335 Matching Annotations
  1. Jun 2022
    1. Matthew Fay (Institute of English Studies, University of London)

      Online

      Short Bio

      Over the years, Matthew has turned his hand to several disciplines, from high school teaching to theatre directing, before taking the MA in the History of the Book at London University. He is now undertaking research for a PhD on an archive formed by his great-grandfather, Frank Fay (1870-1930), an Irish actor and producer, who collaborated with W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory on the plays that were performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Matthew is interested in the provenance of books and theatre history.

      Bibliography

      • Thesis: ‘The Fay Archive: Towards a Checklist and Copy-specific Analysis of Key Research Items by W. B. Yeats, J. M. Synge and Lady Gregory.’ (in progress)
    1. certain sub-currents in their thought. One being the proposition that the original (or translated) texts of the most influential Western books are vastly superior material to study for serious minds than are textbooks that merely give pre-digested (often mis-digested) assessments of the ideas contained therein.

      Are some of the classic texts better than more advanced digested texts because they form the building blocks of our thought and society?

      Are we training thinkers or doers?

    1. Mortimer J. Adler's slip box collection (Photo of him holding a pipe in his left hand and mouth posing in front of dozens of boxes of index cards with topic headwords including "law", "love", "life", "sin", "art", "democracy", "citizen", "fate", etc.)

      Though if we roughly estimate this collection at 1000 cards per box with roughly 76 boxes potentially present, the 76,000 cards are still shy of Luhmann's collection. It'll take some hunting thigs down, but as Adler suggests that people write their notes in their books, which he would have likely done, then this collection isn't necessarily his own. I suspect, but don't yet have definitive proof, that it was created as a group effort for the 54-volume Great Books of the Western World and its two-volume index of great ideas, the Syntopicon.

    1. https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/patrick-henry-virginia-ratifying-convention-va/

      While gerrymandering isn't brought up explicitly here, the underlying principles are railed against heavily.

      Some interesting things applicable to the rise of Donald J. Trump hiding in here.

      Interesting to read this in its historical context versus our present context. So much can be read into his words from our current context, while others can extract dramatically different views--particularly by Constitutional originalists.

  2. May 2022
    1. "The Finished Mystery," by Clayton J. Woodworth and George Fisher (1917). This was published as Volume 7 of Studies in the Scriptures and advertised as the posthumous work of Charles Taze Russell. This is a text version of the first printing and also contains pictures that were circulated in the Karatol edition. Later printings contain significant changes. Publication of this book was authorized by J.F. Rutherford, president of the Watchtower Society. Rutherford later gave the group the name Jehovah's Witnesses in 1931.

      Randomly came across this today. Who knew?

  3. Apr 2022
    1. Thus have been briefly noticed the results obtained by research in the Leipsic laboratory during the past seven years. They prove conclusively that it is possible to apply experimental methods to the study of mind. The positive results are, besides, not insignificant, and will compare favourably with what has been accomplished during the same period in many chemical, physical and physiological laboratories. An increased interest is everywhere being taken in experimental psychology, and we may hope that we shall some day have as accurate and complete knowledge of mind as of the physical world.

      As experimental psychology was being pushed to evolve into new science through development of experimentation, observation, appliance of external stimuli and reaction of the psyche; the results produced equate to the ones in other scientific fields. The importance of having psychology be a natural science is to understand how an individual's psychology functions in response to the stimuli. Experimentation would allow better understanding of conscious beings. The experiments discussed provide value to adapting psychology as an experimental science that would benefit students and provide equality to psychology in comparison to a field like chemistry.

    1. One of the field’sleading textbooks was authored by literature scholar Edward P. J. Corbett, whonever relinquished the notion that emulating the work of the masters was the firststep toward developing one’s own distinctive style. “Imitate, that you may bedifferent!” Corbett thundered.

      Literature scholar Edward P.J. Corbett used to command "Imitate, that you may be different!" While his rhetoric and composition textbook may have encouraged students to emulate the masters, this pattern goes back to ancient Greek rhetoricians who also admonished

      Link to rhetoric examples in antiquity. Link to the Finding Forrester example.

    2. imitation more generally. Emmanuel Roze hasfound that the experience of imitating patients makes the young doctors he trainsmore empathetic

      Imitation can potentially help one become more empathetic.

      Is there a relationship between this effect and one's mirror neurons?

      Donald J. Trump is well known for is sad impersonation of impaired and disabled people. Obviously he has no empathy for them and it's unlikely that his re-enactments will create empathy for him. Is this a result of a neurological deficit on his part?

  4. Mar 2022
    1. Gesturing also increases as afunction of difficulty: the more challenging the problem, and the more optionsthat exist for solving it, the more we gesture in response.

      When presented with problems people are prone to gesture more with the increasing challenges of those problems. The more ways there are to solve a particular problem, the more gesturing one is likely to do.


      What sort of analysis could one do on politicians who gesture their speech with relation to this? For someone like Donald J. Trump who floats balloons (ideas--cross reference George Lakoff) in his speeches, is he actively gesturing in an increased manner as he's puzzling out what is working for an audience and what isn't? Does the gesturing decrease as he settles on the potential answers?

    1. En somme, les études sur la communication des élèves atteints d’autisme permettent de mettre en évidence l’importance d’un contexte riche en stimulations appropriées (sons et images), mais également une évidente « stabilité » de l’information à décoder, le suivi des émotions des personnages, le rôle de l’imitation dans les apprentissages. Ces résultats encouragent donc l’usage d’outils informatiques adéquats pour améliorer la communication sociale chez les enfants atteints d’autisme.

      L'association de deux sujets qui n'ont pas de corrélation vérifiéé, revient dans la conclusion en contradiction avec la conclusion de l'étude de Ramdoss, S et al.

    2. Nous allons montrer par une courte analyse de quelques études l’impact du travail éducatif informatisé dans l’apprentissage de la communication sociale chez des enfants atteints d’autisme.

      En contradiction avec l'hypothèse :

      Results suggest that CBI should not yet be considered a researched-based approach to teaching communication skills to individuals with ASD. However, CBI does seem a promising practice that warrants future research. Les résultats suggèrent que le CBI ne devrait pas encore être considéré comme un approche fondée sur la recherche pour enseigner les compétences en communication aux personnes ayant Troubles du Spectre Autistique. Cependant, le CBI semble être une pratique prometteuse qui justifie des recherches futures.

    3. L’imitation et l’influence du jeu interactif sont bien mises en évidence dans une étude de Orit Hetzroni et Juman Tannous, de la Faculté des Sciences de l’éducation de l’Université de Haifa (Israël)

      ==>l’échantillon de l’étude est est extrêmement limité, l’étude n’est pas répliqué et elle ne permet pas de retirer de résultats concluants

  5. Feb 2022
    1. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/an-ancient-greek-astronomical-calculation-machine-reveals-new-secrets/

      Overview and history of the Antikythera mechanism and the current state of research surrounding it.

      Antikythera mechanism found in diving expedition in 1900 by Elias Stadiatis. It was later dated between 60 and 70 BCE, but evidence suggests it may have been made around 205 BCE.

      Functions

      One of the primary purposes of the device was to predict the positions of the planets along the ecliptic, the plane of the solar system.

      The device was also used to track the positions of the sun and moon. This included the moon's phase, position and age (the number of days from a new moon). It also included the predictions of eclipses.

      Used to track the motions of the 5 known planets including 289 synodic cycles in 462 years for Venus and 427 synodic cycles in 442 years for Saturn.

      Risings and settings of stars indexed to a zodiac dial

      Definitions

      metonic cycle, a 19-year period over which 235 moon phases recur; named after Greek astronomer Meton, but discovered much earlier by the Babylonians. The Greeks refined it to a 76 year period.

      saros cycle, the 223 month lunar cycle which was used by the Babylonians to predict eclipses. A dial on the Antikythera mechanism was used to predict the dates of the solar and lunar eclipses using this cycle.

      synodic events: conjunctions with the sun and its stationary points

      People

      Archimedes - potentially the designer of an early version of the Antikythera mechanism

      Elias Stadiatis - diver who discovered the Antikythera mechanism

      Albert Rehm - German philologist who the numbers 19, 76 and 223 inscribed on fragments of the device in the early 1900s

      Derek J. de Solla Price, published Gears from the Greeks in 1974. Identified the gear train and developed a complete model of the gearing.

      Michael Wright - 3D x-ray study in 1990 using linear tomography; identified tooth counts of the gears and understood the upper dial on the back of the device

      Tony Freeth - author of article and researcher whose made recent discoveries.

    1. We also know that theaverage length of TV soundbites has steadily declined over the lastseveral decades (Fehrmann, 2011). During the U.S. presidentialelection in 1968, the average soundbite — that is, any footage of acandidate speaking uninterrupted — was still a little more than 40seconds, but that had fallen to less than 10 seconds at the end of the80s (Hallin 1994) and 7.8 seconds in 2000 (Lichter, 2001). The lastelection has certainly not reversed the trend. Whether that meansthat the media adjust to our decreasing attention span or is causingthe trend is not easy to say.[17]

      Ryfe and Kemmelmeier not only show that this development goes much further back into the past and first appeared in newspapers (the quotes of politicians got almost halved between 1892 and 1968), but also posed the question if this can maybe also be seen as a form of increased professionalism of the media as they do not just let politicians talk as they wish (Ryfe and Kemmelmeier 2011). Craig Fehrman also pointed out the irony in the reception of this rather nuanced study – it was itself reduced to a soundbite in the media (Fehrman 2011).


      Soundbites have decreased in length over time.

      What effects are driving this? What are the knock on effects? What effect does this have on the ability for doubletalk to take hold? Is it easier for doubletalk and additional meanings to attach to soundbites when they're shorter? (It would seem so.) At what point to they hit a minimum?

      What is the effect of potential memes which hold additional meaning of driving this soundbite culture?

      Example: "Lock her up" as a soundbite with memetic meaning from the Trump 2016 campaign in reference to Hilary Clinton.

  6. Jan 2022
    1. That is why Francis Bacon was rather skeptical about the possibility that excerpts might be shared among scholars. His opinion was that ‘in general, one man’s Notes will little profit another, because one man’s Conceit doth so much differ from another’s; and because the bare Note itself is nothing so much worth, as the suggestion it gives the Reader’.47

      See Bacon’s letter to Greville examined by Vernon Snow, ‘Francis Bacon’s Advice to Fulke Greville on Research Techniques’, Huntington Library Quarterly 23 (1960), 369–78, at 374

      This is similar in tone but for slightly differing reasons to Mortimer J. Adler recommending against loaning one's annotated books to other users. (see: https://hypothes.is/a/6x75DnXBEeyUyEOjgj_zKg)

    1. How to Mark a Book by Mortimer J. Adler, Ph.D. from The Saturday Review of Literature, July 6, 1941

      https://stevenson.ucsc.edu/academics/stevenson-college-core-courses/how-to-mark-a-book-1.pdf

    2. ow about using a scratch pad slightly smaller than the page-size of the book -- so that the edges of the sheets won't protrude?

      Interesting to note here that he suggests a scratch pad rather than index cards here given his own personal use of index cards.

    3. There are all kinds of devices for marking a book intelligently and fruitfully. Here's the way I do it: • Underlining (or highlighting): of major points, of important or forceful statements. • Vertical lines at the margin: to emphasize a statement already underlined. • Star, asterisk, or other doo-dad at the margin: to be used sparingly, to emphasize the ten or twenty most important statements in the book. (You may want to fold the bottom comer of each page on which you use such marks. It won't hurt the sturdy paper on which most modern books are printed, and you will be able take the book off the shelf at any time and, by opening it at the folded-corner page, refresh your recollection of the book.) • Numbers in the margin: to indicate the sequence of points the author makes in developing a single argument. • Numbers of other pages in the margin: to indicate where else in the book the author made points relevant to the point marked; to tie up the ideas in a book, which, though they may be separated by many pages, belong together. • Circling or highlighting of key words or phrases. • Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of the page, for the sake of: recording questions (and perhaps answers) which a passage raised in your mind; reducing a complicated discussion to a simple statement; recording the sequence of major points right through the books. I use the end-papers at the back of the book to make a personal index of the author's points in the order of their appearance.

      Mortimer J. Adler's method of annotating a text.

      He's primarily giving the author and their ideas all the power and importance here.

      There is nothing, so far, about immediate progressive summarization. There's also little about the reuse of one's notes for analysis and future synthesis, which I find surprising.

      Earlier in the essay he mentions picking the book up later to refresh one's memory, but there's nothing about linking the ideas from one book to another.

    4. You shouldn't mark up a book which isn't yours.

      Killjoy!

    5. 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

  7. 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. the really insidious part about it is not the idea of the noble savage actually there is no noble savage in Russo's 00:54:51 discourse because his state of nature involves creatures which are like humans but actually lack any sort of philosophy at all because what they call do is project their own lives into the 00:55:05 future and imagine themselves in other states they're constantly inventing things and chasing their own tails or rushing headlong for their own chains as he puts it they invent agriculture but 00:55:18 they can't see the consequences they invent cities but they can't see the consequences so we're talking about no imagination

      Rousseau was perfectly describing the intelligence and politics of Donald J. Trump when he described creatures which are like humans, but are "rushing headlong for their own chains". Trump was able to govern, but completely lacked the ability to imagine the consequences of any of his actions.


      Not sure what name Rousseau gave these creatures. Which book was this in? Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men?

  8. Nov 2021
    1. Though firmly rooted in Renaissance culture, Knight's carefully calibrated arguments also push forward to the digital present—engaging with the modern library archives where these works were rebound and remade, and showing how the custodianship of literary artifacts shapes our canons, chronologies, and contemporary interpretative practices.

      This passage reminds me of a conversation on 2021-11-16 at Liquid Margins with Will T. Monroe (@willtmonroe) about using Sönke Ahrens' book Smart Notes and Hypothes.is as a structure for getting groups of people (compared to Ahrens' focus on a single person) to do collection, curation, and creation of open education resources (OER).

      Here Jeffrey Todd Knight sounds like he's looking at it from the perspective of one (or maybe two) creators in conjunction (curator and binder/publisher) while I'm thinking about expanding behond

      This sort of pattern can also be seen in Mortimer J. Adler's group zettelkasten used to create The Great Books of the Western World series as well in larger wiki-based efforts like Wikipedia, so it's not new, but the question is how a teacher (or other leader) can help to better organize a community of creators around making larger works from smaller pieces. Robin DeRosa's example of using OER in the classroom is another example, but there, the process sounded much more difficult and manual.

      This is the sort of piece that Vannevar Bush completely missed as a mode of creation and research in his conceptualization of the Memex. Perhaps we need the "Inventiex" as a mode of larger group means of "inventio" using these methods in a digital setting?

    1. https://danallosso.substack.com/p/help-me-find-world-history-textbooks

      Dan Allosso is curious to look at the history of how history is taught.

      The history of teaching history is a fascinating topic and is an interesting way for cultural anthropologists to look at how we look at ourselves as well as to reveal subtle ideas about who we want to become.

      This is particularly interesting with respect to teaching cultural identity and its relationship to nationalism.

      One could look at the history of Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War to see how the South continued its cultural split from the North (or in more subtle subsections from Colin Woodard's American Nations thesis) to see how this has played out. This could also be compared to the current culture wars taking place with the rise of nationalism within the American political right and the Southern evangelicals which has come to a fervor with the rise of Donald J. Trump.

      Other examples are the major shifts in nationalism after the "long 19th century" which resulted in World War I and World War II and Germany's national identity post WWII.

    1. The longest running of theseis Francesco Sacchini,De ratione libros cum profectu legendi libellus(On Howto Read Books with Profit) first published in Latin in 1614 and as late as 1786in French and 1832 in German

      Mortimer J. Adler, eat your heart out.

  9. Oct 2021
  10. Sep 2021
    1. Book review (and cultural commentary) on Alex Beam's A Great Idea at the Time, (Public Affairs, 2008).

    2. the compilation of the Syntopicon alone took eight years
    3. “From the culture’s point of view, Adler was a dead white male who had the bad luck to still be alive.”

      This is a painful burn by the writer Alex Beam.

      Perhaps worth modifying for Donald J. Trump?

      From the perspective of the American experiment and the evolution of democracy, Donald J. Trump was a dead white male who had the bad luck to still be alive."

    4. In “A Great Idea at the Time,” Alex Beam presents Hutchins and Adler as a double act

      Just the title "A Great Idea at the Time" makes me wonder if this project didn't help speed along the creation of the dullness of the humanities and thereby attempt to kill it?

      What might they have done differently to better highlight the joy and fun of these works to have better encouraged it.

      Too often reformers reform all the joy out of things.

  11. Aug 2021
    1. Imitation did not mean exact reproduction; rather, words could be added or substracted, and a passage reworked in order to express the same or a contrary view (52)

      Tangential to my particular study, but consider the idea of Donald Trump as being an imitator within this framing. He would frequently float ideas at rallies (cf. George Lakoff) to see what would get a rise from the crowed and riff off of that. In some sense he's not leading, yet imitating the mobs.

  12. Jul 2021
    1. Among white people, 38 percent of college graduates voted for Trump, compared with 64 percent without college degrees. This margin—the great gap between Smart America and Real America—was the decisive one. It made 2016 different from previous elections, and the trend only intensified in 2020.

      Trumps margin.

      How can this gap be closed in the future?

    2. Because with her candidacy something new came into our national life that was also traditional. She was a western populist who embodied white identity politics—John the Baptist to the coming of Trump.

      Re: Sarah Palin

      I can definitely see his point here about the rise of (white) populism here in America which pre-figured Trump.

    1. 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. Reminded by Connor of Mortimer Adler's Syntopicon. I'm pretty sure I've got it in my list of encyclopedias growing out of the commonplace book tradition, but... just in case.

      If I recall it was compiled using index cards, thus also placing it in the zettelkasten tradition.

      (via Almay)

      If you’re generalizing Zettelkasten to “All Non-Linear Knowledge Management Strategies” You should include Mortimer Adler and the Syntopicon, and John Locke’s guide to how to set up a commonplace book<br><br>This isn’t a game of calling “dibs”<br><br>it’s about 🧠👶shttps://t.co/sH3JO6d9Jq

      — Conor White-Sullivan 𐃏🇸🇻 (@Conaw) July 8, 2021
      <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

    1. Jesse O’Shea MD, MSc on Twitter: “Okay Twitter! Here is the new vaccine side effect chart (aka reactogenicity) for FDA submitted COVID19 vaccines vs Shingrix & Flu. J&J’s Ad26.COV2.S has the least side effect profile of the COVID vaccines so far. Https://t.co/MFGzWDqQKZ” / Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved July 2, 2021, from https://twitter.com/JesseOSheaMD/status/1364645966826070016?s=20

    1. Ha! This is almost exactly what I expected it to be about.

      <small><cite class='h-cite via'> <span class='p-author h-card'>Alan Jacobs</span> in re-setting my mental clock – Snakes and Ladders (<time class='dt-published'>07/01/2021 14:58:05</time>)</cite></small>

  13. Jun 2021
    1. book black marxism which was just re-released to unc press

      the black radical tradition which is i think most um you know you know properly framed uh and uh through the work of cedric robinson um who talks about it um uh within the um book black marxism which was just re-released to unc press

      via autogenerated transcript

  14. May 2021
    1. Whether Trump can return to Facebook (and Instagram) will be determined on Wednesday morning, when Facebook’s Oversight Board offers its ruling on the company’s indefinite ban. Check TheWrap.com around 6:15 a.m. PT on Wednesday for an update.

      Let's hope that the answer is a resounding "NO!"

    2. You can check out the new platform — which is essentially a short-form blog — by heading to www.DonaldJTrump.com/desk.

      Apparently he's invented the idea of a microblog? And he's got a /desk page?

      What comes next?

      But let's be honest, he was posting these short status updates like this just a few days after he got kicked off of Twitter. He's just got a slightly better UI now.

  15. Apr 2021
    1. Jeremy Faust MD MS (ER physician) on Twitter: “Let’s talk about the background risk of CVST (cerebral venous sinus thrombosis) versus in those who got J&J vaccine. We are going to focus in on women ages 20-50. We are going to compare the same time period and the same disease (CVST). DEEP DIVE🧵 KEY NUMBERS!” / Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved April 15, 2021, from https://twitter.com/jeremyfaust/status/1382536833863651330

  16. Mar 2021
    1. This has taken off hugely.

      hugely used in context

      Apparently Donald Trumpisms are leaking into broader society, though even here it seems to be used ironically, thus also making fun of Trump himself.

    1. An interesting look at critical thinking applied to the example of Donald Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis and severity.

      Interesting take on metaepistemology and the idea of "authoritarian muscle memory".

    2. When his medical team held a press conference, one detail stood out: he had been given dexamethasone—a steroid that has been shown to greatly reduce mortality, but only when the patient was severely ill. In the early stages of the disease, the result was the opposite: it increased risk and negative outcomes. 

      I don't recall seeing/hearing reporting on this tidbit at the time.

    1. In the United States, with its misinformer in chief, all this occurred last year in the context of political interference with the C.D.C. and the Food and Drug Administration.

      I'm not sure if I've seen the phrase "misinformer in chief" as a reference to Donald J. Trump before, but it's apt.

  17. Feb 2021
  18. Jan 2021
    1. While he is well known for his unique speaking style and his once-frequent social media posts, in official settings his language has been quite similar to that of other presidents.

      Keep in mind, however, that in official settings, he's more often reading from a teleprompter and reading words which have been written for him by someone else.

      For exploration: consider Trump's "test balloon" language in front of crowds where he seems to be attempting to see what will get a rise out of his audience and supporters. What effect do these "what-about-isms" have over extended periods of time.

    1. President Trump rescinded an executive order early Wednesday morning that had limited federal administration officials from lobbying the government or working for foreign countries after they leave their posts, undoing one of the few measures he had instituted to fulfill his 2016 campaign promise to “drain the swamp.”

      He failed on so many of his campaign promises that it's incredible. The fact that he actively killed one of the few he could have actually upheld is just keeping in line with his lies, lack of transparency, and lack of honor.

  19. Dec 2020
    1. While SoulCycle was promoting a culture of community and belonging, it was also serving privileged adults indulging their worst impulses.

      Sounds like rule by a petty tyrant or maybe a current sitting president.... is it something in our culture that lets us do this? Whatever happened to the idea of meritocracy?

    1. I just write what I want. I write what amuses me. It’s totally for myself. I never in my wildest dreams expected this popularity.– J.K. Rowling
    1. This is why there are fewer opportunists in sensitive areas like security and infrastructure.

      And a solid reason why we can't have Trumps in power, because eventually a crisis will occur and it could be lethal at scale. See COVID-19 death toll in America.

    2. This is why there are fewer opportunists in sensitive areas like security and infrastructure.

      And a solid reason why we can't have Trumps in power, because eventually a crisis will occur and it could be lethal at scale. See COVID-19 death toll in America.

  20. Nov 2020
    1. The Trump team (and much of the GOP) is working backwards, desperately trying to find something, anything to support the president’s aggrieved feelings, rather than objectively considering the evidence and reacting as warranted.

      What do you expect after they've spent four years doing the same thing day in and day out?

    1. If this is populism, it’s an aggressive strain. Left-leaning historian Rick Perlstein calls Trump’s general appeal “herrenvolk democracy.” It’s not conservatism at all. It’s big government, and big government programs, but only for the deserving.
    1. What happens when the next would-be autocrat tries this strategy — and what if they are smoother, more strategic, more capable, than this one? This is not a story happening elsewhere. It is a story happening here, now.
    2. “Democracy works only when losers recognize that they have lost,” writes political scientist Henry Farrell. That will not happen here.
  21. Oct 2020
    1. President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden will compete for TV audiences in dueling town halls on Thursday night instead of meeting face-to-face for their second debate as originally planned.

      Finally the sort of competition that Trump can understand: it's a ratings race!

    1. mmentary. It also includes many annotated newspaper and magazine articles.An articMaha Bali2 weeks agowould be nice to include a screenshot. Also, I feel like I need to read up on Cambodian history to understand the significance of this particular royal - you don’t explicitly talk about how he is using power here. Was he trying to influence public opinion, was he just annotating for his own knowledge and learning, what kind of power is at play here?(I also wonder if the whole leaders having “right to express freely their view” does not work to anyone’s favor in the case of Donald Trump, so I would contest this strongly. That freedom of expression for political leaders maybe should be weighted differently than for the general population, no? As it has broader consequences for the entire country or even the world…

      I nearly added it above in the opening, but Maha’s comment reminds me of it again. In a countercultural way, a web developer created a browser plugin that will re-format all of Donald Trump’s tweets to appear as if they were written in crayon by an eight year old: http://maketrumptweetseightagain.com/

      While not technically annotation in a “traditional” form discussed in the text so far—though close from the perspective of the redaction technique mentioned above—, by reformatting the font of Trumps tweets, it completely changes their context, meaning, and political weight.

    2. And would a hip hop fan question, much less downvote, a “verified” Genius annotation authored by Kendrick Lamar that explains the meaning behind his music?

      But if we're going to consider music as art, isn't a lot of the value and power of art in the "eye of the beholder"? To some extent art's value is in the fact that it can have multiple interpretations. From this perspective, once it's been released, Lamar's music isn't "his" anymore, it becomes part of a broader public that will hear and interpret it as they want to. So while Lamar may go back and annotate what he may have meant at the time as an "expert", doesn't some of his art thereby lose some power in that he is tacitly stating that he apparently didn't communicate his original intent well?

      By comparison and for contrast one could take the recent story of Donald Trump's speech (very obviously written by someone else) about the recent mass shootings and compare them with the polar opposite message he spews on an almost daily basis from his Twitter account. See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/teleprompter-trump-meets-twitter-trump-as-the-president-responds-to-mass-slayings/2019/08/05/cdd8ea78-b799-11e9-b3b4-2bb69e8c4e39_story.html

    3. and annotation can tell us why that alternative view matters..d-undefined, .lh-undefined { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) !important; }.d-undefined, .lh-undefined { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5) !important; }1Troy Hicks With this potential social function, we are reminded that annotation is not neutral as it helps those who add notes to texts produce new discourses and knowledge.

      I wonder how better, big data being overlaid on virtual reality may be helpful to the currently marginalized in the future? Would it be useful to have shared data about businesses and practices that tend to marginalize people further? I recall an African-American comedian recently talking about the Confederate Flag in a (Netflix?) comedy special. They indicated that the flag actually had some worthwhile uses and reminisced driving on rural highways at night looking for a place to stay. When they saw that flag flying over a motel, they knew better to keep driving and stay at another hotel further down the road. In this case, the flag over the hotel not-so-subtly annotated the establishment itself.

      I perceive a lot of social slights and institutionalized racism as being of a marginal sort which are designed to be bothersome to some while going wholly unnoticed by others. What if it were possible to aggregate the data on a broader basis to bring these sorts of marginal harms to the forefront for society to see them? As an example, consider big companies doing marginal harms to a community's environment over time, but going generally unnoticed until the company has long since divested and/or disappeared. It's hard to sue them for damages decades later, but if one could aggregate the bigger harms upfront and show those annotated/aggregated data up front, then they could be stopped before they got started.

      As a more concrete example, the Trump Management Corporation was hit with a consent decree in the early 1970's for prejudicial practices against people of color including evidence that was subpoenaed showing that applications for people of color were annotated with a big "C" on them. Now consider if all individuals who had made those applications had shared some of their basic data into a pool that could have been accessed and analyzed by future applicants, then perhaps the Trumps would have been caught far earlier. Individuals couldn't easily prove discrimination because of the marginal nature of the discrimination, but data in aggregate could have potentially saved the bigger group.

    1. It has become banal to point out that almost any of these would have constituted a monumental scandal under any other president, but it remains true and important.
    2. The most important takeaway Tuesday is that the president’s own former personal attorney pleaded guilty to breaking campaign-finance laws at his alleged direction.
    1. Both books belong to one of today’s most important genres: the Not-About-Trump-But-Also-Sort-Of-About-Trump, or N.A.T.B.A.S.O.A.T., book.
    1. The President's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.

      So the better judgement of others has apparently kept Trump out of trouble?

    2. if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

      TL;DR

      This summary is not what Trump or even Barr have been indicating in their communications.

      Barr's statement on the day of the release of the redacted report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aHPFh2HfSM

    3. Under OLC's analysis, Congress can permissibly criminalize ce1tain obstructive conduct by the President, such as suborning perjury, intimidating witnesses, or fabricating evidence, because those prohibitions raise no separation-of-powers questions. See Application of 28 U.S.C. § 458 to Presidential Appointments of Federal Judges, 19 Op. O.L.C. at 357 n.11. The Constitution does not authorize the President to engage in such conduct, and those actions would transgress the President's duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." U.S. CONST. ART IT, §§ 3. In view of those clearly permissible applications of the obstruction statutes to the President, Franklin's holding that the President is entirely excluded from a statute absent a clear statement would not apply in this context.

      Since the DoJ won't indict a sitting president, here's a direct suggestion of what Congress could do.

    1. Trump’s online and email fundraising generated a record $239 million in small-dollar donations, far more than Hillary Clinton’s and more than two-thirds of his donation total, according to the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute. This made Trump competitive in a race where he was outspent nearly 2 to 1.

      Not to mention the free media he was getting from the mainstream media who covered the spectacle.

    2. One previously unreported example: Since Trump’s election in 2016, critical “voter scores” — sophisticated polling-based analytics that the RNC provides to party committees and candidates — have conspicuously omitted an essential detail for any down-ballot race: how voters in specific states and congressional districts feel about Trump. Republican insiders believe these analytics are being withheld to try and prevent GOP candidates from publicly distancing themselves from the president or leaking unfavorable results that embarrass Trump.

      I'm curious if the DNC would provide these numbers to those candidates? Is there potentially other sources for this data?

    3. More conspicuously, since Trump’s election, the RNC — at his campaign’s direction — has excluded critical “voter scores” on the president from the analytics it routinely provides to GOP candidates and committees nationwide, with the aim of electing down-ballot Republicans. Republican consultants say the Trump information is being withheld for two reasons: to discourage candidates from distancing themselves from the president, and to avoid embarrassing him with poor results that might leak. But they say its concealment harms other Republicans, forcing them to campaign without it or pay to get the information elsewhere.
    1. He lost to New York billionaire Donald Trump,

      Is he really a "billionaire"?! I thought the Times' own reporting had refuted this pretty soundly?

    2. He negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, a measure that was ratified by the Senate in President Bill Clinton’s first term.

      Interesting that he dies on the same day that Trump declares victory over the death of NAFTA.

    1. what a great job you are doing

      As pointed out in this sister article (https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/05/trump-isis-losers/527925/) Trump only seems to be able to put things into perspective by either winners or losers. He doesn't seem to be able to see any of the other subtleties.

    1. Perhaps this very prospect of centuries of boredom at the end of history will serve to get history started once again.

      Has it started again with nationalism, racism, and Trump?

    2. anomie

      I feel like this word captures very well the exact era of Trumpian Republicanism in which we find ourselves living.

    1. A lot of Democrats believe in what is called Enlightenment reasoning, and that if you just tell people the facts, they’ll reach the right conclusion. That just isn’t true.
    2. I take your point, but I wonder if Trump is just kryptonite for a liberal democratic system built on a free press.

      The key words being "free press" with free meaning that we're free to exert intelligent editorial control.

      Editors in the early 1900's used this sort of editorial control not to give fuel to racists and Nazis and reduce their influence.Cross reference: Face the Racist Nation from On the Media.

      Apparently we need to exert the same editorial control with respect to Trump, who not incidentally is giving significant fuel to the racist fire as well.

    1. there must be other factors that got us Trump

      Primarily people not really knowing how racisit and horrible he really was in addition to his inability to think clearly, logically, or linearly. He espoused a dozen or so simple aphorisms like "Build the wall," but was absolutely unable to indicate a plan that went beyond the aphorism. How will it be implemented, funded, what will the short and long term issues that result. He had none of those things that many others presumed would be worked out as details by smart and intelligent people rather than the "just do it" managerial style he has been shown to espouse.

      Too many republicans, particularly at the end said, "he's not really that bad" and now that he's in power and more authoritarian than they expected are too weak to admit their mistake.

    1. Responding to Axios' reporting, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders emailed this statement: "President Trump has a different leadership style than his predecessors and the results speak for themselves."

      They just don't say very much or anything very good.

    1. When people do inexplicable things, it’s always tempting to project qualities onto them that would offer a more innocuous explanation of their behavior than bad judgment, fecklessness, or stupidity. And this particular bias has infected contemporary political analysis with a virulence that rivals Ebola. Even when the subject’s motives are as transparent as Donald Trump’s, there will always be a class of pundit who insists that Trump is playing 3-D chess, when, as one anonymous staffer put it, “more often than not he’s just eating the pieces.” 
    1. Rather than a complete totalitarianism based on fear and blocking of information the newer methods include demonizing online mediums, and mobilizing armies of supporters or paid employees who muddy the online waters with misinformation, information glut, doubt, confusion, harrasment, and dis-traction, making it hard for ordinary people to navigate the networked pub-lic sphere, and sort facts from fiction, truth from hoaxes.

      Sometimes it seems like Trump does this as a one man band.

    1. That they are defending a person who is fundamentally malicious, even if he makes judicial appointments of which they approve, is too painful for them to admit.

      But surely in the multi-millions of Republicans, they could find someone who could also appoint those judges, but not have the myriad moral failings that Trump does. For surely if they can't, then they're doomed to failure and misery sooner or later.

    1. Finally it is worth noting that trust, through the theory of social capital, has been connected with long-term economic growth—even though these results are based on regressions using extremely sparse datasets.

      And this is an example of how Trump is hurting the economy.

    1. People claiming that Trump said nothing racist may not be exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer on questions of sociology, and Trump himself is, on that score, a plastic spoon.

      This could make a great political cartoon... a Republican drawer full of sharp knives and a pitiful Trump plastic spoon.

    2. We can’t get into Trump’s head here. He may be feigning numbness to the nuances of racist as a power ploy. Or he may genuinely not perceive the racism in his current rhetoric. I suspect he may not, for the simple reason that to imagine how he would feel about a straight-talking Finn in Congress would require a thought experiment, and nothing the man has ever said or done suggests the remotest inclination or ability to process layers, hypotheticals, or subtlety. A man clueless enough to accidentally give away to a national television reporter that he fired James Comey to detract from the investigation of his ties to Russia doesn’t do intersectionality.

      just searing!

    1. Take a look at the overlap of this philosophy with early Norman Vincent Peale's philosophy which apparently heavily influenced the Trump family.

    2. It’s difficult to say that the prosperity gospel itself led to Donald Trump’s inauguration. Again, only 17 percent of American Christians identify with it explicitly. It’s far more true, however, to say that the same cultural forces that led to the prosperity gospel’s proliferation in America — individualism, an affinity for ostentatious and charismatic leaders, the Protestant work ethic, and a cultural obsession with the power of “positive thinking” — shape how we, as a nation, approach politics.

      Power of Positive Thinking is a book by Norman Vincent Peale and provides the direct link to influence on Trump here.

      Also interesting to note the 17% number which can potentially be a threshold level for splitting a community or society from a game theoretic perspective. (Note: I should dig up the reference and re-read it.)

    1. Firms should not be owned and managed by people who survive because of their connections to government or their privileged birth: Capitalism is dynamic when owners or managers succeed because they are good at delivering high-quality goods and services at a competitive price. This is more likely to be a failure when the other two factors above are not working well.

      Here is where we're likely to fail in the United States by following the example of Donald Trump, who ostensibly has survived solely off the wealth of his father's dwindling empire. With that empire gone, he's now turning to creating wealth by associating with the government. We should carefully follow where this potentially leads the country.

    1. In February, a friend pointed out to me that years ago Donald Trump lied about the size of Trump Towers, claiming he lived on the 66th to 68th floors. Here’s the thing: Trump Tower has only 58 floors, according to New York City documents. So Trump lied about even this, as he lies about virtually everything else. (In fact, Trump has lied about the height of several of his buildings, including Trump World Tower, which he claimed has 90 floors. In fact, it has 70.)If Biden were to use this story at the beginning of a debate, perhaps even before Trump’s first lie, the former vice president, when hearing a lie, could simply say, “Donald, we’re at the 66th floor again.” This response would certainly be more effective than repeatedly calling Trump a liar and serving as a fact-checker for the entire debate. Biden has to find a way to quickly name what’s happening and move on.

      This sort of framing is fascinating to me.

      "We're on the 66th floor again."

    1. Critics, including Sarah Posner and Joe Conason, maintain that prosperity teachers cultivate authoritarian organizations. They argue that leaders attempt to control the lives of adherents by claiming divinely-bestowed authority.[63] Jenkins contends that prosperity theology is used as a tool to justify the high salaries of pastors.

      This would seem to play out in current American culture which seems to be welcoming of an authoritarian president.

    1. When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.

      Searing words.

    1. Gradually, we begin to conflate visibility with value. If something is being talked about and seen, we assume that it must be important in some way. – An Illustrated Guide to Guy Debord’s ‘The Society of the Spectacle’

      And in an over-saturated media space, this is exactly the sort of thing that lands us a narcissistic and incompetent president.

    1. Abandoning democracy and social solidarity, the Californian Ideology dreams of a digital nirvana inhabited solely by liberal psychopaths.

      And nearly twenty years later, isn't that roughly what we've got? (aside from the digital nirvana, which didn't work out so well.)

    1. Dow swings 600 points after Trump rejects stimulus plan

      Given his past history of insider trading and stock market manipulation, I can't help but think that Trump makes statements and does activities like this to influence the markets directly like this.

      The question is who is colluding with him and where is the money going? How is it being hidden? Is it foreign (Russian) investors? Is he dumb enough to be doing it from within his own company?

    1. Whom exactly were we trusting with our care? Why did we decide to trust them in the first place? Who says that only certain kinds of people are allowed to give us the answers?

      Part of the broader cultural eschewing of science as well? Is this part of what put Trump and celebrities in charge?

  22. Jul 2020
  23. May 2020
    1. still took years before it paid off handsomely.

      In economics, this same concept is known as the J Curve (https://www.wikiwand.com/en/J_curve)

  24. Jan 2019
    1. Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out. [ Urbigenous Library ]

      On page 63 of Paul J. Nahin's book "Holy Sci-Fi!: Where Science Fiction and Religion Intersect" written on the chapter with the heading "Time, Space, God's Omniscience and Free Will"; he writes about the required timing for the stars to go out at just the exact time: "The required omniscience of God's part is, of course, due to the finite speed of light. Many (if not nearly all) of those stars must have been extinguished by God long ago, long before King Tut was born (and certainly before the priests even began their work three centuries before), in order for their synchronous vanishing to appear on Earth just as the Mark V finishes its job and when George and Chuck look towards the heavens"

  25. Sep 2018
  26. Jul 2017
  27. Jan 2017
  28. Oct 2016
    1. Online

      data:image/png;base64,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

  29. Mar 2016
    1. scienceWhen the actor Michael J. Fox was in the initial stages of creating his foundation forresearch on Parkinson’s Disease, he came to recognize the negative impact thatcompetition among scientific groups has on the overall progress of research on thedisease. The director of one group actually said to him, ‘‘Well, if you don’t help us,then, at least, don’t help them’’ [1, p. 236]. Such was his introduction to thecompetitive world of U.S. science.

      Anecdote about how Michael J. Fox discovered scientific competition when he set up his foundation for Parkinson's disease.

  30. Feb 2016
    1. If voting fraud is the third oldest profession, and if it is somehow rampant in all these states that have Republican leaders at their helm, then there should be reasonable ways to combat it

      If this is factual, how possible is it that an end will be put to this, and what will it take?