prototyping

8-1-20

with Michael -> https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/Digital_zines_I:_PDF What is the way of publishing that avoids censorship?

What about real-time censorship situations?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_China

What about destruction on the long run? How does humanity archive itself? USB? Physical media. What about ecological consequences of infinite "cloud storage"? The low tech magazine, a website that runs on solar panels: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/09/how-to-build-a-lowtech-website.html Post-truth.

Non-realtime publishing strategies: http://blog.bjrn.se/2020/01/non-realtime-publishing-for-censorship.html Digital signatures, identity, ownership - "signing": any change can be noticeable, to track the originality of a document. Contrasting: To edit files? To re-publish?

A "living archive", organic form, subject to change? Collective editing.

Zines as resistance. History of zines? ref: Amy Spencer DIY: The rise of lo-fi culture.

production and distribution

PDF hate. Then becoming an open format (recenty, 2008), Adobe monopoly crash. PDFs with text (not only as a scanned image) > enables search function & copy.

What's up with "post-digital"?

Internet as the working memory of a culture, not really an archive... then projects like: web.archive.org or geocities archive (Olia Lialina): https://blog.geocities.institute/

Internet as an unsustainable medium. Cave paintings stayed for thousands of years. A sun storm that ruins all the chips will delete most of human knowledge in an instant. What would be sustainable and ecological ways of preserving big amounts of data for thousands of years?

Scene in the film V for Vendetta, some researchers are searching for data about a certain facility. All has been censored, deleted, lost. Te only way that they can prove the existence of the facility is through tax records that are deleted from the digital archive, but then found in the printed version in a cold room archive.

For whom do we archive? What is the worth of an archive if nobody reads it?

some bash stuff ------------------

wget (+link)

for downloading from the web.

display

to display (images)

gedit (+ download.sh)

my text editor, making a file named download.sh in the text file, write down the script that executes wget

bash download.sh

it runs the script that is in download.sh

-O whateveryouwantthenametobe

Add this in the same line to rename the downloaded files.

-x

adds a trace of the commands (prints out the lines)

| grep searching-this-term --color

you pipe this to the wget of a webpage.

| grep searching-this-term --color > wiki.txt

you save the ones that you were searching for as wiki.txt (stdout (-)). Use 2> to save smth as stderr.

/dev/null

byebye

ls | wc -l

word count used to see how many elements are in the dir.

[Bulletin board systems] ref: Documentary by Jason Scott: BBS: The Documentary [Community memory]

evince to open up a pdf

display to open up images

gedit how to call my text editor

imagemagick:

identify name.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumbnail

convert name.jpg -resize 120x90 newname.jpg

mogrify -resize 200x200 *.jpg

convert *.jpg one.PDF

pdfunite first.pdf second.pdf outcome.pdf

OCR (optical character recognition)

tesseract

13-1-20

w/Andre

wiki pg

pad

"Curating" information of Wikipedia. Who, by what (political) agenda?

There is no way for different opinions to coexist on Wikipedia. Edit war, opinion war.

Backing up information with sources, making it more stable, more valid.

The sources have to be public. Here, we come into place.

It could be stored on Mediawiki repository: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki but that makes it vulnerable to deletion.
If it is stored somewhere else, its safer, still easily accessible.

TOR - The onion router

ref (find a chapter about TOR):

TOR as a browser plugin for Firefox.

normal browsing:

   human > ISP (internet service provider) > wwwebsite

tor browsing:

   human > ISP > TOR plugin > a number of random machines/"exit nodes" that are within a tor network, each time a different route > website

Q: Do you become an "exit node" (a server in between) as soon as you enable tor? No.

ISP knows only (the first) one machine that the human is connecting to.

Q: Who can see more?

DARK/DARK WEB

Cannot see it through a regular search engine. A tor hidden service is a simple website, made out of static html, with a .onion adress. The location of the server/ the website is not revealed. Public but hidden.

Static vs dynamic website. Dynamic constantly communicates.

Such as: http://warpweftmemory.net/#/notes

Q: How changable are static websites?

Inspect element (Q) > network (on a dynamic website, there is a lot of recurring files // on a static website, there is a finite amount of network requests)

End goal of the project: three copies of a static website that host (on tor hidden service) the archive.

Creating an editing/archiving organisation of the archival material. As .img and as .txt, using OCR (optical character recognition)

Q: Is there a structure of the archive already? Categorisation?

Q: Simulation perspective on this project. The pziwiki already contains a bunch of info that could be risky.

Level: Internal (archive)

on a closed (need an account) Media wiki because of:
markup
FLOSS
local server (raspberry pi, 3x)
revisions
collaboration

Factory: Mediation between levels.

Level: Public (archive)

static website
print

What we want: Structure of the system

Internal archive

wiki: unreadable & unwritable to non-collaborators
visible from HRO net? YES
visible from outside HRO net? MAYBE (YES for now)

Public archive

the documents are public accessible via TOR HS

Q: Semantic web? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web Semantic tagging? Wiki=Categories. 3-fold structure: thing>property>value

Semantic media wiki. Cargo extension. Wikidata. Using the structures of semantics to categorise/manage the archive.

Publishing form of content on wiki. examples

Wikimedia > html > css to print Wiki/html > ".icml" format (Indesign) https://fileinfo.com/extension/icml

ssh useraname @145.24.139.127

hub.xpub.nl/ ... different Raspberry Pi's > Tinc (vpn) connection > Xpub server (HRO: Hogeschool RTM) > outside world

It is more direct to SSH directly to the IP adress of the Raspberry Pi that you want to access.

Using SSH keys. SSH keys stored at ~/.ssh > id_rsa (private) and id_rsa.pub (public key). The public key is the authorized key, enables the login into the account. The pair of the private and the public match eachother.

ssh tisaneza @145.24.139.127

=

ssh sandbox.local

exit OR control+d to logout.

Log into pi from home/anywhere:

ssh -J xpub.nl:2501 10.0.0.11

=

ssh sandbox

Installing Mediawiki "itchwiki" LAMP L=linux/operating system A=apache/web server MySQL=database P=programming language Its language is: PHP.

145.24.139.127/itchwiki/

Internal archive

wiki: unreadable & unwritable to non-collaborators
visible from HRO net? YES
visible from outside HRO net? MAYBE (YES for now)

Public archive

the documents are public accessible via TOR HS

Q: Semantic web? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web Semantic tagging? Wiki=Categories. 3-fold structure: thing>property>value

   Semantic media wiki. Cargo extension. Wikidata. Using the structures of semantics to categorise/manage the archive.

Publishing form of content on wiki. examples

Wikimedia > html > css to print Wiki/html > ".icml" format (Indesign) https://fileinfo.com/extension/icml

ssh useraname @145.24.139.127

hub.xpub.nl/ ... different Raspberry Pi's > Tinc (vpn) connection > Xpub server (HRO: Hogeschool RTM) > outside world

It is more direct to SSH directly to the IP adress of the Raspberry Pi that you want to access.

Using SSH keys. SSH keys stored at ~/.ssh > id_rsa (private) and id_rsa.pub (public key). The public key is the authorized key, enables the login into the account. The pair of the private and the public match eachother.

ssh tisaneza @145.24.139.127

=

ssh sandbox.local

exit OR control+d to logout.

Log into pi from home/anywhere:

ssh -J xpub.nl:2501 10.0.0.11

= ssh sandbox

Installing Mediawiki "itchwiki" LAMP L=linux/operating system A=apache/web server MySQL=database P=programming language Its language is: PHP.

145.24.139.127/itchwiki/

14-1-20

w/Clara and Sami

Clara:

Public + private life that gets merged.
"Helping people" is not the way to go.
Research, data being acquired - have to publish it.
Christian Hanson, they made a publishing house together with Clara. "Cottage industry publishing house." Publications with a birthmark, stopping to look to the West.
"deep hanging out" as a strategy for working together.

Kulambo bulleting (kulambO = a m. net).
M&m.presses (M. press period) in the time of dictatorship cleptocratic regime, martial law sanctions information law, censorship. No reporting on what is going on in the country. You can never silence all of the m&m's.

Recreating the conditions of urgency in the publication. To recreate the urgency - doing a lot in a short span of time. Academic diaspora is the one that produces knowledge about the actual situation.

history is repeating, in terms of political actions.
Other countries with similar situations - Turkey for example.
Crisis of historical memory.

Different archives:

8 ... (pink)
The living room archive (green)
Publications from C's publishing house. (on the slides)

wiki editing wars.

"Wikipedian in residency" at 8, editing wiki pages. Importance of content creation, it gets propagated.

ref: Architects of Networked Disinformation
trolling
open identity

Asking people for what they need.

Q: ... ? >> "There is agency in doing what you're told."

How to manufacture the sense of urgency? To engineer, to build it.

Mayday room: Political archive in London. Making it active again.
learning us to make static website.
press and cyber freedom of speech.
ref: Alan Robles - Stories of martial law

Q: How is the content of this project relevant for my background, knowledge, interests, history, region?
Q: Lets talk more about urgency!

Collective workflow constitution.
Interests, assets/knowledge, time that we want to give into the collective.
Create a: Code of conduct. How do we want to treat each other? Communication?

- Listen, don't interrupt. - When you don't understand something, let the group know, therefore: interrupt (when you need clarification). - Listen actively, show that you've understood, see situation from other persons' perspective. - You don't have to agree, but create a feeling of acceptance, respect the person. - (Consent vs consensus.) - To insist on convivial negotiations. When negotiating, be convivial/be nice. - Asking what is needed before you give. What do you need? - If there is a dispute, a conflict, a personal issue. Address an issue, try to resolve it. If not, park for the sake of the work. - The "temperature checker", being aware of what is going on in the room. How much space you take, some people need more space. - Talk more, share opinions more. Tell whats really on your mind, honesty. Ask questions. - (Communication styles of everyone. How do we like to be spoken to, encouraged, what is your working style? Meeting in the middle.) - (To keep the silence, someone else will start speaking. The introverts, the ones that do not feel comfortable speaking.) - Is a decision really an agreement or an average that nobody is happy with. Assuming a decision is made, check in with everybody. - Speak for yourself and from your own experience, not on behalf of others. - To collectively battle/manage distraction? To ask for breaks. - Is feeling comfortable a priority in group dynamics? Or do we want to be challenged?

Sami:

colonial vessels vs internet cable-laying vessels
the reproduction of ideology
archiving the images.
associations through the misunderstanding of an image, by image recognition software, using three different APIs
Q:What do we do with the material that we have? Processes and methodologies.
"Oculocentrism"
Perception of the archive through differing sensory means, ways. For example: How does an archive sound like?
"How is oculocentrism delat with in a digital archive that does not harbor the same visual, tactile and spatial qualities of an (institutionally) housed physical archive?" (manual pg. 32)
Interest: Activating/voicing out archival material & the underlying stories (not only face value). "Audibility".
"Accessibility". Accessible to whom? The visually impaired? The ones that negate/refuse the facts?
That is why voicing it out/reading it/understanding it is necessary to induce understanding.
Concentration to aesthetic experience can mask the content, context.
Functionality, access, visibility of the material is very necessary. But not only building technology. \
A Q is: How to "activate" (emancipate) (own ref: Ranciere - the Emancipated spectator) the archive?
"Mortality" on more scales: the archives (material, physical), the technology, the literal mortality of humans, life. The mortality of the archive, to devise the systems that will live after the archivists die. (pg. 52)
Accessibility of the systems. Annotations, notes, etc. Drawing lines between the pieces of material. How do you work with what is in the archive? Do you let the documents negotiate?
"Adjacent" - neighboring, vicinity, relating, being close.
How do we, as people that are adjacent, be neighborly, not to speak for the struggle, but to speak "next to it".
Violence, eroticism, digestion of content, inspiration or drive.
Like adjacing the references, content together, like today: Jacques Derrida - Archive fever (What is being focused on in a certain historical setting? Archiving is a form of power, a reference.) & How to deal with m&ms in your house?
Through the process of adjacency: making new - poiesis.
"swarm (machine)" - "puncept" of a war machine.
"Knowledge production vs knowledge management." Knowledge is only produced on a vernacular (street) level. +get ref
Where is power? Information, resource as power. Vernacular power that could be exercised, if there was awareness of it.

write #todo conversation with Sammi from the cigarette break.

Drawing intertextual lines.
"Intertextuality."
Juxtaposition of one text (the best one) to the other (the worst one, for example, or two completely unrelated so far.)
Reading sensorialy and not linearly.
Exercise for intertextuality: One reads one text, the other skims through pages. When you find a connection, you make a mark, an annotation, talk about the connections. Not only content-related relations, but also related by form.
After: Beautiful intertextuality. Splitting attention, making meaning. Have to turn off the rational brain and flow in the imagination. To concentrate on the interconnection more than on the actual meaning of the text. (own ref: Barthes - Death of the author).
Possible continuation of the task: Write down the intertext annotations that popped up, write them down separately from the foundational, given texts. Extracting the connections and seeing their links. Writing a text from that (unrelated to the given texts).
Consequences: ... generative associations.
Training skimming of the texts!

Close reading, to understand each little segment of the text, as well as the holistic meaning it contains.
Slow reading, to de-privatize difficulty, collectively helping each other to understand the same text.

- Really listening. & Shared collective agency.

Way to read complex sentences: removing adjectives.

Arche.

Archiving the process as we go along, storing all information. Organization! Documentation. As if you would be making a publication from it.

RWRM: 15-1-20

w/Steve

Reading: Derrida - Archive fever

pad

Made a reader: here

Archive vs the one that archives. Is internet the archive? Content must be categorized to be an archive. Hashtags? Semantic web? Who owns the platforms? The difference between a collection and an archive. Possessing power.

ref: Michel Foucault - Archaeology of knowledge

noun vs verb. Archiving on the internet is endemic. We are all archiving. An archive has a set of procedures, strives for permanence. (But don't we all strive for permanence?)

When you set up an archive, making decisions on what you will archive, you are essentially excluding something. Connection to power, to management of knowledge. Mirroring ideology or its opposition (as an activist archive).

Curating. Museum collections. Archiving art, always from a context, institutionally created memory. Wes Anderson, Kunsthistorisches museum Vienna exhibition Narratives are intuitive, the visitors/observers are challenged to imagine.

write more #todo: Methodologies of understanding. Imagination. Interpretation. Meaning is in the eyes of the beholder. (ref: Emancipated spectator & The death of the author.)

ref: Georges Didi-Huberman - Invention of hysteria (Jean-Martin Charcot) Discourse producing its knowledge. As the archive. Hermeneutics - interpretation. A thing (concept) does not exist, until we say it does. Discourse meeting reality.

Archive as a blackbox. The mechanisms within are invisible, visible only to the priviledged. Psychoanalysis as a tool to look at the non-disclosed process of interpretation.

"the patriarchive"

ref: Sonia Combe - Forbidden archives

16-1-20

w/Clara and Sami

pad

Exercise #3 (pg. 35)

but/however ...

CCRU

transcribe notes #todo

finish and send txt about safe space to the class #todo

talk/text

20-1-20

first day, workshop

Q: What is your interest in archiving?

archiving research process
memory of a space
systems/systematization, categories/categorization.

Mayday Archives, leftove.rs. Mayday rooms 88 Fleet Street. LDN. UK, post '68 anti-authoritarian left. Some movements: Wages for housework (Silvia Federici). Reclaim the streets. Situationist International. Big flame. The walking dispute. The little red blue book. Where were you in '92?.

To activate, to mobilize. Use as the best form of preservation.

How to link and make relevant old struggles with contemporary ones? To collectively work with history. To turn research from a lonely, towards a collective endeavor.

Scanathon. Digitization. Tactics. Urgencies. Organizational form. The archive being present, locating the history of struggle. The presence of the archive induces conversations about current and future struggles. People who made the archive come and "read it" together with others. Contradictions as a productive, useful force.

Interview as a beautiful form for archiving perspectives, context, subjective engagement ...

Audio descriptions of archives?

Search the archive. Digital information? What to do with data on social media? Republishing tweets? Internet archive.

Archiving and digitizing video.

Q: Difference between data and information? Source/resource.
Q: Other archiving practices/groups/places? Eastern Europe?
Q: Librarian/Keeper of the archive? System of cataloging?

Continuity of global struggle. All archives belong to you as well.

ref:

The web that was, a conference in AMS.
International institute of social studies (ISH), AMS. Archive of doors of evicted squats.
Anti-university, LDN!

Political struggles, relevancy that is connected to our interests, look at the archive through the prism of your own interest. Whether it's tactics, content, design (propaganda/pr) etc.

"history from below"

"poverty of the present"

What are these documents trying to do? / Theorize (generated through the practice, through the struggle), articulate, share, mobilize, encourage, connect, sharing urgency (pressure, time struggle) ...

Algorithms are failing us. Is that the reason to return to the analog way of sharing information?

Is there a link between format and the intention of the documents (content)? Newspaper/flyer/poster etc. How long are they meant to circulate? Time scale. Ephemera.

Now PR: visual identity (of a cause/of a struggle etc) vs content.

What is complete, what is a failure, what is a part of the process (ongoing struggle), an unfinished film ... What is kept?

-- missed an hour, pain. did anyone else take notes? --

https://pad.ma/

https://archive.leftove.rs/

https://0xdb.org/

based on: pandora - open source software.

21-1-20

second day, workshop

pad

Movement out of the archive.

reading the txt on archivesautonomies.org > the fighting archive.

theory of the archive + the material itself and its processing (OCR, scanning, organizing)

We should write a ground statement as well. To unravel the motives, motivations behind its creation. What is its purpose?

Politics behind the archive form the movement, continuation ...

Q: copyright, authorship. Instead of clearing the rights, having a reactive approach, a disclaimer (write to us) ...

Archival smuggling.

Metadata. group/date/format/author/publisher/place/series/volume/language/source/links/social movement/events/associated groups/related people/tactics/tags/description/content/symbol/printing method/font/concepts/demands/verbs

Q: ISBN?

From the collection we've made in Leftovers. Think of how to reactivate it, how to work with this materials. To actualize it. Forward.

To collect relevant paragraphs from it, also pictures. To make annotations, write new texts, to reprint it. Inter-textuality. Produce new content. Based on a content/question research, on a visuality. Translating in different languages.
Extracting layouts, using them for smth else.
Tracking symbols/images ...
Finding a word (like "free") and assemble them. The word stays on the layout as it was. a very aesthetic thing to do.

Daily highlight/weekly extract, a window that takes a part of the archival material (poses it next to a current news/by the day(connect to wikipedia daily news from the past?)/content highlight of the week). making annotations next to it. With time, these segments construct stronger bases on topics, already curated (by hashtags).

22-1-20

prototyping w/Michael wiki page pad

https://hogeschoolrotterdam.on.worldcat.org/discovery - library search

yesterday's pad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/Maydayroom

(NON) STANDARDS - morning session

1. First part of the session is about the history of markup language: https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/Digital_zines_II:_HTML_and_friends#Timeline

Markdown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown Markup language (John Gruber) - text to html conversion formatting syntax https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/

John Gruber thanks Aaron Swartz at the bottom of his text on Markup Language:

Full documentary on Aaron Swartz: https://youtu.be/9vz06QO3UkQ

Tim Berners-Lee: Information Management (On losing information at CERN)

   https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html

Berners-Lee proposed a couple (3) of new 'standards':

URL - "universal resource locator" >

ftp:// + tim.cern.ch + /research/essay.pdf protocol + hostname + path gopher://

HTML - "hyper text markup language" (Ted Nelsons' idea)

Here's my latest <a href="ftp:// tim.cern.ch/ research/essay.pdf"> research paper </a>

a=anchor
href=hyper text reference
hierarchical, practical systematizations of content:

ecosystem:

HTTP  –  URL
       \      /
       HTML
       /       \               
CSS   – Javascript

HTTP - language between your browser (url) and the web server.

You get HTML. "browsing", being less formal.

FTP was already around, structured, you had to know in advance what you were getting.

Ted Nelson: Hypertext

new tag: IMG https://www.spacejam.com/jam.htm

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499004/ Netscape doc watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q7FTjhvZ7Y

XML: lightweight language version of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language)

XHTML

HTML - responsive by design. Descriptions of pictures (when color or graphic display was not available) etc.

links - command line browser

pages in html > for the purpose of printing ...

(NON) STANDARDS - afternoon session

   finding the right, already used platforms?
   putting together a functional workflow, through the use of separate tools, composing them together.
   custom-make a platform for a specific use.
   a living standard, that can be changed as needed.

MARKDOWN WORKFLOW You can ask the authors to work in markdown.

Documents we are working with for the workflow exercise http://pzwart1.wdka.hro.nl/~mmurtaugh/Update%20Factsheet%20March-April%201982_ocr.pdf http://pzwart1.wdka.hro.nl/~mmurtaugh/Update%20Factsheet%20March-April%201982.pdf

having an scan of the original document > turn to ocr. turn the ocr'd document into an epub/html.

https://pandoc.org/ https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html#pandocs-markdown

test if pandoc is working: write in terminal: pandoc press enter, write works, press ctrl+d. you'll see. graphviz - graph tool. http://www.plainionist.net/Plainion.GraphViz/

tesseract

pdftotext gathers text in an already ocr'd pdf.

Naming files differently - without spaces in the names!

The problem we are solving:

   How can we get the text from a PDF and convert it to markup (html) output   
pandoc Factsheet.txt -o Factsheet.html

pandoc only takes in files that are based on txt.

pandoc -o inputfile.txt outputfile.html

is the same as

pandoc < factsheet.txt > factsheet.html

pdftotxt factsheet.pdf - (std out, doesnt save a txt file) | pandoc > factsheet.html

evince this.pdf

to open pdf

gedit this.txt

to open txt

Markdown does not care for the line breaks. it considers one blank line as a new paragraph.

Let's try using an etherpad like program made for markdown to copy edit the text from https://demo.codimd.org/5nrEYVIyRu2qjtZr_T-k8Q#

thiiiis: https://demo.codimd.org

https://www.gutenberg.org/

plugin for mediawiki for proofreading ...

to save images from a pdf into jpg? pdfimages (?)

local codimd?

Basis Markup Syntax Cheat sheet: https://www.markdownguide.org/basic-syntax/

markdown to html using padoc:

pandoc input.md -o output.html

to make a standalone document:

pandoc --standalone --toc FACTSHEET_edit.md -o output.html

to mediawiki:

pandoc --from markdown --to mediawiki FACTSHEET.md -o FACTSHEET.mediawiki

THE FULL COMMAND for markdown to html:

   pandoc --standalone --from markdown --to html --css style.css FACTSHEET.md -o FACTSHEET.html
  pandoc --standalone --toc --from markdown --to html --css style.css FACTSHEET.md -o FACTSHEET.html

27-1-20

osp, open source publishing

pad

making a jam: use it, modify it, share it, give it attribution, no closing it.

software as a cultural practice.

GPL license

open source design tools:

inkscape
scribus

"computed layout"

javascript canvas

medor

paged.js

web to print session. prototype, tools. a test with todays' data.

28-1-20

second day of the workshop with OSP.

activearchives

today, groups:

pictures
fonts
format
metadata
paratext
text

Turning Swarm 1 into a more printable version, getting ready for Swarm 2.

https://www.sejda.com/n-up-pdf

29-1-20

RWRM w/Steve

pad

3-2-20

prototyping w/Andre

[ pad]

semantic web Tim Berners Lee

triplet:

object (item/thing/)
predicate (property)
subject (value)

Info box (Wikipedia), generated automatically. Wiki data - access by clicking on "Wikidata item", on any wikipedia page.

Q: Deciding which properties we're gonna use. > ONTOLOGY. Narrates HOW we describe a thing.

for example property: red - makes new options of search.

Q: These categories are metadata? Categories in wiki are something else.

Metadata: property <--> corresponding value

Q: Searching in bulks, several documents at the same time, full text research (like pandora)... ?

Q: Aesthetisation of the arch. material?

Semantic ask > [[File:+]][[Title::+]]

Archiving: Research dynamics: Idea

The idea is to make a tool (a script) that archives ones own research process, forming it into a shape that can be shared with others. Making "invisible work" visible.

Thinking in terms of a "mood board", a collection of references, thoughts - combining written text (.txt) and screenshots (jpg) also gif and excerpts of video and sound in one place. They would be stored in separate daily folders, automatically assembles into a layout that is a live/organic/editable/comment-able website that can be also exported as an A4 .PDF that is printable (to be assembled into a weekly publication/zine that physically represents a research process.) The topics of research would be categorized, using hashtags, and therefore new connections would be able to form with time. (Then a question of their visual representation, their non-linear nature appears. As a 3D configuration by topics?)

Why am I thinking of a tool like this? What drives my necessity to construct it?

My research process is quite dynamic, intuitive and unstructured. I jump from one topic to another rapidly and i haven't found an efficient way to represent this process yet (except for writing). I am driven by interest and the thirst for knowledge, but no more preoccupied by the urgency of choosing and narrowing down. The world is not disciplinary, the thought is non-linear.

Subjective perspective: It is a matter of tracking ones progress and mind flow, a way to make associations more explicit and due to that also open for new interpretations, assembling connections between different fields/disciplines/sciences/content that pop up in the process.

So, technically it is not only a tool for archiving, but also a tool that offers its user the possibility to evaluate, rethink, visualize and imagine the mycelial structure of their thought. This is of course, a speculation on the tools' effects on ones cognition. Only by using this tool, one could confirm its possibility to effect the thought-flow/process.

Outwards perspective: By using this tool, I believe our internal processes could become debatable. Which means that by the possibility of sharing insight and thoughts, it would be easier to step into conversations, get critique or feedback. It is a way of publicizing ones internal subjective mind flow, with the intention of a collective cross-pollination of ideas, ping-ponging thoughts and producing conversations that come from the space of intuitive understanding of ones process and intention.

How to start?

Screenshots - To automatize their saving into a specific directory. Way to edit them simply (crop) and editing metadata (or?) to include a footnote of the source and a hashtag category. (Also used as a way to produce instant quotation, source.)
PDF - annotations while reading being exported into a separate editable file (one .txt file per read text). also include same data as above.
Browsing history - the pages that are connected to research being collected in one place.
Connection to phone. KDE connect - but more direct, less manual work.

This tool should do it all by itself, only basic editing would have to be needed in the production of the daily process tracking. (What is more relevant?)

.jpg to .txt

How to extract text from a single .jpg directly into a single .txt file?

Useful for screenshots of books/pdfs, also especially for screenshots of etymologies and dictionaries, meanings.

pad saving

Another probably more simple thing to do would be to automate saving content of pads. As pads are not the most stable thing, and I manually (almost daily) save the ones I work on, it would be super-useful if there was a script that would (from a list of pads) automatically save their content (.txt) to my computer.

Matic helps: There is an option to export into .txt in the pad. Right click on it, copy the link, go into the terminal

curl thelink > pad.txt

Then use crontab

also cool at for distraction manager? haha

User:Tisa/special issue 11

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