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July 2011

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How does one critique the field without causing massive offence to others, in a small field? No ad hominem, but still. #phdchat

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As things stand, pleased to say that I'll be teaching at the University of Sussex for the next academic year.

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Damn, just busted my knee running around carrying a friend's child so he could fly like superman!

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Oh dear. The now elderly Wilberforce the Hamster seems to be reaching the end of his little hampy life.

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Left the conference today feeling I know nothing. Can be very depressing outside one's own niche. #phdchat

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Eduroam is a glorious thing. It works everywhere I go, except to my home institution who can't fix their DHCP server.

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Off to Birkbeck for the Tom McCarthy conference. Fortunately, I'm not speaking, so can just enjoy!

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Using Elliptical Curve Cryptography in OpenSSH

Having read two great posts on OpenSSH best practices, I decided today that I wanted to upgrade my SSH key architecture to use Elliptical Curve Cryptography. There were several gotchas involved that I thought it would be worth sharing here. There are, at the time of writing, no packages for Fedora…

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Just been embroiled in several hours of dependency hell upgrading SSH to use Elliptical Curve Crypto across boxes.

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I have nothing to do with this "dissertation writing service"

Perhaps a strange title for a post, but I was recently kindly alerted by Luis-Manuel Garcia at the University of Chicago that a certain dissertation writing "service" has been aggregating and re-posting material from blogs that feature the word "dissertation". As my professional reputation in…

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Will be re-reading Infinite Jest on my holiday. This counts as work, but is enjoyable enough to also be holiday.

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Coffee with the lovely @SarahR_H, meet-up w/ supervisor and co-editor of Orbit, taught productivity workshop, teaching interview. Good day!

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Really liking the Google+ concept; great idea for separate circles. Not sure how it will centralize (ie. TweetDeck). I need one admin hub.

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Teaching a workshop tomorrow on productivity; it features lots of reflection on current practice. Could be fun!

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Our biggest endorsement is from renowned critic, Harold Bloom, who said of Pynchon: "Certainly he is still the most important writer alive".

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Orbit: Writing Around Pynchon

It now seems the right time to unveil a project which we hope will enthuse and excite a great number of you. We have been working, over the past few months, to put together a new, very different, journal of Pynchon scholarship. The journal aims to publish high quality, rigorously reviewed and…

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Change of license: all content now CC-BY

As from July 11th, 2011, all content on this site, except where noted, is now available under the more permissive Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, as specified in the footer. Featured image by Creative Commons under a CC-BY license.

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Right, today's work has run from 06.30am-10.15pm without let up and I'm calling it a night. Night!

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Britain or America for the PhD in English?

Britain or America for the PhD in English? I recently reached the halfway point in my 6-year PhD program at the University of Michigan, allowing me to ponder the consequences of my having chosen to do the doctorate in America rather than Britain. If I’d started my PhD in 2008 in Britain, I’d be…

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. @DrEvanHarris at what level does conscience apply, then? Told to write lies to make life of disabled on benefits miserable. Do you?

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Really great day of thesis work today, topped off with a visit to the climbing wall, which I am now well enough to do again!

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On the Guardian comments (via fb friend): don't shed too many tears for #notw journos. They're better off on the dole. It said so in notw.

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The problem with a 30 minute coffee break with @HalliganEm is that in such good company, it easily spirals into an hour

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Digital Humanists out there: any recommended resources on best metadata practices for an archival catalogue?

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A Thomas Pynchon tattoo recruit

Met up with my usually Stateside fellow Pynchonite Jesse Sherwood last week when he visited London. While sampling the delights of the city was important, he also took time out to get himself branded with a Lot 49 muted posthorn. While tattoos aren't, personally, my thing, I think it's great! Just…

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Vermeulen & van den Akker's use of Kant's "as-if" context is dubious. Example they cite is just Kant using a simile.

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Read the last few pages of chapter 20 of Marx's capital vol 1 and then think of internships. You'll see what I mean.

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After a day's solid reading, I need to write -- feel like my words are exploding onto the page. #phdchat

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Great lunch meetup with @drtomcrick from a chance tweet. Excellent when real-world connections formed (& he's a top bloke). #phdchat

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Dropbox: you've missed the real problem

So, here's a short post on the Dropbox problem. I'm sure others have picked up on this aspect, but it merits further coverage. Yesterday, I tweeted at Dropbox stating my belief that the terms and conditions they are trying to enforce are, in fact, untenable. Their response was to send me back a…

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. @dropbox_support you've missed the point. Users can't confer license for files to which they don't hold copyright or sublicense rights.

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Final chapter of thesis is now officially "in writing"; 2000/25000 words down. #phdchat

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Return from conference season to @BritishLibrary & encounter Finn Pollard, whom I met in Glasgow at a conference.

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Just got a very nifty OpenVPN setup running now that should eliminate my need for ssh dynamic tunneling when out and about.

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. @SFD85 I should think not. Also, infringement is tort, not criminal, so would rely on being sued by rightsholder.

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. @savasavasava a bit dubious. @dropbox can't say "oh, the legal stuff says x, but we won't really use it, k lol?"

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Assange: our lawyers have never cast doubt on character of women involved. < is that strictly true? Genuine q. #FCWiki

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Assange: need for alternative ways for people to realise they are in the majority #FCWiki

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Zizek now on Kant. For those who don't know: piece he is referring to is "What is Enlightenment?" #FCWiki

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Assange laying into the mainstream media. He's right on the problems, but he also needed them throughout. #FCWiki

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Assange: we are locked in a type of blackmail over banking docs we hold #FCWiki

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Assange: censorship is positive - shows society isn't utterly complicit/hegemonic #FCWiki

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Now Assange has adopted Zizek's "and so on". Drinking game gets harder. #FCWiki

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Assange: Fox News gave people more of the truth than CNN by showing whole video. Commentary skewed, but strange. #FCWiki

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. @WilliamCB ha ha - someone should do an introduction for Zizek like that. "so predictably dangerous, he's safe"

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WikiLeaks "much more radical" - goes beyond "bourgeois press". "Changing rules of how you violate the rules" - Zizek #FCWiki

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Zizek making notes as Assange calls war "most significant event in past 20 years of its history" #FCwiki

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. @qui_oui I had ethical reservations about coming, but attending not to necessarily condone, but to listen. Hope debate stays on politics.

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Quick q for my Android followers. Has HTC made good on its bootloader promise yet? Eg for Sensation...

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Oh dear! Marx on schools assesses the handwriting of the school mistress and declares her unfit to teach. Good job he can't see mine!