Happy New Year to all my friends on Twitter! Wishing you all the best for 2015.

When 17th Really Means 51st, and ‘Leading’ Means ‘A Long Way Behind’: How UK Universities Spun REF 2014 http://meve.io/1x3o4Ut

Over 78% of All PHP Installs Are Insecure http://zpr.io/qvrn

Foucault’s Responsibility (2014) http://zpr.io/qvrP

Graun piece says FB shouldn't apologise for year in review. Argues that if you upload pics of someone who dies you deserve to be reminded.

United and Orbitz Sue 22-Year-Old Programmer For Compiling Public Info http://zpr.io/q4VZ

Unbelievably lazy programming on Radio 4 at the moment. "Phone in to tell us how you shopped at Christmas". Really?

Getting into print the hard way http://zpr.io/q4ki

Beyond the Welfare State (2014) http://zpr.io/q48R

Glowing Hobbit Sword Helps You Find Unsecured Wi-Fi http://zpr.io/q48H

Quake On an Oscilloscope http://zpr.io/q49L

That was my evening's worth of 140 character armchair ranty Twitter philosophy. And very enjoyable it was too.

Not against thinking, writing, theorising. But theory is very good at rationalising the always-deferral of praxis.

I've concluded that we can't make ethical claims for our work based just on theory. The world is going to hell & won't fix itself.

Much humanities discourse generates strong leftist (in non-technical sense) theory. What assessable (for centre-right) praxis might result?

Theory, in all forms, is important. Academics are encouraged to write it, in various forms. Is "impact", though, an assessment of praxis?

2015 Could Be the Year of the Hospital Hack http://zpr.io/qcu2

Foucault, literature, and feminist theories of technology (2015) http://zpr.io/qcty

Charity commission annual reports make for most cheerful reading.

"since the Association is
dependent on the income from its publications ... Open Access to academic publications poses a
serious threat"

More seriously, I thought Paddington was a lovely film. Capaldi great as the man who votes fascism without thinking it through.

Paddington DVD extra: director's cut alternative ending where the bear is stuffed.

Perverse thought: REF is upside down. If we want to bring the quality of all universities up, we need to invest in weaker institutions.

20th Century Continental Philosophy Ph.D. Programs http://zpr.io/qJc5

Le désir, la vérité et la connaissance : la volonté de savoir et la volonté de vérité chez Foucault (2014) - http://foucaultnews.com/2014/12/26/desir-la-verite/

Pfizer's patent on pregabalin expires but they want to stop doctors prescribing generic for pain under other patent. http://boingboing.net/2014/12/24/pfizer-threatens-pharmacists.html

Just astonishing cognitive dissonance.

Cameron praises "giving, sharing and taking care of others". I thought we were all for letting migrants drown when I last looked.

Thunderbolt Rootkit Vector http://zpr.io/qL4v

Who’s the Boss? “The Elf on the Shelf” and the normalization of surveillance (2014) http://zpr.io/qL44

Argentine Court Rules Orangutan Is a "Non-Human Person" http://zpr.io/qLnE

Amazon "Suppresses" Book With Too Many Hyphens http://zpr.io/qLnx

Theresa May’s war against higher education continues http://zpr.io/q2NT

Michel Foucault: The Late Lectures (2014) http://zpr.io/q2NY

Memo to all staff: Graduation Deportation Protocol http://zpr.io/q2YT

Billie Whitelaw dies aged 82 http://gu.com/p/44cft

Time away in Peak District would have been better if I hadn't been unwell and laid up for our entire trip.

Then the STEM teaching grant goes, followed by QR, replaced by "industry partnerships".

STEM allowed to stay safe in short run. That is, until industry decide that it's too "monopolistic" for them to get state funding.

The teaching grant is long gone, so of course it makes "sense" to next withdraw QR funding from Hums.

Anyone in the UK humanities or beyond who values the breadth of our university culture should read this on QR funding http://andrewmcgettigan.org/2014/12/21/qr-funding-research-council-reviews/

QR funding & research council reviews http://zpr.io/qrkP

‘A joyful experience’ http://zpr.io/qr22

Was slow on the uptake here, but then I haven't watched the films at all since first time. "Wraiths and race" http://gu.com/p/xd2nb

Rewatched Lord of the Rings. Aside from being overly long & keen on monarchy, noticed all the heroes are white. Most of the villains aren't.

Understanding the shape of the Anglo-Irish web: a pilot project http://zpr.io/qSmg

Swiss National Science Foundation announces OAPEN-CH pilot project http://zpr.io/qSYA

Tied to the mast? A response to RMS’s principles for loyal computers http://meve.io/1uZmw8c

Michel Foucault’s ‘apology’ for neoliberalism (2014) http://zpr.io/qCuh

If computer refuses to run disloyal software, it violates own principle of loyalty. If user must choose, then computer can be disloyal.

Some of this seems to be about hardware & some, like remote attestability, software. In this case, who decides whether software is disloyal?

Interesting new essay from Stallman there. Some contradictions though? What if the user orders the computer to run a "disloyal" program?

How was the REF for you? http://zpr.io/qCgs

Google Proposes To Warn People About Non-SSL Web Sites http://zpr.io/qFrJ

Foucault and Neoliberalism – a few thoughts in response to the Zamora piece in Jacobin http://zpr.io/qFri

Stuart Elden on Foucault and Neoliberalism http://zpr.io/qFr5

Thought for the season: it's ok to hate league tables and REF, until the results come out and you've done well.

Any gems in the sneakily-released-to-coincide-with-REF science and innovation strategy document?

Tom McCarthy on Realism http://zpr.io/q34E

Foucault and neoliberalism (2014) http://zpr.io/q3ER

What Is the Point of Academic Books? by @hoodedu http://www.psmag.com/navigation/books-and-culture/point-academic-books-publishing-writing-literature-96610/

'"We genuinely thought they would create a magical journey," she said.' To be fair, that's a pretty high expectation. http://meve.io/1GqRrTf

Thanks so much to @mweller for organizing our webinar just now. Was good fun! And thanks to all who came and listened.

Last chance to join as we get ready to begin. Book launch webinar, Battle for Open (@mweller) and my OA & the Hums: http://meve.io/1DGAlTs

Join @mweller and me in 30 minutes for a joint book launch of our works on openness in higher ed! http://meve.io/1wvLTUm

My 2014 round-up http://meve.io/13tL2IX

Teenager cleared of rape and murder, 18 years after he was executed. http://meve.io/138Lifq

Universities and the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill http://zpr.io/qwFA

Why not donate to Crisis's Christmas appeal for homeless people? It's very cold out there. http://meve.io/1ABIkLA

Things I did not know before: one of the originally suggested names for the Open University was "The University of the Air".

Reminder: join me and @mweller at 3pm (UK time) today for a webinar for a critical discussion of "open" in education http://meve.io/1BPzVbn

And in a coordinated effort, William Hague also says UK universities should deliver overseas influence & "soft power" http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30417131

"Unshackle".

"Britain's burden", "helping the UK to project soft power", "must get over [...] post-colonial guilt", "importing/exporting students".

Also, disclosure claims that VC of a UK university "does not work for any company or organisation that would benefit from this article".

"Why Africa should be the next focus for UK global higher education drive" https://theconversation.com/why-africa-should-be-the-next-focus-for-uk-global-higher-education-drive-35228 < very dodgy, verging on neocolonial.

Report: Mysterious Russian Malware Is Infecting 100,000+ Wordpress Sites http://zpr.io/qwx2

The GPLv2 Goes To Court http://zpr.io/qDZA

Urgent call for regulation of forprofit higher education companies http://zpr.io/qDZh

HEFCE announce details of postgraduate support scheme http://zpr.io/qDZm

And that's my evening rapid-fire tweet spree done.

Hodge tears into government over private colleges - http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/hodge-tears-into-government-over-private-colleges/2017577.article#.VI8hGA5yHc0.twitter

"Financial Conduct Authority says conduct of Blackrock MD fell short of standards expected in the City". £43k fraud nowhere near enough.

More @openlibhums submissions today. "It's alive!! "

Rival ads for extra runways at Heathrow & Gatwick. Not even selling something in present. Advertising for political influence on future.

Article from 1975: Open Access and the Humanities. http://meve.io/12VGOZC h/t @chriskeene

Online p̶a̶r̶t̶y̶ webinar to talk open access with @mweller and me: Wednesday 16th December 3pm http://meve.io/1BPzVbn

Daily Mail calls Mantel's book "sick" and "perverted". Except in its own book store, where it's "brilliant". http://meve.io/1znJPxn

Tomorrow, 3pm UK time, I'm doing a webinar on "open" with @mweller to launch our books. Please do RT and join us! http://meve.io/1wvLTUm

"Private universities benefit older and poorer students" http://gu.com/p/44v8g < rubbish. Proper state funding would do this far better.

Enjoy your REF, while you can http://zpr.io/q8yW

Foucault and Politics. A Critical Introduction (2014) http://zpr.io/q8yB

Some thoughts on conservatism and experimentation in publishing: http://meve.io/1AvXdyQ

Dislike would alienate users who provide valuable data while FB can still get its negative signalling privately.

The reason there's no "dislike" on Facebook: "liking" is not a signal to other users, it's to FB. They already have a "hide this" option.

Ouch. All London airspace closed due to computer failure. http://meve.io/1zYUWwa

As it's a cold, dark, December Friday, I recommend you listen to this excellent mix by Paresse and id!r http://meve.io/1vYBqkm #offtopic

"Lord West says UK agents may have been present during waterboarding – but there is no need for new inquiry". Oh, that's OK then.

Performance information and data-driven academic anxiety http://zpr.io/qbGD

Documents http://zpr.io/qbG8

Communities http://zpr.io/qbG9

Looking forward to reading latest issue of JLSC. Edited by @mbschloss and articles by many good people http://meve.io/16aTtd9 @CharlotteRock

A really interesting initiative from a BioMed Central journal: lay/patient reviewers involved: http://meve.io/16aPugN

Good lord. I'm not kidding. That video in last RT is called "Dashboarding for Peak University Performance"

Positive top-line results from Phase 3 trial of baricitinib in moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis http://zpr.io/quEw

Rhetorics and Pragmatics of Sustainability in the Digital Humanities http://zpr.io/qusA

After all, if they want to make it an age split (it isn't - know many older people who pursued PhDs), then people starting now have fees.

Dodgy proxy measure of PhD for competence aside, wonder if that tribunal will consider whether it actually discriminates against the young.

Announcing the First Book Institute, June 7-13, 2015 http://zpr.io/quqF

University may have discriminated by insisting on PhD for new lecturers http://www.education-law-blog.com/2014/12/university-may-have-indirectly-discriminated-by-insisting-on-phd-for-new-lecturers.html < Hmm. Extends to any qualification?

SCOTUS Rules Workers Don’t Need To Be Paid for All Their Time Working http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17435/supreme_court_amazon

Bellard Creates New Image Format To Replace JPEG http://zpr.io/qufT

Book Review: Feminism and Men by Nikki Van Der Gaag http://zpr.io/qKcU

Call For Papers - "Occupation" http://www.excursions-journal.org.uk/index.php/excursions/pages/view/cfp

Article Processing Charges localise the cost of publishing as against pooling risk and costs. There are other ways. http://meve.io/1wfFxHo

Also ordered @audreywatters book on the Monsters of EdTech today. Looking forward to that!

On Foucault's late sympathy for neoliberalism http://meve.io/1scxBZd

A third of NHS contracts awarded to private firms - report http://meve.io/1AeOYao

Bad science reporting blamed on exaggerations in university press releases http://meve.io/1D9crzI

Reconciles panic over APCs with not only a solution but also an analogy and a counter-rationale to classical economics/competition.

Thinking in terms of risk pools now seems to me very important. Wish I had more of that in the book but it's only become my focus recently.

Gold Open Access and Article Processing Charges: Point of Risk and the Risk Pool http://meve.io/1wfFxHo

Just-Announced http://X.Org Security Flaws Affect Code Dating Back To 1987 http://zpr.io/qyJB

"Is the digital medium pushing journalism/the media towards superficiality?", asks Radio 4. Have they looked at the print media recently?

I wrote something for @ConversationUK about Macmillan's free access and the furore around it: http://meve.io/1GalK0k

Another interesting diff between monograph sale & journal subs: you know what books you're buying unless big deal but not which articles.

Stealthy Linux Trojan May Have Infected Victims For Years http://zpr.io/qyKb

I have just ordered a print copy of @mweller's The Battle for Open. Looking forward to reading. http://meve.io/1qplzdz

Supposedly Fun Things http://zpr.io/qymU

POODLE Flaw Returns, This Time Hitting TLS Protocol http://zpr.io/qyMQ

The only thing scarier than remotely reconfiguring network interfaces is remotely reinstalling GRUB. sudo reboot. #phew

Every classic Doctor Who episode at the same time. Because, art. http://meve.io/132ec1H

Does anyone have any data on how much income small-medium sized learned societies receive from publishers?

3. One of the roles of LIS and the library should be to teach researchers how to distinguish based on more than these proxy measures.

2. It's only possible because we prefer modes of blind review that are cloaked behind journal brand/publisher name.

More on "predatory journals": 1. who is actually surprised that anyone can put up a website or print pages and call it a "journal"?

The Failed Economics of Our Software Commons http://zpr.io/qyqb

Conference Report: Rupture, Crisis, Transformation http://zpr.io/qyqu

Among the things I don't love: ezproxy urls in article/book bibliographies. Couldn't publishers strip these out as a value-adding activity?

Foucault, put to the question (2014) http://zpr.io/qhBL

Another good example of why publish doesn't mean "make public". Things that are in "print" and public can be re-published. @michaelbhaskar

Save the date! Saturday 7th February: Supposedly Fun Things, a colloquium on David Foster Wallace.

News. Racism. The brutality of the British state forcing the poor to food banks. The risk of accidental nuclear strikes. Police violence.

Life in the accelerated academy: how it’s possible for Žižek to publish 55 books in 14 years - http://markcarrigan.net/2014/12/07/life-in-the-accelerated-academy-how-its-possible-for-zizek-to-publish-55-books-in-14-years-and-what-it-says-about-higher-education/

Beyond the University? Protest and anxiety http://zpr.io/qmVW

Every time I write a webapp I'm impressed with Django, up to a point. All the basics are really easy but complexity soon mounts.

Losing the will to live among the muzak Christmas renditions.

Lire « Les mots et les choses » de Michel Foucault (2014) http://zpr.io/qmi6

Michael Rosen: Notes for a cultural politics and a political culture - 25 subversive ideas - http://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/notes-for-cultural-politics-and.html?m=1

BBC - The facts behind The Sun's editorials http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/the-sun-slides

LRT: thank you to @JoVanEvery to reminding me of today's National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada.

This culture of violence continues and feminism remains as necessary as ever.

25 years ago today, a man walked into a university and shot 14 women dead because he said they were feminists. http://meve.io/1yW8uca

Symposium - Exploring the Digital Medium: Cross Disciplinary Collaboration in the Digital Humanities http://zpr.io/qmYK

Foucault’s Last Decade – Update 14 http://zpr.io/qmYy

Chief constable warns against ‘drift towards police state’ http://gu.com/p/44vmb

Measuring student progression http://zpr.io/qMW2

Reading and enjoying @JoannaFreer's Pynchon and the American Counterculture on my train journey.

Hints that Wellcome Trust is to extend its policy on open data and software at #BeyondOA

Online Einstein Project Reveals Scientist’s Magnitude and Minutiae http://zpr.io/qMDA

Those who wanted a Kindle edition of my book on open access: now available http://meve.io/1tWYeLG

‘Confession, Flesh, Power and Truth’ – my review of the most recently translated Foucault lecture courses http://zpr.io/qMtP

CFParticipation: Apply to be a new DPLA Hub http://zpr.io/qMtU

George Osborne rattled by tax experts’ accusations of colossal scale of cuts http://gu.com/p/43qpp

Angry young academics: striving for more than consumerism. Something I co-wrote in 2011. Now for Warwick. http://gu.com/p/2qq83

Also, I spoke too soon. Print copies of Open Access and the Humanities arrived today. Very fine they are too!

I'm speaking at this event tomorrow. It is regrettably expensive but if you're going I'll hope to see you there http://www.stm-assoc.org/events/beyond-open-access/

Conference Report: Transitions 5 http://zpr.io/qEQn

Resource: Dereference a DOI using python http://zpr.io/qEQP

Announcement Annotags: A Concept for a Decentralized Literary Annotation Protocol http://zpr.io/qEWf

Last in-person talk of the year tomorrow. Done my last foreign travel. Phew!

What would be the implications of a ‘gold’ Open Access REF policy? http://zpr.io/qEe7

OLH is now open for submissions. And they're coming in! http://meve.io/12puIre

Things I didn't know: Belgian PhD students get a very competitive salary to make it financially appealing. Want to retain best students.

But now I'm extremely sad reading my feed. Police literally getting away with murder, again. Peaceful protesters being attacked.

I had a wonderful time in Leuven speaking about OA and @openlibhums today. Thank you @viroviacum!

Right, off to give my talk at KU Leuven: if you're here, please do come along! http://meve.io/1rT1t79

Wellcome Trust becomes first institution to join @openlibhums Library Partnership model. Open for libraries v soon! https://www.openlibhums.org/2014/12/02/wellcome-trust-signs-up-to-olh-library-partnership-subsidy/

I'm writing a book review that has made me question afresh how much time I have for Laruelle.

Resource: Scrypt http://zpr.io/qxgD

CFP: New Directions in the Humanities Conference http://zpr.io/qxg8

CFP: New Tech + Renaissance Studies @ RSA2016 http://zpr.io/qXQd

Grimm's Tale http://zpr.io/qX4b

If you happen to be near KU Leuven University in Belgium tomorrow, I'm giving a public lecture: http://meve.io/1rT1t79

"Ultimately, this is a complex and rich book" - Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences on OA and the Hums http://www.ideas-idees.ca/blog/open-access-and-humanities-martin-paul-eve

for a political economy of massive open online courses http://zpr.io/qXuD

Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon and MATE Editions Released http://zpr.io/qNgR

An immigration lawyer reviews Paddington - http://www.freemovement.org.uk/an-immigration-lawyer-reviews-paddington/ via @CHARNOCKRUTH

Our guide to the perfect books for Christmas 2014: picks for urbanists, sociologists, economists and feminists http://zpr.io/qaQn

Call for Papers: Marx, Engels and the Critique of Academic Labor http://zpr.io/qaku

Marx & Foucault. Lectures, usages, confrontations (2014) http://zpr.io/qakK

The tension between dissemination and measurement http://meve.io/1vZezGR