17 MAY 2017 by ideonexus
Encyclopedia as a Directory of Associations
Every science overlaps with others: they are two continuous branches off a single trunk. He who composes an opus does not enter abruptly into his subject, does not close himself strictly within it, does not leave it abruptly: he is obliged to anticipate terrain adjoining his; its consequences often take him onto another contiguous terrain on the opposite side; and how many other excursions are necessary in the body of the work? What is the purpose of the forewords, introductions, prefaces, ex... 1 
notes
notes13 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
Changing Spelling has Happened in the Past
Objection to simplified spelling has been made on the
supposition that it "wil cut us off from the literature
of the past," meaning that those taught in the new way
wil be unable to read the books red today. This can
not be so, because the present spelling wil be no more
difficult to read by one who has learnd to spel the new
way, than is the new spelling by one who has learnd
the old way. Children who hav learnd to spel in the
simplified way wil, in fact, read the books printed
toda...
1 Technology, translation services, will make migration even easier.
05 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Negative Capability
I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, upon various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason - Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caugh...According to wikipedia: "...the capacity of human beings to transcend and revise their contexts." Here is the first use of the term by John Keats, where it sounds more like the ability to remain calm and rational in the face of uncertainty and not jump to conclusions without evidence.
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
We Must Become Comfortable with Large Numbers
Borel makes the amusing supposition of a million monkeys allowed to play upon the keys of a million typewriters. What is the chance that this wanton activity should reproduce exactly all of the volumes which are contained in the library of the British Museum? It certainly is not a large chance, but it may be roughly calculated, and proves in fact to be considerably larger than the chance that a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen will separate into the two pure constituents. After we have learned ...
1 In order to understand why a million monkey on a million typewriters might produce a great work of art.
28 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Experience is Experiment
The lessons of science should be experimental also. The sight of a planet through a telescope is worth all the course on astronomy; the shock of the electric spark in the elbow outvalues all theories; the taste of the nitrous oxide, the firing of an artificial volcano, are better than volumes of chemistry. 1 notes
notesEmerson describes the importance of feeling electric shocks, fake volcanoes, tasting NO, etc.
15 APR 2011 by ideonexus
The Book Wheel
Ramelli's designs were very inventive and often required precise machining that was impossible in his day. Many were successfully manufactured and sold, two or three centuries later. Ramelli designed the "book-wheel" or “reading wheel” to present volumes of text to readers in whatever position they had last placed them.
The “book-wheel,” an alternative version of the revolving bookstand, is a device designed to allow one person to read a variety of heavy books in one location with e... 1 notes
notesNot a direct quote from the text, but a description of what the book wheel was in Ramelli's book.
