The “wow” from delayed source discovery

There ought to be a name for the experience, when involved in the long process of writing up a dissertation or scholarly book, of coming across a scholarly source and thinking: “Wow! I wish I had read this several years ago when it was published!”

Going through such a document line-by-line in printout form while making extensive marginal notes serves several valuable purposes. It gives you something else to respond to and cite, knowing it has already crossed the bar of being accepted as scholarly. That’s good if they broadly agree with you (adding another reference with a short citation) and probably even better if they disagree, since it lets you contrast yourself with something specific and scholarly. It directs you to yet other potentially useful sources. Finally, it provides an example of a complete and successful piece of scholarly writing, which is always an inspiration and even a source of comfort when striving to produce one of your own.

Now the world’s top clothing fibre

I came across an interesting article about the history of polyester, and particularly its rise to dominance with the popularity of sports- and outdoors-wear:

With that technology in hand, Patagonia developed a line of base layers that Smith dubbed Capilene to suggest capillary action. In fall 1985, the same season Synchilla hit the market, Capilene completely replaced the company’s polypropylene underwear. ‘Those two innovations – base layer and fleece – completely changed the world’s opinion of polyester, not just the outdoor industry’, says Harward. ‘It became seen as the high-end performance comfort fiber. Over time, polyester’s success as a performance fiber allowed it to reclaim its fashion luster.

The article is a bit hard on wool, which is better than anything for what it is best at including outer socks, but it’s interesting to read the description about how synthetic fabrics have been adapted for human requirements.

Ginsburg documentary

After today’s three presentations on my research — and the surprise discovery of another very pertinent U of T PhD dissertation which I will read tomorrow — I learned that through the library I have access to the Kanopy streaming service and watched the RBG documentary which was the first thing recommended. It’s rightly praised as very well done, and I learned a lot about her life.

Now on to mobilizing structures

I sent my chapter as promised and then drifted off late watching videos about the Tournamet climb in the Tour de France.

I’ll give myself a day to rest from the intense coffee and writing lifestyle of the last couple of weeks, then print off the version 6 chapter to compare against the new agreed structure and latest comments.

I also need to finish my presentation for the School of the Environment research day, which will complete the requirements for my Collaborative Specialization in Environmental Studies.

The struggle for focus and productivity

Due to an overwhelmingly stressful family situation, which kept me up all night Friday and Saturday with racing intrusive thoughts, I have deleted my WhatsApp account and disabled the phone and messaging features on my cell phone.

I gave my committee a commitment that I would have a complete political opportunities chapter done this weekend for version 7 of the dissertation. Working during the great majority of my waking time, I am getting close, though there are still some gaps to fill and the whole thing to review.

Related:

Defeated

I am reminded anew of the general pointlessness of trying to persuade people to do the right thing on the basis of empathy, ethics, reason — and even their own long-term self-interest. Such are our politeness-based codes of social behaviour that you usually get more condemnation for bringing up the transgression than the person making it gets for their misconduct.