Category: Social Stream

Bookmarked Topics in Ring Theory and Modules by Michael Miller (UCLA Extension)

Topics to be discussed include the isomorphism theorems; ascending and descending chain conditions;  prime and maximal ideals; free, simple, and semi-simple modules; the Jacobson radical; and the Wedderburn-Artin Theorem.

Ring theory is a branch of abstract algebra that deals with sets—for example, the collection of all integers—that admit both additive and multiplicative operations. Modules generalize the notion of vector spaces, but with scalars drawn from a ring rather than a field. Beginning with a survey of the basic notions of rings and ideals, the course explores some of the elegant algebraic structuring that defines the behavior of rings—both commutative and non-commutative—and their associated modules. Topics to be discussed include the isomorphism theorems; ascending and descending chain conditions; prime and maximal ideals; free, simple, and semi-simple modules; the Jacobson radical; and the Wedderburn-Artin Theorem. Theory will be motivated by numerous examples drawn from familiar realms of number theory, linear algebra, and real analysis.

Mike Miller has announced this fall’s math course at UCLA. 

A year of Bullet Journaling on Index Cards inspired by the Memindex Method

I’m just wrapping up a year of maintaining my bullet journal practice using index cards instead of the more popular notebook form factor. It’s heavily inspired by the century+ old Memindex method.

AMA

Sample bullet journal using index cards featuring a daily card with schedule and to do list items sitting next to a card index and a Pilot Hi-Tec C Coleto multipen

Card index daily journal and planner with 4 x 6" index cards separated by divider tabs labeled from Aug through Jul of following year.

Green canvas Flatty Works canvas envelope-style case with a clear plastic front through which one can see a handful of 4 x 6" index card dividers and index cards.

Twitter is being rebranded as X. So, if one “tweets” on Twitter, will one then be “eX-iting” posts on X?
I think it’s a perfect time to eXit the entire platform.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/23/23804629/twitters-rebrand-to-x-may-actually-be-happening-soon

Acquired BOOX Tab Ultra C (The Official BOOX Store)
Latest Kaleido3 screen, HD and clear ePaper, Android 11, an exclusive GPU, and a Qualcomm processor. Tab Ultra C is an ePaper tablet PC designed to strike a balance between focus and enjoyment.
Ordered this a few weeks back and it finally arrived today. Can’t wait to delve into how this may help improve my reading and note taking process.

The Idea File of Harold Adams Innis

I am wholly unsurprised that Harold Innis (1894-1952) maintained a card index (zettelkasten) through his research life, but I am pleased to have found that his literary estate has done some work on it and published it as The Idea File of Harold Adams Innis (University of Toronto Press, 1980). The introduction seems to have some fascinating material on the form and structure as well as decisions on how they decided to present and publish it.

For those unaware of his work, primarily as a political economist, he wrote extensively on media and communication theory including the influential works Empire and Communications (1950) and The Bias of Communication (1951). 

While I appreciate the published book nature of the work, it would be quite something to have it excerpted back down to index card form as a piece of material culture to purchase and play around with. Perhaps something in honor of the coming 75th anniversary of his passing?

But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper.
—Henry David Thoreau, Walden; or, Life in the Woods (Ticknor and Fields, 1854, p. 41)

This quote from Walden becomes even more fascinating when one realizes that the Thoreau family business was manufacturing pencils at John Thoreau & Co., one of the first major pencil companies in the United States. Thoreau’s father was the titular John and Henry David worked in the factory and improved upon the hardness of their graphite.

One might also then say that the man who manufactured pencils naturally should become a writer!

This quote also bears some interesting resemblance to quotes about tools which shape us by Winston Churchill and John M. Culkin. see: https://hypothes.is/a/6Znx6MiMEeu3ljcVBsKNOw

I finished watching Wondrium’s spectacular The Banjo: Music, History, and Heritage over the weekend. While looking up future tour dates for Rhiannon Giddens, I notice she’s just won a Pulitzer and will be directing the Ojai Music Festival in June! Now massaging my vacation travel… 🪕🎶
Acquired a copy of the Library of America’s Octavia Butler volume containing Kindred, Fledgling, and her Collected stories.

While I hope to read chunks of it over the summer in Butler’s childhood neighborhood of Pasadena, I got it to read Bloodchild for the Octavia Butler Sci Fi Book Club on 6/24/2023 at 3:00 PM at Octavia’s Bookshelf which is co-hosting with the La Pintoresca Branch Library and the Huntington Library.

RSVPed Attending Tinderbox Meetup - Sunday, May 7, 2023: Connect with Sönke Ahrens live, the author of How to Take Smart Notes
Time: Sunday, May 7, 2023, 12:00 noon Eastern Time (US and Canada)
9 AM Pacific Time
Zoom link for the meetup: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8850659900?pwd=ZE9ROUs1czNiK2FTTStjTUJuVkIydz09 4
Agenda
This one is going to be fun! Sönke Ahrens, the author of How to Take Smart Notes 12 will join our meetup on May 7th. Let’s start a thread on what we’d like to review with him. The meetup is not for a couple of weeks. If you have the time, I highly suggest you grab a copy and give it a read.
The Tinderbox crowd has been doing lots of solid zettelkasten related material recently.
A lot of discussion in the Zettelkasten space has taken place on the debate between digital and analog with handwriting being the default analog option. Why not split some of the differences and opt for the mechanical typewriter option? Where’s the subreddit for that? It can’t just be me and Umberto Eco, right? 🗃️

A wooden table arranged with a black Smith-Corona Clipper typewriter next to a Shaw-Walker wooden dovetailed card index, some index cards, and a black fountain pen.