Copy and paste across Google Slides

I wanted to copy slides from one Google Slide document to another. Half-expecting it to not work, I just copied slides in one document, switched to a different tab, hit paste… and it worked! Seamless and perfect.

It looks like when you copy slides, your clipboard actually saves a special payload that contains information about the slides you are copying, rather than the raw content. Then when you paste that into a Slides document, it retrieves the slide data from its servers and imports them to the second document. I imagine you have to be logged into the same Google account in both tabs for it to work properly.

You can actually look at the raw clipboard data by using a custom HTML page like below:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head><title>Clipboard Viewer</title></head>
<body>
  <h1>Paste clipboard contents here (Ctrl+V)</h1>
  <pre id="output"></pre>
  <script>
    document.body.addEventListener('paste', async (event) => {
      const output = document.getElementById('output');
      output.textContent = '';

      const clipboardItems = event.clipboardData.items;
      for (let i = 0; i < clipboardItems.length; i++) {
        const item = clipboardItems[i];
        const type = item.type;

        output.textContent += `MIME Type: ${type}\n`;

        if (item.kind === 'string') {
          item.getAsString((str) => {
            output.textContent += `Content:\n${str}\n\n`;
          });
        } else if (item.kind === 'file') {
          const file = item.getAsFile();
          const text = await file.text();
          output.textContent += `File Content:\n${text}\n\n`;
        }
      }
    });
  </script>
</body>
</html>

After copying slide data and pasting it to this page, I saw:

MIME Type: text/html
MIME Type: text/plain
Content:
<head><meta charset="UTF-8"></head><b id="docs-internal-guid-2b163f80-7fff-e9cd-4022-54d9d4edcc57" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal;"><span> </span></b>

Content:

That docs-internal-guid-* looks like the important bit. Copying multiple slides also results in a single guid, so I guess this is just a catch-all hash that saves all information about whatever it is that you had copied. Pretty cool.

Jul 15, 2025

Finally got to start reading Project Hail Mary. So far it seems to be The Martian 2.0 with a dash of Echopraxia, which is SO my jam.

Jul 10, 2025

To experience, rather than record

https://www.joanwestenberg.com/p/i-deleted-my-second-brain

I have never made any meaningful headway in deliberate note-taking, or knowledge management, or second-brain creation. Not for a lack of trying! There just seems to be something in my mind that resists this kind of rigor.

So a lot of points made in Joan’s piece here really resonated with me.

PKM systems promise coherence, but they often deliver a kind of abstracted confusion. The more I wrote into my vault, the less I felt. A quote would spark an insight, I’d clip it, tag it, link it - and move on. But the insight was never lived. It was stored. Like food vacuum-sealed and never eaten, while any nutritional value slips away.

When I first started using PKM tools, I believed I was solving a problem of forgetting. Later, I believed I was solving a problem of integration. Eventually, I realized I had created a new problem: deferral. The more my system grew, the more I deferred the work of thought to some future self who would sort, tag, distill, and extract the gold.

If some small scrap of information doesn’t stick in my mind, maybe it’s OK to forget it. Maybe recording everything is not the best way to engage with it.

I’m terrible at remembering to take photos. I just get so caught up in the moments that I don’t think to record them. But honestly, I prefer just being able to experience my life for myself, rather than always keeping a phone between me and the rest of the world.

My son’s kindergarten class put on a performance for parents in the spring. The parents were cautioned beforehand that in past years, adults were so busy photographing that nobody remembered to clap for the kids. I imagined being in the place of the kids, looking to see your parents’ faces and just seeing a sea of phones instead.

The kindergarten also hires a professional videographer and you can buy a DVD later. The prices are absurd, but it’s worth it if I can keep my phone in my pocket and make sure my son can always see my face. Every time our eyes meet, he beams.

Jun 30, 2025

My raincoat keeps the rain out, but it is so hot that I sweat an almost comparable amount 🥲

Jun 24, 2025

This beautiful swallowtail butterfly came out of its cocoon today!

A black and white butterfly rests on a bright green leaf held by a persons hand. Its wings are outstretched.

A hand holds a green leaf with a butterfly perched on it from the side, displaying black and white patterned wings with orange accents.

Jun 8, 2025

Releasing our little frog buddies today as they probably need better food than we can provide for them. They grew from tadpoles! Glhf my friends! 🐸

Two small frogs inside a clear plastic container on a gray surface. The frogs are dark-colored, and one is positioned near the center while the other is closer to the edge.

A small, dark frog sits in a glass case, facing the camera.

A small frog is seen on a clear plastic surface, its body partially inside the frame. The surface has some smudges and dirt. The frogs textured skin and distinct limbs are visible in the foreground.

A small frog camouflaged among dried grass and leaves in a garden area. The ground is covered with brittle brown leaves, green blades of grass, and small clusters of yellow flowers.

Jun 7, 2025

Communication-driven productivity

Or, “The latest chapter in my fool’s quest to discover a productivity framework that magically makes me effortlessly productive”. So it goes.

I’ve always considered my todo list as a list of things I need to do (for obvious reasons). But I had a minor epiphany and realized that, in my current role, everything I do has exactly zero value until I communicate it to the right people.

For example: One big item on my todo list now is to finish writing a proposal for improving how we evaluate new game ideas. But if the overarching objective is “Improve how we evaluate new game ideas”, the direct actions to achieve this are “Convince the right important people and get approval”, followed by “Tell everybody about the changes”. These are accompanied by the prerequisite sub-tasks, “Write up a convincing proposal” and “Update the existing guideline documents”.

In fact, almost everything I want to accomplish can be divided as The Communication and The Preparation for the communication. In most cases, the communication is the part that holds the actual impact.

It’s a subtle difference, but is very important for my perspective. Previously, I moved through my tasks sequentially. First I write the proposal. After that’s finished, then I schedule a meeting to present it. If that goes well, I propagate the results.

With this new framework though, I’m grounded in the final goal, and understand that everything hinges on the right communication. Writing the proposal is top on the list and is what takes most of my time, but in terms of actually achieving things, it’s just a precursor to the real action of using it to convince people.

I used to be a Maker. I had a list of things (mostly documents) I had to produce in order for my team to progress. Some meetings were necessary, like everybody getting together at the beginning to figure out what exactly we needed to make and how, but the focus was on the doing that came after. Focused work uninterrupted by meetings was ideal.

My current role flips that on its head, though. I can do all day on my laptop, but it won’t make any difference until I communicate it to the right people. By habit, I was pleased by having an entire day free of meetings, but slowly it dawned on me that those days weren’t accomplishing anything. Of course I need time for myself to output certain things, but it should be framed as being preparation for an upcoming communication, and not as the actual goal.

Aside: I’m very conscious of my usage of the word “meeting” here, because it is such a loaded term. Nobody like a day full of meetings. But a day full of communication, conversation, and discussion? That is more palatable.

So what does this mean for me? I haven’t settled on a workflow yet, but when I record something I need to do I will frame it as the following:

The key thing I want to accomplish
The communication required to make that happen
Things I need to prepare for that communication
Notes and deadlines for the above

Some communications might require no preparation. Those are the easy wins, as I can immediately set a time for discussion (or even just send an email) and put it out of my mind.

Some tasks might require no communication. These are random things that I have to do for whatever reason, and will probably end up being mostly busy-work. I’ll find space for these somewhere in-between, as they are not a priority.

The core of my efforts should be the preparation + communication combos. If I want to enforce a fast pace upon myself, I could even book the meeting first and hold myself accountable to prepare in time.

This should be a simple enough framework to chunk my efforts into meaningful objectives, while setting clear priorities. The key insight for me is that communication is the star of the show, and my personal outputs are merely the preparation.

Jun 5, 2025

Finished reading books 1-4 of the Stormlight Archives. Book 3 was a slog for me the first time through, but now I am PUMPED for book 5

Jun 3, 2025

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