On Michel de Montaigne's tangents: quote from Je Replie Ma Vue Au Dedans | Brain Baking (toot)

“One of the consequences of his unique approach to writing is the many digressions present in the Essais. And with many, I mean a great deal of 'em. Most, if not all, essays only mention the topic—as supposedly made apparent to the reader via the title—in passing. Bakewell picks out an example: About chariots. The text starts with a digression on writing, sways over to the very compelling subject of sneezing only to land on the actual topic two pages later to then to drift off again onto a summary of recent happenings in the New World.”

If I meander, at least I'm in excellent company.

On intentional friction - quote from PKM Summit 2025 Notes | Brain Baking (toot) Intentional friction: slow down and add context (your why) for tasks and notes. I like this because it makes it easier to pick things up again and actually do something about it. Related thought: turning books into action items

“Someone else then advised to add context: why did you record this, or why do you think this might be important? If you can't write that down, then don't save it. This is added friction: constantly aiming to reduce friction is not always beneficial to your system. We still have the habit to collect too much stuff and do too little with it. This seemed to be a shared struggle among attendants and speakers alike.”

On sharing your questions - quote from Ness Labs on collective curiosity (toot) Also via @takeonrules's journal entry

1. Mapping the unknown. Many breakthroughs start when someone admits “I don't understand why…” Sit down with your colleagues and explicitly write down what you don't know or understand about a topic. This turns knowledge gaps into shared opportunities for discovery. 

This reminds me of that link I just shared about a person's big questions: https://tracydurnell.com/questions/
another example: https://reeswrites.com/about-big-questions/

Oh hey, Ness Labs = Anne-Laure Le Cunff, of the ADHD and curiosity paper I've also got a link to somewhere in my drafts; adding another blog to my feed reader

Followed up: I started a list of questions I often consider, inspired by Tracy Durnell.

On the density and invisibility of digital notes (toot)

And these digital files take a different kind of stewardship. The density of information per cubic inch of material is mind-boggling. Yet that density of information exists invisible to our analogue self, we need wizardry to make it visible and hopefully known. This density and invisibility, I suspect, makes it easy to lose and misplace and disregard.

It's difficult to get this sense of heft for digital thoughts. I wanted go experiment with that a bit using treemaps, but I'm not quite there yet. Spatial relationships are interesting too. I used to lay out index card sketches. Maybe I'll learn how to use Noteful or similar apps to get a handle on a larger topic by using sketched and hyperlinked maps…

On learning the terminology - quote from "How did you know to do that?" on avdi.codes (toot)

Learning the terminology is an important step that people struggle with. Communities help with that.

Just as an example: I've realized that when I'm studying a problem, I rely a lot on “second-order Googling”. That's a process whereby I don't try to discover a solution in a single search. Instead, in my first few searches, I just try to find other people talking about the problem area, using my own naïve description of the task at hand.

Then, once I discover some conversations that are taking place among people experienced in that domain, I read over them looking for the specific terminology that I had missed. Once I have the terminology, I'm able to use it to compose much more focused searches that usually lead me directly to the answer I'm looking for.

On each person shaping Emacs to fit them - quote from BSAG » On the 'Emacs From Scratch' cycle (toot)

It struck me the other day that there is probably more variation and diversity among different users' Emacs configurations than among the configurations of any other editor. Users are able to change almost any aspect of the way that Emacs functions, with easy access to clear documentation explaining how it works right now, and how you can change it. This means that each instance of Emacs ends up a unique shape, like an old tool with a wooden handle worn down into the shape of its owners' habitual grasp. That simile doesn't quite work, because Emacs users work hard and deliberately to shape their Emacs tools to fit their needs, so it is more than just passive wear.

What lights you up? quote from "Little p purpose" – Butterfly Mind (toot)

Jordan Grumet, the guest on the podcast, addresses this worry. He distinguishes between big P Purpose and little p purpose. Purpose with a big P is the one that gets me, and apparently a lot of people, stressed. It feels like, “Why am I here? What am I meant to do?” It induces anxiety if we want to find Purpose but don't know where to look. Little p purpose, though, does not ask “why?”; it doesn't examine the reason for our existence. Instead it asks, “what lights you up?”

On tagging posts with the people you got the ideas from - quote from "Early web influencers" | smays.com (toot) I hadn't considered using tags to tag people's names in blog posts before, but the way it's used in this post is neat. I clocked in the link for Nikol Lohr and saw a series of posts related to that person's thoughts. Interesting.

This entry was posted in Internet and tagged Bruce Sterling, Chris Pirillo, Clay Shirky, Dan Gillmor, Dave Winer, David Weinberger, Doc Searls, Douglas Coupland, Douglas Rushkoff, Halley Suitt, Hugh MacLeod, Jakob Nielsen, Jeff Jarvis, Kevin Kelly, Mark Cuban, Mark Ramsey, Nikol Lohr, Scott Adams, Seth Godin, Steve Outing, Steven Levy, Terry Heaton, Tom Peters

On the connection between reading and writing - quote from "The more I read" - Dan Cullum (toot)

There is a strong correlation between the amount I’m reading, and the ideas I have for this blog. When I’m reading a lot, I feel like I have ideas coming out my eyes.

On books - quote from "The Lost Art of Research as Leisure" by Mariam Mahmoud (toot)

Writing nearly 350 years earlier, Galileo had declared books “the seal of all the admirable inventions of mankind,” because books allow us to communicate through time and place, and to speak to those “who are not yet born and will not be born for a thousand or ten thousand years.”

Reminds me of the Great Conversation described in Adler and van Doren's How to Read a Book.

Toronto Public Library workers vote resoundingly in favour of strike | Canadian Union of Public Employees (toot)

Toronto Public Library workers have given their union a strong strike mandate in ongoing contract negotiations with the Toronto Public Library. The workers, represented by CUPE 4948, held a strike vote over the weekend with a historic turnout, where over 96 per cent voted in favour of authorizing the union to take strike action if necessary.

… CUPE 4948 and the Toronto Public Library have multiple bargaining dates scheduled throughout March. The union remains focused on securing a contract that includes inflation-adjusted wage increases, solutions to chronic understaffing and workplace violence, improved working conditions, and stronger benefits.

CUPE 4948's Instagram has a few videos from librarians explaining issues around short staffing, precarious work, and other things the union wants to improve.

The library is one of my favourite parts of Toronto. Librarians are awesome. I want them to feel safe and appreciated. I hope they can come to a good agreement!

On solitude - quote from "How to Meet Your Mystery: Thomas Merton on Solitude and the Soul" – The Marginalian (toot)

Thomas Merton, quoted in the Marginalian:

The solitary is one who is aware of solitude in himself as a basic and inevitable human reality, not just as something which affects him as an isolated individual. Hence his solitude is the foundation of a deep, pure and gentle sympathy with all other men, whether or not they are capable of realizing the tragedy of their plight.

The beginnings of an information workflow - toot

The beginnings of an information workflow: read on my iPad (bigger screen than my phone, easier to carry around the house than my laptop); share interesting tidbits to Chrome on my phone; share a quote and maybe a thought via Tusky (includes reasonably readable link to context, might spark further conversation); collect those from my GoToSocial instance and archive them in a blog post or Org Mode notes, keeping track of ideas I want to connect or flesh out further

On solitude - quote from 'Living Against Time: Virginia Woolf on the Art of Presence and the “Moments of Being” That Make You Who You Are' – The Marginalian (toot) On Virginia Woolf:

In Moments of Being (public library) — the posthumous collection of her autobiographical writings — she writes:

A great part of every day is not lived consciously. One walks, eats, sees things, deals with what has to be done; the broken vacuum cleaner; ordering dinner; writing orders to Mabel; washing; cooking dinner; bookbinding. When it is a bad day the proportion of non-being is much larger.

In her 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway — part love letter to these moments of being, part lamentation about the proportion of non-being we choose without knowing we are choosing — she locates the key to righting the ratio in “the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light.”

On curiosity - quote from "The Hypercuriosity Theory of ADHD" (toot) A+ and I both have strong interest-based focus, which means classwork might be tricky. Fortunately, I can use my interest in helping her grow to help me Learn All the Things so I can advocate for her and help her figure out her brain. Might be ADHD, might be something else, but it's probably a good idea to work with it instead of trying to squish it into something that it's not.

Given that high trait curiosity might be a strength in ADHD, interventions could focus on harnessing this natural tendency rather than trying to suppress it.

For instance, AI-assisted tools have shown promise in providing personalized learning experiences for individuals with ADHD, allowing them to engage with material in ways that capitalize on their natural curiosity. Game-based learning has also demonstrated positive effects on engagement and interest, particularly in subjects like mathematics. The Montessori classroom model, which is designed to foster curiosity, has shown promising results—students with ADHD in Montessori settings exhibit more actively engaged on-task behaviors compared to traditional classroom settings. Lastly, outdoor socially-oriented activities have been associated with higher levels of curiosity.

On emotional support, parenting, and gold stars - quote from "Free! Live discussion about autism Nov. 13, 7pm ET" - Penelope Trunk (toot) I came across Penelope Trunk's blog again after many years of not regularly reading RSS feeds (aside from the blogs about Emacs, of course).

This quote resonated:

But parents have messed up view of what emotional support is, because parents want gold stars for parenting. So the support most parents give is to steer the kid to get gold stars. Parents mistake helping a kid get gold stars for helping a kid feel loved."

Our kid is 9, bored at school, and procrastinates homework. I know what that's like because I was like that too. (I think she's doing better than I did.) I've been working on fretting less. Pushing her to get the work done and check those checkboxes might not be in her best interest anyhow.

On side notes / footnotes - toot

I like this use of side notes/footnotes at https://www.citationneeded.news/free-and-open-access-in-the-age-of-generative-ai/ . Footnotes use letters to distinguish them from numbered references, and are duplicated as side notes on large screens. I also like the “Show buttons that expand the side note” or “Include side notes after the paragraph on small screens” approaches on other sites.

Sketchnoting Science: How to Make Sketchnotes from Technical Content | NIST (toot)

Enjoyed the examples of technical sketchnotes in https://www.nist.gov/publications/sketchnoting-science-how-make-sketchnotes-technical-content , found via https://www.sketchnotelab.com/p/sketchnote-lab-dispatch-march-2025