271–280 of 708 posts
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Geez, if she is like chicken pox, what do we get that is like shingles later? :/
The current administration
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Your argument is that in order for you to have a better experience the previous owner should not “ruin” the book for you. I’ve read better arguments on bathroom stalls.
No, my argument is that it's totally obnoxious to lend or resell a book that you've written in, and it's a shallow way of taking notes to begin with. It is precisely what Socrates warned us about.
> and it's a shallow way of taking notes to begin with
Are we really going to speak down to how someone uses a bunch of paper bound together? That's how they wanted to use it, which is cool, it's just not how you like it.
A corollary to this is, when reading books, mark them up! Don’t be precious with them. Destroy the spine so it’s easier to read, fold pages, write the important stuff inside the front cover of the book. Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates. Not only does it make consumption a lot more engaging, it makes a revisit of that book extremely rewarding. Don’t get caught up tr…
I buy used books: it sucks to see someone else's notes scribbled all over the page. It's like a really annoying guy whispering at you with vapid explanations while you're trying to pay attention to a lecture. "Cross out stuff you disagree with" actually makes me sick. It also seems useless for understanding and retention, since highlighting is almost always misleading and margin notes are almost always empty. If you…
As I say elsewhere, it depends on the edition or book, and how common they are.
I've always been pretty skeptical of the data which says handwriting is better for learning than typing. Yes, handwriting causes more brain activity, but just because your brain is doing more does not mean it's doing the right thing! For example, if I asked you to code FizzBuzz while riding a unicycle, I'm pretty sure you would show more brain activity than if you were just sitting at a desk. This does not mean it's…
This is how it was explained to me by a tutor: handwriting is better for learning because it's slower. The need for brevity forces you to mentally engage the material in ways that are more conducive to understanding and recall. If you can replicate that mental engagement while typing, you'd probably get similar results. This makes a lot of sense to me in light of what we know about how learning happens. I have never…
This doesn't really refute the theory—maybe touch typing is worse—but it doesn't match my logical intuition at all.
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it was funny seeing this right below the comment saying " I _love_ buying a used book and finding a previous reader's notes in the margins. It's the greatest. ". different strokes. if you want to ensure you don't get sick from a line being crossed out, buy new.
This is so condescending. The reason I buy used is that the overwhelming majority of books are out of print and not available digitally. Which makes the vandalism especially egregious!
I've always love stationery. Over the years I've looked up pen reviews and tried out many different types including fountain pens. I watched a video recently from someone, from memory the creator behind the youtube channel vsauce. Very briefly, he lost some notes to water. His words, thoughts and ideas vanished. His solution was switching to pencil. I found the interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfY2JACiDGU I'…
To be fair, your notebook probably won’t get light like that, but pencils are pretty archival.
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I agree that fine motor control is important, I just don't think forcing people (especially kids) to write by hand is necessarily the best way to do it. For example, if the kids went to your makerspace, they could learn fine motor control and probably enjoy themselves more. Forcing people to handwrite both makes writing more laborious and takes away from what is actually important in writing, which is forming your th…
>from what is actually important in writing, which is forming your thoughts for one it's not clear to that this is what is actually important in writing or unrelated. That's just a bias in a culture that systematically neglects embodied practice. In Japan there's an increasing phenomenon of Kanji-illiteracy among the young. Turns out there is a close connection between writing them out, the order of strokes and the p…
...this is very much not my understanding of the literature on math education, I'm not sure what you're referencing.
A corollary to this is, when reading books, mark them up! Don’t be precious with them. Destroy the spine so it’s easier to read, fold pages, write the important stuff inside the front cover of the book. Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates. Not only does it make consumption a lot more engaging, it makes a revisit of that book extremely rewarding. Don’t get caught up tr…
I so don't have time to revisit books that I've already read. I'd probably be embarrassed by my earlier naiveté.
A corollary to this is, when reading books, mark them up! Don’t be precious with them. Destroy the spine so it’s easier to read, fold pages, write the important stuff inside the front cover of the book. Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates. Not only does it make consumption a lot more engaging, it makes a revisit of that book extremely rewarding. Don’t get caught up tr…
I do all that, all the time these days... :-) I thoroughly enjoy it! Sometimes I feel like having discussions (disagreeing or agreeing) with the author and will write entire pro/cons examples and/or arguments.