On page 6 of Learning in the Field, by Rossman & Rallis, they discuss the difference between basic research and applied research, then they end the paragraph with mentions of "scientists" and "social scientists", but their research contributions go two different ways. How are "social scientists" not "scientists"? Moreover, if they had reversed the definitions of to read as follows, and if I had just been glossing over the section, it sounds reasonable written either way.

Original: "Scientists" may conduct research that leads to direct practical application; "social scientists" may conduct research that contributes to theory.

Flipped: "Scientists" may conduct research that contributes to theory; "social scientists" may conduct research that leads to direct practical application.

In the original definition, the original authors of the Big Bang Theory would be classified as social scientists? To compound the confusion, the earlier parts of the chapter all appear to say research should promote learning and improve a social circumstance, where then I would argue that direct practical application is best to improve those disordered circumstances. Is the whole thing a misplaced tangent in the flow of the chapter or am I just going to extremes?

James fell backwards while pretending to revise the final quantitative stats paper.

James is weird enough to dye his hair tips alternating colors.

I started a Drupal sandbox to work on a feature request to add folders to sort bookmarks in the bookmarks module. It would appear the COO of Advanced Automation is inching up to start holding me more accountable to deadlines at work. Working on the bookmark module is one of my responses to an email from him today. I'm not thrilled about it, but I can't say I didn't see it coming. I was really hoping the accountability theme for more productivity would hold an exception for me until the end of this semester since I'm taking 5 classes. I keep telling myself a B is still passing, so I'll just have to keep that in mind.

I donated blood today. Mariann threw up afterwards in a biohazard bag. I'm guessing she didn't have enough breakfast before we left. When I don't feel so great, I think they assume I'm getting a heat flash because that's what happened to her, so they rush over with cold cloths and a fan. Both just make me shiver.

There's a blood shortage here, so they're giving away stuff to go to Darden restaurants. We walked out with $50 for a meal and immediately spent $43 of it at our first trip to Smokey Bones. I tried their habanero sauce for my strip steak and liked it. It's the 3rd time I've had something with habanero, and I've liked it each time.

Tonight I'm starting on a paper about distance education software. I have a few software packages picked out to review, but the paper only has to be three pages long. The hard part will be filtering information down to a point where I can fit a couple software packages into that space. I know Drupal isn't primarily marketed for distance education, but I'm going to try to make it fit as one of the reviewed packages.