Wow, just discovered Neal Stephenson's Mongoliad EBook plans. the app interface. A series of clickable options run down the left side of the iPad screen, including access to chapters, movies, images, maps, and a "pedia" or glossary...Though interactive fiction (novels) have had snippets of movies and images in them since the mid-1990s, PULP is what makes The Mongoliad stand out as a possible way forward for post-print publishing. PULP makes this book into something that's truly the product of our collective imaginations. When you're reading a chapter of the book, you always have the option to pull up a an interactive discussion window and leave a note or enter a discussion about the book. You can write your own additional storyline. Or add to the pedia to explain more about the historical setting. You can also rate every aspect of the book, rating any page on a scale of one to five stars. The Mongoliad isn't just a story; it's a platform for collaborative worldbuilding. The question is, how do you prevent such an endeavor from degenerating into chaos? "We have the concept of canonicity – if we like it we'll tag it as canon," Bornstein says. (more)

The Merchant Marine Act of 1920 is a United States federal statute that provides for the promotion and maintenance of the American merchant marine.[1] Among other purposes, the law regulates maritime commerce in U.S. waters and between U.S. ports. Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act is known as the Jones Act and deals with cabotage (coastwise trade). It requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried on ships that have been constructed in the United States and that fly the U.S. flag, are owned by U.S. citizens, and are crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920 (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: Covid-19 10/13/22: Just the Facts. (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: Covid-19 9/29/22: The Jones Act Waver. (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: Covid-19 9/22/22 : The Joe Biden Sings. When Bob Wachter says it is a judgment call whether the pandemic is over, you know the pandemic is over. (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: Covid-19 8/18/22: CDC Admits Mistakes (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: Covid-19 8/11/22: The End Is Never The End. The biggest development this week in things-relevant-to-my-interests was that PredictIt’s no action letter was revoked, effectively forcing it to shut down its prediction markets in February 2023 unless something changes by then. The most credible story is that this is new prediction market website Kalshi performing a hit job to take out the competition, but I have not had the time to look into it yet. Whether or not that was the reason, the shut-down is quite bad, speaks quite badly of everyone who let this happen, and is something worth fighting against if there is a practical way to do that. PredictIt was far from perfect, but it was a dim light in a dark world. (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: Covid-19 6/16/22: Do Not Hand it to Them. (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: Covid-19 3/17/22: The Rise of BA.2. Omicron has made its way through every major country except one: China. Its time seems to have come (more)

x

Few statements about the real world are "true": All Models Are Wrong. But we make Claims all the time anyway. We try to call some of them "facts" or "assumptions" or "beliefs" or "hypothesis" or "models" as though those were well-distinguished things, or at a "hypothesis" is "based on" facts and assumptions. But the Nature of Truth is messier than that. (more)

Group at MIT founded by Jay Forrester to study Systems Thinking. (more)

System dynamics is a methodology for studying and managing complex FeedBack systems, such as one finds in business and other Social System-s. (more)

There are many users for new note-taking apps. So why Don't More People Share Their Digital Gardens? By "share" I don't mean "let anyone edit them", but just "let anyone read them". (more)

note-taking app heavily driven by zettelkasten approach - https://www.zettlr.com/ (more)

creator of Zettlr - https://www.hendrik-erz.de/ (more)

Frank Carver: Whither Zettlr. The Zettlr project is ongoing, and the different views of the purpose of the application are causing tension when considering improvements, implementing new features and prioritising bug fixes. (See Hendrik Erz response further below.) (more)

David Pierce: Users are taking the internet back. One reason Obsidian has recently captured the imagination of so many people in the tech world is that it comes awfully close to turning that model on its head. (more)

David Kadavy: My Zettelkasten: An Author’s Digital Slip-Box Method Example (Using Plain-Text Software) – Love Your Work, Episode 250. I talked about Zettelkasten in my How to Take Smart Notes book summary on episode 249, but here’s a quick review (more)

Rika Goldberg #40: We need quality. Since making another attempt at building a note-taking system, I have noticed that I am becoming more scrupulous of my writing. (more)