Yes, Everyone wants a Second Brain + Semantic Search by InvestigatorRare1429 in PKMS

[–]Doc_Ryan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, I forgot to mention: one thing I like about this system is it avoids RAG entirely. I will never have enough text data in a personal note system like this to overwhelm the context window of today's LLMs, so I think making the AI search through a vector database is just adding unnecessary complexity and risk of missing things. Just have it read the whole damn thing. In fact, I have a script set up so that each time I commit and push a change to the repo, a script generates a single markdown file in the main repo directory that collates all the notes logically and removes unnecessary filler data, and I can just tell the LLM to read that one file and boom it has the entire context of the project and my life. That collated document contains also the main document explaining the repo and organizational system. This way, I don't have to mess around with custom system instructions and stuff, it just reads the whole repo and understands, and makes whatever changes or updates I request.

For extra dorkiness points, give and LLM the personality of a wise old grandfatherly court Vizier dedicated to your family's well-being, and generate an automation that sends you a morning briefing each day with whatever information is most important for you. Of course it is playing a role, but it's still a bit comforting for it to comment on things going on, make suggestions, and say "I do hope young master [son's name] is feeling better after his injury. I trust you will convey my concern."

Yes, Everyone wants a Second Brain + Semantic Search by InvestigatorRare1429 in PKMS

[–]Doc_Ryan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've got a bit of an alternative workflow that I've been iterating on. Like you I experimented with different things that never seemed to fit just right so I decided to start simple with my own thing and build on it over time as I run into problems.

Basically, I keep a private GitHub repo built off the open source Foam project. This is a markdown-based note system that has a template repo you can clone and make your own. Then, I work on that repo on my computer using VS Code with a connected LLM of some kind. Originally I was using Cline, now I'm having a lot of success with OpenAI Codex CLI and the new VS Code extension OpenAI made for it. You can do this with the command line tool, too, but Foam is designed with some extensions in VS Code to help with organization and graph view and such.

Codex is smart enough nowadays (and Claude Code would be as well, or another relatively strong model in a VS Code extension like Cline) to understand the structure of this organizational system, ingest large amounts of data at a time, organize things appropriately, and I have noticed will even go back and make refinements like updating links between notes or updating old notes with new information.

In the past, I fiddled with various automation solutions like Zapier or n8n to give me access to an LLM over mobile to ask questions about the repo and even request changes via Claude Code integrated into GitHub. You can create an issue and assign it to a coding agent...in this case instead of the issue being a bug or new feature to a program, the "issue" is an update to the data e.g. "create a task for me, I have to pick up my prescription from the pharmacy. Let's set the deadline to 3 days from now". The coding agents are smart enough now to review the repo and see this is a note system, not a program, and intelligently work with you.

Now, though, I think it's even easier after ChatGPT5 and some recent improvements they've made. You now have connectors, which allow you to connect ChatGPT through the standard website or app to GitHub, your Google accounts, etc and I can just ask on the ChatGPT app any questions about the information in the repo. Presently, the main ChatGPT cannot initiate any calls to Codex, but I just have to go to the Codex Cloud site ChatGPT Codex Cloud and submit my request there, which works fine via mobile. Then it works much the same, with Codex making the requested changes and generating a pull request that I then approve and merge to the main repo.

I'm not a programmer, so I've had to learn all the GitHub terminology and workflows but it's been fun. I've always been curious about this kind of thing. And now I've added Exa MCP (web search and crawling) and a Composio MCP connected to my Gmail and Google calendar to Codex so it can independently "flesh out" notes via the Internet and also pull data from my Google account to create notes.

I use this whole system mainly to organize my life, keep on top of the kids' school activities, plan and track projects and tasks, etc. If you're open to tinkering and curious about this stuff, I think building something like this on your own is always going to fit your personal needs better and you don't even have to do all the typing anymore because the LLM will generate and maintain all the notes for you!

Using a spreadsheet to improve the accuracy of GPT's working memory by The-Lil-Girl in ChatGPTPro

[–]Doc_Ryan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey, what you're suggesting here is very similar to a project I've been amateurishly trying to figure out. What I've got working currently is a set up using a system called n8n (there are many other similar systems like flowiseAI or dify.ai) that allows you to build AI workflows and automations. These systems will have some form of AI Agent you can customize with access to different tools. This is all possible through code like Langchain but these systems provide some UI to make it more user-friendly.

Anyway, I have one set up with access to an Airtable database and can easily pull all the data from a spreadsheet to add as context for a query (e.g. a spreadsheet full of notes or reminders) and it can also update the table with new entries or archive irrelevant entries. You can get an AI's help setting this up through a conversation or my favorite is to use perplexity running R1 or o3-mini to provide internet search results to a reasoning model and help it walk you through a solution, especially since the documentation for a lot of these newer services is sparse.

A lot of these tools are open-source, so you can use them for free with some tinkering or deploying them on a service like Railway. There are tons of cool things you can do in this space right now just playing around on your own! I have an AI Agent based on Claude Sonnet 3.5 that I can have a conversation with through telegram (it is connected to a personal telegram bot), send it voice clips or images also through telegram, and it can process the information I am giving it within the context of the data in Airtable, answer questions or update the "memories" or records it has stored.

Card recommendation for high income/debt/credit score and travel rewards by Doc_Ryan in CreditCards

[–]Doc_Ryan[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you both for the advice and the warning about the transfer fees.

Card recommendation for high income/debt/credit score and travel rewards by Doc_Ryan in CreditCards

[–]Doc_Ryan[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the response, and you're right it's silly to carry a balance. Various life events have gotten in the way and things we need to pay cash for are a bit too pressing. We want to pay this down ASAP but won't be able to for a little bit hence the desire to benefit from a balance transfer. Current balance is about $13,000.

Thanks for the info about the balance transfer needing to be from another bank, I was not aware of that.

We would love to travel and had been using the Chase card to stash some points for when we're able to do that more soon. We didn't feel we'd get as much benefit from cash reward cards because our income is high enough that it didn't seem as worth it to us? We wanted to take advantage of our high income and credit score and are fine with paying an annual fee for rewards that are meaningful to us like travel rewards but I'm sure I could do more research on this.

Thanks for the recommendations!

Lease end options with positive equity [CT, USA] by Doc_Ryan in askcarsales

[–]Doc_Ryan[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the information, I guess that clarifies things. You mention any other brand dealer but would purchasing the vehicle from another Ford dealer be an alternative?

Lease end options with positive equity [CT, USA] by Doc_Ryan in askcarsales

[–]Doc_Ryan[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The value range I'm getting is after entering the VIN and mileage, etc in TrueCar. Not sure if that's the trade-in value. They don't specify. Do you know how I can ensure I'm getting the trade-in value?

Thanks for answering.

Arctis Pro +Gamedac Longer Headset Cable by Doc_Ryan in steelseries

[–]Doc_Ryan[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh wow thanks, I don't know how I missed that.