The Sunday Review
The Start of April and Easter
Hey there,
Welcome to the Sunday Edition of The Polymerist. I started this weekly roundup because some of you just don’t have the time to exist at inbox zero and cannot keep up with my twice a week publishing schedule. This email has turned into a weekly curation of what is sticking with me from the internet. I hope you like it.
It’s also Easter Sunday and when I was a kid this meant hunting around for Easter Eggs that contained candy and sculptures of Easter Bunnies primarily in the form of chocolate. Right now, it means I put a picture of a rabbit in this email to be on theme for the day.
Things I Wrote Last Week
Career Stories: Navigating From Research To Teaching with Angela
Angela was on of the best chemists I knew during graduate school and in catching up with her after a few years post graduation I realized that despite her skill she did not necessarily find fulfillment in her job as a chemist. I was simultaneously surprised and not surprised at home systematic Angela was in trying to figure out her career and I think this conversation really struck a chord with some readers with respect to her struggle and her current career choice. If you are a chemistry undergraduate, graduate, or professional chemist I think you should take some time and check this out.
Suez Canal Blocked Then Unblocked While Canada Legalizes Carbon Tax
The Suez Canal blockage dominated my newsfeed for about a week so I felt inclined to write about it in the April Oil and Gas Issue. This issue also digs into how oil extraction is making a comeback in the United States and how Canada has been successful in implementing a carbon tax that was upheld by their supreme court. I’ll be watching to see how this carbon tax plays out, but I think this is a step in a direction that reduces externalized costs of our modern lives.
Things I Read Last Week That Stood Out
The Wild West of plastic credits and offsets
I didn’t even know you could buy plastic credits and offsets, but it seems really risky right now. Maybe there is an interesting application of smart contracts and Ethereum here somewhere?
Part Time Creator Manifesto
by Shawn Wang aka @swyx
This is primarily how I think about myself with this newsletter. I am a part time creator. I currently make no money from this endeavor that takes up a significant amount of my time, but it is something that currently brings me joy and enables me to focus on something productive in my downtime. Worth reading if you are thinking about starting your own endeavor.
Notable Tweet(s):
While I believe plastic waste is a problem I believe that humans are often thoughtless about their own actions and is an even bigger problem. It is easy to blame industries or companies for our modern problems as opposed to thinking that we might be part of the problem too. Clean up after yourself.
What I Watched Last Week:
I’ve been keeping my eye on the concept of permaculture over the last two years and it sounds amazing. I need to do some digging (pun not intended) on productivity of a permaculture operation versus industrial crop production. This video is about an hour long, but listening to this guy talk about his farm is fascinating. Sometimes I catch myself day dreaming about how nice it would be to have a permaculture farm, but then I think back to the manual labor I would do as a kid and snap out of it.
Talk to you Tuesday,