Month: April 2021

Read Writing on the web by Khaled Abou Alfa (kaa.bz)
While going through my Twitter archive, I realised several things which are going to greatly inform the way I write on the web in the future: While linklogging is fun, easy and in many ways the fabric that makes up the internet, it’s existence is fleeting. Maybe that link will remain valid for 10 ...
A lot of this resonates with me. On links, it is often the reason I was interested in it in the first place that’s the most important.

The nostalgia factor is very valuable to me, but it also means you need an easy means for not only looking back, but regular reminders to do so.

Owning your stuff: hopefully my stance on this is obvious.

I’m not sure I agree so much with the taxonomy stance. I find it helpful to have it for search and review, the tougher part is doing it consistently with terms that are important to you.

ᔥ jacky in #indieweb 2021-04-02 ()

Bookmarked Ricky Jay’s Magical Secrets by Mark SingerMark Singer (The New Yorker)
From 1993: The magician’s deft illusions flout reality, and he rejects the notion that magic is a suitable entertainment for children.
I think I’ve read this three or four times, but definitely a classic. The first time was around 2000 when I was at CAA just before I spoke to Ricky for the first time. My last reading  was right after Ricky passed.

Bookmarked Million-Dollar Murray by Malcolm GladwellMalcolm Gladwell (The New Yorker)
Why problems like homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage.
ᔥ @MWConcertVideo in Chris on Twitter: “@rachsyme The New Yorker article “Million Dollar Murray” about how the broken American health care system spent a million dollars failing to save the life of a man living on the streets, when for a fraction of that they could have just put him in a group home. https://t.co/09ooKMCcG1″
Bookmarked The Mountains of Pi by Richard Preston (The New Yorker)
The Chudnovsky brothers yearned to probe the mystery of pi, so they built their own supercomputer out of mail-order parts.
I know I’ve read this before. This is a good reminder to re-read it occasionally.

ᔥ John Keilman on Twitter: “@rachsyme This one. It makes math make sense in a way nothing else has. https://t.co/VWST1TiQAZ”

Replied to a tweet by rachel symerachel syme (Twitter)
I find myself regularly revisiting Vannevar Bush’s July 1945 essay As We May Think from The Atlantic.

 

While searching for a digital copy of Cursus mathematicus (1634-67) by Pierre Hérigone (as one is wont to do), I serendipitously stumbled across Seth Long‘s (@SethLargo) brand new book Excavating the Memory Palace: Arts of Visualization from the Agora to the Computer (University of Chicago Press, December 2020). Naturally it was an immediate impulse buy. Looks like he’s also got some interesting papers on rhetoric/memory kicking around. These look pretty awesome in terms of substantiating some of the memory related work I’ve been looking at lately.

Sadly, I still need a clearer copy of Cursus. Is there an English translation out there? Any academics have non-published copies? Like to publish a copy? I’m happy to muddle through Latin or French especially if it’s an OCR/searchable copy, but it’s a stupidly long text for the assuredly short section on memory I’m seeking.