1,398 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2024
    1. The Advance also uses a mechanism which rotates at 2x the speed of some of the others with the stated intent of being geared towards western alphabet writing, as opposed to Japanese / Asian logograpic writing systems where the user picks up their pencil tip more frequently.
    1. But once you can write things down, then that mental realm suddenly starts looking timeless and radically different from the world around us. And I think that’s what really created this sense of an interior, what became, with the Greeks and the Christians, a kind of soul; this thing that’s actually made of different stuff. It’s made of spirit stuff instead of matter

      for - new insight - second cause of human separation - after settling down, it was WRITING! intriguing! - from - Emergence Magazine - interview - An Ethics of Wild Mind - David Hinton - adjacency - sense of separation - first - settling down - human place - second - writing - from - Emergence Magazine - interview - An Ethics of Wild Mind - David Hinton

      adjacency - between - sense of separation - first - settling down - human place - second - transition from oral to written language - adjacency relationship - Interesting that I was just reading an article on language and perception from the General Semantics organization: General Semantics and non-verbal awareness - The claim is that the transition from oral language to written language created the feeling of interiority and of a separate "soul". - This is definitely worth exploring!

      explore claim - the transition from oral language traditions to writing led us to form the sense of interiority and of a "soul" separate from the body - This claim, if we can validate it, can have profound implications - Writing definitely led us to create much more complex words but we were able to do much more efficient timebinding - transmitting knowledge from one generation to the next. - We didn't have to depend on just a few elders to pass the knowledge on. With the invention of the printing press, written language got an exponential acceleration in intergenerational knowledge transmission. - This had a huge feedback effect on the oral language itself, increase the number of words and meanings exponentially. - There are complex recipes for everything and written words allow us to capture the complex recipes or instructions in ways that would overwhelm oral traditions.

      to - article - General Semantics and Non-Verbal Awareness - https://hyp.is/BePQhLvTEe-wYD_MPM9N3Q/www.time-binding.org/Article-Database

    2. next, I think, was writing

      for - new insight - second cause of human separation - after settling down, it was writing! intriguing! - from - Emergence Magazine - interview - An Ethics of Wild Mind - David Hinton

    1. Should we optimize for searching or browsing?¶ Documentarians may have to determine whether users search or browse for content of interest. What you decide may influence how to focus your resources: SEO and search tools or navigation aids. The resolution to this may depend on your users and what they’re looking for… and also your product interface. Some users, those who frequently search online for content, may prefer to search through your documentation (for example, spending 70% of their time on search and 30% navigation). Other users may prefer to use your site’s navigation system (for example, 30% search and 70% navigation). Nonetheless, some documentarians assume that searching is the primary method that all users rely on. Some indicate that it’s important to have both methods available for the users to select what they want to do. Information architecture (IA) helps a docs team to develop content in a structured and comprehensive manner. A navigation methodology can implement the IA of the documentation system. So, if your team has developed a structure for the content, you can use it as a navigation device for your readers. As one person indicated: No documentation should be random pages of text. Readers use the structure to learn relationships between different features, use cases, or topics. Searching and browsing are complementary actions. The method used by any one person may depend on different factors and users may use both. Offer the best of both to satisfy your readers. Search-related resources Search platform tips for documentation websites (WTD Newsleter) Making documentation discoverable in search engines (WTD video) Search engine optimization (SEO) for documentation (WTD page) Information Foraging (Nielsen Norman Group) Navigation- and IA-related resources Many articles available from Nielsen Norman Group Building navigation for your doc site: 5 best practices (WTD video) Complete Beginner’s Guide to Information Architecture (UX Booth) How To Make Sense of Any Mess (book by Abby Covert)
  2. Nov 2024
    1. those with a card index or zettelkasten-based reading and note making practice will realize that they’re probably automatically following the advice

      Note making does create space for reflection, is the thinking. But even before notes, annotation does too.

      n:: notes as thinking vgl 'writing is thinking' annotation as thinking vs conversation, conversation as thinking through expression

    1. and its management in state-buildin
    2. worshiped Pan Hu, a legendary figure, as part of their New Year's celebrations.

      more detailed, specific on beliefs

    3. he treatment is anecdotal
    4. "Miao albums" that were compiled by officials responsible for governing frontier areas during the late Yongzheng or early Qianlong periods. These albums contained illustrations and texts describing the customs and practices of different ethnic minority groups in southwest China.
    5. Qing Imperial Illustrations of Tributary Peoples was based on direct observation,
    6. China saw a rise in ethnographic representation of different peoples, including the development of a systematic ethnography of ethnic minority groups.
    1. To generate text that I've edited to include in my own writing

      I see this as collaborative writing with AI; no longer just the students work

    1. The site’s design was simple and straightforward: center-aligned black text winding down the white background of a single static web page, updated once every weekday. Unlike many other content-based sites in the early ‘90s, Suck didn’t have a front page or a login portal. At a time when hypertext was used formally (cf. print footnotes), Suck used it to comedic effect, often deploying tertiary links as punchlines—a sly, original humor that was grounded in a technical understanding of how the web was meant to work. (Subverting the web’s organizing principles is now part of online-writing’s DNA: The Awl editorializes in its tags and categories.)

      What else is part of the DNA of online writing?

    1. He even kept “indexes to indexes,” as Robert D. Richardson describes in his wonderful biography, Emerson: The Mind on Fire: Indexing was a crucial method for Emerson because it allowed him to write first and organize later and because it gave him easy access to the enormous mass of specific materials in his ever-increasing pile of notebooks… Emerson spent a good deal of time methodically copying and recopying journal material, indexing, alphabetizing indexes, and eventually making indexes of indexes. When he came to write a lecture, he would work through his indexes, making a list of possible passages. He then assembled, ordered, and reordered these into the talk or lecture.
    1. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Great genial power, one would almost say, consists in not being original at all; in being altogether receptive; in letting the world do all, and suffering the spirit of the hour to pass unobstructed through the mind.”

      original source?

    1. @chrisaldrich Do you have some results from your online sessions? New insights from reading Doto's book?

      Reply to @Edmund https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/21907/#Comment_21907

      Doto's book is the best and tightest yet for explaining both how to implement a Luhmann-artig zettelkasten as well as why along with the affordances certain elements provide. He does a particularly good job of providing clear and straightforward definitions which have a muddy nature in some of the online spaces, which tends to cause issues for people new to the practice. Sadly, for me, there isn't much new insight due to the amount of experience and research I bring to the enterprise.

      I do like that Doto puts at least some emphasis on why one might want to use alphanumerics even in digital spaces, an idea which has broadly been sidelined in most contexts for lack of experience or concrete affordances for why one might do it.

      The other area he addresses, which most elide and the balance gloss over at best, is that of the discussion of using the zettelkasten for output. Though he touches on some particular methods and scaffolding, most of it is limited to suggestions based on his own experience rather than a broader set of structures and practices. This is probably the biggest area for potential expansion and examples I'd like to see, especially as I'm reading through Eustace Miles' How to Prepare Essays, Lectures, Articles, Books, Speeches and Letters, with Hints on Writing for the Press (London: Rivingtons, 1905).

      I could have had some more material in chapter 3 which has some fascinating, but still evolving work. Ideas like interstitial journaling and some of the related productivity methods are interesting, but Doto only barely scratches the surface on some of these techniques and methods which go beyond the traditional "zettelkasten space", but which certainly fall in his broader framing of "system for writing" promise.

      Doto's "triangle of creativity", a discussion of proximal feedback, has close parallels of Adler and Hutchins' idea of "The Great Conversation" (1952), which many are likely to miss.

      For those who missed out, Dan Allosso has posted video from the sessions at https://lifelonglearn.substack.com/ Sadly missing, unless you're in the book club, are some generally lively side chat discussions as the primary video discussion was proceeding. The sessions had a breadth of experiences from the new to the old hands as well as from students to teachers and everywhere in between.

    1. These repeated acts of public description adds each idea to a supersaturated, subconscious solution of fragmentary elements that have the potential to become something bigger. Every now and again, a few of these fragments will stick to each other and nucleate, crystallizing a substantial, synthetic analysis out of all of those bits and pieces I’ve salted into that solution of potential sources of inspiration.

      Doctorow analogizes his reading and writing in the same sort of chemistry/statistical mechanics method as I have in the past.

  3. Oct 2024
    1. Is "Scoping the subject" a counter-Zettelkasten approach?

      Sounds like you're doing what Mortimer J. Adler and Charles van Doren would call "inspectional reading" and outlining the space of your topic. This is both fine and expected. You have to start somewhere. You're scaffolding some basic information in a new space and that's worthwhile. You're learning the basics.

      Eventually you may come back and do a more analytical read and/or cross reference your first sources with other sources in a syntopical read. It's at these later two levels of reading where doing zettelkasten work is much more profitable, particularly for discerning differences, creating new insights, and expanding knowledge.

      If you want to think of it this way, what would a kindergartner's zettelkasten contain? a high school senior? a Ph.D. researcher? 30 year seasoned academic researcher? Are the levels of knowledge all the same? Is the kindergartner material really useful to the high school senior? Probably not at all, it's very basic. As a result, putting in hundreds of atomic notes as you're scaffolding your early learning can be counter-productive. Read some things, highlight them, annotate them. You'll have lots of fleeting notes, but most of them will seem stupidly basic after a month or two. What you really want as main notes are the truly interesting advanced stuff. When you're entering a new area, certainly index ideas, but don't stress about capturing absolutely everything until you have a better understanding of what's going on. Then bring your zettelkasten in to leverage yourself up to the next level.

      • Adler, Mortimer J. “How to Mark a Book.” Saturday Review of Literature, July 6, 1940. https://www.unz.com/print/SaturdayRev-1940jul06-00011/
      • Adler, Mortimer J., and Charles Van Doren. How to Read a Book: The Classical Guide to Intelligent Reading. Revised and Updated edition. 1940. Reprint, Touchstone, 2011.

      reply to u/jack_hanson_c at https://old.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1g9dv9b/is_scoping_the_subject_a_counterzettelkasten/

    1. Books are about large blocks of uninterrupted time...

      ( ~13:00)

      Perhaps. I don't think so. With a Zettelkasten I believe you can write without 4-hour deep work blocks... However, maybe he is right... I haven't really written yet so I can't be certain.

    1. , writing, even in the form ofshort notes, helps us understand what we think we know.

      What about using the notes for comparison and/or contrast of ideas?

    2. To write is to learn.1
    3. practices related to having and capturing thoughts (chapters 1and 2); rening thoughts into clear ideas that can be repurposed (chapter 3);connecting ideas across topics (chapters 4 and 5); developing theseconnections and making them accessible to you (chapter 6); andtransforming all the above into writing for readers—writing that can bereintegrated back into the system (chapters 7, 8 and 9).

      Overview of Bob Doto's suggested process:<br /> 1. having and capturing thoughts<br /> 2. refining thoughts into clear ideas that can be repurposed<br /> 3. connecting ideas across topics<br /> 4. developing connections and making them accessible<br /> 5. transforming notes into writing for readers 6. re-integrating writing back into the system (he lumped this in with 5, but I've broken it out)

      How do these steps relate to those of others?

      Eg: Miles1905: collect, select, arrange, dictate/write (and broadly composition)

    4. Doto, Bob. A System for Writing: How an Unconventional Approach to Note-Making Can Help You Capture Ideas, Think Wildly, and Write Constantly - A Zettelkasten Primer. 1st ed. New Old Traditions, 2024. https://amzn.to/3ztjrfb.

      Annotation url: urn:x-pdf:231323658d79d9bdf946e1cfbe01e500

      Alternate annotation view

    1. 1962 Vintage IBM Typewriter Training Film IBM Selectric Proper Typing Procedures, w/ Bud McDole by [[Computer History Archives Project]]

      Right at the Typewriter. 16 mm. San Francisco, CA: KQED, 1962. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPfHAW_OfGo.

      On manual typewriters one "snaps" the keys while on an electric keyboard one "taps" the keys for maximum speed and accuracy.

      Overview of functionality of an IBM typewriter.

      To add longevity to one's carbon papers they should be rotated both top to bottom and front to back within one's packs.

      Use plastic type cleaner, meant for cleaning type slugs, to clean the excess ink from a typewriter. Form it into a point and press it to the letter to erase several times. Then erase with eraser shield and eraser.

      To type to the very bottom of the page, particularly with a carbon pack, to prevent slippage at the bottom, insert a "trailer sheet" about halfway down the first page. Insert it at the back of the pack just behind the original and between the first carbon sheet.

      For typing small sheets of paper (index cards) fold a pleat into a regular sheet of paper and use the lip to hold the smaller sheet you're typing on.

      To more quickly type envelopes, do the first then reverse the platen so that only about an inch of the top of the envelope is visible. Then insert the next envelope behind the first and continue reversing the platen. This will allow the finished envelopes to stack at the paper table and speed the threading and typing of envelopes in rapid succession.

      Use of the divots on the typing guide for making horizontal or vertical lines while moving the carriage or rotating the platen respectively.

      How to change the typeball and the ribbon cartridge on the IBM selectric.

    1. They ensure wonderful rapidity. A whole bookof thirty thousand words I have prepared (though ofcourse only roughly) in two hours, by the Card-System.Such a pace would have been impossible otherwise.This does not include any of the Dictation ; it merelyincludes the Collection and Selection of Ideas, andtheir Arrangement. The System is a wonderful savingof time,

      What work exactly does Miles include in his description of preparation of a 30,000 word book in two hours?

      He specifically excludes dictation. He does include selection of ideas and arrangement. He also says it includes "collection", but I'm supposing that he's taking a larger tranche of cards from a possibly massive collection and collecting only those he needs right now? Certainly the reading, thinking, and collecting work can't be included in this two hours of work.

      Does he have a better definition of what he means by collection?

    2. I arrived at the Card-System by degrees, and was glad to findthat Prof. Wendell also recommended Cards. I have elaboratedthe System considerably in the last few months,

      Miles doesn't specify how he comes by the practice of a "Card-System" other than "by degrees" as well as elaborating on it in the months before he writes this book.

      (Having something more concrete would be nice though...)

      At some point he read Barrett Wendell's book on composition (1891) to discover that he recommended cards as well.

    3. no false economy r

      He's repeating (and thus emphasizing) the admonition that a card system is not expensive, particularly in relation to the savings in time and effort.

    4. include anything which links one Ideato another. See further " How to Remember " (to bepublished in February, 1900, by Warne & Co.).

      This book was finally published in 1905. The introduction was written in 1899 and the mentioned Feb 1900 publication of How to Remember didn't happen until 1901.

      Miles, Eustace Hamilton. How to Remember: Without Memory Systems or with Them. Frederick Warne & Co., 1901.

    5. If the Letter is important, especially if it be aBusiness-Letter, there should be as long an interval as isfeasible between the writing and the sending off.

      writing and waiting is useful in many instances, and particularly for clarity of expression.

      see also: <br /> - angry letter https://hypothes.is/a/6OoqHofyEe-1mtOohGA63w - diffuse thinking<br /> - typewriter (waiting) <br /> - editing (waiting) https://hypothes.is/a/VxRNeofvEe-5n1dpCEM48Q

    6. fter the Letter has been done it should beread through, and should (if possible) be read out loud,and you should ask yourself, as you read it, whetherit is clear, whether it is fair and true, and (last but notleast) whether it is kind. Putting it in another way,you might ask yourself, ' What will the person feel andthink on reading this ? ' or, * Should I eventually besorry to have received such a Letter myself? ' or, again,'Should I be sorry to have written it, say a yearhe

      Recall: Abraham Lincoln's angry letter - put it in a drawer

    7. How to Express Ideas : Style.

      It could be interesting/useful to create a checklist or set of procedures (perhaps a la Oblique Strategies") for editing a major work.

      Sections in this TOC could be useful for creating such.

    8. Another Article I sent to a Paper, and after twentyweeks, and after many letters (which enclosed stampedand addressed envelopes), I was told that the Articlewas unsuitable for the Paper.

      Even in 1905 writers had to wait interminably after submitting their writing...

      it's only gotten worse since then...

    9. Very few have the strength of mind tokeep back for a whole week a piece of Writing whichthey have finished. Type-writing sometimes necessitatesthis interval, or at any rate a certain interval.

      The process of having a work typewritten forced the affordance of creating time away from the writing of a piece. This allows for both active and diffuse thinking on the piece as well as the ability to re-approach it with fresh eyes days or weeks later.

    10. One might think at first that it was a Universal Lawthat all Writing or Speaking should be so clear as tobe transparent. And yet, as we have seen, no readerof Carlyle can doubt that a great deal of his Forcewould be gone if one made his Writings transparent.If one took some of Carlyle's most typical works andparaphrased them in simple English, the effect wouldnot be a quarter as good as it is.

      How is this accomplished exactly? How could one imitate this effect?

      How do we break down his material and style to re-create it?

    11. as Vigour, but the two generally go hand in hand.

      "Brevity is not always the same as Vigour, but the two generally go hand in hand." -Miles

    12. As to the other extreme, it is a questionwhether a sentence can be too clear, whether the Ideacan be too simply expressed ; and, if we once admitthat Carlyle's writings produced a greater effect anda better effect than they would have done if they hadbeen perfectly clear, then we must admit that forcertain purposes absolute Clearness is a Fault.
    13. No Writer seems to be going off the point, and tobe violating the Law of ' Unity ' and Economy, morethan Carlyle does. As we read his "Frederick theGreat", the characters at first appear to us to have nomore connexion with one another than the characters
    14. The reader will doubtless be amazed at the amountof time which has to be spent before he arrives at thestage of Expressing his Ideas at all.
    15. I shall try to give the ChiefFaults in Composition. The reader will see that thelist is long : and that, if he merely tries to write wholeEssays all at one 'sitting', he is little likely to escapethem all.S

      Attempting to escape the huge list of potential "Chief faults in composition" is a solid reason not to try to cram a paper or essay in a single night/day.

    16. I often noticed that most Candidates inExaminations used to begin to write their Essays atonce. They never realised that their minds were there-by being distracted and divided among many differentprocesses, each of which is particularly hard even whentaken alone. For all at once their minds are being-called upon to Collect Ideas, to Select and decide whichare important, etc., to Arrange the Selected Ideas, andto Express them. To try all this as a single action is" most extraordinarily unscientific, even if a few brilliantgeniuses here and there have succeeded in the attempt.

      One of the major affordances of using a zettelkasten or card index for writing is that it forces the writer to break things down into their constituent parts, thereby making the entire process of writing far easier and less complex. One can separately focus their attention on the smaller steps of collecting, selecting, and arranging the material before beginning to actually write.

    17. I emphasised it by a Com-parison orIllustration,

      Creating a comparison or illustration of an idea is a means of emphasizing it. It also serves as a form of repetition and aide-memoire.

    18. Miles, Eustace Hamilton. How to Prepare Essays, Lectures, Articles, Books, Speeches and Letters, with Hints on Writing for the Press. London: Rivingtons, 1905. http://archive.org/details/howtoprepareessa00mileuoft.

    1. English composition: Eight lectures given at the Lowell Institute, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1891.

      evidence of a card system/zettelkasten method in this?


      I found a copy and indeed there is evidence!

    1. It neatly separates the thinking work from the writing work

      Writing is thinking and most of the times when someone thinks its messy.

      We should not only teach that how to think throug writing, but then how to edit and revise to present our thinking as argumentation

    1. “He was the first person I knew who had his own personal copying machine,” she said. “He was terrified of losing things, so he often made a lot of copies.”

      quote from Kate Edgar, Sacks' assistant and editor

    1. Beyond the cards mentioned above, you should also capture any hard-to-classify thoughts, questions, and areas for further inquiry on separate cards. Regularly go through these to make sure that you are covering everything and that you don’t forget something.I consider these insurance cards because they won’t get lost in some notebook or scrap of paper, or email to oneself.

      Julius Reizen in reviewing over Umberto Eco's index card system in How to Write a Thesis, defines his own "insurance card" as one which contains "hard-to-classify thoughts, questions, and areas for further inquiry". These he would keep together so that they don't otherwise get lost in the variety of other locations one might keep them

      These might be akin to Ahrens' "fleeting notes" but are ones which may not easily or even immediately be converted in to "permanent notes" for one's zettelkasten. However, given their mission critical importance, they may be some of the most important cards in one's repository.

      link this to - idea of centralizing one's note taking practice to a single location

      Is this idea in Eco's book and Reizen is the one that gives it a name since some of the other categories have names? (examples: bibliographic index cards, reading index cards (aka literature notes), cards for themes, author index cards, quote index cards, idea index cards, connection cards). Were these "officially" named and categorized by Eco?

      May be worthwhile to create a grid of these naming systems and uses amongst some of the broader note taking methods. Where are they similar, where do they differ?


      Multi-search tools that have full access to multiple trusted data stores (ostensibly personal ones across notebooks, hard drives, social media services, etc.) could potentially solve the problem of needing to remember where you noted something.

      Currently, in the social media space especially, this is not a realized service.

    1. Not that it couldn't be done, but I'll suggest that following the structure/order of a Luhmann-artig zettelkasten may be a bit more limiting or difficult for creating fiction.

      There's a rich history of researching, outlining, and writing with card indexes as part of the creative process. Perhaps looking briefly at some examples particularly focusing on fiction may be helpful? Once you've done this, you can pick and choose the portions and affordances that work best for your preferred way of thinking and working.

      Some quick examples:

      Perhaps querying my digital zettelkasten may be helpful for you? Start with: https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=tag%3A%27card+index+for+writing%27

      Ultimately, you can only spend so much time going down the rabbit hole of how you ought to do this work and taking suggestions or reading about how others have done it. The more difficult but more fruitful portion is to pick a method which seems like it will work for you and experiment with it by actually using or evolving it for yourself. How you start may not necessarily be how you end, but you won't know what's best for you if you don't start. Practice, practice, practice will get you much farther faster.

      reply to u/Atreides_Lion at https://reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1ft4r3z/a_very_important_matter_for_me/

  4. Sep 2024
    1. For all audiences and in most content, use intelligent or intelligence to describe or talk about the benefits of AI.In UI, use intelligent technology to describe the underlying technology that powers AI features.

      I think this is a good example of a misleading marketing ploy that shouldn't exist in technical documentation.

    1. He handwrites first, then types it up, triple-spacing in the old newspaper fashion, then pencil-edits and retypes, pencil-edits and retypes.

      Robert Caro's method of writing

    1. What do you mean with Zettelkasten ratchet? I am too unfamiliar with the word ratchet to really understand the meaning.[9:46 AM] Or if someone else has an idea and can help me out

      The additional "hidden context" is that the rachet/gear seen in many of these diagrams is usually attached to a radial spring (or some other device) which, as it is wound, stores energy which is later used by the bigger device in which the rachet and pawl are encased. Examples include the stem of watches, which when wound, store energy which the watch later uses to run as it counts the seconds. Another example is the mainspring of a typewriter which is attached to a ratchet/pawl set up; when you push the carriage to the right, the spring gets wound up and stores energy which is slowly expended by the escapement a space or a letter at a time as you type. In the zettelkasten analogy, the box and numbered cards placed in it act as the pawl (the wedge that prevents backward movement), as you add more and more information, you're storing/building up "potential energy" in small bits. This "stored energy" can be spent at a later time by allowing you to more easily write an article, paper, book, etc. In some sense, the zettelkasten (as most tools do) allows you a "mechanical advantage" in the writing process over trying to remember everything you've ever read and then relying on your ability to spit it all back out in a well-ordered manner.


      reply to Muhammed Ali at https://discord.com/channels/992400632390615070/992400632776507447/1286577013439594497

      continuation of https://hypothes.is/a/GTPIPnYiEe-GTUu4YcdeAQ

    1. Typewriters? In 2024? Are You Nuts? by Jesse M. Slater for [[Raconteur Press]]

      A short, but relatively solid typewriter 101 story for someone looking for a distraction-free writing machine. Certainly not completist, but enough to get your toes wet.

      Slater uses his typewriter for a first draft, then edits the second draft as he re-types it into his computer to have a digital copy for further editing and distribution.

    1. The Dominican Republic has been a political and economic success story in contrast to its neighbor and, unlike Haiti, is secure enough for the secretary of state to spend the night.

      sasssssy

  5. Aug 2024
    1. Typewriter Video Series - Episode 147: Font Sizes and the Writing Process by [[Joe Van Cleave]]

      typewriters for note making

      double or 1 1/2 spacing with smaller typefaces may be more efficient for drafting documents, especially first drafts

      editing on actual paper can be more useful for some

      Drafting on a full sheet folded in half provides a book-like reading experience for reading/editing and provides an automatic backing sheet

      typewritten (or printed) sheets may be easier to see and revise than digital formats which may hide text the way ancient scrolls did for those who read them.

      Jack Kerouac used rolls of paper to provide continuous writing experience. Doesn't waste the margins of paper at the top/bottom. This may be very useful for first drafts.

      JVC likes to thread rolls of paper into typewriters opposite to the original curl so as to flatten the paper out in the end.

    1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixedink

      MixedInk was a startup that provided web-based, collaborative writing software enabling large groups of people to create text that expresses a collective opinion, such as a mission statement, editorial, political platform, open letter or product review.

    1. Cothran, Ann, and George E. Mason. “The Typewriter: Time-Tested Tool for Teaching Reading and Writing.” The Elementary School Journal 78, no. 3 (1978): 171–73. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1001415

      No new results here, but a modest overview and literature review of research on typewriters in classrooms.

    2. In this experimentagain the pupils who could type werefound to have made more gains in lan-guage usage and spelling than the nontyp-ers.

      M. W. Tate's 1934 typewriter studies showed student gains in language usage and spelling. Now that computers have automatic spell-checkers and students less frequently use dictionaries or study spelling in particular, does spelling ability in modern classrooms keep pace with numbers from earlier in the century when more emphasis was put on that portion of writing pedagogy?

    3. One must wonder if the early use of typewriters to teach reading and writing research matches that of modern day use of computers and tablets in the same classrooms?

    1. Interesting thought. This guy relates the upcome of AI (non-fiction) writing to the lack of willingness people have to find out what is true and what is false.

      Similar to Nas & Damian Marley's line in the Patience song -- "The average man can't prove of most of the things that he chooses to speak of. And still won't research and find the root of the truth that you seek of."

      If you want to form an opinion about something, do this educated, not based on a single source--fact-check, do thorough research.

      Charlie Munger's principle. "I never allow myself to have [express] an opinion about anything that I don't know the opponent side's argument better than they do."

      It all boils down to a critical self-thinking society.

  6. Jul 2024
    1. Approaching its 10th anniversary, the Longform podcast is a weekly hour-long interview with a nonfiction writer about their work, practice and personal philosophies. When it was founded in 2012, as a co-production of Longform.org and the Atavist magazine, co-hosts Max Linsky, Evan Ratliff and Aaron Lammer drilled down into aspects of the craft such as note-taking and revising drafts. These days the scope of their warm, considered conversations has broadened to be as much about life as about writing. Dig into the archives to hear from greats such as Gay Talese, Renata Adler, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ariel Levy, Ira Glass, Michael Lewis, George Saunders, Susan Orlean and Robert McKee.

      A great podcast about writing which will help you explore the work, practice and philosophy of writing fiction through a light-hearted conversation

    1. This also means that one cannot think without making allowances for differences.

      9/8g The card index technique is based on the experience that one cannot think without writing – at least not in demanding, selectively accessing memory-based contexts.

      This also means that one cannot think without making allowances for differences.

      I like this slightly more differentiated instantiation for thinking better than Ahren's assertion that one can't think without writing. Luhmann qualifies it over and above Ahrens who elides meaning if this was the source he may have been tangentially referencing. (Was it an explicit reference? check...)

    1. https://web.archive.org/web/20240711102003/https://longnow.org/ideas/moonbound/

      via Frank Meeuwsen https://frankmeeuwsen.com/2024/07/10/dragons-on-the.html

      On writing [[Moonbound by Robin Sloan]] , Sloan makes a few remarks about his notes that support his writing process.

    2. When I sit down to begin things, I just marinate in my own stew for a while. It'll be a couple of weeks and my task at that time is to go through those notes of all those things that caught my eye at some point. As you spend time with them, you start to gather things together and you start to see themes emerge or clumps. There are characters in here that are three different notes that sort of found each other and I put them together

      His writing process is for several weeks to go through notes, just looking through them, let it mingle in his head. Then put things together and look for emergent clusters / topics.

    3. If you're going to write something that means something, you gotta put your own most urgent questions into it.

      Meaningful writing needs a driving personally urgent question. Sounds about right. Meaningful to whom though, and urgent at what scale? I think my own more continuous urgent questions feed into my company and the 'carrying' themes throughout my blogging, and sound through in how I share my ideas and stories in client orgs. In my blogging 'urgent' can be a few minutes thing, or a thing over a week, urging me to blog something in the now. It is forceful but temporary and localised. Vgl formulering v [[% Interessevelden 20200523102304]] [[Holding questions 20091015123253]]

    1. Someone once said that at least one in five people are writing a novel. I barely know anyone who isn’t. It is still a prestigious form. And so, despite social media – the junk food of communication – literature continues to adapt to the contemporary mood. Where there is digital overload, people are returning to this more relaxed, nutritious analogue mode - reading words on a page.
    2. What makes a writer a real writer is that they begin to find an audience for their work; readers who are excited by what they find on the page.
  7. Jun 2024
    1. https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/nabokov.jpeg via https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html

      This photo, similar to others in the Carl Mydans series for LIFE Magazine is surely from his September 1958 photo series, though I couldn't find an original from the LIFE archive.

      Nabokov, reading off of index cards in his zettelkasten, dictates to his wife Vera who is typing on what appears to be a 1949 or 1950 Henry Dreyfuss Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter.

      Notice metal strip on the back of the typewriter with small rectangular blocks. This is the Royal's tabulator set up which distinguishes the Quiet De Luxe model from the Arrow model.

      The body styling of this typewriter changed in 1950 from Dreyfuss' original 1948 design. Because it's light gray it has to be from '49 or '50 as the '48 original was a black body with dark gray highlights and didn't have chrome across the front as this one does in an alternate angle.

    1. "We can do more to heal Grandmother Earth and protect her sacred children. The birth of this calf is both a blessing and warning.”

      Imminent crisis is prerequisite to a savior.

    1. The £8mn Longitude Prize was awarded on Wednesday to Sysmex Astrego, a Swedish company whose method cuts the analysis time for urinary tract infection patient samples from two or three days to less than an hour.

      good example of well-designed grant

    1. he too wants to shine a light on the foolishness and wickedness of Western pols

      hm. old spy novels emphasized politicians as locus of control and businessmen as villains. villains in the sense of antagonists. what about villainous businessmen who are in the locus of control?

    1. Going to a Rogan show for “work” might function similarly, giving us cover in case we accidentally enjoyed it.

      The most masculine thing is devising covers for activities you enjoy, but may be considered feminine or frivolous.

    1. The more inventive and fecund a great mind is, the more it will shape thelanguage it uses to fit its thought. To express a new idea or insight, a new word isinvented or an old word given a novel meaning. Sometimes in the development ofhis own characteristic vocabulary, a great writer uses a new word for an old ideawhich he has appropriated and assimilated to his own thought. Sometimes theopposite occurs; the traditional word is appropriated or borrowed, but the ideawhich it long expressed is replaced either by a totally new, or at least by a variant,conception.

      Language is essential for the expression of thought, be it novel or ancient.

    2. The foregoing examples illustrate various forms topics take according to thedifferent kinds of subjects they propose for discussion. Some deal with the natureof a thing or its definition, some with its qualities or attributes, some with itscauses, and some with its kinds; some deal with distinctions or differences, andsome with comparisons or contrasts; some propose a general theory for considera-tion, some present a problem, and some state an Issue. Some— such as the lastthree above —are difficult to characterize by any formula.

      The complexity of the topic is determined by the content of the discussion the topic is about.

    3. It is easier to say what a topic is not, than what it is or should be. If it mustalways be a less determinate expression than a sentence, and if it must usually be amore complex expression than a single word or pair of words (which are theverbal expression of terms, such as the great ideas), it would seem to follow thatthe proper expression of a topic is a phrase— often, perhaps, a fairly elaboratephrase involving a number of terms and signifying a number of possible relationsbetween them. This general description of the grammatical form of a topic docsnot, however, convey an adequate notion of the extraordinary variety of possi-ble phrasings.

      To me, it seems that Adler et al., are arguing that a topic should be stated as a phrase with varying degrees of complexity, determined by ?

    4. For example, “The ideal of the educated man’"(Education la) is a simple topic; “The right to property: the ownership of themeans of production” (Labor 7b) is a complex topic; and “The use and criticismof the intellectual tradition: the sifting of truth from erroi; the reaction againstthe authority of the past” (Progress 6c) is a more complex topic.

      Some examples of topics that are formulated and used in the original syntopicon.

    5. A topic, in short, must have greater amplitude than any other logical form ofstatement. The familiar grammatical forms of the declarative or interrogativesentence, or even the complex sentence w'hich expresses a dilemma, arc there-fore inappropriate for the statement of topics. Since it must be able to includeall these and more, the statement of a topic must be less determinate in verbalstructure.

      A topic should never be suggestive, for it would not be a topic in that way.

    1. “etheric realm,” as well as in some fifteen thousand hours of recordings that have for many years been stored in a concrete bunker in Montana.

      common technique that I haven't used; tell the full story up front, or at least allude to it, before dropping in deeper down below.

      not an intro paragraph but like a different story to contain your story. this is literlaly just an intro. but whatever, like the introduction of a detail as a segue into a story anchored by another detail

    1. overall blogs by 35 percent

      This is great. I could definitely see Agrilinks blog posts being leveraged by teams and individuals to have that consistent space to write and share. I have a Wordpress blog but not everybody has their own site.

  8. May 2024
    1. While his dad had favored bribing Balkan seamen to move his product to Europe aboard cargo ships, police said, the younger Nesic turned to smaller vessels to evade tightening screening procedures at Brazilian and European ports. Nesic allegedly bought cheap fishing boats that he retrofitted with extra fuel tanks, stuffed with cocaine, and staffed with Balkan or Brazilian crews to make the Atlantic crossing.

      this would be a cool opening scene, the motorboats trailing the cargo ship

    1. Information about ownership can, however, be found in the pages of Tatler or on the message boards of Ismaili Muslims unhappy about their tithes being used to pay for the extravagant lifestyle of a man who is both their religious imam and the descendant of an aristocrat ennobled by both the Iranian and British monarchies
    1. But this implies that those who direct pay in order to be able to do this and are not paid to direct, which is clearly not true in the majority of cases

      fun sentence

    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. When you catch and idea, you see it in your mind's eye, and you feel it, and you can hear it. And then you write that idea down on a piece of paper, and you write it down in such a way that when you read it, the idea comes back in full.<br /> —David Lynch 3:05

    1. "When kids write letters, they're just messy," she says. As kids practice writing "A," each iteration is different, and that variability helps solidify their conceptual understanding of the letter.

      Interleaving

    2. A slew of recent brain imaging research suggests handwriting's power stems from the relative complexity of the process and how it forces different brain systems to work together to reproduce the shapes of letters in our heads onto the page.

      Interesting. Needs more research on my part.

    3. In adults, taking notes by hand during a lecture, instead of typing, can lead to better conceptual understanding of material.

      This is because of the fact that one needs to think (process) before writing. One can't possibly write everything verbatim. Deep processing. Relational thinking.

    4. Why writing by hand beats typing for thinking and learning
    1. Nabokov’s working notecards for “Lolita.”

      Nabokov used index cards for his research and writing. In one index card for research on Lolita, he creates a "weight-heigh-age table for girls of school age" to be able to specify Lolita's measurements. He also researched the Colt catalog of 1940 to get gun specifications to make those small points realistic in his writing.

      syndication link

    1. Walter Wellesley “Red” Smith used a version of this quote by 1949. In April of that year the influential and widely syndicated newspaper columnist Walter Winchell wrote. Boldface has been added to excerpts:[1]1949 April 06, Naugatuck Daily News, Walter Winchell In New York, Page 4, Column 5, Naugatuck, Connecticut. (NewspaperArchive) Red Smith was asked if turning out a daily column wasn’t quite a chore. …”Why, no,” dead-panned Red. “You simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed.”

      via 1949 April 06, Naugatuck Daily News, Walter Winchell In New York, Page 4, Column 5, Naugatuck, Connecticut. (NewspaperArchive)

      https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/09/14/writing-bleed/

    1. It is rare for academic ideas to reach the Amy Adams stage without drawing scholarly fire. Since 2023, three articles have appeared in scientific journals, with 45 authors in all, arguing that the claims made on behalf of the wood-wide web have far outstripped the evidence.

      definitely a trend of popular theories aligned with woke narratives being beat back

    1. Williams, Alex. “Paul Auster, the Patron Saint of Literary Brooklyn, Dies at 77.” The New York Times, May 1, 2024, sec. Books. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/30/books/paul-auster-dead.html.

    2. Writing six hours a day, often seven days a week, he pumped out a new book nearly annually for years. He ultimately published 34 books, accounting for shorter works that were later incorporated into larger books, including 18 novels and several acclaimed memoirs and assorted autobiographical works, along with plays, screenplays and collections of stories, essays and poems.
    3. 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.

    4. “I’ve always wanted to write what to me is beautiful, true, and good, but I’m also interested in inventing new ways to tell stories. I wanted to turn everything inside out.”
  9. Apr 2024
    1. https://web.archive.org/web/20240430091654/https://pdworkman.com/writing-a-novel-in-markdown/

      A full description of PD Workman's workflow writing a book in markdown and Obsidian. Mentions using Canvas and Excalidraw to visualise plot development, as well as Kanban style boards. Mentions compiling tools to create manuscript from loose files. Seems similar to Scrivener except that has this baked in and thus less flexible?

    1. WhenI fi nish a page and pull it out, I holdsomething real. And this, too, fuels myprogress by giving me a tangible senseof accomplishment.

      Typewriters provide a tangible sense of accomplishment when a writer finishes a page.

    2. Laptops are ideal forwhen I research and write at the sametime, or when I work on several storiesat once, going back and forth amongwindows. But for everything else, Iseek a departure from my primaryworld. It’s a different type of writing,so I need a different tool.
    1. Forrester: No thinking - that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is... to write, not to think!

      https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181536/quotes

      In this quote from Finding Forrester (Columbia Pictures, 2000) Forrester (portrayed by Sean Connery) turns the idea that writing is thinking on its head.

    1. Great Books tend to arise in the presence of great audiences. by [[Naomi Kanakia]]

      Kanakia looks at what may have made 19th C. Russian literature great. This has potential pieces to say about how other cultures had higher than usual rates of creativity in art, literature, etc.

      What commonalities did these sorts of societies have? Were they all similar or were there broad ranges of multiple factors which genetically created these sorts of great outputs?

      Could it have been just statistical anomaly?

    1. We quote because we are afraid to-change words, lest there be a change in meaning.

      Quotations are easier to collect than writing things out in one's own words, not only because it requires no work, but we may be afraid of changing the original meaning by changing the original words or by collapsing the context and divorcing the words from their original environment.

      Perhaps some may be afraid that the words sound "right" and they have a sense of understanding of them, but they don't quite have a full grasp of the situation. Of course this may be remedied by the reader or listener not only by putting heard stories into their own words and providing additional concrete illustrative examples of the concepts. These exercises are meant to ensure that one has properly heard/read and understood a concept. Psychologists call this paraphrasing or repetition the "echo effect" (others might say parroting or mirroring) and have found that it can help to build understanding, connection, and likeability between people. Great leaders who do this will be sure to make sure that credit for the original ideas goes to the originator and not to themselves simply because they repeated it, especially in group settings where their words may have more primacy amidst their underlings.

      (I can't find it at the moment, but there's a name/tag for this in my notes? looping?)

      Beyond this, can one place the idea into a more clear language than the original? Add some poetry perhaps? Make the concept into a concrete meme to make it more memorable?

      Journalists like to quote because it gives primacy of voice to the speaker and provides the reader with the sense that they're getting the original from which they might make up their own minds. It also provides a veneer of vérité to their reportage.

      Link this back to Terrence's comedy: https://hypothes.is/a/xe15ZKPGEe6NJkeL77Ji4Q

    2. Description and illustration are^ comple-mentary, they give together a more complete picture than citherwithout the other.

      Kaiser says that "description and illustration are complementary, they give together a more complete picture than either without the other" and this sentiment is similar to Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren's pedagogy of restatement and providing concrete examples a means of testing understanding.

      See: - https://hypothes.is/a/RgUa-mOcEe6PChv_seYXZA - https://hypothes.is/a/B3sDhlm5Ee6wF0fRYO0OQg

    3. You cannot buy a ready-made intelligence departmenton which to run your business.
    1. In 1889 she founded the Young Woman’s Journal, the monthly magazine of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association, which she edited until 1900. She contributed to magazines and newspapers for the rest of her life, and in 1914 she became the first editor of the Relief Society Magazine. For Susa, writing was a beloved pursuit through which she could make a meaningful contribution to the community. “My whole soul is for the building up of this kingdom,” she wrote to one close confidante about her literary ambitions. “I would labor so hard to help my sisters in this same work.”
      • i love that she knew how to translate her writing skill and talent to a bigger cause
    1. Who am I speaking to?What do I want?What do they care about?How can I explain it to them in terms they care about?

      Framework for message framing

  10. Mar 2024
    1. Blogging isn’t just a way to organize your research — it’s a way to do research for a book or essay or story or speech you don’t even know you want to write yet. It’s a way to discover what your future books and essays and stories and speeches will be about.

      Blogging as a way to "find your voice?"

    2. Writing for an audience keeps me honest.

      Working in public as a way to avoid fooling yourself (a la Feynman).

      “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself– and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that.” -Richard Feynman-

    1. We can't use algorithms to filter for quality because they're not designed to. They're designed to steer you towards whatever's most profitable for their creators.That puts the onus on us, as users, to filter out the noise and that is increasingly difficult.
    1. The text in this book is numbered by paragraphs and where asubject is treated in more than one place, the numbers in bracketsindicate the additional paragraphs bearing on the subject underdiscussion.

      ¶5

      The book is ostensibly in the form of a card index with numbers laid out in running order to create a book. The index is also done keyed to these paragraph numbers rather than by page as has traditionally been done.

      As a result, one could cut up the book (or two copies to get both sides) and turn it back into a card index with very little work.

    1. to be effective, thinking should be written down.
    2. when we can express an idea in our own words, it’s on the way to becoming ours.
    3. In prehistory, before writing, talking was thinking. Today, writing has taken the place of talking.
    4. writing is thinking
    1. quote from Schopenhauer’s essay, ‘How to think for oneself’, §268:“the most beautiful thought, if not written down, is in danger of being irretrievably forgotten.”It’s from the passage where he observes that Lichtenberg thought for himself in both senses of the phrase, unlike Herder.The original essay, “Selbstdenken” was part of Schopenhauer’s book Parerga und Paralipomena II. Last authorised edition, Erstausgabe Berlin, A. W. Hayn 1851, online textLooks like Povarnin was a Schopenhauer fan!
  11. Feb 2024
    1. "If I have nothing else to do then I write all day; in the morning from 8:30am to noon. Then I go for a short walk with my dog. Then in the afternoon I work again from 2pm to 4pm. Then it's the dog's turn again. Sometimes I lie down for a quarter of an hour.... And, then I usually write until around 11pm. I'm usually in bed by 11pm where I read a few more things."8

      Luhmann his output might be a result of his work ethic and routines. Attributing productivity merely to his zettelkasten is misleading. Also Chris Aldrich on The Cargo Cult of Zettelkasten https://chrisaldrich.wordpress.com/2023/02/03/a-note-on-the-cargo-cult-of-zettelkasten/

    1. The authors made one serious mistake, however. Although theyhad taken great pains to be sure that within their massive workevery book and manuscript stored in their building was representedby a three-by-ve page, and often by several pages, describing it,they had forgotten to devote any page, anywhere, to the very book

      that they had themselves been writing all those years.

      Baker describes the library card catalog as a massive book made up of 3 x 5 inch pages describing all the other books. Sadly he laments, they never bothered to catalog this meta-book itself.

    1. https://web.archive.org/web/20240208185222/https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00349-5

      Paper by author Lizzie Wolkovich refused because of inaccurate suspicion of ChatGPT usage. Another cut to the peer review system? She had her GitHub writing receipts. Intriguing. Makes me think about blogging in Obs while having a private blogging repo that tracks changes. n:: use github while writing for [[Reverse Turing menszijn bewijs vaker nodig 20230505100459]] purposes.

    1. Perhaps the quickest way to understand the elements of what a novelistis doing is not to read, but to write; to make your own experiment withthe dangers and difficulties of words.

      This seems to be the duality of Millard Kaufman (and certainly other writers'?) advice that to be a good writer, one must first be well read.

      Of course, perhaps the two really are meant to be a hand in a glove and the reader should actively write as they read thereby doing both practices at once.

  12. Jan 2024
    1. Doto, Bob. “What Do We Mean When We Say ‘Bottom-Up?’” Writing by Bob Doto (blog), January 25, 2024. https://writing.bobdoto.computer/what-do-we-mean-when-we-say-bottom-up/.

    1. https://web.archive.org/web/20240118140434/https://jsomers.net/blog/dictionary Intriguing post, albeit for me fait divers, on using a dictionary to improve one's writing. But it takes a dictionary that explains the differences in meaning between synonyms/alternatives for a word. At the end a process is shared to get an out of copyright English dictionary (an old Webster's) that works like that into a digitally usable form. https://hypothes.is/u/acct%3Apeterhagen%40hypothes.is Peter Hagen in 2021 mentions that process didn't work and used https://github.com/mortenjust/webster-mac as alternative that did. Found via Chris Aldrich on h.

    1. Nearly 5 years ago, I read Watanabe Shoichi‘s “知的生活の方法 (Chiteki seikatsu no houhou = A way to intellectual life)”. His episode was very first time I realize what is card system, and it is used in academic world for long time.

      Hawk Sugano was introduced to index cards circa 2001 by means of Watanabe Shoichi's book “知的生活の方法” (A Method of Intellectual Life".

      https://web.archive.org/web/20170530033313/http://pileofindexcards.org/blog/2006/08/20/me-and-indexcard/

  13. Dec 2023
    1. “I do all my own research,” she said, “though reviewers have speculatedthat I must have a band of hirelings. I like to be led by a footnote ontosomething I never thought of. I rarely photocopy research materials because, for me, note-taking is learning, distilling. That’s the whole essence ofthe business. In taking notes, you have to discard what you don’t need. If you[photocopy] it, you haven’t chewed it.”

      Sounds similar to Umberto Eco's admonition about photocopying: https://hypothes.is/a/U3Sg_r0ZEe25T2tD3U-nmw

    1. Summary

      1. 📚 Second Edition Overview: This is the second, revised and expanded edition of the book. The first edition was titled "Como Fazer Anotações Inteligentes. Uma Técnica Simples para Impulsionar a Escrita, Aprendizado e Pensamento - para Estudantes, Acadêmicos e Escritores de Livros de Não Ficção".

      2. 🖋️ Key Focus: The book emphasizes the importance of organizing ideas and notes for effective writing. It's a guide for students, academics, and knowledge professionals to enhance their writing, learning, and long-term knowledge retention.

      3. 🧠 Smart Notes Methodology: It introduces the concept of Smart Notes, based on psychological insights and the proven Zettelkasten note-taking technique, offering a comprehensive guide in English for the first time.

      4. 🎯 Target Audience: The book is particularly useful for students and academics in social sciences and humanities, non-fiction writers, and anyone engaged in reading, thinking, and writing.

      5. Time Efficiency: Focuses on saving time spent searching for notes, quotes, or references, allowing more time for thinking, understanding, and developing new ideas in writing.

      6. 👤 Author's Background: Written by Dr. Sönke Ahrens, a writer and researcher in education and social sciences, known for the award-winning book "Experimento e Exploração: Formas de Revelação do Mundo" (Springer).

      7. 🌍 Global Reach: Since its initial release, "Como Fazer Anotações Inteligentes" has sold over 10,000 copies and has been translated into seven languages.

    1. Some of my better type casts start out as handwritten, though not often. In this mode, the typewriter isn’t a creation platform, more like the publishing medium, which I still prefer over word processed.
    1. “try and cut and paste and rearrange everything around like a scrapbook”, and it wasn’t really working. I’m not sure if it’s something that was off about my approach, or if the premise itself was fundamentally flawed.

      I kept trying this for a long time but it never got anywhere. The best I can guess is that what's missing is depth and moving around shallow notes doesn't solve the depth problem. You also don't know where the depth is going to come from (it's not obvious) so you have to dig into each one to figure it out, rather than just shuffling them around

    1. You need structure. Index cards gave Nabokov a really powerful way to impose this structure because they created small, independent chunks of prose that he could bundle together into groups, like we saw in the box. This let him navigate his novel in progress quickly. He could just flip through those bundles, bundle by bundle, instead of card by card. He could also impose on and modify the structure of his novel just by shuffling those bundles around. So that's why Nabokov loved index cards for writing novels.

      While this supposition may be true, I don't believe that there's direct evidence from Nabokov to support the statement that this is why he "loved index cards for writing novels". It's possible that he may have hated it, but just couldn't come up with anything better.

  14. Nov 2023
    1. https://myboogieboard.com/<br /> A groups of portable writing boards with an associated app.

      A sleeker version of Rocketbook notebooks, but with only one "page". A modern day version of the wax tablet.

  15. Oct 2023
    1. Let’s look at some of the attributes of the memex. Your machine is a library not a publication device. You have copies of documents is there that you control directly, that you can annotate, change, add links to, summarize, and this is because the memex is a tool to think with, not a tool to publish with.

      Alan Jacobs argues that the Memex is not a tool to publish with and is thus fundamentally different from the World Wide Web.

      Did Vannevar Bush suggest the Memex for writing or potentially publishing? [Open question to check] Would it have been presumed to have been for publishing if he suggests that it was for annotating, changing, linking and summarizing? Aren't these actions tantamount to publishing, even if they're just for oneself?

      Wouldn't academics have built the one functionality in as a precursor to the other?

    1. 9:58 / 10:00

      Robert Greene's Proven System For Writing Like A Pro <br /> by Robert Greene 2023-03-08 (00:10:00) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0S9DhDecWE

      He touches on some of his method, though focuses on structure and having a personal, catchy idea.

      Not what I was hoping for.

    1. — Ich muß Ihnen sagen, daß ich nie etwas erzwinge, ich tueimmer nur das, was mir leichtfällt. Ich schreibe nur dann, wenn ich

      sofort weiß, wie es geht. Wenn ich einen Moment stocke, lege ich die Sache beiseite und mache etwas anderes.

      Was machen Sie dann'?

      Na, andere Bücher schreiben. Ich arbeite immer gleichzeitig an mehreren verschiedenen Texten. Mit dieser Methode, immer an mehreren Dingen zu arbeiten, habe ich nie Blockierungen.

      Rough translation:

      — I have to tell you: I never force anything, I only do what comes easy to me. I only write when I immediately know how to do it. If I falter for a moment, I put the matter aside and do something else.

      (Interviewer): What do you do then?

      Well, write other books. I always work on several different texts at the same time. With this method of always working on multiple things, I never have any blockages.

    2. Wenn Sie nun einen Aufsatz zu schreiben beginnen, wie setzen Siedann Ihren Zettelkasten in Funktion?Da mache ich mir zunächst einen Plan für das, was ich schreibenwill, und hole dann aus dem Zettelkasten das heraus, was ich ge-brauchen kann.Im Gegensatz zu einem Baumeister, der ausschließlich vorgefer-tigte Teile zusammenmontiert, muß ein Wissenschaftler doch auchneue Ideen haben, die nicht bereits in den einzelnen Teilen enthal-ten sind. Solche Ideen kommen ja nicht aus einem Zettelkasten?Doch. Ich habe zum Beispiel eine große Menge von Zetteln zumBegriff "funktionale Differenzierung", ich habe ebenfalls eine Reihevon Notizen über "selbstreferentielle Systeme", und ich habe einengroßen Komplex von Notizen über "Binarität". Im Augenblick sitzeich an einem Vortrag über ökologische Probleme in modernenGesellschaften, und meine Arbeit besteht darin, Zettel aus den skiz-zierten drei begrifflichen Bereichen zu sichten und so zu kombinie-ren, daß ich etwas Substantielles zu diesem Thema sagen kann. Dieneuen Ideen ergeben sich dann aus den verschiedenen Kombina-tionsmöglichkeiten der Zettel zu den einzelnen Begriffen. Ohne dieZettel, also allein durch Nachdenken, würde ich auf solche Ideennicht kommen. Natürlich ist mein Kopf erforderlich, um die Einfällezu notieren, aber er kann nicht allein dafür verantwortlich gemachtwerden. Insofern arbeite ich wie ein Computer, der ja auch in demSinne kreativ sein kann, daß er durch die Kombination eingegebe-ner Daten neue Ergebnisse produziert, die so nicht voraussehbar

      waren. Diese Technik, so glaube ich, erklärt auch, warum ich überhaupt nicht linear denke und beim Bücherschreiben Mühe habe, die richtige Kapitelfolge zu finden, weil eigentlich ja jedes Kapitel in jedem anderen Kapitel wieder vorkommen müßte

      Niklas Luhmann's process for writing from his box

      Machine translation:

      Q: When you start writing an essay, how do you put your note box to work?

      I first make a plan for what I want to write and then take out what I can use from the note box.

      Q: In contrast to a builder who only assembles prefabricated parts, a scientist must also have new ideas that are not already contained in the individual parts. Ideas like these don't come from a note box?

      But. For example, I have a large set of notes on the term "functional differentiation", I also have a set of notes on "self-referential systems", and I have a large set of notes on "binarity". At the moment I am giving a lecture on ecological problems in modern societies, and my work consists of sifting through pieces of paper from the three conceptual areas outlined and combining them so that I can say something substantive on this topic. The new ideas then arise from the different possible combinations of the pieces of paper for the individual terms. Without the notes, just by thinking about it, I wouldn't come up with ideas like that. Of course my mind is required to record the ideas, but it cannot be held solely responsible for them. In this respect, I work like a computer, which can also be creative in the sense that by combining input data it produces new results that could not have been predicted. I think this technique also explains why I don't think linearly at all and why I have trouble finding the right sequence of chapters when writing books, because every chapter should actually appear in every other chapter.

    3. "Biographie, Attitüden, Zettelkasten" ist unter dem Titel "Der Zettelkasten kostet michmehr Zeit als das Bücherschreiben" in der Frankfurter Rundschau am Samxtag, den27. April 1985, S. ZB 3 gekürzt erschienen.

      "Biography, Attitudes, Zettelkasten" was published under the title "The Zettelkasten costs me more time than writing books" in the Frankfurter Rundschau on Saturday, April 27, 1985, p. ZB 3, abridged.

    4. Der Zeitaufwand besteht für mich im wesentlichen darin, ein Ma-nuskript zu tippen. Wenn ich es einmal geschrieben habe, dannnehme ich in der Regel keine Revision mehr vor, mit Ausnahmeübrigens an dem letzten Buch,

      To some extent, Luhmann felt that his books wrote themselves. He spent an inordinate amount of time writing out notes and filing them into his zettelkasten. The writing portion consisted primarily of typing out the manuscript and after writing it, he usually didn't revise it.

      Link to https://hypothes.is/a/LG--lGpmEe6yvy8lp7nfPw

    1. 07:50 sharing what excites (writing as stream of consciousness)

      Capture as first step in value creation (see my framework wherein it starts with capture)

    1. LLMs are merely engines for generating stylistically plausible output that fits the patterns of their inputs, rather than for producing accurate information. Publishers worry that a rise in their use might lead to greater numbers of poor-quality or error-strewn manuscripts — and possibly a flood of AI-assisted fakes.
      • for: progress trap, progress trap - AI, progress trap - AI - writing research papers

      • comment

        • potential fakes
          • climate science fakes by big oil think tanks
          • Covid and virus research
          • race issues
          • gender issues
    1. The narrative technique owes a good deal to W. G. Sebald, who loved to ruminate on strange and troubling episodes from history, blurring the boundary between fact and fiction.

      Benjamín Labatut also falls into this genre.