Author: Kerim

Roam If You Want To

By Kerim | May 5, 2020

You already know how to use Roam Research, the new note taking app taking the internet by storm. You don’t need to follow the #roamcult hashtag on Twitter, or watch the dozens of YouTube explainer videos in order to start using Roam. If you’ve used Wikipedia (with its web of interlinked definitions), an outliner (with information organized by indented bullet points), Twitter (where you can find subjects by #hashtags), or any desktop computer (where items can exist in multiple locations {+}

COVID-19 Potpourri

By Kerim | March 13, 2020

The WHO declared that COVID-19 is now officially a “pandemic.” It should be: "COVID-19 declared a pandemic by WHOM." — John Gemberling (@Gemberlicking) March 11, 2020 While this news came as a shock to some, many feel that the WHO should have made the announcement weeks ago. Things are moving fast and it can feel hard to keep up. While it can feel like everyone with an internet connection is suddenly an expert in public health, the truth is that {+}

Inventing the Way of Tea in Taiwan

By Kerim | December 8, 2019

One never knows how to read the NY Times when it comes to their reporting on the lifestyles of the one-percenters, but not far into a recent cringe-worthy NY Times article about a tea ceremony being held in California I began to suspect that the author was not on the same side as her subjects. Ms. Elspeth is one of Los Angeles’s early tea ceremony adopters in certain and predominantly white wellness circles. She was introduced to it after what {+}

We suck at (academic) politics

By Kerim | April 26, 2018

Ninety percent of the time if you were to read a blog post about academics and politics it would be a rant about “identity politics.” This isn’t going to be that kind of post. No, what I’m talking about here are “academic politics” in general. Since academic politics might involve trying to get an academic institution to change to be more inclusive there is obviously some overlap between the two, but academic politics might just as well be about funding {+}

Roll Your Own QDA (Working With Text 5)

By Kerim | April 5, 2018

Many social scientists purchase expensive qualitative data analysis software to code their field notes and interview data, but I want to show how you can accomplish the same thing for free using Dynalist or Workflowy. Neither app is truly free, but they both offer generous free plans that allow you to do a lot before you would need to pay for a subscription. We are also going to ignore most of the features offered by these apps, such as outlining, {+}

Hobbes the Science Fiction Writer (Part II)

By Kerim | March 25, 2018

In Part I, I explored how Hobbes’s myth was a kind of science fiction story designed convince his readers to end the English Civil War by accepting peace under the rule of a single sovereign. (For Hobbes that meant either King or Parliament, but not both.) I also discussed how that myth “requires both the artificial man and the state of nature,” since “one part of the story cannot work without the other.” Now, in the conclusion of this two-part {+}

Hobbes the Science Fiction Writer (Part I)

By Kerim | March 22, 2018

It is common to meet people who believe that much of the world is beset by “tribalism” and that the only thing holding back the chaos of a Hobbesian war of all against all is the presence of “strong leaders.” This worldview reached its apogee during the Cold War, when the US used it to justify propping up numerous dictators around the world, helping them brutally suppress separatist movements and impose authoritarian rule. The argument was that the alternative would {+}

Dendrites, Interns, Contributors, & Guest Contributors

By Kerim | March 15, 2018

Just a short announcement to point out that a couple of names have disappeared from our sidebar as we move to make our list of authors better reflect the actual nature of participation on the blog. Since we started as “Savage Minds” in 2005, the membership roles have been in constant flux and we’ve worked hard to try to maintain a loose democratic collective while still having a certain degree of structure and a clear division of labor. These changes {+}

Lazy PowerPoint (Working With Text 4)

By Kerim | February 22, 2018

We all know we should bike to work, but sometimes the weather is bad, or we are late, or just feeling lazy, and so we take the car. Similarly, we all know that we shouldn’t use use PowerPoint, or if we do use PowerPoint we shouldn’t stuff them full of text and bullet points but instead use illustrative pictures. But sometimes we are running late, or just feeling lazy, or maybe even have a good reason1 for using text-heavy slides, {+}

Text-laundering (Working With Text 3)

By Kerim | January 28, 2018

Ever copy and paste something that should be a solid paragraph of text only to have it end up looking a mess? You could fix it using Regular Expressions, or if you prefer not to have to muddle around with code, there are a number of tools out there which can automate this kind of text cleanup for you. {+}