Share with us what is happening in your ZK this week. September 15, 2024

Will

Swimming with Sharks

This is yet another opportunity to share what you are working on with your friends here on the forum. Add to this discussion by telling us about your zettelkasten journey. Share with us what you're learning. Sharing helps us clarify our goals and visualize our thinking. And sometimes, a conversation sparks a magical moment where we can dive into an idea worth exploring. I'd love to hear more from you. 🫵🏼

Here is my report on why I'm here and my current ZK work themes and ideas:

I've been busy, busy, busy. I've worked on whipping my ZK practice into shape, working on the Young Adult Literature study I'm researching and writing with a professor and grad student at the University of Idaho, on writing for my journalism class, on learning how to code with JavaScript, writing plugins for The Archive, and on developing my relief carving skills.

The theme of this week's notes is personal development. I didn't suspect I'd have so much personal growth to do when I retired, but I have a wealth of shortcomings that need attention.

Meta-reading is still a focus. I'm reading Adler's book How to Read a Book slowly, as it recommends—probably not slow enough. It is filled with dense language and takes forever to get anywhere in it; I'll still be reading it years from now. I'm getting bogged down with the talk about the need to find tautological propositions while reading analytically. I'm a failure because I'm supposedly reading a book and don't understand this point, and this is the topic of the book. Reading without understanding can't be measured as successful. I'll stumble ahead, and we'll see what happens.

Books I'm reading or read this week:

• Adler, Mortimer Jerome and Van Doren, Charles Lincoln. How to read a book. 2014.[[202407311603]]
• Fadiman, Anne. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader. Unabridged, Recorded Books, 1999. Audiobook Everand ★★★★★
• Blundell, William E. The Art and Craft of Feature Writing: Based on the Wall Street Journal Guide. New American Library, 1988. [[202408212021]] #JAMM425 Bookshare
• McNicoll, S. A different kind of Beauty. Fitzhenry & Whiteside. 2004 #YAL_research Phsyical.
• Melucci, Giulia. I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti: A Memoir. 1st ed, Grand Central Pub, 2009. Audiobook Everand
• Wallfisch, Mark C. Super Short Stories: Flash Fiction. Mark C. Wallfisch, 2023. Ebook Everand

Zettelkasting Soundtrack:

• Hania Rani Live from Studio S2
• Mystic Diversions Colours
• Mystic Diversions So Far
• Santana & Abraxas & Caravanserai
• Fairies, Forests and a Friend

★★★★★

The "My rolling twelve-day zettel production" is produced by a script for attachment to my daily journaling template. I do my journaling in Bear to keep personal journaling separate from my knowledge work.

Let me know if you would like to see, discuss, or critique any of these notes.

My Twelve-day zettel production

–––––
## Zettelkasten Statistics
★★★★★
1379616 Total word count
20815 Total link count
4102 Total zettel count
★★★★★

12-day trend: 20/12 ⬆︎
100-day trend: 133/112 ⬆︎
1.92 notes/day since day zero (20181114).
15 zettel in my proofing oven.
99 notes were modified in the past 12 days.

–––––

• Scarcity Shapes Our Choices 20240915

  • Scarcity can be both a powerful motivator and a mental trap.

• H-Atomicity Hub 20240914

  • Atomicity is a catalyst for idea development that enhances understanding and organization.

• Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors 20240913

  • Literature as a reflection and exploration of human experience.

• C-JAMM425 September 17, 2024 20240912

  • Seminar notes.

• Is There No Right Way To Do Something 20240911

  • Success is more about accuracy and relevance than mere freedom of choice

• Meaningful Interactions Create Lasting First Impressions 20240910

  • First impressions shape long-lasting perceptions.

• Interstitial all the way down 20240910

  • The mathematical humor of infinite regress of overthinking and endless self-reflection.

• Passion and the Art of Mindful Work 20240909

  • Passion thrives through mindful attention and small, meaningful wins.

• Noticing Feedback Loops for Personal Evolution 20240908

  • Feedback loops offer a powerful Bayesian mental model for creating opportunities for growth and dynamic experiences.

• Towards and Beyond the Critical Threshold of Growth 20240907

  • Critical Threshold of Growth (CTG) marks the point where growth becomes self-sustaining.

• Intentionality in Skill Development 20240907

  • True expertise stems from consistent, purposeful practice, focused attention, and the investment of time.

• Subtle Layers of Learning 20240907

  • Examples of the invisible process of skill accumulation on the trajectory of mastery.

• C-JAMM425 September 10, 2024 20240905

  • Seminar notes.

• Use Object or Action to Deepen Writing 20240905

  • A guide to creative expository writing.

• C-JAMM425 September 05, 2024 20240903

  • Seminar notes.
    

I hope my contribution is helpful, and I'm sure you have even better ideas.

KillerWhale

Because I'm horrible with tools, I've toyed with Capacities. There is really a lot to like with the database-driven and entities approach – quite impressed. But as often, this feels like a web tool bolted on the system and it integrates extremely poorly with all of it. No elegant inbox. I will be passing, but there is a lot of great things about that app if you do not care as much as I do about easy capture and OS integration.

Sascha

Zettelkastenlabs: I will pre-release prototypes to the people who have access to the member's area (currently, just the past attendees of ZK101. Soon changing)

Heart Training: One theme that is seems to hijack my mind quite frequently. I think Peter Attia is under complex in his approach to VO2max and draws wrong conclusions on what the practical implications are. (e.g. I think it matters quite a lot, how you train increasing your VO2max and a bike erg is an inferior way to do it)

Templates for Training for Longevity: The overarching theme is how to create efficiency. I especially push for psychological efficiency, since one of the, perhaps the most important, inputs of any training schedule are intentions. I draw a lot from my past work on the difference between distinct cases in the absence of clear distinguishing lines (think of the difference between a grain of sand and a heap). If you know German or YTs autocaption works well enough, you can have a sneak peek here.

More Zettelkastenstuff: Currently, I am working on explicit meta-cognition as an aid to formulate ideas and work with knowledge building blocks.

**More Knowledge Stuff: More material under the work title "Practical Ontology and System Theory", similar to my background reasoning of this post

Fantasy World Building: I have approximately 20 min per week or so, to engage with hobbies. So, I worked on a world that acts as a glue to connect two of my worlds (one fairy tale world in which I tell stories for my daughter and my core fantasy world for the book that I am writing since I am 9 (on and off))

ctietze

I'm emerging from having-a-baby week 1 -- with a new, fleshy Pomodoro timer to structure my work sprints First day of doing anything for a longer period of time, so much to catch up with!

• Little Zettel-production in the past week or so.

• The Archive's 1.8.0 release with the new plugin system is imminent. Ironing out kinks and addressing feedback for deal-breaking app behavior, but we're getting to the finish line.

Will

CONGRATULATIONS @ctietze!!! 🎉👶🏼 A new role as a dad, what a wonderful challenge/adventure.

ctietze

Thank you!

GeoEng51

@ctietze Yes - I'll add my congratulations as well! It's a whole new world to explore, enjoy and of course learn from.

ZettelDistraction

Congratulations I add to the chorus
Third in line I stand but there are more of us

ZettelDistraction

This is the kind of thing growing, fungus-like, from my Zettelkasten.
NOTE: this is intended for distinguished philosophy professors and living historical figures. Students will not need this nursery rhyme.

Philosophical Nursery Rhyme
_Mnemonic for the absent-minded philosopher

The Expli-Toucan and the Owl Minerva
On Hegel's windowsill alight.
The Toucan speaks before the Owl takes wing--
The Owl in vespertine respite.

Speak Explicans! The Expli-Toucan's Beak
Explain the thing in need of Explication.
The thing we are too dumb to comprehend--
The Explicandum begs the Explicans.

A version in German--I hope my friends from Bielefeld will not laugh so loud that I will hear them in New York--though at least they will have something to laugh about other than members of the Polish Parliament telling Anthony Blinken to go home and get lost (this is the polite way of putting it), which is precisely what they should have told him, exactly what he needs to hear, and what he needs to do (not to mention resign).

Der Erklär-Toucan und die Eule Minervas
Auf Hegels Fensterbank sich niederlassen.
Der Toucan spricht, bevor die Eule schwingt—
Die Eule ruht in dämmeriger Rast.

Sprich, Explicans! Des Erklär-Toucans Schnabel
Erläutere, was der Erläuterung bedarf.
Das, was wir zu dumm sind, zu begreifen—
Das Explicandum fleht das Explicans an.

UPDATE: this is not fun. Not fun at all.

UPDATE TWO: The dead silence can mean only one thing—the English version has so stunned the one or two people who read it (aside from myself) that there is no question of critiquing the German. Either that or I should consider another blue-collar occupation aside from poet.

Loni

@ctietze said:
I'm emerging from having-a-baby week 1 -- with a new, fleshy Pomodoro timer to structure my work sprints First day of doing anything for a longer period of time, so much to catch up with!

• Little Zettel-production in the past week or so.

• The Archive's 1.8.0 release with the new plugin system is imminent. Ironing out kinks and addressing feedback for deal-breaking app behavior, but we're getting to the finish line.

Congratulations! Such a new adventure to begin, I wish you and your family the best! =^^=

@ZettelDistraction : don't get discouraged! Silent is sometimes better than words, and without any comments, you can imagine some of your own, some which tell you to keep it on

@KillerWhale said:
Because I'm horrible with tools, I've toyed with Capacities. There is really a lot to like with the database-driven and entities approach – quite impressed. But as often, this feels like a web tool bolted on the system and it integrates extremely poorly with all of it. No elegant inbox. I will be passing, but there is a lot of great things about that app if you do not care as much as I do about easy capture and OS integration.

Oh, well, I can hear you there. I played with Capacities as well, but privacy was a problem because of lacking proper encryption. The database is quite nice, I agree. I tried Anytype, which looks like Capacities, with a less polish finish but a lot more advanced feature, like the possibility of creating as many datasets from the same object as desired and so on. Anytype is also open source and local dependant. The protocol to sync between devices is the same than Syncthing, a tool that I already use.

However, plain text is still first into my heart. I captured some workflows ideas to adapt them into mine.

---

As I adventure myself further into the "plain text software agnostic" side of the Force, I have find that I can use something like Grep with my Windows computer : the powershell "findstr" fonction. So I give my Zettelkasten folder to Powershell, and then use the "findstr" fonction to find something inside it. I am also considering moving into a "big one file" to make search easier, with a textual index like this :

[240921223338/1a] the name of my zettel @Tag1 +Context - the Folgezettel like is for some notes that would need it.

I would integrate medias inside it with a dedicated folder and links to the UID/name combo :

<-[240921223338/1a] name of the media @Tag1 +Context->

I already use this kind of structure for my agenda and it works pretty well.

ZettelDistraction

UPDATE: You demanded unthinkable horror--here it is DUTY REPORT. I deleted the weaker predecessor, "Let the birds fly," which you didn't read either, most likely because DUTY REPORT is factual.

Not to mention intolerable essays "engendered" (or misgendered) from my own Zettelkasten, such as Artist or Academic. You do want to see the mold growing out of my Zettelkasten, do you not? DALL-E got the following image on the first attempt, astonishingly enough.

KillerWhale

@Loni Ah yeah, I've tried AnyType as well (been in the alpha for what feels like forever) and it's definitely too fiddly and not polished enough for my tastes. I hear you on the "plain text - software agnostic" but I like my Mac and beautiful UX too much, so I'm landing on a balance between polished, easy to use software but with strong export capabilities. Which is why I always tend to go back to Bear.

Loni

. I hear you on the "plain text - software agnostic" but I like my Mac and beautiful UX too much, so I'm landing on a balance between polished, easy to use software but with strong export capabilities. Which is why I always tend to go back to Bear.

I am sorry, this was a misunderstanding : at this point I had switched for a more general side of my personal ZK review of the week. My point was note giving you a lesson about the way you handle your ZK. I am sure you are competent enough to know what you have to do without my intervention!

I don't know Bear, but I agree with you : strong export capabilities is a really good point. If UI is one of the most important criteria for you, so do I for your case as well

@ZettelDistraction said:
UPDATE: You demanded unthinkable horror--here it is DUTY REPORT. I deleted the weaker predecessor, "Let the birds fly," which you didn't read either, most likely because DUTY REPORT is factual.

Not to mention intolerable essays "engendered" (or misgendered) from my own Zettelkasten, such as Artist or Academic. You do want to see the mold growing out of my Zettelkasten, do you not? DALL-E got the following image on the first attempt, astonishingly enough.

Artist or Academic was really interesting to read. More generaly, pieces by pieces, your work is like a boiling bubbling cauldron with a lot to see, to read, to understand, with so thiner hinding meanings to catch. I am not good at this, but I really appreciate this.

ZettelDistraction

@Loni said:

@ZettelDistraction said:
UPDATE: You demanded unthinkable horror--here it is DUTY REPORT.

Artist or Academic was really interesting to read. More generaly, pieces by pieces, your work is like a boiling bubbling cauldron with a lot to see, to read, to understand, with so thiner hinding meanings to catch. I am not good at this, but I really appreciate this.

Thank you. I am adding DALL-E generated illustrations, which DALL-E gets wrong most of the time, but occasionally it does a good job, such as "I would review The Hatred of Poetry, but." DALL-E could never get the illustration of the Expli-Toucan and the Owl of Minerva right, but unlike every other client from Hell, I settled for what it gave me. I had better luck with The Pomes of Diasporalism. DALL-E surprised me with the utterly revolting image for the Oulipo lipogram Serene. Oulipo will never elect me to their ranks.

I plan to use the Substack podcast feature to add my voice narrations of Serene, The Pome of Diasporalism, Splashdown, Ode on an LLM, DUTY REPORT, and possibly others. I am set up for this.