Daily Plan, A discussion of case studies.

Being something of a fanatic for definitions, I want to start with a definition as it were, of the term "case study".  I do this because I want to be on the same wavelength with my audience.  They will know what I am talking about when I use the words I use.  Hopefully, I won't stray from this principle.  It's "staying on message".  How can you stay on message if you confuse people with words that aren't well defined?

This can be seen as an amateur case study, if I would do it myself.  Now, what is my history of this?  I can tell a few stories here, if you are interested.  They would be short, of course.  Or, I could refer you to a book, if you wanted more detailed study of the subject in question.  One such case study would be the conspiracy theories of the assassination of President Kennedy.  Now, I've studied that subject before.  I could offer up a short story about my study of this subject, or I could refer you to a more professional approach by someone whose work I respect.  I think for the respect of time, which I am a bit short of, would indicate that I refer you to someone for that study.

With respect to the term "respect", which I have just used, does not mean endorsement of everything this person has written. Rather, it means that after studying upon the subject myself, I am inclined to believe that this individual is on the right track and his work is sincere and probably very exhaustive.  I am thinking of Vincent Bugliosi for this case.  I have disagreed with some of what he writes, and I have a review on Amazon which was extremely critical of one of his books, but I don't doubt his sincerity and professionalism.

But my idea is not to study that particular case, but to use it as an example of what I am referring to when I discuss the term "case study", and what I would regard as an example of a professionally done job.  Since I am interested in space colonization, you can look at some of what I will write here as amateur case studies.  Hopefully, I can point you to the best people who can give you better, more professionally done job than what I can do, in case you are interested.  On a wider note, I can point to sources of information, which is what I have been doing all along.  In this spirit, I hope this blog can be a resource for those who want to understand something, and ultimately, to do something about it.

Incidentally, that is part of what was discussed with respect to the Space Program in my most recent post about the Space Show.  How do you get people interested and keep them interested over time?  That is a problem with the Space Program.   I may do some "case studies" as it were to show what may have gone wrong.  Perhaps those who may be interested can find some way to do something about that.