Understanding
From a roving viewpoint
A state of quietness
In a state of reverberation
Practice before theory
When we say we know Hamlet
You only understand something relative to something you already understand
Mondegreen
Understanding its essence
How our understanding is working
Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.
Everything that can be said
Agents of thought and experiment
For one who can see
I don't think you understand
I think very well of him indeed
Admitting ignorance
Dead cities
Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction
99% Invisible
Understanding Understanding
To Make a Book, Walk on a Book
When their salary depends on not understanding it
A Quote by Upton SinclairIt is difficult to get people to understand something, when their salary depends on not understanding it.
Keep digging
An Article by Ryan SingerThe hardest thing about customer interviews is knowing where to dig. An effective interview is more like a friendly interrogation. We don’t want to learn what customers think about the product, or what they like or dislike — we want to know what happened and how they chose... To get those answers we can’t just ask surface questions, we have to keep digging back behind the answers to find out what really happened.
Clues for software design in how we sketch maps of cities
An Article by Matt WebbGiven there’s an explosion in software to accrete and organise knowledge, is the page model really the best approach?
Perhaps the building blocks shouldn’t be pages or blocks, but
neighbourhoods
roads
rooms and doors
landmarks.Or rather, as a knowledge base or wiki develops, it should - just like a real city - encourage its users to gravitate towards these different fundamental elements. A page that starts to function a little bit like a road should transform into a slick navigation element, available on all its linked pages. A page which is functioning like a landmark should start being visible from two hops away.
How am I doing, wonder?
A Quote by Louis KahnForm comes from wonder. Wonder stems from our 'in touchness' with how we were made. One senses that nature records the process of what it makes, so that in what it makes there is also the records of how it was made. In touch with this record we are in wonder. This wonder gives rise to knowledge. But knowledge is related to other knowledge and this relation gives a sense of order, a sense of how they inter-relate in a harmony that makes all things exist. From knowledge to sense of order we then wink at wonder and say How am I doing, wonder?
Pellucidity
A DefinitionFree from obscurity and easy to understand; the comprehensibility of clear expression
What 80% Comprehension Feels Like
An ArticleOne of the major principles of extensive reading is that if a learner can comprehend material at 98% comprehension, she will acquire new words in context, in a painless, enjoyable way. But what is 98% comprehension?
The case for rereading
An Article by Mandy BrownReread a book enough times, or often enough—keep it at hand so you can flip to dog-eared pages and marked up passages here and there—and it will eventually root itself in your mind. It becomes both a reference point and a connector, a means of gathering your knowledge and experience, drawing it all together. It becomes the material through which you engage with the world.
How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought You Think
An EssayWhat we have known since long
A Quote by Ludwig WittgensteinThe problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have known since long.
Making sense
A Quote by Pablo PicassoThe world doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?
I am an explorer
A Quote by C.S. LewisI do not sit down at my desk to put into in verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind I would have no incentive or need to write about it. I am an explorer…We do not write in order to be understood, we write in order to understand.
Linking Researchers Across Generations
Future value
In the field, there is a continuous flow of information that consists of daily observations, insights, and data. How can I capture these data and thoughts in notes, maps, and images so that they will be of value both to me and to future generations of scientists?
Time capsules
In recording fieldwork I was creating my own time capsules.
Tools of the digital age
The myriad tools of the digital age that provide quick ways to capture words, images, and data have added to the perception that handwritten field notebooks are passé. As someone who routinely encounters objects that can speak to us over millions of years, I may have a bias towards things that have stood the test of time. That said, it is clear that there is still much to recommend preserving records and information in traditional paper field notes.
Over the course of my career, I have developed a habitual field note protocol in which a paper notebook is used both to record information and to integrate records made on standardized data sheets, in computer files, and in photographs.
Five basic rules
Five basic rules:
(1) Record your work as notes to your future self and colleagues.
Write notes so that someone fifty years from now (or more) will understand and be able to use the factual information you collected, perhaps for purposes quite different from the original reasons.
Clearly separate facts from interpretations so these are not confusing to a future reader.
(2) Establish a clear and consistent notebook format and process.
I always include the data, place, main activities or events, weather conditions, and other people involves. The day, month, and year is the most important link between that particular point in time and other people’s records, separate data sheets that I filled out myself, photos, and most important, collected specimens.
Documenting collecting strategies and protocols receives special attention. In the moment, these may seem like common knowledge for the field team, so sometimes no one bothers to write them out.
(3) Don’t lose your field records!
(4) Pack a camera, create a visual record.
No matter how many words you write to describe a fossil locality, you can’t beat an actual photo, taken on the spot, annotated in pen, and pasted into your notebook.
There is no substitute for a photograph you actually mark in “real time” in the field as the best way to preserve a lasting, accurate record for yourself, or for someone who has never seen the site or object in question.
(5) Learning through sketches and diagrams.
Photographs are great, but drawn what you see is a more powerful way to learn about spatial patterns and relationships.
Even if you are not an expert at drawing, you can make sketches that are much more informative than words would be.
Always include a scale, an orientation, and labels in your diagrams.
Bonewalks
Example of a standardized field data collection form used to record all the fossil bones encountered along a transect.
Informally I refer to these as “bonewalks.”
Microstratigraphic
A "microstratigraphic" diagram from Olorgesaille, Kenya.