October 2010

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On @HCDRJacob's CM6 ROM and custom kernel I have run my Wildfire all day with wifi and still have 80% battery. Amazing.

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Bob Neill [...] condemned the strike as "old fashioned militant muscle-flexing"; presume new fashioned way is to lie down w/out a fight?

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Dear right wing spam monkeys, just because I tweeted the word socialism doesn't mean I want to read your inhumane laissez faire crap.

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William Morris' death attributed to "enthusiasm for spreading the principles of socialism" by his family doctor.

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Using British Library wifi when DHCP fails

Sometimes, the free wireless service at the British Library goes pear shaped and, if you are accustomed to using it, this can make research quite hard. Occasionally, however the fault is not with the central mechanism but rather with DHCP -- the mechanism that gives your computer an address on…

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Love how Android news sites crow when HTC release their kernel sources. They should do this parallel w/ distribution to avoid GPL violation.

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Email overload keeps killing my Sunday evenings. Although there are tech "solutions" most seem to amount to ignoring ppl, which I won't do.

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Notes and Presentation from my Open Access talk

In the spirit of the event, I am hereby releasing my presentation materials for the talk I gave at the University of Sussex's Open Access Week on the 20th of October 2010 under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA license (you can share and alter the work, non-commercially as long as you give me…

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Doesn't ruling out unlimited fees also reduce access? (Funding withdrawn, option to recover privately likewise -> institutional closures)

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Surrounded by lawyers complaining of overwork while discussing their house extensions. There's a Shakespeare line.

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Well, I resisted the newspapers until now. I'd just like to ask how the hell they think private sector will suddenly boom and make jobs.

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Shame we aren't doing 1984 today. I could've quipped about a cold bright day in November with the clocks striking 14.

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Week 3 of Utopias and Dystopias today: Feminist variants thereof. Perkins-Gilman and Sarah Scott.

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A certain email that I have just received from a certain institutions' upper echelons re. cuts could have been written by Cameron.

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I can already tell you which disciplines will be hit hardest and don't know why RCs are being so coy.

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Speaking at Sussex Open Access Week tomorrow! 12 o'clock. Library Meeting Room (which I have yet to find)...

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Right, written 500 words, heading to the gym while there'll be less of a crowd. #DayAtHomeNotSoBadISuppose

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Dear The Guardian, I expected better from you than to use "electrocuted" when you meant "electrified" or "received an electric shock".

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Consoling my no-library-blues by writing a passage on Pynchonian Enlightenment ambivalence while listening to The Orb feat. Dave Gilmour.

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I had one research day this week. Just spent an hour trapped in tube tunnel and no route to library. On way back home now. Cries.

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Dear British Library. WHY OH WHY did you have to have a FIRE ALARM on my dedicated hardcore research day?!

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Writing paper on Pynchon, DeLillo, terrorism and capitalism while surrounded by bankers on train. Excellent!

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I had no idea there was a place called Worcester Shrub Hill. Tempted to get the train there on name alone.

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Teaching very enjoyable today. Expansions and contractions, selves folding into Others. Good stuff.

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I am now officially listed as a "scips trainer" on the Sussex website. Transferable skills win!

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Admin emails [CHECK]. Next: continuing with second chapter after yesterday's galvanizing supervision.

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Teaching prep. [CHECK] Next up: ten mins of joyous email admin to ascertain why IT Services have sent me a contract!

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Ubuntu channels on freenode have once again reverted to the hilarity of "is it out?" "is it out?"

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"I am the best fellow in the world, and already that makes three men I've killed, and two of them priests!" - Voltaire

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Where to start with Thomas Pynchon?

In the course of the last day I have been observing, and engaging with, an ongoing Twitter discussion (see: Dystopia2009 and MarkKohut) as to which Thomas Pynchon novel should be recommended to Pynchon newbies. This might sound like a question of little import: just read the damn stuff. Indeed,…

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Listening to Aphex Twin and planning the seminar on Swift and Voltaire, having now acquired the books.

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2 days until Maverick release and IRC channel reverts to one sole repeated line: "is it out yet?"

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I couldn't ask for a more articulate, intelligent and sharp group of undergraduates - a pleasure to teach.

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Awaiting train to Falmer for my first teaching at University of Sussex - third year course Utopias and Dystopias - looking forward to it!

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Nobel prize nominations and deliberations stay closed for 50 years, so we will have to wait to see if Pynchon was debated

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Nice Ernest Hemingway clue on today's Times cryptic. Can't they move this crossword to the Guardian?

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First lecture for the Utopias and Dystopias class I am teaching today. Prof. Tom Healy spoke on More and serio ludere.

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Have decided that my day will be more productive if it starts with a croissant from the British Library cafe.

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"You mean you don't have any monks to [...] govern and intrigue and burn people to death who don't agree with them?" Voltaire

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Fun Voltaire fact of the day: Creationist pamphlet I was handed describes Voltaire as "the noted French infidel".

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Heading out to Watery Stones to purchase replacement Voltaire as I shortly have to teach the damn thing. #What?ARealBookshop?

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Just spent a long time looking for the copy of Candide I bought 2 weeks ago. It was in the bag nicked 1 week ago. Voltaire vanished.