Over Easter break, a new addition was moved into place on campus. The statue has been hidden away for a number of months but finally has taken its place on campus. I have commented to a number of people that I enjoy being able to walk past the statue each morning as I head into work and each evening as I leave to head back home.
It is a nice visual reminder.
I am unreasonably happy about the future public release of Zotero for iOS. I have been using Zotero for years to manage my doctoral research as I continue through my PhD program, but finding a decent workflow for reading, annotating, and then cataloging has been very elusive.
However, Zotero for iOS may, MAY, just fix that issue for me … and not a moment too soon. As I stare my dissertation in the face, Zotero for iOS should allow me to have access to my entire Zotero library, reading PDFs within the application, annotate that PDF, add notes, etc. and then have those changes synced to my Zotero app on my various other devices. That’s a potentially game-changing addition to my workflow.
So I have been able to get on the Zotero for iOS Beta and I am working with it on my iPad Pro right now. If you are interested, I recommend signing up as well and seeing what the future may hold!
Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software by Nadia Eghbal
I just finished this book while walking on the treadmill this morning and I am torn. There are definitely parts that I find insightful, especially as an overall look at the struggles open source communities, founders, contributors, maintainer, etc. run into as it pertains to the continual creation and curation of code and other resources, but I find the emphasis on platforms as the savior of these communities somewhat concerning.
That may entirely be my own bias showing, but looking to technology and platforms to fix what are inevitable human and interaction issues seems shortsighted but also quite understandable today. Who doesn’t like the idea that technology will solve our issues!? However, as we continue to place more and more emphasis on platforms and technology, I fear that we begin to lose the human aspect of what we do. If platforms are our savior, they then are almost inevitably our masters.
So. Torn.
Is a PhD Worth It? by Chris Cornthwaite
As I continue working toward my own PhD I have found the discussion around the worth of a PhD to be interesting, if not terribly exciting. However, this specific article I think is well-balanced and, in the end, brings it all together with the fact that every educational endeavor’s worthiness is ultimately up to the individual.
While I may not be following the 100 Days To Offload, I am hoping to get back into writing on this blog a little bit more in the future. Luckily, Kev Quirk over at https://kevq.uk IS posting every day and one of his recent posts caught my attention: How Many Devices Is Too Many? This post is my own response to that topic.
I have been spending more time working from home recently and so I have also been splitting my work across an increasing number of devices. On a given day, when I both work from home and on campus, I may use any combination of the following devices:
That does not include accessories and other smart devices (Apple HomePod) or any devices my wife or kids use during a given day either. Needless to say, I have a goodly number of devices sitting around and I move between any number of them fairly consistently.
I also have started to feel the weight of having all of these devices around. It is almost too much. Some tasks can only be done on certain devices and if I don’t have it nearby, then I need to go find it. In some cases the platform differences mean I spend more time thinking about how I might accomplish a task instead of doing it.
Recently I have started testing a Thunderbolt 3 docking station from Plugable with my ThinkPad Carbon X1 and it has worked pretty well. The hope is that in the future I can eliminate entire swaths of devices and consolidate down to just a few. However, which platform do I ultimately end up using? I am truly torn at the moment.
So … how many? I think I’m past that limit but I am unsure of exactly where I am going to fall in the near future. What I do know is that at the current number I am spending more time thinking about doing work and not the needed time actually getting down to do it. At this point, where the tools are getting in the way, it is time to start making some difficult decisions.