From 1fcc199c1a5fc7b27bba4df90c690386d8f63149 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Stephen Donahue Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2026 02:12:21 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] [notes] ... --- .eleventy.js | 8 ++++ Notes/beliefs.md | 8 ++++ Notes/do-people-think.md | 60 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Notes/how-to-write.md | 36 +++++++++++++++++ Notes/systems.md | 31 ++++++++++++++ _includes/column.njk | 4 +- _includes/sidebar.njk | 2 +- columns/2026-03-28-useless-skills.md | 2 +- css/style.css | 4 +- 9 files changed, 150 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) create mode 100644 Notes/beliefs.md create mode 100644 Notes/do-people-think.md create mode 100644 Notes/how-to-write.md create mode 100644 Notes/systems.md diff --git a/.eleventy.js b/.eleventy.js index 95f18e4..0e65e05 100644 --- a/.eleventy.js +++ b/.eleventy.js @@ -63,6 +63,14 @@ module.exports = function (eleventyConfig) { .sort((a, b) => b.date - a.date); }); + eleventyConfig.addFilter("inlineMarkdown", function (text) { + return text.replace(/~~(.+?)~~/g, "$1"); + }); + + eleventyConfig.addFilter("stripMarkdown", function (text) { + return text.replace(/~~(.+?)~~/g, "$1"); + }); + eleventyConfig.addFilter("year", function (date) { return new Date(date).getFullYear(); }); diff --git a/Notes/beliefs.md b/Notes/beliefs.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ec281c --- /dev/null +++ b/Notes/beliefs.md @@ -0,0 +1,8 @@ +## Rough Notes +- I can't remember where I read it, probably in Systems Thinking, something about dissent having to die off before a prevailing theory changes. +- The assertion that individuals are locked in to their beliefs. + +## Questions + + +## Quotes \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/Notes/do-people-think.md b/Notes/do-people-think.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..76a00bf --- /dev/null +++ b/Notes/do-people-think.md @@ -0,0 +1,60 @@ +--- +title: Do ~~Machines~~ People Think? +date: 2026-04-02 +layout: column.njk +tags: column +permalink: /columns/2026/do-people-think/ +--- + +## Rough Notes +- Thinking: + - Can we flip this around, and define it by reduction? What isn't thinking? + 1. Reaction + 2. Reflex + 3. Conditioned behavior + - But what part of thinking isn't grounded in some conditioned behavior? Some reflex triggered by a problem to solve? + - But thinking seems to involve "modeling," and for our purposes, we mean a mental model. + - This mental model gets tested, calibrated, exercised. + - So how is this different than a program? + - Digital vs. Analog? + - Inputs, the decisions, are much fuzzier for organic mental models (and thinking) + - Computers are (seemingly) deterministic + - But, if we shed this assumption, what happens to our distinction? + - If computers can "approximate" the fuzziness with digital values... + - same question, what happens to our distinction? + - Thinking as a survival skill + - Thinking as communication + - Socialization + - Connecting with neighbors and "vibing." + - Thinking as an emergent behavior, among a pool of people + - Maybe the mob mentality is the purest expression of thought. + - Without self, or ego. + - What does it map to, in the scheme of things? + - I keep thinking about connections + - And how stifling it is to exist in isolation + - But to become ingrained in something + - And to connect with the people, the pieces + - To have an exchange, that's the essence of thinking + - Some kind of transformation, born from the coordination and interaction of many players + - Bottling it within youself, just as senses, impressions without a voice, with no expression or transformation + - We form groups, we organize, and we process together. That's thinking + +## Quotes +> "[he thinks] that the idealistic creations of his mind... also represent reality." - Claude Bernard + +> "Much thinking is done in completely personal, idiosyncratic terms, so much so that how it is done is incommunicable." - Gerald Weinberg + + +## Questions + +- Who is Claude Bernard? + - Famous French Physiologist (1813-78). + +- How would I define "thinking?" + +- Is "thinking" in isolation really thinking? Or, is thinking in a social / anthropological sense a connector? + + +## Links +[1] - Hamming, R. (1997). The art of doing science and engineering: Learning to learn. CRC. +[2] - Weinberg, Gerald M. An Introduction to General Systems Thinking. Wiley, 1975. Internet Archive, . \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/Notes/how-to-write.md b/Notes/how-to-write.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bcb7465 --- /dev/null +++ b/Notes/how-to-write.md @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +--- +title: How To Write +date: 2026-04-06 +layout: column.njk +tags: column +permalink: /columns/2026/how-to-write/ +--- + +## Prompt +- The kernel of an idea +- It's generally recommended to plant a seed first + - something you can return to over time + - reference other ideas you come across + - develop and refine + +## Questions +- Questions give structure to your work +- Even implicit ones - the unsaid queries that motivate the composition of the piece + - what's included, and when? + - as important: what's left out? + - make everything a deliberate choice +- Why write, if not to test an idea against your own specific qualities? To see if there's a reaction, some expansiveness or contraction. +- They provide the substrate to thought, and the nourishment, encouraging the frontier to expand + +## Rough Notes +- The heap +- The outlet for stream of consciousness thinking + - See what associations bubble up to the surface + - See what resonates, what clusters, the affinities that form +- The warmup + +## Quotes +- For the sake of having an opinion, I say it's better to rearticulate someone's idea in your own words, to digest it with your own acuity, than to simply reexpress the idea as a quote. +- Other than stating something factually: at such a time, such a thing was said +- Refernce it, so motivated readers can connect with more writing that may expand on the idea. +- But don't just repeat the statement verbatim. Connect with the idea, exppress it in your own way for your own audience. Make it available. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/Notes/systems.md b/Notes/systems.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..97206c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/Notes/systems.md @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +--- +title: systems +date: 2026-04-06 +layout: column.njk +tags: column +permalink: /columns/2026/systems/ +--- + +## Rough Notes +- [Reichenbach](https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2025/entries/reichenbach/) +> "The greatest empiricist of the 20th century!" +- [Boulding?](asdf) - Spaceship Earth, General Systems Theory +- Meta-laws, generalizations, that leap from one discipline to another. +- We group a body of knowledge together under an umbrella of a domain, and in that box, the roots of connection may grow, but we miss the cross-cutting relationships that may have been realized, had we not kept knowledge as a house plant, bundled in a box. +- Teaching the truth vs. teaching a model. Do we confuse the latter for the former, or is it misrepresented from the get-go? + + +## Questions +- Have we kneecapped ourselves through rigid classification, and artificial specialization? + + +## Quotes +> The power of reason must be sought \ +> not in the rules that reason dictates to our imagination, \ +> but in the ability to free ourselves \ +> from any kind of rules to which we have been conditioned \ +> through experience and tradition +- Reichenbach + +## ToDo +- Max Planck Scientific Autobiography diff --git a/_includes/column.njk b/_includes/column.njk index 85e39b6..26f60cd 100644 --- a/_includes/column.njk +++ b/_includes/column.njk @@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ - {{ title }} — un:prompted + {{ title | stripMarkdown }} — un:prompted @@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ {% endif %}
-

{{ title }}

+

{{ title | inlineMarkdown | safe }}

diff --git a/_includes/sidebar.njk b/_includes/sidebar.njk index c105c21..aadaac9 100644 --- a/_includes/sidebar.njk +++ b/_includes/sidebar.njk @@ -12,7 +12,7 @@

{{ colYear }}

diff --git a/columns/2026-03-28-useless-skills.md b/columns/2026-03-28-useless-skills.md index 09a8be6..c4ef83f 100644 --- a/columns/2026-03-28-useless-skills.md +++ b/columns/2026-03-28-useless-skills.md @@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ tags: column permalink: /columns/2026/useless-skills/ --- -On an unscheduled walk home over the Brooklyn Bridge, I was caught unprepared in a downpour. One of those raw, mid-february rains that left you bitter, tasting nature's indifference to your existence. But maybe I should have just packed a fucking raincoat. +On an unscheduled walk home over the Brooklyn Bridge, I was caught unprepared in a downpour. One of those raw, mid-february rains that left you bitter, tasting nature's indifference to your existence. But maybe I should have just packed a fucking raincoat. --- diff --git a/css/style.css b/css/style.css index 3d2fe2c..295984b 100644 --- a/css/style.css +++ b/css/style.css @@ -22,7 +22,8 @@ html { font-size: 18px; - line-height: 1.6; + line-height: 1.7; + letter-spacing: 0.02em; } body { @@ -120,6 +121,7 @@ a:hover { .column-body p { margin-bottom: 1rem; + text-indent: 1em; } .column-body blockquote {