9,047 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2024
    1. The CoI framework is a dynamic process model of onlinelearning based on the theory that effective learning requires a community based on inquiry(Garrison, 2011, 2015). At the heart of the model are the interdependent constructs ofcognitive, social, and teaching presence

      COI - heart cognitive social teaching presence

    1. Studies using the FrameworkSurvey have focused on the role of social presence (Annand, 2011), theinterrelationship of presences (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 1999),students’ perceptions and satisfaction (Maddrell, Morrison, & Watson,2017), and perceived learning (Richardson & Swan, 2003)

      Framework Survey

    1. describe the Community of Inquiry as a “conceptual framework that identifies the elements that are crucial prerequisites for a successful higher education experience” (p. 87).  Shea and Bidjerano elaborate that CoI “focuses on the development of an online learning community with an emphasis on the processes of instructional conversations that are likely to lead to epistemic engagement” (p. 544).

      community of inquiry

    2. The Community of Inquiry (CoI) model (Garrison et al., 2000) is the prevailing model in research involving teaching presence.   At its core, CoI is built on constructivist principles rooted in educational theories of Dewey, Vygotsky, and others.  Constructivism is a process of an individual’s construction of knowledge through his/her own experiences and develops in concert with interactions with others (Shea et al., 2005).

      Community of Inquiry

    3. Another perspective that supports the social nature of education comes from Vygotsky (1978), whose theory of the zone of proximal development proposes that optimal learning is achieved through both teacher’s guidance and peer interaction.  The zone of proximal development is the distance between what an individual can learn on his/her own and the potential for learning with an instructor or a community of peers

      Gap between learning on your own, or learning in community is an interesting topic. I see this as an issue for both in person engagement and online engagement

    1. The Book of Hours was largely developed at the artist’s colony at Worpswede, but finished in Paris. It displays the turn towards mystical religiosity that was developing in the poet, in contrast to the naturalism popular at the time, after the religious inspiration he experienced in Russia. Soon thereafter, however, Rilke developed a highly practical approach to writing, encouraged by Rodin’s emphasis on objective observation. This rejuvenated inspiration resulted in a profound transformation of style, from the subjective and mystical incantations to his famous Ding-Gedichte, or thing-poems, that were published in the New Poems.

      Naturalism was prevalent in the time of Rilke (circa 1900s). Rilke, however, had a mystical experience in Russia? (did he literally have an experience of unity and bliss?) He combined this mysticism with the objectivity that he learned from Auguste Rodin.


      As a result, his writing had a mystical and objective bent to it. How exactly? Was this also present in his Apollo poems (1907)?

    1. The Miletus torso (c. 480–470 BC) at the Louvre has been suggested as the poem's subject. "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (German: Archaïscher Torso Apollos) is a sonnet by the Austrian writer Rainer Maria Rilke, published in the collection New Poems in 1908. It opens the collection's second part and is a companion piece to "Early Apollo", which opens the first part. The poem describes the impressions given by the surviving torso of an archaic statue, which for the poet creates a vision of what the intact statue must have been like.

      Archaic Torso of Apollo and Early Apollo are part of Rilke his New Poems (1908).

    1. He had never had apricotjuice in his life. She stood facing him with her salver flat against her apron,trying to make out his reaction as he quaffed it down. He said nothing atfirst. Then, probably without thinking, he smacked his lips.

      He just downed a glass of his own fluid, and enjoyed it... Does this mean love and sexual desire is a desire targeted at loving oneself?

    2. The very possibility of meeting his family suddenly alarmed me—tooreal, too sudden, too in-my-face, not rehearsed enough. Over the years I’dlodged him in the permanent past, my pluperfect lover, put him on ice,stuffed him with memories and mothballs like a hunted ornamentconfabulating with the ghost of all my evenings. I’d dust him off from timeto time and then put him back on the mantelpiece. He no longer belonged toearth or to life. All I was likely to discover at this point wasn’t just howdistant were the paths we’d taken, it was the measure of loss that was goingto strike me—a loss I didn’t mind thinking about in abstract terms butwhich would hurt when stared at in the face, the way nostalgia hurts longafter we’ve stopped thinking of things we’ve lost and may never have caredfor.

      Even after fifteen years, he has not matured the way Oliver had, because he still holds tightly, too tightly, to the Elio of yesterday, the Elio of fifteen years ago, to his identity-yesterday. But his identity can never flourish without the flux. His identity requires flux. Elio is not Elio if he never changes. This is his attempt at psychological continuity, the preserving of memories and the fear of destroying that continuity.

    3. I should have learned to do what he’d have done. Shrugged myshoulders—and been okay with pre-come. But that wasn’t me. It wouldnever have occurred to me to say, So what if he saw? Now he knows

      Juxtaposition with the fear of expressing one's identity (Elio) and the carefree nature of Oliver, who is honest about his body whereas Elio feels shameful with the honesty of his body's expression of identity.

    4. I asked, “Must we?” This was theclosest I would ever come to saying, Stay. Just stay with me. Let your handtravel wherever it wishes, take my suit off, take me, I won’t make a noise,won’t tell a soul, I’m hard and you know it, and if you won’t, I’ll take thathand of yours and slip it into my suit now and let you put as many fingersas you want inside me

      Later in the novel it shows that he does pick up on this. This shows support of body language, the deception of words and yet the honesty of bodily expression. True identity comes through in skin.

    5. What struck me was not just his amazing gift for reading people, forrummaging inside them and digging out the precise configuration of theirpersonality, but his ability to intuit things in exactly the way I myself mighthave intuited them. This, in the end, was what drew me to him with acompulsion that overrode desire or friendship or the allurements of acommon religion.

      Evidence that religion, sexuality, and all the shallow ideas of romance is not enough to define their relationship -- it is their similar intuition, and his amazing gift for reading people. Also.. this is like Sammy!!!

    1. Schools and districts must adhere to these requirements to help ensure the implementation of technically sound and educationally meaningful IEPs and to provide FAPE.

    2. Failure to assemble an appropriate IEP team:

    1. the whole world is affected by it opium ferret from Afghan Fields produces nearly all of the heroines sold in Europe how will prices be impacted

      for - question - how will the Taliban's successful destruction of the poppy industry affect drug supplies in Europe?

      to - youtube - Vice - The new fentanyl killing drug users in Europe - https://hyp.is/MDez0BYcEe-rq0sJ-I6FRg/docdrop.org/video/JqqfI-bIvnI/

    1. generally 00:58:40 speaking the answer has been zero no response no attempt I wrote an article just two years ago outlining the 00:58:52 four Illusions as I call of the mod senses including the S of Dogma the vican barrier the self-replication of genomes and nobody's answered it there's something funny 00:59:05 going on

      for - adjacency - scientific revolution in action - paradigm shift - ignored by scientific community - critique of gene centricity

      adjacency - between - scientific revolution - paradigm shift - critique of gene centricity - ignored by scientific community - adjacency relationship - Ray and Denis Noble's work advocating for an alternative to gene centricity demonstrates scientific revolution in realtime. - They are at the stage of being ignored by the peers for scientifically invalid reasons. That's a good indicator of the early stages of a paradigm shift. - As they point out, this refusal to openly debate has realworld consequences. - The entire medical community is oriented towards the wrong direction, looking for medical interventions in gene therapies which aren't going to happen because the science does not allow it.

    2. the misconception about the relationship between genes and proteins and the idea that it that causality can only go in one direction from Gene to protein to 00:53:06 functionality and that it cannot go back the other way which and that is the crucial thing that denies agency to the organism and that was Watson and Crick

      for - critique - of Watson & Cricks DNA - agency of organisms

      critique - of Watson & Cricks DNA - agency of organisms - Watson & Cricks advocated the now disproven idea that causality is only one direction - from genes to - proteins to - functionality of living organisms - when in fact, it goes the other way, giving the high level living organism agency

    3. we also challenge in the book The Very concept of selfishness itself

      for - book - Understanding living systems - challenging selfishness - critique - of Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene

      • Ray Noble points out a contradiction in Richard Dawkin's use of the word selfish in his "Selfish gene".
        • Unless there is purposefulness, choice and agency, there cannot be any concept of selfishness
    4. temperature can be a major factor in determining the proportion of males and females within a population

      for - question - impact of climate change on male and female population distribution of the biosphere

      question - impact of climate change on male and female population distribution of the biosphere - How will climate change affect the proportion of males and females of the many species that are and will be impacted by dramatic temperature changes?

    5. I think one of the other mistakes that have been made in biology of the 20th century was

      for - individual / collective gestalt - gene centrism - paradigm shift - adjacency - mistake of 20th century biology - reductionism - separating organism from environment - individual / collective gestalt, individual / environment gestalt - quote - mistake of 20th century biology - Ray Noble - key insight - mistake of 20th century biology- Ray Noble

      quote - mistake of 20th century biology - Ray Noble - (see below)

      • I think one of the other mistakes that have been made in biology of the 20th century
        • was to treat organisms as if they existed within an environment that was sort of like some nebulous box as it were
        • and you could study the organism by taking it out
        • and you study it in isolation
      • It's the beginning of reductionism in a sense because
        • you taken it away from the environment but the organism has an intimate relationship with the environment
      • It's feeding both
        • to the environment and
        • from the environment
      • What is that environment?
        • That environment in large part is
          • other organisms of the same species but
          • other organisms of different species
      • and it's in a continuous bubble of change
      • It's like a cauldron of change
      • So the big question for life is
        • how do you maintain yourself in this cauldron of change?
      • You cannot do it by standing still
      • You have to respond to it
        • so it's not surprising therefore that you find that you know organisms have mechanisms for responding to those changes

      adjacency - mistake of 20th century biology - between - reductionism - separating organism from environment - individual / collective gestalt, - individual / environment gestalt - adjacency relationship - The mistake that 20th century biology has made is in - ascribing too much power to the gene, and - minimizing the role of epigenetics - Focusing the majority of attention and resources on the genes of the organism, and - defocusing attention on the organisms (epigenetic) interactions with the environment, including both - biotic elements and - abiotic elements - It's not the case that the genes are the major determinant factor and the epigenetics play a minor role - It IS the case that epigenetics play an equally important role in transmitting and assimilating features into the genome - The individual organism is intertwingled with its environment and with other living organisms - The individual / collective gestalt and the individual / environment gestalt is the appropriate unit of study

    6. Ray emphasized this answer which is very usual well epigenetic inheritance only goes on for a generation or two no

      for - explanation - evolutionary biology - neo-darwinian mistake - view of epigenetic inheritance

      explanation - evolutionary biology - neo-darwinian mistake - view of epigenetic inheritance - Neo-darwinians believe that epigenetic inheritance is only short lived. - However, the Noble brothers contend that if the changes in the environment last for many generations, - the epigenetic change can exceed a threshold and become permanently assimilated into the genome - Such a threshold is plausible because without it, a permanent change encoded into the genome would be maladaptive if the environmental change reverted back to the previous state

    1. Die wirtschaftlichen Schäden durch die globale Erhitzung sind sechsmal größer als bisher angenommen und vergleichbar mit denen eines andauernden Kriegs. Ein Prozent Temperaturanstieg verringert einem – noch nicht peer-reviewten – Arbeitspapier des amerikanischen National Bureau of Economic Research zufolge das weltweite Bruttosozialprodukt um 12%. Ein Temperaturanstieg bis 2100 um 3° wird Kapital und Verbrauch im Vergleich zu einer Welt ohne Erhitzung um 50% senken. Ohne die bisherige globale Erhitzung wäre die die weltweite Kaufkraft schon jetzt 37% höher. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/17/economic-damage-climate-change-report

    1. Das globale Durchschnittseinkommen wird bei der jetzt zu erwartenden globalen Erhitzung 2050 fast um ein Fünttel niedriger sein als ohne Erhitzung. Die (nicht mehr zu vermeidenden) Einbußen durch die Erhitzung bis 2050 sind sechsmal so hoch wie die einer Begrenzung des Temperaturanstiegs auf 2°. 2050 ist einer neuen Studie zufolge mit Klimaschäden von etwa 38 Bllionen Dollar zu rechnen. Bis 2100 wird es in einem Business-as-usual-Szenario zu Einkommensverlusten von mehr als 60% kommen. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/17/climate-crisis-average-world-incomes-to-drop-by-nearly-a-fifth-by-2050

    1. Community of Inquiry framework (Simunich, 2014) can lead to purposeful choices that can facilitate increased teacher-student interaction, promoting increased instructor presence in online courses. In the CoI framework, Teaching Presence includes instructional management, building understanding, and direct instruction.

      Teaching presence - instructional management Building Understanding Direct instruction

      With a rise of AI graders how to you motivate teachers to stay present.

    1. The Guardian: Die Parteien, die die neue niederländische Rechtsregierung unterstützen, haben sich auf ein Arbeitsprogramm geeinigt. Wichtige klimapolitische Maßnahmen werden zurückgenommen. So soll die Höchstgeschwindigkeit auf Autobahnen wieder 130 km/h betragen; Agrardiesel wird wieder subventioniert. Bei der Installation von Wärmepumpen verzichtet man auf Zielwerte. Es sollen 4 Atomkraftwerke gebaut werden. Was die Regierung durchsetzen kann, ist noch unklar. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/16/new-dutch-coalition-aims-to-reintroduce-80mph-limit-in-cull-of-climate-goals

    1. Thus, being in the physical presence ofothers might give the illusion of interaction in face-to-face classeswhich presents a challenge for online learning. It is possible thatthe interaction to which students are referring involves mostlythe physical aspect of human interaction. Electronic interaction, nomatter how frequent, may not be filling that aspect of the students’needs for social interaction

      physical presence with others - illusion of interaction

    1. What do literary stalwarts of the original typewriter era make of all this? “We old typists, it makes us feel young again to think there’s a new generation catching on,” said Gay Talese, 79. He still uses a typewriter, albeit electric, as does his friend, Robert A. Caro, 75, the Pulitzer-winning biographer of Robert Moses and President Lyndon B. Johnson. They discussed Mr. Caro’s Smith Corona while watching the Super Bowl.
    1. Die großen US-Investmentgesellschaften BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase und State Street haben sich zu großen Teilen aus der Koalition Climate Action 100+ zurückgezogen, in der sich Unternehmen zur Dekarbonisierung verpflichten. Damit werden dieser Koalition 14 Billionen (14.000 Millionen) Dollar entzogen. Republikanische Politiker:innen versuchen schon länger zu verhindern, dass Investionen an Dekarbonisierungszusagen gebunden werden. Die Investment-Gesellschaften argumentieren jetzt, dass Climate Action 100+ nicht nur eine Offenlegung fossiler Investionen, sondern eine Steuerung verlangt habe. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/business/dealbook/wall-streets-climate-retreat.html

    1. Zum Hintergrund des Rückzugs großer Investoren der Wall Street aus dem Netzwerk Climate Action 100+. Der Rückzug ist vor allem das Ergebnis zunehmenden Drucks aus der Republikanischen Partei. Er hängt auch damit zusammen, dass Climate Action 100+ in einer Phase 2 von seinen MItgliedern nicht nur Informationen über die Klimafolgen von Investitionen verlangte, sondern Aktionen gegen fossile Emissionen. Dem Journalisten David Gelles zufolge werden die Wall Street-Firmen ihre bisherige, auf Redukton von Emissionen ausgerichtete Linie aber nicht völlig aufgeben. Weitgehend ist und bleibt diese Firmenpolitik aber kosmetisch. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/20/climate/wall-street-environmental-pledge-retreat.html

    1. Norwegen erteilt in diesem Jahr 62 Lizenzen für die Exploration von Öl- und Gasfeldern, gegenüber 47 im vergangenen Jahr. Die Steigerung geht auf das Interesse von Öl- und Gasgesellschaften zurück. Gegen den Widerstand von NGOs betreibt Norwegen weiterhin eine Ausweitung der Öl- und Gasproduktion, die zu jahrzehntelanger Förderung führen soll. Stark gewachsen ist dabei das Interesse an der Barents Sea. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/norway-increases-number-new-oil-gas-drilling-permits-including-arctic-2024-01-16/

    1. Der Artikel im Guardian stellt eine neue Studie dar, aus der hervorgeht, wie viel von der bereits existierenden Infrastruktur zur Förderung fossiler Brennstoff stillgelegt werden muss, um das 1,5° Ziel zu erreichen. Dabei geht die Autoren davon aus, dass man CO2 nicht realistisch wieder aus der Atmosphäre entfernen kann, und dass das 1,5° Ziel also nur zu erreichen ist, wenn nicht zu viel emittiert wird. Diese Studie fordert das Gegenteil der Planungen der fossilen Industrien, über der über die der Guardian gerade berichtet hatte. Der Artikel ist auch bemerkenswert, weil er auf eine Reihe weiterer wichtiger Studien zu fossilen Lagerstätten verweist.

    1. Die rohölproduktion in den USA wird in diesem Jahr ein Rekord-Hoch erreichen Etwa 25% der US-Emissionen werden durch Öl und Gas verursacht, das auf Bundesterritorien gefördert wird. Die New York Times zeigt ausgehend von einem Beispiel im Golf von Mexiko, warum es angesichts der Mehrheitsverhältnisse in Repräsentantenhaus und Senat und des konservativen obersten Gerichtshofs für die für die Biden-Administration extrem schwierig ist, die Zusage, dort keine weiteren Bohrungen zuzulassen, umzusetzen.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/28/climate/biden-drilling-leases.html

    1. Der Guardian nennt die Stimmung der meisten von der Zeitung zu ihren Zukunfterwartungen befragten IPCC-Klimawissenschaftlerinnen düster; viele sind deprimiert. Viele der Forschenden, die die Zeitung als die am besten über die Zukunft Informierten bezeichnet, erwarten Hungersnöte, Massenmigration und Konflikte. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/may/08/hopeless-and-broken-why-the-worlds-top-climate-scientists-are-in-despair

    1. this is whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness

      for - key insight - Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness - adjacency - fallacy of misplaced concreteness - climate denialism - mistrust in science - polycrisis - Deep Humanity

      • the worry for Goethe and whitehead is that
        • we forget sometimes with the typical scientific method that = we can only ever apply concepts derived from our empirical experience
      • and so if we're trying to understand experience as if it were really
        • an illusion produced by
          • collisions of particles or
          • brain chemistry or
          • something that we can never in principle experience
      • what we're doing is
        • applying concepts derived from our experience
        • to an imagined realm that
          • we think is beyond experience
      • but it's not
      • This is Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness.

      key insight - Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness - This helps explain the rising rejection of science from the masses. I didn't realize there was already a name for the phenomena responsible for the emergence of collective denialist behavior

      adjacency - between - fallacy of misplaced concreteness - increasing collective rejection of science in the polycrisis - adjacency statement - Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness exactly names and describes - the growing trend of a populus rejection of climate science (climate denialism), COVID vaccine denialism, exponential growth of conspiracy theory and misinformation - because of the inability for non-elites and elites alike to concretize abstractions the same way that elite scientists and policy-makers do - Research papers have shown that the knowledge deficit model which was relied upon for decades was not accurate representation of climate denialism - Yet, I would hold that Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concretism plays a role here - This mistrust in science is rooted in this fallacy as well as progress traps - Deep Humanity is quite steeped in Whitehead's process relational ontology and the fallacy of misplaced concreteness requires mass education for a sustainable transition - This abstract concreteness is everywhere: - Shift from Ptolemy's geocentric worldview to the Copernican heliocentric worldview - Now we are told that the sun is not fixed, but is itself rotating around the Milky Way with billions of other galaxies - scientific techniques like radiocarbon dating for dating objects in deep time - climate science - atomic physics - quantum physics - distrust of vaccines, which we cannot see - Timothy Morton's hyperobjects is related to this fallacy of misplaced concreteness. - "Seeing is believing" but we cannot directly experience the ultra large or ultra small. So we have scientific language that draws parallels to that, but it is not a direct experience. - - Those not steeped in years or decades of science have the very real option of feeling that the concepts are fallacies and don't hold as much weight as that which they can experience directly, even though those concepts have obviously produced artefacts that they use, like cellphones, the internet and airplanes.

    1. this dualism probably isn’t right given today’s complexities

      for - progress trap - post comment - LinkedIn - Ralph Thurn article - progress trap - adjacency - progress trap - maladaptive - attention - focus of attention - cultural evolution - duality - dualism - dualistic

      adjacency - between - progress - progress trap - maladaptive - cultural evolution - attention - focus of attention - Exploring this statement further, it isn't just that it is our dualistic thinking applied here is a problem - but that it is the very nature of human analytic reasoning coupled with our innate ability to focus our attention which requires a deep unpacking - For to focus on an object of attention - is something we can only accomplish by defocusing on everything else - Indeed, it is the very act of attention on the one, that is inextricably accompanied by the act of inattention of the many - Our body, and that of many other organisms is evolutionarily designed - to focus our attention in our field of view on emergent phenomena that is salient to our survival - The nature of reductionist-type research - which is to say, most research - is that we continue applying this evolved adaptive behavior, even though cultural evolution (ie. progress) has accelerated exponentially to such an extent - that this same biologically evolved behavior has become maladaptive in the context of modernity

    1. Die Überflutungen in der südlichen brasilianischen Provinz Rio Grande del Sul werden - wie vorangegangene Stürme - von Experten auf ein meteorologisches Muster zurückgeführt, dass sich durch die globale Erhitzung verstärkt hat. Tropische und polare Einflüsse treffen in dieser Region aufeinander. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/04/death-toll-rains-southern-brazil-rio-grande-do-sul-rises

    1. George Monbiot zur Entscheidung Sunaks, die Öl- und Gasproduktion in der Nordsee zu maximieren. Er spricht vom pollution paradox: Die Firmen, die dem Planeten am meisten schaden, haben die triftigsten Gründe, in Politik und Desinformation zu investieren. Indiz für Desinformation sei der Rückgriff auf CCS. Die Konservativen erhalten große Spenden von der Fossilindustrie. Sunak hat verschuldet, dass der CO<sub>2</sub>-Preis in Uk nur noch halb so hoch ist wie in der EU. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/01/rishi-sunak-north-sea-planet-climate-crisis-plutocrats

    1. Schwere Überschwemmungen haben im Süden Brasillens mindestens 13 Todesopfer gefordert. Die Strom- und Trinkwasserversorgung war für Zehntausende unterbrochen. Es wurde der Katastrophenzustand ausgerufen. Präsident Lula führte die Überschwemmungen auf die globale Erhitzung zurück. Sie setzen eine Serie von Extremwetterereignissen in Brasilien fort, die auf das Zusammenwirken von Klimaveränderungen und El Niño zurückgehen. https://taz.de/Unwetter-in-Brasilien/!6008323/

    1. Verantwortliche der großen amerikanischen Ölfirmen haben auch nach 2015 privat zugegeben, dass sie die Gefahren fossiler Brennstoffe heruntergespielt haben. Sie haben internationale Pläne gegen die globale Erhitzung nach außen hin unterstützt und nach innen kommuniziert, dass ihre Firmenpolitik diesen Plänen widerspricht. Und sie haben gegen politische Maßnahmen lobbyiert, hinter die sie sich offiziell gestellt haben. Das alles ergibt sich aus dem neuen Bericht des amerikanischen Kongresses über die Desinformations-Politik von Big Oil. Ausführlicher Bericht mit Informationen über mögliche juristische Konsequenzen. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/30/big-oil-climate-crisis-us-senate-report

    1. One of the first thing I noticed was the rubber on this foot was sticking. This is the resting spot for the basket shift. Moving it up or down will adjust where the lower case letters strike the platen. I removed the old sticky rubber. There are two adjustments here, you can’t see the other one, but it’s looks the same. One is for lower case letters the other is for upper case. This is called the “on feet” adjustment. If you ever have the top of an upper case letter not imprinting or not level with the lower case letters, look at this adjustment. A good way to tell is to type HhHh, and see if the bottoms of the letters line up.
    1. economies of scope

      for - answer - size of a digital nation - definition - economy of scope

      answer - size of a digital nation - In contrast to nation states with the concept of economy of scale, - in Network states, we have the concept of economy of scope

      definition - economy of scope - for small group through strong alignment of interests and values, to foster close kinship - then expand to other similarly aligned groups with synergies between groups

    1. He eschewed computers, often writing by fountain pen in his beloved notebooks.“Keyboards have always intimidated me,” he told The Paris Review in 2003.“A pen is a much more primitive instrument,” he said. “You feel that the words are coming out of your body, and then you dig the words into the page. Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It’s a physical experience.”He would then turn to his vintage Olympia typewriter to type his handwritten manuscripts. He immortalized the trusty machine in his 2002 book “The Story of My Typewriter,” with illustrations by the painter Sam Messer.

      digging the words into the page sounds adjacent to Seamus Heaney's "Digging" which analogizes writing to digging: https://hypothes.is/a/J-z8OgfQEe-0adtJyXyb3g

      There's something here which suggests pens, typewriters, keyboards, etc. as direct extended mind objects as tools for thought. A sense of rumination and expulsion simultaneously.

  2. Apr 2024
    1. If that definition of civilization is accepted,

      for - quote - digital decentralised governance - implications of for civilization

      quote - digital decentralised governance - implications of for civilization

      • (see below)

      • If that definition of civilization is accepted, that means that the creation of a non-local digital layer of infrastructure,

        • which allows for the massive self-organization and mutual coordination of trans-local projects,
      • is in itself a fundamental challenge to the civilizational model as we have known it for the last five thousand years.
    1. search - Google - https://www.google.com/search?q=penetrating+the+circularity+of+language&sca_esv=f3a10901b51afbdb&sxsrf=ACQVn09m0Xq0UJifhB2MGXO1HNWdkYPGjA%3A1714198161525&ei=kZYsZsTQH_GVxc8P7O2K2AM&oq=penetrating+the+circularity+of+language&gs_lp=EhNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwIidwZW5ldHJhdGluZyB0aGUgY2lyY3VsYXJpdHkgb2YgbGFuZ3VhZ2UyBBAjGCdI1DBQryFY6iRwAXgBkAEAmAGIA6AB1AqqAQMzLTS4AQPIAQD4AQGYAgKgAuMCwgIKEAAYsAMY1gQYR5gDAIgGAZAGBJIHBTEuMy0xoAfkCw&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp search results returned - Very few salient results returned, - indicating little research in this field - try this:

      search - Google - Nagarjuna penetrating the circularity of language - https://www.google.com/search?q=nagarjuna+penetrating+the+circularity+of+language&sca_esv=f3a10901b51afbdb&sxsrf=ACQVn082tuUJX8gz-CjpZ6AF3wXPxbGK6Q%3A1714197263134&ei=D5MsZvLhB56Jxc8Ph-CH0A0&oq=nagarjuna+penetrating+the+circularity+of+language&gs_lp=EhNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwIjFuYWdhcmp1bmEgcGVuZXRyYXRpbmcgdGhlIGNpcmN1bGFyaXR5IG9mIGxhbmd1YWdlSPPEDFCx_gtY0akMcAN4AZABAJgBqwSgAbQgqgEHMy01LjMuMrgBA8gBAPgBAZgCCqACpxfCAgoQABiwAxjWBBhHwgIHECMYsAIYJ8ICCBAAGIAEGKIEwgIEEB4YCpgDAIgGAZAGBJIHBzMuMy00LjOgB9Ab&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp#ip=1

      search results returned of interest - › logic...PDF Logic and Philosophy of Language Language and languages—Philosophy. 4 ... pupil Alexander had, after all, penetrated to India in the course ... Nagarjuna's system . Philosophy East and West, vi ... - https://dokumen.pub/download/logic-and-philosophy-of-language-2nbsped-0815336101-0815336098-081533608x-081533611x-0815336128-9781136773440-1136773444.html - › Lang... Saying what Cannot Be Said With Western and Confucian Ritual ... This dissertation addresses one of the classical philosophical and theological problems of religious language, namely, how to speak meaningfully about ... - https://www.academia.edu/41159976/Language_as_Ritual_Saying_what_Cannot_Be_Said_With_Western_and_Confucian_Ritual_Theories - https://www.academia.edu/41159976/Language_as_Ritual_Saying_what_Cannot_Be_Said_With_Western_and_Confucian_Ritual_Theories - collectionscanada.gc.ca https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca › ...PDF A Comparative Study of Nagarjuna and Derrida - https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/thesescanada/vol2/002/MR46971.PDF - Monoskop https://monoskop.org › Var...PDF Varela_Thompson_Rosch_The_... recurrent patterns (in Piaget's language, "circular reactions") of sen- sorimotor activity. Piaget, however, as a theorist, never seems to have doubted the - https://monoskop.org/images/2/21/Varela_Thompson_Rosch_The_Embodied_Mind_Cognitive_Science_and_Human_Experience_1991.pdf -

    1. for - search - Google - penetrating the essence of language - https://www.google.com/search?q=penetrating+the+essence+of+language&oq=penetrating+the+essence+of+language&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigAdIBCTk1ODVqMGoxNqgCAbACAQ&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#sbfbu=1&pi=penetrating%20the%20essence%20of%20language

      Source - Reading Ernest Becker - The birth and death of meaning - listening to David Loy - https://youtu.be/UGEbXdFWfPA?si=ksPZePFzTrfS_gq. <br /> - https://youtu.be/ajwH-5YhxBc?si=y-Z9CFn09PvMfdUA - need to find someone for Deep Humanity work - Common human denominator of language

      results returned of interest

      by FH Lapointe · 1973 · Cited by 5 — child. Language is revelatory of being and existence. If we would grasp fully the meaning of language we must - https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED085799.pdf - Merleau-ponty's conceptions stand in opposition ts, Saussure's linguistic postulations and Korzybski's scientism. That is, if language is studied phenomenologically, the acts of speech and gesture take on greater importance than language as currently viewed in structural linguistics and general semantics. - Universidad de Granada https://www.ugr.es › Langu...PDF Language and Mind, Third Edition language to language. ... guages – that defines the “essence” of human language. ... rationalist view that Peirce outlined, we must penetrate the mysteries of - https://www.ugr.es/~fmanjon/Language%20and%20Mind.pdf - University of Pennsylvania - School of Arts & Sciences https://www.sas.upenn.edu › ...PDF 32 Relations Between Language and Thought by L Gleitman · Cited by 91 — If so, the suggestion is that labeling practice is penetrating to the level of nonlinguistic cognition. Roberson and colleagues adopt this - https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~gleitman/papers/Gleitman%20&%20Papafragou%202013_Relations%20between%20language%20and%20thought.pdf - Academia.edu https://www.academia.edu › The_I... (PDF) The Instruction of Imagination: Language as a Social ... While all other systems of communication in the biological world target the interlocutors' senses, language allows speakers to systematically instruct their - https://www.academia.edu/35571744/The_Instruction_of_Imagination_Language_as_a_Social_Communication_Technology - PhilArchive https://philarchive.org › MU...PDF The Essence of Language: Wittgenstein's Builders and Bühler's ... by K Mulligan · 1997 · Cited by 45 — I compare what Wittgenstein says about language and reference at the beginning of his Philosophical Investigations with some - https://philarchive.org/archive/MULTEO-3

    1. Eine neue Studie beschäftigt sich mit der zunehmenden Frequenz der Aufeinanderfolge extremer Trockenheit und extremer Niederschläge in Pakistan und in vielen afrikanischen Ländern. Ähnliche Phänomene lassen sich in Norditalien feststellen. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/14/extreme-drought-in-northern-italy-mirrors-climate-in-ethiopia

      Studie: https://washmatters.wateraid.org/sites/g/files/jkxoof256/files/2022-10/WaterAid%20Africa%20Drought%20work%20Methods%20and%20Full%20Results_CONFIDENTIAL_26_10_22_final%20%281%29.pdf

    1. Until recently hedge funds and HFT firms were the main users of AI in finance, but applications have now spread to other areas including banks, regulators, Fintech, insurance firms to name a few

      Using mobile phone data, Bjorkegren and Grissen (2015) employ ML methods to predict loan repayments.

      In the insurance industry, Cytora is using AI to make better risk assessments about their customers, leading to more accurate pricing and minimising claims.

    1. I can love the Beatles, and you can not, and we're both right.

      for - subjectivity of taste

      comment - This is why subjectivity of taste in art is not reconcilable with absolute truth - Taste is relative - There's no application of logic of right and wrong - What tastes bad to me - can taste good to you

    2. I had the advantage, early in my career, of starting making music without any experience,

      for - key insight - not knowing - advantages - quote - Rick Ruben - quote - advantages of having no references

      quote - advantages of having no references - (see below)

      • I had the advantage,
        • early in my career,
      • of starting making music without any experience,
      • which was helpful, because
        • I didn't know what rules I was breaking.
      • And so it wasn't intentional breaking of rules.
        • I just did what seemed right to me,
        • but I didn't realize that I was doing things that other people wouldn't do.
    1. Eine extreme Hitzewelle hat in der Sahelzone Hunderte, wahrscheinlich Tausende Menschenleben gefordert. World Weather Attribution zufolge ist die Höhe der Temperaturen eindeutig auf die globale Erhitzung durch Treibhausgase zurückzuführen. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/18/lethal-heatwave-in-sahel-worsened-by-fossil-fuel-burning-study-finds

      Zur Studie: https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/extreme-sahel-heatwave-that-hit-highly-vulnerable-population-at-the-end-of-ramadan-would-not-have-occurred-without-climate-change/

    1. for - progress trap - Prometheus complex - Dan Carlin - Gaston Bachelard - philosopher

      summary - This short article brings up an interesting connection between - the Prometheus complex, - a term coined by the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard and - progress traps, - the unintended consequences of progress - The key insight is that human beings may have an Achilles Heel - the desire to know, even at the cost of harm - could be such a powerful impulsive urge - that we throw caution to the wind and - Icarus mythology may be a self-fulfilling prophecy - This also echos the views of my colleague Gyuri Lajos, - that invention for invention sake possesses this very dark side. - This is an important adjacency - as it questions the ethics of knowledge for knowledge sake - As we know from - the history of - progress and its shadowy counterpart, - the progress trap - our impulsive urge to invent has harmful impacts on everyone, - and these continually compound with time

    2. poster boy for the Enlightenment.

      for - interesting fact - Prometheus myth - poster boy of Enlightenment - meme - poster boy of the Enlightenment

      comment - The link takes us to an analysis of Lord Byron's poem on Prometheus - A good analysis of the meaning of Lord Byron's poem is here: - https://blog.homeforfiction.com/2020/04/18/byron-prometheus-existential-empowerment/

    1. In Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court will decide whether it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment to fine, ticket, or jail someone for sleeping outside on public property if they have nowhere else to go. A ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would make it easier for communities to clear out homeless people’s tent encampments, even if no available housing or shelter exists.
    1. Schattschneider tells us that contentious politics can be best understand through a lens of conflict expansion. Those in power will (and, strategically, should) try to maintain and contain the scope of a conflict. Those arrayed against them will (and should) attempt to expand the scope of the conflict. If you want to understand an episode of contentious politics, don’t evaluate the substance of the arguments as though you are judging an intercollegiate debate. Instead, watch the crowd.
    1. When Alice and Bob are both bidding in an auction protocol, each of them marks their first bid with sender_order: 1, their second bid with sender_order: 2, and so forth.

      If we were to use causal broadcast / Cordial Dissemination - they would not arrive out-of-order.

      Cordial Dissemination would require gossip-about-gossip though.

    1. Dynastic cycle (traditional Chinese: 朝代循環; simplified Chinese: 朝代循环; pinyin: Cháodài Xúnhuán) is an important political theory in Chinese history. According to this theory, each dynasty of China rises to a political, cultural, and economic peak and then, because of moral corruption, declines, loses the Mandate of Heaven, and falls, only to be replaced by a new dynasty. The cycle then repeats under a surface pattern of repetitive motifs.[1]

      Dynasties rising to a peak, then, corrupting, losing Mandate of Heaven, which another dynasty gains.

    1. Pearl S. Buck and the 1930s RoyalStandard (with white keys) she used towrite The Good Earth, Jack Kerouac’sroad-weary Underwood Standard S,George Orwell’s Remington No. 2,Patricia Highsmith’s Olympia, Marga-ret Mitchell’s Remington No. 3 (whichher husband bought secondhand andshe relied on to type Gone With theWind and countless pieces of corre-spondence with fans).
    2. I have my work cut out for me withHemingway, since he used many type-writers: a gigantic Royal No. 10 desk-top with glass side panels from his earlyKey West days, an Underwood Noise-less that helped him fi nish For Whomthe Bell Tolls and fi le dispatches fromhotel rooms while he was a World WarII correspondent, and black matte Roy-als from the early 1940s—especiallythe Quiet DeLuxe and Arrow—he fa-vored while at Finca Vigía in Cuba.
    1. urged his disciples to delve into the ever-present sense of “I” to reach its Source

      adjacency - between - Ernest Becker - book - The Birth and Death of Meaning - Eastern meditation to interrogate sense of self - adjacency statement - Becker writes and speculates about the anthropology and cultural history of the origin of the self construct - It is a fascinating question to compare Becker's ideas with Eastern ideas of dissolving the constructed psychological self

    1. I had put reading last on my list, thinking that, with the willful, brazenattitude he’d displayed so far, reading would figure last on his.

      An assumption, like many others (such as the bathing suit situation) about Oliver's identity that is quickly refuted, because identities never make sense. A person as a whole cannot be summarized in rules or statements or if.. then.. conditions.

    1. Simões, Luciana G., Rita Peyroteo-Stjerna, Grégor Marchand, Carolina Bernhardsson, Amélie Vialet, Darshan Chetty, Erkin Alaçamlı, et al. “Genomic Ancestry and Social Dynamics of the Last Hunter-Gatherers of Atlantic France.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121, no. 10 (March 5, 2024): e2310545121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2310545121.

      saw via article:<br /> Europe's last hunter-gatherers avoided inbreeding by [[Dario Radley]]

    1. 1:09 He puts the question forward: "why is the material on zettelkasten so divergent?" Well, it has been, historically speaking. There is no one way to keep a zettelkasten. What the person is pointing at, I think, is why are practices so divergent from Niklas Luhmann?

    1. Butno matter how the form may vary, the fact that an organism hasconscious experience at all means, basically, that there is somethingit is like to be that organism

      for - earth species project - ESP - Earth Species Project - Aza Raskin - Ernest Becker - Book - The Birth and Death of Meaning

      comment - what is it like to be that other organism? - Earth Species Project is trying to shed some light on that using machine learning processes to decode the communication signals of non-human species - https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=earth++species+project - https://hyp.is/go?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdocdrop.org%2Fvideo%2FH9SvPs1cCds%2F&group=world

      - In Ernest Becker's book, The Birth and Death of Meaning, Becker provides a summary of the ego from a Freudian perspective that is salient to Nagel's work
          - The ego creates time and humans, occupying a symbolosphere are timebound creatures that create the sense of time to order sensations and perceptions
          - The ego becomes the central reference point for the construct of time
      - If the anthropocene is a problem
      - and we wish to migrate towards an ecological civilization in which there is greater respect for other species, 
          - a symbiocene
      - this means we need to empathize with other species 
      - If our species is timebound but the majority of other species are not, 
          - then we must bridge that large gap by somehow experiencing what it's like to be an X ( where X can be a bat or many other species)
      

      reference - interesting adjacencies emerging from reading a review of Ernest Becker's book: The Birth and Death of Meaning - https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.themortalatheist.com%2Fblog%2Fthe-birth-and-death-of-meaning-ernest-becker&group=world

    2. It occursat many levels of animal life

      for -: zombies - David Chalmers - UTOK - Unifed Theory of Knowledge - Gregg Henriques

      • comment
        • As David Chalmer observes with the philosophical idea of "zombies", strictly speaking, we impute the existence of other consciousnesses, including other human consciousnesses
        • This construction of the "other consciousness" begins at birth with the socialization of the neonate and infant from its mother and father.
      • To claim that other species display consciousness is an imputation.and based upon external signs, not internal experience.
    1. Grassroots Social Networking safety implies that each member can be held accountable to theirown utterances, as well as to utterances that they forward. As Grassroots Social Networking hasno controlling entity that can be held accountable in case members of the social network breakthe law, accountability and law enforcement in Grassroots Social Networking are more similarto real life then to the social networks we are familiar with.

      I.e., protocol creators are not responsible for how it's used.

    1. Confusion about what it means toown a book leads people to a falsereverence for paper, binding, and type—a respect for the physical thing—thecraft of the printer rather than thegenius of the author.

      This sort of worship of objects extends to those who overbuy notebooks (or other stationery). It's nice to "own" them, but it's even more valuable to write your thoughts in them and use them as the tools they were meant to be.

      cross-reference: https://hypothes.is/a/sSgxLMGoEe6j8ccyyMeDTw

    1. HOW TO IMPROVE TO MOTHER TONGUE LEARNING Begin literacy teaching in mother tongueA curriculum, rooted in the child’s known language, cultureand environment, with appropriate and locally-developedreading and curriculum materials, is crucial for earlylearning success. Using the home language in the early stagesof schooling in multilingual contexts supports child-centricpolicies. It starts with what is familiar and builds in newknowledge. It creates a smooth transition between home andschool; it stimulates interest and ensures greaterparticipation and engagement. This prepares children for theacquisition of literacy and encourages fluency andconfidence in both the mother tongue and, later, in otherlanguages, where this is necessary. Ensure availability of mother-tongue materialsChildren need to be engaged in and excited about readingand learning and this can only be done if the materials areones which they will understand and enjoy. In mostdeveloping countries, the only reading material children seeare school textbooks, which are often in very short supply.Other materials to support learning are hardly everavailable. Without access to good materials, children struggleto become literate and learn. In most low- and middle-income countries, the majority of primary schools have nolibrary, and books are luxuries which families cannot afford.For children from minority language communities, thesituation is even more dismal. Textbooks are rarely availablein local languages. Provide early childhood education in mother tongueLiteracy development starts early in life, and the homeenvironment is an important factor in children’s learningachievement. It helps build the knowledge and skills childrenneed for learning to read. Where parents and the communityare supporting literacy development, results show a markedimprovement. The earlier children are exposed to stories thebetter their reading is: reading for only 15 minutes a day canexpose children to one million written words in a year,thereby helping them to develop a rich vocabulary. Childrenwith access to materials at home are more likely to developfluency in reading
    1. Adults do not perceive accessibility of reading materials in appropriate languages as a primary barrier to reading with children. Only 5% of adults who do not read with children said it wasbecause they did not have materials in the right languages (most said it was a lack of time). On the other hand, 79% of adults also report that they would read more with children if theycould access more materials in their preferred languages. This suggests that adults who are strongly motivated to read with children will do so, irrespective of materials access, but thatincreasing accessibility to reading materials in the right languages may increase the quality and amount of reading.71Figure 49

      Language barriers for home language vs second.

    2. The digital revolution is transforming not only how we communicate (faster,at much larger volumes, to a large extent through text rather than voice),but how we read more broadly.Digital and online materials can be produced faster, versioned (e.g. intodifferent languages), and distributed more cheaply than print materials.Materials can also be shared (rather than read by one person at a time),interacted with (through annotations, comments, reviews, interactivediscussions, embedded dictionaries, etc.), archived and searched moreeasily. Furthermore, much of what we read today in digital formats is writtenby other ‘normal people’ like ourselves (social media posts, messages, blogs,etc.) rather than professional authors mediated by a commercial publishingindustry. All of these factors ‘democratise’ reading and open up access.On the other hand, there are concerns about the quality of digital reading -both in terms of the quality of the content being read and the quality of thereading experience itself, i.e. the depth with which the reader engages withwhat they are reading. Various studies have shown that digital reading bystudents is not as good for learning as reading the same content on paper(Lang 2021).Since Covid-19, debates about the spread of digital materials for teaching andlearning in the schooling system have also accelerated. The NRS cannot commenton school-based reading pedagogy or materials, but similar questions are oftenposed about the wider reading ecosystem. When the project consulted stakeholdersabout key questions they wanted answered, concerns about digital reading, readingon smart phones and possible trade-offs between social media use and book readingwere prominent. So was curiosity about how digital reading is reshaping readingculture generally, and what opportunities it might provide.In response to these questions, the NRS included questions about social media use,digital device use for reading, and adult perceptions about digital reading by theirchildren.One of the NRS’ innovations is to include ‘reading for communication’ as a ‘readingpurpose’ and therefore to include the reading of (mostly) digital messages as a formof reading. As reported in Chapter 2, when analysed in relation to other forms ofreading, such as reading for information and reading for enjoyment, reading tocommunicate appears to augment rather than replaces these forms of reading.
    1. The importance of multimedia technologies and applications in education as a teaching or learning tool cannot be over emphasized. This has been confirmed in several studies that have investigated the impact of multimedia technology to the education system. Milovanovi et al. (2013) demonstrated the importance of using multimedia tools in Mathematics classes and found that the multimedia tool greatly enhances students' learning. Several works exist that show that multimedia enhances students' learning (Aloraini, 2012; Al-Hariri and Al-Hattami, 2017; Barzegar et al., 2012; Chen and Xia 2012; Dalacosta et al., 2009; Jian-hua & Hong, 2012; Janda, 1992; Keengwe et al., 2008b; Kingsley and Boone, 2008; Shah and Khan, 2015; Taradi et al., 2005; Zin et al., 2013).
    1. Worth, Robert F. “Clash of the Patriarchs.” The Atlantic, April 10, 2024. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/05/russia-ukraine-orthodox-christian-church-bartholomew-kirill/677837/.

      A fantastic overview of the history, recent changes and a potential schism in the Orthodox Church with respect to the Russia/Ukraine conflict.

    2. Putin’s decision to restore Orthodoxy to its old public role was a shrewd one, whatever his personal religious feelings. The Russian empire had collapsed, but its outlines could still be seen in the Russian Orthodox religious sphere, which extended beyond Russia’s borders and as far afield as Mount Athos and even Jerusalem. For a ruler seeking to revive his country’s lost status, the Church was a superb way to spread propaganda and influence.
    3. a young man named Mykola Kosytskyy, a Ukrainian linguistics student and a frequent visitor to Athos. He had brought with him this time a group of 40 Ukrainian pilgrims. Kosytskyy talked about the war—the friends he’d lost, the shattered lives, the role of Russian propaganda. I asked him about the Moscow-linked Church that he’d known all his life, and he said something that surprised me: “The Ukrainian Orthodox Church”—meaning the Church of Kirill and Putin—“is the weapon in this war.”All through his childhood, he explained, he had heard priests speaking of Russia in language that mixed the sacred and the secular—“this concept of saint Russia, the saviors of this world.” He went on: “You hear this every Sunday from your priest—that this nation fights against evil, that it’s the third Rome, yes, the new Rome. They truly believe this.” That is why, Kosytskyy said, many Ukrainians have such difficulty detaching themselves from the message, even when they see Kirill speaking of their own national leaders as the anti-Christ. Kosytskyy told me it had taken years for him to separate the truth from the lies. His entire family joined the new Ukrainian Church right after Bartholomew recognized it, in 2018. So have millions of other Ukrainians.

      Example of a church mixing religion with social and political order and resultant problems.

      See also: scholasticism

    1. In 2013, Al-Jallad used the Safaitic database as he worked on an inscription containing several mysterious words: Maleh, Dhakar, and Amet. Earlier scholars had assumed that they were the names of unknown places. Al-Jallad, unconvinced, searched the database and discovered another inscription that contained all three. Both inscriptions discussed migrations in search of water, and a possibility occurred to him: if the words referred to seasons of migration, then they might be the names of constellations visible at those times.
    2. Al-Jallad began pulling up every inscription that mentioned migrating in search of rain, and soon he had a long list of terms that had resisted translation. Comparing them with the Greek, Aramaic, and Babylonian zodiacs, he started making connections. Dhakar matched up nicely with dikra, the Aramaic word for Aries, and Amet was derived from an Arabic verb meaning “to measure or compute quantity”—a good bet for the scales of Libra. Hunting for Capricorn, the goat-fish constellation, Al-Jallad found the word ya’mur in Edward Lane’s “Arabic-English Lexicon,” whose translation read, “A certain beast of the sea, or . . . a kind of mountain-goat.” He stayed up all night, sifting the database and checking words against dictionaries of ancient Semitic languages. By morning, he had deciphered a complete, previously unknown Arabian zodiac. “We’d thought that they were place names, and, in a way, they were,” he told me. “They were places in the sky.”

      There's got to be a great journal article on this!

    3. The history of Arabia just before the birth of Islam is a profound mystery, with few written sources describing the milieu in which Muhammad lived. Historians had long believed that the Bedouin nomads who lived in the area composed exquisite poetry to record the feats of their tribes but had no system for writing it down. In recent years, though, scholars have made profound advances in explaining how ancient speakers of early Arabic used the letters of other alphabets to transcribe their speech. These alphabets included Greek and Aramaic, and also Safaitic; Macdonald’s rock was one of more than fifty thousand such texts found in the deserts of the southern Levant. Safaitic glyphs look nothing like the cursive, legato flow of Arabic script. But when read aloud they are recognizable as a form of Arabic—archaic but largely intelligible to the modern speaker.

      Safaitic is an example of the beginning of writing in Arabia at the rise of Islam and may have interesting things to reveal about orality on the border of literacy.

      Compare this with ancient Welsh (and related Celtic languages and stone inscriptions) at about the same time period.

    1. “Not an entertainer, not a sentimentalist, nor a dry reciter of revolution, but rather a militant artist of our times. When Busch sings political songs, they retain their humor in all their seriousness, and their seriousness in their humor. They keep us alert. They are hits and others keep singing them.”

      Ernst Busch (1900-1980) was the singer of the proletariat and of proletarian history, a nuanced king of the democratic worker’s song. As the “singing heart of the working class” (according to Hanns Eisler), he performed songs of Tucholsky and Kästner in the Berlin cabarets Stuff and Nonsense (Larifari), the Catacombs (Katakombe) and in the Cabaret of the Comedians (Kabarett der Komiker); he also sang at demonstrations and worker’s meetings. After emigrating in 1933, he took part in the Spanish Civil War, and when interned in France, he led the theater group at the camp Gurs and performed in Peter Pan’s cabaret. He was extradited to Germany in 1943 and sentenced to a life term in prison. After liberation, the “Gründgens of the GDR” revived his career as a powerful actor of the people in numerous films and in Berlin ensembles. “Not an entertainer, not a sentimentalist, nor a dry reciter of revolution, but rather a militant artist of our times. When Busch sings political songs, they retain their humor in all their seriousness, and their seriousness in their humor. They keep us alert. They are hits and others keep singing them.”

    1. Das Wasserversorgungssystem des Iran ist vor allem wegen der Entnahme des Wassers für Landwirtschaft und Industrie komplett und irreparabel zusammengebrochen. Dabei ist das Land immer mehr Hitzewellen ausgesetzt, bei denen in einigen Gebieten Temperaturen von über 55° C erreicht werden. Durch die Verarmung in den letzten Jahren ist die Bevölkerung in den betroffenen Provinzen besonders verwundbar. Reportage der New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/23/world/middleeast/iran-heat-water.htmltopic

    1. Afghanistan ist zur Zeit von Starkregen und Flutwellen betroffen und leidet zugleich unter Hitzewellen. Die Überflutungen sind das Ergebnis der Ausdehnung der Monsungebiete nach Nordwesten. Die Temperaturen haben in Afghanistan seit 1950 um 1,8 Grad zugenommen. Unter anderem drei aufeinanderfolgende Dürren haben den Grundwasserspiegel in Afghanistan in fünf Jahren um 11 m gesenkt. Umfassender Bericht der taz über das von der globalen Erhitzung besonders betroffene Land.