All posts tagged: notes

The notes app that finally stuck for me has no sync, no AI, and nothing to fiddle with

The notes app that finally stuck for me has no sync, no AI, and nothing to fiddle with

Published by skeptic

Feature creep is an inevitable fact with every shiny new app (or even old ones). It hasn’t even spared Notepad. I recently started experimenting with Kraa.io, a web-based Markdown editor. It’s designed to act as a digital sheet of paper and a bit more under the surface. This minimalist tool requires absolutely no signups, allowing you to begin drafting within seconds. While it wants to compete directly with some of the best distraction-free writing apps on the market, its no-friction features are a standout. And there’s no AI to take you down the rabbit hole. Related This offline-first writing app feels better than Google Docs A simple editor that delivers focus, speed, and zero browser clutter You can start writing instantly No signups or configurations required Saikat Basu/MakeUseOf Kraa runs entirely in your web browser, which means you never have to waste time creating accounts or going through the annoying rigmarole. Simply go to the site, open a new “leaf,” and you have a blank digital canvas ready to capture your fleeting thoughts. This friction-free …

Are You There, God? It’s Me, J. D. Vance, and I Have Some Notes.

Are You There, God? It’s Me, J. D. Vance, and I Have Some Notes.

Published by Daniella Wilson

“I don’t worry about what I will find on the other side of eternal sleep,” J. D. Vance writes in his new book, Communion. “Even as a child, I never feared hell.” Charming sentences to find in a book by the sitting vice president of the United States! One that in no way makes me want to run screaming off a cliff! The book is full of many such humdingers. Here’s Vance, explaining why he prefers Catholicism to therapy: “I found liberation in guilt.” (Men would literally rather … well, you know.) Here’s Vance, explaining why he felt ready to join the Catholic Church even as it was “going through a tough time,” when headline after headline was recounting all of the ways it had “screwed up” in covering up child sexual abuse: “If the Titanic is going down, I’d rather be on board than hop on a lifeboat.” Here’s Vance on the one kind of acceptable immigration: “It is true that immigration can bring benefits to the host country in its own right. Just …

Apple Struck the Right Notes With Its New AI Tools. Here Are 4 Features I’m Excited to Try

Apple Struck the Right Notes With Its New AI Tools. Here Are 4 Features I’m Excited to Try

Published by skeptic

Apple was expected to go heavy on AI and Siri at Worldwide Developers Conference 2026, and it did. The new Apple Intelligence and Siri AI features are promising. I had low hopes of finding actual use of AI in my daily life, though. Event after event, I’ve sat through keynotes that throw AI features I’ll never use at me. Sure, I can use AI tools to generate a video from a prompt or my phone can book me an Uber with a voice command, but I don’t have much use for AI slop videos and booking a cab takes forever. I was bracing myself for another bombardment, but Apple got the AI pitch right at WWDC 26, showing ways to use its AI features that I could relate to.  For example, I’ve always wanted easier ways to add Shortcuts on my iPhone and wished I could change the framing of my photo while editing it. Apple isn’t telling me to use my phone in new ways, but it is aiming to simplify the things I already do. I’ve …

I stopped organizing my notes and let this new app do it

I stopped organizing my notes and let this new app do it

Published by skeptic

All of us who love notetaking have spent hours hunting for or building the perfect digital notebook. My app of choice as a recent convert is Obsidian. It overwhelmed me at first, but now I love formatting notes, typing out complex tags, and linking notes by hand. It feels productive, but it can be exhausting. I wonder if I will spend more time cleaning my notes than actually writing them. The search for the next shiny productivity app never goes away. So, I am experimenting with a new app called Mem. Mem promises a novel “organize nothing” workflow. It uses AI to sort, find, and connect your ideas for you. I am taking a first-hand look at it; maybe I can adapt the workflow to Obsidian. Related Pairing Obsidian and Claude was the best thing that happened to my note-taking Your Obsidian vault gets smarter when Claude reads it Mem connects notes without manual links Your ideas find each other automatically Saikat Basu/MakeUseOf Mem uses a feature called Heads Up to read what you are …

On Her 100th Birthday, A New Auction of Marilyn Monroe’s Personal Items Offers An 8-Page Love Letter, a Dior Dress, and Acting Notes

On Her 100th Birthday, A New Auction of Marilyn Monroe’s Personal Items Offers An 8-Page Love Letter, a Dior Dress, and Acting Notes

Published by Sam Flores

Marilyn Monroe is the paradigm of 20th century Hollywood movie-stardom. She’s the ultimate bombshell. The embodiment of the sex symbol. The blueprint for our contemporary understanding of fame and its perils, and one of the most evident and undeniable archetypes of beauty—just ask Kim Kardashian. Today, June 1, Marilyn Monroe would have turned 100. She died in 1962 just two months after turning 36, and the public fixation with her pin-up persona and the inner workings of her complicated interpersonal life has since grown exponentially, and at times turned macabre. It should come as no shock that Marilyn Monroe, who was born Norma Jeane Mortenson and was famously not a natural blonde, is remembered not only as the identity she created for herself and for the public, but for her image and the artifacts she’s left behind—a woman disembodied, a ghost kept alive by both myth and grisly obsession. To mark the occasion, Heritage Auctions is auctioning 101 lots online containing personal items that belonged to Norman and Hedda Rosten, two close friends of Monroe …

Alan Cumming on sharing the Traitors castle with Claudia Winkleman: ‘We leave notes’

Alan Cumming on sharing the Traitors castle with Claudia Winkleman: ‘We leave notes’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Alan Cumming and Claudia Winkleman “never cross” paths at Ardross Castle, where they film the American and British versions of The Traitors, but they do leave surprises for each other, he tells HELLO! in an exclusive interview. Alan, 61, who is spending more time in his native Scotland after making an unexpected career move to run the Pitlochry Festival Theatre in the Highlands, is about to begin filming the next series of The Traitors US at the castle.  Asked whether he and Claudia offer one another tips for the show, he says that their filming does not overlap and that they only met for the first time at the BAFTA TV Awards in 2025. “But we do leave little notes for each other to say hello,” he says.  He says that he would be chary of entering the show as a contestant, not only because of the “psychological torture” that guests go through but because he would miss the comforts of the castle that only he gets. “I mean, you’d think I might have some …

Mental health therapists who use AI to take notes face questions about trust : NPR

Mental health therapists who use AI to take notes face questions about trust : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

A growing number of mental health therapists are using AI tools to record sessions, take notes and do administrative tasks. Fiordaliso/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Fiordaliso/Getty Images For two years, Molly Quinn trusted her therapist with things she hadn’t told anyone else. So when her therapist mentioned trying an artificial intelligence tool to take notes, Quinn didn’t immediately refuse. The 31-year-old librarian from Fayetteville, Ark., asked to research it first. She wanted to understand where her words would go — whether they would stay local or be processed somewhere in the cloud. Replaying the session in her head The session moved on that day, but halfway through, Quinn noticed something was different. “She wasn’t taking notes like she usually did,” Quinn says. “The iPad was just propped up.” That’s when Quinn realized the session was being recorded. Quinn says she froze for a bit. But then she kept talking. It wasn’t until she walked out of her therapist’s office that the weight of it landed. “The more I thought about it, the more I …

From vulva scarves to Prince Andrew – 10 of the Guardian’s most memorable Pass Notes | The Guardian

From vulva scarves to Prince Andrew – 10 of the Guardian’s most memorable Pass Notes | The Guardian

Published by Sam Flores

Beginning is often the hardest part: the rigid and long-established format of Pass Notes requires the writer to begin with Age. If the day’s subject is Nigella Lawson or Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a number is readily available. If it’s Jar Jar Binks, the answer may be obscure but still obtainable (born in 52 BBY – before the Battle of Yavin). But what if the subject is bees, or office temperatures, or “peak curtains”, or God? Some days you get stuck on the first line. If the subject was Pass Notes itself, you’d have the same problem: it originated in the short-lived Sunday Correspondent, which ceased operations in 1990. The orphaned idea was then adopted by the Guardian’s newly launched G2 print section in 1992, scrapped after a redesign in 2005, and resurrected in 2009. But if we can’t put down anything for age, we can still supply a number: 5,000 examples, and counting. From the outset, Pass Notes was a crib sheet for the modern world – as much as you needed to know about …

Democrats mock reported personalized Patel bourbon: ‘Notes of insecurity, narcissism’ 

Democrats mock reported personalized Patel bourbon: ‘Notes of insecurity, narcissism’ 

Published by Sam Flores

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee mocked FBI Director Kash Patel after a new report came out saying the Trump administration official occasionally travels with a “personalized branded bourbon” engraved with his name and title.  “The Kash Patel bourbon: strong notes of insecurity, narcissism, incompetence and alcohol-fueled national security risk,” the lawmakers wrote in a… Source link

Christian Hubicki’s Notes for Mike White, Jimmy Fallon

Christian Hubicki’s Notes for Mike White, Jimmy Fallon

Published by Daniella Wilson

Christian Hubicki made Survivor history in a way no player ever wants to — by becoming the first contestant forced to write down his own name at Tribal Council thanks to a twist from Jimmy Fallon. The wild Survivor 50 moment punctuated a sudden unraveling for one of the season’s sharpest strategic minds. In his exclusive exit interview with The Hollywood Reporter below, Christian explains how it happened, where the game slipped and why he’d still “always take the call” to play again. *** Do you have a message for Jimmy Fallon? Anything you want him to know? Look, Jimmy, I am always open to reconciliation. I don’t know who has to get the mediator, but I think we can repair this budding friendship. I believe we can. And maybe it was just a typo. Maybe it was just a typo on the note that maybe Christian will not have to vote for himself. And so we’ll figure this out, my friend.  You became the first player to have to write your own name down …