642 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2022
  2. blogs.baruch.cuny.edu blogs.baruch.cuny.edu
    1. ORA. We're to find out if it’s Michael’s they are, some time

      Historically, the knitting patterns of sweaters were used to help identify drowned men

    1. Every intellectual endeavour starts from an already existingpreconception, which then can be transformed during further inquiresand can serve as a starting point for following endeavours. Basically,that is what Hans-Georg Gadamer called the hermeneutic circle

      (Gadamer 2004).

      All intellectual endeavors start from a preexisting set of ideas. These can then be built upon to create new concepts which then influence the original starting point and may continue ever expanding with further thought.


      Ahrens argues that most writing advice goes against the idea of the hermeneutic circle and pretends as if the writer is starting with a blank page. This can prefigure some of the stress and difficulty Ernest Hemingway spoke of when he compared writing to "facing the white bull which is paper with no words on it."

      While it can be convenient to think of the idea of tabula rasa, in practice it really doesn't exist. As a result the zettelkasten more readily shows its value in the writing process.

    2. Permanent notes, on the other hand, are written in a way that canstill be understood even when you have forgotten the context theyare taken from.

      Integrate this into the definition of permanent notes.

      Fleeting notes are context collapse (context apocalypse?) just waiting to happen.

    3. Make permanent notes.

      The important part of permanent notes are generating your own ideas and connecting (linking them densely) into your note system. The linking part is important and can be the part that most using digital systems forget to do. In paper zettelkasten, one was forced to create the first link by placing the note into the system for the first time. This can specifically be seen in Niklas Luhmann's example where a note became a new area of its own or, far more likely, it was linked to prior ideas.

      By linking the idea to others within the system, it becomes more likely that the idea can have additional multiple contexts where it might be used and improve the fact that context shifts will prove more insight in the future.

      Additional links to subject headings, tags, categories, or other forms of taxonomy will also help to make sure the note isn't lost completely into the system. Links to the bibliographical references within the system are helpful as well, especially for later citation. Keep in mind that these categories and reference links aren't nearly as valuable as the other primary idea links.

      One can surely collect ideas and facts into their system, but these aren't as important or as interesting as one's own ideas and the things that are sparked and generated by them.

      Asking questions in permanent notes can be valuable as they can become the context for new research, projects, and writing. Open questions can be incredibly valuable for one's thinking and explorations.

    4. Make literature notes. Whenever you read something, make notesabout the content. Write down what you don’t want to forget or thinkyou might use in your own thinking or writing. Keep it very short, beextremely selective, and use your own words.

      Literature notes could also be considered progressive summaries of what one has read. They are also a form of practicing the Feynman technique where one explains what one knows as a means of embracing an idea and better understanding it.

    5. By adding these links between notes, Luhmann was able to addthe same note to different contexts.

      By crosslinking one's notes in a hypertext-like manner one is able to give them many different contexts. This linking and context shifting is a solid method for helping one's ideas to have sex with each other as a means of generating new ideas.


      Is there a relationship between this idea of context shifting and modality shifting? Are these just examples of building blocks for tools of thought? Are they sifts on different axes? When might they be though of as the same? Compare and contrast this further.

    1. The hermeneutic circle (German: hermeneutischer Zirkel) describes the process of understanding a text hermeneutically. It refers to the idea that one's understanding of the text as a whole is established by reference to the individual parts and one's understanding of each individual part by reference to the whole. Neither the whole text nor any individual part can be understood without reference to one another, and hence, it is a circle. However, this circular character of interpretation does not make it impossible to interpret a text; rather, it stresses that the meaning of a text must be found within its cultural, historical, and literary context.

      The hermeneutic circle is the idea that understanding a text in whole is underpinned by understanding its constituent parts and understanding the individual parts is underpinned by understanding the whole thereby making a circle of understanding. This understanding of a text is going to be heavily influenced by a text's cultural, historical, literary, and other contexts.

    1. Highlighting would be a crude form of knowledge telling. Knowledge transforming involves interpretation on the part of the content producer.

      Scholars who study writing differentiate between knowledge telling and knowledge transforming.

      Highlighting can be seen as a weak form of knowledge telling. It's a low level indicator that an idea is important, but doesn't even go so far as the reader strengthening the concept by restating the idea in their own words similar to the Feynman technique.

      One could go steps further by not only restating it but transforming it and linking it into one's larger body of knowledge or extending into other contexts.

  3. Jan 2022
    1. We might stumble across the above unanswered HQ&A note. Giving us a starting point can use it as a springboard to make the research and writing process faster. That's all part of achieving more with less by using yesterday's momentum.

      Remembering and being able to more quickly recall prior contexts allows our thinking to build momentum.

    1. An over-reliance on numbers often leads to bias and discrimination.

      By their nature, numbers can create an air of objectivity which doesn't really exist and may be hidden by the cultural context one is working within. Be careful not to create an over-reliance on numbers. Particularly in social and political situations this reliance on numbers and related statistics can create dramatically increased bias and discrimination. Numbers may create a part of the picture, but what is being left out or not measured? Do the numbers you have with respect to your area really tell the whole story?

    2. Different people have different responses to technology, even on the same platform. Scholars call this phenomenon “differential susceptibility” to media effects among a subgroup of people, and it holds equally for the differential well-being and mental health impacts of social media on young adults.

      Differential susceptibility is a technical term used to describe the ways that different people and different groups have different responses to technology even on the same platform. Similar versions of it can be applied to other areas outside of technology, which is but one target. Other areas include differential well-being and mental health.


      It could also be applied to drug addiction as some are more susceptible to becoming addicted to nicotine than others. Which parts of this might be nature, nurture, culture, etc.

    1. One could say: there must be a local solution (i.e. connection or internal fit)only. This indicates, accordingly, that the positioning of a special subject within this system of organizationreveals nothing about its theoretical importance — for there are no privileged positions in this web of notes:there is no top and no bottom

      While it may be important that there are no privileged positions, hierarchies, or immediate structures within Luhmann's (or others') zettelkasten, this belies the value of making (even by force) at least one link from each new note to the other notes. This helps begin to create the valuable interconnections of the system which are crucial for later use. Without this "linking hierarchy" one is left with just a pile of notes which will need the aforementioned additional work and context.

    1. By “progress,” we mean the combination of economic, technological, scientific, cultural, and organizational advancement that has transformed our lives and raised standards of living over the past couple of centuries.

      Is progress necessarily teleological? What differentiates it from simple change? What is the measure(s) that indicates progress?

      One's present context is always going to dictate whether or not an innovation should be considered progress.

    1. This system of short annotations was conceived to de-contextualize information and free it from pre-structured meaning frames that would otherwise remove the possibility of further variety. Moreover, it could be expanded without limits in terms of both number and possible meaning combinations. Finally, it allowed a continuous (and recur-sive) improvement of open-ended combinatory performances, thereby shift-ing the burden of recollection from contents to indexing systems.74

      In a valuable article, Lorraine Daston, ‘Perché i fatti sono brevi?’, Quaderni storici 108 (2001), 745–70, esp. 756–59, noted that a clear analogy exists between these features and the art of excerpting.

      Can one trick oneself into forced context collapse with relation to the material one is reading in such a way so as to force surprise and the creation of new ideas by then re-contextualizing them into one's system of notes?

    2. 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. Most of us simply take it for granted that ‘Western’observers, even seventeenth-century ones, are simply an earlierversion of ourselves;

      It is likely a good broad generality that from a historical perspective, those looking at people from the past do so by considering them simply an earlier version of ourselves.

      This sort of isocultural cognitive bias is something to be very cognizant of particularly in cases without extensive context as it is likely to cause massive context collapse.

    1. Because there’s no need for context/app switching.

      Rebuilding one's earlier context and switching between apps are tremendous sinks of time and energy when writing, thinking, and creating.

      It's better to get as much done as possible in the present so as not to need to do all the work over again later.

  4. Dec 2021
    1. I’d fallen into the trap that the philosopher Jacques Derrida identified in an interview from the mid-nineties. “With the computer, everything is rapid and so easy,” he complained. “An interminable revision, an infinite analysis is already on the horizon.”

      This also ignores the context of a writing space that is optimized for the reading, thinking and writing process.

      Digital contexts often bring in a raft of other problems and issues that may provide too much.

    1. When sending links to a page by email consider following links from the beginning to the page of interest and sending the whole sequence to provide context.

      Interesting to see this same sort of contextual background here as in TiddlyWiki which calls the space a "river". TiddlyWiki does this in a vertical scrolling space where as Federated Wiki does it horizontally.

    1. Possibility of linking (Verweisungsmöglichkeiten). Since all papers have fixed numbers, you can add as many references to them as you may want. Central concepts can have many links which show on which other contexts we can find materials relevant for them.

      Continuing on the analogy between addresses for zettels/index cards and for people, the differing contexts for cards and ideas is similar to the multiple different publics in which people operate (home, work, school, church, etc.)

      Having these multiple publics creates a variety of cross links within various networks for people which makes their internal knowledge and relationships more valuable.

      As societies grow the number of potential interconnections grows as well. Compounding things the society doesn't grow as a homogeneous whole but smaller sub-groups appear creating new and different publics for each member of the society. This is sure to create a much larger and much more complex system. Perhaps it's part of the beneficial piece of the human limit of memory of inter-personal connections (the Dunbar number) means that instead of spending time linearly with those physically closest to us, we travel further out into other spheres and by doing so, we dramatically increase the complexity of our societies.

      Does this level of complexity change for oral societies in pre-agrarian contexts?


      What would this look like mathematically and combinatorially? How does this effect the size and complexity of the system?


      How can we connect this to Stuart Kauffman's ideas on complexity? (Picking up a single thread creates a network by itself...)

    1. Hobbes and Rousseau told their contemporaries things that werestartling, profound and opened new doors of the imagination. Nowtheir ideas are just tired common sense. There’s nothing in them thatjustifies the continued simplification of human affairs. If socialscientists today continue to reduce past generations to simplistic,two-dimensional caricatures, it is not so much to show us anythingoriginal, but just because they feel that’s what social scientists areexpected to do so as to appear ‘scientific’. The actual result is toimpoverish history – and as a consequence, to impoverish our senseof possibility.

      The simplification required to make models and study systems can be a useful tool, but one constantly needs to go back to the actual system to make sure that future predictions and work actually fit the real world system.

      Too often social theorists make assumptions which aren't supported in real life and this can be a painfully dangerous practice, especially when those assumptions are built upon in ways that put those theories out on a proverbial creaking limb.


      This idea is related to the bias that Charles Mathewes points out about how we treat writers as still living or as if they never lived. see: https://hypothes.is/a/VTU2lFvZEeyiJ2tN76i4sA

    2. Most of the people we will beconsidering in this book are long since dead. It is no longer possibleto have any sort of conversation with them. We are nonethelessdetermined to write prehistory as if it consisted of people one wouldhave been able to talk to, when they were still alive – who don’t just

      exist as paragons, specimens, sock-puppets or playthings of some inexorable law of history.

      This is similar to a problem that Charles Mathewes has pointed out about history and historical writing: Too often we act as if the writer never died and also we forget that the writer ever lived in the real world.

      Peoples' context matters.

      Cross reference: Lecture 1 of [[[The City of God (Books that Matter)]]

    1. The Lady

      A video analyzing John William Waterhouse's 1888 painting, The Lady of Shalott, giving historical background of the painting and how its influenced by Tennyson's poem. Video

    2. Camelot

      Camelot is mythical city in Great Britain. Its a central symbol in many Tennyson poem's especially The Lady of Shalott. The following link gives information about Camelot and its context in literature. Camelot

    3. Part 2

      In part 1 of The Lady of Shalott, Tennyson takes time to establish the setting of the poem. He describes a castle tower on an island called Shalott, located in a river. Along the river there are beautiful willow trees and small sail boats which travel down the river towards the city of Camelot. In the tower, there is a mysterious lady that no one has ever seen, The Lady of Shalott.

  5. Nov 2021
    1. And then they met— the offspring of Skywoman and the children of Eve— and the land around us bears the scars of that meeting, the echoes of our stories.

      There's a subtle sense of repetition here. She frames the result of the meeting in two different cultures: a Western-centric one and an Indigenous one. The Western result is a "scar", but it's retranslated into "echoes of our stories" from the indigenous perspective.

    2. Our elders say that ceremonies are the way we “remember to remember,”

      The Western word "ceremony" is certainly not the best word for describing these traditions. It has too much baggage and hidden meaning with religious overtones. It's a close-enough word to convey some meaning to those who don't have the cultural background to understand the underlying orality and memory culture. It is one of those words that gets "lost in translation" because of the dramatic differences in culture and contextual collapse.

      Most Western-based anthropology presumes a Western idea of "religion" and impinges it upon oral cultures. I would maintain that what we would call their "religion" is really an oral-based mnemonic tradition that creates the power of their culture through knowledge. The West mistakes this for superstitious religious practices, but primarily because we can't see (or have never been shown) the larger structures behind what is going on. Our hubris and lack of respect (the evils of the scala naturae) has prevented us from listening and gaining entrance to this knowledge.

      I think that the archaeological ideas of cultish practices or ritual and religion are all more likely better viewed as oral practices of mnemonic tradition. To see this more easily compare the Western idea of the memory palace with the Australian indigenous idea of songline.

    1. When context keeps the meaning clear. What the authors talking about. He’s having a clear message. So people understand what is going on. But sometimes the message can be unclear. And people can take it the wrong way. Communication is complicated especially when you are talking to somebody through text. I think it is easier to talk to somebody face-to-face or on the phone or in a zoom meeting. That is a clear message to me. The messages that I can’t translate. Or mostly text, but sometimes to understand what is going on I would have to ask them multiple questions to get the clear answer.Context of everything and we take it for granted.

    1. But the real, and nonpartisan, lesson is this: No one—of any age, in any profession—is safe. In the age of Zoom, cellphone cameras, miniature recorders, and other forms of cheap surveillance technology, anyone’s comments can be taken out of context; anyone’s story can become a rallying cry for Twitter mobs on the left or the right. Anyone can then fall victim to a bureaucracy terrified by the sudden eruption of anger. And once one set of people loses the right to due process, so does everybody else. Not just professors but students; not just editors of elite publications but random members of the public.
    2. Twitter, the president of one major cultural institution told me, “is the new public sphere.” Yet Twitter is unforgiving, it is relentless, it doesn’t check facts or provide context.
    3. But dig into the story of anyone who has been a genuine victim of modern mob justice and you will often find not an obvious argument between “woke” and “anti-woke” perspectives but rather incidents that are interpreted, described, or remembered by different people in different ways, even leaving aside whatever political or intellectual issue might be at stake.

      Cancel culture and modern mob justice are possible as the result of volumes of more detail and data as well as large doses of context collapse.

      In some cases, it's probably justified to help level the playing field for those in power who are practicing hypocrisy, but in others, it's simply a lack of context by broader society who have kneejerk reactions which have the ability to be "remembered" by broader society with search engines.

      How might Google allow the right to forget to serve as a means of restorative justice?

  6. Oct 2021
    1. social annotation

      Had I known about Hypothesis at the time of my collaboration with Ilaria Forte, I likely would have suggested this as a tool for documenting the stream of consciousness, collecting stories in the context of the media that people are experiencing on the web.

    1. lacks any of the signifiers of authority and grandeur. Her history-making rise is not telegraphed by a formal setting, a business suit or a confrontational stance. The only thing that announces the importance of the picture is the woman in it.

      I believe that this clearly explains the issue, the physical print does not portray Kamala Harris as the vice-president of the United States.

  7. Sep 2021
    1. Us canonized for Love.

      Certain 16th-century editions of the Italian poet Petrarch's works were affixed with a woodcut of an urn containing the ashes of lovers, along with a Phoenix. Donne is credited with moving away from a Petrarchan tradition in poetry, and would have been well-acquainted with this work.

      Source: The Poems of John Donne: Volume One, edited by Robin Robbins (Routledge)

    2. eagle and the dove

      The eagle and the dove have been called upon by many different authors to represent a range of relationships. These include "predatory appetite and power versus submissive gentleness," "strength and tender purity," "pleasure and sorrow," and "the active and contemplative lives."

      Source: The Poems of John Donne: Volume One, edited by Robin Robbins (Routledge)

    3. Note on History of Poetry:

      Donne wrote The Canonization around the turn of the 17th century, a time when European poetry was ruled by Petrarchan sonnets. Some attempts, including by C.S. Lewis have been made to categorize poets of this era (Lewis used "drab and "Golden", others; "plain" and "eloquent") but the spectrum of poets defies easy categorization. One important aspect of the time period was the innovation of language itself. Poetry and literature were moving away from Latin and French, and vernacular English continued to develop.

      Source: English Poetry in the Sixteenth Century, Nasrullah Mambrol (Research Scholar, Department of Studies in English, Kannur University)

    4. The Canonization

      The final trick of this Donne poem comes from a historical impact he is unlikely to have predicted. After all, he never published his own poems. And yet, 400+ years later, his lyrics are still studied by scholars and students. He has been canonized in the literary sense. Furthermore, as love poems like this are some of his best-known, his love has in fact been canonized.

    5. General Historical Note:

      Donne likely writes this poem at the very beginning of the 17th century, though it could have been anywhere from the 1590s until the 1620s. This range came at the end of the Elizabethan period and contains the reign of James I, the first Stuart monarch. This was a period of great growth for England, with increasing naval power leading to the formation of the East India company, as well as the colony of Jamestown, expanding the power of the British empire in both hemispheres.

      Sources: The Late Tudors, England 1547-1603; British Museum

    1. One complicating issue when trying to make sense across multiple communities is that not only do different communities have different cultures and practices, but also different epistemologies: different languages to describe their community and the soci(et)al context it operates in, with often different meanings attached to the terminologies used.
    1. Jot down connections and tangential thoughts, underline key passages, and make a habit of building a dialogue with the author(s).

      Some people consider annotations to be a conversation with the author. But you're also having a conversation with yourself and your own thoughts. (Cross reference Niklas Luhmann's having a conversation with himself via his notes.)

      Further, there are platforms like Hypothes.is or social platforms like Twitter where you can move the conversation out of the page and engage with others. However, for this Hypothes.is has more power because it keeps the conversation linked to the original text and the original context (which I'll explicitly translate here as "with the text") to underline the point.

      cf:

      cum (Latin) : with

      textus (Latin) : tissue, web, texture, fabric, connection, language

      contextus (Latin) : context, connection, coherence, connexion, coherency, text

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

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

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

  8. Aug 2021
    1. All consumers that are descendants of a Provider will re-render whenever the Provider’s value prop changes
    1. How does the historian decidewho is, or was, important enough tobe included? That is, who should be at the center of the story,who should be at the periphery, andwho should be left out entirely?

      These are really great questions that are raised by the authors. Prior to this, I have not really considered or questioned who gets chosen to "represent" Psychology or why we are learning about them (e.g. Freud, Watson) over other theorists. This also relates to the reading by Conolly-Smith on Historiography which brings up the importance of questioning "who writes history, with what agenda in mind, and towards what ends?“ demonstrating that there is a purpose to the Psychological knowledge that gets recorded and remembered.

    1. My personal summary is that new context is ready to be used for low frequency unlikely updates (like locale/theme). It's also good to use it in the same way as old context was used. I.e. for static values and then propagate updates through subscriptions. It's not ready to be used as a replacement for all Flux-like state propagation.
    2. One problem with the "Context vs Redux" discussions is that people often actually mean "I'm using useReducer to manage my state, and Context to pass down that value". But, they never state that explicitly - they just say "I'm using Context". That's a common cause of the confusion I see, and it's really unfortunate because it helps perpetuate the idea that Context "manages state"
    3. createContext() was designed to solve that problem, so that any update to a value will be seen in child components even if a component in the middle skips rendering.
    1. The Redux FAQ has some rules of thumb to help decide whether state should go in Redux, or stay in a component.In addition, if you separate your state by domain (by having multiple domain-specific contexts), then the problem is less pronounced as well.
    1. Named after Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, in psychology the Zeigarnik effect occurs when an activity that has been interrupted may be more readily recalled. It postulates that people remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks. In Gestalt psychology, the Zeigarnik effect has been used to demonstrate the general presence of Gestalt phenomena: not just appearing as perceptual effects, but also present in cognition.

      People remember interrupted or unfinished tasks better than completed tasks.

      Examples: I've had friends remember where we left off on conversations months/years later and we picked right back up.

      I wonder what things effect these memories/abilities? Context? Importance? Other?

    1. Seit Montag dürfen die Berliner Friseursalons wieder öffnen. Da diese unter einem anderen Paragraphen erfasst sind als die körpernahen Dienstleistungen, trifft die Testpflicht für Mitarbeiter hier nicht zu.

      § 17 (1) S. 1, 2 2. InfSchMV

    2. Die Beschränkung der Bewegungsfreiheit, die sogenannte 15-Kilometer-Regel, bei hohen Inzidenzen fällt weg.

      § 2 (1a) 2. InfSchMV

    1. Damit besteht nun in Berlin eine regelmäßige Testpflicht für Zehntausende Menschen - egal, ob sie in einem Späti tätig sind, in einer Boutique oder einem Supermarkt, aber auch für Angestellte in Kundenzentren oder Handwerker.
    2. Unter dem Punkt 6a ist dort geregelt, dass Arbeitgeber ein Testkonzept für die Belegschaft erarbeiten müssen.
    1. Roberts (II, D) argues thatprinted commonplace books demonstrate a fundamental early modern modeof reading, that of extractingsententiaefrom texts, and thus erasing theoriginal context of these passages in favor of creating new uses for digestiblecouplets.

      How is this similar to/different from modern Bible readers erasing the original context of the texts and reimagining the words for their lives in a world far removed from the original?

    Tags

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  9. Jul 2021
    1. The second is the ignorance of those who have misread many books. They are, as Alexander Pope rightly calls them, bookful blockheads, ignorantly read. There have always been literate ignoramuses who have read too widely and not well. The Greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are all sophomores.

      Interesting to see so many different words to describe not just those who are poorly read, but those who have misunderstood or misapplied their reading.

      Historically, I wonder how much of this may have been applied to those who misused quotations out of context?

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

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

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

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

    1. The point of Zettelkasten is to digest each thing you read well so you don’t need to go back to look at it again.

      I don't agree with this viewpoint. Just like Heraclitus' river, the information in an article or book may not change, but there is a contextual change in the reader, in their thinking, their circumstances, and their time that may give them a different reading or perspective of the same material at later dates.

      Of course not all material is actually worth reading more than once either. But for some material a second or third reading may help them create new ideas and new links to prior ideas.

    1. Perhaps a better way of understanding what Anaximander has to say is to study carefully the doxography, which goes back to people like Aristotle and Theophrastus, who probably have had Anaximander’s book before their eyes, and who tried to reformulate what they thought were its central claims.

      doxography

      Much like attempting to reconstruct history from portions of the Bible, one must consider the context of the pieces in its own time and with the context of the authors' time, space, and other thought.

    2. It is certainly important that we possess one text from Anaximander’s book. On the other hand, we must recognize that we know hardly anything of its original context, as the rest of the book has been lost. We do not know from which part of his book it is, nor whether it is a text the author himself thought crucial or just a line that caught one reader’s attention as an example of Anaximander’s poetic writing style.

      This is one of the first (existing) annotations in Western culture. One must be careful however as the context of the rest is missing.

      What techniques might we use to help rebuild the context? What would Bart Ehrman's text suggest?

    1. https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2008/2008.12.41/

      A searing review of David R. Slavitt's translation of Lucretius.

      The "close enough" nature of the translation seems like the intellectual slide shown by too many moderns which decontextualizes our historical precedents. Perhaps fine for a quick view, but could be a slippery slope for taking as part of the basis for Western intellectual tradition.

    1. Feature Idea: Chaos Monkey for PKM

      This idea is a bit on the extreme side, but it does suggest that having a multi-card comparison view in a PKM system would be useful.

      Drawing on Raymond Llull's combitorial memory system from the 12th century and a bit of Herman Ebbinghaus' spaced repetition (though this is also seen in earlier non-literate cultures), one could present two (or more) random atomic notes together as a way of juxtaposing disparate ideas from one's notes.

      The spaced repetition of the cards would be helpful for one's long term memory of the ideas, but it could also have the secondary effect of nudging one to potentially find links or connections between the two ideas and help to spur creativity for the generation of new hybrid ideas or connection to other current ideas based on a person's changed context.

      I've thought about this in the past (most likely while reading Frances Yates' Art of Memory), but don't think I've bothered to write it down (or it's hiding in untranscribed marginalia).

    1. On the difference for writing for one's self and for others. Of course there's also the need to be able to re-decifer one's notes again in the future. It may be best to keep more detailed for your future self as if you're writing for the public.

      I like the idea of distance in "communication space" which comes up in the comments. This is related to context collapse and shared contexts which are often too-important in our communication with regard to being understood in the far future.

      <small><cite class='h-cite via'> <span class='p-author h-card'>Matthias Melcher</span> in Commonplace Book | x28's new Blog (<time class='dt-published'>07/06/2021 11:13:34</time>)</cite></small>

    1. In other cases, it’s impossible for an outsider to guess what inspired the note or where it led.

      Reminder that there's value in capturing the context of one's ideas. Who knows what might be missing or what others may wish to know in the future?

  10. Jun 2021
    1. Alle Gäste ab 6 Jahren müssen einen negativen Test vorweisen, der nicht älter als 24 Stunden ist. Die Tests können entweder in einem Testzentrum erfolgen oder unter Aufsicht des Gaststättenpersonals vor Ort. [berlin.de] Genesene oder geimpfte Personen müssen ebenfalls einen entsprechenden Nachweis vorlegen.
    1. Demnach sind bis Ende Juli Events mit maximal 300 Menschen erlaubt. Am 1. August erhöht sich diese Zahl auf 500, am 1. September auf 750, am 1. Oktober auf 1000 – immer unter Wahrung der Abstands- und Hygieneregeln.
    2. Nach dem Beschluss gibt es künftig vor allem keine Kontaktverbote mehr: Durften sich bislang nur maximal fünf Personen oder Angehörige zweier Haushalte treffen, so gilt diese Einschränkung nun nicht mehr.
    1. Gute Nachrichten auch für die Abschlussklassen in Berlin: Abifeiern dürfen wieder stattfinden, genauso Abschlussfeiern von Berufsausbildungen.
    2. Im privaten Bereich bleiben die alten Regeln vorerst bestehen
    3. Kneipen, Restaurants und Spätis dürfen nachts, also zwischen 0 und 5 Uhr wieder Alkohol ausschenken. Das nächtliche Verkaufsverbot entfällt.
    1. Dort dürfen zweimal Geimpfte bereits wieder zu körpernahen Dienstleistungen oder in Biergärten. Der Nachweis über den vollständigen Impfschutz müsse den Betreibern schriftlich oder digital nachgewiesen werden. Diese Änderung gilt seit Sonntag, zunächst bis zum 25. April.
    2. Betroffene dürfen demzufolge ohne vorherigen Corona-Test auch abseits des Lebensmittelhandels Einkaufen gehen, einen Friseur oder Kosmetiksalon, ein Museum oder eine Ausstellung besuchen. Greifen soll die Regelung 15 Tage nach der Zweitimpfung.
    1. Gültigkeit von Test-Bestätigungen:Bisher musste zum Beispiel in Geschäften oder Museen ein tagesaktuelles negatives Testergebnis vorgelegt werden.
    2. Keine Privilegien für Corona-Genesene:  Menschen, die schon einmal an Corona erkrankt waren und inzwischen wieder gesund sind, profitieren nicht. Wer geltend macht, er sei dadurch vor Infektionen geschützt und die gleichen Rechte wie Geimpfte verlangt, kommt damit nicht durch.
    3. Corona-Lockdown bis 9. Mai verlängert:Die übrigen bisher schon geltenden Corona-Maßnahmen werden bis zum 9. Mai verlängert. Die bisherige Verordnung war bis Sonntag (18.4.) befristet.
    4. Kontaktbeschärnkungen:Damit gelten zum Beispiel Kontaktbeschränkungen weiter.
    5. Das war bisher nicht geregelt.
    6. Zuvor galt für die Kinder ein Höchstalter von 12 Jahren, ab Samstag sind es 14 Jahre.
    7. Als Nachweis gilt der Impfpass. Voraussetzung ist, dass die Zweitimpfung mindestens 15 Tage zurückliegt.
    1. Polen gilt laut RKI aktuell als Risikogebiet.
    2. Ausnahmen gelten zudem für Menschen, die aus beruflichen Gründen reisen und zu systemrelevanten Berufsgruppen, etwa aus dem Gesundheitsbereich gehören. Auch Personen, die Verwandte ersten oder zweiten Grades, Ehegatten, Lebensgefährten oder Personen, für welche ein gemeinsames oder geteiltes Sorge- oder Umgangsrecht besteht, besuchen, müssen nicht automatisch in die Quarantäne. Das gilt auch für Beistandsbesuche für schutz- oder hilfebedürftigen Personen, Patienten mit dringenden medizinischen Behandlungen und Durchreisende.
    1. Restaurants, Bars, Theater, Kinos müssen im November schließen.
    2. Und nur zwei Haushalte dürfen sich dann (ab 2. November) noch treffen, maximal zehn Personen.
    3. Ab kommender Woche gelten strengere Corona-Regeln: Nur noch zwei Haushalte dürfen sich dann treffen.
    1. Anders als im März, sollen Besuche in Krankenhäusern und Pflegeheimen aber nicht generell untersagt werden, damit keine soziale Isolation herrsche.
    2. Den kompletten November und mindestens bis zum 20. Dezember 2020 bleiben Events, Vorstellungen und größere Zusammenkünfte untersagt.
    3. Auf jeder Straße, in der Einzelhandel und Handwerksbetriebe ansässig sind, gilt ab 01. Dezember Maskenpflicht. Bislang galt eine solche Pflicht in öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln und Bahnhöfen, in Büros, im Einzelhandel und Supermärkten, aber auch vor Einkaufsmärkten sowie an belebteren Orten wie beispielsweise Parkplätzen. Auch Wochen-, Floh- und Weihnachtsmärkte gehören dazu, unerheblich, in welcher Form diese stattfinden.
    4. Angehörige über 12 Jahre werden mitgezählt, womit Familien mit drei Kindern, die das Alter erreicht haben, sich theoretisch nicht gemeinsam mit anderen Menschen treffen dürfen
    5. Stand jetzt dürfen sich in Berlin auch über Weihnachten und Silvester, also vom 23. Dezember 2020 bis zum 01. Januar 2021, wie bisher maximal 5 Personen aus 2 Haushalten treffen. Von der Zahl der Einzelpersonen sind dabei Kinder bis 12 Jahre explizit ausgenommen.
    1. Bundesweit werden ab 2. November bis Ende des Monats Freizeiteinrichtungen und Gastronomie geschlossen, Unterhaltungsveranstaltungen verboten und Kontakte in der Öffentlichkeit sowie Feiern auf Plätzen und in Wohnungen müssen eingeschränkt werden.
    1. Der Senat hat beschlossen, dass bei privaten Feiern im Freien künftig eine maximale Zahl von 50 Teilnehmern gelten soll
    2. Gastwirten, die sich nicht darum kümmern, Name und Telefonnummer ihrer Gäste festzuhalten, drohen Bußgelder. Je nach Schwere der Verstöße können bis zu 5000 Euro fällig werden
    3. Die Abstandsregel von 1,50 Meter muss in den Schulen nicht mehr eingehalten werden
    4. Für Demonstrationen gilt keine Begrenzung der Teilnehmerzahl mehr
    5. Künftig gilt die Maskenpflicht auch für Wochenmärkte, bestimmte Einkaufsstraßen und Warteschlangen gelten, in denen der Mindestabstand von 1,5 Metern nicht einzuhalten ist.
    6. Abstands- und Hygieneregeln gelten dabei weiterhin
    1. i feel like if i if i use the word new somewhere i want to go through and like no no no no

      i feel like if i if i use the word new somewhere i want to go through and like no no no no new to who and put the question mark there just to remember that there are those um models that come before us right and there are those traditions that come before us that are even in some ways operating when we don't even you know notice or recognize them

      Asking the question "new to who?" can be important whenever using the word new can be very revealing. We need to recall and respect that everyone comes from a different context.

    1. Anders als die Hotels mussten Kneipen und Gaststätten ab Mitte März komplett schließen und damit fast vollständig auf Umsätze verzichten. Erst nach zwei Monaten durften Restaurants Mitte Mai wieder öffnen, Kneipen ab dem 2. Juni.
    2. Bisher müssen in Gaststätten die Stühle so stehen, dass zwischen den Gästen ein Mindestabstand von 1,5 Metern eingehalten wird. Ausnahmen gelten für Ehe- und Lebenspartner und Angehörige des eigenen Haushalts - mit Arbeitskollegen und Bekannten wird das vertraute Gespräch über den Tisch hinweg dagegen manchmal schwierig.
    3. Der Mindestabstand von 1,5 Metern zwischen den Tischen muss allerdings weiter eingehalten werden.
    4. Die bisher wegen der Corona-Pandemie geltenden Abstandsregeln in Gaststätten werden in Berlin gelockert.
    5. Nach Monaten des Abstands in Gaststätten dürfen Berliner Gäste wieder enger am Tisch zusammenrücken.
    1. Der Höchstbetrag der möglichen Geldbuße liegt bei 25.000 Euro.
    2. Seit Sonntag dürfen Cafés und Restaurants auch tagsüber nicht mehr öffnen. Bisher konnten Restaurants von 6 bis 18 Uhr öffnen, nicht aber am Abend.
    3. Bei der Öffnung sind geeignete Vorkehrung zur Hygiene, zur Steuerung des Zutritts und zur Vermeidung von Warteschlangen zu treffen.
    4. Ausgenommen davon sind:der Besuch bei Lebenspartnerinnen und Lebenspartnern, Alten, Kranken oder Menschen mit Einschränkungen (außerhalb von Einrichtungen) und die Wahrnehmung des Sorgerechts im jeweiligen privaten Bereichdie Begleitung von unterstützungsbedürftigen Personen und Minderjährigendie Begleitung Sterbender sowie Beerdigungen im engsten Familienkreis
    1. In der Zeit von 23 bis 5 Uhr ist der Ausschank, die Abgabe und der Verkauf von alkoholischen Getränken verboten.
    2. Mitarbeiter und Gäste, die sich nicht an ihrem Sitzplatz befinden, müssen eine medizinische Gesichtsmaske tragen.
    3. An einem Tisch dürfen nicht mehr als fünf Personen aus maximal zwei Haushalten gemeinsam sitzen – Kinder unter 14 Jahren sowie geimpfte und genesene Personen werden hierbei nicht mitgezählt.
    1. Seit Beginn des bundesweiten Lockdowns Mitte Dezember sind auch in Berlin große Teile des Einzelhandels mit Ausnahme etwa von Supermärkten, Drogerien oder Apotheken geschlossen. Restaurants, Museen, Kinos, Theater, Freizeit- und Sporteinrichtungen sind schon seit Anfang November für das Publikum zu.
    2. Zuvor war nur eine haushaltsfremde Person erlaubt.
    1. Haben Geschäfte über Ostern geöffnet?Ja, wie üblich bis einschließlich Gründonnerstag und am Karsamstag.
    2. Gilt weiterhin Maskenpflicht?Ja, sie wurde sogar verschärft. Waren bisher FFP2- oder einfachere sogenannte OP-Masken vorgeschrieben, sind ab Mittwoch nur noch FFP2-Masken erlaubt. Das gilt übrigens für alle Innenräume jenseits der eigenen vier Wände, also auch im ÖPNV, Arztpraxen, Schulen, Museen.
    3. Muss man weiter Termine bei den Geschäften buchen?Nein, diese Vorgabe fällt mit der neuen Strategie wieder weg.
    4. Auch im Einzelhandel müssten bestimmte Geschäfte wieder dichtmachen, zum Beispiel Bau- und Gartenmärkte, Modeläden, Elektronikmärkte, Kaufhäuser.
    5. Käme diese zur Anwendung, müssten Anbieter körpernaher Dienstleistungen wie Kosmetiksalons wieder schließen, nicht aber Friseure, die bereits ab 1. März öffnen dürfen.
    6. Auch Abstandsregeln und Hygienemaßnahmen greifen weiterhin.
    1. Eine Terminbuchung ist nicht mehr nötig - die maximalen Kundenzahlen gelten weiterhin. 
    2. Für die Arbeitnehmerinnen und Arbeitnehmer besteht keine Testpflicht.
    3. Tagsüber dürfen sich dann nur noch Angehörige eines Haushalts plus eine weitere Person zusammen aufhalten. Auch hier werden Kinder bis 14 nicht mitgezählt. Zwischen 21 und 5 Uhr sind dann gar keine Besuche mehr erlaubt.
    4. Ab Dienstag, 6. April, werden die Regeln für private Treffen drinnen nochmals verschärft.
    5. Tagsüber bleibt es bei der bisherigen Regelung.
    6. In Berlin gelten seit Karfreitag, 2. April, schärfere Kontaktbeschränkungen.
    1. "Dear Jenny: What am I working on? How is it going?

      I love that after the break, he brings it back around to something from the beginning to close things out nicely. Something done by the best writers and usually the best comedians).

      Create some context, then use that context to your advantage.

    1. We need to be really careful about what's 'same origin' because the server has no idea what host/path the various cookies are associated with. It just has a list of cookies that the browser had determined to be relevant for this SSR'd page, and not for any other subrequests.
  11. May 2021
    1. One goal of these hyper-personalised gardens is deep contextualisation. The overwhelming lesson of the Web 2.0 social media age is that dumping millions of people together into decontextualised social spaces is a shit show.
    1. ‘This morphological law can always be expressed in the same general form: X—>r (A,B, ... 3, which means: Within a context of type X, the parts A, B, . .. are related by the relationship r.
    1. Sidewiki does another interesting thing - it matches comments to the same words elsewhere on the web. For example, my comment on Douglas Adams excellent 1999 piece also shows up in SideWiki on JP Rangiswami's blog where he quotes Douglas Adams too.This hints at a greater possibility for SideWiki - to weave the web together by better by showing commentary across the web from all places that quote and cite each other, correlating by textual quotation and adding annotated links to the commentary from people we trust most.
  12. Apr 2021
    1. Firefox extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/promnesia/

      Promnesia is a browser extension for Chrome/Firefox (including Firefox for Android!) which serves as a web surfing copilot, enhancing your browsing history and web exploration experience.

      TLDR: it lets you explore your browsing history in context: where you encountered it, in chat, on Twitter, on Reddit, or just in one of the text files on your computer. This is unlike most modern browsers, where you can only see when you visited the link.

      I've been doing something a bit like this manually and it looks a lot like the sort of UI examples I've been collecting at https://boffosocko.com/2019/06/29/social-reading-user-interface-for-discovery/

    1. It has two very different meanings, that you would have to distinguish by context. One meaning is just expressing that we have limitations. If you don't know something, that's just tough, you don't know it and you have to live with that. You don't have information if you don't have that information. The other meaning is that not only are there gaps in our knowledge, but often we don't even know what the gaps in our knowledge are. I don't know how to speak Finnish. That's a gap in my knowledge that I know about. I know that I don't know how to speak Finnish. But there are gaps in my knowledge that I'm not even aware of. That's where you can say "You don't know what you don't know" meaning that you don't even know what knowledge you are missing.

      I had this thought too.

  13. Mar 2021
    1. *For the uninitiated, I spent years working in product and design in news media companies before becoming a journalist.

      It would be wonderful if people had spaces on their websites for adding in this sort of personal context with respect to what they were writing about.

    1. I really like this and want to figure out way to do it on my own website. It could be fun to tuck it in with the weather and location data I'm already collecting.

    1. from SenorG’s comment that began with the caveat “Allow me to push back a bit here,” and which inspired four replies from three other annotators, to actualham’s observation

      There's something discordant here in a scholarly article about having academic participants with names like SenorG and actualham. It's almost like a 70's farce starring truckers with bizarre CB handles. It's even more bizarre since I know some of the researchers behind these screennames.

      Is the pseudonymous nature of some of these handles useful in hiding the identity of the participants and thereby forcing one to grapple only with their ideas and not the personas, histories and contexts behind them?

    1. This is the story of how a bill to save the vote and preserve a semblance of democracy for millions of Americans died at the hands of an intransigent, reactionary minority in the Senate, which used the filibuster to do its dirty work

      The author starts off by personifying "the bill" as something that was supposed to save millions of Americans, but rather was killed by Senators. He immediately provides a brief overview of the claim of his essay before developing his narrative. This way, the audience gets a glimpse of the issue that the author will tackle. Also, by using words such as "intransigent and reactionary", the audience already understands that the author is going to be criticizing the senators for their action.

  14. Feb 2021
    1. And thanks in large part to the work of John Lewis and those who followed in his footsteps, it rests on two senators from Georgia,

      The author is praising the Democrats and displays a satisfied tone as he exclaims how because of people like John Lewis, every voter has equal access to the ballot. This can also provide context on the wider issue that the author is describing. By praising Democrats, it is clear that the author is most likely a Democrat and thus, it is clear that he will have a negative attitude toward Republicans.

    2. Let’s honor him by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for.”

      John Lewis is a representative who advocated for some important changes in the federal system, but unfortunately, they were never approved. Barack Obama exaggerates that he was "willing to die for" this purpose or goal he was trying to achieve. This just hints that some act was Lewis's life time goal, but he died before, it could become a reality. When Obama exclaims lets "honor hum by revitalizing the law", it foreshadows that this will be about an essay on either the law getting approved or why it still hasn't been approved.

    1. For example, what if your site has a customer interface and an “admin” interface? If the two have totally different designs and features, then it might be considerable overhead to ship the entirety of the admin interface to every customer on the regular site.
    1. So far, the official local death toll from the snow, ice and power outages stands at 24.

      The addition of the statistic helps the author situate the context and explains why a call to action is needed immediately. The tone is also regretful and serious to invoke sympathy feelings from the audience and make them understand the bigger crisis that is happening in Texas.

    1. famous movie review which describes the Wizard of Oz as: “Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.”

      This is a great example of context collapse. It's factually true, but almost no one who's seen it would describe it this way.

      It's reminiscent of how advertising and politics can twist meaning. Another great example is the horror cut of Disney's Frozen trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIMk1_wwxz8

    1. We’ve always used the term ‘social networking’ to refer to the process of finding and connecting with those people. And that process has always depended on a fabric of trust woven most easily in the context of local communities and face-to-face interaction.

      Too much of modern social networking suffers from this fabric of trust and rampant context collapse. How can we improve on these looking forward?

  15. Jan 2021
  16. Dec 2020
    1. The more I think about this, the more I think that using the context API (for all the stores — page, preloading and session) is the most regret-proof approach, using the proposal above

      Looks like this is the approach that they went with

    1. Just realised this doesn't actually work. If store is just something exported by the app, there's no way to prevent leakage. Instead, it needs to be tied to rendering, which means we need to use the context API. Sapper needs to provide a top level component that sets the store as context for the rest of the app. You would therefore only be able to access it during initialisation, which means you couldn't do it inside a setTimeout and get someone else's session by accident:
    1. mars. One parameter, whose positive value is instantiated in languages with rich agreement such as Italian and Spanish, is the Null Pronoun Parameter, in which the null subject (i.e., pro) is identified through agreement. Another parameter, whose positive value is instantiated in languages without agreement such as Chinese and Japanese, is the Discourse Oriented Parameter (DOP). Such discourse-oriented languages allow null arguments in both subject and object positions, and the null argument is identified by a discourse topic or through co-indexation with a c-commanding nominal. A language such as English instantiates the negative value with respect to both the DOP and the Null Pronoun Parame

      Examples of situations in which adults can omit subjects.

    1. According to the best estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 99.997 percent of individuals aged 19 and younger who contract coronavirus make a full recovery, 99.98 percent of those aged 20 to 49 make a full recovery, and 99.5 percent aged 50 to 69 fully recover.

      The takeaway: >99% of people age 0-69 infected with SARS-CoV-2 survive COVID based on the CDC's current best estimate of infection fatality ratio. A subset of those infected will suffer from continued symptoms even though they did not die from COVID.

      The claim: Greater than 99% of people age 0-69 fully recover from COVID-19.

      The evidence: This numbers align with the CDC's current best estimate of the infection fatality ratio (1). Infection fatality ratio is the number of people that die from a disease divided by the number of people who get the disease. These numbers do not account for people with symptoms such as lung damage, chronic fatigue, and mental illness which may follow a COVID infection (2, 3).

      In a study of 143 hospitalized patients from Italy after an average of 60.3 days, only 12.6% were symptom free (4). Per Mayo Clinic guidelines, long term effects can occur in those with mild symptoms but most often occur in severe cases (5). Mental health problems were diagnosed 14-90 days after COVID in 18.1% of COVID patients studied (3).

      A more accurate estimate of the number of people that fully recover may be obtained if the number of people who recovered without hospitalization is used. The numbers presented are the CDC's current best estimate of the number of people that survive COVID not the number of people that fully recover.

      Sources:

      1) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html

      2) https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02598-6

      3) https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(20)30462-4/fulltext

      4) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2768351/

      5) https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-long-term-effects/art-20490351

    1. Clusters of infections within families living in Bnei Brak were identified and investigated. The parents were asked regarding the first case of the infection in the family and regarding the pre-sumed source of the infection.In addition, household members underwent polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing whether they were symptomatic or not

      testing regime: exhaustive (whether symptomatic or not)

    2. Thirteen family clusters were investigated; all families reside in the city of Bnei Brak.

      N=13 families

    3. Mayenei Hayeshuah Medical center is located in the city of Bnei Brak, Central Israel.Bnei Brak is a “young” city. Children of 0–19 years of age comprise almost 50% of its 200,000 population, and the average number of children in a family is 4.57

      setting: central Israel

    4. SARS-CoV-2 positive PCR was documented in the different age groups as follows:1. In 21 of 36 adults (>18 years) (58.3%).2. In 13 of 40 children, 5–17 years (32.5%), (P = 0.037 for the difference between group 1 and group 2, risk ratio: 0.61, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.39–0.96).3. In 2 of 18 children, 0–4 (<5) years of age (11.8%), (P < 0.002 for the difference between group 1 and group 3, risk ratio: 0.47, 95% CI: 0.30–0.71)

      main result: children ~half as likely to get infected given equivalent exposure in same household

  17. Nov 2020
    1. The recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers by more than 50% in a community with modest infection rates, some degree of social distancing, and uncommon general mask use.

      The takeaway: While minimal protection occurs when a mask is worn in a place where many others are not wearing a mask, community masking is associated with a reduction in COVID cases.

      The claim: In a community with modest infection rates, some social distancing, and most people not wearing masks, wearing a surgical mask did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate by more than 50%.

      The evidence: This study showed that wearing a mask in a community where most people did not wear a mask, did not reduce the risk of getting infected by 50%. Fewer COVID infections were reported in the mask group than in the unmasked group. This study agrees with a meta analysis which showed that masks resulted in a decrease in infections but did not prevent all infections (1) According to the CDC, seven studies have shown community level benefit when masking recommendations were made (2).

      When most in the community are not wearing masks, social distancing, and washing hands, wearing a mask alone provides minimal protection to the mask wearer. Community wide masking is associated with a reduction in COVID cases (2).

      Sources:

      1) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29140516/

      2) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/masking-science-sars-cov2.html

    1. Gov. Kristi Noem defended her hands-off approach to managing the deadly COVID-19 pandemic while addressing lawmakers earlier this week and called mandatory stay-at home orders "useless" in helping lower the spread.

      Take away: Lower COVID-19 spread occurred after stay-at home orders were issued. Room for debate exists on how restrictive lockdowns should be.

      The claim: Mandatory stay-at home orders are "useless" in helping lower the spread of SARS-CoV-2.

      The evidence: Two publications showed that lower COVID-19 spread occurred after stay-at home orders were issued (1, 2). Hospitalizations were lower than predicted exponential growth rates after implementation of stay-at home orders (3). Some caveats to consider include that it is impossible to tease apart the effects of the stay-at home orders from other measure implemented simultaneously with stay-at home orders such as increased hygiene measures, social distancing guidelines, and school closures. It is also impossible to conclusively state that the effect is from the stay-at home order and not the natural progression of the disease.

      The comparison between Illinois with stay-at home orders and Iowa without stay-at home orders resulted in an estimated 217 additional COVID-19 cases in Iowa over the course of a month (2). This small number raises the question, "are stay-at home orders worth it?" It is important to remember that comparison of Iowa and Illinois is the comparison of two social distancing strategies. Stay-at home orders close everything and then write the exceptions that can remain open. Iowa took the approach of leaving everything open except what the government choose to close (4). Some businesses in Iowa were still closed and many federal guidelines were still followed. A negative control showing disease progression without any mitigation measures does not exist in published literature.

      Sources:

      1 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7246016/

      2 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32413112/

      3 https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2020/04/07/iowa-equivalent-stay-at-home-order-coronavirus-kim-reynolds/2961810001/

      4 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7254451/

    1. Schleiss says a better analogy for COVID-19 is the mumps. For more than 45 years, we’ve had a very effective vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella (which are also RNA viruses).

      The takeaway: Even though mutations happen in all virus, vaccines still work. Current evidence about SARS-CoV-2 indicates that an effective COVID-19 vaccine can be obtained, and that it should be able to provide immunity against the virus.

      The claim: A better analogy for COVID-19 is the mumps. For more than 45 years, we’ve had a very effective vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella (which are also RNA viruses).

      The evidence: We are all imperfect and we all make mistakes. For a virus, a mistake means the introduction of a mutation in its sequence, and RNA viruses (like the flu, mumps, measles virus, and SARS-CoV-2) have the highest error rates in nature. Mutations are indispensable for viral survival and evolution; this property is believed to benefit the viral population, allowing it to adapt and respond to different complex environments encountered during spread between hosts, within organs and tissues, and in response to the pressure of the host immune response [1]. How fast a virus is changing can be estimated by measuring its mutation rate, and then they can be classified as changing fast – high mutation rate – like HIV or Influenza, or as stable, like measles or mumps virus. SARS-CoV-2 has a mutation rate three times slower than the flu virus [2], but it's still changing faster than the mumps virus (the mutation rate of influenza is more than 10 times higher than mumps) [3]. Of course, how fast a virus can change has implications in the efficacy of treatments and vaccines, but it's not the only determinant. Even though mutations happen in all viruses, vaccines still work. A great example is the measles virus, as the antigenic composition of the vaccine (the molecules that “wake up” the immune system) used to prevent it has remained efficient since it was developed, in the 1960s, and confers protection against the 24 circulating genotypes [4]. The same is true for the mumps virus, with a vaccine that has been efficient for many decades [5]. Sequencing data suggest that coronaviruses change more slowly than most other RNA viruses, probably because of a viral ‘proofreading’ activity that corrects all the copying mistakes [6]. Taken together, all this evidence indicates that an effective COVID-19 vaccine can be obtained, and that it should be able to provide lasting immunity against the virus.

      Sources:<br> 1

      2 SARS-CoV-2 mutation rate: 1.26 x 10-3 substitutions/site/year

      3 Influenza (flu-virus) mutation rate: 3.68 x 10-3 substitutions/site/year. Mumps mutation rate: 2.98 × 10−4 substitutions/site/year

      4

      5

      6

    1. Anxiety From Reactions to Covid-19 Will Destroy At Least Seven Times More Years of Life Than Can Be Saved by Lockdowns

      Take away: Though the number of COVID deaths prevented and the exact number of years lost due directly to decreases in mental health from lockdowns is at best a rough estimate, several facts are known. Lockdowns decrease mental health, and a decrease in mental health shortens lives too.

      The claim: Anxiety from reactions to COVID-19 will destroy at least seven times more years of life than can be saved by lockdowns.

      The evidence: This article references many studies detailing the anxiety surrounding COVID-19 (1-4). These studies indicate that many people have increased stress due to COVID. Nature Public Health Emergency Collection reports that the mental health cost of widespread lockdowns may negate the lives saved by this policy (5). This article lists many articles which describe the effect of stay-at-home orders on mental health. Additionally, the effect of poor mental health on physical outcomes is well-defined. Poor mental health shortens lives. Other factors with COVID such as negative media coverage and dealing with job loss and death are also described as negatively affecting mental health. It is unclear how much of the negative mental health outcomes is directly related to lockdowns and what is contributed to the disease, job loss, future uncertainty, and continuous media coverage.

      Several supporting facts used in this article are now outdated or could use clarification. Many assumptions are detailed in this article to estimate the number of years lost due to mental harm caused by lockdowns. One example is the authors used a survey of 1,266 patients to estimate the number of people in the United States who have suffered mental harm from lockdowns. These estimates are challenging to conclusively verify. The authors did choose the conservative estimate for each of their numbers. One example of an outdated number is the predicted number of deaths was 114,228 by August 4th. The actual number of deaths per Johns Hopkins was 157,500 (6).

      Based on the facts, anxiety and mental disorders can be deadly. Lockdowns result in an increase in poor mental health. The exact number of years lost due to poor mental health directly resulting from lockdowns is less clear. Poor mental health may also result from constant media coverage, loss of loved ones and fear of the future.

      The sources:

      1) https://www.psychiatry.org/newsroom/news-releases/new-poll-covid-19-impacting-mental-well-being-americans-feeling-anxious-especially-for-loved-ones-older-adults-are-less-anxious

      2) https://www.kff.org/health-reform/report/kff-health-tracking-poll-early-april-2020/

      3) https://www.bsgco.com/post/coronavirus-and-americans-mental-health-insights-from-bsg-s-pulse-of-america-poll

      4) https://www.kff.org/report-section/kff-health-tracking-poll-late-april-2020-economic-and-mental-health-impacts-of-coronavirus/

      5) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7431738/#

      6) https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map

    1. This module should not be used in other npm modules since it modifies the default require behavior! It is designed to be used for development of final projects i.e. web-sites, applications etc.
    1. The first benefit of working this way is that you become interruption-proof. Because you rarely even attempt to load the entire project into your mind all at once, there’s not much to “unload” if someone interrupts you. It’s much easier to pick up where you left off, because you’re not trying to juggle all the work-in-process in your head.

      The intermittent packet approach makes you more resilient towards interruptions

      Because you're not loading an entire project in your mind at once, you're not losing as much context when you get interrupted.

    1. On every measure — new infections, hospitalizations, and deaths — the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction

      The takeaway: Though COVID-19 cases are at a record high, the number of deaths from COVID-19 has not followed the steep rise in cases. An increase in the number of deaths may be reported later as deaths lag cases by several weeks.

      The claim: On every measure - new infections, hospitalizations, and deaths - the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction.

      The evidence: New COVID infections in the US are the highest they have ever been with a 7-day moving average of 104,417 cases/day (1). The number of deaths in the US is similar to the number of deaths in August, lower than the number of deaths in the spring and higher than the number of deaths in the summer (2). A slight increase was seen in the number of deaths for the first two weeks in October followed by a slight decline which may change as more data is added (3). The number of emergency department visits for coronavirus like symptoms is on an upward trajectory nationwide (4). The CDC states "At least one indicator used to monitor COVID-19 activity is increasing in each of the ten HHS regions, and many regions are reporting increases in multiple indicators" (3).

      Though COVID-19 cases are at a record high, the number of deaths from COVID-19 has not followed the steep rise in cases. An increase in the number of deaths may be reported later as deaths lag cases by several weeks.

      Sources:

      1) https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrendscases

      2) https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrendsdeaths

      3) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html

      4) https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#ed-visits

    1. We have designed a dimeric lipopeptide fusion inhibitor that blocks this critical first step of infection for emerging coronaviruses and document that it completely prevents SARS-CoV-2 infection in ferrets.

      The takeaway: Dimeric lipopeptide fusion inhibitor prevented SARS-CoV-2 infection in all six ferrets tested. Much more work is needed before this could be used in humans.

      The claim: Treatment of ferrets with a dimeric lipopeptide fusion inhibitor completely prevents SARS-CoV-2 infection in ferrets.

      The evidence: Per Figure 3, SARS-CoV-2 was detected in all three animals inoculated with the virus, all six animals treated with a placebo, and none of the animals treated with the dimeric lipopeptide fusion inhibitor (1). Animals treated with dimeric lipopeptide fusion inhibitor did not mount an immune response to SARS-CoV-2 while an immune response was seen in inoculated animals and placebo treated animals (Figure 4).

      More research is needed before this treatment can be used in humans. This preliminary study showed that in a small sample of animals which do not typically show COVID symptoms, SARS-CoV-2 infection was blocked by the dimeric lipopeptide fusion inhibitor. This paper describes the first step in a long journey. Before a new treatment is approved for use in humans, Phase I, II and III clinical trials must be completed (2) which includes showing that a treatment does no harm to healthy humans and proving that it works in humans. This work also needs peer-review in a published journal which may occur with time.

      Sources:

      1) https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.04.361154v1.full.pdf

      2) https://www.fda.gov/patients/drug-development-process/step-3-clinical-research

    1. The coronavirus pandemic is expected to take the U.S. national debt to levels not seen since World War II.

      The takeaway: The debt to GDP ratio after coronavirus relief spending is higher than it has ever been.

      The claim: The coronavirus pandemic is expected to take the U.S. national debt to levels not seen since World War II.

      The evidence: A number of COVID-19 spending acts and executive orders include: Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020, Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), CARES Act, Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, and President Trump's Executive Actions (1). Prior to these bills and executive actions, the fiscal year 2020 federal deficit was predicted to be $3.1 trillion (1). The total cost of the coronavirus relief measures is $2,607,000,000,000 (1). The debt to GDP ratio in 2020 at the end of quarter 2 is 136% (2). The debt had previously peaked in 1946 after WWII at 118% debt to GDP ratio (2).

      Sources:

      1) https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertberger/2020/10/18/5-big-numbers-reveal-the-unsettling-scope-of-stimulus-spending/?sh=26ae8057142b

      2) https://www.thebalance.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287

  18. Oct 2020
    1. Take away: Even though mini-lungs (and mini-organs) are extremely valuable tools for scientist to study disease and prospective therapeutics, results obtained with these models are hardly generalizable and normally need to be validated in animal models and clinical studies.

      The claim: Based on our model we can tackle many unanswered key questions, such as understanding genetic susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2, assessing relative infectivity of viral mutants, and revealing the damage processes of the virus in human alveolar cells. Most importantly, it provides the opportunity to develop and screen potential therapeutic agents against SARS-CoV-2 infection.

      The evidence: Regardless of their name, mini-organs are hardly real miniature organs, these clumps of cells resemble organs in many ways, but they lack certain features that allow real organs to function and grow. For now, mini-organs don’t develop beyond tiny and simplistic models of organs, and remain hard to produce in the large, consistent batches needed for drug screening and other efforts. But, in spite of their limitations, they still are a giant step up from 2D cultures of cells that scientists have long grown in the lab. In particular, studies of SARS-CoV-2 in mini-organs have limitations because they do not reflect the crosstalk between organs and systems that happens in the body. Here for example, the mini-organs do not produce the full cellular spectrum present in the adult alveoli. Also, the mini-lungs in this study cannot mimic an interaction with the immune system, which likely influences how the disease develops. Some groups are beginning to test existing drugs against SARS-CoV-2 in mini-organs in a small scale, but we will only know at the end of this process what the predictive value of these systems are for testing drug efficacy.

      Source: https://www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell/fulltext/S1934-5909(20)30498-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncb3312 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.10.144816v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.25.115600v2

    1. We find that COVID-19 has likely become the leading cause of death (surpassing unintentional overdoses) among young adults aged 25-44 in some areas of the United States during substantial COVID-19 outbreaks.

      The takeaway: During the peak of infections during large outbreaks, COVID-19 deaths in age group 25-44 is higher than drug overdose deaths.

      The claim: COVID-19 has likely become the leading cause of death in age group 25-44.

      The evidence: This article compares COVID-19 deaths to opioid deaths during 2018. When the hardest hit areas are combined and areas not hit are excluded, the number of COVID-19 deaths is five deaths more than the opioid deaths during the same period in 2018. Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death in the age group 25-44 (1-2). In 2018, opioid overdose resulted in 24,253 deaths in the age group of 25-44 in the United States (3). Transportation fatal injuries for the age group 25-44 in 2018 was 12,904 (4). In 2020, deaths from all causes for age group 25-44 is 124,736 with 5,911 directly attributable to COVID-19 (5, accessed 10/28/2020).

      COVID-19 was briefly the leading cause of death in the hardest hit areas during the peak of the epidemic for age group 25-44 if unintentional injuries is broken into subcategories.

      Sources: 1 https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/animated-leading-causes.html

      2 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_06-508.pdf

      3 https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6911a4.ht m

      4 https://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate.html

      5 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm