earlier the reading, the vaguer my trivia, and when I misremember details, it is as good as made up.
At art school during the 1990s, in the pre-inernet and Google Image days, I kept files of pictures, torn from magazines, for reference. If I needed to illustrate a particular type of tree, then I’d leaf through my nature file and pick out a picture that came close to what I need.
When I started using PCs that practice continued, this time with folders holding .rtf format files. I kept notes in them. Then about 15 years ago, I discovered Zim-wiki, and started throwing in any trivia I came across, with a link to the source1.
That folder still exists. About 2500 files with notes (mostly copy pasted) on things like taoist stories, physics experiments, stuff about the brain, military stories, recipes, jokes and so on. Anything that caught my attention. If I remembered it long enough, it went into the wiki.
Then Markor came along, and now I carry all those notes on my phone. If someone asks me for the source, I can whip out my phone, and open Markor and run a not-particulary-fast full text search, and find the note.
Except… the moment has usually passed, and the conversation has moved on. But it’s not all missed opportunities. I use my folder full of trivia when I write these posts on my website.
And hey, before you go. What do you call an object that logs information?