Oh So Boring…

This is just a little annoyance of mine, but it’s something that’s been grating on me.  Recently, I decided to make a concerted effort to use CiteULike as a way to semi-organize the papers I read on the web. (I’m fairly certain that I had a previous account a while back, with quite a few (50, 60) papers in it, but for the life of me I can’t seem to remember/find it.)

Still, that is no reason not to start again.  So, I’ve been adding papers, and I noticed something that just bothers me. When you add a paper to CiteULike, you get to “rate” your…enthusiasm about the paper.  From “Top priority!” (5 stars) to “I might read it” (2 stars), it’s all good.  But then you get to “I don’t really want to read it” and that gives it one star.  That one star seems…odd to me.

To me, one star still means it’s a paper I want to read.  Maybe it’s in astronomy or some field I don’t know much about, but if I’ve taken the time to press the CiteULike button and save it to my “library”, it seems like the least amount of interest would be “might read it”, not “not gonna do it”[1]. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s that time of year again here in DC…Cherry Blossom Festival time!  Today was the end of the “peak bloom period” according to the bigwigs at the NPS, and it was a Saturday.  I figured, go early, beat as much of the crowd as you can, and take some pictures:

It was a very nice day, really: sunny, clear skies, not too cold…except, that is, for the wind.  The cold, biting, shiver-inducing wind!  Even The Hat was no relief during the big gusts!

Still, I got in a good walk, took some photos (some of which might even be not-that-bad) and got home safely.  Can’t beat that!