The world is always breaking So the world is always breaking; it's in its nature to break. Steven J. Jackson, Rethinking Repair melancholydecay
Angkorwatification Applied to a blog, angkorwatification is a sort of textual equivalent of rewilding. You have a base layer of traditional blog posts that is essentially complete in the sense of having created, over time, an idea space with a clear identity, and a more or less deliberately conceived architecture to it. And you have a secondary organic growth layer that is patiently but relentlessly rewilding the first, inorganic one. That second layer also emerges from the mind of the blogger of course, but does so via surrender to brain entropy rather than via writerly intentions disciplining the flow of words. Venkatesh Rao, Ribbonfarm www.ribbonfarm.com writingentropydecay
The web in decay is the web by design An Essay by Chia Amisola chias.blog When will there be a guide to best practices for archiving the web? Will the giants responsible for the platformization of the web make the act of digital archival any easier for us? Is it foolish for platforms like Snapchat or Instagram Stories to brand themselves as “temporary” when temporariness is impossible on our internet? Should the web exist as something organic, malleable, and destructible –– or as an eternal timekeeper? Is link rot more of a technological issue or a human one? Do humans want to know themselves forever? The Internet Is Rotting decaywww
The Internet Is Rotting An Essay by Jonathan Zittrain www.theatlantic.com Too much has been lost already. The glue that holds humanity’s knowledge together is coming undone. Links work seamlessly until they don’t. And as tangible counterparts to online work fade, these gaps represent actual holes in humanity’s knowledge— they represent a comprehensive breakdown in the chain of custody for facts. The web in decay is the web by design wwwhypermediadecayknowledge
Weathering Steel A Material en.wikipedia.org Weathering steel, often referred to by the genericised trademark COR-TEN steel and sometimes written without the hyphen as corten steel, is a group of steel alloys which were developed to eliminate the need for painting, and form a stable rust-like appearance after several years' exposure to weather. The name COR-TEN refers to the two distinguishing properties of this type of steel: corrosion resistance and tensile strength. Dark satanic steelTilted Arc decay
Why Keep a Field Notebook? An Essay from Field Notes on Science and Nature by Erick Greene Pick one thingLab notebooksHybrid journalsA fertile incubatorBest practices
Pick one thing I recently started a field notebook assignment for my upper-level Ecology class at the University of Montana. I asked my students to pick one “thing” and observe it carefully over the entire semester. In addition to their field notebooks, the students also had to suggest at least ten research questions inspired by their observations. One brick seeing
Lab notebooks Most of my colleagues who conduct laboratory research not only keep extremely thorough and complete lab notebooks, but they teach their students how and why to keep data in them. Some labs even have friendly competitions in which prizes for the best-kept notebooks are awarded. In stark contrast to the vibrant culture of keeping lab notebooks in molecular biology, my informal polling suggested a lack of interest in notebooks in field biology. “I have a GPS for that.” “My data are in a spreadsheet.” “I write things down when I get home.” “I have a computer.” The general consensus seemed to be that field notebooks are quaint, archaic, and obsolete in field biology.
Hybrid journals The most useful and interesting notebooks of field biology are hybrids; as well as recording details and data of field research, they record the observations, thoughts, musings, and peregrinations of the author. notetaking
A fertile incubator Another value of field notebooks is their ability to serve as an incredibly fertile incubator for your ideas and observations. By jotting down interesting observations, questions, and miscellaneous ideas, your field notebook can serve as a powerful catalyst for new experiments and projects. notetaking
Best practices Use a hardbound notebook. Keep your contact information in a prominent location. Write for yourself and for posterity. Write pertinent field information with every new entry. You should enter the date, time, and location at the top of every page. Add information on your location. Record your methods. Make backup copies. If you use abbreviations, make sure there is a key in your field notebook. Don’t leave home without it. Form a writing habit. Thomas Jefferson was such an inveterate chronicler of daily events in his notebooks that he even took the time to record the weather four times on the day he helped write the Declaration of Independence. So unless you have something far more pressing than writing the Declaration of Independence, you have no excuse for avoiding your field notebook! Set up a structure for your field notebook. Create an index. Treat your field notebook like a scrapbook. You should view your field notebook as a central clearinghouse for miscellaneous information that is relevant to your research project. If there are related bits of information that you will find useful later on, sketch them, write them down, photocopy them, and staple or tape them in your notebook. Five basic rules indexes