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  2. Feb 2024
    1. Read [[Martha S. Jones]] in A New Face for an Old Library Catalog

      Discussion on harmful content in library card catalogs and finding aids.

      The methods used to describe archive material can not only be harmful to those using them, but they also provide a useful historical record of what cataloguers may have been thinking contemporaneously as they classified and organized materials.

      This is another potentially useful set of information to have while reading into historical topics from library card catalogs compared to modern-day digital methods.

      Is anyone using version control on their catalogs?

    1. Watched [[The Unenlightened Generalists]] in Linked Notes: An Introduction to the Zettelkasten Method

      A 28:30 intro to zettelkasten. I could only make it about 10 minutes in. Fine, but nothing more than yet another "one pager" on method with a modified version of the Luhmann myth as motivation.

    1. turn off the light, and take off his shirt, his shorts, and his underwear.

      Mr Collier had a special technique. He cut out the quotations and, dipping a brush in sweet-smelling Perkins Paste glue, he stuck the quotation onto the slip. It was quick, and some nights he could get through 100 slips. Just him and the sound of his scissors, the incessant croak of cicadas, and the greasy smell of the neighbour’s lamb chops hanging in the close air. Around midnight, he would stop work, gather up the scraps of paper, clear the table,

      zettelkasten and nudity!!!

  3. Jan 2024
    1. Our study combined U.S. data from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Survey ofEarned Doctorates (SED), the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) IntegratedPostsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and Excelencia in Education’s data on HSIs

      method

    1. Instance methods Instances of Models are documents. Documents have many of their own built-in instance methods. We may also define our own custom document instance methods. // define a schema const animalSchema = new Schema({ name: String, type: String }, { // Assign a function to the "methods" object of our animalSchema through schema options. // By following this approach, there is no need to create a separate TS type to define the type of the instance functions. methods: { findSimilarTypes(cb) { return mongoose.model('Animal').find({ type: this.type }, cb); } } }); // Or, assign a function to the "methods" object of our animalSchema animalSchema.methods.findSimilarTypes = function(cb) { return mongoose.model('Animal').find({ type: this.type }, cb); }; Now all of our animal instances have a findSimilarTypes method available to them. const Animal = mongoose.model('Animal', animalSchema); const dog = new Animal({ type: 'dog' }); dog.findSimilarTypes((err, dogs) => { console.log(dogs); // woof }); Overwriting a default mongoose document method may lead to unpredictable results. See this for more details. The example above uses the Schema.methods object directly to save an instance method. You can also use the Schema.method() helper as described here. Do not declare methods using ES6 arrow functions (=>). Arrow functions explicitly prevent binding this, so your method will not have access to the document and the above examples will not work.

      Certainly! Let's break down the provided code snippets:

      1. What is it and why is it used?

      In Mongoose, a schema is a blueprint for defining the structure of documents within a collection. When you define a schema, you can also attach methods to it. These methods become instance methods, meaning they are available on the individual documents (instances) created from that schema.

      Instance methods are useful for encapsulating functionality related to a specific document or model instance. They allow you to define custom behavior that can be executed on a specific document. In the given example, the findSimilarTypes method is added to instances of the Animal model, making it easy to find other animals of the same type.

      2. Syntax:

      Using methods object directly in the schema options:

      javascript const animalSchema = new Schema( { name: String, type: String }, { methods: { findSimilarTypes(cb) { return mongoose.model('Animal').find({ type: this.type }, cb); } } } );

      Using methods object directly in the schema:

      javascript animalSchema.methods.findSimilarTypes = function(cb) { return mongoose.model('Animal').find({ type: this.type }, cb); };

      Using Schema.method() helper:

      javascript animalSchema.method('findSimilarTypes', function(cb) { return mongoose.model('Animal').find({ type: this.type }, cb); });

      3. Explanation in Simple Words with Examples:

      Why it's Used:

      Imagine you have a collection of animals in your database, and you want to find other animals of the same type. Instead of writing the same logic repeatedly, you can define a method that can be called on each animal instance to find similar types. This helps in keeping your code DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) and makes it easier to maintain.

      Example:

      ```javascript const mongoose = require('mongoose'); const { Schema } = mongoose;

      // Define a schema with a custom instance method const animalSchema = new Schema({ name: String, type: String });

      // Add a custom instance method to find similar types animalSchema.methods.findSimilarTypes = function(cb) { return mongoose.model('Animal').find({ type: this.type }, cb); };

      // Create the Animal model using the schema const Animal = mongoose.model('Animal', animalSchema);

      // Create an instance of Animal const dog = new Animal({ type: 'dog', name: 'Buddy' });

      // Use the custom method to find similar types dog.findSimilarTypes((err, similarAnimals) => { console.log(similarAnimals); }); ```

      In this example, findSimilarTypes is a custom instance method added to the Animal schema. When you create an instance of the Animal model (e.g., a dog), you can then call findSimilarTypes on that instance to find other animals with the same type. The method uses the this.type property, which refers to the type of the current animal instance. This allows you to easily reuse the logic for finding similar types across different instances of the Animal model.

      Certainly! Let's go through each part and explain it in simple terms: ### 1. `this` in Mongoose: - **What is `this`?** In JavaScript, `this` refers to the current context or object. In Mongoose, particularly within methods and middleware functions, `this` represents the instance (document) the function is currently operating on. - **Why is it used?** `this` is used to access and modify the properties of the current document. For example, in a Mongoose method, `this` allows you to refer to the fields of the specific document the method is called on. ### 2. Example: Let's use the `userSchema.pre("save", ...)`, which is a Mongoose middleware, as an example: ```javascript userSchema.pre("save", async function (next) { if (!this.isModified("password")) { next(); } else { this.password = await bcrypt.hash(this.password, 10); next(); } }); ``` - **Explanation in Simple Words:** - Imagine you have a system where users can sign up and set their password. - Before saving a new user to the database, you want to ensure that the password is securely encrypted (hashed) using a library like `bcrypt`. - The `userSchema.pre("save", ...)` is a special function that runs automatically before saving a user to the database. - In this function: - `this.isModified("password")`: Checks if the password field of the current user has been changed. - If the password is not modified, it means the user is not updating their password, so it just moves on to the next operation (saving the user). - If the password is modified, it means a new password is set or the existing one is changed. In this case, it uses `bcrypt.hash` to encrypt (hash) the password before saving it to the database. - The use of `this` here is crucial because it allows you to refer to the specific user document that's being saved. It ensures that the correct password is hashed for the current user being processed. In summary, `this` in Mongoose is a way to refer to the current document or instance, and it's commonly used to access and modify the properties of that document, especially in middleware functions like the one demonstrated here for password encryption before saving to the database.

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  4. Dec 2023
    1. Will artificial intelligence create useless class of people? - Yuval Noah Harari

      1:00 "bring the latest findings of science of the public", otherwise the public space "gets filled with conspiracy theories and fake news and whatever".<br /> he fails to mention that ALL his beautiful "scientists" are financially dependent on corporations, who dictate the expected results, and who sabotage "unwanted research".<br /> for example, the pharma industry will NEVER pay money for research of natural cancer cures, or "alternative" covid cures like ivermectin / zinc / vitamin C, because these cures have no patent, so there is no profit motive, and also because the "militant pacifists" want to fix overpopulation this way.<br /> a "scientist" should be someone, who has all freedom to propose hypotheses, which then are tested in experiments (peer review), and compared to real placebo control groups. because that is science, or "the scientific method". everything else is lobbying for "shekel shekel".

    1. How many methods are there in the arithmetic method category of the CharacterSequence class?

      There are no messages categorized as arithmetic in String but in CharacterSequence, which String subclassifies. Squeak Strings on the other hand, implement arithmetic messages, exactly those mentioned in the solution to the exercise; Note however that String allMethodsInCategory: #arithmetic in both Cuis and Squeak include a seventh method #raisedTo: because #allMethodsInCategory also looks up for inherited methods from superclasses. Yes! you can raise the empty string to the power of n for n ∈ Number and the result is another empty string! WAT :) The fact that we can evaluate '' raisedTo: n without error seems like an unforeseen consequence of #adaptToCollection:andSend: relying on #collect and how the latter works on empty collections.

      See this thread in the Squeak-dev mailing list

  5. Nov 2023
    1. Lovely. I guess what I'm trying to define is some methodology for practicing. Many times I simply resort to my exhaustive method, which has worked for me in the past simply due to brute force.Thank you for taking the time to respond and for what look like some very interesting references.

      reply to u/ethanzanemiller at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/185xmuh/comment/kb778dy/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

      Some of your methodology will certainly depend on what questions you're asking, how well you know your area already, and where you'd like to go. If you're taking notes as part of learning a new area, they'll be different and you'll treat them differently than notes you're collecting on ideas you're actively building on or intriguing facts you're slowly accumulating. Often you'll have specific questions in mind and you'll do a literature review to see what's happing around that area and then read and take notes as a means of moving yourself closer to answering your particular questions.

      Take for example, the frequently asked questions (both here in this forum and by note takers across history): how big is an idea? what is an atomic note? or even something related to the question of how small can a fact be? If this is a topic you're interested in addressing, you'll make note of it as you encounter it in various settings and see that various authors use different words to describe these ideas. Over time, you'll be able to tag them with various phrases and terminologies like "atomic notes", "one idea per card", "note size", or "note lengths". I didn't originally set out to answer these questions specifically, but my interest in the related topics across intellectual history allowed such a question to emerge from my work and my notes.

      Once you've got a reasonable collection, you can then begin analyzing what various authors say about the topic. Bring them all to "terms" to ensure that they're talking about the same things and then consider what arguments they're making about the topic and write up your own ideas about what is happening to answer those questions you had. Perhaps a new thesis emerges about the idea? Some have called this process having a conversation with the texts and their authors or as Robert Hutchins called it participating in "The Great Conversation".

      Almost anyone in the forum here could expound on what an "atomic note" is for a few minutes, but they're likely to barely scratch the surface beyond their own definition. Based on the notes linked above, I've probably got enough of a collection on the idea of the length of a note that I can explore it better than any other ten people here could. My notes would allow me a lot of leverage and power to create some significant subtlety and nuance on this topic. (And it helps that they're all shared publicly so you can see what I mean a bit more clearly; most peoples' notes are private/hidden, so seeing examples are scant and difficult at best.)

      Some of the overall process of having and maintaining a zettelkasten for creating material is hard to physically "see". This is some of the benefit of Victor Margolin's video example of how he wrote his book on the history of design. He includes just enough that one can picture what's happening despite his not showing the deep specifics. I wrote a short piece about how I used my notes about delving into S.D. Goitein's work to write a short article a while back and looking at the article, the footnotes, and links to my original notes may be illustrative for some: https://boffosocko.com/2023/01/14/a-note-about-my-article-on-goitein-with-respect-to-zettelkasten-output-processes/. The exercise is a tedious one (though not as tedious as it was to create and hyperlink everything), but spend some time to click on each link to see the original notes and compare them with the final text. Some of the additional benefit of reading it all is that Goitein also had a zettelkasten which he used in his research and in leaving copies of it behind other researchers still actively use his translations and notes to continue on the conversation he started about the contents of the Cairo Geniza. Seeing some of his example, comparing his own notes/cards and his writings may be additionally illustrative as well, though take care as many of his notes are in multiple languages.

      Another potentially useful example is this video interview with Kathleen Coleman from the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. It's in the realm of historical linguistics and lexicography, but she describes researchers collecting masses of data (from texts, inscriptions, coins, graffiti, etc.) on cards which they can then study and arrange to write their own articles about Latin words and their use across time/history. It's an incredibly simple looking example because they're creating a "dictionary", but the work involved was painstaking historical work to be sure.

      Again, when you're done, remember to go back and practice for yourself. Read. Ask questions of the texts and sources you're working with. Write them down. Allow your zettelkasten to become a ratchet for your ideas. New ideas and questions will emerge. Write them down! Follow up on them. Hunt down the answers. Make notes on others' attempts to answer similar questions. Then analyze, compare, and contrast them all to see what you might have to say on the topics. Rinse and repeat.

      As a further and final (meta) example, some of my answer to your questions has been based on my own experience, but the majority of it is easy to pull up, because I can pose your questions not to my experience, but to my own zettelkasten and then quickly search and pull up a variety of examples I've collected over time. Of course I have far more experience with my own zettelkasten, so it's easier and quicker for me to query it than for you, but you'll build this facility with your own over time.

      Good luck. 🗃️

    2. Taking notes for historical writing .t3_185xmuh._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { --postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postBodyLink-VisitedLinkColor: #989898; } questionI'm trying to understand how to adopt parts of the Zettelkasten method for thinking about historical information. I wrote a PhD in history. My note-taking methodology was a complete mess the whole time. I used note-taking to digest a book, but it would take me two or three times longer than just reading. I would go back over each section and write down the pieces that seemed crucial. Sometimes, when I didn't know a subject well, that could take time. In the end, I would sometimes have many pages of notes in sequential order sectioned the way the book was sectioned, essentially an overlay of the book's structure. It was time-consuming, very hard, not useless at all, but inefficient.Now consider the Zettelkasten idea. I haven't read much of Luhmann. I recall he was a sociologist, a theorist in the grand style. So, in other words, they operate at a very abstract level. When I read about the Zettelkasten method, that's the way it reads to me. A system for combining thoughts and ideas. Now, you'll say that's an artificial distinction, perhaps...a fact is still rendered in thought, has atomicity to it etc. And I agree. However, the thing about facts is there are just A LOT of them. Before you write your narrative, you are drowning in facts. The writing of history is the thing that allows you to bring some order and selectivity to them, but you must drown first; otherwise, you have not considered all the possibilities and potentialities in the past that the facts reveal. To bring it back to Zettelkasten, the idea of Zettel is so appealing, but how does it work when dealing with an overwhelming number of facts? It's much easier to imagine creating a Zettelkasten from more rarefied thoughts provoked by reading.So, what can I learn from the Zettelkasten method? How can I apply some or all of its methodologies, practically speaking? What would change about my initial note-taking of a book if I were to apply Zettelkasten ideas and practice? Here is a discussion about using the method for "facts". The most concrete suggestions here suggest building Zettels around facts in some ways -- either a single fact, or groups of facts, etc. But in my experience, engaging with a historical text is a lot messier than that. There are facts, but also the author's rendering of the facts, and there are quotes (all the historical "gossip"), and it's all in there together as the author builds their narrative. You are trying to identify the key facts, the author's particular angle and interpretation, preserve your thoughts and reactions, and save these quotes, the richest part of history, the real evidence. In short, it is hard to imagine being able to isolate clear Zettel topics amid this reading experience.In Soenke Ahrens' book "How to Take Smart Notes," he describes three types of notes: fleeting notes (these are fleeting ideas), literature notes, and permanent notes. In that classification, I'm talking about "literature notes." Ahrens says these should be "extremely selective". But with the material I'm talking about it becomes a question. How can you be selective when you still don't know which facts you care about or want to maintain enough detail in your notes so you don't foreclose the possibilities in the historical narrative too early?Perhaps this is just an unsolvable problem. Perhaps there is no choice but to maintain a discipline of taking "selective" literature notes. But there's something about the Zettelkasten method that gives me the feeling that my literature notes could be more detailed and chaotic and open to refinement later.Does my dilemma explained here resonate with anyone who has tried this method for intense historical writing? If so, I'd like to hear you thoughts, or better yet, see some concrete examples of how you've worked.

      reply to u/ethanzanemiller at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/185xmuh/taking_notes_for_historical_writing/

      Rather than spending time theorizing on the subject, particularly since you sound like you're neck-deep already, I would heartily recommend spending some time practicing it heavily within the area you're looking at. Through a bit of time and experience, more of your questions will become imminently clear, especially if you're a practicing historian.

      A frequently missing piece to some of this puzzle for practicing academics is upping the level of how you read and having the ability to consult short pieces of books and articles rather than reading them "cover-to-cover" which is often unnecessary for one's work. Of particular help here, try Adler and Van Doren, and specifically their sections on analytical and syntopical reading.

      • Adler, Mortimer J., and Charles Van Doren. How to Read a Book: The Classical Guide to Intelligent Reading. Revised and Updated ed. edition. 1940. Reprint, Touchstone, 2011.

      In addition to the list of practicing historians I'd provided elsewhere on the topic, you might also appreciate sociologist Beatrice Webb's short appendix C in My Apprenticeship or her longer related text. She spends some time talking about handling dates and the database nature of querying collected facts and ideas to do research and to tell a story.

      Also helpful might be Mill's article which became a chapter in one of his later books:

      Perhaps u/danallosso may have something illuminating to add, or you can skim through his responses on the subject on Reddit or via his previous related writing: https://danallosso.substack.com/.

      Enough historians and various other humanists have been practicing these broad methods for centuries to bear out their usefulness in researching and organizing their work. Read a bit, but truly: practice, practice, and more practice is going to be your best friend here.

    1. Muchrecent scholarship on card indexes and factuality falls into one of two modes: first,scholars have excavated early modern indexes, catalogues, and the pursuit of ‘facts’to demonstrate information overload prior to the contemporary ‘information age’ as wellas the premodern attempts to counteract the firehose of books and other information(Blair, 2010; Krajewski, 2011; Mu ̈ ller-Wille and Scharf, 2009; Poovey, 1998;

      Zedelmaier, 1992). All the same, a range of figures have tracked and critiqued the trajectory of the ‘noble dream’ of historical and scientific ‘objectivity’ (Appleby, Hunt and Jacob, 1994: 241-70; Daston and Galison, 2007; Novick, 1988).

      Lustig categorizes scholarship on card indexes into two modes: understanding of information overload tools and the "trajectory of the 'noble dream' of historical and scientific 'objectivity'".

    2. Deutsch himself never theorized his index, treating it – like hiswhole focus on ‘facts’ – at face value.
    3. Moreover, card indexes give further form to Bruno Latour’s meditations on writing: ifLatour described writing as a kind of ‘flattening’ of knowledge, then card indexes, likevertical files, represent information in three dimensions, making ideas simultaneouslyimmutable and highly mobile, and the smallness of ideas and ‘facts’ forced to fit onpaper slips allowed for reordering (Latour, 1986: 19-20).
    4. However, the miniscule size of ‘facts’ did not neces-sarily reflect Deutsch’s adherence to any theory of information. Instead, it indicated hispersonal interest in distinctions of the smallest scale, vocalized by his motto ‘de minimiscurat historicus’, that history’s minutiae matter.

      Gotthard Deutsch didn't adhere to any particular theory of information when it came to the size of his notes. Instead Jason Lustig indicates that his perspective was influenced by his personal motto 'de minimis curat historicus' (history's minutiae matter), and as a result, he was interested in the smallest of distinctions of fact and evidence. ᔥ

    5. he spoke of the ‘historian’s credo’ that ‘the factscrubbed clean is more eternal than perfumed or rouged words’ (Marcus, 1957:466).17

      Jacob Marcus, ‘The Historian’s Credo’, 1958, AJA Marcus Nearprint File, Box 2.

    1. The research will be based on an analysis of existing literature and data gathered from audiorecorded semi-structured interviews.Semi-structured interviews will be face-to-face or via skype.All interviews will take place between December and February 2020.The interviews will be transcribed and coded for emergent themes
    2. The application of organisational dynamics will illuminate some of the anxieties, which may occur when a subject – black woman leader, interacts with her white male, female and black male colleagues.This framework will examine the inner and external world of individuals, who within an organisational setting are part of the relational dynamics which are influenced by the psychic and social meanings of differences of race and gender
    3. The conceptual framework for this study incorporated intersectionality theory and organisational psychodynamic theory, to explore the experiences of 10 black women senior managers working in the Ministry of Justice.
    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fP4zFQMXSw

      The fun things usually happen at the messy edges. This description of zettelkasten is a perfect encapsulation of this, though it's not necessarily on the surface.

      This is a well done encapsulation of what a zettelkasten. Watch it once, then practice for a bit. Knowing the process is dramatically different from practicing it. Too many people want perfection (perfection for them and from their perspective) and they're unlikely to arrive at it by seeing examples of others. The examples may help a bit, but after you've seen a few, you're not going to find a lot of insight without practicing it to see what works for you.

      This could be compared with epigenetic factors with respect to health. The broad Rx may help, but epigenetic factors need to be taken into account.

    1. HARPO trains an RL-based obfuscation agent by analyzing a user’s browsing profileusing an embedding and then optimizing the reward by inter-acting with a black-box user profiling or ad targeting model

      Approach

    1. In reality, the research experience mattersmore than the topic.”

      Extending off of this, is the reality that the research experience is far easier if one has been taught a convenient method, not only for carrying it out, but space to practice the pieces along the way.

      These methods can then later be applied to a vast array of topics, thus placing method above topic.

    1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(historical_analysis)

      relationship with context collapse

      Presentism bias enters biblical and religious studies when, by way of context collapse, readers apply texts written thousands of years ago and applicable to one context to their own current context without any appreciation for the intervening changes. Many modern Christians (especially Protestants) show these patterns. There is an interesting irony here because Protestantism began as the Catholic church was reading too much into the Bible to create practices like indulgences.)

      • for: epoche, epoche - interfaith applications, Deep Humanity, DH, polycrisis, poltical polarization, religious polarization, hermenneutic, hermeneutical phenomenological method

      • summary

        • a very insightful paper
      • comment

        • I performed Google search for "Epoche and application to interfaith religion"
        • The reason is that I am exploring a hunch of the salience of applying epoche for deep interfaith understanding
        • political polarization constitutes an existential threat and is one important crisis in our current polycrisis
        • Unless we find ways to effectively and rapidly reduce polarization, the other crisis's such as climate crisis, biodiversity crisis and inequality crisis will likely not be resolved
        • religious polarization form ingroups / outgroups and is a major contributing factor to political polarization and violent conflict
        • hence it becomes important to understand how interfaith understanding can be enhanced
        • epoche appears to be one possible way to accelerate interfaith understanding
  6. Oct 2023
    1. Those who prefer research methods to be buried may find Ogilvie’s habit of making explicit her archival travails frustrating, but it’s fascinating watching her track the contributors down.

      Link to the hidden process discussed by Keith Thomas:

      Thomas, Keith. “Diary: Working Methods.” London Review of Books, June 10, 2010. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n11/keith-thomas/diary.

    1. https://joonhyeokahn.substack.com/p/demystify-zettelkasten

      If you've not already spent some time with the idea, this short one pager is unlikely to "demystify" anything. Yet another zk one-pager, and not one of the better ones.

    1. Viel gelesen und vor allen Dingen begonnen, mit einem Zettelka-sten zu arbeiten, also Zettel vollgeschrieben. In den Zetteln habeich die Literatur, mit der ich mich vorwiegend beschäftigte, verar-beitet, also Soziologie und Philosophie. Damals habe ich vor allemDescartes und Husserl gelesen. In der soziologischen Theorie hatmich der frühe Funktionalismus beschäftigt, die Theorien von Mali-nowski und Radcliffe-Brown; dies schloß ein, daß ich mich auchsehr stark mit Kulturanthropologie und Ethnologie befaßte

      With heavy early interest in anthropology, sociology and philosophy including Malinowski, it's more likely that Luhmann would have been trained in historical methods which included the traditions of note taking using card indices of that time.

    1. RULE 2. STATE THE UNITY OF THE WHOLE BOOK

      The first several rules of reading a book analytically follow the same process of writing a book as suggested in the snowflake method.

    1. But I’m always trying to gather what I call“firewood.” So I have piles of things I can go to and see if they’llwork.

      Similar to Eminem's "stacking ammo" or Gerald Weinberg's "fieldstone method", David Lynch gathers piles of "firewood" from which he can draw to fire his creativity.

      In various places in the book, Lynch uses the idea of drawing on piles of ideas and using his feedback to draw out creativity: his collaboration on music with Angelo Badalamenti in which he draws out ideas through conversation and having the prop man bring in various props with similar feedback. The music and props here are both forms of creative "firewood".

  7. Sep 2023
    1. On Philosophical Method

      How do historical method and philosophical method compare? contrast?

      Were they tied to similar traditions? co-evolve? evolve separately?

    1. Different brain-imaging techniques provide scientists with insight into different aspects of how the human brain functions.

      The content here is scant. This is listed as a Student Outcome, so is there some additional content we need to supplement future assessment questions?

  8. Aug 2023
    1. The Snowflake Method is more specific, but broadly similar to those who build out plot using index cards.

      As examples, see Dustin Lance Black and Benjamin Rowland.

      Link to - https://hypothes.is/a/043JIlv5Ee2_eMf1TTV7ig - https://hypothes.is/a/ibFMareUEe2bqSdWdE046g

    2. Ingermanson, Randy. “The Snowflake Method For Designing A Novel.” Advanced Fiction Writing, circa 2013. https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/.

      Designing writing in ever more specific and increasing levels. Start with a logline, then a paragraph, then acts, etc.

      Roughly the advice I've given many over the years based on screenplay development experience, but with a clever name based on the Koch snowflake.

    3. you only have to solve a limited set of problems, and so you can write relatively fast.
    1. Methodenstreit mischten sich zahlreichenamhafte Historiker und andere Geisteswissenschaftlerein. Warburg leistete keinen direkten publizistischen Bei-trag, nahm jedoch, wie der Zettelkasten belegt, als passi-ver Beobachter intensiv an der Debatte teil.359

      Karl Lamprecht was one of Warburg's first teachers in Bonn and Warburg had a section in his zettelkasten dedicated to him. While Warburg wasn't part of the broader public debate on Lamprecht's Methodenstreit (methodological dispute), his notes indicate that he took an active stance on thinking about it.

      Consult footnote for more:

      59 Vgl. Roger Chickering, »The Lamprecht Controversy«, in: Historiker- kontroversen, hrsg. von Hartmut Lehmann, Göttingen 20 0 0, S. 15 – 29

    2. Ernst Bernheim,

      Aby Warburg's (1866-1929) zettelkasten had references to Ernst Bernheim (1850-1942). Likelihood of his having read Lehrbuch der historischen Methode (1889) as potential inspiration for his own zettelkasten?

      When did Warburg start his zettelkasten?

      According to Wikipedia, Warburg began his study of art history, history and archaeology in Bonn in 1886. He finished his thesis in 1892, so he may have had access to Bernheim's work on historical method. I'll note that Bernheim taught history at the University of Göttingen and at the University of Bonn after 1875, so they may have overlapped and even known each other. We'll need more direct evidence to establish this connection and a specific passing of zettelkasten tradition, though it may well have been in the "air" at that time.

    1. Lamprecht's ambitious Deutsche Geschichte (13 vols., 1891-1908) on the whole trajectory of German history sparked a famous Methodenstreit (methodological dispute) within Germany's academic history establishment, especially Max Weber, who habitually referred to Lamprecht as a mere dilettante. Lamprecht came under criticism from scholars of legal and constitutional history like Friedrich Meinecke and Georg von Below for his lack of methodological rigor and inattention to important political trends and ideologies. As a result, Lamprecht and his students were marginalized by German academia, and interdisciplinary social history remained something of a taboo among German historians for much of the twentieth century.
    1. Early this year, Conor White-Sullivan introduced me to the Zettelkasten method of note-taking.

      This article was likely a big boost to the general idea of zettelkasten in the modern zeitgeist.

      Note the use of the phrase "Zettelkasten method of note-taking" which would have helped to distinguish it from other methods and thus helping the phrase Zettelkasten method stick where previously it had a more generic non-name.

    2. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NfdHG6oHBJ8Qxc26s/the-zettelkasten-method-1

      A somewhat early, comprehensive one page description of the zettelkasten method from September 2019.

    1. Allosso, Dan. “Kuhn’s Paradigms.” Substack newsletter. MakingHistory (blog), August 17, 2023. https://danallosso.substack.com/p/kuhns-paradigms.

    2. Science must find for every effect a single cause. The historian is rarely faced with the same requirement.Historians have the advantage of being able to live with explanatory ambiguity that would be unacceptable in science.
    3. Periods of normal science are interrupted when anomalies between observations and the expectations suggested by the paradigm begin to demonstrate the paradigm’s weakness.

      Lego theory of science.

      Individual bricks are facts which can be assembled in a variety of ways, each of which is a particular paradigm. Ultimately, the optimal structure is one which dovetails with the neighborhoods of structures around them while each having the best minimized structure of it's own.

      With only handfuls of individual facts, it can be difficult to build them up into an interesting or useful structure to start. Doing this may help to discover other facts. As these are added, one may reshape the overall structure of the theory as the puzzle begins to reveal itself and allow the theorist the ability to best structure an overall theory which minimizes itself and allows dovetailing with other external theories. All the theories then eventually form their own pieces which can then be pieced together for the next structural level up.

      See also Simon Singh, Thomas Kuhn, topology.

    4. Kuhn denied that scientific development progresses by a series of “successive increments” that add to the accumulation of facts making up current knowledge like bricks building a wall.

      This feels like the sort of flavor of historical method of Ernst Bernheim mixed with Gerald Weinberg's Fieldstone Method.

    1. offset - The starting point for the range of random numbers range - The number of values between first and the last possible random number including the limits.

      with this method can create a random number in range .

  9. Jul 2023
    1. https://www.magneticmemorymethod.com/zettelkasten/

      I'd found this page through general search and then a few days later someone from Metivier's "team" (an SEO hire likely) emailed me to link to it from a random zk page on my own site (not a great one).

      Metivier seems to have come to ZK from the PKM space (via a podcast I listened to perhaps?). This page isn't horrible, but seems to benefit greatly from details I've added to the Wikipedia page over the past few years.

  10. Jun 2023
    1. One) Successful men realize that the most important decision in their life is the woman they choose, because outside of work, this is what they'll be spending most time on. The woman must understand the man's grand ambition, and support them with it. (Cf. Flow & The Intellectual Life as well). Women should be chosen on personality, not looks. Looks fade (attraction as well), personality "stays".

      Two) Everyone deserves an opinion but not everyone deserves a say. Charlie Munger sums this up right: "I don't ever allow myself to have [express] an opinion about anything that I don't know the opponent side's argument better than they do." Or Marcus Aurelius, who says: "The opinion of ten thousand men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject." In short: Only state your opinion when you can back it up!; knowledge and experience. The same goes for judging opinion (and advice) from others.

      Three) Successful people buy assets when the money is enough. Assets > Luxury. (See also: Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki). Only buy glamor and other "interests" once your assets are there to secure your financial success.

      Four) Be pragmatic. Do what's practical, not what is "sexy". Notice inefficiencies and solve them. The entrepreneurial mindset.

      Five) The morning sets the tone for the rest of the days. Time is subjective, waking up early doesn't matter as much as waking up later. It depends on the person. Someone who wakes up at 10am can be as successful as someone who wakes up at 6am. Instead, what defines success, is a highly effective morning routine.

      Six) The less you talk, the more you listen. Talking less means less mistakes. In addition, the less you talk, the more people will listen when you do speak. It puts extra weight on your message. Listening means analysis and learning.

      Seven) Pick the right opportunity at the right time. Pick the right vehicle. Do the right things in the right order! The advice "don't do what someone says, do what they do" is bullshit, as you can't do what someone is able to do after ten years of experience.

      Eight) Discipline > Motivation. Motivation, like Dr. Sung says, fluctuates and is multifactorial dependent... When you are lead by motivation you will not be as productive. Don't rely on chance. Rely on what is stable.

      Nine) Once a good career has been made, buy A1 assets and hold on to them to secure a financially successful future.

      Ten) Just because you won, you are not a winner. Being a winner is a continuous process, it means always learning and reflecting as well as introspecting. Don't overvalue individual wins but do celebrate them when appropriate.

      Eleven) Build good relationships with the banks early on. At times you need loans to fund certain ventures, when having a good relation with them, this will be significantly easier. Understand finance as early as possible. Read finance books.

      Twelve) Keep the circle small. Acquintances can be many, but real close relationships should be kept small. Choose your friends wisely. "You become the average of the five people you spend most time with." Privacy is important. Only tell the most deep secrets to the Inner Circle, to avoid overcomplication.

      Thirteen) Assume that everything is your fault. Responsibility. It leads to learning. It requires reflection and introspection. It leads to Dr. Benjamin Hardy's statement: "Nothing happens to you, everything happens for you."

      Fourteen) Work like new money, but act like your old money. Combine the hunger of the new with the wisdom of the old.

      Fifteen) Assume that you can't change the world, but slightly influence it. It prevents disappointments and gives a right mindset. Do everything (that has your ambition) with an insane drive. Aim to hit the stars. To become the best of the best.

      Sixteen) Private victories lead to public victories. The solid maxim is the following: "The bigger the public victory, the more private victories went into it." Work in private. Social media doesn't need to known the struggle. Let your results talk for you. This is also why you should never compare yourself to others, but rather to your own past self.

      Seventeen) After extreme experience, the most complicated task will look elegant and effortless. Unconscious competence.

    1. The command to schools—the invective about education—was, perhaps as ever, Janus-like: the injunction was to teach more and getbetter results, but to get kids to be imaginative and creative at the same time.They had to learn the facts of science, but they shouldn’t have original thinkingsqueezed from them in the process. It was the formal versus progressivecontroversy in a nutshell.

      Can the zettelkasten method be a means of fixing/helping with this problem of facts versus creativity in a programmatic way?

    2. There are many things that we have to take on trust; everyminute of every day we have to accept the testimony and the guidance of thosewho are in a position to offer an authoritative view.

      Perhaps there is a need for balance between the two perspectives of formal and progressive education. While one can teach another the broad strokes of the "rules" of note taking, for example, using the zettelkasten method and even give examples of the good and the bad, the affordances, and tricks, individuals are still going to need to try things out to see what works for them in various situations and for their specific needs. In the end, its nice to have someone hand one the broad "rules" (and importantly the reasons for them), so that one has a set of tools which they can then practice as an art.

  11. May 2023
    1. framework for making claims with evidence. The simplest of which, which is what I use, is Claim-Evidence-Reasoning (CER). Students are taught to state their claim (The theme of the story is X), support it with evidence (Readers can infer this through the story's plot, particularly...), and explain their reasoning (Because the character's action result in X, ...) Another great framework is The Writing Revolution/The Hochman Method's "single paragraph outline". Students need to be taught that these are the units of thought -- the most basic forms of an argument. And, even before this, they need to know that a sentence is the form of an idea.
  12. www.3x5life.com www.3x5life.com
    1. BJ Fogg is one of the leading authorities on habit change.  In his best selling book Tiny Habits he says: “Celebration will one day be ranked alongside mindfulness and gratitude as daily practices that contribute most to our overall happiness and well-being. If you learn just one thing from my entire book, I hope it’s this: Celebrate your tiny successes. This one small shift in your life can have a massive impact even when you feel there is no way up or out of your situation. Celebration can be your lifeline.”
    1. The Ivy Lee method dates back to 1918, when Lee, a productivity consultant, was hired by Charles M. Schwab, the president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, to improve his company's efficiency. As the story goes, Lee offered his method to Schwab for free, and after three months, Schwab was so pleased with the results he wrote Lee a check for $25,000 — the equivalent of about $400,000 today.
    1. I follow the Ivy Lee method, in which I write down the six most important tasks that need to get done that day. I don’t do anything else until those six things are done!

      Lauren Layne mentions that she uses the Ivy Lee productivity method.

      https://www.katiefarnan.com/blogs/the-form/lauren-layne

    1. I would recommend ruling a line under the 6th point and having the rest as ‘if you get time’ tasks. Nothing else is allowed to get done until those first 6 tasks are complete: This is known as the Ivy Lee method.

      The "Ivy Lee method" for productivity involves making a to do list with a line underneath the first six most important tasks and doing nothing else until the top six items are finished.

      Jason Chatfield credits http://katiefarnan.com/blogs/the-form/lauren-layne for the idea.

    1. I may not understand this right, but if I'm creating an original idea, who am I citing for? Maybe it's just something I never understood properly how that worked and that's the issue. Part of the reason I was asking if anyone knew of actual academic research that had been published while using a ZK was so I could see how it worked, in action.

      reply to u/ruthlessreuben at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/w5yz0n/comment/ihxojq0/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

      u/ruthlessreuben, as a historian, you're likely to appreciate some variations which aren't as Luhmann-centric. Try some of the following:

      The following note taking manuals (or which cover it in part) all bear close similarities to Luhmann's system, but were written by historians and related to the ideas of "historical method":

      Although she's a sociologist, you might also appreciate Beatrice Webb's coverage which also has some early database collection flavor:

      Webb, Sidney, and Beatrice Webb. Methods of Social Study. London; New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1932. http://archive.org/details/b31357891.

  13. Apr 2023
    1. If the target resource does not have a current representation and the PUT successfully creates one, then the origin server MUST inform the user agent by sending a 201 (Created) response. If the target resource does have a current representation and that representation is successfully modified in accordance with the state of the enclosed representation, then the origin server MUST send either a 200 (OK) or a 204 (No Content) response to indicate successful completion of the request.
    1. 09:36 - From his early youth, he loved to collect stamps,09:42 and he said if all the images which are around us09:47 would have been lost,09:47 an album of stamps would help us to understand the world.

      Just as Warburg's suggestion that an album of collected stamps could help us to understand the world visually if all other images were lost, perhaps subsections of traces of other cultures could do the same.

    1. Some observers termed Thom’s text a biography while others refer to it as a history. But these monikers might mislead contemporary readers who would expect a biography or history produced by an academic press to be undergirded by scholarly methods – including archival research and citations that document its claims in that record. Today we understand Thom’s text to be less a work of biography or history and more a hagiography: the effort of an admiring descendant who compiled the varied recollections of elders and their impressions of Mr. Hopkins and his family.

      How do we better distinguish the margins between histories, biographies, and hagiographies and the motivations of the writers who produce them?

      How do we better underline these subtleties to the broader publics outside of historians and other specialists?

    1. natural one: we firstmust find something to say, then organize our material, and then put it intowords.

      Finding something to say within a zettelkasten-based writing framework is relatively easy. One is regularly writing down their ideas with respect to other authors as part of "the great conversation" and providing at least a preliminary arrangement. As part of their conversation they're putting these ideas into words right from the start.

      These all follow the basic pillars of classic rhetoric, though one might profitably take their preliminary written notes and continue refining the arrangement as well as the style of the writing as they proceed to finished product.

    1. Lax–Friedrichs method

      The forward time scheme seems slightly different

    2. or the unknown u i n + 1 , {\displaystyle u_{i}^{n+1},}

      which one is the numerical dissipation term

  14. Mar 2023
    1. https://www.3m.co.uk/3M/en_GB/post-it-notes/ideas/articles/make-the-leap-from-to-do-to-done-with-the-scrum-methodology/

      "The Scrum method" described here, similar to the Kanban method, the Memindex method, tickler systems, or other card index as productivity systems, seems to be a productized name for selling Post-it Notes.

      Scrum method consists of a project broken down into "story" rows with "to do" items in columns which progress along to "in process", "to verify", and finally "done".

      Other productized names (particular to the note taking space): Antinet zettelkasten, Linking Your Thinking, Second Brain, etc.

    2. The Scrum method, which is powered by Post-it® Products, breaks up a project into bite-sized modules. It helps to track each task through various stages of completion, and ensures that everyone on the team is aware of progress and updates. It can help turn thoughts into actions, and actions into achievement.

      Seeing this, I can't help but think about some of the ads from the early 1900s for filing cabinets and card indexes which had similar named methodologies for productivity, but which were also advertisements for purchasing the associated physical goods.

      Examples: Shaw-Walker, Yawman & Erbe, etc.

    1. Dass das ägyptische Wort p.t (sprich: pet) "Himmel" bedeutet, lernt jeder Ägyptologiestudent im ersten Semester. Die Belegsammlung im Archiv des Wörterbuches umfaßt ca. 6.000 Belegzettel. In der Ordnung dieses Materials erfährt man nun, dass der ägyptische Himmel Tore und Wege hat, Gewässer und Ufer, Seiten, Stützen und Kapellen. Damit wird greifbar, dass der Ägypter bei dem Wort "Himmel" an etwas vollkommen anderes dachte als der moderne westliche Mensch, an einen mythischen Raum nämlich, in dem Götter und Totengeister weilen. In der lexikographischen Auswertung eines so umfassenden Materials geht es also um weit mehr als darum, die Grundbedeutung eines banalen Wortes zu ermitteln. Hier entfaltet sich ein Ausschnitt des ägyptischen Weltbildes in seinem Reichtum und in seiner Fremdheit; und naturgemäß sind es gerade die häufigen Wörter, die Schlüsselbegriffe der pharaonischen Kultur bezeichnen. Das verbreitete Mißverständnis, das Häufige sei uninteressant, stellt die Dinge also gerade auf den Kopf.

      Google translation:

      Every Egyptology student learns in their first semester that the Egyptian word pt (pronounced pet) means "heaven". The collection of documents in the dictionary archive comprises around 6,000 document slips. In the order of this material one learns that the Egyptian heaven has gates and ways, waters and banks, sides, pillars and chapels. This makes it tangible that the Egyptians had something completely different in mind when they heard the word "heaven" than modern Westerners do, namely a mythical space in which gods and spirits of the dead dwell.

      This is a fantastic example of context creation for a dead language as well as for creating proper historical context.

    1. Richards, Olly. Interview with Michel Thomas Publisher Sue Hart, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abjrsATBc5A.

      Thomas had a secretive nature and did most communication either over phone or in person. He didn't write letters. Sue Hart felt that it was the result of his experience in World War II. (Potentially relationship with spycraft?)


      He was a bit of a showman and enjoyed dropping names. He enjoyed his fame and status. Thomas seemed to enjoy people listening to him and didn't appreciate confrontation and dealt with it by shutting people off and walking away.


      Nothing deep here about his method really. All just background.


      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abjrsATBc5A

    1. Heyde, Johannes Erich. Technik des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens. (Sektion 1.2 Die Kartei) Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1931.

      annotation target: urn:x-pdf:00126394ba28043d68444144cd504562

      (Unknown translation from German into English. v1 TK)

      The overall title of the work (in English: Technique of Scientific Work) calls immediately to mind the tradition of note taking growing out of the scientific historical methods work of Bernheim and Langlois/Seignobos and even more specifically the description of note taking by Beatrice Webb (1926) who explicitly used the phrase "recipe for scientific note-taking".

      see: https://hypothes.is/a/BFWG2Ae1Ee2W1HM7oNTlYg

      first reading: 2022-08-23 second reading: 2022-09-22

      I suspect that this translation may be from Clemens in German to Scheper and thus potentially from the 1951 edition?

      Heyde, Johannes Erich. Technik des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens; eine Anleitung, besonders für Studierende. 8., Umgearb. Aufl. 1931. Reprint, Berlin: R. Kiepert, 1951.

    1. Michel Thomas Method Review

      Michel Thomas method also includes: - atomic pieces built up as building blocks into larger pieces - lots of encouragement to prevent the feeling of failure

      Downsides: - there is no failure mode which can nudge people into a false sense of performance when using their language with actual native speakers

      This reviewer indicates that there is some base level of directed mnemonic work going on, but the repetition level isn't such that long term retention (at least in the space repetition sort of way) is a specific goal. We'll need to look into this piece more closely to firm this up, however.

    1. The Michel Thomas Method in a nutshell

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9Xh-by50pI

      This video indicates that small mnemonic hooks are inserted for some words in the Michel Thomas method. This was not immediately apparent or seen in the 1997 BBC documentary about his method and wasn't immediately apparent in Harold Goodman's discussion.

      Is it apparent in Goodman's session with his nephews? Was it part of Thomas' method originally or was it added later? Is it truly necessary or does it work without it as in the SSiW method which doesn't use it.

    1. It will take some deeper dives, but ostensibly this method seems to look like that of Pimsleur, Mormon Church, SSiW, and other methods.

    2. The Language Master<br /> BBC - Michel Thomas<br /> [English CC]<br /> [Leg. PT-BR]

      Michel Thomas is one of the most brilliant language teachers in the world. His usual clients are movie stars and business leaders. This programme takes him to a Sixth Form College in London to work with school pupils, to test his claim that he can teach anyone a language in a week - with no reading, writing or homework. The film also explores his personal history - as a hero of the French Resistance during WW II.

      The Michel Thomas method involves: - slow build up of words, phrases, natural grammar - forced production of the language through practice - positive interaction - patience - no stress - no judgement - encouragement - constant evidence of progress

      How does "understanding" of the language evolve out of this method? It's more like revelation rather than understanding...

      This method appears much more atomic than that of SSiW (Aran Jones), but some of this is down to the fact that there's a live person who is able to unjudgementally prompt one with pieces which they've missed. The teacher has the context whereas the taped instructors do not. Presumably this sort of interpersonal prompting and context isn't necessarily required, but it can help to better lower the learner's stress and potentially speed up the learning process. It would require some standardization to set up a specific experiment to test between these two modes to tease this data out.

      Reference key: [[Levy1997]]<br /> “The Language Master.” 1:33 : 1, color. London, UK: BBC 2, March 23, 1997. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0w_uYPAQic.

    1. Dr. Pimsleur’s research on memory was perhaps one of his most revolutionary achievements. He discovered that if learners were reminded of new words at gradually increasing intervals, each time they would remember longer than the time before. He documented the optimal spacing for information to move from short-term into long-term, or permanent, memory.

      I thought Ebbinghaus did this in the late 1800s?! 😜

    1. the very point of a Zettelkasten is to ditch the categories.

      If we believe as previously indicated by Luhmann's son that Luhmann learned the basics of his evolved method from Johannes Erich Heyde, then the point of the original was all about categories and subject headings. It ultimately became something which Luhmann minimized, perhaps in part for the relationship of work and the cost of hiring assistants to do this additional manual labor.

    1. My Ten Years With Michel Thomas - Dr. Harold Goodman

      https://youtu.be/askAFNzI9Rc

      Michel Thomas taught languages conversationally in both languages by creating absolutely no pressure or worry and always keeping students in the "now".

      Find:<br /> Kaplan, Howard. “The Language Master.” The Jerusalem Report, August 11, 1994.

      Watch:<br /> “The Language Master.” 1:33 : 1, color. London, UK: BBC 2, March 23, 1997. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0w_uYPAQic.

    1. The Ollendorff method likely influenced the development of other well-known 19th century foreign language learning methods, for example, the Method Gaspey-Otto-Sauer[7][8] which was widely used until the 1950s.[9]

      The Method Gaspey-Otto-Sauer of teaching languages was popular until the 1950s and was influenced by la méthode Ollendorff from the 1830s.

    1. Understanding Zettelkasten notes <br /> by Mitch (@sacredkarailee@me.dm) 2022-02-11

      Quick one pager overview which actually presumes you've got some experience with the general idea. Interestingly it completely leaves out the idea of having an index!

      Otherwise, generally: meh. Takes a very Ahrens-esque viewpoint and phraseology.

    1. o improve accuracy, Sony hasintroduced the Weighted Least Square Method (WLSM) al-gorithm. In WLSM, the square value of residuals are individu-ally weighted

      The weight is imposed so that theresiduals in bright channels are relatively under weightedcompared to dim channels

    1. None of this is easy. In the words of Jill Lepore, one of our finest historians, “Writing history requires empathy, inquiry, and debate. It requires forswearing condescension, cant, and nostalgia. The past isn’t quaint. Much of it, in fact, is bleak.”

      ostensibly in The Story of America: Essays on Origins

  15. Feb 2023
    1. Sam Matla talks about the collector's fallacy in a negative light, and for many/most, he might be right. But for some, collecting examples and evidence of particular things is crucially important. The key is to have some idea of what you're collecting and why.

      Historians collecting small facts over time may seem this way, but out of their collection can emerge patterns which otherwise would never have been seen.

      cf: Keith Thomas article

      concrete examples of this to show the opposite?

      Relationship to the idea of AI coming up with black box solutions via their own method of diffuse thinking

    1. I got rid of most of the features after I realized that they are redundant or a just plain harmful when they slowed me down.

      Many long time practitioners of note taking methods, particularly in the present environment enamored with shiny object syndrome, will advise to keep one's system as simple as possible. Sascha Fast has specifically said, "I got rid of most of the features after I realized that they are redundant or a (sic) just plain harmful when they slowed me down."

    1. Living with a Zettelkasten | Blay <br /> by Magnus Eriksson at 2015-06-21 <br /> (accessed:: 2023-02-23 06:40:39)

      a zettelkasten method one pager based generally on Luhmann's example and broadly drawn from material only on zettelkasten.de up to the date of writing in 2015.

      Interesting to see the result of a single source without any influence from Ahrens, Eco, or any others from what I can tell. Perhaps some influence from Kuehn, but only from the overlap of zettelkasten.de and Kuehn's blog.

      Note that it's not as breathless as many one page examples and doesn't focus on Luhmann's massive output, but it's still also broadly devoid of any other history or examples.

      I would have hoped for more on the "living with" portion that was promised.

    1. R. G. Collingwood’s critique of what hecalled ‘scissors and paste’ history – meaning both those who uncritically cited earlierworks, and the use of scissors and paste to cut apart sources on index cards
    2. Herbert Baxton Adams’ model of ahistorical seminar room suggested it have a dedicated catalogue;
    3. Deutsch’s close friendJoseph Stolz, writing of the Chicago rabbi Bernard Felsenthal (1822–1908) who hadpenned a history of that city’s Jews and was instrumental in the 1892 formation of theAmerican Jewish Historical Society, noted that Felsenthal ‘was not the systematic orga-nizer who worked with a stenographer and card-index’ (Stolz, 1922: 259).

      Great example of a historian implying the benefit of not only a card index, but of potentially how commonplace it was to not only have one, but to have stenographers or secretaries to help manage them.

      Link this to the reference in Heyde about historians and others who were pushed to employ stenographers or copyists to keep their card indexes in order.


      Given the cost of employing secretaries to manage our information, one of the affordances that computers might focus on as tools for thought is lowering the barrier for management and maintenance. If they can't make this easier/simpler, then what are they really doing beyond their shininess? Search is obviously important in this context.

      What was the reference to employing one person full time to manage every 11 or 12 filing cabinets' worth of documents? Perhaps Duguid in the paper piece?

    4. One student’s rabbinical thesis, also completed that year,opened with the declaration: ‘We must not forget that History is a Science. Its facts cannever be doubted. One may indeed, differ as to the interpretation of facts but neverdispute the fact per se!’ (orig. emph., Holtzberg, 1916: Introduction).

      Interesting to see this quote in light of the work of Ernst Bernheim and historical method.

      At what point did history begin to be viewed as a science this way? (Did it predate Berheim?) Is it still?

    5. Anecdotes’, he concluded, ‘havetheir historic value, if properly tested’ – reflecting both his interest in details and also theneed to ascertain whether they were true (Deutsch, 1905b).
    6. Deutsch’s index was created out of an almost algorith-mic processing of historical sources in the pursuit of a totalized and perfect history of theJews; it presented, on one hand, the individualized facts, but together also constitutedwhat we might term a ‘history without presentation’, which merely held the ‘facts’themselves without any attempt to synthesize them (cf. Saxer, 2014: 225-32).

      Not sure that I agree with the framing of "algorithmic processing" here as it was done manually by a person pulling out facts. But it does bring out the idea of where collecting ends and synthesis of a broader thesis out of one's collection begins. Where does historical method end? What was the purpose of the collection? Teaching, writing, learning, all, none?

    7. one finds in Deutsch’s catalogue one implementation of what LorraineDaston would later term ‘mechanical objectivity’, an ideal of removing the scholar’s selffrom the process of research and especially historical and scientific representation (Das-ton and Galison, 2007: 115-90).

      In contrast to the sort of mixing of personal life and professional life suggested by C. Wright Mills' On Intellectual Craftsmanship (1952), a half century earlier Gotthard Deutsch's zettelkasten method showed what Lorraine Datson would term 'mechanical objectivity'. This is an interesting shift in philosophical perspective of note taking practice. It can also be compared and contrasted with a 21st century perspective of "personal" knowledge management.

  16. Jan 2023
    1. Around 1956: "My next task was to prepare my course. Since none of the textbooks known to me was satisfactory, I resorted to the maieutic method that Plato had attributed to Socrates. My lectures consisted essentially in questions that I distributed beforehand to the students, and an abstract of the research that they had prompted. I wrote each question on a 6 × 8 card. I had adopted this procedure a few years earlier for my own work, so I did not start from scratch. Eventually I filled several hundreds of such cards, classed them by subject, and placed them in boxes. When a box filled up, it was time to write an article or a book chapter. The boxes complemented my hanging-files cabinet, containing sketches of papers, some of them aborted, as well as some letters." (p. 129)

      This sounds somewhat similar to Mark Robertson's method of "live Roaming" (using Roam Research during his history classes) as a teaching tool on top of other prior methods.

      link to: Roland Barthes' card collection for teaching: https://hypothes.is/a/wELPGLhaEeywRnsyCfVmXQ

    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpvEY-2dSdU

      In this episode, I explain the memory system I created in order to expand my memory to new heights. I call it the Sirianni Method and with it, you can learn how to create an intentional photographic memory.

      Who the hell is the Sirianni this is named for, himself? (In the comments he mentions that "it's my italian grandpa's last name, I always liked it and a while back started naming things after it)

      tl;dr: He's reinvented the wheel, but certainly not the best version of it.

      What he's describing isn't remotely related to the idea of a photographic memory, so he's over-hyping the results, which is dreadful. If it were a photographic memory, he wouldn't need the spaced-repetition portion of his practice. While he mentions how he's regularly reviewing his cards he doesn't mention any of the last century+ of research and work on spaced repetition. https://super-memory.com/articles/20rules.htm is a good place to start for some of this.

      A lot of what he's doing is based on associative memory, particularly by drawing connections/links to other things he already knows. He's also taking advantage of visual memory by associating his knowledge with a specific picture.

      He highlights emotion and memory, but isn't drawing clear connections between his knowledge and any specific emotions that he's tying or associating them to.

      "Intentional" seems to be one of the few honest portions of the piece.

      Overview of his Sirianni method: pseudo-zettelkasten notes with written links to things he already knows (but without any Luhmann-esque numbering system or explicit links between cards, unless they're hiding in his connections section, which isn't well supported by the video) as well as a mnemonic image and lots of ad hoc spaced repetition.

      One would be better off mixing their note taking practice with associative mnemonic methods (method of loci, songlines, memory palaces, sketchnotes, major system, orality, etc.) all well described by Lynne Kelly (amongst hundreds before her who got smaller portions of these practices) in combination with state of the art spaced repetition.

      The description of Luhmann's note taking system here is barely passable at best. He certainly didn't invent the system which was based on several hundred years of commonplace book methodology before him. Luhmann also didn't popularize it in any sense (he actually lamented how people were unimpressed by it when he showed them). Popularization was done post-2013 generally by internet hype based on his prolific academic output.

      There is nothing new here other than that he thinks he's discovered something new and is repackaging it for the masses with a new name in a flashy video package. There's a long history of hucksters doing this sort of fabulist tale including Kevin Trudeau with Mega Memory in the 1990s and going back to at least the late 1800s with "Professor" Alphonse Loisette and the system he sold for inordinate amounts to the masses including Mark Twain.

      Most of these methods have been around for millennia and are all generally useful and well documented though the cultural West has just chosen to forget most of them. A week's worth of research and reading on these topics would have resulted in a much stronger "system" more quickly.

      Beyond this, providing a fuller range of specific options and sub-options in these areas so that individuals could pick and choose the specifics which work best for them might have been a better way to go.

      Content research: D- Production value: A+

      {syndication link](https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/10ehrbd/comment/j4u495q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)

    1. For some scholars, it is critical thatthis new Warburg obsessively kept tabs on antisemitic incidents on the Easternfront, scribbling down aphorisms and thoughts on scraps of paper and storingthem in Zettelkasten that are now searchable.

      Apparently Aby Warburg "obsessively kept" notes on antisemitic incidents on the Eastern front in his zettelkasten.


      This piece looks at Warburg's Jewish identity as supported or not by the contents of his zettelkasten, thus placing it in the use of zettelkasten or card index as autobiography.


      Might one's notes reflect who they were as a means of creating both their identity while alive as well as revealing it once they've passed on? Might the use of historical method provide its own historical method to be taken up on a meta basis after one's death?

    1. “In the beginning of my engagement with Geniza studies, I innocently supposed that I didnot need to deal with the original of a document already mentioned by another scholar. To-day, it is clear to me that the Geniza scholar must examine the original even for a docu-ment that has been fully published (even by Goitein), not to mention a document only men-tioned.” See S. D. Goitein, “The Struggle between the Synagogue and the Community” (inHebrew), in Hayyim (Jefim) Schrimann: Jubilee Volume, ed. Shraga Abramson and AaronMirsky (Jerusalem, 1970), 69–77, 71 n. 8 (my translation)

      Geniza studies rule of thumb: ALWAYS consult the original of a document when referencing work by other scholars as new translations, understandings, context, history, and conditions regarding the original work of the scholar may have changed.

    2. Another problem arises from the very nature of documentary material astexts not written for posterity. When reading Geniza letters, one is often in theposition of an uninvited guest at a social event, that is, someone who is unfa-miliar with the private codes and customs shared by the inner circle. Writersoften do not bother to explain themselves in a complete manner when they

      know that the recipient is already familiar with the subject. 17

      17 Indeed, writers often used this shared understanding to stress the relationship they had with the recipients.

  17. Dec 2022
    1. Is the ZK method worth it? and how it helped you in your projects? .t3_zwgeas._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { --postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postBodyLink-VisitedLinkColor: #989898; } questionI am new to ZK method and I'd like to use it for my literature review paper. Altho the method is described as simple, watching all those YT videos about the ZK and softwares make it very complex to me. I want to know how it changed your writing??

      reply to u/Subject_Industry1633 at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/zwgeas/is_the_zk_method_worth_it_and_how_it_helped_you/ (and further down)

      ZK is an excellent tool for literature reviews! It is a relative neologism (with a slightly shifted meaning in English over the past decade with respect to its prior historical use in German) for a specific form of note taking or commonplacing that has generally existed in academia for centuries. Excellent descriptions of it can be found littered around, though not under a specific easily searchable key word or phrase, though perhaps phrases like "historical method" or "wissenschaftlichen arbeitens" may come closest.

      Some of the more interesting examples of it being spelled out in academe include:

      For academic use, anecdotally I've seen very strong recent use of the general methods most compellingly demonstrated in Obsidian (they've also got a Discord server with an academic-focused channel) though many have profitably used DevonThink and Tinderbox (which has a strong, well-established community of academics around it) as much more established products with dovetails into a variety of other academic tools. Obviously there are several dozens of newer tools for doing this since about 2018, though for a lifetime's work, one might worry about their longevity as products.

    2. Your story is familiar to many and I was in the same position as you until recently. It’s an example of people believing in the Collector’s Fallacy: https://zettelkasten.de/posts/collectors-fallacy/I’d recommend that article as a good reason for others to adopt the active approach of ZK, rather than the passive approach of collecting articles and mostly not reading them.

      What does the collector's fallacy really relate to?

      If you're collecting material you're not processing and either linking/tagging for future active use, then yes, it's definitely a fallacy. Collecting articles and tidbits that you don't read and don't use, at least in the moment is a massive waste.

      But if, instead, you're collecting tidbits of context and examples over time, say like historian Keith Thomas (? double check this reference, but I think it was him in his essay Working Methods (LRB, 2010)) describes, and then linking them into some sort of larger thesis or puzzling out some pattern between and amongst those examples, then you're collecting correctly and productively.

    1. GET if to obtain information. There should not be any "body" data sent with that request. This will not trigger error, but we just simply don't look there in GET request. Only query string parameters ale allowed. This request will never change anything, you can call it as many times as you want. It is called that GET is IDEMPOTENT request. POST is to add new or modify existing information. If request url doesn't contain resource ID then we will treat that as new data that must be inserted. If you want to modify existing data you need to specify an ID in the Rrequest URL (like POST /contacts/hg5fF). POST is NOT IDEMPOTENT, you need to be carefull to not send the same request twice... DELETE is only to remove infomration. As a general rule we do not allow to add any "body" data to that type of request nor we allow any query string. This should be just simply DELETE /contacts/hg5fF.
    1. An interface type is defined as a set of method signatures.

      A method is a function with a special receiver argument.

      ``` // interface type Abser intreface { Abs() float64 } // method type Vertex struct { X, Y float }

      func (v Vertex) Abs() float64 { return math.Sqrt(v.X * v.X + v.Y * v.Y) }

      ```

    2. An interface type is defined as a set of method signatures.

      An interface type is defined as a set of method signatures.

      A method is a function with a special receiver argument.

      ``` // interface type Abser intreface { Abs() float64 } // method type Vertex struct { X, Y float }

      func (v Vertex) Abs() float64 { return math.Sqrt(v.X * v.X + v.Y * v.Y) }

      ```

    1. But anti- spam software often fetches all resources in mail header fields automatically, without any action by the user, and there is no mechanical way for a sender to tell whether a request was made automatically by anti-spam software or manually requested by a user. To prevent accidental unsubscriptions, senders return landing pages with a confirmation step to finish the unsubscribe request. A live user would recognize and act on this confirmation step, but an automated system would not. That makes the unsubscription process more complex than a single click.

      HTTP: method: safe methods: GETs have to be safe, just in case a machine crawls it.

    2. The mail sender MUST NOT return an HTTPS redirect, since redirected POST actions have historically not worked reliably, and many browsers have turned redirected HTTP POSTs into GETs.
    3. This document describes a method for signaling a one-click function for the List-Unsubscribe email header field. The need for this arises out of the actuality that mail software sometimes fetches URLs in mail header fields, and thereby accidentally triggers unsubscriptions in the case of the List-Unsubscribe header field.
  18. Nov 2022
    1. Empiricism was thenew intellectual trend. Before this, just about any difficult question on anysubject at all could find a perfectly acceptable answer in authority of one kind oranother—in ‘It is God’s will’, rather than ‘Let’s find out’.

    Tags

    Annotators

    1. Harvard a guy by the name of um Alfred Bushnell Hart uh Well Albert sorry Albert I always get Alfred 00:02:31 and Albert wrong um wrote a five volume set of primary sources and he was one of the first um American historians that was actually um trained in Germany by Prof you know 00:02:43 in this new kind of professional history that that they began doing at about that time
    1. This is a doctrine so practically important that we could have wismore than two pages of the book had been devoted to note-takiand other aspects of the " Plan and Arrangement of CollectionsContrariw

      In the 1923 short notices section of the journal History, one of the editors remarked in a short review of "The Mechanical Processes of the Historian" that they wished that Charles Johnson had spent more than two pages of the book on note taking and "other aspects of the 'Plan and Arrangement of Collections'" as the zettelkasten "is a doctrine so practically important" to historians.

    2. T., T. F., A. F. P., E. R. A., H. E. E., R. C., E. L. W., F. J. C. H., and E. J. C. “Short Notices.” History 8, no. 31 (1923): 231–37.

  19. Oct 2022
    1. Pomeroy, Earl. “Frederic L. Paxson and His Approach to History.” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 39, no. 4 (1953): 673–92. https://doi.org/10.2307/1895394

      read on 2022-10-30 - 10-31

    2. Thus Paxson was not content to limit historians to the immediateand the ascertainable. Historical truth must appear through some-thing short of scientific method, and in something other than scien-tific form, linked and geared to the unassimilable mass of facts.There was no standard technique suited to all persons and purposes,in note-taking or in composition. "The ordinary methods of his-torical narrative are ineffective before a theme that is in its essen-tials descriptive," he wrote of Archer B. Hulbert's Forty- Niners(1931) in 1932. "In some respects the story of the trails can notbe told until it is thrown into the form of epic poetry, or comes un-der the hand of the historical novelist." 42

      This statement makes it appear as if Paxson was aware of the movement in the late 1800s of the attempt to make history a more scientific endeavor by writers like Bernheim, Langlois/Seignobos, and others, but that Pomeroy is less so.

      How scientific can history be as an area of study? There is the descriptive from which we might draw conclusions, but how much can we know when there are not only so many potential variables, but we generally lack the ability to design and run discrete experiments on history itself?

      Recall Paxson's earlier comment that "in history you cannot prove an inference". https://hypothes.is/a/LIWSoFlLEe2zUtvMoEr0nQ

      Had enough time elapsed up to this writing in 1953, that the ideal of a scientific history from the late 1800s had been borne out not to be accomplished?

    3. I am not much like Turner ; but I believe that I am like him in that Iam aware that in history you cannot prove an inference. You cannotprove causation, much as you crave to do it. You may present sequencesof events, whose relationship suggests a link-up of cause and consequence ;

      you may carry on the inquiry for a lifetime without discovering other events inconsistent with the hypothesis which has caught your eye. But you can never get beyond a circumstantial case. . . .<br /> "A Footnote to the Safety-Valve," August 15, 1940, Paxson Papers (University of California Library, Berkeley)

    4. Paxson wrote several unusually sharp reviews of books by Mc-Master, Rhodes, and Ellis P. Oberholtzer, historians whose methodshave been compared with his own

      Examples of other historians who likely had a zettelkasten method of work.


      Rhodes' method is tangentially mentioned by Earle Wilbur Dow as being "notebooks of the old type". https://hypothes.is/a/PuFGWCRMEe2bnavsYc44cg

    5. the writer of "scissors and paste history" ;

      One cannot excerpt their way into knowledge, simply cutting and pasting one's way through life is useless. Your notes may temporarily serve you, but unless you apply judgement and reason to them to create something new, they will remain a scrapheap for future generations who will gain no wisdom or use from your efforts.

      relate to: notes about notes being only useful to their creator

    6. The Verdict of History," he scrawled on anote : "There is none — . . . Apart from verif of facts There is noverdict only onesided testimony." "

      Note, n.d. (probably made during the 1920's), unsorted, Paxson File.

    7. He felt that the Beards had gonetoo far in making their facts "generally incidental to some conclu-sion that has pre-determined their selection and arrangement." 1

      One can easily leave out bits of evidence or cherry pick evidence to arrive at a given a priori conclusion. The truest thinker or historian will use the fullest context of evidence available at the time to arrive at their conclusion.

      Naturally, additional evidence and emergent effects as history unfolds may change some of these conclusions over time.

    8. "Say what one may of historical philos-ophy," he wrote in 1926, "history is a matter of facts; and theestablishment of facts, desiccated as they may be, is the chief func-tion of the genuine historian."

      Review of John B. Black, The Art of History; A Study of Four Great His- torians of the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1926), New York Herald Tribune Books, December 12, 1926, p. 12.

    9. Hethus followed, over a wider range of data than any one man couldhope to use fully, the advice that he sometimes gave in reviews,that a historian should work fully through the background material.

      Frederic L. Paxson frequently advised that a historian should work fully through the background material.

    1. It is possible this Miscellany collection was assembled by Schutz as part of his own research as an historian, as well as the letters and documents collected as autographs for his interest as a collector;

      https://catalog.huntington.org/record=b1792186

      Is it possible that this miscellany collection is of a zettelkasten nature?

      Found via a search of the Huntington Library for Frederic L. Paxson's zettelkasten

    1. Preceding anyspecific historiographical method, the Zettelkasten provides the space inwhich potential constellations between these things can appear concretely,a space to play with connections as they have been formed by historic pre-decessors or might be formed in the present.

      relationship with zettelkasten in the history of historical methods?

    1. It was Ranke, too, who set the historian’s task: to find out wie eseigentlich gewesen ist, what really happened, or, literally, how itreally was. His goal is one that will remain forever just beyond ourgrasp for reasons I explained in a “Note on Sources” in The Guns ofAugust (a paragraph that no one ever reads but I think is the bestthing in the book). Summarized, the reasons are that we who writeabout the past were not there. We can never be certain that we haverecaptured it as it really was. But the least we can do is to stay withinthe evidence.
    2. Tuchman, Barbara W. Practicing History. Ballantine, 1982.

    1. Deutsch wrote often of history’s ‘scientific’ nature and inductive approach, leading toan almost positivistic method. ‘From individual facts’, he wrote, ‘one ascends to prin-ciples’, continuing: ‘Facts have to be arranged in a systematic manner . . . First we mustknow, and afterward we may reason’. This ‘systematic’ arrangement, he believed, sepa-rated the historian from the mere annalist or chronicler (Deutsch, 1900b: 166).

      This scientific viewpoint of history was not unique to the time and can be seen ensconced in popular books on historical method of the time, including Bernheim and Langlois/Seignobos.

    1. It may seem a curious relic of positivistic history, but closer examination allows us to interrogate the materiality of scholarly labor.

      Given the time period (1859-1921), what was the potential influence, if any, on Deutsch and his methods by historical methods writers and the evolution of the science of history by Ernst Bernheim or Seignobos/Langlois from that same period?

    1. Leopold von Ranke (German: [fɔn ˈʁaŋkə]; 21 December 1795 – 23 May 1886) was a German historian and a founder of modern source-based history.[3][4] According to Caroline Hoefferle, "Ranke was probably the most important historian to shape [the] historical profession as it emerged in Europe and the United States in the late 19th century".[5] He was able to implement the seminar teaching method in his classroom and focused on archival research and the analysis of historical documents. Building on the methods of the Göttingen School of History,[6] he was the first to establish a historical seminar. Ranke set the standards for much of later historical writing, introducing such ideas as reliance on primary sources (empiricism), an emphasis on narrative history and especially international politics (Außenpolitik). Ranke also had a great influence on Western historiography. He was ennobled in 1865, with the addition of a "von" to his name.
    1. Cattell, J. McKeen. “Methods for a Card Index.” Science 10, no. 247 (1899): 419–20.


      Columbia professor of psychology calls for the creation of a card index of references to reviews and abstracts for areas of research. Columbia was apparently doing this in 1899 for the psychology department.

      What happened to this effort? How similar was it to the system of advertising cards for books in Germany in the early 1930s described by Heyde?

    1. Goutor doesn't specifically cover the process, but ostensibly after one has categorized content notes, they are filed together in one's box under that heading. (p34) As a result, there is no specific indexing or cross-indexing of cards or ideas which might be filed under multiple headings. In fact, he doesn't approach the idea of filing under multiple headings at all, while authors like Heyde (1931) obsess over it. Goutor's method also presumes that the creation of some of the subject headings is to be done in the planning stages of the project, though in practice some may arise as one works. This process is more similar to that seen in Robert Greene's commonplacing method using index cards.

    2. Much like Gerald Weinberg's fieldstone metaphor for note taking and writing, Jacques Goutor frames the process as creating a mosaic of information "fit [...] into meaningful patterns" whether they be narratives, charts, or other forms.

      (p6)

    1. In "On Intellectual Craftsmanship" (1952), C. Wright Mills talks about his methods for note taking, thinking, and analysis in what he calls "sociological imagination". This is a sociologists' framing of their own research and analysis practice and thus bears a sociological related name. While he talks more about the thinking, outlining, and writing process rather than the mechanical portion of how he takes notes or what he uses, he's extending significantly on the ideas and methods that Sönke Ahrens describes in How to Take Smart Notes (2017), though obviously he's doing it 65 years earlier. It would seem obvious that the specific methods (using either files, note cards, notebooks, etc.) were a bit more commonplace for his time and context, so he spent more of his time on the finer and tougher portions of the note making and thinking processes which are often the more difficult parts once one is past the "easy" mechanics.

      While Mills doesn't delineate the steps or materials of his method of note taking the way Beatrice Webb, Langlois & Seignobos, Johannes Erich Heyde, Antonin Sertillanges, or many others have done before or Umberto Eco, Robert Greene/Ryan Holiday, Sönke Ahrens, or Dan Allosso since, he does focus more on the softer portions of his thinking methods and their desired outcomes and provides personal examples of how it works and what his expected outcomes are. Much like Niklas Luhmann describes in Kommunikation mit Zettelkästen (VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 1981), Mills is focusing on the thinking processes and outcomes, but in a more accessible way and with some additional depth.

      Because the paper is rather short, but specific in its ideas and methods, those who finish the broad strokes of Ahrens' book and methods and find themselves somewhat confused will more than profit from the discussion here in Mills. Those looking for a stronger "crash course" might find that the first seven chapters of Allosso along with this discussion in Mills is a straighter and shorter path.

      While Mills doesn't delineate his specific method in terms of physical tools, he does broadly refer to "files" which can be thought of as a zettelkasten (slip box) or card index traditions. Scant evidence in the piece indicates that he's talking about physical file folders and sheets of paper rather than slips or index cards, but this is generally irrelevant to the broader process of thinking or writing. Once can easily replace the instances of the English word "file" with the German concept of zettelkasten and not be confused.

      One will note that this paper was written as a manuscript in April 1952 and was later distributed for classroom use in 1955, meaning that some of these methods were being distributed from professor to students. The piece was later revised and included as an appendix to Mill's text The Sociological Imagination which was first published in 1959.

      Because there aren't specifics about Mills' note structure indicated here, we can't determine if his system was like that of Niklas Luhmann, but given the historical record one could suppose that it was closer to the commonplace tradition using slips or sheets. One thing becomes more clear however that between the popularity of Webb's work and this (which was reprinted in 2000 with a 40th anniversary edition), these methods were widespread in the mid-twentieth century and specifically in the field of sociology.

      Above and beyond most of these sorts of treatises on note taking method, Mills does spend more time on the thinking portions of the practice and delineates eleven different practices that one can focus on as they actively read/think and take notes as well as afterwards for creating content or writing.


      My full notes on the article can be found at https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=chrisaldrich&max=100&exactTagSearch=true&expanded=true&addQuoteContext=true&url=urn%3Ax-pdf%3A0138200b4bfcde2757a137d61cd65cb8

    2. Method and theory are like thelanguage of the country you live in: it is nothing to bragabout that you can speak it, but it is a disgrace, as well asan inconvenience, if you cannot.
    3. Perhaps there are al-ready too many formal discourses on method, and cer-tainly there are too many inspirational pieces on how tothink. Neither seem to be of much use to those for whomthey are apparently intended. The first does not usuallytouch the realities of the problem as the beginning studentencounters them: the second is usually vulgar and oftennonsense.

      A description of the problem.

      Also missing are concrete examples and modeling of behavior for students to see and follow.

  20. Sep 2022
    1. But even if onewere to create one’s own classification system for one’s special purposes, or for a particularfield of sciences (which of course would contradict Dewey’s claim about general applicabilityof his system), the fact remains that it is problematic to press the main areas of knowledgedevelopment into 10 main areas. In any case it seems undesirable having to rely on astranger’s

      imposed system or on one’s own non-generalizable system, at least when it comes to the subdivisions.

      Heyde makes the suggestion of using one's own classification system yet again and even advises against "having to rely on a stranger's imposed system". Does Luhmann see this advice and follow its general form, but adopting a numbering system ostensibly similar, but potentially more familiar to him from public administration?

    2. It is obvious that due to this strict logic foundation, related thoughts will not be scattered allover the box but grouped together in proximity. As a consequence, completely withoutcarbon-copying all note sheets only need to be created once.

      In a break from the more traditional subject heading filing system of many commonplacing and zettelkasten methods, in addition to this sort of scheme Heyde also suggests potentially using the Dewey Decimal System for organizing one's knowledge.

      While Luhmann doesn't use Dewey's system, he does follow the broader advice which allows creating a dense numbering system though he does use a different numbering scheme.

    3. The layout and use of the sheet box, as described so far, is eventually founded upon thealphabetical structure of it. It should also be mentioned though

      that the sheetification can also be done based on other principles.

      Heyde specifically calls the reader to consider other methods in general and points out the Dewey Decimal Classification system as a possibility. This suggestion also may have prompted Luhmann to do some evolutionary work for his own needs.

    4. re all filed at the same locatin (under “Rehmke”) sequentially based onhow the thought process developed in the book. Ideally one uses numbers for that.

      While Heyde spends a significant amount of time on encouraging one to index and file their ideas under one or more subject headings, he address the objection:

      “Doesn’t this neglect the importance of sequentiality, context and development, i.e. doesn’t this completely make away with the well-thought out unity of thoughts that the original author created, when ideas are put on individual sheets, particularly when creating excerpts of longer scientific works?"

      He suggests that one file such ideas under the same heading and then numbers them sequentially to keep the original author's intention. This might be useful advice for a classroom setting, but perhaps isn't as useful in other contexts.

      But for Luhmann's use case for writing and academic research, this advice may actually be counter productive. While one might occasionally care about another author's train of thought, one is generally focusing on generating their own train of thought. So why not take this advice to advance their own work instead of simply repeating the ideas of another? Take the ideas of others along with your own and chain them together using sequential numbers for your own purposes (publishing)!!

      So while taking Heyde's advice and expand upon it for his own uses and purposes, Luhmann is encouraged to chain ideas together and number them. Again he does this numbering in a way such that new ideas can be interspersed as necessary.

    5. If a more extensive note has been put on several A6 sheets subsequently,

      Heydes Overbearing System

      Heyde's method spends almost a full page talking about what to do if one extends a note or writes longer notes. He talks about using larger sheets of paper, carbon copies, folding, dating, clipping, and even stapling.

      His method seems to skip the idea of extending a particular card of potentially 2 or more "twins"/"triplets"/"quadruplets" which might then also need to be extended too. Luhmann probably had a logical problem with this as tracking down all the originals and extending them would be incredibly problematic. As a result, he instead opted to put each card behind it's closest similar idea (and number it thus).

      If anything, Heyde's described method is one of the most complete of it's day (compare with Bernheim, Langlois/Seignobos, Webb, Sertillanges, et al.) He discusses a variety of pros and cons, hints and tips, but he also goes deeper into some of the potential flaws and pitfalls for the practicing academic. As a result, many of the flaws he discusses and their potential work arounds (making multiple carbon copies, extending notes, etc.) add to the bulk of the description of the system and make it seem almost painful and overbearing for the affordances it allows. As a result, those reading it with a small amount of knowledge of similar traditions may have felt that there might be a better or easier system. I suspect that Niklas Luhmann was probably one of these.

      It's also likely that due to these potentially increasing complexities in such note taking systems that they became to large and unwieldly for people to see the benefit in using. Combined with the emergence of the computer from this same time forward, it's likely that this time period was the beginning of the end for such analog systems and experimenting with them.

    1. @BenjaminVanDyneReplying to @ChrisAldrichI wish I had a good answer! The book I use when I teach is Joseph Harris’s “rewriting” which is technically a writing book but teaches well as a book about how to read in a writerly way.

      Thanks for this! I like the framing and general concept of the book.

      It seems like its a good follow on to Dan Allosso's OER text How to Make Notes and Write https://minnstate.pressbooks.pub/write/ or Sönke Ahrens' How to Take Smart Notes https://amzn.to/3DwJVMz which includes some useful psychology and mental health perspective.

      Other similar examples are Umberto Eco's How to Write a Thesis (MIT, 2015) or Gerald Weinberg's The Fieldstone Method https://amzn.to/3DCf6GA These may be some of what we're all missing.

      I'm reminded of Mark Robertson's (@calhistorian) discussion of modeling his note taking practice and output in his classroom using Roam Research. https://hyp.is/QuB5NDa0Ee28hUP7ExvFuw/thatsthenorm.com/mark-robertson-history-socratic-dialogue/ Perhaps we need more of this?

      Early examples of this sort of note taking can also be seen in the religious studies space with Melanchthon's handbook on commonplaces or Jonathan Edwards' Miscellanies, though missing are the process from notes to writings. https://www.logos.com/grow/jonathan-edwards-organizational-genius/

      Other examples of these practices in the wild include @andy_matuschak's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGcs4tyey18 and TheNonPoet's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sdp0jo2Fe4 Though it may be better for students to see this in areas in which they're interested.

      Hypothes.is as a potential means of modeling and allowing students to directly "see" this sort of work as it progresses using public/semi-public annotations may be helpful. Then one can separately model re-arranging them and writing a paper. https://web.hypothes.is/

      Reply to: https://twitter.com/BenjaminVanDyne/status/1571171086171095042

    1. Students' annotations canprompt first draft thinking, avoiding a blank page when writing andreassuring students that they have captured the critical informationabout the main argument from the reading.

      While annotations may prove "first draft thinking", why couldn't they provide the actual thinking and direct writing which moves toward the final product? This is the sort of approach seen in historical commonplace book methods, zettelkasten methods, and certainly in Niklas Luhmann's zettelkasten incarnation as delineated by Johannes Schmidt or variations described by Sönke Ahrens (2017) or Dan Allosso (2022)? Other similar variations can be seen in the work of Umberto Eco (MIT, 2015) and Gerald Weinberg (Dorset House, 2005).

      Also potentially useful background here: Blair, Ann M. Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age. Yale University Press, 2010. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300165395/too-much-know

    1. Jeff Miller@jmeowmeowReading the lengthy, motivational introduction of Sönke Ahrens' How to Take Smart Notes (a zettelkasten method primer) reminds me directly of Gerald Weinberg's Fieldstone Method of writing.

      reply to: https://twitter.com/jmeowmeow/status/1568736485171666946

      I've only seen a few people notice the similarities between zettelkasten and fieldstones. Among them I don't think any have noted that Luhmann and Weinberg were both systems theorists.

      syndication link

    1. Sometimes it will be enoughto have analysed the text mentally : it is not alwaysnecessary to put down in black and white the wholecontents of a document ; in such cases we simplyenter the points of which we intend to make use.But against the ever-present danger oi substitutingone's personal impressions for the text there is onlyone real safeguard ; it should be made an invariablerule never on any account to make an extract froma document, or a partial analysis of it, without

      having first made a comprehensive analysis of it mentally, if not on paper.

    2. if there is occasion for it, and a heading^ in anycase; to multiply cross-references and indices; tokeep a record, on a separate set of slips, of all thesources utilised, in order to avoid the danger ofhaving to work a second time through materialsaheady dealt with. The regular observance of thesemaxims goes a great way towards making scientifichistorical work easier and more solid.

      But it will always be well to cultivate the mechanical habits of which pro- fessional compilers have learnt the value by experi- ence: to write at the head of evey slip its date,

      Here again we see some broad common advice for zettels and note taking methods: - every slip or note should have a date - every slip should have a (topical) heading - indices - cross-references - lists of sources (bibliography)

    3. It isrecommended to use slips of uniform size and toughmaterial, and to arrange them at the earliest oppor-tunity in covers or drawers or otherwise.

      common zettelkasten keeping advice....

    4. The notes from each document are entered upon aloose leaf furnished with the precisest possible in-dications of origin. The advantages of this artificeare obvious : the detachability of the slips enablesus to group them at will in a host of different com-binations ; if necessary, to change their places : it iseasy to bring texts of the same kind together, andto incorporate additions, as they are acquired, in theinterior of the groups to which they belong. As fordocuments which are interesting from several pointsof view, and which ought to appear in several groups,it is sufficient to enter them several times over ondifferent slips ; or they may be represented, as oftenas may be required, on reference-slips.

      Notice that at the bottom of the quote that they indicate that in addition to including multiple copies of a card in various places, a plan which may be inefficient, they indicate that one can add reference-slips in their place.

      This is closely similar to, but a small jump away from having explicit written links on the particular cards themselves, but at least mitigates the tedious copying work while actively creating links or cross references within one's note taking system.

    1. But Ms. Rivers did do some arranging. She arranged the 52 drawers alphabetically by subject, from “Annoying habits” to “Zoo.” In the T’s, one drawer starts with “Elizabeth Taylor” and goes as far as “teenagers.” The next drawer picks up with “teeth” and runs to “trains.” A drawer in the G’s begins with “growing older” and ends with “guns.” It takes the next drawer to hold all the cards filed under “guys I dated.” Inevitably — this was Joan Rivers, after all — there are categories with the word “sex,” including “My sex life,” “No sex life,” “No sex appeal.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyImage
    1. The book's controversial assertions that the life of Jesus should be written like the life of any historic person, and that the Bible could and should be subject to the same critical scrutiny as other historical documents caused controversy[19] and enraged many Christians,[20][21][22][23] and Jews because of its depiction of Judaism as foolish and absurdly illogical and for its insistence that Jesus and Christianity were superior.[17]

      Ernest Renan argued in Life of Jesus that Jesus should be studied and written about like any other historic person or process. His life and the history and writings around it should be open to critical scrutiny just like any other biography or autobiography.

    1. https://lu.ma/x7zlzv95

      NoMa Method (note making method)<br /> JOMO mindset (Joy of Missing Out)<br /> MIMO - Mindfully In, Magically Out

      Nick Milo's got WAY too many buzzwords and acronyms. Are we creating a new cult with in groups and out groups using language?

      "Notice when you do" --- the root word of notice and note are related...

  21. Aug 2022
    1. In discussing the various ways Luhmann referenced his notes, Schmidt discusses specific notes created by Luhmann that appeared to produce "larger structural outline[s]."8 It seems, when beginning a major line of thought, Luhmann created a note that resembled "the outline of an article or table of contents of a book."9 Today, many call these outline notes "structure notes," a term which has come to prominence through its usage on the zettelkasten.de forum.
    1. scientists as well asstudents of science carefully put the diverse results of their reading and thinking process intoone or a few note books that are separated by topic.

      A specific reference to the commonplace book tradition and in particular the practice of segmenting note books into pre-defined segments with particular topic headings. This practice described here also ignores the practice of keeping an index (either in a separate notebook or in the front/back of the notebook as was more common after John Locke's treatise)

    1. Definition and inclusion criteria

      Further to [[User:Biogeographist|Biogeographist]]'s comments about what defines a zettelkasten, someone has also removed the Eminem example (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zettelkasten&type=revision&diff=1105779799&oldid=1105779647) which by the basest of definitions is a zettelkasten being slips of paper literally stored in a box. The continually well-documented path of the intellectual history of the tradition stemming out of the earlier Commonplace book tradition moved from notebooks to slips of paper indicates that many early examples are just this sort of collection. The optional addition of subject headings/topics/tags aided as a finding mechanism for some and was more common historically. Too much of the present definition on the page is dominated by the recently evolved definition of a zettelkasten as specifically practiced by Luhmann, who is the only well known example of a practitioner who heavily interlinked his cards as well as indexed them (though it should be noted that they were only scantly indexed as entry points into the threads of linked cards which followed). The broader historical perspective of the practice is being overly limited by the definition imprinted by a single example, the recent re-discovery of whom, has re-popularized a set of practices dating back to at least the sixteenth century.

      It seems obvious that through the examples collected and the scholarship of Blair, Cevollini, Krajewski, and others that collections of notes on slips generally kept in some sort of container, usually a box or filing cabinet of some sort is the minimal definition of the practice. This practice is often supplemented by additional finding and linking methods. Relying on the presence of ''metadata'' is both a limiting (and too modern) perspective and not supported by the ever-growing numbers of historical examples within the space.

      Beyond this there's also a modern over-reliance (especially in English speaking countries beginning around 2011 and after) on the use and popularity of the German word Zettelkasten which is not generally seen in the historically English and French speaking regions where "card index" and "fichier boîte" have been used for the same practices. This important fact was removed from the top level definition with revision https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zettelkasten&type=revision&diff=1105779647&oldid=1105766061 and should also be reverted to better reflect the broader idea and history.

      In short, the definition, construction, and evolution of this page/article overall has been terribly harmed by an early definition based only on Niklas Luhmann's practice as broadly defined within the horribly unsourced and underinformed blogosphere from approximately 2013 onward. ~~~~

    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o49C8jQIsvs

      Video about the Double-Bubble Map: https://youtu.be/Hm4En13TDjs

      The double-bubble map is a tool for thought for comparing and contrasting ideas. Albert Rosenberg indicates that construction of opposites is one of the most reliable ways for generating ideas. (35:50)

      Bluma Zeigarnik - open tasks tend to occupy short-term memory.

      I love his compounding interest graphic with the steps moving up to the right with the quote: "Even groundbreaking paradigm shifts are most often the consequence of many small moves in the right direction instead of one big idea." This could be an awesome t-shirt or motivational poster.

      Watched this up to about 36 minutes on 2022-08-10 and finished on 2022-08-22.

    1. Dutcher, George Matthew. “Directions and Suggestions for the Writing of Essays or Theses in History.” Historical Outlook 22, no. 7 (November 1, 1931): 329–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/21552983.1931.10114595

    2. In Italian,however, note the different practice: quattrocento, for es-ample, means the century from 1 January 1400 to 31 Decem-ber 1499.
    3. Mr. York Powell, lateregius professor of modern histor a t Oxford, said: “Theformation and expression of ethicarjudgments . . . is nota thing within the historian’s province.”
    4. Irony is a dangerous literary device which should beused only with the greatest caution.
    5. works inEnglish are convenient introductions to the prohems andmethods of historical research: Charles V. Langlois andCharles Seignobos, Introduction to the rludy of history, NewYork, 1898; John M. Vincent, Historical research, an outlineof theory and practice, New York, 1911; and, to a morelimited extent, Fred M. Fling, Writing of history, an intro-duction to historical method, New Haven, 1920. The studentwho is specializing in history should early familiarize him-self with these volumes and then acquaint himself with otherworks in the field, notably Ernst Bernheim, hehrbuch derhistorwehen Methode und der Beschichtsplrilosophie, 6th ed.,Leipzig, 1908

      I'm curious, what, if any, detail Fling (1920) and Vincent (1911) provide on note taking processes?

    6. While it is a fundamental principle that workscontemporary with an event are presumably more authenticthan later ones, it should be borne in mind that the morerecent secondary works are frequently based on more ma-terials and present new interpretations.
    1. Below is a two page spread summarizing a Fast Company.com article about the Pennebaker method, as covered in Timothy Wilson’s book Redirect:

      Worth looking into this. The idea of the Pennebaker method goes back to a paper of his in 1986 that details the health benefits (including mental) of expressive writing. Sounds a lot like the underlying idea of morning pages, though that has the connotation of clearing one's head versus health related benefits.

      Compare/contrast the two methods.

      Is there research underpinning morning pages?

      See also: Expressive Writing in Psychological Science https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1745691617707315<br /> appears to be a recap article of some history and meta studies since his original work.

    1. Question 1 (Incentive Security). Is there mutually profitable con-tinued participation across all required parties?

      EDU content should have "reflection" segments with these kind of questions to help guide reader's curiosity and knowledge --> socratic method