Real quick

Let me say first that I have been trying to write an updated tutorial post to reflect how I actually do color pattern analysis. Useful stuff: sliding landmarks for doing alignment on curved parts of an organism, batch-processing modifications, file organization, that kind of thing. I have a personal rule that if I get >3 emails about the same or closely related problems, I should write a tutorial about it, because I’m likely to get that question again anyways. And then the roadblock, obviously, is that it feels pointless right now. It feels like–I don’t know, doing my laundry in the middle of a hurricane.

Every conversation with another American scientist at the moment follows the same beats: we try to reassure each other that it will be fine, then we agree with a kind of bitter relief that it really might not be, then we say things like, “Well, people have changed careers before!” and none of us mean it. What an absolutely stupid reason to have to quit.

How long do you camp out on the edge of your aspirations before you call it? How many disasters are you supposed to work through? When do you unplug the washing machine and head for the basement?

I don’t know, and it’s not a problem I can solve today. Still, refusing to acknowledge the dissonance was making me more stuck than I had to be. If I’m doing the laundry, I need to do the laundry, right? And maybe a quick scream into my duvet, before I chuck it in the machine?

Anyways, hopefully I can get to the sliding landmarks thing next week.