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March 2017

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Err. Third party. Software vs code. Runtimes, language evolution, OS, firmware, hardware emulation.

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It's a bit mean to say this, but I can t resist. Somebody yesterday suggested that github was the solution to software preservation.

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Congratulations to my doctoral student, @lawsonstu, who has passed his upgrade from MPhil to PhD!

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Off to give a guest lecture at City this morning. My "six talks in seven days" sprint is underway!

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Open conference bingo: "standing on the shoulders of giants". (It's more a series of leg-ups from average-sized people.)

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A small insight into the difficulties of rheumatoid arthritis: today my hands hurt a lot. V nervous re handshakes at conference.

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Off to Reading today to speak at the Open in Practice conference. Interested in range of approaches on show from others.

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Alas, I didn't win - I'm blaming you, Twitter! - but Karma was a TOTALLY deserving winner & I'd have voted for her.

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Heading off to the Guardian HE Awards! Prepared a short speech in case I win. (With thanks to @SimonXIX.)

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It's the week of the Guardian HE awards, or as I like to think of it: "the week of finding out whether my Twitter circles did enough voting"

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Actually, it's not quite copyright. It's criminal DRM enforcement that makes my research painful.

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I know about and enjoy contemporary fiction. But I can't do my job working on it with my computational knowledge without utter pain.

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I know that most of computational projects consist of data wrangling/cleanup. But seriously: copyright frustrates my research daily.

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I've read and re-read and re-typed this text in ways that I wouldn't have dreamed of for other close reading projects.

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What I've found and got is great, but it's so opposed to the ingrained assumption that computational methods save reading labour.

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For one chapter, I've had to re-key it twice. And all so I don't infringe the UK law on not breaking DRM.

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Rather than the distant reading paradigms that are supposed to alleviate reading labour, I've had to re-type an entire novel.

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This book I'm working on is about using computational methods for literary close reading. I realised today how much work it has entailed...

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Preparing my paper for @dmcon2017. Sneak peek of the work on historico-linguistic accuracy...

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Tracklist for Leftfield's Leftism-22 announced. Includes the amazing-sounding Release The Pressure (Adrian Sherwood Mix).

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Didn't think it was possible to concoct a way of "providing" healthcare so terrible that US Republicans wouldn't support it.

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Re last tweet: if someone doesn't pick me up for saying "post-receiving community" I'm going to be disappointed.

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Are there any words more terrifying in the post-receiving community than "your parcel is now with your local Hermes courier for delivery"?

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Fantastic talk this evening at @birkbeck_arts by Clara Jones feat her newly discovered Woolf stuff. And this slide.

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Off to see Clara Jones, with whom I did an MA a fair few years back, speak on Woolf's Lost 1931 Sketches at @birkbeck_arts. Sounds great!

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PhD actually useful shock! Nurse: "since you're a doctor, I can tell you that your liver scan looks OK to me". Her face fell a little after.

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I'm sure whatever horrific tax haven entity we become afterwards will extend deregulation and many neoliberal-type actions, though.

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Sure others have said it but: if neoliberalism is replacement of politics by economics, Brexit is something different given economic turmoil

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I miss the institutional index on the back page of the print Times Higher. Been meaning to say that for months.

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Several hours into my fasting before scan today and I am not only HUNGRY but also somewhat lightheaded.

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In other news, tomorrow I have to have a liver ultrasound, which involves fasting. I hate fasting.

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And that's despite my literary studies training drumming most biographical urges out of me... And I've worked on Pynchon, the invisible man.

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I'm currently writing a literary biography of Jennifer Egan and it's quite rewarding rereading her work on this frame - subtle life echoes.

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One year ago last night, to the hour, I was in accident & emergency beginning a series of diagnostic tests for my stroke. Last night:

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Uni removed rather than comply. Tech bros go mad in comments claiming ppl with disabilities are going too far in asking for access 2/2

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Re previous tweet: Underworld extravaganza under minor threat from horrible virus at the moment though...

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I wonder how many other authors considered this? Under W-f-H the legal author of the piece is the entity to whom you sign it over.

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Just been asked to sign a contract for a book entry as work-for-hire. Not keen to lose my attribution rights. Asked for changes.

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Just launched the March 2017 @openlibhums library board vote. Five journals, two subscription flips, one university press partnership...

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Started typing a q. in SurveyMonkey. Autosuggest: "During the last week how many times has someone left you out of activities on purpose?"

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Love how the translated titles for A Visit from the Goon Squad range from "Time is a Bastard" to "What have we done with our Dreams?"

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About to complain to a publisher about requested turnaround of a 7-day period on proofs, in a week with 2x bank holidays & a weekend.

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Thought to myself: hmm, this month looks quiet for OLH renewals. Probably because I spent the entire period this time last year in hospital.

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Preparing the next round of journals that want to join @openlibhums for library board vote. Some really exciting flips from subscriptions!

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We've been on the tarmac for 40 minutes now but still not off this @british_airways flight at @heathrowairport.

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That was the worst plane landing I've had in 15 years coming in to Chicago. I was very ill. Sorry fellow passengers.

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I also frequently wish that PhD theses were treated as first-class research objects that were more widely cited and valued in my discipline.

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Also: PhD theses are treated as "unpublished" but they can be consulted and seen although access can also be denied. How much of a contrib?

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They are hard, if not impossible, to consult on-site. Obviously e-theses and their dissemination help here but change publishing norms.

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It's not enough to know it, yourself. It has to be a "contribution" to humanity's knowledge. But, yet, we often lock up PhD theses.

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I keep returning to the question of what the term "contribution" means in the definition of a terminal degree as a "contrib to knowledge".

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Had an interesting discussion with @sgediting this morning, around the nature of knowledge and our ability to disseminate it.

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Interleukin 6 inhibitor sirukumab apparently showing good results for rheumatoid arthritis in phase two trial. Good news!

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Just went to fab panel at @birkbeck_arts on limits of estrangement, fiction & current political climate with @the_blochian & @DrBlacklock

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I did consider joining in but instead fell into a private thought chain about how we evaluate student work and what frames/signals exist.

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Why is it near impossible to score over 80? What's the point in numerical gradiation below the fail point of 40? Good questions.

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Favourite part of my Edinburgh evening so far was eavesdropping on students discussing university marking procedures in the pub.