Day 5: Piling it higher and deeper

I really should have waited longer before using up that joke.

Chapter 2 continues on with 1050 sparkling new words. I didn't get quite as far as I did yesterday because I spent a bit of time digging around in Scholar. I wanted to find out if anyone had already built what I call a "socio-technical training system," and wouldn't you know there's a whole lit review just waiting to be written. Now, I really should be familiar with that research already. As it turns out, I'm only familiar with Personal Informatics. That's one of the most recent branches of socio-technical system research, but far from the only one.

Oh well! I expect I will include a few papers for context and then move on. (Maybe MTFO should be my new motto?) I don't have time to include another entire arm of research if only to add a bit more smarty-pants "historiocity" to my work. It might make for a more interesting read, but it's more likely I would end up making a mess. And the thing is, this divergence just isn't necessary. PI is sufficient. MTFO.

My future boss told me the other day about an initialism she and her colleagues like to use. DTM. It means "do the minimum." (Of course, before revealing what it meant she gave me an elaborate qualification that what she was about to reveal was an exaggeration. A motivator. Not to be taken literally, but still helpful etc etc.) I told her I prefer the term "satisficing," as coined by Herb Simon. That's where you pick a handful of standards that something must meet and stick to them. And you stick to only them. You don't go looking for extras on your new car just because the salesman points out something you hadn't realized you might want. You don't put off buying the thing you need because someone somewhere someday might have it 5% cheaper. As soon as whatever you're doing reaches the minimum targets, MTFO.

But I digress. This writing project is anything but minimum. DTM hardly fits. So anywhere that I can at least avoid adding to my workload, I'll take it.

I'll be honest with you, though... I was totally ready to include it. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to ask one of my advisors what he thought. He slapped my hand and told me to stop it.