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I only need the timestamping and signing on the off-chance that I might have to go to court. I should have a proper engineering notebook in case of a patent dispute. Also, I'm a PE, so there's a slight chance that I could get sued.

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@freemo It really complex for what I want. I don't need a web service, and am not really looking to share my notes. I'll add the ability to export stuff as a PDF, I think. What I really need is a lightweight way to store project notes by date and project, where I can't change the notes once they've been written. Ultimately, I'd like to have them timestamped by a trusted authority and sealed with a cert. Also, it'd be nice if my program could interpret some standard HTML and SVG markup.

I'm not a scientist; I don't run experiments or need to write papers. I'm an engineer, whose razer-sharp memory is starting to go to crap. I'm hoping I can write something small enough to be moderately portable, that won't drive me crazy. I'm so bad at keeping notes.

Alright folks, help a coder out. The last time I tried to write an engineering notebook app for myself, I got bogged down in the interface, then sent myself down a rabbit hole where I was planning to store all of my notes in sealed PDFs, which I then had to read back so that I could search. Clearly, this is not the way.

After that, I tried to just beat TiddlyWiki into unsealed project note shape. It works, but it's buggy.

It occurs to me that I could quickly bang out something with an interface similar to my note-taker in TiddlyWiki, in .NET, use a little local DB to store the notes, then once that behaves, work on figuring out how to encrypt the contents of each set of notes...that seems doable. I can add more useful bits later.

Friends, allow me to share my progress from you. Please yell at me if I try to add too many things at once.

@soundofsun This looks interesting. My big concern is, it seems like a very large system. If I can get away with it, I was hoping for a small notetaking system.

I'm up for writing one of my own. I suspect that I'm gonna have to do some research on encryption. I think that's the crux of the security issue.

The ultimate goal is an electronic engineering notebook. I've been fighting with this one for years, but last night it occurred to me that I can share my problem with all of you :)

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Question: Assuming that I have a certificate that identifies me, and a timestamp from a trusted time authority, what is a good file format/other way to seal text against modification/impersonation? I know that I can seal PDFs, but I'd like to secure my daily notes and ultimately make them searchable, so a folder of sealed PDFs is somewhat inconvenient.

@joey_zozo I'd really just like to make some kind of "mechanical orchestra". That'd be a hell of a project.

@joey_zozo I assume that that build involves creating some kind of reed...maybe made of rubber, that forces each horn to play a fixed note? Then you just have a nice-sized air compressor and a bunch of valve banks. I wanna make something like that...but the reed part seems like it might be tricky..

@freemo If you're practicing with Latin phrases, i'm rather partial to "Proxima flamma fumo est." The internet suggests that it should be "Flamma fumo est proxima," but I heard it the other way first, as part of a spell on TV. It is clearly superior...possibly also wrong.

@iankenway @freemo I can't help but think that this was also an opportunity to force his fetish onto his wife. A normal relationship can have a single person responsible for the finances, and if both parties are agreeable, the money manager can dole out use of the credit card. I've got a bipolar friend who had to hand over her card to her sibling to keep issues from arising when she gets manic. This guy bypasses that as an option (that she might have agreed to, given her background) and goes straight to infantilizing her via spanking, which she has stated tha she doesn't want.

@lupyuen Frankly, this is the first I've heard of this. If it makes you feel better, between Covid, Trump, our new roving band of Feds in tactical gear, and massive polarization, if a spy from Singapore even makes the news, it will be the highlight of the day, as the one recent wound to our nation that isn't self-inflicted.

@sir Not if you're a hardware engineer who writes software (See modern SCADA packages).

@ramob Or maybe you could use something like GreaseMonkey to automate filling in the apps?

@ramob @mandlebro If you don't already have one, I recommend making lists of your work history and contacts, so you can just paste it in.

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