The getaway to end all getaways Any attempt to track down the perfect getaway is made all the more complex because almost everything we know about burglary—including how they did (or did not) get away—comes from the burglars we’ve caught. As sociologist R. I. Mawby pithily phrases this dilemma, “Known burglars are unrepresentative of burglars in general.” Great methodological despair is hidden in such a comment. Studying burglary is thus a strangely Heisenbergian undertaking, riddled with uncertainty and distorted by moving data points. The getaway to end all getaways—the one that leaves us all scratching our heads—to no small extent remains impossible to study. Geoff Manaugh, A Burglar's Guide to the City failure
The Evolution of Useful Things A Book by Henry Petroski Here, then, is the central idea: the form of made things is always subject to change in response to their real or perceived shortcomings, their failures to function properly. This principle governs all invention, innovation, ingenuity. Spike and sponShaped and reshapedForm follows failureTheir wrongness is somehow more immediateA small corner of the world of things+23 More The evolution of devices formfunctioninventionprogressfailure
My Anti-Resumé An Article by Monica Byrne monicacatherine.com A couple years ago I was having dinner with a playwright, Bekah Brunstetter, and her director David Shmidt Chapman. We talked about how rejection is just part of the landscape for all beginning artists, no matter how talented or hardworking they might be or how successful they might appear. David said he’d love to publish his “anti-résumé” someday—a list of all the things he didn’t get. Spreadsheet Portfolios for UX Designers workfailure
Why Keep a Field Notebook? An Essay from Field Notes on Science and Nature by Erick Greene Pick one thingLab notebooksHybrid journalsA fertile incubatorBest practices
Pick one thing I recently started a field notebook assignment for my upper-level Ecology class at the University of Montana. I asked my students to pick one “thing” and observe it carefully over the entire semester. In addition to their field notebooks, the students also had to suggest at least ten research questions inspired by their observations. One brick seeing
Lab notebooks Most of my colleagues who conduct laboratory research not only keep extremely thorough and complete lab notebooks, but they teach their students how and why to keep data in them. Some labs even have friendly competitions in which prizes for the best-kept notebooks are awarded. In stark contrast to the vibrant culture of keeping lab notebooks in molecular biology, my informal polling suggested a lack of interest in notebooks in field biology. “I have a GPS for that.” “My data are in a spreadsheet.” “I write things down when I get home.” “I have a computer.” The general consensus seemed to be that field notebooks are quaint, archaic, and obsolete in field biology.
Hybrid journals The most useful and interesting notebooks of field biology are hybrids; as well as recording details and data of field research, they record the observations, thoughts, musings, and peregrinations of the author. notetaking
A fertile incubator Another value of field notebooks is their ability to serve as an incredibly fertile incubator for your ideas and observations. By jotting down interesting observations, questions, and miscellaneous ideas, your field notebook can serve as a powerful catalyst for new experiments and projects. notetaking
Best practices Use a hardbound notebook. Keep your contact information in a prominent location. Write for yourself and for posterity. Write pertinent field information with every new entry. You should enter the date, time, and location at the top of every page. Add information on your location. Record your methods. Make backup copies. If you use abbreviations, make sure there is a key in your field notebook. Don’t leave home without it. Form a writing habit. Thomas Jefferson was such an inveterate chronicler of daily events in his notebooks that he even took the time to record the weather four times on the day he helped write the Declaration of Independence. So unless you have something far more pressing than writing the Declaration of Independence, you have no excuse for avoiding your field notebook! Set up a structure for your field notebook. Create an index. Treat your field notebook like a scrapbook. You should view your field notebook as a central clearinghouse for miscellaneous information that is relevant to your research project. If there are related bits of information that you will find useful later on, sketch them, write them down, photocopy them, and staple or tape them in your notebook. Five basic rules indexes