tetrad, cont.

1. What does any artifact enlarge or enhance?

2. What does it erode or obsolesce?

3. What does it retrieve that had been earlier obsolesced?

4. What does it reverse or flip into when pushed to the limits
of its potential ('chiasmus')?

you don't understand me and my work at all

Tetrad: "All media forms (a) INTENSIFY
something in the culture, while, at the
same time, (b) OBSOLESCING something
else. They also (c) RETRIEVE a phase
or factor long ago pushed aside, and
(d) undergo a modification or REVERSAL
when extended beyond the limits of
their potential."

-- preface to "The Global Village",
McLuhan and Powers

do you study like this?

Students' reports of using these self-regulated learning
strategies accounted for 93% of the variance (R = .96) of
their achievement track placement in school; 13 of the
14 strategies discriminated significantly between students
from the upper achievement track and students from lower
tracks.

1. Self-evaluating ("I check over my work to make sure I
did it right.")

2. Organizing and transforming ("I make an outline before I
write my paper.")

3. Goal-setting and planning ("First, I start studying two
weeks before exams, and I pace myself.")

4. Seeking information ("Before beginning to write the
paper, I go to the library to get as much information as
possible concerning the topic.")

5. Keeping records and monitoring ("I took notes of the
class discussions."; "I kept a list of the words I got
wrong.")

6. Environmental structuring ("I isolate myself from
anything that distracts me.")

7. Self-consequating ("If I do well on a test, I treat
myself to a movie.")

8. Rehearsing and memorizing ("In preparing for a math
test, I keep writing the formula down until I remember
it.")

9-11. Seeking social assistance ("If I have problems with math
assignments, I ask a friend for help.")

12-14. Reviewing records ("When preparing for a test, I review
my notes.")

[...]

Among the advantages of a social cognitive approach to
self-regulated academic learning, three are particularly
important to educational psychologists: (a) It
distinguishes the effects of personal (self-) regulatory
influences from overt behavioral ones and can explain the
relative advantage of each; (b) it links students'
self-regulatory processes to specific social learning or
behaviorally enactive experiences and can explain their
reciprocal impact; and (c) it identifies two key processes
through which self-regulated learning is achieved,
self-efficacy perceptions and strategy used, and can
explain their relation to student motivation and
achievement in school.

-- A Social Cognitive View of Self-Regulated Academic
Learning, Barry J. Zimmerman, Journal of Educational
Psychology. Vol.81 (3) pp. 329-339 (end)

flower ornament c/o thomas cleary (who's awesome)

I know all the various arts and crafts and sciences in the world
dealing with writing, mathematics and symbols, physiology, rhetoric,
physical and mental health, city planning, architecture and
construction, mechanics and engineering, divination, agriculture and
commerce, conduct and manners, good and bad actions, good and bad
principles, what makes for felicity and what for misery, what is
necessary for enlightenment, and behavior linking reason and action. I
know all these sciences, and I also introduce them and teach them to
people, and get people to study and practice them, to master and
develop them, using these as means to purify, refine, and broaden
people.

I am developing some new concepts

They are really important.

caffeine, work, and society

Contrary to my custom,
I had a strong cup of coffee
this afternoon, and, today
being a Sunday, there's
really no one around.

I'm so much enjoying
"getting back to work" after
the most recent set and
series of breaks, but I'm
noticing that along with
work (at least, when
under the influence of
caffeine), I feel a fidgity
inclination to *socialize*.

Maybe, you know, talk
with some people about
what I'm working on (for
example), and solve some
of the problems together.

Well, I've noticed that,
historically, I've only
tended to post to my
blog when I'm feeling
"lonely". But in fact,
I don't know if it's
loneliness, or merely
a drive to socialize,
perhaps driven mostly
by "nervous energy".

It is hard, but perhaps not
impossible, to drive
this energy into "work".
I'm trying to calm down
with some mint tea,
cheese and crackers,
maybe a little accordion
music...

Lately I'm trying this
new thing out: looking
at the different things I
do as all being of *some*
value, and just trying to
understand a bit better
what that value is. And
not immediately judging
or downgrading the value
of XYZ classes of activities
out of historical prejudice.

the creative power of language

"We have a habit of thinking that the
deepest insights, the most mystical,
and spiritual insights, are somehow
less ordinary than most things -- that
they are extraordinary. This is only
the shallow refuge of the person who
does not yet know what he is doing.

In fact, the opposite is true: the most
mystical, most religious, most wonderful --
these are not less ordinary than most things --
they are more ordinary than most things.

It is because they are so ordinary, indeed,
that they strike to the core.

And this is connected to the fact that these
things can, indeed, be expressed clearly,
discovered, talked about. These deep
things which really matter, they are not
fragile -- they are so solid that they can be
talked about, expressed quite clearly.
What makes them hard to find is not that
they are unusual, strange, hard to express --
but on the contrary that they are so ordinary,
so utterly basic in the ordinary bread and
butter sense -- that we never think of
looking for them."

-- Christopher Alexander, "The Timeless
Way of Building", 1979, page 219