networks
A representational tension
The number of ways in which things work
Trees and graphs
Information remix
Effective writing stems from intelligently connecting the dots between the concepts you understand and can articulate. It stands to reason, then, that in order to generate more creativity you must not only add to a knowledge base, but deepen and expand the number of connections within the totality of the network. By establishing and explicitly mapping your knowledge, you allow yourself the freedom to remix information. You will often find that solutions come from previously unsuspected fields or topics—proving to be analogous in some shape or form.
The network of connections
Each pattern depends both on the smaller patterns it contains, and on the larger patterns within which is is contained. Each pattern sits at the center of a network of connections which connect it to certain other patterns that help to complete it. It is the network of these connections between patterns which creates the language.
Not an accumulation of facts
Knowledge is not an accumulation of facts, nor is it even a set of facts and their relations. Facts are only rendered meaningful within narratives, and the single-page document is a format very conducive to narrative structure. The hypertext books that have gained popularity (I’m thinking here of Meaningness.com) have largely conformed to this in two ways: 1) there is an intended reading order, and 2) the longer essays within the project do most of the heavy lifting in terms of imparting the author’s perspective to readers.
On the other hand, the notion of the “document” that is intrinsic to web development today is overdetermined by the legacy of print media. The web document is a static, finished artifact that does not bring in dynamic data. This is strange because it lives on a medium that is alive, networked, and dynamic, a medium which we increasingly understand more as a space than a thing.
Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape
A Book by Brian HayesInteroperable Personal Libraries and Ad Hoc Reading Groups
An Article by Maggie AppletonWe would need a system that enables people to:
- Publish a list of books they would be willing to discuss with other people to the open web. Antilibraries – collections of books you haven't read yet but would like to read – are particularly well suited to this proposition.
- See which books people in their social network want to discuss, and/or subscribe to other people's lists
- Be notified when 4+ people in their network have the same book on their discussion list – possibly via an email thread?
- Coordinate and schedule a time to read and discuss the book with that group.
Obsidian
An ApplicationObsidian is a powerful knowledge base that works on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files.
In Obsidian, making and following [[connections]] is frictionless. Tend to your notes like a gardener; at the end of the day, sit back and marvel at your own knowledge graph.
are.na
An Application by Charles BroskoskiBuild ideas mindfully.
Save content, create collections, and connect ideas with other people.
All websites are just digital movie theaters now
An Article by Ryan BroderickIf I had to guess where this is all going, I’d say that what an internet platform is actually has already permanently shifted. Instead of apps trying to dominate specific features — a platform for video, a platform for expiring content, a platform for connecting social networking, a platform for livestreaming, a platform for resumes — we’ve already entered a new era of online networks where they all will essentially offer the same services and instead, focus increasingly on specific demographics.
Roam Research
An ApplicationA note-taking tool for networked thought.
- are.na
InfoCrystal
A Research PaperThis paper introduces a novel representation, called the InfoCrystal, that can be used as a visualization tool as well as a visual query language to help users search for information. The InfoCrystal visualizes all the possible relationships among N concepts.
The Brain
An ApplicationIntelligent note-taking. Non-linear file management. Ideas and relationships visualized.
Wittgenstein's Mistress
- I think very well of him indeed
- A perfect circle
- The Eiffel Tower
- Ceci n'est pas une pipe
- Erased de Kooning Drawing
I think very well of him indeed
When I was still doubtful as to his ability, I asked G.E. Moore for his opinion. Moore replied, ‘I think very well of him indeed.’ When I enquired the reason for his opinion, he said that it was because Wittgenstein was the only man who looked puzzled at his lectures. — Bertrand Russell
A perfect circle
Once, being asked to submit a sample of his work, what Giotto submitted was a circle.
Well, the point being that it was a perfect circle.
And that Giotto had painted it freehand.The Eiffel Tower
When the sun had gotten to the angle from which Phidias had taken his perspective, the Parthenon almost seemed to glow.
Actually, the best time to see that is generally also at four o’clock.
Doubtless the taverns from which one could see that did better business than the taverns from which one could not, in fact, even though they were all in the same street.
Unless of course the latter were patronized by people who had lived in Athens long enough to have gotten tired of seeing it.
Such things can happen. As in the case of Guy de Maupassant, who ate his lunch every day at the Eiffel Tower.
Well, the point being that this was the only place in Paris from which he did not have to look at it.Ceci n'est pas une pipe
There is nobody at the window in the painting of the house, by the way.
I have now concluded that what I believed to be a person is a shadow.
If it is not a shadow, it is perhaps a curtain.
As a matter of fact it could actually be nothing more than an attempt to imply depths, within the room.
Although in a manner of speaking all that is really in the window is burnt sienna pigment. And some yellow ochre.
In fact there is no window either, in that same manner of speaking, but only shape.
So that any few speculations I have made about the person at the window would therefore now appear to be rendered meaningless, obviously.
Unless of course I subsequently become convinced that there is somebody at the window all over again.
I have put that badly.Erased de Kooning Drawing
Once, Robert Rauschenberg erased most of a drawing by Willem de Kooning, and then named it Erased de Kooning Drawing.
I am in no way certain what this is connected to either, but I suspect it is connected to more than I once believed it to be connected to.
The cat
The cat I began to think about instead was the cat outside of the broken window in the room next to this one, at which the tape frequently scratches when there is a breeze.
Which is to say that I was not actually thinking about a cat either, there being no cat except insofar as the sound of the scratching reminds me of one.As there was, or is, no person at the window in the painting of this house.
It is still a house
Perhaps even the very house which I burned to the ground contained such examples, even though it would obviously not contain them any longer, no longer being a house.
Well, it is still a house.
Even if there is not remarkably much left of it, I am still prone to think of it as a house when I pass it in taking my walks.
There is the house I burned to the ground, I might think. Or, soon I will be coming to the house that I burned to the ground.The image of reality
Leonardo wrote in his notebooks backwards, from right to left, so that they had to be held up to a mirror to be read.
In a manner of speaking, the image of Leonardo’s notebooks would be more real than the notebooks themselves.Equidistance
Once, in the Rijksmuseum, I brought in new speakers for my phonograph. What the directions told me to do was make certain that the two speakers were equidistant from each other.
One certainly had to wonder what the person who wrote the instructions could have believed he meant by that.A strange calligraphy
Along the sand there will be frisky shadows, that will dance and fall away.
Or, if there is snow, the flames will write a strange calligraphy against the whiteness.Van Gogh
One of the things people generally admired about Van Gogh, even though they were not always aware of it, was the way he could make even a chair seem to have anxiety in it. Or a pair of boots.
The meaning of music
Once, somebody asked Robert Schumann to explain the meaning of a certain piece of music he had just played on the piano.
What Robert Schumann did was sit back down at the piano and play the piece of music again.
Good morning, Vincent
Perhaps I shall name the cat that scratches at my broken window Van Gogh.
Or Vincent.
One does not name a piece of tape, however.
There is the piece of tape, scratching at my window. There is Vincent, scratching at my window.Good morning, Vincent.
The illusion of anxiety
Or because of hormones.
And so which would not really have been anxiety at all, but only an illusion.
Even if one would certainly be hard put to explain the difference between an illusion of anxiety and anxiety itself.Somebody is living on this beach
Once, I had a dream of fame.
Generally, even then I was lonely.
To the castle, a sign must have said.
Somebody is living on this beach.