war
Using akido on the landscape
Always allow them an escape route
Thoughts On Shitpost Diplomacy
Your intention to cut
A Quote by Miyamoto MusashiThe primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy’s cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him.
The McNamara fallacy
A DefinitionThe McNamara fallacy, named for Robert McNamara, the US Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, involves making a decision based solely on quantitative observations (or metrics) and ignoring all others. The reason given is often that these other observations cannot be proven.
The fallacy refers to McNamara's belief as to what led the United States to defeat in the Vietnam War—specifically, his quantification of success in the war (e.g., in terms of enemy body count), ignoring other variables.
The Art of War
A Book by Sun Tzu
Why Keep a Field Notebook?
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.
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.
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.
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.