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October 2011

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Booting Ubuntu from devices invisible to GRUB2

...slightly misleading title; obviously, that doesn't work. I have an OCZ RevoDrive SSD which, although very fast, has some serious problems with my BIOS. The consequence is that GRUB cannot see the device (well, it can, but only after a 15 minute de-power cycle), but Linux can. This causes some…

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Thank you @Martian1977 for pointing out that I mistyped mortality. Now let the hilarity ensue! Hilarity I tell you!

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The @BritishLibrary will close early on 10th of Nov. so the bloody queen can visit. She doesn't even have a thesis to finish! Not amused.

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Pub in Bradford Combust (what a great place name!) offering "15th Century Bar food". If it's ok with them, I'll pass.

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Open Access Week at the University of Sussex

Today is international Open Access Week and, in celebration and to raise awareness, I gave a talk and workshop at the University of Sussex for a cross-discipline audience. I was pleasantly surprised this year at the acceptance of an open culture and intrinsic understanding of the benefits of…

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Almost 6 hours of back to back teaching today. That 20 min break is going to feel good. #hardcore

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Started Ballard's Crash en route this morning. Less abstract than The Atrocity Exhibition & more disturbing in the same logic.

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Had multiple friends recently state they want to learn "to do websites". It's easy. Read multiple books on XHTML,PHP & CSS. Do it for years.

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Just finished my umpteenth re-read through of Gravity's Rainbow. That book still amazes me and reminds me why I want to do my Ph.D.

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Pynchon's Friends in Gravity's Rainbow

On my latest, but numerically beyond-counting, read-through of Gravity's Rainbow, it suddenly struck me that the Fred and Phyllis referenced on page 711: "(who's that tapping and giggling at your door, Fred and Phyllis?)" are none other than Pynchon's long-standing friends Fred and (the late)…

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Decided I'm too averse to risky behaviour. First step into a new, more dangerous world experience: using hummus a day past its sell by date.

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Just heard that one of my book chapters, which was under negotiation with publishers, is now due Spring 2012! #phdchat

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On encountering an academic job application which lets me submit a CV, rather than custom form, I rejoice. Seriously, rejoice. #phdchat

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Just read a review of @nicholasroyle's "Murmurations" which @thoughtcat and @ChrisBellNZ will be pleased to hear includes Hoban's The Raven.

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Expanding my talk on Open Access for Sussex library. Brainstorming reworked peer-review, library structure and decentralization.

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Preparing to teach The Roaring Girl next week, which means New Historicism and Materialist Feminist Dialectic. Hope my MFD t-shirt arrives.

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Disappointed to find that there doesn't seem to be any academic work on the history of the Duck Test.

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Liam Fox "thanks his staff, and his special advisers who have lost their jobs". That'll be Adam Werritty, then.

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Could integrate some more Pynchon this week... we're looking at Petrachan sonnets and there's a good 'un at Gravity's Rainbow pp.532-533.

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Donne it wrong: Holy Sonnet numbering confusion

An interesting problem here... Reading for the first year course I'm teaching this week asked the students to read John Donne's Holy Sonnets 14 & 18. The problem, though, was that these were not obviously labeled in the Norbrook edition of Renaissance Verse which had been set as the course text (I…

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Walters (2011): "free access is not a significant factor in their [academic author's] submission decisions" < worrying

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Preparing talks introducing Open Access publishing to researchers (esp. humanists). If any other institutions interested, give me a shout.

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To my surprise, I'm rather enjoying preparing my John Donne class for this week. Sure @SFD85 will be very proud of me.

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Happy 85th Birthday, Michel Foucault

Although arguably a philosopher of his time, Michel Foucault is probably the thinker whose work has had the greatest impact upon me, academically. I first encountered his works in the third year of my undergraduate studies and his revolutionary thinking blew me away. From studies of madness,…

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Annual "attempt to not die of flu day" today (vaccination). Downside of later start is that I must tackle our Withnail-esque washing up pile

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Love how Lansley says we should eat less and eat better while the gov. lets McDonalds sponsor the Olympics and won't regulate food biz.

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38 degrees petition has 150,000+ signatures. The threshold for re-discussion on the official e-gov website is 100k. Will they reconsider?

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Today was a marvelous exercise in feeling ill, going to the library with optimism, doing little research and coming home ill. Great.

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Well done to the House of Lords for spinelessly allowing the systematic dismantling of the NHS to continue.

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"You failed. According to the Life in the UK Test, you have insufficient knowledge of the English language or of life in the UK to remain."

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The Werritty Feasel

There was once a man named Werritty, Pal of the defense secretary, But he let down the side, Now it can't be denied, That it's all turned Foxy and Ferrety. Featured image by Kat... under a CC-BY-NC-ND license.

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On my way home from Peter Boxall's inaugural professorial lecture. Very fine it was too. Very tired am I now.

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Very pleasantly surprised that Metro have run headline on amount lost through tax loopholes & how much greater it is than benefit fraud

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Speeding Sussexward as fast as a x-London train to Victoria can carry me. Given this, perhaps "speeding" wasn't the right term.

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Guardian HE debate on "employability" sounds like something I would like to attend, but sadly I teach that day and can't get back in time.

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Just ran into a former student in the British Library who rushed up and greeted me. Love that feeling!

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Got this in response to my tweet re. bro's band! RT @subcide: @martin_eve your brothers band? Awesome :) I saw them open for Devin Townsend

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Measure for Measure this week in my seminar. Thinking of spicing it up by injecting Pynchon's allusive Mortality and Mercy in Vienna.

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V. tired now & unpleasant methotrexate injection tonight. Nothing could put me in a better mood! #rheum

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Think the woman with a set of skis at London Liverpool Street station might have taken the cold weather forecast a little too seriously.

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Interestingly, nobody has done a PhD in the UK on Tomas Tranströmer & can find very little Eng. lang scholarship on his work.

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The Nobel Prize for Literature 2011 Hoax

About half an hour before the official announcement of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 2011 (which was awarded to Tomas Tranströmer) reports started circulating on Twitter that the winner was, controversially, the Serbian author, Dobrica Cosic. The source was http://www.nobelprizeliterature.org,…

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Nobel prize for lit. today. Let's see what they throw up. Will be very disappointed if it's Bob Dylan.

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Every time I read it I realise that Jeff Baker's Pynchon piece "Amerikkka Über Alles" is fantastic on nearly every front.

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Uh oh. "would the building manager please go to reception" announcement at the BL usually means "fire alarm test in 10 mins".

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British Library catalogue. Lenin, Vladimir Ilʹich, "On the question of dialectics". Subset: Business Management.

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Mmm, two days of Pynchon research now teaching is done this week. Enjoyable discussions on historicism in classes, though.

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Off to the first lecture of the year on the course I'm teaching. Happy times! #twitterature

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On the Falmer train now and looking forward to an enlivened Sussex campus now term has started!

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Thomas Pynchon has shot up the list to third favourite for Nobel Prize for Lit. Wonder what the bookies know that we don't? #twitterature