Hess, Jillian. “Martin Luther King Jr.’s Organizational Systems.” Substack newsletter. Noted (blog), January 22, 2024. https://jillianhess.substack.com/p/martin-luther-king-jrs-organizational.

In addition to his card index, Martin Luther King, Jr. compiled a collection of 166 folders organized around various topics which he used to organize outlines, clippings, pages from books, and other source materials as well as drafts of sermons or speeches on those topics.

To some extent these folders are just larger format repositories mirroring the topical arrangements of his card index.

Jillian Hess' guess for the origin of King's plagiarism.

It's also possible that he came from a much more oral facing cultural upbringing rather than a dyed-in-the-wool academic one which focused on attribution.

example of a note from King's zettelkasten

Some of King's note cards later figured in his speeches including his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Martin Luther King, Jr. maintained a card index during his Ph.D. studies while he was at Boston University working in the area of systematic theology.

He created over a thousand notecards with respect to the Old Testament, many containing a mixture of biblical quotations as well as his own thoughts.

Here would be a good place to give a solid definition of humanity? What makes it special beyond the "self"?

We are genetically very closely related to great apes and chimpanzees and less closely to dogs, cats, and even rats. Do we miss our dogicity? Or ratanity?

What if the robot/human mix is somehow even more interesting and transcendent than humanity? His negativity doesn't leave any space for this possible eventuality.

reminiscent of the quote:

Life imitates art. We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us.<br /> —John M. Culkin, “A Schoolman’s Guide to Marshall McLuhan” (The Saturday Review, March 1967) (Culkin was a friend and colleague of Marshall McLuhan)<br /> (see: https://hypothes.is/a/6Znx6MiMEeu3ljcVBsKNOw)

or the earlier version:

But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper.<br /> —Henry David Thoreau, Walden, p41 <br /> (see: https://hypothes.is/a/vooPrPkwEe2r_4MIb6tlFw)

In 2000, Bill Joy predicted that advances in computing would allow an intelligent robot to be built by 2030.

some of Bill Joy's intellectual history here mirrors much of my own...

A second remove perhaps, but nominative determinism at play here?

coinage of the phrase knowledge-enabled mass destruction here?

As a case in point, the self-replication of misinformation on social media networks has become a substantial physical risk in the early 21st century causing not only swings in elections, but riots, take overs, swings in the stock market (GameStop short squeeze January 2021), and mob killings. It is incredibly difficult to create risk assessments for these sorts of future harms.

In biology, we see major damage to a wide variety of species as the result of uncontrolled self-replication. We call it cancer.

We also see programmed processes in biological settings including apoptosis and necrosis as means of avoiding major harms. What might these look like with respect to artificial intelligence?

gradual change is always the way with evolution...

I always recommend people to read: Hillis, W. Daniel. The Pattern on the Stone. Revised edition. Science Masters. 1998. Reprint, Basic Books, 2015.

Joy contends that one of Hans Moravec's views in his book Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind is that robots will push the human species into extinction in much the same way that early North American placental species eliminated the South American marsupials.

Perhaps the evolution to solve AI-resistance (mentioned in https://hypothes.is/a/-JjZurr3Ee6EtG8G_Sbt8Q) won't be done at the level of the individual human genome, but will be done at the human society level genome.

Political groups of people have an internal memetic genome which can evolve and change over time much more quickly than the individual human's genes would work.

Just as mosquitoes can "acquire" (evolve) DDT resistance or bacteria might evolve antiobiotic-resistance, might not humans evolve AI resistance? How fast might we do this? On what timeline? Will the pressure be slowly built up over time, or will the onset be so quick that extinction is the only outcome?

I didn't see this coming! I thought it was Kurzweil...

https://vimeo.com/905326134/0a2a7388eb

While ostensibly about apps for note taking, Dan Allosso gives a good thumbnail sketch of his background.

Fascinatingly he feels he needs to justify doing videos on note taking process as a historian, which is a platform from which many note taking and research process (and historiography) related books have stemmed. (ie, historically, Dan has a better platform for doing this than most in the tools for thought space.)

Nice to see that Bob Doto has joined the list of moderators at r/zettelkasten.

Watched [[Dan Allosso]] on teaching Note-taking at https://vimeo.com/905323967/90544a580f

Solid overview!

read [[Dan Allosso]] in Actual Books

Sometimes a physical copy of a book gives one information not contained in digital scans. Allosso provides the example of Charles Knowlton's book The Fruits of Philosophy which touched on abortion and was published as a tiny hand-held book which would have made it easy to pass from person to person more discretely for its time period.

K-E Keuffel & Esser Slide Rule Model 4181-3 & Leather Case

https://www.ebay.com/itm/156006789042

Citation Key: <your citekey>

Some of Newton's notes come from a 1654 edition of: Gregory, Francis. Ονομαστικὸν βραχύ; sive, Nomenclatura brevis, Anglo-Latino-Græca, in usum Scholæ Westmonasteriensis. Per F. G. [i.e. Francis Gregory.] Editio vigesima secunda, etc. John Meredith, in trust for Royston and Elizabeth Meredith, 1710.

Sir Isaac Newton's Pocket Knowledge: A Virtual Tour of a Morgan Library Notebook<br /> The Morgan Library & Museum<br /> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE9DYP1PfhQ

Newton's notebook was done in a tête-bêche (French for "head-to-toe") style in which he flipped the notebook over and began using it from the back to the front as a means of starting a second notebook within to separate the contents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Gregory_(divine)

https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/newton/1

Some of Newton's other papers are held by The Morgan Library & Museum.

4.92 x 3.07 inches

Collection in Focus: Sir Isaac Newton's Pocket Memorandum Book<br /> by The Morgan Library & Museum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Zpo5yla7w

More details and a digitized version of this memorandum book at https://www.themorgan.org/collection/isaac-newton/memorandum-book

I Screwed Up but I Learned A Lot About the Zettelkasten<br /> by Curly Gruene Cahall<br /> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFxZTq8oZhI

Without seeming to realize the split between the two ideas, Cahall seems to have organically discovered the basic difference between a topically oriented commonplace book method (on index cards) and a Luhmann-artig method of numbering cards as folgezettel.

He recommends picking one or the other, or potentially doing both and not worrying.

It would seem like a zettelkasten joke, but Cahall has an index entry on "singular focus", yet it has two entries in disparate places in his zk. [14:02]

🤣

Cahall has a practice of using Luhmann-artig numbering, but having tabbed cards which section his box into broad categories. Yet in an example relating to the Eisenhower Matrix, which he would naturally categorize as "productivity", he instead places it next to a card in "creativity" about dealing with tasks.

Generally I would advise people specifically not to practice this way, but presumably it works for him....

He says he never understood branching and as a result of his practice, he needs to spend much more time indexing.

Curly Gurene Cahall calls his zettelkasten "Sherlock".

Curly Cruene Cahall has a practice of "scouting and excavating" books. His first read sounds closest to Adler's inspectional read, though Cahall says his first run through is for "entertainment". Follow this he reads in a more targeted manner which he calls "excavating", which ostensibly entails excerpting the most salient and interesting points for use in his own work.

https://www.cygnoir.net/2024/01/20/how-i-pocket.html

Reply to Couscous at https://discord.com/channels/686053708261228577/722584061087842365/1197392837952684052

A quick survey of currently active academics, teachers, and researchers who are blogging about note taking practices and zettelkasten-based methods.

Individuals

Dan Allosso is a history professor at Bemidji State University who has used Obsidian in his courses in the past. He frequently writes about related topics on his Substack channels. One can also find related videos about reading, writing, and research process as well as zettelkasten on his YouTube channel. In addition to this, Dan has a book on note taking and writing which focuses on using a card index or zettelkasten centric process.

Shawn Graham has both a blog as well as a prior course on the history of the internet using Obsidian. In the course materials he has compiled significant details and suggestions for setting up an Obsidian vault for students interested in using the tool.

Kathleen Fitzpatrick has a significant blog which covers a variety of topics centered around her work and research. Her current course Peculiar Genres of Academic Writing (2024) focuses on writing, note taking (including Zettelkasten) and encourages students to try out Obsidian, which she's been using herself. A syllabus for an earlier version of the course includes some big name bloggers in academia whose sites might serve as examples of academic writing in the public. The syllabus also includes a section on being an academic blogger and creating platform as a public intellectual.

Morganeua is a Ph.D. candidate who has a fairly popular YouTube channel on note taking within the academic setting (broadly using Obsidian, though she does touch on other tools from time to time).

Chris Aldrich is independent research who does work at the intersection of intellectual history and note taking methods and practices. He's got an active website along with a large collection of note taking, zettelkasten, commonplace books, and sense-making related articles. His practice is a hybrid one using both analog and digital methods including Obsidian and Hypothes.is.

Bob Doto is a teacher and independent researcher who focuses on Luhmann-artig zettelkasten practice and writing. He uses Obsidian and also operates a private Discord server focused on general Zettelkasten practice.

Manfred Kuehn, a professor of philosophy at Boston University, had an influential blog on note taking practices and culture from 2007 to 2018 on Blogspot. While he's taken the site down, the majority of his work there can be found on the Internet Archive.

Andy Matuschak is an independent researcher who is working at the intersection of learning, knowledge management, reading and related topics. He's got a Patreon, YouTube Channel and a public wiki.

Broader community-based efforts

Here are some tool-specific as well as tool-agnostic web-based fora, chat rooms, etc. which are focused on academic-related note taking and will have a variety of people to follow and interact with.

Obsidian runs a large and diverse Discord server. In addition to many others, they have channels for #Academia and #Academic-tools as well as #Knowledge-management and #zettelkasten.

Tinderbox hosts regular meetups (see their forum for details on upcoming events and how to join). While their events are often product-focused (ways to use it, Q&A, etc.), frequently they've got invited speakers who talk about their work, processes, and methods of working. Past recorded sessions can be found on YouTube. While this is tool-specific, much of what is discussed in their meetups can broadly be applied to any tool set. Because Tinderbox has been around since the early 00s and heavily focused on academic use, the majority of participants in the community are highly tech literate academics whose age skews to the over 40 set.

A variety of Zettelkasten practitioners including several current and retired academicians using a variety of platforms can be found at https://forum.zettelkasten.de/.

Boris Mann and others held Tools for Thought meetups which had been regularly held through 2023. They may have some interesting archived material for perusal on both theory, practice, and a wide variety of tools.

Others?

I've tried to quickly tip out my own zettelkasten on this topic with a focus on larger repositories of active publicly available web-based material. Surely there is a much wider variety of people and resources not listed here, but it should be a reasonable primer for beginners. Feel free to reply with additional suggestions and resources of which you may be aware.

https://lu.ma/toolsforthought

Software and applications for creating visualizations of zettelkasten contents: - Tinderbox (Mac) - Apple's Freeform (app) - Obsidian Canvas - Excalidraw (plugin for Obsidian) - Scrintal - Heptabase - Card Buddy (Mac) - AFFiNE (https://github.com/toeverything/AFFiNE)

https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/2797/an-app-to-represent-a-zettelkasten-or-parts-of-it-visually

https://blogarchive.org/

Reply to @Denny @richnewman @patrickrhone at https://beardystarstuff.net/2024/01/16/i-finished-reading.html

I started reading Parable of the Sower exactly one year to the date mentioned at the start of the book at the public library in Pasadena where she grew up. As a 49 year old father of a 12 year old daughter, it was a much more visceral and eerie experience than I could ever have expected. She has forever changed the perspective I have driving down the streets of our shared neighborhood.

I'm not sure if they'll have open remote registrations for it or if it will only be broadcast locally, but the local Octavia Butler Book Club has an upcoming zoom session on Feb 24 which can be found in the Pasadena Public Library's newsletter (.pdf). It will feature Dr. Kendra Parker via Zoom from Georgia to present her lecture: "Walking a Mile in Her Shoes: Exploring Octavia Butler's Archives."

The nearby Huntington Library houses her papers and some of her materials there may be accessible online.

read [[Dan Allosso]] in Peer to Peer?

Not sure if you've seen/found it before, but as academia has been having bigger problems with granting tenure over the past 20 years, there's been a rise of discussion of alternate academia pathways, often under the term #AltAc in social media and other locations. Careers in writing in other spaces have certainly abounded here.

https://www.derrekchow.com/

Collaborating with Andy Matuschak on future of book/reading project BookBridge

2023-12-21 BookBridge Talk, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M-nfWI93nY. Andy Matuschak and Derrek Chow

The linking between physical book and digital book is somewhat reminiscent to me to Livescribe.com's use of Anoto digital paper and direct linking of handwriting on the page with recorded audio. Perhaps the physical book and digital book could use such a substrate to effectuate some of the work seen here, but also do it in a way that is easily (digitally) recordable as well as replayable. They've also done some of the handwriting to text work one might want in this space.

[[Dan Allosso]] in How to Read, part 2

Dan Allosso uses the abbreviation KW (key word) after which he ascribes categories or tags to his notes.

Nice start on a list of goals for reading

others?

Choosing an external system for knowledge keeping and production forces the learner into a deliberate practice and confronts them with their lack of understanding. This is a large part of the underlying value not only of the zettelkasten, but of the use of a commonplace book which Benjamin Franklin was getting at when recommending that one "read with a pen in your hand". The external system also creates a modality shift from reading to writing by way of thinking which further underlines the value.

What other building blocks are present in addition to: - modality shift - deliberate practice - confrontation of lack of understanding

Are there other systems that do all of these as well as others simultaneously?

link to Franklin quote: https://hypothes.is/a/HZeDKI3YEeyj9GcNWKX4iA

original source?

it's Benjamin Franklin letter to Miss Stevenson, Wanstead. Craven-street, May 16, 1760.<br /> see: https://hyp.is/HZeDKI3YEeyj9GcNWKX4iA/www.gutenberg.org/files/40236/40236-h/40236-h.htm

read [[Dan Allosso]] in Weekly Review, 1-15

https://www.ebay.com/itm/404745139607

2024-01-16 60 drawer card catalog offered for bid at $2100 and buy it now at $4,400. Solid cabinet in good shape, missing one rod. All wood. Has three writing drawers. Shippable from Huffman, TX for $92.83.

Cost per drawer: - bid offer: $35.00 - buy now: 73.33

Not the best source here, but...

https://www.tastingtable.com/1490534/rusty-nail-two-ingredient-cocktail-frank-sinatra/

https://web.archive.org/web/20180227134526/http://pileofindexcards.org/blog/2006/12/22/writing-format-of-fieldnote/

Hawk Sugano uses a wastebook-like process to take contemporaneous notes in a pocket notebook and later transfers the ideas to index cards for follow up and filing.

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

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

https://web.archive.org/web/20180227134635/http://pileofindexcards.org/blog/2007/01/27/pile-of-fieldnotes/

I certainly didn't see this coming as part of the Pile of Index Cards... pocketnotebooks! Ostensibly for quick note (idea) capture on the move with transfer later.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180227130424/http://pileofindexcards.org/blog/2006/12/25/start-indexcard-provider-service/

Hawk Sugano apparently offered the Pile of Index Cards as a physical product offering by combining Correct's index card dock and Kokuyo's fieldnotes in late December 2006.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170321222822/http://pileofindexcards.org/blog/cluster/

Hawk Sugano's archived Pile of Index Cards website for exploration.

https://forum.obsidian.md/t/zotero-integration-import-templates/36310/2

[[Devon Price]] in Laziness Does Not Exist - Human Parts

Archive copy without paywall: https://web.archive.org/web/20191231131144/https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01?gi=e119027675fe

Deleuze, Gilles. L’Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze, avec Claire Parnet - Lecture Recording 1 - A to F, 15 December 1988. Interview by Claire Parnet. Transcript, December 15, 1988. https://deleuze.cla.purdue.edu/lecture/lecture-recording-1-f/.

https://deleuze.cla.purdue.edu/lecture/lecture-recording-1-f/

Gilles Deleuze: The ABC Primer / Recording 1 - A to F<br /> DECEMBER 15, 1988

https://www.artisanalsoftwarefestival.com/

Winterfest2023

https://web.archive.org/web/sitemap/https://machines.kfitz.info/ss22/

Archives of Kathleen Fitzpatrick's machines.kfitz.info sites for teaching/past courses.

read [[Stephen Robertson]] in A New Graduate Course for 2022: Digital Scholarship

https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/1120/a-notebook-zettelkasten/p1

https://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/home.html

found via Andy Sylvester bookmark

I could totally see this UI with a video generated version of Niklas Luhmann answering questions using the training set of notes in his online zettelkasten at https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/tutorial

syndication link: https://bavatuesdays.com/ai106-long-live-the-new-flesh/comment-page-1/#comment-388943

read [[Jim Groom]] in [AI106: Long Live the New Flesh](https://bavatuesdays.com/ai106-long-live-the-new-flesh/comment-page-1/0

https://oblivion.university/

ᔥ[[Jim Groom]] in AI106: Long Live the New Flesh

Read [[Doug Belshaw]] in I am so tired of moving platforms on 2023-12-27 (accessed:: 2024-01-05 09:58:46)

https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000*/next-action.net

Archive pages for Aki Oda's website next-action.net

https://flickr.com/photos/hawkexpress/275215540/

Fascinating commentary here

https://www.flickr.com/photos/aki_oda/albums/72157606070587225/

Another writer in Japan using the Pile of Index Cards method with visualizations in Flickr.

read [[Edward Vielmetti]] in Index Cards, Anne Lamott, from Bird By Bird

https://web.archive.org/web/20070121034201/http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/filing.001.html

Read [[Edward Vielmetti]] in Noguchi Filing System (Chou Seiri Hou) – abandon all classification except chronological

Read [[Edward Vielmetti]] in Noguchi filing system on index cards from hawkexpress

https://www.noguchi.co.jp/

https://communicationnation.blogspot.com/2005/12/noguchi-filing-system.html

https://communicationnation.blogspot.com/2009/09/designing-narrative-with-index-cards.html

https://www.ebay.com/itm/166548034302

January 2024 15 drawer Gaylord Bros. card catalog in maple offered for $949.95 as local pick up only from Charlotte, NC. Missing two rods, very dodgy finish. Modular three piece: top, 5x3 and table base.

cost per drawer: $63.33

https://www.ebay.com/itm/156005054108

January 2024: offering two separate 60 drawer card catalogs for sale OBO at $3,500.. Semi-modular with separate leg bases. Each has 3 writing drawers. Finish in rough shape, missing some rods.

Cost per drawer: $29.16 (Presuming both for the $3,500)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/166548086801

Brodart 9 drawer card catalog. Generally good shape, some issue with finish, no rods. Offered for $250 in January 2024. Pick up or shipping from Garden Grove, CA

Cost per drawer: $27.77

https://hcommons.org/groups/academic-job-market-support-network/docs/

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/job_search_writing/preparing_an_application/writing_the_personal_statement/index.html

(1977) The Combahee River Collective Statement

ᔥ[[Kathleen Fitzpatrick]] in [Schedule – Peculiar Genres of Academic Writing]

[[Tressie McMillan Cottom]] in The Dolly Moment

ᔥ[[Kathleen Fitzpatrick]] in Schedule – Peculiar Genres of Academic Writing

[[Mark Greif]] in What’s Wrong With Public Intellectuals?

ᔥ[[Kathleen Fitzpatrick]] in Schedule – Peculiar Genres of Academic Writing

[[Corey Robin]] in How Intellectuals Create a Public

ᔥ[[Kathleen Fitzpatrick]] in Schedule – Peculiar Genres of Academic Writing

https://peculiargenres.commons.msu.edu/schedule/

overflow of writing advice!

[[Kathleen Fitzpatrick]] in Peculiar Genres of Academic Writing

https://www.goodreads.com/notes/23814811-debt/3524158-markgrabe-grabe

Mark Grabe's highlights and annotations on David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years.

https://streetpass.social/

StreetPass, a browser extension that leverages rel="me" for compiling a list of potential mastodon accounts to follow as you visit websites.

https://colourblind-palette-maker.glitch.me/

https://mastodon.social/@christianp@mathstodon.xyz/111759984202211741

Is there a way to mathematically encode colors, similar to RGB perhaps, such that the colors in nearby neighborhoods all have values close to each other?

https://enchroma.co.uk/collections/colour-blind-glasses

Read [[John Halbrooks]] in Respect for Working Writers

https://www.reddit.com/r/MicrosoftWord/comments/psrqdc/can_someone_send_me_a_free_microsoft_word/

https://www.avery.com/blog/turn-your-address-list-into-labels/

At least Scott Scheper is advising people to ignore the advice in his own book about numbering systems. (Too bad he didn't write that advice in his own book...)

https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/193c6bu/comment/khcbe5n/

Read [Zeb Larson]] in The Second Ku Klux Klan: How It Gained Social and Political Power Among White Protestants

https://backlinks-checker.com/

https://trunks.social/login

https://pantryandlarder.com/mccheapest

Syllabus: Peculiar Genres of Academic Writing<br /> https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:44397/ by Kathleen Fitzpatrick

The first part of "sociological imagination" for Mills is what I term combinatorial creativity. In his instance, at varying intervals he dumps out disconnected ideas, files and resorts them to find interesting potential solutions.

"unfiled notes" as "fleeting notes" which aren't expanded upon and turned into "permanent notes"

how are these related to his "fringe thoughts"

C. Wright Mills' idea of "fringe-thoughts" is similar to Ahrens framing of "fleeting notes".

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

read [[John Halbrooks]] in Hwæt!

original source?

Robert Cotton's library had busts of Roman emperors atop his shelves, and he used their names as part of his indexing system to be able to associate books' locations to make them findable.

https://johnhalbrooks.substack.com/p/the-ruin-76

Read [[Dan Allosso]] in Reading Beowulf, part 1

Read [[John Halbrooks]] in Canonical Resolutions

h/t Dan Allosso