Spring has sprung

03.22.2005

The old joke's that Michigan only has two seasons: Winter & Construction. The sudden appearance of orange construction cones & signs announced that winter officially ended, yesterday. And today was the first bright, sunny day. I didn't even wear a coat.

Gave my (rambling) talk today. It wasn't polished or whatever, but it had all the information, which is all I really care about. I like to make departmental talks less formal, save the real format sit-down talk for Chicago. But I think it was well received, and fairly well attended (my dissertation co-chairs, of course, were both there). I also had to leave early, missing the other presentations; sorry, but duty (teaching) called.

Stopped back at Rocket Star to dinner. Don't order Bourbon Chicken from Great Wall; the secret ingredient is pork. Do order the #6 from Jimmy Johns; the secret ingredient is delicious. Also, I highly recommend asking your barista to make: honey, shot of cinnamon, whole milk, black chai.

BTW, I'm hoping to download/learn a wiki application to use for some of my research data management). Any suggestions? Specifically, I want something for a desktop (no need to export to online, but it'd be nice, since I'd like to make my data accessible to others, too). But basically I'm looking for a way to input people into a flat-tagged database. Something like what del.icio.us or flikr do.

The specific application? Currently, I'm working through Bolivian cabinet data. I have all these people, and I want to keep track of what ministries they served under, and what parties they belonged to (especially if it changed over time). So I want to be able to quickly access all the people from any one "tag" (party, year, ministry, etc) as I input them. But I don't want to be burdened w/ something like FileMaker.

Why wiki? Because, optimally, I'd like the database to be open-edited as new information is gathered. Basically, allow other researchers to start building a community dataset. A wiki would also allow for the dataset to start branching out into other things (e.g. specific ministries' staffs) as researchers need.

So far, I've played w/ VoodooPad & PersonalWiki (and I so far like VoodooPad better). But if anyone's heard of something better, do let me know. But keep in mind that I'd rather spend most of my time using the software, rather than learning it.

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UPDATE: Oh, SuperNotecard, I think I love you.

Posted by Miguel at 04:54 PM

Comments

I am a big fan of the #6

Posted by: Kim at March 22, 2005 07:30 PM

Don't order anything from Great Wall.

Posted by: Stephanie at March 23, 2005 02:49 AM