Acta Observationum

Acta Observationum publishes single-subject observations from the borderlands of mathematics, notation, cognition, wardrobe, and everyday life. The journal was founded on the premise that a domestic morning constitutes a valid experimental apparatus, provided the observer is willing to slow down what has become automatic and report what actually happened rather than what could have happened.

Manuscripts are welcomed on any topic in which the derivational path of a composition is inseparable from its meaning. Submissions that succeed in avoiding interpretation while remaining specific are particularly encouraged.

1. Manuscripts should not exceed one morning of thought.
2. An abstract of no more than one hundred and twenty words should describe what was observed, not what was concluded.
3. Figures are treated as data points, not decoration. Authors are asked to include at least one photograph of the observer inside the field being observed.
4. Footnotes are permitted; conclusions are not required. The phrase No conclusion recorded is an acceptable terminus.
5. Authors may cite Kenneth E. Iverson freely. He is dead, but he responds to serious readings.

All submissions undergo triple-blind review: by the author, by the author's morning walk, and by at least one barista of the author's acquaintance. Reviewers are asked to distinguish tidiness from learning, and to reject any manuscript in which the confession is smoother than the mess it confesses to.

The journal endorses observer-centered ethics. The unit of change is the observer; therefore the observer is responsible. Photographs are consented to by their subject, who is also their author. No animals were harmed; one invisible dog regulated the author's gait.

The journal appears irregularly, at the rhythm of the field. It is indexed only by those minds actively reading it. ISSN 0000-0000.