Reads

Reading list of books, magazines, newspaper articles, other physical documents, or online posts
Read OERxDomains '21: Call for Proposals (Google Docs)
OERxDomains Conference Online - 21-22 April 2021 Call for Proposals Organised by the Association for Learning Technology and partnership with Reclaim Hosting’s Domains Conference, this special edition of the much loved event is the 12th annual conference for Open Education research, practice ...
Reading in advance of making a submission.
Read Example Workflows in Obsidian (Obsidian Forum)
One of the strengths of Obsidian is that it can be thought of as a toolkit for building machines for thinking. But this strength can be a challenge when you are first getting started. Without an inherent structure, it can be difficult to know where to begin. My advice to anyone just getting started is always going to be this: Just start making notes, make links and tags liberally, and see what structure emerges to suit the way you think (feel free to disagree with me, but please do so over at K...

I downloaded the sample file and played around with it a bit. Forte’s P.A.R.A. system seems interesting for the getting things done (GTD) crowd. The IMF system seems generally useful as a way for categorizing and tracking things. So too, the idea of “Maps of Content (MOC)”, but in reality, it’s just a clever name for something I’ve been doing for ages with OneNote.

Read Let the kids Roam (RoamBrain.com)
Violeta has just started a newsletter on Parenting and Everything. You can subscribe to it here. An account of Roam Research use cases for kids and the accompanying guide for parents “What are you doing?” If you’re like me, a parent who’s not used to silence in the house, and you find yours...

Some interesting, but subtle pedaogic ideas hiding in here.

Bookmarked on Jan 4, 2021 at 22:19

Read Inside the chaos of brand safety technology (branded.substack.com)
Integral Ad Science, Comscore and Oracle are leaking the top secret classifications they use to block ad revenues from the news.
The idea that brand safety is killing quality journalism is the shocking take away for me here. Companies are generally throwing away a lot of their advertising money into a dark pit, but to be doing it while actively killing journalism (and by proxy: democracy) is appalling.
Read Looking for best practices for using web clipped articles (Obsidian Forum)
Greets, fellow Obs-heads! I store web clippings of articles into an “Articles” directory in Obsidian for reference, editing, and/or notating. I use these articles for business ideas, referencing, and such. But I’m not sure I am doing this in a manner of utilizing my knowledge system in the best way possible. I’m curious as to how some of you file and reference articles in your own systems? Do you keep the articles in an article folder, move them to a relevant folder, or do you not use folder...
Read 15 rules for blogging, and my current streak by Matt WebbMatt Webb (Interconnected)

So here they are, my personal rules for blogging.

  1. Three posts a week, more or less.
  2. One idea per post. If I find myself launching into another section, cut and paste the extra into a separate draft post, and tie off the original one with the word “Anyway.” Then publish.
  3. No hedging, no nuance. If I’m getting in a twist about a sentence, take it out.
  4. Give up on attempting to be right.
  5. Give up on providing full links and citations.
  6. Give up on saying anything new. Most people haven’t read my old stuff. Play the hits.
  7. Give up on trying to be popular. I try not to filter myself based on what I believe will be popular. Some of my favourite posts get ignored. Some posts get popular and I have no idea why. Besides, terrible posts get buried fast if I’m posting three times a week. So post with abandon.
  8. Give up on trying to be interesting. Readers will come to my site for what’s interesting to me, or not, it’s fine, just say what I think about whatever I’m thinking about.
  9. But make it work for a general audience.
  10. Only write what’s in my head at that exact moment. It’s 10x faster.
  11. If it’s taking too long to write, stop.
  12. Don’t use a post just to link to something elsewhere. If there’s a point to make, start with that.
  13. Titles should be descriptive and have the flavour of the post. And rewrite the lede once the post is done so the whole thing gets to the point faster.
  14. It’s ok not to blog if it feels like a chore.
  15. Writing is a muscle.
Read Newsletters by Robin RendleRobin Rendle (robinrendle.com)
Newsletters; or, an enormous rant about writing on the web that doesn’t really go anywhere and that’s okay with me

Robin wins the internet today. What a great post, but all the better for the custom design and story telling layered on top!

RSS, Atom, and even h-feed are great ways to subscribe to web content. Sadly the UI has been lacking. I always appreciated Julien Genestoux‘s solution with subtome.com over the more roundabout solutions like Matt Webb’s aboutfeeds.com.

People know what a feed is, what subscription is, what a stream of content is, they just need it to be way simpler, like the click of a button that says “follow” or subscribe”.

Give it a whirl!

Or better, yet…

Read DC Friends Get Lucky, Randomly Receive COVID-19 Vaccine Before Doses Expire (NBC4 Washington)
David McMillan is not a first responder or healthcare worker. So even he was surprised when a Giant Food pharmacist asked him and his friend if they wanted to get the Moderna vaccine.

Hard to believe that vaccine distribution is turning into a boondoggle… Hearing that others are getting last minute doses to prevent waste is good to hear though.

Read Postdoctoral position in HoTT at Johns Hopkins University by Emily RiehlEmily Riehl (Homotopy Type Theory)
The Department of Mathematics at Johns Hopkins University solicits applications for one two-year postdoctoral fellowship beginning Summer 2021 (with some flexibility in the start and end dates). Th…