Speaking of newsletters, a while ago I was trying to recover a web page on password handling in Python (Secure Password Handling in Python) that I had just left in a browser tab. I’ve got a bunch of Chrome profiles, always have multiple Chrome/Firefox/Safari windows open, each with multiple (multiple) tabs open. Due to a couple of reboots and default age limits on browser history it was looking grim on finding that link again. While useful, the page wasn’t search engine optimized enough to come in at the top of Google with the obvious keywords.
Bother.
Then I remembered which Chrome profile likely had the tab. Popped over to the window and pulled up GMail for that account. Hit the GMail search bar with “credentials” and there it is, right in the PyCoder’s Weekly newsletter.
All to say, over time a collection of link newsletters actually represents a significant knowledge base of curated references. The links have been vetted by humans for collection. For many of them, there’s an authored text summary nearby. There’s a timestamp attached, along with other metadata.
What if you grabbed those newsletters out of mailboxes and shoved them into a text and/or semantic search engine? Possibly another component of a personal memex.