We are taught not to point. Pointing with your finger is rude, even though it is often extremely convenient and efficient. Medieval readers do not seem to have been hindered by this convention: in …
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As I’m thinking about this, I can’t help but think that Hypothes.is, if only for fun, ought to add a manicule functionality to their annotation product.
I totally want to be able to highlight portions of my reading with an octopus manicule!
Eminem shows Anderson Cooper his form of commonplace book in a 60 Minutes interview. It’s a large box with stiff sides containing a menagerie of papers including several yellow legal pads, loose sheets of paper, scrap papers, stationery from hotels, etc. upon which he’s written words, phrases, songs, poetry, etc.
Instead of using the historic word “commonplacing”, Eminem uses the fantastic euphemism “stacking ammo”. Given his use of his words and lyrics collection in battle rap, this seems very apropos.
Cooper analogizes the collection as the scrawlings of a crazy person. In some sense, this may be because there is no traditional order, head words, or indexing system with what otherwise looks like a box of random pages and ideas. One might argue that the multitude of notebooks, papers, colors, sizes, etc. provides a sort of context which Eminem could use as a method of loci for remembering where to find particular ideas, thus making the need for an indexing system feel superfluous to him. This is even more likely if he’s regularly using, maintaining, and mining his material for daily work.
Müller-Wille and Scharf ‘Indexing Nature’, also points out that Linnaeus interleaved blanksheets into his texts so that he could take notes. Cooper points out that this had been a common practice in natural historysince at least the late seventeenth century (Cooper, Inventing the Indigenous, 74–5). ❧
Apparently interleaving blank sheets into texts was a more common practice than I had known! I’ve seen it in the context of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) using the practice to take notes in his Bible, but not in others.
Jonathan Edwards’s so-called “Blank Bible.” JE received as a gift from Benjamin Pierpoint, his brother in law, a unique book. Structurally, it is a strange animal. It is a small, double-column King James, unstitched and then spliced back together again inside a large blank journal. The result is a one-of-a-kind Bible that has an empty sheet between every page of Scripture text.❧
If one is serious about annotating a text, then consider making a “blank Bible” version of it.
Interleaving a copy of your favorite text can leave massive amounts of space for marginalia!
Copies of print and digital editions of Jonathan Edwards’ blank Bible are available.
The practice, back then, was surprisingly social — people would mark up books for one another as gifts, or give pointedly annotated novels to potential lovers. ❧
This could be an interesting gift idea. Definitely shows someone that you were actively thinking about them for extended lengths of time while they were away.
It’s also sort of founding example for the idea of social annotation given that most prior annotation was for personal use. (Though Owen Gingerich has shown that early annotations were copied from book to book and early scribes added annotations to texts for readers as well.)
It also demonstrates the idea of proof of work (in this case love “work”), which is part of the reason that social annotation in an educational setting using tools like Hypothes.is is worthwhile. Students are indicating (via social signaling) to a teacher that they’ve read and actively engaged with the course material.
Of course, unlike the example, they’re not necessarily showing “true love” of the material!
Dispo is an invite-only social photo app with a twist: you can’t see any photos you take with the app until 24 hours after you take them. (The app sends you a push notification to open them every day at 9AM local time: among other things, a nice hack to boost daily usage.) Founded by David Dobrik, one of the world’s most popular YouTubers, Dispo has been around as a basic utility for a year. ❧
This is the first reference to Dispo I’ve come across.
...the frozen nature of the text seem more like a feature than a bug, something they’ve deliberated chosen, rather than a flaw that they didn’t have time to correct. ❧
The thoughtfulness and design of of Hypothes.is is incredibly valuable to me specifically because it dramatically increases my textual productivity in combination with my digital commonplace book.
Should transclusion work both ways, embedding content and letting the source know that I did so? ❧
If one is worried about link rot for transclusion, why not just have a blockquote of the original in excerpt form along with a reference link to the original. Then you’ve got a permanent copy of the original and the link can send a webmention to it as a means of notification?
If the original quoted page changes, it could potentially send a webmention (technically a salmention in function) to all the pages that had previously mentioned it to create updates.
Automatic transclusion can also be more problematic in terms of original useful data being used as a vector of spam, graffiti, or other abuses.
As an example, I can “transclude” a portion of your page onto my own website as a reply context for my comment and syndicate a copy to Hypothes.is. If you’ve got Webmentions on your site, you’ll get a notification.
For several years now I’ve been considering why digital gardens/zettelkasten/commonplace books don’t implement webmention as a means of creating backlinks between wikis as a means of sites having conversations?
The modern practice of the committee questioning nominees on their judicial views began with the nomination of John Marshall Harlan II in 1955; the nomination came shortly after the Supreme Court handed down its landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, and several southern senators attempted to block Harlan's confirmation, hence the decision to testify.[1][8] ❧
Interesting that this practice stems from the imposition of what looks like racist policies.
I wonder if it could really be used in reverse to help break down racist policies on the next nomination?
A longtime libertarian who dabbled in eccentric ideas like seasteading — artificial island communities in international waters far from governmental jurisdiction — and life extension, Thiel had made occasional forays into mainstream politics. ❧
First time I’ve seen seasteading as a word in context.
***Update as of 9/9/2020 @ 4:51 PM***Voluntary evacuations lifted for residents north of Foothill Blvd. and east of Santa Anita Ave.
The Bobcat Fire has generally progressed away from the City of Arcadia. The current weather forecast suggests that Santa Ana winds will dissipate this evening and the Red Flag Warning will be removed after 8:00 p.m.Based on these factors, the City of Arcadia is removing the recommendation for residents to evacuate. However, residents are advised to remain on alert for any changes to weather conditions that may affect the fire. Evacuations may be necessary for your safety if conditions change. ❧
However, if Welsh does not yet possess a spoken standard, it does possess a literary standard which can be traced back to the translation of the Bible by Bishop WIlliam Morgan in 1588, which in turn is based on the language of the medieval court poets who were the heirs of the Cynfeirdd, the earl poets Aneirin and Taliesin. These lived in the sixth century AD and described battles which took place in today's Scotland and Northern England [...] ❧
Sioned Davies is Chair of Welsh at Cardiff University. Her special interest is the interplay between orality and literacy, together with the performance aspects of medieval Welsh narrative. ❧
Oh! This is fascinating. Perhaps some interesting tidbits for my growing theory about the borders of orality and literacy could be hiding in some of her research?
Matthew Daniel Eddy
Kyle Shevli
Steven Berlin Johnson
Aquiles Carattino