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10 years ago I had vague ambitions of starting some sort of think tank type org to house my long-term research interests... this got downgraded to think mug. Now the whole idea of running an org to do X seems like a distraction from doing X.
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Life cycle model of intellectual institutions Think spoon Think mug Think bucket Think tank Think river Think reservoir Think wetland Think cesspool Think swamp
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So my new plan is to define my long-term programs in the form of "virus" programs that can move from host institution to host institution. Starting with my temporality research currently hosted at and previously hosted at Cornell U (aka my postdoc)
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Not being in academia though, my "program" level interests kinda evolve in a stop-go fashion as and when the virus finds hosts to live in for a while, going dormant in between.
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An extended universe episodic model. Chapter 1: Temporality in military (sponsor: USAF), 2004-06 Chapter 2: Tempo: the book (sponsor: Xerox, though they didn't know it), 2008-11 Chapter 3: s/w eats world (sponsor: a16z) -- breaking smart S1 is really a temporality case study
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You really can't go deep/long-term on a topic without a bit of institutional underwriting (that, or personal wealth). It's just too hard to find time in the interstices of free agency and gig economy.
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I strongly prefer my model of viral hopping to academia though... the constraints of getting in bed with government funding agencies and the academic publishing model are just too tight for my kind of interests
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Like right now, I'm strongly leaning towards turning my current project output into fictional form, something that wouldn't have been possible if I'd been in academia. I'd have had to write some papers and a stodgy Springer-Verlag volume.
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I have 2 chapters in springer books (I think, or equivalent), but one is actually a story in comicbook form... I'm very proud of that
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