Bei einer Hitzewelle in der Antarktis lag die Temperatur 38,5° über dem Durchschnittswert. Dieser enorm hohe Wert schockiert Forschende und ist bisher nicht erklärbar. Der Guardian stellt den Kontext ausführlich dar und hat dazu mehrere Fachleute befragt. Eine neue Publikation spricht von einem regime shift beim antarktischen Sommer-Meereis. Er gefährdet u.a. den Krill und die Kolonien der Kaiserpinguine. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/06/simply-mind-boggling-world-record-temperature-jump-in-antarctic-raises-fears-of-catastrophe

Studie: https://journals.ametsoc.org/configurable/content/journals$002fclim$002f37$002f7$002fJCLI-D-23-0479.1.xml?t:ac=journals%24002fclim%24002f37%24002f7%24002fJCLI-D-23-0479.1.xml

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/25/emperor-penguins-thousands-of-chicks-in-antarctica-likely-died-due-to-record-low-sea-ice-levels

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/227446/coralie-bickford-smith

Initial print fun of the P/V translation of Anna Karenina was 32,000 copies which the publisher hoped would push other translations to the margins. Then Oprah picked it up for her book club... and the publisher ordered another printing of 800,000 copies.

in relation to the character in the satire Penguin Island by Anatole France who dies by zettelkasten

Naturally a tapir is the nocturnal hoofed mammal with a stout body, sturdy limbs, and a short flexible proboscis, native to the forests of tropical America and Malaysia.

So the name Fulgence Tapir is essentially "a sparkling foraging pig".

Surely the fault of that savant was not neglect, but over-confidence in the virtue of the fiche [index card], and the true moral is that there is no necessary salvation in the fiche and the card-index [aka zettelkasten].

Here the author is referencing part of the preface of Anatole France's book Penguin Island (1908) where a scholar drowns in a whirlpool of index cards.

see: https://hypothes.is/a/rYHu0FQZEe2mm4_z4pvWLw

T., T. F., A. F. P., E. R. A., H. E. E., R. C., E. L. W., F. J. C. H., and E. J. C. “Short Notices.” History 8, no. 31 (1923): 231–37.

France, Anatole. L’Île Des Pingouins. Project Gutenberg 8524. 1908. Reprint, Project Gutenberg, 2005. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8524/pg8524.html

Death by Zettelkasten!!

(Coming soon to a theater near you...)

In the preface to the novel Penguin Island (L'Île des Pingouins. Calmann-Lévy, 1908) by Nobel prize laureate Anatole France, a scholar is drowned by an avalanche of index cards which formed a gigantic whirlpool streaming out of his card index (Zettelkasten).

Link to: Historian Keith Thomas has indicated that he finds it hard to take using index cards for excerpting and research seriously as a result of reading this passage in the satire Penguin Island.<br /> https://hypothes.is/a/rKAvtlQCEe2jtzP3LmPlsA

Translation via: France, Anatole. Penguin Island. Translated by Arthur William Evans. 8th ed. 1908. Reprint, New York, NY, USA: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1922. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Penguin_Island/6UpWAvkPQaEC?hl=en&gbpv=0

Small changes in the translation by me, comprising only adding the word "index" in front of the occurrences of card to better represent the historical idea of fiches used by scholars in the late 1800s and early 1900s, are indicated in brackets.

The walls of the study, the floor, and even the ceiling were loaded with overflowing bundles, paste board boxes swollen beyond measure, boxes in which were compressed an innumerable multitude of small [index] cards covered with writing. I beheld in admiration mingled with terror the cataracts of erudition that threatened to burst forth.

“Master,” said I in feeling tones, “I throw myself upon your kindness and your knowledge, both of which are inexhaustible. Would you consent to guide me in my arduous researches into the origins of Penguin art?"

“Sir," answered the Master, “I possess all art, you understand me, all art, on [index] cards classed alphabetically and in order of subjects. I consider it my duty to place at your disposal all that relates to the Penguins. Get on that ladder and take out that box you see above. You will find in it everything you require.”

I tremblingly obeyed. But scarcely had I opened the fatal box than some blue [index] cards escaped from it, and slipping through my fingers, began to rain down.

Almost immediately, acting in sympathy, the neighbouring boxes opened, and there flowed streams of pink, green, and white [index] cards, and by degrees, from all the boxes, differently coloured [index] cards were poured out murmuring like a waterfall on a mountain-side in April. In a minute they covered the floor with a thick layer of paper. Issuing from their in exhaustible reservoirs with a roar that continually grew in force, each second increased the vehemence of their torrential fall. Swamped up to the knees in cards, Fulgence Tapir observed the cataclysm with attentive nose. He recognised its cause and grew pale with fright.

“ What a mass of art! ” he exclaimed.

I called to him and leaned forward to help him mount the ladder which bent under the shower. It was too late. Overwhelmed, desperate, pitiable, his velvet smoking-cap and his gold-mounted spectacles having fallen from him, he vainly opposed his short arms to the flood which had now mounted to his arm-pits . Suddenly a terrible spurt of [index] cards arose and enveloped him in a gigantic whirlpool. During the space of a second I could see in the gulf the shining skull and little fat hands of the scholar; then it closed up and the deluge kept on pouring over what was silence and immobility. In dread lest I in my turn should be swallowed up ladder and all I made my escape through the topmost pane of the window.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin_Island_(novel)

In Penguin Island, Anatole France describes a scholar drowned by an avalanche of their own index cards!

https://www.abebooks.com/books/top-rare-collectors-valuable-inexpensive/affordable-collectible.shtml?cm_mmc=nl--nl--C220823-MRC-tolkieAATRADE-_-b2img&abersp=1

Vladimir Nabokov died in 1977 leaving an unfinished manuscript in note card form for the novel The Original of Laura. Penguin later published the incomplete novel with in 2012 with the subtitle A Novel in Fragments. Unlike most manuscripts written or typewritten on larger paper, this one came in the form of 138 index cards. Penguin's published version recreated these cards in full-color reproductions including the smudges, scribbles, scrawlings, strikeouts, and annotations in English, French, and Russian. Perforated, one could tear the cards out of the book and reorganize in any way they saw fit or even potentially add their own cards to finish the novel that Nabokov couldn't.

Link to the idea behind Cain’s Jawbone by Edward Powys Mathers which had a different conceit, but a similar publishing form.

This is the Penguin Random House page about the series.

World Wildlife Foundation info on the Galapagos penguin.

Yikes. Remember the days when I had to retrieve Penguin identities from the void.

As someone who loves design (especially to do with books and texts (e.g. Coralie Bickford-Smith's work with Penguin Publishing)), this is very interesting to me. This may not have to do with digital humanities per say, but the interplay of physical books (especially publishing companies and their need to $compete$ with digital texts) with digital modes of communication has led to the design of more aesthetically pleasing book designs. This idea makes me think that maybe books are viewed as elitist forms, and digital texts are viewed as 'lower' forms.