{{ text }}
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", 7 | "code": { 8 | "markup": "{{ rawtext }}", 9 | "other": "{% highlight {{ code_lang }} %} {{ text }} {% endhighlight %}Hidden questions
4 | 5 |Links to this note
10 |ʘ Personal Writing Techniques
14 |Hidden questions
15 | 16 | 17 |Underground structures protect against natural disasters
4 | 5 |There's a reason emergency shelters are built underground, structures beneath the earth are highly protected against the damage caused by earthquakes and other natural disasters. Even underground tunnels are surprisingly resistant as the earth shakes around them.
6 | 7 |https://issuu.com/bertagt/docs/going_underground
8 | 9 |What writing can learn from alchemy
4 | 5 |Links to this note
10 |ʘ Architecture of Writing
14 |What writing can learn from alchemy
15 | 16 | 17 |Fiction is a powerful medium to explore new technologies
4 | 5 |Science fiction is a powerful driver of scientific progress because it inspires possible futures.
6 | 7 |Vannevar Bush's Memex inspired an entire generation of computer pioneers to create revolutionary technologies. Bush's Memex however wasn't fiction with a narrative, more of an essay which portrayed his concept for a future knowledge management machine.
8 | 9 |Mediums of exchange create unhappiness
4 | 5 |Links to this note
10 | 18 |Different zoom levels should be meaningful
4 | 5 |Links to this note
10 | 18 |Flipping a concept or sequence opens up new perspectives
4 | 5 |6 | 7 |
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12 | 20 |What writing can learn from fishing
4 | 5 |https://josephcwells.com/blog/writers-and-fishermen
6 | 7 |Links to this note
12 |ʘ Architecture of Writing
16 |What writing can learn from fishing
17 | 18 | 19 |Writing clarifies thought
4 | 5 |The act of writing forces you to organize and distill your ideas into something more tangible. Through writing you uncover foggy areas of your thinking or understanding, and in the process you work to clarify these ideas not only on the page but within your mind. This creates a positive feedback loop: writing clarifies thought, and clearer thought leads to more elaborate or meaningful writing.
6 | 7 |If writing clarifies thought then densely linked writing builds the underlying foundation or landscape for thought.
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17 | 18 | {% endfor %} 19 |What writing can learn from architecture
4 | 5 |See also: Laboratory of Literary Architecture
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12 | 20 |Verbs shape the design of objects
4 | 5 |Links to this note
10 | 18 |Design systems before form
4 | 5 |If a designer takes inspiration from nature on form alone, they will design for you a plastic plant. An object which looks like the real thing with none of its function, destined for the landfill where it will destroy that which inspired it. However, if this same designer took inspiration instead from the systems of nature, they might design something which grows, something that is self-sustaining, something that doesn't end up in that landfill but instead is repurposed or "decomposed" in some form. The world, unfortunately, is full of plastic plants.
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Settings
4 | 5 |Tip: alt-scroll, ctrl-scroll, or pinch to zoom in/out
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14 | 22 |Good neighbourhoods facilitate chance encounters
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10 | 18 |Benefits and disadvantages of video as a medium
4 | 5 |Video is an incredible medium through which to convey ideas, but it can also be used to spread misinformation by feigning authority and entrancing viewers.
6 | 7 |Benefits
Disadvantages
Note taking systems are like planting a garden
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10 | 18 |Objects have inherent verb associations
4 | 5 |Read a book, climb a tree, turn on the light, click a button. Whether physical or virtual, anything you interact with already has inherent associations of how to interact with it.
6 | 7 |Links to this note
12 | 20 |Peer-to-peer educational models could create a circular economy of education
4 | 5 |6 | 7 |
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12 | 20 |Static media often provide only one engagement factor at a time
4 | 5 |Non-linear notetaking helps to build information landscapes
4 | 5 |When taking notes, a process I have began to just write key words and terms on the page. Then as I take notes, begin to connect some of these terms, find the bridges between them, think how does X affect Y. Conceptual space is like a landscape, and this process helps build the landscape on which to remember some of the more finer-grained details.
6 | 7 |Links to this note
12 | 20 |Parables of Sand
4 | 5 |Experiment of writing short parables to communicate ideas
6 | 7 |Opportunity window for spontaneity
4 | 5 |In conversation, the opportunity window for spontaneity is in the slight pauses when you think of something to say.
6 | 7 |The lag introduced in video call conversations shortens this opportunity window and makes it more stressful to share your thoughts without interrupting another person.
8 | 9 |Links to this note
14 | 22 |Spaces can rewrite social norms
4 | 5 |In art galleries we stand around staring at rectangles on the wall. In restaurants we sit in our own bubble and do not dare strike up conversation with other patrons. Along big streets people seem to walk faster and avoid eye contact. Different spaces give the opportunity to rewrite social norms, to determine what is normal in that space. This should be kept in mind when designing new spaces, can a building foster community and allow you to meet and talk to strangers as if they were your friends? (hint: the answer is yes, and buildings like this already exist)
6 | 7 |Links to this note
12 | 20 |Add visual context or previews to links to understand where it will take you
4 | 5 |Imagine stumbling upon a portal which teleports you to an unknown location, would you enter without knowing what is on the other side? This is how hyperlinks work on the web, often you cannot tell where they lead. However instead if you enter a door, you can clearly see the room beyond the moment you start to open the door. This visual context helps understand where you are going.
6 | 7 |How can you design hyperlinks more like doors and less like portals?
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14 | 22 |Narrative structures seep into everyday life
4 | 5 |Hero's journey, Kishōtenketsu, chiastic structures, the structures which guide narratives are transferable to other disciplines. The hero's journey is referenced everywhere from business to self-help books; and Kishōtenketsu is used in game development for example.
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12 | 20 |Education should be structured around active learning
4 | 5 |Schools today work primarily upon passive instruction, with lectures and pre-made materials the education system does not give students agency over their own learning. Engaging mediums encourage thought, and the current systems of passive instruction are not engaging students and they are left bored, unfulfilled, and creatively drained.
6 | 7 |Education systems are moving towards more active forms of instruction, and while this is a step in the right direction it is not sufficient. For the active instruction is designed within a passive system. To truly give students agency over their own learning, they need to create their own learning experiences: Personal projects structure learning and engagement.
8 | 9 |How might this look?
Looking directly at each other makes silence awkward
4 | 5 |This I think is part of why zoom calls are so exhausting, you are not only looking at (and unable to make eye contact with) the person who is talking, but you are also looking face to face with every other person in the call.
6 | 7 |Metaphors of writing
4 | 5 |Todo: collect different metaphors which have been used to describe the writing process by various authors, as well as if there are any studies into the conceptual metaphors of writing itself
6 | 7 |What writing can learn from cooking
4 | 5 |This metaphor feels rather cliche, I'm not sure if it will provide very useful techniques for writing, but certainly worth a try.
6 | 7 |Know what tastes good by eating good food (reading)
8 | 9 |Gathering ingredients
10 | 11 |Know your ingredients
12 | 13 |Know your spices
14 | 15 |Know your tools
Blenders?
Eggs hold things together
20 | 21 |Links to this note
26 |ʘ Architecture of Writing
30 |What writing can learn from cooking
31 | 32 | 33 |Tools for thought enable different workflows
4 | 5 |Everyone takes notes differently, some have structured systems and others spend hours sketching in their notebooks. Through paper and the physical environment we can design our own workflow and system for thinking and producing. But computer systems are not flexible in this way, individual users are not given broad agency to design their own workflows and must work within the systems and integrations built up by programmers and application developers. The ideal digital Tools for thought should give the user agency to design their own workflows and representations for information and Tools for thought should blur the line between users, designers, and programmers.
6 | 7 |Links to this note
12 | 20 |Interdisciplinarity is multiplicative
4 | 5 |There are no hard boundaries between disciplines. That which is learned in one discipline can no doubt be applied to another. The more one dabbles in different topics, systems, and ways of making, the greater the possibility for collisions between these disciplines to coalesce into something new.
6 | 7 |Insight comes at the intersection of ideas
4 | 5 |New ideas are formed by combining and linking together existing ideas. These intersections and connections open not only develop your conceptual landscape (Conceptual space is like a landscape), but it can bring you to explore new areas of thought.
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14 | 22 |Verbs multiply the possibility of interaction
4 | 5 |In a game you might be able to run about, but if you can also jump it opens up a whole new axis of maneuverability. New verbs can multiply the possible actions you can take.
6 | 7 |When I say "verbs" I am describing how you interact with any system or object
8 | 9 |Links to this note
14 |Design verbs not objects
18 |Verbs multiply the possibility of interaction which can create a space giving the participant agency. Combo moves in video games are an example of how just a few core interactions can combine to create a large amount of possibilities.
19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |Language of interaction
23 |Verbs are the interactions, game mechanics, and affordances of a system. Verbs multiply the possibility of interaction
24 | 25 | 26 |Online learning often lacks engagement
4 | 5 |The problem with online learning is not attention span, it is that online learning—in particular, MOOCs—is simply not engaging to
6 | 7 |Universities look at the discrepancy between signups and the number of sign-ups and the number of people completing a course and see a problem: over 90% of the students never progress further than a few videos. The culprit often is low attention spans but this is not really the heart of the problem, and making shorter videos will only lower this discrepancy by a fraction (The problem with online learning is not attention span). At some problem this discrepancy will always exist because not everybody is really interested or motivated to finish the courses and just wants to check them out, but the real problem is that MOOCs are not engaging to students.
8 | 9 |The same model for current education is adapted to the online medium, just with shortened length to account for 'attention spans'. This is not ideal, MOOCs require more
10 | 11 |Thinking about solutions: Three engagement factors
12 | 13 |"Zooming out" helps to sense overall structure
4 | 5 |
When working on paper or index cards it is often useful to step back and see the big picture of how your ideas connect to one another. Computers have the potential to make this kind of interaction much more powerful since they can store data about the relationships between notes and ideas. Creating zoomable interfaces not only helps find connections but helps to give a sense of the overall structure or layout of something from afar.
8 | 9 |Related
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16 | 24 |Search could be a social experience
4 | 5 |When you visit a new city what do you value more: tourist locations from the travel guide, or personal recommendations from a friend who lives there?
6 | 7 |Searching or researching a new topic is like visiting a new city, but the internet does not give space for these personal recommendations to guide the search experience.
8 | 9 |References
Conversation with Michael Belfrage 2020-04-28
12 | 13 |Links to this note
18 | 26 |Hidden question between every pair of sentences
4 | 5 |When reading there are often things left unsaid or unanswered. These unknown elements create tension and interest which draws the reader in to discover more. I like to imagine there being a hidden question between every pair of sentences. These questions pull on the strings of questions left unanswered, and open the space to answer them. Sometimes the question will be as simple as "why?" or "and what happened next?" but imagining the question can help create a sense of continuity in your writing and prevent jumping around quickly between different ideas.
6 | 7 |This helps personally because my mind will sometimes move on to new ideas so fast that when I write, each sentence is almost unrelated to the last. By imagining a question about the previous sentence I can make sure to stay on track with my thoughts and not get too far ahead of myself.
8 | 9 |Links to this note
14 | 22 |Asking "why?" gets to the heart of any concept
4 | 5 |Conceptual space is like a landscape. Iteratively asking "why?" helps to explore this hidden landscape and leads to malleable truths which can be applied to other concepts.
6 | 7 |This can also be used to create an outline for an essay. Take your main point and iteratively ask why until you get to the core of the idea, then flip this sequence so that your essay starts with your last answer and builds up towards your main argument.
8 | 9 |But beware: This will only get to the heart of what you know and understand from your own perspective, someone else may come across a very different sequence of answers.
10 | 11 |See also:
12 | 13 |Links to this note
18 |Mental acrobatics
22 |Asking "why?" gets to the heart of any concept
23 | 24 | 25 |The problem with online learning is not attention span
4 | 5 |Links to this note
10 |Online learning often lacks engagement
14 |The problem with online learning is not attention span, it is that online learning—in particular, MOOCs—is simply not engaging to
15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |Online learning often lacks engagement
19 |Universities look at the discrepancy between signups and the number of sign-ups and the number of people completing a course and see a problem: over 90% of the students never progress further than a few videos. The culprit often is low attention spans but this is not really the heart of the problem, and making shorter videos will only lower this discrepancy by a fraction (The problem with online learning is not attention span). At some problem this discrepancy will always exist because not everybody is really interested or motivated to finish the courses and just wants to check them out, but the real problem is that MOOCs are not engaging to students.
20 | 21 | 22 |Playgrounds for the mind
4 | 5 |Places of play, invention, and joy—the playground is not designed for an anti-purpose, instead of being designed with a specific goal in mind it is a place where people can come up with their own goals, create their own games, and have fun. Thinking back to my Three approaches to engagement, the playground takes the space of curiosity where you are given a space and a set of actions to explore and interact with this space. I am curious, what would it look like to design a playground for the mind? a place to explore and come up with ideas, create your own games, and explore conceptual space in a similar way that playgrounds make it fun to move about physical space.
6 | 7 |Playgrounds are locations, you can visit and you can leave. Spaces can rewrite social norms—how might social norms be rewritten to interact playfully with ideas?
8 | 9 |Playgrounds are flexible spaces, you can imagine it to be anything you want. Therefore a playground for the mind should be able to apply across many different concepts and ideas.
10 | 11 |Playgrounds are multiplayer, it is a place where groups of friends gather to play. The playground is not a solitary act. How can a playground for the mind enable us to think together?
12 | 13 |Kishōtenketsu
4 | 5 |Kishōtenketsu is a narrative structure typically used in Japanese literature. It is made up of four stages: introduction, development, twist, and conclusion. There is no need for conflict as the twist of the story simply subverts our expectations and assumptions.
6 | 7 |Language is at the heart of communication through any medium and because of this Narrative structures seep into everyday life. Japanese game designers for example used the Kishōtenketsu narrative structure when designing levels for Super Mario World (?). The introduction, development helps introduce a game mechanic in a safe space and the twist gives you the challenge of using this mechanic in a strange or unfamiliar way.
8 | 9 |Links to this note
14 | 22 |The internet lacks platforms for bringing people together to learn collectively
4 | 5 |Boundless are the number of learning platforms and MOOCs offered by universities but MOOCs fail to engage students and are generally taken alone without much sense of community or peer-interaction. There are few platforms which bring people together to learn or work on a problem collectively. Complice tackles accountability with silent coworking rooms, but is not a binding agent bringing people together around a single task or topic but rather a catalyst for each person's individual goals and projects.
6 | 7 |What writing can learn from gardening
4 | 5 |Note taking systems are like planting a garden. Ideas are like seeds that you plant which take time to grow and produce fruit. Treating writing like gardening begs a broader consideration of your work over longer timescales, to make a consistent practice of tending to your garden of ideas every day, and make sure to pull out any weeds that may have taken root.
6 | 7 |One can also take inspiration from rhizomes, interconnected root systems beneath the ground. By linking together notes, you can strengthen the growth of all your ideas. Similar to the ideas of the Zettelkasten and Memex.
8 | 9 |Questions
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16 |ʘ Architecture of Writing
20 |What writing can learn from gardening
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