⏾ Concept Map

All about encounters

|↑| Records | All about encounters

This page gives a brief description of the learning method which builds the map as it goes.

When reading something and trying to understand it, I highlight the bits that I don’t know. The question “What is that?” leaves behind a highlight each time it pops up in my head. After finishing the material completely, I gather the highlighted terms and try to make sense of them; they eventually become the concepts that enter the site.

By extension, the same method can be used to learn from any medium where something analogous to a highlight may be recorded. Due to their ubiquity and ease of manipulation, I find that screenshots are a good choice for non-text-based mediums, and I use them in place of highlights for most anything that isn’t a structured document.

Whether a highlight or a screenshot, the entries titled encounter capture this initial context which made me think to capture an idea. What follows is a list of mediums and the tools and methods I use for each, plus some details like efficient timing for processing.

  • For academic literature like papers and textbooks…
    • Modality: PDF in Zotero. Could use any device, but I like it on a tablet.
    • Form: The surrounding paragraph as text.
    • Extraction: Give the fully annotated PDF to Claude.
    • Citation: Point to the source’s own node in-map.
    • Timing: After finishing the paper, or after the semester for class material.
  • For plain literature like novels…
    • Modality: EPUB in KOReader. Could use any device, but I like it on an e-reader.
    • Form: The surrounding paragraph as text.
    • Extraction: Custom script using slpp and lxml.
    • Citation: Point to the source’s own node in-map.
    • Timing: After finishing the book.
  • For moving media like video and video games…
    • Modality: No preference. Anything that can take a screenshot.
    • Form: A subtitled screenshot in a standard resolution.
    • Extraction: …
    • Citation: Point to the source’s own node in-map, or the URL for things like YouTube videos.
    • Timing: …
  • For websites…
    • Modality: No preference. Any modern web browser will do.
    • Form: The surrounding paragraph as text.
    • Extraction: Copy it then and paste it (ctrl-shift-v) into the staging area.
    • Citation: Point to the URL. It may indeed break in the future, but that’s okay; the URL and blurb themselves are sufficient. If it’s a newspaper, point to the source’s own node in-map and the URL.
    • Timing: …
  • For chatbots…
    • Modality: No preference. The interface isn’t important, but the model is; I like Claude.
    • Form: Text as given by the provided copy-to-clipboard button.
    • Extraction: Copy it then and paste it (ctrl-shift-v) into the staging area.
    • Citation: Point to the source’s own node in-map.
    • Timing: …
  • For terminal dialogue like diagnostic messages from a software package…
    • Modality: No preference.
    • Form: The relevant lines as text.
    • Extraction: Copy it then and paste it (ctrl-shift-v) into the staging area.
    • Citation: Point to the source’s own node in-map.
    • Timing: …