[PREV - MISSING_PIECES]    [TOP]

PACKRAT_SCIENCE

                                                       April 15, 2021

One of my more dubious practices-- of which
there's no shortage in my life-- is not just
*reading* magazines on paper, but a tendency to
*keep them around* whether read or un-read....

A particularly bad temptation in this respect
is the AAAS publication "Science" which is
extremly impressive in both the range and           "Science" is a remarkably
depth of its coverage-- the beginning of the        awkward name-- You need
magazine has a more introductory "popular"          additional veribage to make
approach, and the last half of it consists of       it clear you mean the AAAS
genuine scientific research papers.  A high         publication and not the
quality, very dense publication, where even a       field as a whole.
five year old copy (of which I have many) can
easily keep me occupied for an hour if I               DISTINCT_NAMING
choose to indulge myself...


Deciding whether I'm done with a particular
issue revolves around deciding the boundaries    Current interests; current
of myself and my life, which is not something    work; past work; subjects
I've ever been good at.                          unfamiliar to me, but with
                                                 potential relevance to
A recent strategy for me has been to             hypothetical projects...
sit down with a stack of them and
conduct triage, skimming through                                     There's
them for things I expect I might                                     always a
care about later, and ripping out      If I put in a few hours       reason for
the pages, stashing them in a          on this I can turn a          "keep".
gigantic (and notvery well             few feet of paper into
organized) "miscellanious" file.       six inches or less.

                                                       I am, of course,
                                                       constantly telling
                                                       myself to try being
Every once in a while (perhaps not often               more ruthless.
enough) I use one of these folders as a "go
bag", a stash of things on paper I can read
anywhere.

   A dead trees addendum to a life that's
   increasingly electronic and virtualized.   I had a head-start on most of
                                              you in going electronic.  If I'm
                                              lagging behind now it's because
                                              of the work I put in on it.




--------
[NEXT - TECHNOIDAL_RIFFS]