Dave Pollard writes about types of silence and its cultural role in different situations. Prompted by a K-cafe by David Gurteen. Great to see such old network connections still going strong.

Book mentioned [[The Great Unheard at Work by Mark Cole and John Higgins]] something for the antilib re power assymmetries?

Is there potentially a worry amongst Republicans that by losing the "culture wars" that they'll somehow lose control of society and the capitalist order which funds their party and helps to keep them in control?

Link to Gramsci's idea about cultural hegemony: https://hypothes.is/a/pRnPLPTtEe2_pyt2-Z7pwg

I love this acronym!

Dave Troy is a US investigative journalist, looking at the US infosphere. Places resistance against disinformation not as a matter of factchecking and technology but one of reshaping social capital and cultural network topologies.

Early work by Valdis Krebs comes to mind vgl [[Netwerkviz en people nav 20091112072001]] and how the Finnish 'method' seemed to be a mix of [[Crap detection is civic duty 2018010073052]] and social capital aspects. Also re taking an algogen text as is / stand alone artefact vs seeing its provenance and entanglement with real world events, people and things.

This is a fascinating bit of reading practice.

A book can't only be about the text, it has to be about the reader's interaction with it and thoughts about it. Without these, the object has no value.

Annotations are the traces left behind of how one valued a book as they read and interacted with it.

An important question here: her identity may not have been completely authentic, but is this a reason not to heed and consider her work on its own merit?

How do any of us really know our identities?

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3007091

In many ways this is the blight of the modern world.

Armstrong, Dorsey. King Arthur: History and Legend (Course Guidebook). Great Courses 2376. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 2015.

King Arthur: History and Legend. Streaming Video. Vol. 2376. The Great Courses: Literature and Language. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 2015. https://www.wondrium.com/king-arthur-history-and-legend.

// Metaphysics eats culture for breakfast - a takeoff of a well-known business meme - culture eats strategy for breakfast - Beiner goes one level deeper and claims - metaphysics eats culture for breakfast - He justifies this via this argument - Our strategies for changing the world - are often inspired by - a culture created by a physicalist metaphysics. - That’s why I propose that metaphysics eats culture for breakfast. - What we believe to be real and relevant - is the most significant factor - in the formation of culture, - which in turn influences our thoughts and emotions, - which in turn influence our values, - which influence our institutions and political policies. - The change has to happen at the deepest level - if it’s going to have any significant impact - on an issue as important as whether or not we go extinct.

Best known example of gene-culture coevolution - co-evolution of pastoralism and lactose intolerance - the adoption of dairying set up a modified niche - in which the ability to digest lactose into adulthood was an advantage. - ancestors who were lactose tolerant could take advantage of a new source of calories. - Hence it is the learned acquisition of dairying which explains the natural selection of genes favoring lactase persistence, - the continued production of the enzyme lactase beyond weaning - Dual inheritance theory (Gene-culture coevolution) typically uses this example to explain - Dairying is inherited via a cultural channel - lactase persistence is inherited via a genetic channel - Recent supporters of this also make recent claims that it is not possible to distinguish between - what is biological from what is cultural

History Wars

See also: https://www.moreincommon.com/

It has been suggested that - the human species may be undergoing an evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI).

there is disagreement about - how to apply the ETI framework to our species - and whether culture is implicated - as either cause or consequence.

Long-term gene–culture coevolution (GCC) i- s - also poorly understood.

argued that - culture steers human evolution,

Others proposed - genes hold culture on a leash.

After review of the literature and evidence on long-term GCC in humans - emerge a set of common themes. - First, culture appears to hold greater adaptive potential than genetic inheritance - and is probably driving human evolution. - The evolutionary impact of culture occurs - mainly through culturally organized groups, - which have come to dominate human affairs in recent millennia. - Second, the role of culture appears to be growing, - increasingly bypassing genetic evolution and weakening genetic adaptive potential. -Taken together, these findings suggest that human long-term GCC is characterized by - an evolutionary transition in inheritance - from genes to culture - which entails a transition in individuality (from genetic individual to cultural group). Research on GCC should focus on the possibility of - an ongoing transition in the human inheritance system.

• Title: The genetic and cultural evolution of unsustainability

• Author: Brian F. Snyder

• Abstract

• Summary
• Paraphrase
  • Anthropogenic changes are accelerating and threaten the future of life on earth.
  • While the proximate mechanisms of these anthropogenic changes are well studied
    • climate change,
    • biodiversity loss,
    • population growth
  • the evolutionary causality of these anthropogenic changes have been largely ignored.
  • Anthroecological theory (AET) proposes that the ultimate cause of anthropogenic environmental change is
    • multi-level selection for niche construction and ecosystem engineering.
  • Here, we integrate this theory with
    • Lotka’s Maximum Power Principle
  • and propose a model linking
    • energy extraction from the environment with
    • genetic, technological and cultural evolution
  • to increase human ecosystem carrying capacity.
  • Carrying capacity is partially determined by energetic factors such as
    • the net energy a population can acquire from its environment and
    • the efficiency of conversion from energy input to offspring output.
  • These factors are under Darwinian genetic selection
  • in all species,
  • but in humans, they are also determined by
    • technology and
    • culture.
  • If there is genetic or non-genetic heritable variation in
    • the ability of an individual or social group
  • to increase its carrying capacity,
  • then we hypothesize that - selection or cultural evolution will act - to increase carrying capacity.
  • Furthermore, if this evolution of carrying capacity occurs - faster than the biotic components of the ecological system can respond via their own evolution,
    • then we hypothesize that unsustainable ecological changes will result.

• Title: Gene–culture coevolution and the nature of human sociality
• Author: Herbert Gintis

//Abstract - Summary - Human characteristics are the product of gene–culture coevolution, - which is an evolutionary dynamic involving the interaction of genes and culture - over long time periods. - Gene–culture coevolution is a special case of niche construction. - Gene–culture coevolution is responsible for: - human other-regarding preferences, - a taste for fairness, - the capacity to empathize and - salience of morality and character virtues.

• Title: Human niche construction in interdisciplinary focus
• Author:
  • Jeremy Kendal
  • Jamshid J. Tehrani
  • John Oding-Smee
• Abstract
  • summary
  • Niche construction is an endogenous causal process in evolution,
• reciprocal to the causal process of natural selection.
  • It works by adding ecological inheritance,
  • comprising the inheritance of natural selection pressures previously modified by niche construction,
  • to genetic inheritance in evolution.
  • Human niche construction modifies selection pressures in environments in ways that affect both human evolution, and the evolution of other species.
  • Human ecological inheritance is exceptionally potent
  • because it includes the social transmission and inheritance
  • of cultural knowledge, and material culture.
  • Human genetic inheritance
  • in combination with human cultural inheritance
  • thus provides a basis for gene–culture coevolution,
  • and multivariate dynamics in cultural evolution.
  • Niche construction theory potentially integrates the biological and social aspects of the human sciences.
  • We elaborate on these processes,
  • and provide brief introductions to each of the papers published in this theme issue.

Andrew Tate, a former kickboxer and Big Brother (17, UK) housemate, has gained popularity among young men for promoting a "hyper-masculine, ultra-luxurious lifestyle".

Where does Tate fit into the pantheon of the prosperity gospel? Is he touching on it or extending it to the nth degree? How much of his audience overlaps with the religious right that would internalize such a viewpoint?

• Title

  • Revolution and American Indians: “Marxism is as Alien to My Culture as Capitalism"

• Author

  • Russell Means

• Context

  • The following speech was given by Russell Means in July 1980, before several thousand people who had assembled from all over the world for the Black Hills International Survival Gathering, in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
  • It was Russell Means's most famous speech.

reply https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/16622/#Comment_16622

Adler has an excellent primer on this subject that covers a lot of the basics in reasonable depth: - Adler, Mortimer J. “How to Mark a Book.” Saturday Review of Literature, July 6, 1940. (https://stevenson.ucsc.edu/academics/stevenson-college-core-courses/how-to-mark-a-book-1.pdf)

Marking books can be useful not only to the original reader, but future academics and historians studying material culture (eg: https://apps.lib.umich.edu/online-exhibits/exhibits/show/marks-in-books), and as @GeoEng51 indicates they might be shared by friends, family, romantic interests, or even perhaps all of the above (see: https://newcriterion.com/issues/2017/4/mrs-custers-tennyson).

For those interested in annotation marks and symbols (like @ctietze's "bolt" ↯) I outlined a few ideas this last month at: https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/10qw4l5/comment/j6vxn6a/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

—Ronald Reagan

Internet ‘algospeak’ is changing our language in real time, from ‘nip nops’ to ‘le dollar bean’ by [[Taylor Lorenz]]

shifts in language and meaning of words and symbols as the result of algorithmic content moderation

instead of slow semantic shifts, content moderation is actively pushing shifts of words and their meanings

article suggested by this week's Dan Allosso Book club on Pirate Enlightenment

Is algorithmic content moderation creating a new sort of cancel culture online?

Levine, Emily J. “Aby Warburg and Weimar Jewish Culture: Navigating Normative Narratives, Counternarratives, and Historical Context.” In The German-Jewish Experience Revisited, edited by Steven E. Aschheim and Vivian Liska, 1st ed., 117–34. Perspectives on Jewish Texts and Contexts 3. De Gruyter, 2015. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbkjwr1.10.

<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>Peter Smith</span> in Zettelkasten (<time class='dt-published'>01/17/2023 16:52:31</time>)</cite></small>

https://petersmith.org/blog/2022/12/10/zettelkasten/

Peter Smith was introduced to Niklas Luhmann at an European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) Conference in the early 2000s, ostensibly a business related group.

I came across this via an IndieWeb reference and webmention.

Bacon, Bennett, Azadeh Khatiri, James Palmer, Tony Freeth, Paul Pettitt, and Robert Kentridge. “An Upper Palaeolithic Proto-Writing System and Phenological Calendar.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal, January 5, 2023, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774322000415.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/an-upper-palaeolithic-protowriting-system-and-phenological-calendar/6F2AD8A705888F2226FE857840B4FE19

There may be questions as to whether or not this represents written language, but, if true, this certainly represents one of the oldest examples of annotation in human history!

cc: @remikalir

https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/what-can-we-learn-from-barnes-and

Thesis: not polarization but white-supremacy-filled judicial tyranny

It isn’t clear to me that the judiciary is filled with white suprematists, but the judiciary is increasingly swinging conservative appointed by far right ideologues fueled by white suprematism.

May I just miss the core of this bit entirely and mention coming home to Betty on the couch, letting the kids watch, unsure of what to do.

And the fucking Campbells, dressed up for a wedding in front of the TV, unsure of what to do.

Though, if I might add, comparing Twitter to the abstract of television, itself, would be unfortunate, if unfortunately accurate, considering how much more granular the consumptive controls are to the user. Use Twitter Lists, you godforsaken human beings.

Reading is suggested to be potentially waning, maybe becoming more elite or even obsolete. It seems to disregard its counterpart: writing. For every thing that can be read, writing has preceded it. Writing, other than direct transcription, is not just creating text it is a practice, that also creates effects/affordances for the writer. Also thinking of Rheingold's definition of literacy as a skill plus community in which that skill is widely present. Writing/reading started out as bookkeeping, and I assume professional classes will remain text focused (although AR is an 'oral' path here too)

The origin of the term "culture"

This stands out indeed.

https://danallosso.substack.com/p/the-aha-atlantic-history-discussion

It's important to distinguish between professional history and popular myths we tell ourselves for cultural or political purposes.

Language/location related Mastodon Instances:

• https://ailbhean.co-shaoghal.net/
  • This server is aimed at Gaelic speakers. Tha am frithealaiche seo ann do luchd na Gàidhlig.
• https://mastodon.scot
  • A community primarily intended for (but not limited to) people in Scotland or who identify as Scottish.
• https://mastodon.ie/
  • Irish Mastodon
• https://toot.wales
  • Twt is the free and open community for Wales and the Welsh, at home and abroad.

Jaron Lanier once gave a similar example. How weird it is that to have a conversation with a person, a third party has to be involved. Like a social network. Why not just have the conversation on your own domains? This also reaches out to the idea of webmentions and having conversations through your blog or website.

There are lessons in Frederic L. Paxson's 1938 address to the American Historical Association for todays social media culture and the growing realm of cancel culture when he remarked that historians "needed Cheyney's warning... not to write in 1917 or 1918 what might be regretted in 1927 and 1928.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Frank

https://www.saysomethingin.com/en/welsh-national-anthem-course/

cognitive scripts / habitual behaviour is often an entrained response to a common situation. Situations that are common for many people means there is commonality in their cognitive scripts too. 'Copying the neighbours' is a heuristic that informs the formation of such cognitive scripts in a situation, which is also one of the heuristics that contributes to emergence. Are shared cognitive scripts, through emergence, atomic particles of culture? (Vgl [[Culture is the Greatest Hits collection of social facts 20070828174701]] (Social facts are agreements in groups of people.) and [[The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker 20070828073721]] where he presents a culture as the sum of the individual psychologies of those in a culture.

https://twitter.com/JasonLustig

machine translation (Google):

The estate is not only a scientific-historical document, but also interesting because of the back: Jungius used sermon texts and devotional literature, school notes and old letters as note paper. In addition, much was left in the estate that was assigned to him at some point, including a number of manuscripts by someone else, e.g. B. to the astronomy of Nicolaus Reimers.

In addition to the inherent value of the notes which Jungius took and which present a snapshot of the state-of-the art of knowledge for his day, there is a secondary source of value as he took his notes on scraps of paper that represent sermon texts and devotional literature, school notes, and old letters. These represent their own historical value separate from his notes.

link to https://hypothes.is/a/m2izykwGEe2TaktJuW0Qgg

Deutsch used flimsy copy paper, much like Niklas Luhmann, and as a result some are on the verge of disintegration through use over time.

The wear of the paper here, however, is indicative of active use over time as well as potential care in use, a useful historical fact.

https://www.livescience.com/neolithic-roundel-structure-prague

Sounds like this shares many of the potential features of Stonehenge, stone and timber circles, and menhirs that fit into Lynne Kelly's thesis on mnemonic devices.

There was a sense of newness to TikTok that's gone. Instead of a "TikTok culture", there's a sense that it's part of a bigger, algorithmically arbitraged and filtrated whole.

And that's by the way an interesting idea, that "viral arbitrage" is cross-platform - as there are so many narratives about platforms as closed gardens with moats, pitching their services against each other.

!- for : individual / collective gestalt - In Deep Humanity praxis, the individual / collective gestalt is fundamental - the individual is enmeshed and entangled with culture before birth - culture affects individual and individual affects culture in entangled feedback loops

one of my favorite artists!

!- feature : culture-driven human inheritance - more adaptive information is being stored in culture than in genes

!- Question : culture-driven human inheritance - How do progress traps fit into this, as opposed to genetic-driven inheritance?

!- conclusion : GCC - very important finding - nobody knows the implications of such a profound shift - it means we are profoundly dependent on culture, on artificial human-created adaptations for our survival !- in other words : GCC - we no longer genetically evolve to adapt, but rather cognitive create solutions to adapt!

!- Question : Genetic Evolution

Does this mean that our predominantly cultural evolution threatens to freeze our genetic evolution? This is possible, since genetic evolution takes place on time scales that are orders of magnitudes larger than cultural evolution Unless theoretically proposed, it may have escaped detection for a long time

!- for : Cultural Evolution - the findings of this paper point to culture is displacing genetic adaptive potential as the main driver of evolution. This is a very profound finding!

https://www.marist.edu/mindset-list/2026

https://www.marist.edu/-/mindset-list-20-2

A bit tongue-in-cheek, the New York Times describes for the technically inadept what a typewriter and a card catalog are.

Francesco Erspamer's definition of a thesis is proof "that students can make something out of their education."

Atari, M., Reimer, N. K., Graham, J., Hoover, J., Kennedy, B., Davani, A. M., Karimi-Malekabadi, F., Birjandi, S., & Dehghani, M. (2021). Pathogens Are Linked to Human Moral Systems Across Time and Space. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/tnyh9

This has to be true, and I'm glad there is a study to demonstrate it. It's one study, and it's a small sample. But, it's worth a look.

I was doing some random searches for older material on zettelkasten in German and came across this.

Apparently I've come across this before in a similar context: https://hypothes.is/a/CsgyjAXQEeyMfoN7zLcs0w

The description now makes me want to read it all the more!

This is a book about a box that contained the world. The box was the Picture Academy for the Young, a popular encyclopedia in pictures invented by preacher-turned-publisher Johann Siegmund Stoy in eighteenth-century Germany. Children were expected to cut out the pictures from the Academy, glue them onto cards, and arrange those cards in ordered compartments—the whole world filed in a box of images.

As Anke te Heesen demonstrates, Stoy and his world in a box epitomized the Enlightenment concern with the creation and maintenance of an appropriate moral, intellectual, and social order. The box, and its images from nature, myth, and biblical history, were intended to teach children how to collect, store, and order knowledge. te Heesen compares the Academy with other aspects of Enlightenment material culture, such as commercial warehouses and natural history cabinets, to show how the kinds of collecting and ordering practices taught by the Academy shaped both the developing middle class in Germany and Enlightenment thought. The World in a Box, illustrated with a multitude of images of and from Stoy's Academy, offers a glimpse into a time when it was believed that knowledge could be contained and controlled.

Given the portions about knowledge and control, it might also be of interest to @remikalir wrt his coming book.

A breathless paragraph that does articulate well and generously the conservative (nay) reactionary position of those who year to return to an "orange" (or even amber) order before the arrival of green.

The issue is they want to go back rather than forward which is the only option. We need to "transclude" green -- and orange and amber. Yes we do want virtue, and values, and (probably) a reduced government -- and more. And we need to recognize difference and systematic injustice and a multiplicity of perspectives. And go beyond that into something new.

This ultimately is simply reactionary. One can sympathize and appreciate it. One imagine what it was like for Catholics in their old ordered world with the all good things of the high middle ages bemoaning the arrival of the protestant heretics. But there is no going back. We can go forward -- and still take much of what was good from that past.

He's railing against the loss of theory for use over time and translation.

similar to me and note taking...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-61864756

see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Johnny

Not mentioned is the tradition of using common names with other job related nouns as a means of identifying people with careers. Eg: Johnny Butcher

see also: https://podcasts.apple.com/sn/podcast/episode-6-job-and-places-of-work/id274989284?i=1000366645645

—Patrick Mevel

https://twitter.com/_35millimetre/status/1556586974928068611

Turns out the world’s greatest drawing of a frog was done in 1790, by Itō Jakuchu pic.twitter.com/GttSfHA7Kl

— Charlie (@_35millimetre) August 8, 2022

Makes me want to revisit some of the history of early haiku and frog references. What was the literacy level within Japanese culture at this time? Were there more methods entwining elements of orality and memory into the popular culture?

Historical Hypermedia: An Alternative History of the Semantic Web and Web 2.0 and Implications for e-Research. .mp3. Berkeley School of Information Regents’ Lecture. UC Berkeley School of Information, 2010. https://archive.org/details/podcast_uc-berkeley-school-informat_historical-hypermedia-an-alte_1000088371512. archive.org.

https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/events/2010/historical-hypermedia-alternative-history-semantic-web-and-web-20-and-implications-e.

https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/audio/2010-10-20-vandenheuvel_0.mp3

Interface as Thing - book on Paul Otlet (not released, though he said he was working on it)

• W. Boyd Rayward 1994 expert on Otlet
• Otlet on annotation, visualization, of text
• TBL married internet and hypertext (ideas have sex)
• V. Bush As We May Think - crosslinks between microfilms, not in a computer context
• Ted Nelson 1965, hypermedia

t=540

• Michael Buckland book about machine developed by Emanuel Goldberg antecedent to memex
• Emanuel Goldberg and His Knowledge Machine: Information, Invention, and Political Forces (New Directions in Information Management) by Michael Buckland (Libraries Unlimited, (March 31, 2006)
• Otlet and Goldsmith were precursors as well

four figures in his research: - Patrick Gattis - biologist, architect, diagrams of knowledge, metaphorical use of architecture; classification - Paul Otlet, Brussels born - Wilhelm Ostwalt - nobel prize in chemistry - Otto Neurath, philosophher, designer of isotype

Paul Otlet

• wrote bibliography on law
• book: Something on Bibliography #wanttoread
• universal decimal classification system
• mundaneum
• Le Corbusier - architect worked with Otlet for building for Mundaneum; See: https://socks-studio.com/2019/05/05/the-shape-of-knowledge-the-mundaneum-by-paul-otlet-and-henri-la-fontaine/

Otlet was interested in both the physical as well as the intangible aspects of the Mundaneum including as an idea, an institution, method, body of work, building, and as a network.<br /> (#t=1020)

Early iPhone diagram?!?

(roughly) armchair to do the things in the web of life (Nelson quote) (get full quote and source for use) (circa 19:30)

compares Otlet to TBL

Michael Buckland 1991 <s>internet of things</s> coinage - did I hear this correctly? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_things lists different coinages

Turns out it was "information as thing"<br /> See: https://hypothes.is/a/kXIjaBaOEe2MEi8Fav6QsA

sugane brierre and otlet<br /> "everything can be in a document"<br /> importance of evidence

The idea of evidence implies a passiveness. For evidence to be useful then, one has to actively do something with it, use it for comparison or analysis with other facts, knowledge, or evidence for it to become useful.

transformation of sound into writing<br /> movement of pieces at will to create a new combination of facts - combinatorial creativity idea here. (circa 27:30 and again at 29:00)<br /> not just efficiency but improvement and purification of humanity

put things on system cards and put them into new orders<br /> breaking things down into smaller pieces, whether books or index cards....

Otlet doesn't use the word interfaces, but makes these with language and annotations that existed at the time. (32:00)

Otlet created diagrams and images to expand his ideas

Otlet used octagonal index cards to create extra edges to connect them together by topic. This created more complex trees of knowledge beyond the four sides of standard index cards. (diagram referenced, but not contained in the lecture)

Otlet is interested in the "materialization of knowledge": how to transfer idea into an object. (How does this related to mnemonic devices for daily use? How does it relate to broader material culture?)

Otlet inspired by work of Herbert Spencer

space an time are forms of thought, I hold myself that they are forms of things. (get full quote and source) from spencer influence of Plato's forms here?

Otlet visualization of information (38:20)

S. R. Ranganathan may have had these ideas about visualization too

atomization of knowledge; atomist approach 19th century examples:S. R. Ranganathan, Wilson, Otlet, Richardson, (atomic notes are NOT new either...) (39:40)

Otlet creates interfaces to the world - time with cyclic representation - space - moving cube along time and space axes as well as levels of detail - comparison to Ted Nelson and zoomable screens even though Ted Nelson didn't have screens, but simulated them in paper - globes

Katie Berner - semantic web; claims that reporting a scholarly result won't be a paper, but a nugget of information that links to other portions of the network of knowledge.<br /> (so not just one's own system, but the global commons system)

Mention of Open Annotation (Consortium) Collaboration:<br /> - Jane Hunter, University of Australia Brisbane & Queensland<br /> - Tim Cole, University of Urbana Champaign<br /> - Herbert Van de Sompel, Los Alamos National Laboratory annotations of various media<br /> see:<br /> - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311366469_The_Open_Annotation_Collaboration_A_Data_Model_to_Support_Sharing_and_Interoperability_of_Scholarly_Annotations - http://www.openannotation.org/spec/core/20130205/index.html - http://www.openannotation.org/PhaseIII_Team.html

trust must be put into the system for it to work

coloration of the provenance of links goes back to Otlet (~52:00)

Creativity is the friction of the attention space at the moments when the structural blocks are grinding against one another the hardest. —Randall Collins (1998) The sociology of philosophers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (p.76)

https://www.levenger.com/reading-1140/bookends-and-bookstands-23025/tree-of-knowledge-book-stand-17300.aspx

Interesting piece of material culture hearkening back to an older analog era, but compatible with new digital technology (note the cut out for a power cord with use of a tablet or other digital reading/display device.)