since obviously i don't know everything about the things i want to write about, maybe one way of doing secondary research that would be in some ways more interesting than simply sourcing from academic journals (which can be rather boring and dry) would be to interview people who are experts in the given topic of interest. i mean, interviews have the potential to be really interesting. this american life is like 80% interviews. well, not that i ever measured, but it sure seems like it. and not that i think i'm anywhere near as talented at interviewing and producing material as the folks who do this american life. but hey, they've set a really good example, and there's nothing wrong with taking their lead and trying to make what i'm going to present as fun and interesting as what they do.
well, i'm not entirely sure i want to make podcasts. maybe presenting my stuff as print media won't lend itself as well to interviewing people. at least not in the this american life (or the story, or fresh air) style. i'm trying to present information, not just tell interesting stories. in fact, i'm not sure i'm trying to tell any stories at all. maybe some anecdotes, to make the topics relatable, laced in there. but, anyhow, without trying to make my content anything like those really cool podcasts, in that i'm not telling stories, and i'm writing it down and not making audio presentations, i still think i can strive for a level of quality that their example sets. but really what i think will make using interviews with experts good for what i'm doing is that it will allow me to insert stronger statements. like, a research paper might say something really conservative (that is, careful) and objective and generally make sure to not even have an air of over-reaching, and being confined to a specific set of primary research, and what conclusions can be drawn from that. whereas someone who's not only done a whole bunch of research over the years, but also read a ton of other people's research in similar fields, will have a lot to say. a lot that is broader and more overarching. like, someone who has seen a lot of data and written a lot of papers regarding the correlation between homelessness and mental illness, they are probably likely to say something like "there's no doubt in my mind that putting a person who is predisposed to experience an emergence of schizophrenia is significantly more likely to have those traits emerge when they experience prolonged bouts of homelessness than when they are housed in even the most basic of apartment-style dwelling", for instance. i mean, i don't know what they'd say. i hope they'd say something like this. whereas i can't say something so strong just from looking at a series of research papers. who am i to have "no doubt in my mind" about anything i haven't personally and extensively studied? and yet isn't information always more worth reading when it's strongly endorsed by someone who really knows their shit in that field?
so that's why i'm thinking that talking to experts about the things i want to present will make the stuff more interesting to read, too. in the end, i'll be curating a series of topics, and adding the glue and transitions. hmmm....
it just occurred to me that those topics i came up with for 'focus the nation' are things i should incorporate. hmmm.... what were some of those? let's see if i can remember (and why in hell didn't i remember those the other night when i was listing topics? what is wrong with my brain? how come memory access is so random like that? i hate that about it! the brain/memory storage that is!)
* reducing water usage, including some unconventional ideas
* sustainability isn't for the upper class, it's for the poor. because if you fail to take measures to make our world a sustainable one, it's the poor people who suffer. this is especially obvious in the third world, but what about all the ways it's true even right here in the U.S.? ... discussing how it's true for the third world is worth writing about, too, but just would be a separate piece. several separate pieces. because there is SO MUCH HEARTBREAKING STUFF to discuss. there could be a whole blog just about how shitty the consumerist segment of the world is treating the majority developing segment of the world
* what the hell does sustainability mean? it's not the same as being eco-friendly, or the same as habitat preservation. those are subsets of the greater topic of sustainability, which includes not just ecological sustainability, but social and economic sustainability, too, among other things.
oh, my stupid brain won't cooperate with me right now. good thing i have a list of these topics, as well as some brief write-ups about the importance of each topic, somewhere. SOMEWHERE. ::pout:: ... when the hell will we get all our files off the stupid old hard drives in those old damn towers taking up so much room in the office? i'm seriously so sick of every time we have to get new computers, we lose access to everything we used to have. it's so disjointed, it's worse than not having technology. if we just had all those files in a physical file cabinet, we'd have to dig a little more to find them, but at least they'd be there, accessible, all the time, regardless of what computer, OS, etc., we're using.
maybe some time soon i should write about how the hell to solve that problem.
4.19.2013
stuff i should write about
i was thinking the other day that there are all these random, disparate bits of knowledge i have gleaned from the world and my education, that i possess, a really odd collection. stuff that when people ask me what i do, or what i studied, or (indirectly) what i know about, i have a hard time really bringing to the surface because i'm expected to talk about a specialty. no one seems to value a good generalist anymore. maybe that's my own self-criticism and doubt. i dunno. but part of me thinks i should write about what i know, and research the things i know enough about to be able to speak about them but not enough to write anything meaningful about.
i've been listening to a lot of "stuff you should know" lately, and i can tell that's basically what these guys are doing. except in a lot of cases, they didn't know anything about the topic to begin with. and there's also a limit to the scope and depth of their topics. i have something of an interest in doing something similar to what they're doing, except i would like to sometimes go into even less depth, and pose thought experiments to myself and others, and in many other (probably most) cases, go into more depth, and start with something i have some pretty solid background in. that is, stuff i studied in school.
i kind of want to compile a collection of the knowledge i have that i think is most interesting and important to the world we live in. well, some of it interesting, some of it important, and some of it both.
i'll make myself a list of some of the topics that come to mind at first, with the intention of expanding this list as the ideas come to mind. maybe i'll just email them to myself at a particular email address and whenever i sit down at a computer, i'll grab those additional topics and add them to this list? well, we'll see if this writing idea even holds my interest long-term, first.
* multi-generational households
* socialization, importance to mental health
* greenest buildings are the ones already built
* historic preservation - old windows: keep them, repair them (despite what some repairfolk may say to you when they visit your home!)
* do toilets and showers really need to share the same physical space?
* do babies/children really need their own rooms (as long as they have space that is theirs)? what is the necessity & value of privacy within the immediate family? what are the limits of that? is this a modern construct? if so, what have we gained &/or lost as a result?
* the value of knowing your neighbors
* mixed income neighborhoods (and apartment buildings)
* pseudoscience, citing freud all the damn time (stop for fuck's sake), and reasonable use by laypeople of modern research... what can we legitimately expect of people?
* homelessness, mental illness, drug addiction: the revolving door
* why everyone should drink their own tap water
* creating incentives for learning (teachers to children, and students to themselves): the brain's reward system as it relates to seeking understanding and the resultant retention
* the case for shorter work weeks
* alcohol, why we as a culture aren't more aware of the effects (serotonin depletion, liver/insulin function & the diabetes link); how we seem to be oblivious to the social acceptability of binge drinking
* ADHD & stimulant medication: subjective experiences, how they are ignored in favor of compliant children; why they may *really* be depriving these kids of a full shot at an engaged childhood (anxiety, primarily)
* anxiety: deleterious effects, the many causes, the social acceptability of it, how reluctant we are to relax except in pre-planned sessions
* why we need more mixed-subject educations than people are likely to get in school nowadays
* what a job search and the job market in general ought to look like if employers want better matches for the positions they have open and if employees want to feel fulfilled in their jobs
* an argument in favor of an approach other than just passing or failing -- what if, instead, students who didn't absorb the knowledge & abilities of a course the first time around, just tried again, without penalty, because in some cases people take longer to "get" certain things, and not always because they are destined forever to be "bad at" those things. in this system, there would also be a much higher level of mastery required to move on. you can't "pass" a class, you have to master the subject matter. i don't want my dentist to have retained a random 70% of what they learned in school, for instance. i want them to know, backwards and forwards, everything they do. i don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to keep working at something until they've "got it"; we do this in on-the-job learning all the time. problem is, we can't expect employers to give us this opportunity for trial and error. we really should be doing more of this in school.
* small footprints, physically and in terms of consumption and energy usage
* economies of scale (why don't more people understand this principle? so many well-meaning and good-hearted folks make really terrible arguments just due to a lack of understanding of something that doesn't even require any economics education, just applying a bit of common sense! it makes me cringe!)
* why are we suddenly only able to find acrylic/latex paint for painting walls & such? they may be "water based" but they are made with petroleum byproducts. what is so bad about a vegetable oil-based paint, where linseed (flax) oil is the base instead? why have people suddenly got this idea that oil-based somehow has something to do with petroleum? it's the opposite. and what's worse is of course that oil-based paint is a superior and more durable product. ugh.
* dust in the home - not just dirt and dander; a lot of it is your furniture and clothing shedding small fibers
* air quality indoors and out, misconceptions, and why people should be opening their windows more often
i've been listening to a lot of "stuff you should know" lately, and i can tell that's basically what these guys are doing. except in a lot of cases, they didn't know anything about the topic to begin with. and there's also a limit to the scope and depth of their topics. i have something of an interest in doing something similar to what they're doing, except i would like to sometimes go into even less depth, and pose thought experiments to myself and others, and in many other (probably most) cases, go into more depth, and start with something i have some pretty solid background in. that is, stuff i studied in school.
i kind of want to compile a collection of the knowledge i have that i think is most interesting and important to the world we live in. well, some of it interesting, some of it important, and some of it both.
i'll make myself a list of some of the topics that come to mind at first, with the intention of expanding this list as the ideas come to mind. maybe i'll just email them to myself at a particular email address and whenever i sit down at a computer, i'll grab those additional topics and add them to this list? well, we'll see if this writing idea even holds my interest long-term, first.
* multi-generational households
* socialization, importance to mental health
* greenest buildings are the ones already built
* historic preservation - old windows: keep them, repair them (despite what some repairfolk may say to you when they visit your home!)
* do toilets and showers really need to share the same physical space?
* do babies/children really need their own rooms (as long as they have space that is theirs)? what is the necessity & value of privacy within the immediate family? what are the limits of that? is this a modern construct? if so, what have we gained &/or lost as a result?
* the value of knowing your neighbors
* mixed income neighborhoods (and apartment buildings)
* pseudoscience, citing freud all the damn time (stop for fuck's sake), and reasonable use by laypeople of modern research... what can we legitimately expect of people?
* homelessness, mental illness, drug addiction: the revolving door
* why everyone should drink their own tap water
* creating incentives for learning (teachers to children, and students to themselves): the brain's reward system as it relates to seeking understanding and the resultant retention
* the case for shorter work weeks
* alcohol, why we as a culture aren't more aware of the effects (serotonin depletion, liver/insulin function & the diabetes link); how we seem to be oblivious to the social acceptability of binge drinking
* ADHD & stimulant medication: subjective experiences, how they are ignored in favor of compliant children; why they may *really* be depriving these kids of a full shot at an engaged childhood (anxiety, primarily)
* anxiety: deleterious effects, the many causes, the social acceptability of it, how reluctant we are to relax except in pre-planned sessions
* why we need more mixed-subject educations than people are likely to get in school nowadays
* what a job search and the job market in general ought to look like if employers want better matches for the positions they have open and if employees want to feel fulfilled in their jobs
* an argument in favor of an approach other than just passing or failing -- what if, instead, students who didn't absorb the knowledge & abilities of a course the first time around, just tried again, without penalty, because in some cases people take longer to "get" certain things, and not always because they are destined forever to be "bad at" those things. in this system, there would also be a much higher level of mastery required to move on. you can't "pass" a class, you have to master the subject matter. i don't want my dentist to have retained a random 70% of what they learned in school, for instance. i want them to know, backwards and forwards, everything they do. i don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to keep working at something until they've "got it"; we do this in on-the-job learning all the time. problem is, we can't expect employers to give us this opportunity for trial and error. we really should be doing more of this in school.
* small footprints, physically and in terms of consumption and energy usage
* economies of scale (why don't more people understand this principle? so many well-meaning and good-hearted folks make really terrible arguments just due to a lack of understanding of something that doesn't even require any economics education, just applying a bit of common sense! it makes me cringe!)
* why are we suddenly only able to find acrylic/latex paint for painting walls & such? they may be "water based" but they are made with petroleum byproducts. what is so bad about a vegetable oil-based paint, where linseed (flax) oil is the base instead? why have people suddenly got this idea that oil-based somehow has something to do with petroleum? it's the opposite. and what's worse is of course that oil-based paint is a superior and more durable product. ugh.
* dust in the home - not just dirt and dander; a lot of it is your furniture and clothing shedding small fibers
* air quality indoors and out, misconceptions, and why people should be opening their windows more often
4.12.2013
healthier, yummier, more stores, crafting, more supplies, more expensive, more useful
i'm just going to write about whatever the heck pops into my head for like 15 minutes, b/c i only have 15 minutes to spare, and since i haven't written anything at all lately, it would probably be good just to purge whatever for 15 min.
the first thing that has popped into my head is about food, both the cost of it and the frequency of trips to the grocery store. i think that it's pretty clear that the best way to eat the foods that are both good for me and super tasty is to go not only to a single store fairly frequently, but to go to a variety of stores, and all of them frequently. b/c i can't get organic meats at vons. but i can get really reasonably priced organic eggs and milk. and vons is close and open 24 hrs. so it's super easy to make sure i get that stuff. but if i want seafood, i probably want to go to trader joe's. they have really reasonably priced seafood. but if i want certain specialty food items, like ghee, grass-fed beef, "pasture" chicken breasts, etc., then i am going to have to go to whole foods. and i'm very happy with the mixed nuts at target, though once i scope out the options at whole foods, then maybe i'll switch to whole foods for my nuts. but the point here is that this is four different stores. i think vons will do just fine for produce, too, i didn't really mention that. i mean, all i'd really eat would be bananas, avocados, red bell peppers and tomatoes, maybe occasionally an apple. i don't feel the need to buy these items organic, and produce is just cheaper at vons. and, again, easier to acquire. like, for instance, tonight i could go get them after we go celebrate R-'s bday.
so this, i guess, is the challenge... and i think it's pretty clear to me that i *will* have to make frequent and varied trips to the store if i want to have more quality meats in my diet, and more frequent avocados and bananas. omg, ate a banana yesterday, and YUM!!! i forgot how much i loves me some bananas. i had already thought of the solution for avocados of pulling the meat out of them into little containers and keeping it in the fridge, then i can scoop out a dollop of avocado whenever i want, without having to use a whole avocado or anything, and i can get several at once instead of having to buy one every few days. not going to be able to swing the same thing with bananas, but i guess it works out alright that i really like my bananas even when they are far beyond what most people would consider ripe. but i think bananas will have to be a twice-weekly purchase, or something like that.
the next thing that i've been thinking a lot about is sewing, crafting, building, all of that stuff. how there used to be a time when i'd just randomly hunt through the stuff i had on hand, which was usually a pretty minimal amount of stuff, that was pretty randomly aggregated, and make something. but nowadays, despite trying to accumulate a much more useful collection of supplies, it seems like every single project calls for a very specific tool or set of tools, very specific group of materials, all in very specific sizes and quantities. it's starting to make me question my accumulation of supplies. but then i think how if i didn't have anything on hand, it would be so much worse. just wanting to do a simple project of any kind would require me to buy a bunch of stuff that i probably would have had around if i was frequently making/crafting stuff in that vein. so i don't know how to find the appropriate middle ground, at all.
one thing i'm doing, that i think is important, is i'm changing my mental/emotional relationship to the process of making things, teaching myself not to resent the state of affairs if i'm like, hey, i want to learn how to sew the perfect t-shirt, and i find that i can't do that with the various old t-shirts i've kept around so i'll have some knits on hand, then i just say, okay, that's just how it works, and i get my butt up and go buy the (seemingly very excessive amount of) knit i need to make said t-shirt. this is what it means to be making crafts for real as an adult, and not just by serendipity, like, oh, i ended up with an extra [xyz], what can i make out of this? because that kind of making may have been fun and instructive, but did it ever really turn out anything truly useful? maybe by chance, sometimes it did. i can think of a few examples. but the terms of things are just different. and i'm adjusting to that. and trying not to balk at the cost of tools and materials, b/c that's just the state of affairs. but i have to keep reminding myself. and so i think i've just done. ;)
all of this sorta ties in together, though it may not seem like it. because in the end, there's not only a greater monetary cost to the new way of doing things, there's a greater "administrative" cost, in outlining & planning, acquiring, prepping, and so forth. this applies to both better quality foods and better quality crafting. it is, kind of, learning to be a grown-up! awww, look at me, trying to be all grown up... but complaining about it! :D k, my time is up. i'm actually 8 minutes over! whoops...
the first thing that has popped into my head is about food, both the cost of it and the frequency of trips to the grocery store. i think that it's pretty clear that the best way to eat the foods that are both good for me and super tasty is to go not only to a single store fairly frequently, but to go to a variety of stores, and all of them frequently. b/c i can't get organic meats at vons. but i can get really reasonably priced organic eggs and milk. and vons is close and open 24 hrs. so it's super easy to make sure i get that stuff. but if i want seafood, i probably want to go to trader joe's. they have really reasonably priced seafood. but if i want certain specialty food items, like ghee, grass-fed beef, "pasture" chicken breasts, etc., then i am going to have to go to whole foods. and i'm very happy with the mixed nuts at target, though once i scope out the options at whole foods, then maybe i'll switch to whole foods for my nuts. but the point here is that this is four different stores. i think vons will do just fine for produce, too, i didn't really mention that. i mean, all i'd really eat would be bananas, avocados, red bell peppers and tomatoes, maybe occasionally an apple. i don't feel the need to buy these items organic, and produce is just cheaper at vons. and, again, easier to acquire. like, for instance, tonight i could go get them after we go celebrate R-'s bday.
so this, i guess, is the challenge... and i think it's pretty clear to me that i *will* have to make frequent and varied trips to the store if i want to have more quality meats in my diet, and more frequent avocados and bananas. omg, ate a banana yesterday, and YUM!!! i forgot how much i loves me some bananas. i had already thought of the solution for avocados of pulling the meat out of them into little containers and keeping it in the fridge, then i can scoop out a dollop of avocado whenever i want, without having to use a whole avocado or anything, and i can get several at once instead of having to buy one every few days. not going to be able to swing the same thing with bananas, but i guess it works out alright that i really like my bananas even when they are far beyond what most people would consider ripe. but i think bananas will have to be a twice-weekly purchase, or something like that.
the next thing that i've been thinking a lot about is sewing, crafting, building, all of that stuff. how there used to be a time when i'd just randomly hunt through the stuff i had on hand, which was usually a pretty minimal amount of stuff, that was pretty randomly aggregated, and make something. but nowadays, despite trying to accumulate a much more useful collection of supplies, it seems like every single project calls for a very specific tool or set of tools, very specific group of materials, all in very specific sizes and quantities. it's starting to make me question my accumulation of supplies. but then i think how if i didn't have anything on hand, it would be so much worse. just wanting to do a simple project of any kind would require me to buy a bunch of stuff that i probably would have had around if i was frequently making/crafting stuff in that vein. so i don't know how to find the appropriate middle ground, at all.
one thing i'm doing, that i think is important, is i'm changing my mental/emotional relationship to the process of making things, teaching myself not to resent the state of affairs if i'm like, hey, i want to learn how to sew the perfect t-shirt, and i find that i can't do that with the various old t-shirts i've kept around so i'll have some knits on hand, then i just say, okay, that's just how it works, and i get my butt up and go buy the (seemingly very excessive amount of) knit i need to make said t-shirt. this is what it means to be making crafts for real as an adult, and not just by serendipity, like, oh, i ended up with an extra [xyz], what can i make out of this? because that kind of making may have been fun and instructive, but did it ever really turn out anything truly useful? maybe by chance, sometimes it did. i can think of a few examples. but the terms of things are just different. and i'm adjusting to that. and trying not to balk at the cost of tools and materials, b/c that's just the state of affairs. but i have to keep reminding myself. and so i think i've just done. ;)
all of this sorta ties in together, though it may not seem like it. because in the end, there's not only a greater monetary cost to the new way of doing things, there's a greater "administrative" cost, in outlining & planning, acquiring, prepping, and so forth. this applies to both better quality foods and better quality crafting. it is, kind of, learning to be a grown-up! awww, look at me, trying to be all grown up... but complaining about it! :D k, my time is up. i'm actually 8 minutes over! whoops...
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