Simplified Research
My research organization has gotten a little too byzantine over the years. Navigating to an active research project is now six levels deep on my computer. If I want to get to my book manuscript, e.g., I have to do the following: Dropbox/AcademicWork/Projects/Inprogress/mssBook Then, I still have to navigate within that folder between my archival material, grant reporting, the book proposal, and the manuscript. It’s a mess.
AcademicWork/Projects/Inprogress
- IRJRF_CCES_2018
- Accepted_Changes
- Analysis
- Data
- Paper
- Presentation
- RnR_Notes
- RnR_Letter
- Locke_Immg
- Mss_book
- Archival_Materials
- Archive_Staged
- GrantReporting
- Proposal
- ResearchMaterials
- RA_Hiring
- mss
- chapter01
- chapter02
In the example above, I included the folder structure for another paper I am working which is in the final stages. Project directories are structured right. Lincoln Mullen’s tutorial recommends keeping all the associated files together. He is not alone. Folders like data, paper, and figures keep things neat and tidy. They especially make things reproducible because they create walls between things like raw data which should never be modified from the sausage of writing a paper.
The rest needs to be revised. How I got here is somewhat understandable. I got lazy. When I started graduate school, I worked primarily in Scrivener, which is still an amazing app, and a pot-pourri of iOS apps on my iPhone (and later iPad). Much of the complexity creep was abated even more (read: ignored) by moving the Inprogress folder in my Mac’s Finder sidebar. That made getting to an active project one level deep on my Mac and as simple as opening the app I needed to manipulate files on an iOS device. And once I got past my comp exams and started the disseration, I didn’t want to change horses midstream.
While writing my dissertation, I noticed an increasing amount of friction. I moved to a plain-text workflow during graduate school. Writing a makefile, e.g., was and is more challenging when the relative path between things is more complicated. Here, too, the complexity can be mitigated (read: ignored) through a clever use of prefixes and shortcuts within makefiles.
PREFIX = /Users/lmp/Dropbox/AcademicWork/Pandoc_Templates
BIB = /Users/lmp/Dropbox/AcademicWork/Bibs/refs.bib
BIB2 = /Users/lmp/Dropbox/AcademicWork/Bibs/primary.bib
I haven’t found a good set of best practices beyond Mullen’s tutorial and a few others. It was very helpful to re-read them after a few years. What I need, however, is something beyond mere guidelines and some working examples. In a few weeks I will update what I settled with, but for now, I just want to get a good statement of the problem.
Family photos
My wife has been wanting family photos for a while. Back in 2019, we agreed that “next year” we’d do it for our Christmas cards. Of course, that didn’t happen. A few weeks ago a member on one of her Facebook groups said she wanted to do free photo sessions to give back and get back into a rhythm for when the world opens up. Needless to say, we’ve very happy with the outcome.
Gabby and Mommy, January 14, 2021.
Been a hectic two weeks bringing baby number four. Iâve not had the time to immediately get a birthday shot up. I took this just after Gabriela was born. It was early in the morning and Lucia had not progressed much; so little in fact that they hadnât even called to set up for an epidural. The nurse told Lucy she had a while to sleep, or relax. I took my shoes off and started to doze. Less than five minutes later, Gabby was here.
#monochrome #sonyalpha #sonya7ii #newborn #family #blackandwhitephoto #35mm
Sunday Bike Ride, January 3, 2021. . . . . #blackandwhitephotography #monochrome #shotoniphone #family #vsco #lightroom #iphone12promax
Untitled, November 28, 2020. . . . . #vscocam #iphone12promax #blackandwhitephotography #monochrome
Thanksgiving 2020
Neither isolated nor alone. And while we miss our extended families and friends, it was a beautiful meal and day of thanks.
Coffee after Mass
Went for a quick coffee after Mass with the big kid. He got a hot chocolate and really enjoyed the time hanging out with me. Although he won’t say it, I think his favorite part was ordering for himself instead of standing passively while I do for him.
Just out of frame are our masks. This location has large sliding doors that are open in the winter when the Arizona weather is finally bearable. But it also means on a day like today we could actually sit down, and just enjoy some time together.
A quick coffee* after Mass (*it was a hot chocolate for him), November 22, 2020, Feast of Christ the King.
Open spaces.
Untitled, November 14, 2020.
Swing state (of mind), November 7, 2020
Power ranger or Luchador?
The Halloween costumes get a lot of use when you’re a toddler.
Trying on halloween costumes
The Crypto State?
Bruno Maçaes, writes at City Journal
But here are my provisional suggestions on how things could go. The critical issue is, of course, taxation. It is here that crypto issues the more determinate challenge to the core powers of the modern nation-state. Some in the crypto space believe that the slow erosion of the state’s tax powers will eventually determine its final collapse, at least as we know it today. Others have told me that they expect all nation-states to disappear over the coming decades, with the notable exception of China, which alone, they maintain, has the political and social resources to penetrate or disable fundamental choke points in the crypto system. China is responsible for something between half and two-thirds of global Bitcoin mining, but local authorities have made it clear that they regard the crypto space with enormous suspicion. In 2017, China banned fund-raising through initial coin offerings, and all digital-currency exchanges were shut down. If Beijing decides to cut off the Bitcoin network in China, it could make it hard for mining pools to sync their data on blockchain with the rest of the world.
The Chinese case does offer a possible template for the ongoing power rivalry between crypto and nation-states. In this scenario, crypto systems would double down on their technological superiority, while states would necessarily appeal to their secret weapon: the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force. But a second scenario seems much more plausible, at least outside China. Public authorities and crypto systems could reach a grand bargain or agreement, whereby the state would be able to tax crypto-assets in exchange for security guarantees for crypto. Legacy institutions and structures in the political world aren’t going away anytime soon, so it’s critical for blockchain projects to be able to interface with them. I believe that legacy systems can also benefit from this. The Swiss canton of Zug has taken initial steps in this direction: recently, it announced that beginning in 2021, taxes can be paid using Bitcoin and Ether.
Why the debate might have been the best in 20 years
It’s been a busy news week, and I forgot to post this. I wrote up a short piece arguing what has been a minority view on the debate. While the debate may have been overshadowed by the growing number of cases inside the upper-reaches of American government, I still wanted to get this note out here.
Sunday prayer
A quiet moment at the end of Mass when the big kid started to figure out that everyone uses the time after Eucharist for quiet reflection. He asked Jesus to make his brain smarter so he could get better at Chess—that’s a good start, I think.
Post-communion prayer. When I told Nacho we use the time after communion to pray for God to heal our hearts and help make us better, he asked if he could ask Jesus to make his brain smarter so he could beat the ârobot on the chess game.â
Analog Maps
Great photo from @maiquemadeira.com, and reminds me of the time I was in Australia in 2004. My friend and I had a map out looking for a place we needed to be at. A local offered to show us, walked 1.5 miles opposite of where he needed to be.
We’ve lost that with digital maps and it’s not entirely clear how we get it back.
LA standing up smoke relief centers around the city
Beat the Heat - Emergency Management Department
It’s getting bad.
