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  1. Mar 2024
    1. Imagine an old, heavy suitcase whose well-worn handles are hanging by a few threads. Thehandle is “Trust the Process” or “Story Is King”—a pithy statement that seems, on the face ofit, to stand for so much more. The suitcase represents all that has gone into the formation ofthe phrase: the experience, the deep wisdom, the truths that emerge from struggle. Too often,we grab the handle and—without realizing it—walk off without the suitcase. What’s more, wedon’t even think about what we’ve left behind. After all, the handle is so much easier to carryaround than the suitcase.

      Ed Catmull analogizes the idea of pithy business statements and aphorisms as old, heavy suitcases and their handles. It's easy to grab onto the handle and walk of only with it, particularly when the weight and inconvenience of the suitcase and its actual contents are no longer attached. One needs to make sure that their comfortable old suitcase handle is still attached to the case and the valuable, hard-won wisdom of the contents inside.

    2. Likewise, we “trusted the process,” but the process didn’t save Toy Story 2 either. “Trust theProcess” had morphed into “Assume that the Process Will Fix Things for Us.” It gave ussolace, which we felt we needed. But it also coaxed us into letting down our guard and, in theend, made us passive. Even worse, it made us sloppy.

      One could consider the simplicity of ars excerpendi/zettelkasten against the phrase "trust the process", and this is fine for some of the lower level collecting methods, but one needs to be careful not to fall trap to the complacency of only collecting and not using the collection to actively create.

      Many people rely too much on the collection portion of the process and don't put any work into the use or creation portions. They may be left wondering what the ultimate value is of their unused collection of treasure.

    3. Likewise, we “trusted the process,” but the process didn’t save Toy Story 2 either. “Trust theProcess” had morphed into “Assume that the Process Will Fix Things for Us.” It gave ussolace, which we felt we needed. But it also coaxed us into letting down our guard and, in theend, made us passive. Even worse, it made us sloppy.

      Compare "trust the process" as a guiding principle with "let go and let God" which has a much more random and chaotic potential set of outcomes.

    4. “Story Is King” differentiated us, we thought, not just because we said it but also becausewe believed it and acted accordingly. As I talked to more people in the industry and learnedmore about other studios, however, I found that everyone repeated some version of thismantra—it didn’t matter whether they were making a genuine work of art or complete dreck,they all said that story is the most important thing. This was a reminder of something thatsounds obvious but isn’t: Merely repeating ideas means nothing. You must act—and think—accordingly. Parroting the phrase “Story Is King” at Pixar didn’t help the inexperienceddirectors on Toy Story 2 one bit. What I’m saying is that this guiding principle, while simplystated and easily repeated, didn’t protect us from things going wrong. In fact, it gave us falseassurance that things would be okay.

      Having a good catch phrase for guidance can become a useless trap if it becomes repeated so frequently that it loses meaning. Guiding principles need to be revisited, actively worked on, and ensconced into daily activities and culture.

      examples: - Google and "don't be evil" - Pixar (and many others) and "story is king" (cross Reference Ed Catmull in Creativity, Inc.) - Pixar and "trust the process" (ibid) #

    5. I read many such books as I set about trying to become a better, more effective manager.Most, I found, trafficked in a kind of simplicity that seemed harmful in that it offered falsereassurance. These books were stocked with catchy phrases like “Dare to fail!” or “Followpeople and people will follow you!” or “Focus, focus, focus!” (This last one was a particularfavorite piece of nonadvice. When people hear it, they nod their heads in agreement as if agreat truth has been presented, not realizing that they’ve been diverted from addressing thefar harder problem: deciding what it is that they should be focusing on. There is nothing inthis advice that gives you any idea how to figure out where the focus should be, or how toapply your energy to it. It ends up being advice that doesn’t mean anything.) These sloganswere offered as conclusions—as wisdom—and they may have been, I suppose. But none ofthem gave me any clue as to what to do or what I should focus on.

      Curious that he might write this in a business book on creativity which is highly likely to fall trap to the same simple advice or catchy phrases.

      Does he ultimately give his own clear cut advice that means something?

      I'm reminded here of Dan Allosso's mention of the David Allen quote from Getting Things Done: "It is better to be wrong than to be vague."<br /> https://hypothes.is/a/yOFrNubcEe6AsafBDjDzBw

      Are business books too often vague when it would be better for them to be wrong instead?

    6. Not knowingwhere else to turn, I remember buying a copy of Dick Levin’s Buy Low, Sell High, Collect Early,and Pay Late: The Manager’s Guide to Financial Survival, a popular business title at the time,and devouring it in one sitting.

      Many managers turn to reading for advice: - books allow you to live multiple lives and have greater experience - some books however only encapsulate generic advice that one either already has or would soon have even without reading.

    1. "The Typist"

      KSMQ Public Television

      "The Typist" follows the life and work of Larry Tillemans, believed to be the last living clerk-typist from the Nuremberg Trials. As a sergeant in the U.S. 3rd Army, it was Larry's duty to document the testimony of victims and perpetrators of the Holocaust -- information that deeply affected the young Minnesotan. After years of carrying this emotional burden, Larry decided to share his experiences with as many people as possible, a tireless effort that brought the value of first-person testimony to a world struggling to remember the lessons of Nuremberg.

    1. You need to understand and learn the basic ideas, from scratch.ZK is a lifetime job.

      reply to u/Aponogetone at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1bideq7/comment/kvjwhzf/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

      I'm not 100% sure I understand your first point from a contextual perspective. What are you trying to get across here with this comment? Generally I tend to learn and understand the basic ideas of a text on my initial inspectional read. Often these are so basic as to not require any real note making at all. The second, more analytic read of the material usually clarifies anything missing and this is typically where I create some of my most valuable notes.

      While I philosophically appreciate your second point, and over time it can build some intriguing insights, one should remember, that like many systems, it's only a tool and is thus useful for the timespan and project(s) for which that tool is fit for purpose. Holding onto ideas like this too tightly don't allow enough space for future creativity and flexibility. The executives at the buggy whip factory also felt that theirs was a lifetime job once.

    2. in literature notes, do you write all of the stuff from a single article/book/whatever in one note, or do you split them all into individual notes of their own, one little piece on each card/note?

      reply to u/oursong at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1bideq7/literature_notes_question/

      My bibliographic/literature notes are my personal (brief) index of what I found interesting in the book. I can always revisit most of what the book contained by reviewing over it. When done I excerpt the most important and actionable items on their own cards with a reference back to the book and page/loc number. Depending on my needs I may revisit at later dates and excerpt other pieces from my indexed items if it turns out I need them.

      From an efficiency perspective, I find that it seems like a waste of time to split out hundreds of lower-level ideas when I may only need the best for my work.

    1. The typewriter was made in Siegmar-Schönau—a suburb of Chemnitz—by Wanderer, an early German pioneer in manufacturing bicycles, motorcycles, cars, and later military trucks and tanks for the Wehrmacht, the armed forces in the Nazi era. In the 1930s, Wanderer’s automotive division was one of four car companies consolidated into the Auto Union AG, which later became Audi. Indeed, one of the four interconnected rings on the Audi brand logo represents Wanderer.
    2. More frequent were machines built with the double-lightning-bolt SS Siegrune, usually above the No. 3 or 5 key. With sieg meaning “victory,” the runes became ubiquitous in Nazi Germany as a shorthand rallying cry for “victory, victory!” In their more sinister application, the SS runes became the logo for the Schutzstaffel—the notorious paramilitary units most responsible for the wanton slaughter of 6 million Jews across Europe.
    3. As strange as it sounds today, German klein (“small” or portable) typewriters were among the most sought-after souvenirs for soldiers fighting in World War II. Think of it: Adjusted for inflation, top-of-the-line portable typewriters cost roughly the same as your MacBook Pro today, and their usable lives were measured not in months or years, but decades and generations. Consequently, thousands of Uranias, Gromas, Erikas, Rheinmetalls, Continentals, Olympias, and other high-quality, precision-made German machines were looted from Nazi military and government offices, businesses, and even from civilian homes, whether their owners were dead or alive. “War trophy” is of course a pleasant euphemism: It denotes a reward for heroism, bravery, and sacrifice, while simultaneously acknowledging that even the good guys steal, pillage, and destroy amid the haze of total war.
    1. In the 1740s, Thomas Harrison invented a wooden filing cabinet in which the file cards could be hooked on little tin plates. On each of these plates was written the name of the entry (i.e., the re-spective subject heading), and the plates were arranged in strictly alphabeti-cal order.22

      Thomas Harrison invented a wooden filing cabinet in the 1640's for storing slips of paper. Each slip could be hooked onto tin plates which contained the topical or subject headings that were arranged in alphabetical order.

      Harrison's description was anonymously published with corrections and improvements by Vincent Placcius in De arte excerpendi. Vom gelehrten Buchhalten liber singularis (Stockholm/Hamburg, 1689), 124–59, in his hand-book on excerpting systems.


      Update 2024-03-18: The 1740s reference here must be a misprint and is perhaps 1640s as Harrison was a 17th century person and Placcius published results in 1689.

    2. Samuel Hartlib was well aware of this improvement. While extolling the clever invention of Harrison, Hartlib noted that combinations and links con-stituted the ‘argumentative part’ of the card index.60

      Hartlib Papers 30/4/47A, Ephemerides 1640, Part 2.

      In extolling the Ark of Studies created by Thomas Harrison, Samuel Hartlib indicated that the combinations of information and the potential links between them created the "argumentative part" of the system. In some sense this seems to be analogous to the the processing power of an information system if not specifically creating its consciousness.

    1. Instead of jotting down every note, thought, observation, excerpt, andreading on a single slip of paper and leaving them there, Placcius recom-mends grouping them, by dint of appropriate libros excerptorum (see figure2.5),39 excerpt books that follow the pattern that had guided the design ofregisters and bound library catalogs since Konrad Gessner; Placcius citesthe entire section “ De Indicibus Librorum ” from the Pandectae .40 Perhapshis strong vote for the bound form of this storage technology and againstJungius’s method is a way of warning against lifelong knowledge accumula-tions that merely gather treasures without being recombined and pub-lished as new books. Jungius, keen on including new resources, delays hisown publications time and again, leaving them unfinished or simply asraw paper slip potential in storage, on call. 4
    1. How to start a commonplace book .t3_1bfu16h._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { --postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #edeeef; --postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #6f7071; --postBodyLink-VisitedLinkColor: #6f7071; }

      Colleen Kennedy has a nice primer: https://www.academia.edu/35101285/Creating_a_Commonplace_Book_CPB_

      It may also help to have an indexing method so you can find things later. John Locke's method is one of the oldest and most compact, though if you plan on doing this for a while, having a separate book for your index can be helpful. You can also create your index using index cards the way that Ross Ashby did; see: https://ashby.info/index.html

      For John Locke's method try: - https://archive.org/details/gu_newmethodmaki00lock - https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/john-lockes-method-for-common-place-books-1685/

      If you're into history, development, and examples of how people did this in the past, Earl Haven's has an excellent short book:<br /> Havens, Earle. Commonplace Books: A History of Manuscripts and Printed Books from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century. New Haven, CT: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, 2001. https://www.oakknoll.com/pages/books/99718/earle-havens/commonplace-books-a-history-of-manuscripts-and-printed-books-from-antiquity-to-the-twentieth

    1. “Do you know, Watson,” said he, “that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.”

      Indexing the world into a commonplace book, zettelkasten, or other means can create new perspectives on the world in which we live. It thereby helps to prevent the sorts of cognitive bias which we might otherwise fall trap to.

      This example of Homes indexing crime gives him a dramatically different perspective on crime in the countryside to Watson who only sees the beauty in the story of "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches."

    2. By eleven o’clock the next day we were well upon our way to the old English capital. Holmes had been buried in the morning papers all the way down, but after we had passed the Hampshire border he threw them down and began to admire the scenery. It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man’s energy. All over the countryside, away to the rolling hills around Aldershot, the little red and grey roofs of the farm-steadings peeped out from amid the light green of the new foliage. “Are they not fresh and beautiful?” I cried with all the enthusiasm of a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street. But Holmes shook his head gravely. “Do you know, Watson,” said he, “that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.” “Good heavens!” I cried. “Who would associate crime with these dear old homesteads?” “They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.” “You horrify me!” “But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.

      https://victorianweb.org/authors/doyle/rural.html

  2. betula.mycorrhiza.wiki betula.mycorrhiza.wiki
    1. By having a longer historical view, it actually tends to extend our time horizons in both directions. So, by thinking more about the past, it sets us up to think more about a long-term future and to challenge ourselves to think more expansively and ambitiously about what might come by having the sense of a wider aperture to think about rather than just thinking about the here and now or what’s coming out in the next cycle.
    2. The whole industry is built on this concept of planned obsolescence. That’s the term that I think IBM famously came up with in the sixties, where basically you’re intentionally trying to constantly sell people on the new new thing. And that’s what drives the stock price up. And that’s what drives the press cycle. And that’s what gets people to buy new products and things. And so, the whole industry is predicated around this idea of there’s always a new thing around the horizon.

      Where did the concept of planned obsolescence originate? Was it really IBM as Alex Wright suggests here?

      How does planned obsolescence drive capitalism? And as a result of that is there a balance between future innovation and waste? Is there a mechanism within capitalism that can fix this waste (or dramatically mitigate it)?

    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!
    1. Passion of the Nerd aka @popotoproductions3015 in The Toolbox Fallacy

      This wasn't quite the toolbox fallacy definition I expected, but was a larger philosophical framing of a smaller version specific to getting things done (GTD).

      Many people move from tool to tool hoping the next one will somehow "fix" things. In reality, it's having a tool and USING IT which creates progress.

      Remember that it's rare that supposed innovation will be the fix, but picking a road and traveling down it will at least get you somewhere.

    1. persuasive technology, BJ Fog's contribution to the problem that we're all faced with today, which is that were addicted to our devices. So how does that work? Well, basically his theory has three parts where you have motivation, you have ability, and there's a trigger. And if you're above a certain threshold, you have the right motivation and the right ability, that trigger will trigger a behavior. If you don't have enough motivation, or if you don't have enough skill set, then that trigger won't work. Or if you have the motivation in the skill set, and the trigger doesn't happen, then you'll never trip into the behavior.
    1. Burke, Colin B. Information and Intrigue: From Index Cards to Dewey Decimals to Alger Hiss. History and Foundations of Information Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262027021/information-and-intrigue/

      annotation URL: urn:x-pdf:3ca2bc5e94d24cfc51c7b40b4ea7daf9

      alternate: https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=chrisaldrich&max=100&exactTagSearch=true&expanded=true&url=urn%3Ax-pdf%3A3ca2bc5e94d24cfc51c7b40b4ea7daf9

    1. This morning I ran across a copy of Jane Austen's novel Emma with some of the keywords on each page translated into Welsh as footnotes at the bottom of the page. Apparently it's part of a series of classic books published by Icon into a variety of different languages and meant for language learners.

      The full list of their titles with Welsh can be found here: Webster's Welsh Thesaurus Editions

      I'm curious if anyone has used these before, and if so, how helpful they've found them for building their Welsh vocabulary as they read English language works.

      Is anyone aware of Welsh language books that have this sort of English vocabulary cross listed on the page? (Sort of the way in which lingo.360.cymru has news stories in Welsh with English translation help along the way?)

      syndication link: https://en.forum.saysomethingin.com/t/websters-welsh-thesaurus-editions/40131

    1. NovelsSense and Sensibility (1811) Pride and Prejudice (1813) Mansfield Park (1814) Emma (1816) Northanger Abbey (1818, posthumous) Persuasion (1818, posthumous) Lady Susan (1871, posthumous)Unfinished fictionThe Watsons (1804) Sanditon (1817)Other worksSir Charles Grandison (adapted play) (1793, 1800)[p] Plan of a Novel (1815) Poems (1796–1817) Prayers (1796–1817) Letters (1796–1817)

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Austen#List_of_works

      Novels

      • Sense and Sensibility (1811)
      • Pride and Prejudice (1813)
      • Mansfield Park (1814)
      • Emma (1816)
      • Northanger Abbey (1818, posthumous)
      • Persuasion (1818, posthumous)
      • Lady Susan (1871, posthumous)
    1. Cahoone, Lawrence. The Modern Intellectual Tradition: From Descartes to Derrida - Course Guidebook. The Great Courses 4790. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 2010. https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/modern-intellectual-tradition-from-descartes-to-derrida.

      Cahoone, Lawrence. The Modern Intellectual Tradition: From Descartes to Derrida. Audible Audio Edition. The Great Courses 4790. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 2013. https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Intellectual-Tradition-Descartes-Derrida/dp/B00DTO5BTO.

      Annotation URL: urn:x-pdf:92bff7dc89e6440afc484388b7b72d79

      alternate version: https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=chrisaldrich&max=100&exactTagSearch=true&expanded=true&url=urn%3Ax-pdf%3A92bff7dc89e6440afc484388b7b72d79

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    1. Facebook marketplace, set location in various regions. (Ymmv)Ebay (flooded with junk, diamonds in the rough are either overpriced or seller wants high shipping)Auctionninja.com (like shopgoodwill, but higher quality items on average and higher final bids on interesting items)Hibid.com (I've gotten a thing or two here)Estatesales.net (I've gotten good deals here)Estatesales.org (usually redirects to respective company sites to bid there)Shopgoodwill.com (hard to win bids on interesting items)Goodwillfinds.com (the higher end/rarer items they receive go here, so higher prices)Craigslist (usually baren of typewriters)Kijiji (I don't find much that's both interesting and feasible to ship)Etsy (meh, overpriced)
    1. Positivism asserted that allcultures move through progressive stages of development: first the-ological, then metaphysical, and finally “positive.”

      Is positivism the source of some of the "progress of human civilization" which David Graeber and David Wengrow point out as problematic in The Dawn of Everything?

      Were their prior philosophical movements which may have fed into this forward moving impression? Great chain of being also plays into some of this from a hierarchical perspective.

    1. Theindexer will want a feel, before they begin, for the concepts that willneed to be flagged, or taxonomized with subheadings. They mightskim the book – reading it in full but at a canter – before tackling itproperly with the software open. Or they may spend a while, as apreliminary, with the book’s introduction, paying attention to itschapter outline – if it has one – to gain a sense of what to look outfor. Often, having reached the end of the book, the indexer will returnto the first few chapters, going over them again now that they havegained a conceptual mapping of the work as a whole.

      It's no wonder that Mortimer J. Adler was able to write such a deep analysis of reading in How to Read a Book after having spent so much time indexing the ideas behind The Great Books of the Western World.

      Indexing requires a solid inspectional read at minimum, but will often go deeper into contexts which require at least some analytical reading. To produce the Syntopicon, one must go even further into analytical reading to provide the proper indexing of ideas so that they may be sub-categorized and used for deeper analysis for things such as comparison and contrast of those ideas.

    1. I fingered my way through where I thought I’d find entries: African American, Afro-American, Black. Nothing there. I had to then brainstorm like it was 1999, or was it 1989, 1979, or even earlier, to discover the right term. As far back as 1984, the Library of Congress, whose subject headings most research libraries in the United States utilize, admitted that it was “frustrating” to search for Black people in its catalog because two terms were simultaneously in use: “Afro-Americans” and “Blacks.”1 Neither term made it into the old Peabody Library catalog, so perhaps it and the terminology it reflected dated from an even earlier time.

      Research on keywords and their shifting meanings over time can make things difficult for the novice researcher. This example from Martha S. Jones certainly highlights this perspective even in under a century of semantic shift.

    1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/374936561744

      Previously listed (late Summer 2023). Offered for bidding at $7,200 for a Jens Risom Library Card catalog on/around 2023-09-16. Local pickup from Pageland, SC. Ex-library from Davidson College Library in North Carolina tag number 01359.

      Section of 6x5 and another of 6x7 for a total of 72 drawers with a middle section which has two pull out writing drawers.

      Cost per drawer at opening bid: $100.00

      2023-09-25: Relisted at https://www.ebay.com/itm/374948492633

      2024-02-29 Relisted at https://www.ebay.com/itm/375282966486

  3. Feb 2024
    1. https://chat.openai.com/g/g-z5XcnT7cQ-zettel-critique-assistant

      Zettel Critique Assistant<br /> By Florian Lengyel<br /> Critique Zettels following three rules: Zettels should have a single focus, WikiLinks indicate a shift in focus, Zettels should be written for your future self. The GPT will suggest how to split multi-focused notes into separate notes. Create structure note from a list of note titles and abstracts.

      ᔥ[[ZettelDistraction]] in Share with us what is happening in your ZK this week. February 20, 2024

    1. Let's reframe things here in part because it's highly illustrative of both the phrases as well as the specific question you raise.

      Imagine Andy Matuschak reading Sonke Ahrens' How to Make Smart Notes (CreateSpace, 2017) and making notes on what he feels is important. As he reads, he does what is prescribed, namely, he restates the idea in his own words based on what he's read. In doing this he takes the idea of "evergreen" content from journalism settings (and later SEO settings) which he was familiar with and applies that name to what Ahrens called permanent notes to expound on his understanding of Ahrens! (An evergreen article in newspaper work is an article which was written for a particular recurring holiday, event, or story and is regular. Why spend huge amounts of staff time writing that truly original Valentine's day article? The broad stories about gifts to give and restaurants to visit really don't change from year to year. Just dust it off and reprint it, as readers are unlikely to have saved or remembered it and it becomes free re-purposable content.)

      Of course, in rewriting this definition, Matuschak adds in some additional baggage for those who aren't carefully reading his work. He adds some additional emphasis on revisiting one's ideas and rewriting them over time, which is certainly fine, but I think the novice note maker puts too much emphasis on this portion thinking that each permanent or evergreen note must eventually become polished to perfection. In practice, most seasoned writers don't and won't do this. In fact, I suspect if you looked at Matuschak's note on evergreen notes, you'd find that it probably hasn't changed since the day he wrote it other than agglutinating links from other notes.

      This doesn't mean that one can't modify or change their ideas over time, this is certainly useful and good, but I suspect that the majority aren't doing it the way that might be imagined by Matuschak's original statement or the way that his idea was picked up by the (niche) digital gardening community and spread primarily in the work of Maggie Appleton. It's some of this evolution of Matuschak's definition which bled into digital gardens, which have some overlap with zettelkasten and the note taking realms, which have muddied the waters. As a result, one should take it as general advice and apply it to their own situation, needs, and practice.

      For those who use their own notes for writing, one will often mark their cards/notes to indicate that they've used those ideas in various projects so that they're not actively repeating themselves ad nauseum. Some of the additional tweaks one might make to their notes from a style or context specific perspective are also left to the editing portion rather than being done in the notes themselves. As a result of some of this, unless there is a dramatic flaw in a note, there isn't generally a lot of additional work one would come back to it to revise it. If it does require that sort of major revision, then perhaps the better method would be to make a new note and linking it to the original along with an explanation of the error. I typically wouldn't recommend polishing individual notes to some Plationic idea of perfection. Doing so is often just make-work which distracts from one's time which could be better spent doing additional reading or actual thinking. If you're going to do that sort of polishing work, do it at the end when you've got a longer piece of writing you're including your note in.

      The real question now, is how are you personally going to define permanent notes, evergreen notes, or other related phrases like atomic notes? This practice is called by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren "coming to terms" with an author's work and is part of their analysis for how one should read a book to get the most out of it. I highly recommend reading How to Read a Book (Simon & Schuster, 1972 or Touchstone, 2011) as a companion to any of the usual note taking manuals.

      If you want to continue the experiment on a better unified definition of permanent notes, evergreen notes, atomic notes, etc., you can find a pretty solid bibliography of note making, writing, and reading manuals to peruse at https://boffosocko.com/2024/01/18/note-taking-and-knowledge-management-resources-for-students/#Recommended%20reading.

      While one could certainly go down the rabbit hole of reading all these resources, I would recommend only looking at one or two and spending your time working on actual practice. It's through practice that you're more likely to make actual progress on your own problems and questions.


      reply to u/franrodalg at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1azoo9m/permanent_vs_evergreen_notes_am_i_thinking_about/

    1. Duncan, Dennis. Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age. 1st ed. London: Allen Lane, 2021. https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324002543.

      annotation link: urn:x-pdf:a4bd1877f0712efcc681d33d58777e55

      https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=chrisaldrich&max=100&exactTagSearch=true&expanded=true&url=urn%3Ax-pdf%3Aa4bd1877f0712efcc681d33d58777e55

    2. centralizing reforms of Pope Gregory VII calledfor a more professionalized clergy. Church officials should now betrained administrators, versed not only in the scriptures but also inthe principles of accounting and law. A papal decree of 1079 orderedthat cathedrals should establish schools for the training of priests,
    3. Not so the tenth-century John of Gorze, who issaid to have pored continuously over the psalms with a soft buzzing‘in morem apis’: in the manner of a bee.8

      quoted portion via:<br /> John of St Arnulf, ‘Vita Joannis abbatis Gorziensis’, Patrologia Latina, 137.280D.

      relationship to collecting like the bees (rhetoric)

      relationship to humming and rocking practices of Hassidic readers/learners/memorizers

    4. Looking back on his first encounters withAmbrose, Bishop of Milan, in the late fourth century, Augustineremembers noticing the curious way Ambrose would read: ‘his eyeswould scan over the pages and his heart would scrutinize theirmeaning – yet his voice and tongue remained silent’.7 This –reading in silence – is not normal, and Augustine wonders whatcould possess Ambrose to adopt such a practice. (Was it to preservehis voice? Or a way of avoiding unwanted discussions about the texthe was reading?)

      quoted section via:<br /> St Augustine, Confessions, trans. by Carolyn J. B. Hammond, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), I, p. 243 (VI 3.3).

    5. As thehistorian Jean Leclercq, himself a Benedictine monk, puts it, ‘in theMiddle Ages, one generally read by speaking with one’s lips, at leastin a whisper, and consequently hearing the phrases that the eyessee’.6

      quoted section from:<br /> [au moyen âge, on lit généralement en pronançant avec les lèvres, au moins à voix basse, par conséquent en entendant les phrases que les yeux voient.] Jean Leclercq, Initiation aux auteurs monastiques du Moyen Âge, 2nd edn (Paris: Cerf, 1963), p. 72.

      What connection, if any, is there to the muscle memory of movement while speaking/reading along with sound/hearing to remembering what we read? Is there research on this? Implications for orality and memory?

    6. in the nunnery, where St Caesarius prescribes two hours to beset aside for reading in the early morning and a nominated reader tobe the only audible voice both at mealtimes and during the nuns’daily weaving. And woe betide the sister who finds herself drifting off:‘If anyone should become drowsy, she shall be ordered to standwhile the others are seated, so that she can banish the heaviness ofsleep.’5

      quoted portion from:<br /> The Rule for Nuns of St Caesarius of Arles, trans. by Maria McCarthy (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1960), p. 175.

      see related version in Benedictine Rule: https://hypothes.is/a/oJWB5tKAEe6FRGuIAPWmZQ

    7. the Benedictine Rule stipulatesthat monks should then apply themselves to two hours of reading,after which they may either go back to bed, ‘or if anyone mayperhaps want to read, let him read to himself in such a way as not todisturb anyone else’.4 At mealtimes, one monk will be appointed toread to the others, who must keep absolute silence ‘so that nowhispering may be heard nor any voice except the reader’s’.

      quoted portions from:<br /> St. Benedict’s Rule for Monasteries, trans. by Leonard J. Doyle (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1948), p. 67.

    8. StAugustine draws this same parallel when he writes to a communityof nuns, ‘let it not be only your mouth that takes food, but let yourears also drink in the word of God’.3

      quoted section from:

      St Augustine, Letters, trans. by Wilfrid Parsons, 5 vols. (Baltimore, MD: Catholic University of America Press, 1956), V, Letter 211, ‘To a Convent of Consecrated Virgins’, p. 43.

    9. the fresco, byTomasso da Modena, was painted in 1352). It stresses theDominicans’ commitment to Bible study and to scholarship, and noportrait conveys this more than the image of Hugh of St Cher.

      Image from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:38_Ugo_da_San_Caro.jpg

      Ugo da San Caro, serie dei Quaranta domenicani illustri, ex convento di San Niccolò, Sala del Capitolo, Treviso, 1352 (altezza di ciascun ritratto 150 cm circa) Image by Risorto Celebrano, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

      Thought to be one of the first images of a person wearing glasses. Image dated 1352.

    10. Between them, theyset up the axes by which we think about indexing: word versusconcept; concordance versus subject index; specific versusuniversal.

      context: the simultaneous invention of two different methods of indexing: subject indexes and concordances

    11. imagined the birth of the universe asan expanding sphere of luminescence, taking science and scriptureand blending them into a kind of Big Bang Theory that still leavesroom for God to start it all off with ‘Let there be light’.

      This blends a tidbit of scientific history regarding Robert Grosseteste's thought with modern science fiction. Surely Grosseteste was NOT prefiguring the Big Bang Theory.

      Curious what the original citation was here.

    12. Only the largepelican, squatting in the trees, can break the connection, a symbol ofbad audience, staring insolently, resolutely offstage. But she is beinggradually struck out, her colours fading as the original red and giltborders reassert themselves reprimandingly from beneath, themanuscript exacting a slow punishment for the sin of inattention.

      Dennis Duncan completely misreads this image of Grosseteste and the Pelican which appears in the Lambeth Palace Library's MS 522 of The Castle of love. (for image see: https://hypothes.is/a/RzHLjsz8Ee6dZLOTV5h65Q)

      Duncan identifies Grosseteste's pose with his hand raised and his index finger extended as "the classic gesture of the storyteller." In fact, the bishop is pointing directly up at the pelican which sits just on top of the frame of the illuminated scene. This pelican is elevated above and just beyond the scene of the image because it represents, as was common in the time period, the suffering of Christ.

      Bestiaries of the age commonly depicted the "pelican in her piety" which was noted by Isidore of Seville in his Etymologies (Book 12, 7:26) from the 7th century, a text which heavily influenced many of these bestiaries. It was also thought at the time that the insatiable and rapacious pelican ate lizards and crocodiles (or lived off of them); as these were associated with snakes and by way of the story of the Garden of Eden the devil, they were also further associated with Christ and driving sin out of the world.

      Thus the image is more appropriately read in its original context as Grosseteste giving a sermon about the suffering of Christ who is represented by a pelican floating above the scene being depicted.

      see: https://hypothes.is/a/QAc8us24Ee6d1kPcrhQPyw

    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWVrz5oCt2w<br /> The meaning of Hand Gestures in Art History<br /> Amuze Art Lectures

      Middle and ring fingers together to represent modesty. (He doesn't say it, but it also could stand for "M" as in Medici??)

      Finger pointing at viewer may indicate a self portrait.

      Woman's hand on abdomen may represent pregnancy, a fertile marriage, or the desire to bear children.

    1. If you're into music producers and creativity, Brian Eno and his collaborator Peter Schmidt created and sold a custom "zettelkasten" called "Oblique Strategies" which Eno frequently used in the recording studio during live sessions when he hit creative walls. There are various digital versions of his card set online for playing around with in your own creative work.

      Thanks for this mini-review. I've had Rubin in my reading pile for a while, specifically to see what he says with respect to the idea of combinatorial creativity. Perhaps it's time to bump him up the list?

      syndication link

    1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/256416691118

      2024-02-19 120 drawer cabinet, solid in four sections of 8x4 with a set of four writing drawers in the middle. No table, but a very low slung simple base. Listed for $4,000 or best offer for pick up only in Greenbriar, TN. No manufacturer listed. Appears to be all wood and metal, but no photos of internals.

      Relatively rough shape with mediocre finish. Two drawers are mismatched and darker. A couple of the label/pulls are broken or hanging, Missing a few rods. One drawer front is entirely broken.

      Cost per drawer: $33.33 per drawer.

    1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/166584466393

      2024-02-06: 15 drawer (5x3) card catalog offered for starting bid of $200. 3 piece sectional with top, drawers and simple table base with spindle legs. Appears to be in maple with polished steel fittings.

      Manufacturer: none listed<br /> Location: Local pick up from Niagara Falls, NY

      Condition: the finish on this is shot and is either cracked, peeling, or generally non-existent on the outside. Missing two rods. Finish on the wood inside appears solid.

      Cost per drawer: - opening bid of $200: $13.33

      This was later relisted at https://www.ebay.com/itm/166595950156 and ultimately sold for $255.00.

      Cost per drawer: $17.00

    1. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/694743405502203/

      Seller description: 1902 Shaw Walker Card Catalog and File Cabinet 3 piece stackable $765 Listed 19 weeks ago in San Bernardino, CA Details

      Condition
      Used - Good
      Color
      Brown
      Material
      Wood
      

      Super nice old antique card catalog Stackable Oak wood Very few marks for its age 1902 original tags inside it Simply elegant piece No missing pieces no scratches 76 t 16 w 19 d

      Jeanie Lowry listing from October 2023 and sold in late 2023 potentially for $765 or less.

      Sectional Shaw-Walker modular card catalog and filing cabinet. 3 sections of 2x3 drawers for 3x5" cards and one section of 2x1 along with a two 8.5x11" filing drawers and a writing desk pullout section.

      22 total drawers but 20 for index cards

      Cost per drawer: $34.77 (sold)

    1. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1020494389229110/

      Solid Gaylord Bros. 60 drawer card catalog for pick up in San Bernardino, CA by Jeanie Lowry on Facebook. Reasonable shape despite some dings, especially to the wood facia at the bottom. One metal drawer pull shorn off, but looks like it had all it's rods as well as three writing drawers in the middle.

      2023-01 Listed for ??<br /> Sold sometime in early 2024 presumably for $525

      Seller description: Beautiful Vintage 1950’s Bro Dart Card Catalog Vintage 60 Drawer Card Catalog One drawer handle has the hook missing 3 of the slide in bars missing Some wear on the bottom panel Drawers are strong with brass handles and screws 60 inches tall 40 1/2 wide 17 1/2 deep Drawers are 5 1/2 inches wide Very heavy Great piece would look so great in a retail setting

      Cost per drawer: $8.75

    1. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/406045722112862/

      2024-02-01 Originally listed for 1,100 or so and slowly decreased to $990 on 2024-02-17 at which point it was listed as "not in stock", so unsure if actually sold.

      Gaylord Bros. 25 drawer modular card catalog in 4 sections including top and table/legs and two drawer sections of 5x2 and 5x3. in reasonable but somewhat rough condition. for pick up in San Bernardino, CA from Jeanie Lowry

      Offered as part of a Facebook garage sale which included a similar 30 drawer catalog with pull out writing desks and a handful of metal card filing cabinets meant for punch cards.

      1960’s 25 Drawer Card Catalog Hard to find item In great shape 40 1/2 T, 33 W, 17 D

    1. Isidore of Seville [7th century CE] (Etymologies, Book 12, 7:26): The pelican [pelicanus] is an Egyptian bird inhabiting the solitary places of the river Nile, whence it takes its name, for Egypt is called canopos. It is reported, if it may be true, that this bird kills its offspring, mourns them for three days, and finally wounds itself and revives its children by sprinkling them with its own blood. - [Barney, Lewis, et. al. translation]

      Despite the now commonly accepted etymology of pelican stemming from the Greek pelekys or pelekus meaning "ax", a referent to the bird's large beak, in Etymologies (book 12, 7:26) Isidore of Seville says it "takes its name for Egypt which is called canopos."

      question: There is a thing called a canoptic jar (from Egypt), is it possible that trade via these jars caused the ancients to associate Egypt with them, or is there a separate etymology at play?

    2. Pliny the Elder [1st century CE] (Natural History, Book 10, 66): Pelicans have a resemblance to swans, and would be thought not to differ from them at all were it not that they have a kind of second stomach in their actual throats. Into this the insatiable creature stows everything, so that its rapacity is marvelous. Afterwards when it has done plundering it gradually returns the things from this pouch into its mouth and passes them into the true stomach like a ruminant animal. These birds come to us from the extreme north of Gaul. - [Rackham translation]

      In his Natural History (Book 10, 66), Pliny the Elder indicates that pelicans resemble swans, but have a second stomach in their throats into which they insatiably and rapaciously stow everything only later passing them into their true stomachs like ruminant animals.