1,050 Matching Annotations
  1. Apr 2022
    1. In case you’re interested in understanding how to safely implement a future combinator function using stack pinning yourself, take a look at the relatively short source of the map combinator method of the futures crate and the section about projections and structural pinning of the pin documentation.
    1. The Jesuit Francesco Sac-chini, in contrast, commended the interruption in reading that resulted fromstopping to copy a passage into one’s notebook: it slowed down reading and aidedretention.44
    2. The first manual solely devoted to excerpting, or note-taking fromreading, was composed for students in the advanced or rhetoric class at Jesuitcolleges by Francesco Sacchini (1570–1625), professor of rhetoric at the CollegioRomano. De ratione libros cum profectu legendi libellus (A Little Book on Howto Read with Profit) was published in 1614 and in a further six editions, followedby a translation into French in 1786 (for the use of Calvinists, judging from thededication to a pastor in Geneva) and into German in 1832.34

      Footnote:

      Sacchini (1614)—further references to “Sacchini” will be to this edition; warm thanks to Helmut Zedelmaier for sharing with me his photocopy of this edition. Further editions include: Sammieli (Saint-Mihiel, Lorraine), 1615; Ingolstadt 1616; Bordeaux 1617; Dillingen 1621; Leipzig 1711 and 1738; and Venetiis Britonum (Vannes, Brittany), 1866. It was translated into French (Sacchini [1786]) and German, Über die Lektüre, ihren Nutzen und die Vortheile sie gehörig anzuwenden, nach dem Lateini- Notes to Pages 70–72 283 schen des Sacchini teutsch bearbeitet und mit einem Anhange begleitet von Herrmann Walchner (Karlsruhe, 1832). I am grateful to Helmut Zedelmaier for the information about the German edition, which I have not seen. Sacchini’s De ratione . . . legendi was a source for Rainierio Carsughi, Ars bene scribendi (Rome, 1709), as discussed in Haskell (2003), 260. For the full range of Jesuit practices of note-taking (including notes taken under dictation) see Nelles (2007)—I am grateful to Paul Nelles for helpful conversations over the years. On Sacchini, see also Dainville (1978), 224–27.

    3. James Boswell (1740–95) defended the state of learning in his day: “It has been maintained that this superfoetation, this teeming of the press in modern times, is prejudicial to good literature, because it obliges us to read so much of what is of inferiour value, in order to be in the fashion; so that better works are neglected for want of time, because a man will have more gratification of his vanity in conversation, from having read modern books, than from having read the best works of antiquity. But it must be con-sidered that we now have more knowledge generally diffuse; all our ladies read now, which is a great extension.”

      Link to earlier note about Caleb Deschanel

    4. A study of Samuel Johnson (1709–84) has identified four different kinds of reading in which Johnson described himself engaging: “hard study” for learned books read with pen in hand, “perusal” for purposeful consultation in search of information, “curious reading” for engrossment in a novel, and “mere reading” for browsing and scanning “without the fatigue of close attention.”216

      "Mere reading" today consists of a lot of scrolling through never-ending social media posts on mobile phones....

    5. More detailed work in the history of reading has cast aside the strict periodization and the suddenness of change implied in the notion of a “reading revolution.”215 Rather than sudden shifts, I trace the development and spread of new methods of reading along-side the continuation of older options. Consultation reading existed among the learned in earlier centuries, and in an unbroken line of transmission at least as far back as the thirteenth century, so the most distinctively new kind of reading in the eighteenth century was not consultation reading but rather engrossment in the novels that were a new and successful genre. Conversely, “intensive reading,” classically identified with repetitive meditation on the Bible, was also practiced in the eighteenth century, in religious circles at least, for example, among Pi-etists, Methodists, and in Catholic religious orders. (Witness the 1786 publica-tion of Sacchini’s recommendation for intensive reading, which I discuss in the next chapter.) Proficient readers engaged in different kinds of reading depending on the text and their purpose in reading it.

      Broad forms of reading: - consultation reading - intensive reading (meditation, religious) - entertainment reading (novels)

    6. Even as he was critical of overabundance, Gesner exulted in it, seeking exhaustiveness in his accumulation of both themes and works from which others could choose according to their judgment and interests.

      Note here the presumed freedom to pick and choose based on interest and judgement. Who's judgement really? Book banning and religious battles would call to question which people got to exercise their own judgement.

    1. to develop concepts for thinking about how programmable attention systems can extend beyond productivity (which is where these systems are most prolific, as can be seen from above examples)

      Netflix-like autoplay but for binge reading...

      Although it is productive: Incremental Writing

    1. serendipity that sends the user down a rabbit hole to find new ideas and the links between them

      Big Incremental Reading vibes

    1. A recommendation engine for reading that could reliably supply enjoyable inceptive experiences would be a marvel.

      .c2 Likely the best way to achieve this is on a platform with shortform introductory content that can then funnel you to high quality longform content. This already exists in a unofficial way on Youtube and Tiktok, but no platform would commit to it (as it is taking people away from their site). Readwise could do this through their supplemental highlights feature.

  2. Mar 2022
    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I44oMVd4Cw

      Become a Better Reader in 8 Minutes - Write down basic Impressions - Write actionable takeaways - Limit it to 10 items to create a level of selection - Create a list of favorite quotes - Bonus section: Catch all for other important tidbits. Also good for important questions.

      This is useful for its brevity and actionability, but it's also glossing over so much more that could be valuable. It specifically is leaving out methods and means of actively reusing all these written notes. No mention of reviews of the material or spaced repetition.

      Saw this via YouTube algorithm.

    1. sometimes it's 00:55:43 not the actual information bit but in a combined order that this is what it's all about and that often makes a difference between yeah you understand it and 00:56:00 you really understand it and um so maybe that's a good reminder that when we write it's it's not so much about new information and yeah don't have to 00:56:15 be too worried about not having the new information but about making this difference to really understanding it as something that 00:56:28 a significant or makes a difference

      For overall understanding and creating new writing output from it, the immediate focus shouldn't be about revealing new information or simple facts so much as it's about being able to place that new information into your own context. Once this has been done then the focus can shift to later being able to potentially use that new knowledge and understanding in other novel and enlightening contexts to create new insights.

    2. what i don't really do 00:48:10 is having a checklist like going through possible biases i don't feel that's very helpful i think it's important to keep them in mind but i think it's more about detecting okay 00:48:25 what kind of question is [Music] the author trying to answer

      Understanding the sorts of questions an author is looking at and attempting to answer are often more important than going through a checklist of biases which may come into play.

    3. give the text your reading the opportunity to tell you something new and something 00:49:02 you have not expected so i'm worried a little bit of having fixed [Music] categories to look through 00:49:16 text because it might turn every text into something that is um already fitting your categories instead of expanding them 00:49:26 or adding to them

      Coming to a text with too rigid a set of questions or preconceived categories may cause you to be blinded by what you expect to get out of it rather than allowing the text to surprise you with new and interesting insights you may not have anticipated.

    4. it is a tool for productivity um but i think it's a technology that forces you to [Music] engage more deeply with 00:29:06 the text you're reading

      The zettelkasten is a tool for thought that forces you to engage more deeply with what you're reading.

    1. Put Eidsheim 2015 and O'Callaghan 2007 in dialogue with each other.

      Brandon Lewis seems to be talking about actively taking two papers and placing them "in dialogue with each other" potentially by reading, annotating, and writing about them with himself as an intermediary.

    1. Creative work is not complete until it is disseminated

      This is an interesting perspective, but are there cases where it's false?

      Link to the idea at CAA that you haven't really read a script unless you've actively acted upon what you've read.

    1. Evaluations of the platform show that users who follow the avatar inmaking a gesture achieve more lasting learning than those who simply hear theword. Gesturing students also learn more than those who observe the gesture butdon’t enact it themselves.

      Manuela Macedonia's research indicates that online learners who enact specific gestures as they learn words learn better and have longer retention versus simply hearing words. Students who mimic these gestures also learn better than those who only see the gestures and don't use them themselves.

      How might this sort of teacher/avatar gesturing be integrated into online methods? How would students be encouraged to follow along?

      Could these be integrated into different background settings as well to take advantage of visual memory?

      Anecdotally, I remember some Welsh phrases from having watched Aran Jones interact with his cat outside on video or his lip syncing in the empty spaces requiring student responses. Watching the teachers lips while learning can be highly helpful as well.

    2. Research shows that people who are asked to write on complex topics,instead of being allowed to talk and gesture about them, end up reasoning lessastutely and drawing fewer inferences.

      Should active reading, thinking, and annotating also include making gestures as a means of providing more clear reasoning, and drawing better inferences from one's material?

      Would gestural movements with a hand or physical writing be helpful in annotation over digital annotation using typing as an input? Is this related to the anecdotal evidence/research of handwriting being a better method of note taking over typing?

      Could products like Hypothes.is or Diigo benefit from the use of digital pens on screens as a means of improving learning over using a mouse and a keyboard to highlight and annotate?

    1. ஒரு நல்ல படைப்பை அடையாளம் கண்டுகொள்ள சில அவதானிப்புகளைச் சொல்கிறேன். முதலில், எது அதிகம் பேரால் பகிரப்படுகிறதோ அது நல்ல படைப்பாக இருக்க வாய்ப்பே இல்லை. இரண்டாவது, ஒரு நல்ல படைப்பு பெரும்பாலும் நம்மைத் தேடி வராது; அதைத்தான் நாம் தேடிச் செல்ல வேண்டும். வேறுவிதமாகச் சொல்வதானால், வாசிக்கச் சுலபமாய் இருக்கும் ஆக்கங்கள் பெரும்பாலும் குப்பைகளாகவே இருக்கும். வாசிக்கச் சிரமம் தருபவையும், பல்துறை ஞானத்தைக் கோருபவையுமே நல்ல படைப்புகளாக இருக்கும். மூன்றாவது, வாசித்து முடிந்தவுடன் மறந்து போவது நல்ல படைப்பாக இருக்க வாய்ப்பில்லை அல்லது தற்காலிக மகிழ்ச்சியைத் தருவதும் நல்ல படைப்பாக இருக்காது.

      Literary Findings

    1. The analytical, inferential, perspective-taking reading brain with all its capacity for human consciousness, and the nimble, multifunctional, multimodal, information-integrative capacities of a digital mind-set do not need to inhabit exclusive realms

      Annahme: digitales mind-set und Lektürekompetenz schließen einander nicht aus

    1. Take Smart Notes

      It's important to be able to understand an idea within it's given text fully, but good readers are able to take the idea and place it into other contexts, to extend it, connect it to ideas beyond the text, and ask additional questions that the original author may not have considered or even thought possible.

    1. Even though your highlights from books typically include a page or "location" number, this context is largely meaningless unless you happen to be writing a paper requiring proper citations.

      Page numbers are terrible for anything other than looking up a location or citing where a quote is from, it provides little meaningful organizational context.

    1. consistent use of the concatenate action tag will elevate your reading practice to the next level. Analyzing a text to decide what is and isn't worth saving is a form of actively engaging with what you're reading.

      Identifying what parts of a highlight are important and which are superfluous is another aspect of active reading.

    2. when everything is highlighted, nothing is highlighted
    3. Verbose highlights are painful to review

      Highlights that are too long however are painful to review. There's a balance to providing just enough context.

    4. As you develop the habit of revisiting your highlights, you'll increasingly start to think in terms of your future self. As you highlight, for example, you might starting asking: Will my future self be able to understand what this passage is saying and why I highlighted it? To ensure your future self has enough context, you might then also take much longer highlights.

      To become a more proficient active reader who uses highlighting effectively you need to think about what contextual information will be required for comprehension when you review annotations in the future. Longer highlights may be required.

    1. Not only does inline tagging make it easy to add keywords and categories to your highlights, consistent use will also elevate your reading practice to the next level. Distilling a highlight down to a single keyword or forging an association between a passage and something you're working on are both forms of actively engaging with what you're reading. And actively (rather than passively) reading is essential to getting more of what you want out of books

      Adding keywords isn't just to make finding things easier later on, the act of associating a highlight with a keyword or linking it to a project through a tag elevates your reading to be active rather than simply passive.

  3. Feb 2022
    1. To create trails  When we are studying a text we need to take the time to understand more than just the storyline. During your second reading, any comments made during the first reading (marginal comments or summaries) will quickly give you the gist of your first reading, so that you can take advantage of your second.

      While multiple readings of a text in antiquity may have been rarer, due to the cheap proliferation of books, one can more easily "blaze a trail" through their reading to make it easier or quicker to rebuild context on subsequent readings.


      Look at history of reading to see which books would have been more likely re-read, particularly outside of one's primary "area" of expertise.

      Link to the trails mentioned by Vannevar Bush in As We May Think.

  4. openlab.citytech.cuny.edu openlab.citytech.cuny.edu
    1. But it isn’t. This is because over such a long period a message can easily be distorted or altered without this being in any way intended. (This distortion or alteration in the meaning or method of transmission of a message, whether intended or not, is called “noise.”) Languages, both written and spoken, always change. The meanings of symbols are often lost in the passage of time. In fact, most messages are bound so closely to a particular period and place that even a short time later they cannot be understood. Therefore, ensuring that a message created now can be decoded by future generations is highly problematic.

      Can symbol that represents one thing change over a long period of time to mean something different?

    2. ea. It is only because there is already a well-established connection in our minds between the appearance of an apple and the idea of temptation that this fruit is used in the picture. It is this connection that makes the picture successful in terms of communicatio

      Why was the apple chosen as the representation of temptation?

    3. semiotician,

      A Theory of signs and symbols that deals especially with there function in both artificially constructed and natural languages.

    1. That is, the first thing he asked of this particular object was not “How should it look?” but “What must it do?” and to that extent all good typography is modernist.

      Typography is not about how it should look but rather how it can convey the message.

    2. because everything about it is calculated to reveal rather than to hide the beautiful thing that it was meant to contain.

      I like this statement because when it comes to typography it is meant to reveal the beauty behind the design.

    3. that the most important thing about printing is that it conveys thought, ideas, images, from one mind to other minds.

      It's true that if you can transfer your thought and ideas in your design, your audience would be able to understand your message.

    4. maudlin experiments

      self-pityingly or tearfully sentimental, often through drunkenness.

    5. impudent

      Not showing due respect for another person or being impertinent

    6. When a goblet has a base that looks too small for security, it does not matter how cleverly it is weighted; you feel nervous lest it should tip over. There are ways of setting lines of type that may work well enough, and yet keep the reader subconsciously worried by the fear of “doubling” lines, reading three words as one, and so forth.

      The writer seems to to talking about the reader of a design becoming overwelmed by the text in a design when they look at it if there is to much causing the message of the design to be lost or not focused on in the design.

    7. Digital technology puts creation, production, and distribution into the hands of the designer, enabling such bold assertions of artistic presence. These acts of graphic authorship fit within a broader evolving model of collective author-ship that is fundamentally changing the producer-consumer relationship.

      What role does technology play in shaping design?

      Because of the technological advances that we have made, technology has helped designers to re-imagine the impossible.

      Technology has helped us to create the impossible.

    8. Today some graphic designers continue to champion ideals of neutrality and objectivity that were essential to the early formation of their field. Such designers see the client’s message as the central component of their work. They strive to communicate this message clearly, although now their post-postmodern eyes are open to the impossibility of neutrality and objectivity.

      What distinguishes the field, or fields, of design from other creative occupations?

      I think that creativity is key for distinguishing the difference between design and other occupation.

      As a designer you have to be neutral and creative in getting your clients message across.

    9. Looking back across the history of design through the minds of these influential designers, one can identify pervasive themes like those discussed in this introduction. Issues like authorship, universality, and social responsi-bility, so key to avant-garde ideology, remain crucial to contemporary critical and theoretical discussions of the field.

      According to this author, what role should design play in society?

      I think that the author was talking about how the design community should be the new avant-garde.

      I think that designers should be at the forefront of the design community.

    1. In the early chapters Ahrens outlines the general form and method for taking notes for a zettelkasten, though he's not overly descriptive of the method and provides no direct examples.

      In the middle chapters he talks broadly about learning research and how the zettelkasten method dovetails with these methods.

      He does this almost as if he's a good teacher showing the student an outline of what to do and why, but leaving it up to them to actually do the work and experimentation to come up with their own specific methods of use to best suit their purposes. This allows them to do the work themselves so that they have a better chance of following a simple, but easy set of rules, but in a way that will allow them to potentially more quickly become an expert at the practice.

      “The one who does the work does the learning,” writes Doyle (2008, 63) [Section 10.5]

      In some sense, he's actively practicing what he preaches as a teaching device within his own book!

      I think that this point may be actively missed by those readers who aren't actively engaging with and converting his ideas into their own and doing the work which he's actively suggesting.

    2. If you now think: “That’s ridiculous. Who would want to read andpretend to learn just for the illusion of learning and understanding?”please look up the statistics: The majority of students chooses everyday not to test themselves in any way. Instead, they apply the verymethod research has shown again (Karpicke, Butler, and Roediger2009) and again (Brown 2014, ch. 1) to be almost completelyuseless: rereading and underlining sentences for later rereading.And most of them choose that method, even if they are taught thatthey don’t work.

      Even when taught that some methods of learning don't work, students will still actively use and focus on them.


      Are those using social annotation purposely helping students to steer clear of these methods? is there evidence that the social part of some of these related annotation or conversational practices with both the text and one's colleagues helpful? Do they need to be taken out of the text and done in a more explicit manner in a lecture/discussion section or in a book club like setting similar to that of Dan Allossso's or even within a shared space like the Obsidian book club to have more value?

    3. We face here the same choice between methods that make us feellike we learned something and methods that truly do make us learnsomething.

      What methods of studying actually make us learn something versus make us feel as if we've learned something?

      Active reading, progressive summarization may be on this list while highlighting and underlining might not. Or perhaps there's a spectrum of poor to good, and if this is the case, what does it look like? Is it the same for everyone or are factors like neurodivergence part of the equation which might change this spectrum of learning methods and techniques?

    4. Reading, especially rereading, caneasily fool us into believing we understand a text. Rereading isespecially dangerous because of the mere-exposure effect: Themoment we become familiar with something, we start believing wealso understand it. On top of that, we also tend to like it more(Bornstein 1989).

      The mere-exposure effect can be dangerous when rereading a text because we are more likely to falsely believe we understand it. Robert Bornstein's research from 1989 indicates that we will tend to like the text more, which can pull us into confirmation bias.

      Bornstein, Robert F. 1989. “Exposure and Affect: Overview and Meta-Analysis of Research, 1968-1987.” Psychological Bulletin 106 (2): 265–89.

    5. Reading with a pen in yourhand is the small-scale equivalent of a lecture.

      Active reading with a pen in your hand and the creation of smart notes is a small-scale equivalent of a full introductory lecture from the perspective of Richard Feynman's technique for testing understanding.

      Active reading is roughly equivalent to the idea of reading with a pen in your hand or showing evidence of a mind at play.

    6. Taking smart notes is the deliberate practice ofthese skills. Mere reading, underlining sentences and hoping toremember the content is not.

      Some of the lighter and more passive (and common) forms of reading, highlighting, underlining sentences and hoping to understand or even remember the content and contexts is far less valuable than active reading, progressive summarization, comparing and contrasting, and extracting smart or permanent notes from one's texts.

    7. Notes build up while you think, read, understand and generateideas, because you have to have a pen in your hand if you want tothink, read, understand and generate ideas properly anyway

      An active reader is always thinking, writing, and annotating. The notes from this process can and could easily be used to facilitate writing and generating new material showing new contexts and new modes of thought.

    1. It matters less what you read, he told me, emphasizing each word, than how you take notes.

      I appreciate how he puts some priority in note taking, but it does matter what your read.

      Better:

      It matters both what you read and how you take notes.

    1. https://dancohen.org/2019/07/23/engagement-is-the-enemy-of-serendipity/

      Dan Cohen talks about a design change in the New York Times app that actively discourages exploration and discovery by serendipity.

      This is similar to pulling out digital copies of books you're looking for instead of going to the library, tracking down the book on the shelf and in the process seeing and experiencing the books on the shelf which are nearby, or even the book that catches your eye across the aisle, wasn't in your sphere of search or interest, but you pick it up anyway.

      How can we bring this sort of design back to digital experiences?

      It's not just the algorithmic feeds which are narrowing our interests and exposure, but the design of our digital spaces as well.

  5. Jan 2022
    1. this is an interesting article... and it goes deeply into the wider details behind the product it's reviewing. We don't normally see that with standard reviews.

    1. An incredibly short, but dense essay on annotating books, but one which doesn't go into the same sort of detail as he gets in his book length treatment in How to Read a Book.

      Missing here is the social aspect of annotating a book. In fact, he actively recommends against loaning one's annotated books for fear of losing the details and value in them.

    2. Most of us have been taken in by the notion that speed of reading is a measure of our intelligence. T

      Where did the idea of speed reading being a measure of our intelligence stem?

      Certainly in a world of information overload there is the perception that greater consumption is better, but lack of comprehension and memory are the enemies.

      Comprehension and the ability to remember the books we read should be of the utmost importance.

    3. reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to express itself in words, spoken or written.

      Nice to see him pay some homage to orality here.

    4. You know you have to read "between the lines" to get the most out of anything. I want to persuade you to do something equally important in the course of your reading. I want to persuade you to write between the lines. Unless you do, you are not likely to do the most efficient kind of reading.

      -Mortimer J. Adler

    1. Moving my (web) reading list to sticky notes because I never remember to check it on my computer.

      Wall with stickie note sized print outs taped to it. They contain a QR code, presumably linking to the thing they want to read with a Title and author below it.

    1. உலக சிந்தனை வரலாற்றை எடுத்துப் பார்த்தால் இதுவரையில் எழுதப்பட்டு தலைமுறை தலைமுறையாக கைமாற்றப்பட்டு நீடிக்கும் பெரும்பாலான படைப்புகள் புனைவுகளே.

      Fiction transcends plentitude of generations

    1. Reading "refreshes," but it must lead to writing. Neither activity should be pursued at the exclusion of the other. "Continuous writing will cast gloom over our strength, and exhaust it," while continuous reading "will make our strength watery and flabby. It is better to have recourse to them alternately, and to blend one with the other, so that the fruits of one's reading may be reduced to the concrete form by the pen" (277).

      Almost like saying that "man cannot live by bread alone"...

    2. Francis Bacon, for instance, thought that "some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention."

      An interesting classification of books which fits a fair amount of my own views, particularly looking at the difference between fiction, poetry, and non-fiction.

      Source?

    1. A recent addition to the writer-editor-reader relationship is something called a “sensitivity reader,” that is someone of diverse background who can advise on dicey cultural matters whom writers are now encouraged to consult.
    1. he page note can function as a general guide. When I teach I use it as a place to share possible instructions. For example, I want to share a close reading of John's work so that we can be a bit better prepared for the meet on #nwpstudio for First Chapter Friday with John McCaffrey. Or as John writes in the short afterword in the story, "If you really want to know the real story: what I felt, why I did what I did, why I didn’t do what I could? Listen. Listen close. It’s the only way."

    1. Serious reading will require just as much effort as it has always required.

      Reading is hard to disrupt.

      Speeding up and dramatically improving the reading process is incredibly difficult. No one has yet made really huge strides in this space. Google has made it imminently more accessible to the masses, but it still requires a lot of physical work and processing on our part.

  6. Dec 2021
    1. https://luhmann.surge.sh/learning-how-to-read

      Learning How to Read by Niklas Luhmann

      Not as dense as Mortimer J. Adler's advice, but differentiates reading technical material versus poetry and novels. Moves to the topic of some of the value of note taking as a means of progressive summarization which may have implications for better remembering material.

    1. when you reach the end of a chapter, you pause for few minutes to author one or two paragraphs of text summarizing your understanding and reflections on the key concepts discussed in the previous chapter. Beyond the two paragraphs, it is also a good practice to articulate questions that come to mind, for which you will seek answers in the upcoming chapters, or that you want to research beyond the book.
    1. “Don’t feel guilty if you spend the first 90 minutes of your day drinking coffee and reading blogs,” Nate Silver once advised young journalists. “It’s your job. Your ratio of reading to writing should be high.”
    2. Stephen King says he writes all morning and reads all afternoon.
    1. These designers value expression over style

      It's about expressing oneself or creates distortion rather than valuing or achieving a certain look that they should convey.

    2. syntactical

      in a way that relates to the grammatical arrangement of words

      in a sentence: a syntactically complicated language

      definition

    3. Shattering the constraints of minimalism was exhilarating and far more fun than the antiseptic discipline of the classical Swiss school.

      That's understandable because doing the same type of style over and over again can be boring sometimes.

    1. Discussion is led by an instructor, but the instructor’s job is not to give the students a more informed understanding of the texts, or to train them in methods of interpretation, which is what would happen in a typical literature- or philosophy-department course. The instructor’s job is to help the students relate the texts to their own lives.

      The format of many "great books" courses is to help students relate the texts to their own lives, not to have a better understanding of the books or to hone methods of interpreting them.

      This isn't too dissimilar to the way that many Protestants are taught to apply the Bible to their daily lives.

      Are students mis-applying the great books because they don't understand their original ideas and context the way many religious people do with the Bible?

    1. This book, then, is an analysis of physiotherapy through the lens of the sociology of the professions. It explores what the professions are, what they do in society, what’s good about them, and what’s bad. It applies these ideas to physiotherapy so that we can better understand the issues the profession is now facing. And the book concludes with some challenging and, some might say, heretical recommendations for where physiotherapy goes next, as we all adapt to the post-professional era.

      The aim of the book.

      I'm intrigued. I don't see an easy route from where we are to a society giving up on its professionals.

    2. The End of Physiotherapy

      See here for more information.

    3. with medicine being the paradigm case

      And possibly law.

    Tags

    Annotators

    1. A good library is filled with mostly unread books. That’s the point. Our relationship with the unknown causes the very problem Taleb is famous for contextualizing: the black swan. Because we underestimate the value of what we don’t know and overvalue what we do know, we fundamentally misunderstand the likelihood of surprises. The antidote to this overconfidence boils down to our relationship with knowledge. The anti-scholar, as Taleb refers to it, is “someone who focuses on the unread books, and makes an attempt not to treat his knowledge as a treasure, or even a possession, or even a self-esteem enhancement device — a skeptical empiricist.” My library serves as a visual reminder of what I don’t know.

      I prefer the positive interpretation, of how much more there is to know. Quantifying anything in terms of how much we do not have is limited because we have finite knowledge out of an infinite set.

      Each book instead of referencing something we do not know is a portal into things we have yet to know.

      I think Nassim Taleb also mentioned elsewhere that having a lot of books you haven't read shows interest in a topic.

  7. Nov 2021
    1. article explores how annotation with digital, social tools can address digital reading challenges while also supporting writing skill development for novices in college literature classrooms. The author analyzes student work and survey responses and shows that social annotation can facilitate closer digital reading and scaffold text-anchored argumentation practices.

      Writing to understand what I read is critical to my practice. Doing so socially is particularly helpful when I don't understand something or am lacking the motivation to keep reading.

    1. 405

      Our close reading passage this week is from Book 10, lines 406-449:

      from: 10.406 "so she spoke, and the proud heart in me was persuaded..." to 10. 449: "...but followed along in fear of my fierce reproaches."

      Instructions: as with last week's passage, pay attention to every detail that catches your attention, or that doesn't seem to make sense. Context matters: the scene in last week's passage was Ithaca, a relatively normal if disorderly human community, but this week's passage deals with events on a magical island where humans are easily changed into animals. Is this island in any way a threat to the homecomings of Odysseus and his men? In your view, does it affect their behavior?

    2. 475

      Hopkins at Home The Odyssey of Homer: a Close Reading

      Sample close reading passage: 5.475 - 5.493 (end of chapter 5)

      This moment occurs at the end of book five, just after Odysseus has escaped the rage of Poseidon by dragging himself ashore on the island of Scheria (likely Corfu), land of the Phaiakians/Phaeacians. Odysseus has just decided to look for shelter in the nearby forest, which despite the danger of wild animals offers somewhat more warmth than the wet shore of the river from which he has crawled. To help with our discussion I’ve divided the text into three parts.

      I’d suggest printing this out and jotting your thoughts down—circle words that strike you as significant, as having multiple meanings, etc. Enjoy! You can send your thoughts to me or just keep your notes handy for our next class.

    1. Karnofsky suggests that the cost/benefit ratio of how we typically think of reading may not be as simple as we intuitively expect i.e. we think that 'more time' = 'more understanding'.

      If you're simply reading to inform yourself about a topic, it may be worth reading a couple of book reviews, and listening to an interview or two, rather than invest the significant amount of time necessary to really engage with the book.

      A few hours of skimming and reviews/interviews may get you to 25% understanding and retention, which in many cases may be more than enough for your needs of being basically informed on the topic. Compared to the 50 - 100 hours necessary for a deep, analytical engagement with the text, that would only get you to 50% understanding and retention.

      That being said, if your goal is to develop expertise, both Karnofsky and Adler ('How to read a book') suggest that you need a deep engagement with multiple texts.

    1. https://site.pennpress.org/material-texts-2021/9780812236422/textual-situations/

      This looks interesting for a later time...

      Textual Situations: Three Medieval Manuscripts and Their Readers by Andrew Taylor

      Generations of scholars have meditated upon the literary devices and cultural meanings of The Song of Roland. But according to Andrew Taylor not enough attention has been given to the physical context of the manuscript itself. The original copy of The Song of Roland is actually bound with a Latin translation of the Timaeus.

      Textual Situations looks at this bound volume along with two other similarly bound medieval volumes to explore the manuscripts and marginalia that have been cast into shadow by the fame of adjacent texts, some of the most read medieval works. In addition to the bound volume that contains The Song of Roland, Taylor examines the volume that binds the well-known poem "Sumer is icumen in" with the Lais of Marie de France, and a volume containing the legal Decretals of Gregory IX with marginal illustrations of wayfaring life decorating its borders.

      Approaching the manuscript as artifact, Textual Situations suggests that medieval texts must be examined in terms of their material support—that is, literal interpretation must take into consideration the physical manuscript itself in addition to the social conventions that surround its compilation. Taylor reconstructs the circumstances of the creation of these medieval bound volumes, the settings in which they were read, inscribed, and shared, and the social and intellectual conventions surrounding them.

    1. I think of the Kindle and what enormous potential that browser had to change our relationship with the internet, to push it towards a web that you read (instead of one that tries so very hard to read you).

      I love the phrase "a web that your read instead of one that tries so very hard to read you."

    1. ́his historical interest is fueled not onlyby the rapid growth of the history of readingW of which the study of notetaking is an offshootW

      Where exactly do we situate note taking? Certainly within the space of rhetoric, but also as Ann M. Blair suggests within the history of reading.

      What else? manuscript studies, psychology, others?

  8. Oct 2021
    1. PREPARATION FOR WORK

      This whole section looks the most interesting and promising to me: reading, memory, and notes!

      I'll likely read these first and at best skim the rest depending on content.

    Tags

    Annotators

    1. dichotomous

      1: dividing into two parts

      2: relating to, involving, or proceeding from dichotomy the plant's dichotomous branching a dichotomous approach can't be split into dichotomous categories

      merriam webster

    2. Yet most companies neglect design as a strategy tool. What they don’t realize is that design can enhance products, environments, communi-cations, and corporate identity.”

      This is true because a Designer can communicate one's ideas in a clear and sensible way. Companies need design in order to get as many people to associate themselves with them.

    3. maelstrom

      1: a powerful often violent whirlpool sucking in objects within a given radius tried to shoot the canoe across a stretch of treacherous maelstrom — Harper's

      2: something resembling a maelstrom in turbulence the maelstrom enveloping the country a maelstrom of emotions

      merriam webster

    4. raison d’être

      Reason or justification for existence.

      merriam

    5. The typographer must take the greatest care to study how his work is read and ought to be read.

      Absolutely, depending on the work and the intention behind it. You wouldn't want your audience to be confused about the readability of your work.

    1. “Hurry up and do it before someone else does!” she told him. And so he did.

      At least he did it quickly as possible because it's a known fact that people can have similar ideas as you.

      article

    1. ephemera

      Definition of ephemera 1: something of no lasting significance —usually used in plural

      2 ephemera plural : paper items (such as posters, broadsides, and tickets) that were originally meant to be discarded after use but have since become collectibles

      merriam webster

    2. A handful of African-American designers seemed exempt from Modernism’s influence, which may be because they didn’t work in advertising or commerce.

      This is not surprising at all. Funny thing is just as he mentioned that...it made me realize there's barely any black designers being known, especially around that time.

  9. Sep 2021
    1. Introduction

      Read from here to page 29 of the pdf (54) - 3 hours

    Tags

    Annotators

    1. “We’ve been thoughtful,” Amazon continued, “about adding only features and experiences that preserve and enhance the reading experience.” The question of whose experience doesn’t seem to come up.

      They're definitely not catering to my reading, annotating, and writing experience.

    2. Skimming through pages, the foremost feature of the codex, remains impossible in digital books.

      This is related to an idea that Tom Critchlow was trying to get at a bit the other day. It would definitely be interesting in this sort of setting.

      Has anyone built a generalizable text zoom JavaScript library that let's you progressively summarize an article as you zoom in and out?<br><br>(Why yes I am procrastinating my to-do list. You?)

      — Tom Critchlow (@tomcritchlow) September 17, 2021
      <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

    3. In other words, as far as technologies go, the book endures for very good reason. Books work.

      Aside from reading words to put ideas into my brain, one of the reasons I like to read digital words is that the bigger value proposition for me is an easier method to add annotations to what I'm reading and then to be able to manipulate those notes after-the-fact. I've transcended books and the manual methods of note taking. Until I come up with a better word for it, digital commonplacing seems to be a useful shorthand for this new pattern of reading.

    1. polyphonic

      polyphonic: style of musical composition employing two or more simultaneous but relatively independent melodic lines

      merriam

    2. primordial

      primordial: existing in or persisting from the beginning (as of a solar system or universe)

      merriam

    1. La gare est à 5 minutes en voiture de la maison, 15 minutes en tramway . Elle permet de rejoindre Paris en 45 minutes de TGV, Disneyland Paris en 30 minutes.
      1. Going to Paris for the first time must be exciting, so having the station relatively near is a good thing.
    2. Un parc avec des jeux pour enfants est situé à 3 minutes à pieds de la maison :)
      1. I like to travel with my dogs and having a park nearby is a good reason to choose this place.
    1. The big thing here for me, though, is the difference between tagged content showing up in a read-only space vs. showing up in a read-and-write space.

      Or more powerful, in a read, write, remix, and edit space.

      Somewhat related to:

      The Read Write Web is no longer sufficient. I want the Read Fork Write Merge Web. #osb11 lunch table. #diso #indieweb 2011-06-23 at OSBridge2011 having lunch with Ward, Tantek exclaimed

      https://indieweb.org/2011/Smallest_Federated_Wiki#Inspiration

    1. https://fs.blog/2021/08/remember-books/

      A solid overview of how to read. Not as long or as in-depth as Mortimer J. Adler, but hits all of the high points in an absorbable manner.

      Definitely worth re-reading...

    2. The goal is not to read as many books as possible. The goal is to gain as much wisdom as you can.
    3. Using models while reading can also help you get more out of the book. Here are some examples of paths they might lead you down: Confirmation bias: Which parts of this book am I ignoring? Does this book confirm my opinions? (Okay, but does it actually affirm your beliefs or are you just seeing what you want to see? If you cannot think of a single point in the book that you disagreed with, confirmation bias is likely distorting your reasoning.) Bayesian updating: What opinions should I change in light of this book? How can I update my worldview using the information in it? Keep in mind the words of John Maynard Keynes: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” Incentives: What motivates the characters or the author? What are they seeking? What is their purpose? Here’s how Kurt Vonnegut described the importance of incentives in books: “When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away—even if it’s only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.” Availability bias: Are the books I have recently read affecting how I perceive this one? How are my immediate past experiences shaping my reading? Am I assigning undue importance to parts of this book because they are salient and memorable? Social proof: How is social proof—the number of copies sold, bestseller status, the opinions of others—affecting my perception of this book? Is the author using social proof to manipulate readers? It is not unusual for authors to buy their way onto bestseller lists, providing social proof that then leads to substantial sales. As a result, mediocre books can end up becoming popular. It’s a classic case of the emperor having no clothes, which smart readers know to look out for. Survivorship bias: Is this (nonfiction) book a representation of reality or is the author failing to account for base rates? Survivorship bias is abundant in business, self-help, and biographical books. A particular case of a successful individual or business might be held as the rule, rather than the exception. Utility: If a book offers advice, does it have practical applications? At what point do diminishing returns set in?

      This is a good list of questions to put into a template to ask both while and after reading a book.

      What other regularly recurring questions might go into such a list?

    4. Author and librarian Nancy Pearl advocates the “Rule of 50.” This entails reading the first 50 pages of a book and then deciding if it is worth finishing. The Rule of 50 has an interesting feature: once you are over the age of 50, subtract your age from 100 and read that many pages. Pearl writes: “And if, at the bottom of Page 50, all you are really interested in is who marries whom, or who the murderer is, then turn to the last page and find out. If it’s not on the last page, turn to the penultimate page, or the antepenultimate page, or however far back you have to go to discover what you want to know.…When you are 51 years of age or older, subtract your age from 100, and the resulting number (which, of course, gets smaller every year) is the number of pages you should read before you can guiltlessly give up on a book.…When you turn 100, you are authorized (by the Rule of 50) to judge a book by its cover.”
    5. Most of us were taught as children to treat books as something sacred—no folding the page corners, and no writing in the margins, ever.

      Most Medieval manuscripts specifically left wide columns of space to encourage readers to mark up their texts.

      cross reference: Medieval notepads - Khan Academy

      <small>Detail, London, British Library, Harley MS 3487 (13th century)—[source](http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=16790)</small>

    6. “The things you’re looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine percent of them is in a book.” —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
    7. “Think before you speak. Read before you think.” —Fran Lebowitz
    8. How does the book relate to topics you’re already familiar with?

      Spark:

      Some people think and endeavor to read a book once and take such great notes that they'll never have to read it again. They're fooling themselves if they think they can do this. The context of what's in the book compared to the context of what they already know is ever-changing. The new you that re-reads a book years or months later will notice new and different things. Make new and interesting connections. Much like Heraclitus's river, we ourselves are ever-changing, and our changing contexts will allow us to get different things from what we're reading on subsequent visits.

    9. Book summary services miss the point. A lot of companies charge ridiculous prices for access to vague summaries bearing only the faintest resemblance to anything in the book. Summaries can be a useful jumping-off point to explore your curiosity, but you cannot learn from them the way you can from the original text.*

      Some books only have small bits of wisdom in them to begin with, so summaries can be good.

      However, if one puts the "quality" content in a primary position, then the text itself will often have some incredibly valuable context that may be missing from summaries.

  10. Aug 2021
    1. The most common and sensible location for putting down thoughts, critique or notes was the margin of the medieval book. Consider this: you wouldn’t think so looking at a medieval page, but on average only half of it was filled with the actual text. A shocking fifty to sixty percent was designed to be margin. As inefficient as this may seem, the space came in handy for the reader. As the Middle Ages progressed it became more and more common to resort to the margin for note-taking.
    2. Dots and lines are particularly common ingredients of such footnote symbols. Interestingly, their first appearance is not as a connector of comment and text, but as an insertion mark that added an omitted line into the text.

      In a version similar to a footnote, a line and a dot were first used much as we use the carot symbol (^) today for editing to indicate the insertion of a missing line.

    3. Evidently, these two groups of bookmarks—static and dynamic—provided very different approaches to marking information—and thus to a book’s use. Readers who added clip-on or “spider” bookmarks anticipated they would need to retrieve information not from one single page but from a changing number of pages. In other words, movable bookmarks served an audience with a shifting knowledge “appetite,” while the static ones encouraged a more “ritual” use of a book. In other words, both types are telling, in their own way, about medieval reading culture.

      Static bookmarks may have indicated "ritual" or habitual use of books and the information they contained, while dynamic bookmarks may indicate the need for retrieving (temporary) information from one or more pages.

    4. The solution to the vanishing bookmark came in the form of what is called a “register bookmark." This type, which looks like a spider with its legs trapped, was securely fastened to the top of the binding (visible below), so it couldn’t get lost. Additionally, the bookmark allowed the reader to mark multiple locations in the book.

      Register bookmark

    5. These carousels allowed readers to consult multiple manuscripts in a very convenient fashion, by spinning (slowly!) the top part, which moved. The oldest one I could find dates from the fourteenth century (here(Opens in a new window)), but it is possible they were in use even earlier.
    6. there are very few medieval scenes in which someone is reading but not writing—where books are present but pens are not. In part, this has to do with medieval study practices. Readers would usually have a pen nearby even when they were just reading. After all, remarks and critiques needed to be added to the margin at the spur of the moment. “Penless” images, while rare, often show a crowded desktop.

      Images of Medieval reading practices generally pictured pens along with books. In the rare cases where pens were not included, the desks pictured were messy and thus covered up the pens involved.

    1. Did you feel bad about setting down a book knowing that you’d never pick it up again? If you did feel bad, it’s not your fault. We moralize reading.

      This just happened to me last Summer when I felt pretty guilty about putting down a book I was reading for fun. As an English major, I feel an extra incentive to keep reading because that's what people expect of me. That is, since I am devoting a great deal of my life and school career to reading, I am required to finish all books I pick up. If I don't, then I have somehow failed.

      1. საკუთარი სიამოვნებისთვის სისტემატიური კითხვა ხელს უწყობს მოსწავლის განათლებას ბევრი მიმართულებით.

      2. გარეგანი ჯილდოს მიცემა (მაგ., თამაში დრო) როგორც მინიმუმ არაა აუცილებელი (სიამოვნებისთვის კითხვა უკვე ჯილდოა) და შეიძლება საზიანოც იყოს (გარეგან ჯილდოს მიჩვეული მოსწავლე სკოლის გარეთ თავისით წაიკითხავს?)

      3. სკოლაში მოცულობითი ბიბლიოთეკის ყოლა მაღალი გავლენა აქვს მოსწავლეების განათლებაზე. იმხელა, რომ შეუძლია გადაწონს სიღარიბით გამოწვეული ნეგატიური ეფექტი.

    1. https://kimberlyhirsh.com/2019/04/01/dissertating-in-the.html

      A description of some of Kimiberly Hirsh's workflow in keeping a public research notebook (or commonplace book).

      I'd be curious to know what type of readership and response she's gotten from this work in the past. For some it'll bet it's possibly too niche for a lot of direct feedback, but some pieces may be more interesting than others.

      Did it help her organize her thoughts and reuse the material later on?

    1. Step 3: Set up reading storage and a reading environment.

      Calibre isn't a bad tool/application for doing this for a variety of document types and managing meta data

    1. 部分可以参考我一篇拖更了很久的回答:家庭药箱需常备哪些药品和工具? - Leslie Pan的回答 - 知乎
    1. The first step in translating experience, either of other men's writing, or of your own life, into the intellectual sphere, is to give it form. Merely to name an item of experience often invites you to explain it; the mere taking of a note from a book is often a prod to reflection. At the same time, of course, the taking of a note is a great aid in comprehending what you are reading.

      on the purpose of taking notes, annotating one's reading, or commonplacing

      highlight is a quote from

      C. Wright Mills' profound "Appendix: On Intellectual Craftsmanship," as found in his book on The Sociological Imagination.[16]

    2. Reading should never be merely passive and consist in the mere absorption or copying of information. It should be critical and engage the material reflectively, being guided by questions such as "Why is this important?" "How does this fit in?" "Is it true?" "Why is the author saying what she is saying?" etc.
    1. The Latin noun ‘compendium’, and the phrase ‘via compendiaria’ were used assynonyms for the noun ‘methodus’ during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.23ByLinnaeus’s time, the word was used in Latin book titles to denote a compilation of collocatedtexts that had previously existed as separate works on their own, or which, if removed and distrib-uted separately, could be read without recourse to other parts of the book.
    1. we first thought about starting a reading group, as many other institutions and departments have done. But we wanted to make the barrier to joining the conversation as low as possible

      This is an interesting point. Faculty members take reading assignments seriously; some folks will skip events rather than show up unprepared. Starting with a facilitator's presentation is an interesting way over that barrier.

    1. William Poole, “The Genres of Milton’sCommonplace Book,” inThe Oxford Handbook of Milton, ed. NicholasMcDowell and Nigel Smith (2009), pp.367–81, argues that since Milton’scommonplace book was an exercise in moral philosophy (the discipline towhich his headings of ethics, economics, and politics correspond), it wascompiled for action.

      John Milton's commonplace book was an exercise in moral philosophy and it was compiled for action, not just a collection.

    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4Qsu03Oz30

      This same sort of functionality is something I'd built into my TiddlyWiki ages ago. Interesting to see some of these same sorts of functionalities being built into other note taking tools.

      Sort of makes me want to consider nested tags in Obsidian...

  11. Jul 2021
    1. n fact, any book that can be read for understanding or information can probably be read for entertainment as well, just as a book that is capable of increasing our understanding can also be read purely for the information it contains. (This proposition cannot be reversed: it is not true that every book

      any book that can be read for understanding or information can probably be read for entertainment as well, just as a book that is capable of increasing our understanding can also be read purely for the information it contains. (This proposition cannot be reversed: it is not true that every book that can be read for entertainment can also be read for under­standing.)

      reading for understanding >= reading for information >= reading for entertainment

      What sort of mathematical relationship would we call this? Linear? Associative? Equivalence relation?, etc.? Let's define it more specifically.

    2. We do not want to give the impression that facts, leading to increased information, and insights, leading to increased understanding, are always easy to distinguish. And we would admit that sometimes a mere recital of facts can itself lead to greater understanding. The point we want to emphasize here is that this book is about the art of reading for the sake of in­creased understanding. Fortunately, if you learn to do that, reading for information will usually take care of itself.

      This book will focus on and emphasize reading for greater understanding with the benefit that, when accomplished, reading for information should take care of itself without significantly more work.

    3. The first sense is the one in which we speak of ourselves as reading newspapers, magazines, or anything else that, according to our skill and talents, is at once thoroughly intel­ligible to us. Such things may increase our store of informa­tion, but they cannot improve our understanding, for our understanding was equal to them before we started. Otherwise, we would have felt the shock of puzzlement and perplexity that comes from getting in over our depth-that is, if we were both alert and honest.

      Here they're comparing reading for information and reading for understanding.

      How do these two modes relate to Claude Shannon's versions of information (surprise) and semantics (the communication) itself. Are there other pieces which exist which we're not tacitly including here? It feels like there's another piece we're overlooking.

    4. Thus we can roughly define what we mean by the art of reading as follows: the process whereby a mind, with nothing to operate on but the symbols of the readable matter, and with no help from outside, 0 elevates itself by the power of its own operations. The mind passes from understanding less to under­standing more. The skilled operations that cause this to hap­pen are the various acts that constitute the art of reading.

      I'm not sure I agree with this perspective of not necessarily asking for outside help.

      What if the author is at fault for not communicating properly or leaving things too obscure? Is this the exception of which he speaks?

      What if the author isn't properly contextualizing all the necessary information to the reader? This can be a particular problem when writing history across large spans of both time and culture or even language.

    5. Reading and listening are thought of as receiving communication from someone who is actively engaged in giving or sending it. The mistake here is to suppose that re­ceiving communication is like receiving a blow or a legacy or a judgment from the court. On the contrary, the reader or listener is much more like the catcher in a game of baseball. Catching the ball is just as much an activity as pitching or hitting it. The pitcher or batter is the sender in the sense that his activity initiates the motion of the ball. The catcher or fielder is the receiver in the sense that his activity terminates it. Both are active, though the activities are different.

      Reading is a receptive active undertaking in the same way as a catcher receiving a pitch in baseball.

    6. One reader is better than another in proportion as he is capable of a greater range of activity in reading and exerts more effort. He is better if he demands more of himself and of the text before him.
    7. the more active the reading the better.

      How much more active can it be than also actively annotating and note taking?

    8. One of the reasons for this situation is that the very media we have mentioned are so designed as to make thinking seem unnecessary (though this is only an appearance). The packag­ing of intellectual positions and views is one of the most active enterprises of some of the best minds of our day. The viewer of television, the listener to radio, the reader of magazines, is presented with a whole complex of elements-all the way from ingenious rhetoric to carefully selected data and statistics-to make it easy for him to "make up his own mind" with the mini­mum of difficulty and effort. But the packaging is often done so effectively that the viewer, listener, or reader does not make up his own mind at all. Instead, he inserts a packaged opinion into his mind, somewhat like inserting a cassette into a cassette player. He then pushes a button and "plays back" the opinion whenever it seems appropriate to do so. He has performed ac­ceptably without having had to think.

      This is an incredibly important fact. It's gone even further with additional advances in advertising and social media not to mention the slow drip mental programming provided by algorithmic feeds which tend to polarize their readers.

      People simply aren't actively reading their content, comparing, contrasting, or even fact checking it.

      I suspect that this book could use an additional overhaul to cover many of these aspects.

    9. the problem of how to read a number of related books in relation to one another and read them in such a way that the complementary and conflict­ing things they have to say about a common subject are clearly grasped.

      This could be a fascinating discussion to take a close look at later in the book.

    10. To all intents and purposes he remains a sixth-grade reader till well along in college.

      This was apparently true in the 1940s and 1970s. Have things improved measurably since?

    11. Mortimer]. Adler

      Adler apparently kept a commonplace book in the form of a massive zettelkasten (and may have kept a more traditional commonplace book as well). I wonder if they detail any note taking details or advice here.

    1. Seems as if Slavitt has translated a lot of modernity into an ancient text which likely didn't have many of our modern references. This seems to be the sort of reading into a text that many moderns do to the Bible. Better would be to read it as the author intended to the audience to which it was intended rather than reading additional meanings into the text.

    1. Feel free to play hopscotch

      This idea of playing hopscotch#%22Table_of_Instructions%22_and_structure) through a text reminds me of some mathematics texts I've come across where the author draws out a diagram of potential readings and which portions are prerequisites so that professors using the book might pick and choose chapters to skip in their presentations.

      Also reminiscent of the Choose Your Own Adventure books from childhood too.

      cross reference: [[John Barth]], [[Henry James Korn]] and [[experimental fiction]], and [[hypertext]]

  12. Jun 2021
    1. re-reading is useless for understanding

      this could use a link for underlying support/evidence, particularly for the newcomer.

    1. Is Google Making Us Stupid?: What the Internet is doing to our Brains by Nicholas Carr July/August 2008 in The Atlantic

    2. Maryanne Wolf

      Dig into Maryanne Wolf's research a bit when I have time: https://www.maryannewolf.com/

    3. Deep reading, as Maryanne Wolf argues, is indistinguishable from deep thinking.

      I like this concept of deep reading.

      Compare/contrast with close reading and distant reading.

      What other types of reading might we imagine?

    4. In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates bemoaned the development of writing. He feared that, as people came to rely on the written word as a substitute for the knowledge they used to carry inside their heads, they would, in the words of one of the dialogue’s characters, “cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful.” And because they would be able to “receive a quantity of information without proper instruction,” they would “be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant.” They would be “filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.” Socrates wasn’t wrong—the new technology did often have the effects he feared—but he was shortsighted. He couldn’t foresee the many ways that writing and reading would serve to spread information, spur fresh ideas, and expand human knowledge (if not wisdom).

      I feel like Western culture has lost so much of our memory traditions that this trite story, which I've seen often repeated, doesn't have the weight it should.

      Why can't we simultaneously have the old system AND the new? Lynne Kelly and Margo Neale touch on this in their coinage of the third archive in Songlines.

    1. I grew up with Harry Potter. Grew up with Tolkien, grew up with Eragon, grew up with the series for the Lady Knight, grew up with the Chronicler. Grew up with all these fantasy books. I grew up with them.

      Time in the US - reading - pastimes

    2. I think in fourth grade was the first largest book that I read. It was the Bram Stoker's Dracula, the big one. That was the first biggest book that I read, and then I had an obsession with Roald Dahl. Roald Dahl was my thing. I loved Roald Dahl. The BFG, the Twitches, the Witches, all of it, I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. Matilda, Matilda. Oh, my God. I loved Matilda. Roald Dahl was a huge thing -- as well childrens’ books -- but I was also reading adult books at the same time. Around this time is when I started getting my obsession with the Holocaust, with all this tragedy.

      Time in US - passing the time - reading books - learning - education

  13. May 2021
    1. We also show how our construction im-proves the efficiency of all existing tightly-secure AKE protocols.
    1. I've been using (and recently, contributing slightly to) Git for well over a decade. I don't have any single thing I'd specifically recommend at this point, but if you're looking for a decent book on Git, the Pro Git book has a bunch of plus-es: it's on line and kept up to date, it's free, and it's correct (unlike far too many online tutorials). There is also Think Like (a) Git, which covers most of what's missing from Pro Git.
    1. it’s more accurate to say that readers notice the absence of structures, and/or when we shift the logics of one structure to another mid-stream, without saying anything.

      I often see this in my undergraduate and postgraduate students; they make a conceptual move without signalling it to the reader, which leaves the reader feeling discombobulated.

    1. “but I how will I be able to find stuff later on?”. Good question we’ll answer later. A part of the answer is simply by re-reading. If you don’t re-read what you’ve written, nothing will ever happen with it. So, if you intent to simply write down thoughts in order to feel a temporary moment of relief, fine. But if you intent to change your life, that won’t suffice.

      One needs to re-read and reprocess things from time to time. This is a part of the combinatorial creativity that having notes is for.

      This is reminiscent of the CAA addage: "If you read something and then don't tell anyone about it, you may as well not have read it in the first place."