Jumping between manuscript chapters

I am still fighting toward a complete draft of my dissertation, to go to the external examiners by the end of the month.

The three central chapters — political opportunity, mobilizing structures, and repertoires — have gone to my 3rd committee member, but the other two don’t want to share his comments until we have finished going back and forth on the introduction and conclusion.

I sent a revised conclusion on Monday and am working on the latest comments on the introduction before I switch back. Today I went to the libraries on campus to have another look at Jennifer Hadden’s Networks in Contention, which we are using to situate the project in the scholarly literature.

The next version of the introduction is due at the end of the day tomorrow.

Nikon leaving the dSLR business

In a surprising if not shocking move, Nikon has announced that they will stop making new digital single lens reflex (dSLR) cameras. It’s shocking to me because ever since digital cameras have existed, Nikon dSLRs have been considered among the best by professional photographers. They’re even used on the International Space Station, where shipping anything up from Earth is so costly that there’s no reason to send anything but the best, not to mention how great photos have always been a key means of outreach for the space program.