On Sat, 11 Jun 2011 21:06:20 -0400, mm wrote:

I posted to an English ng, but their answer was writing in a journal.
Now I think I'm thinking about some machining process, journaling???
Related to bearings???

What am I thinking of?

It is what a journaling file system does before it commits data to the
hard drive.

Wasn't it also a way to make a channel in wood or metal?