(Updated Nov. 2022) Wouldn't it be fantastic to have a "butler" to help us as we constantly face drowning in information? That need was crushingly pressing for me , as a polymath with a thirst for knowledge in several fields, not to mention numerous very technical jobs over the years, several complex research projects, old notes from college and grad school, an endless stream of online courses I take , a tech startup I founded and used to run, the many conferences I attend, life in general, and even hobbies that tend to generate abundant information (such as flying airplanes and studying multiple foreign languages!) I was immensely eager for some sort of powerful assistance, something so helpful that I could poetically describe as an " annex " to my brain.. In this blog entry, I'll describe how deep frustration with existing software tools led to the start of the open-source BrainAnnex.org project, a web-based knowledge representation and manageme