Website address updated to point to Notenik.app; wiki links now will try to pluralize a reference, if it is not found in singular form; the Merge template Set command now allows a variable to be used as part or all of a global variable name; Markdown quote sharing corrected to respect lookup links; added a Quick Export and Open command.

Redesigned the Notenik website to support dark mode, with added content and a fresh look.

Added some cosmetic improvements, including dark mode on the Display tab, and highlighting of search results within the Display tab; also added a utility function to convert a Note's title into a link to Wikipedia.

Added a new lookup field type; improved web book generation.

I think there are a few very broad lessons we Americans can learn from the rapid fall of the Afghan government over the last few days.

Added several new options to better support outlining: OPML Import and improved OPML Export, ability to add a new Child to an existing Note, plus ability to drag and drop within a sequenced list; fixed list scrolling so that the Note highlighted and visible on the left will generally match the Note currently selected on the right.

Added Short ID to the list of available field labels and types, to help with URL shortening; added new option to export an entire Collection into a single HTML or Markdown document; fixed a bug affecting automatic links in footnotes.

Conservatism is a respectable human impulse. But now is not a particularly good time for it.

Added support for Mathjax; enhanced Table of Contents generation for a single Note; enhanced Table of Contents generation for an entire Collection.

Added a new Markdown extension to generate a Table of Contents for an entire Collection; added another new Markdown extension to generate an Index for an entire Collection; added another new Markdown extensions to generate a Tags Outline; added a new command to Generate a Web Book from a Collection; updated the Notenik Knowledge Base to make use of all of these new features.

Perhaps we might come around to thinking that economic kindness, instead of being something indulged in capriciously by bleeding-heart liberals who are occasionally feeling generous, should in fact be a regular practice that is designed into our societies.

Added an option to backup an entire Collection to a compressed Zip file; made improvements to Streamlined Reading, to focus only on Seq, Title and Body fields; expanded the custom URL help command to allow an ID to be included, to point to a specific Note to be initially displayed; added a What's New command beneath the Help menu to show the user the latest changes to the app.

Markdown parser support for definition lists; new Collection pref for Streamlined Reading, increasing focus on Body content on the Display tab; new Display navigation elements added when using Streamlined Reading, especially useful when using Seq and Level fields and sorting by Seq; new Notenik Knowledge Base, available from the Help menu (replacing all prior Help documentation).

I've been making the case lately that the Republican Party is in decline, and needs to reinvent itself. But perhaps something even more radical is needed. For when we look at the current state of our two-party system in the US, nothing about it makes any sense.

Updated the Work List field type to allow entries for ‘Novel’ and ‘Podcast’ (and to make it easier to enter using all lowercase letters); added a new field type of Level, to indicate the depth of a Note within the structure of a Collection; added a new command to renumber the Seq field based on sequence and Level; added a new command to generate tags that will mirror the outline structure implied by the combination of Seq and Level fields.

As children, our thoughts about death are stuff of dreams and fairy tales. As adults we learn to suppress these thoughts because we are busy getting on with things. But as teenagers, in this transition between nursery rhymes and real life, we tend to approach this topic with a frankness and curiosity that can be somewhat startling. Laura Nyro wrote her song “And When I Die” at the age of 17, and her refreshing treatment of the subject shows none of the reverence or piety that we learn to adopt as adults.

I recently wrote a piece offering “Some Hard-Won Wisdom Concerning Cults.” And I've written a couple of pieces recently questioning the direction of the current Republican Party. And so, today, I want to ask the question: should either, or both, of our political parties be considered cults?

As someone who once belonged to an organization later determined to be a cult, I can tell you that the warning signs are not always obvious.

Notenik can now be invoked by a URL starting with notenik://…. Both open and add commands are available. Get the open URL for a particular Note by selecting ‘Copy Notenik URL’ from the contextual menu for a Note's row on the List tab.

A few improvements to Script execution:

• Scripts now run asynchronously, so that they won't block the UI – no more spinning beach balls!

• Added an indeterminate progress bar to the Scripter window to let the user know that the script is running.

• Added a browse command to the Scripting engine. This can conveniently be placed at the end of a script in order to open a localhost URL displaying the local site just updated via the script.

So now the Republicans seem doomed to act like some strange variety of lemmings, unable to turn back from the cliff after their leader has jumped, but unable to turn away. And so they spend every day of their lives dancing along the edge, trying to convince the rest of us how good life will be at the bottom.

Added Collection Shortcuts and the Quick Action window.

• Merge templates no longer write unmodified files;
• Added new customization options for the Display tab;
• Added allfields command to Merge templates.

I was reading recently about a couple of different situations involving traits of both leadership and followership. Some reflection on these two situations has compelled me to dispense the following bits of wisdom on the subjects of leading and following. Some of these may seem obvious, and some controversial, but they are all equally true and valuable, based on my own experience doing a fair bit of both in a number of different organizations.

We all know that the economy is important. We talk about it every day. But do we ever think about… how we think about it? How we visualize it? How we've been conditioned to think about it, perhaps unknowingly?

It was just a little over four years ago that I remember sitting in front of our TV with our neighbors, watching the election returns, preparing to celebrate.

• Fixed a crash occurring when using Merge templates;
• Fixed a bug resulting in a double descending sort;
• Added page type as an additional column for notenik-index scripting input;
• Tweaked the Linked Tags Variable Modifier to allow specification of CSS classes;
• Added an Author Name variable modifier to specify last name only or last name first;
• Added copyfile template command;
• Added Image Name field label and type;
• Added Minutes to Read field label and type;
• Refactoring of file input/output routines.

In line with the famous quote from Ernest Hemingway, the Republican Party seems to see their fortunes on the decline – gradually for now – but perhaps suddenly before much longer.

• Fixed a bug that prevented Note duplication
• Retain last Note Selection between launches
• Added Drag and Drop for File attachments

No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, questions surrounding free speech are hot-button items these days. Should anyone be free to say anything, about anyone, at any time, and to any audience? If not, who's responsible for moderation, and what are the rules? And at what point does moderation become censorship?

• Added a Sort Option for Date Added
• Simplified Means of Creating a New Collection
• Changing of File Extensions Enabled

• Enabled Open Link in New Window for all hyperlinks on the Display Tab
• Added Support for Extensive Field Renaming
• Added Contextual Menu to List View

Overall, taking the pieces of the inaugural ceremony all together, the entire gestalt for me was a feeling that our feelings and practices of humanity, after being put on hold for four years, could now be resumed.

• Added Notenik Intro for New Users
• Added support for Markdown Code Fencing
• Added Markdown Spec access from Help Menu
• Reworked Display Fonts Prefs updates to make them more intuitive
• Adjusted the font weights in the What's New Display
• Corrected the sharing of an entire Note in Markdown

And so, I'm starting to wonder, if we want to end The Big Lie, what undisclosed pieces of truth do we need to bring out into the open in order to achieve a more spacious shared understanding of our common reality? In other words, what is The Big Truth that we have yet to acknowledge?

• Code Refactoring for Generation of a Unique ID for each Note
• Added a Convenience function to edit a Collection's template file
• Added a regular refresh to today's date
• Added a Folder Picker to the Nav Board
• Added a What's New Display

So much of our public attention is devoted to posturing, puffoonery[1] and empty opinionizing that many of our citizens seem to have lost the ability to distinguish this sort of behavior from actions that have real-world consequences.

• Fixed an Import bug
• Added options to Import data from OmniFocus
• Added ability to Publish to Medium

We all would like a quick fix of simple certainty, and no matter where we turn today, we can find an army of pushers waiting to feed our habit, even giving the stuff away for free, just to keep us hooked.

• Added Display Prefs Button to Update CSS
• Added an Optional Date Modified Field
• Changed the Author Sort to sort by first name first
• Sorted out problems with following links, including application URLs
• Added a function to close all completed tasks

Yes, that's right – Notenik version 5.0.0 has just been released, in all likelihood closing the books on 2020. So this feels like a good time to take a breather and look back on the path we've traveled, along with new routes yet to explore.

• Added a new File command to create a New Collection in iCloud
• Added a new Transform command to Stash Notes in a subfolder
• Added a new File command to Move a Collection to a new location
• Added general support for a Web Collection, which has its Notes stored in a subfolder named notes
• Added a Transform command to Browse a Web Index

In which I touch upon and connect thoughts from Jodi Doering, Dashiell Hammett and Ted Lasso, among others.

• Added support for a ‘Launch at Startup’ tag that will can be used to launch a bunch of websites when Notenik starts up for the first time in the day.
• When choosing a font to be used for the Display of Notes, the user may now select a checkbox to allow selection from a longer list of all fonts available on the system.
• Added a Command to toggle the display of the list of Notes on the left, should one want to focus more on the display for a single Note.
• Updated the Notenik app icon for consistency with the Big Sur ‘squircles’.
• Made a couple of other adjustments for better appearance on Big Sur.

• Added support for MultiMarkdown-style citations.
• Fixed a bug in inline Footnote generation (added in the previous release)
• Fixed a crashing bug in the export logic.

Added Markdown parser support for footnotes, a common extension to the original Markdown spec.

Also added a Share option that will format a Note as an HTML blockquote.

Plus there's a new Collection Pref that allows Note Titles to be formatted using level 1 Headings on the Display tab.

Finally, added a Navigation Board to allow easy navigation to known Collections that can be readily accessed by Notenik without any additional user authorization.

Oh, and one more thing… wrote a new Notenik blog post summarizing Notenik improvements made over the last six months.

Practopian.org now takes you to a website hosted on Pantheon, built using Drupal 8. Most of the same content is available on the new site, but the whole thing is now built dynamically, rather than using static pages. The menu navigation is improved, and the overall look has changed a bit.

Social distancing and wearing of face masks have become the new normal for most of us, thanks to the continued threat of COVID-19. And yet, as ever more people work from home, and more students attempt remote learning, I'm concerned about a growing chorus of folks who are celebrating this enforced distancing as a welcome wave of the future, and suggesting that what started as a temporary fix should be embraced as a permanent fixture of 21st century society.

There is a flaw in the reasoning behind our infernal, never-ending, society-splitting debate concerning socialism vs. capitalism, and I want to point it out.

When historians look at the long span of our human history, they try to make sense of our arc of cultural evolution by breaking it up into phases: the agrarian era, the industrial era, the digital era, and so forth.

But of course, there are multiple perspectives we can use for this sort of exercise.

Perhaps the most important perspective to consider is the relationship of our human population to the rest of our world.

Many of the things that our current president came to stand for were around before his candidacy – and, in fact, helped him to get elected – and they won't simply vanish on their own. If we're foolish enough to think they will, then we're engaging in as much magical thinking as The Donald is when he claims that COVID-19 will simply disappear all by itself.

Some bug fixes, and some new functionality. If you have a Mac, then check it out!

When we look at the major societal choices facing us today, the primary question is not whether we want a society that is more cooperative or more competitive, but whether we're ready for a society that is less coercive.

Some bug fixes, and some new functionality. If you have a Mac, then check it out!

Published the next batch of 25 albums to the RS 500 blog. Some notable albums in the 375 - 400 range, and some interesting comments from Charlie, Brian and myself. As always, three very different perspectives based on ages and interests.

As with many of us, I've been thinking deeply lately about the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breanna Taylor, and so many other people of color, and wondering how and why these atrocities continue to occur in my country, and what we can do to turn things around.

Added a new Counts window to check word count; several minor UI improvements.

Finally completed an in-depth analysis of Jackson Browne's album Late for the Sky, a project I had begun years ago. It's a lot to read, but the album is worth it.

Wrote up a Practical Utopian “basics” piece on the core value of Democracy, after reading How Democracies Die.

Suffering through a pandemic is a terrible way to have to learn a lesson or two about the nature of humanity. But it's what we have, so we may as well make use of it.

Also cross-posted on Medium.

For the progressive movement in 2020, a TextBanking party has nothing to do with your bank balances, and everything to do with who will be running our government for the next four years.

A blog post for Seattle Indivisible.

Users can now drag and drop a Note from one Collection to another in order to copy it to the second Collection; a Note sharing option to insert Markdown block quotes has been added; improved apostrophe handling when using the Notenik Markdown parser; and a new Bookmarks Board allowing users to select an available Collection to be opened.

This is why leading progressive organizations are now organizing virtual letter-writing parties, to help us reach out to key voters in important states and encourage them to get out and vote in our critical elections this year.

Users can now drag bookmarks from their web browser and drop them into the list view of an open collection in order to add them as a new note.

Published my and my co-authors' comments on the next 20 albums, working our way up the list of Rolling Stone's picks for the top 500 albums of all time.

Why do we call ours a capitalistic system, when so few members of our society actually possess any capital?

This was one of my more popular posts on Medium.

David Sloan Wilson and his pals at Prosocial World have done the heavy lifting for us, providing the eight Core Design Principles to maximize the effectiveness of human groups of all sizes.

Fixed a couple more Markdown parser bugs that popped up, added a couple of convenience shortcuts for toggling and incrementing the status field, and added an option to Sort a List by Tags plus Title.

I recently came across the Playing for Change Song Around the World video of Robbie Robertson's composition “The Weight,” and it made me want to think – and write! – more deeply about how this song works, and what it means, and the timeless nature of its appeal.

As humans our superpower is the ability to work cooperatively with others of our species. We can see all of the following patterns of cooperation at work in our society.

Released a new version of Notenik. Fixed a couple of bugs in the new Markdown parser and added logic to automatically add/increment a numeric suffix to a Note's title rather than rejecting it as a duplicate.

In broad strokes, all of human history can be seen as a progressive spiral made up of four intertwining strands.

See the Blog post on Notenik.net for a summary of recent changes to the Mac App.

My little Mac app is now up to version 3.0.0, is up to 10 ratings in the Mac app store, and still has an average rating of 4.9! I've received lots of feedback about the app over the last few months, and the latest release is better than ever!

Brian, Charlie and I have now published our thoughts on the bottom 80 of Rolling Stone's list of the 500 best albums of all time. Check it out!

This is my assessment of the Democratic candidates for the US presidency, following the debates on the evening of 14 Jan 2020.

As users of computers, do we really want our experiences to be so carefully and intentionally and restrictively designed for us?

I want to take a moment to offer up a prayer – not to God, but to all of us – for a more integral sense of who we are in the new year.

Some of the albums in the latest batch flew like eagles, while others sank like stones. Check out our latest multi-generational assessments of the top 500 albums of all time.

I've been releasing new and improved versions of Notenik fairly regularly over the last couple of months, and it's now up to 2.2.0 in the Mac App Store, with 2.3.0 on the way.

As I write this, my little app now has 7 ratings in the store, and an average rating of 4.9.

I've received emails about the app from a couple of people I've never met before — one user in Australia, and another in Finland! Nice to know that my software can be used around the globe.

Brett Terpstra was nice enough to mention my app in one of his recent blog posts, calling it “intriguing.”

But there's still more to do, and continuing work on Notenik keeps me busy doing something I enjoy.

If you have a Mac, and haven't yet checked it out, then I encourage you to give it a whirl!

See Notenik.net for details.

Published on The Practical Utopian, and on Medium, and emailed to subscribers in The Practopian Perspective Issue 40.

A couple of friends/relatives of mine are taking a trip through Rolling Stone's list of the top 500 albums of all time, and commenting on each as we work our way up the list, starting with #500. We represent three different generations of listeners, and each brings his own unique perspective to this fascinating musical journey. See how far we've gotten and follow along. You might even discover some new old music worth a listen or two!

Implemented a few additional fixes and minor enhancements. Changed scripted sorting so that fields whose labels begin with “seq” will be treated as sequence fields, meaning that numbers will sort in numeric sequence. Added a basic Textile parser that, while far from complete, is good enough for my needs, since I still use Textile on ReasonToRock.com.

This release includes the following changes:

• Enhanced logic for incrementing the Seq field;

• Added a dash/minus sign as a new variable modifier that can be used after the letter ‘o’ to trim the opening and closing paragraph tags from the HTML generated from the Markdown source;

• Added special treatment forr the Artist field, to allow it to be used in place of Author when sorting by Author;

• Added an option to the Template file to allow a long text field to be specified by placing ‘’ as the value for for a field specified in the template file;

• Additional refinements, including fixing a bug that sometimes ignored some variants of a newline character sequence when loading a Note from disk.

See Notenik.net for the updated User Guide and other documentation.

“Rejiggering Our Religion” published via email in The Practopian Perspective.

This was a focused maintenance release designed to prevent the user from inadvertently specifying an existing folder as the repository for a new Notenik Collection.

This release includes the following changes:

• Improved the performance of Notenik when loading a new Collection (especially a large one);
• The Work Type field now provides a drop-down menu from which an appropriate choice can be made;
• A few minor bug fixes and improvements;
• Recording of PSTextMerge/TDF Czar style scripts.

See the latest version of the User Guide on Notenik.net.

I was one of the 15,000 people who gathered under the Space Needle yesterday to hear Warren speak. There were several things about her that impressed me.

• She emphasized the need for structural change, starting with getting big money out of politics. This just makes so much sense because, without it, we'll soon be right back where we are now.

• She talked about the need for a wealth tax. This really clicked for me yesterday for the first time. I got it. People don't like income tax, because everyone has income, and no one wants to lose any of it to taxation. On the other hand, not everyone has wealth — especially as Warren defines it, above $50 million. So it will be easier to get voters to accept a new wealth tax than increases in income tax.

• As part of her opening origin story, she talked a lot about her “much older” brothers. It wasn't until I was riding home on the bus afterwards that I realized how smart this was, because it makes her sound much younger than her 70 years.

All in all, she seems like a smart policy person who genuinely has our country's best interests at heart. but also a smart campaigner.

This release includes the following changes:

• One or more files can now be attached to each Note;
• Tags Export Preferences added, to allow tailoring of which Notes are included in an export, and which tags are included on those Notes;
• A few miscellaneous improvements;
• Playback of PSTextMerge/TDF Czar style scripts.

This last item is a big one. It means that the Notenik.net site is now entirely generated by this latest version of Notenik writtein in Swift.

See the latest version of the User Guide on Notenik.net.

When it comes to religion, the main question for most people is whether to keep the one we were raised with, or to lose it altogether.

But now I’m starting to wonder whether, instead of losing my religion altogether, it might not be better just to rejigger it a bit?

No matter what your age or orientation, it’s hard to gainsay the significance of humankind’s first trip through space to set foot on a celestial body other than our birth planet.

This release includes the following changes:

• Tokenized the Tags Field on the Edit Screen;
• Added Split Tags Export to the File Menu;
• Added ‘Standardize Dates to YMD’ to the Collection Menu
• A few miscellaneous improvements;

See the latest version of the User Guide on Notenik.net.

By now I’m sure you’ve heard of Trump’s recent attacks on four Democratic congressional representatives, all women of color, urging them to “go back … to the crime-infested places from which they came.” How should Democrats respond? Here are the sorts of positions I’d like to hear them articulate.

I’m not quite as old as Biden, and I’ve never served in public office, but I can still share his nostalgia for seemingly simpler times when our political leaders displayed some sort of respect for each other, even when they disagreed over issues of state.

Just reactivated my micro.blog account at hbowie.micro.blog, and set up cross-posting to Twitter (@herbbowie) and my Facebook Practopians page. Happy to be part of the Micro.blog community and to join those supporting the open web!

No wonder zombie movies have been popular of late: so many of us feel like increasingly isolated survivors having to fight off forces that we thought were previously vanquished and long buried, forces that seem to be arising all around us, springing at us from all sides.

I now have an application called Notenik listed in the Mac App Store!

I’d been doing some regular programming in Java over the past couple of decades, but decided this year to bite the bullet and try to learn Swift, Apple’s latest development language, and chose the Mac as my first target platform. It’s been quite an adventure to create a full-fledged Mac App in a new language, but I’m happy to report that I’ve finally crossed the goal line! More improvements to come, but I believe that version 1.0 is quite serviceable. And it’s free!

We all sort of know the problems, right? Monopolies. Lock-in. Stream addiction. Reality bubbles. Billionaires seeking market dominance. All other values taking a back seat to growth. I don’t think I need to elaborate. If you’re reading this, then you’re probably well aware of all these concerns.

Over the many years since the receipt of my Bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Michigan, I have probably spent more rewarding hours reading detective stories than any other form of fiction.

Right now Democrats are focused primarily on two things happening in 2020: 1. Beating Trump; 2. Regaining control of the Senate. These would both be great accomplishments for the party, and for the winning candidates. But for the country, not so much.