Issue #002 — I knew who I was this morning
... but I've changed a few times since then
I have recently become a True Believer in the potential of Roam Research. You should try it out and let me know what you think of it. You should also read this excellent summary of how another recent substacker has implemented Roam Research into her parenting.
This is an amazing opportunity for kids to get value out of their readings early in their education. I know anecdotally, but there is also some research evidence, that highlighting text as a learning technique is very inefficient.
Instead, kids should learn to only write their own reaction to, reformulation of, or interpretation of a piece of text. It's not only a way for them to internalize the read material, but, for our family, it turned out to be one of the major ways to do school deliberately.
When they take notes on assigned readings, by creating their very own interpretations, questions, or reactions to them, some materials simply won't be recorded in any way because they prompt no interest in the kids. And that's fine, because they'll do less of the busywork, and more of the intentional kind. Quotes do get collected (we use the Roam+ extension for online materials) but these are almost always accompanied by their own reflections on the text.
COVID-19 has shown us some of the downsides to the interconnected post-globalisation world (i.e. financial and viral contagions, supply chain disruptions, cascading unemployment - that sort of thing). This tweet neatly shows another negative.

Original Tweet by Josh Lekach.
In 2018, I offered a law school student some advice on getting a job out of university. Because I’m lazy, I’ve recycled that advice into a new blog post.
It’s hard not to mention the incredible explosion that occurred in Beirut this week. This Reddit Thread has the best (believable) summary of what might have happened I’ve found so far.
These nitrates were seized in 2013/2014 when a Ship going from Georgia to Mozambique had problems near the port of Beirut, and was deemed unable to ship again, so the jamerik seized the quantity and stored it in the port.
Also, the white ‘dome’ expanding from the second explosion is known as a Wilson Cloud. I thought that was interesting.
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Bennett.