New issue of Alluvium: out now! https://www.alluvium-journal.org

Yes. Why is everyone doing all this campaigning at the moment? It's almost as though someone called an election. https://x.com/politicshome/status/869903958827036674

David Brent levels of embarrassment here. https://x.com/BBCNews/status/869948095093772288

Then this evening I plan to wire up my new subwoofer, with apologies in advance to my neighbours.

Looking at Mark Blacklock's I'm Jack and Emily St John Mandel's Station Eleven.

Literary talk this afternoon on symptomatic reading approaches & post-critique through the metaphorical lens of "metadata".

please tell me that Trump pulling out of the Paris Climate agreement was just some late-night tweeting typo

Gives me some hope of overcoming the persistent doubt I had that it was just narcissistic wailing!

Had the nicest email about the piece I wrote on being seriously unwell in academia. Sender told me she has it printed on her desk & rereads.

Looking forward to it -- and leaving the house for travel shortly! https://x.com/BuckEngLit/status/869861535895756800

James Joyce on TV - http://www.ccl.bbk.ac.uk/james-joyce-on-tv/

Blockchain as the Infrastructure for Science? - http://blog.dshr.org/2017/05/blockchain-as-infrastructure-for-science.html

Two literary talks next week: on the metaphor of "metadata" for reading redaction & computational approaches to Cloud Atlas

Today I will mostly be rereading Reading Capital.

Conservative election campaign in a nutshell is: half-bake some policies, hide the PM, and slander the opposition leader.

A non-Euclidean monster of a birthday present from @the_blochian and @iainrobertsmith. Looking forward to this!

And it was great! https://x.com/the_blochian/status/868136397445750784

One of the pains of sharing a name ("Orbit") with International Journal on Orbital Disorders is that we get submissions on eye surgery :/

Although my colleague Joanna didn't know it was my birthday, the generous gift she gave was darker than most I received

Traditional birthday fare. And a first outing for my @CottonBudMusic t-shirt!

26th May: all the best stuff. https://x.com/jon_fugler/status/868170249849511936

What more could I hope for on a birthday than a day of academic papers about dystopia? #seriously

Brilliant birthday at the Birkbeck #DystopiaNow17 conference. Intellectually stimulating and great to be among friends. Party tomorrow!

The cost of writing off tuition fee loans - https://andrewmcgettigan.org/2017/05/25/the-cost-of-writing-off-tuition-fee-loans/

I always wince a little when people don't point out that Foucault noted that the disciplinary era may already be over #DystopiaNow17

Just walked past an advert that read "share opinions, win prizes" and I'm sure it wasn't even for "men on the Internet".

Tomorrow I will be spending my birthday at our #DystopiaNow17 and chairing @the_blochian's keynote. Because that's how I roll.

It's time for academics to take back control of research journals by @Stephen_Curry https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2017/may/25/its-time-for-academics-to-take-back-control-of-research-journals

My colleague, Seda Ilter, on Andy Smith, ‘Dematerialising Theatre’ at Birkbeck Arts Week 2017 http://blogs.bbk.ac.uk/english/2017/05/25/seda-ilter-on-andy-smith-dematerialising-theatre-birkbeck-arts-week-2017/

Also giving a talk today at the Birkbeck Institute for Data Analytics on the challenges of humanities texts as data.

A busy day today of meetings, PhD supervisions, OLH admin, and then to the British Academy for the launch of that report!

Stack Overflow: Helping One Million Developers Exit Vim - https://stackoverflow.blog/2017/05/23/stack-overflow-helping-one-million-developers-exit-vim/ (cont) http://tl.gd/n_1spt9j2

Colombian biologist cleared of criminal charges for posting another scientist's thesis online < good news - http://www.nature.com/news/colombian-biologist-cleared-of-criminal-charges-for-posting-another-scientist-s-thesis-online-1.22057?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureNews&sf81675520=1

Important report on "Untangling Academic Publishing" out today. My doctoral student, @lawsonstu, is a co-author https://zenodo.org/record/546100

Google’s AlphaGo AI defeats world Go number one Ke Jie - https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/23/15679110/go-alphago-ke-jie-match-google-deepmind-ai-2017

NEH Statement on Proposed FY 2018 Budget | National Endowment for the Humanities - https://www.neh.gov/news/press-release/2017-05-23

Think Birkbeck should instigate an Eric Hobsbawm Memorial Prize for Small Animal Rescue. Our woodpecker deed could be the first award.

Did a good deed on an otherwise miserable news day. Helped my colleague David McAllister rescue a woodpecker baby.

Before you retweet claims of "my relative is missing" in Manchester check the account carefully. Group of trolls posting fakes and laughing.

The Higher Education and Research Act (2017) and Co-operative HE - http://josswinn.org/2017/05/22/the-higher-education-and-research-act-2017-and-co-operative-he/

A very sad evening. Had to say goodbye to Mary at the vets as she was just in too much pain.

Osborne admits impossibly underfunding schools and hospitals in Standard editorial - https://politicalscrapbook.net/2017/05/osborne-admits-underfunding-schools-and-hospitals-in-standard-editorial/

The organisation behind the scammed publisher, Cogent, is none other than mega-publisher Taylor & Francis. https://x.com/kjhealy/status/865860034173034496

Report: He Doesn’t Talk Politics Anymore - http://www.ccl.bbk.ac.uk/report-he-doesnt-talk-politics-anymore/

UK Conservatives Pledge To Create Government-Controlled Internet - http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/fxjDY2H3znQ/uk-conservatives-pledge-to-create-government-controlled-internet

New research from @BirkbeckNews could help in fight against antibiotic resistance - http://www.bbk.ac.uk/news/new-research-could-help-in-fight-against-antibiotic-resistance

Pretty terrible day: migraine and Virgin Media wrecked my internet connection and won't fix until next week. Both quite debilitating.

I used to live near here https://x.com/TelegraphNews/status/865224189812154369

Most of Britain likes Corbyn's manifesto but dislikes Corbyn. Concurrently, they apparently dislike May's manifesto but don't mind her.

It's Stewart Lee's "we want the brightest and best" sketch brought to grim political reality.

The Tory manifesto proposes charging companies a 2k fine per non-EU worker hired. Including hospitals & universities, I presume?

Discovering a new area of the Royal Free Hospital today as endocrinology get their hands on me. #fun

Twelve Angry Men on Television and Film - just out at @openlibhums - https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.102/

Leftfield perform at O2 Academy Brixton - review | The Independent - http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/leftfield-perform-at-o2-academy-brixton-review-a7740541.html

A fascinating piece on replication and pre-registration in experimental psychology. Really worth a read. https://x.com/BrianNosek/status/865147599413805056

Arts Week 2017: Grin and Bear It: @PeterFifield on Virginia Woolf’s Teeth http://blogs.bbk.ac.uk/events/2017/05/18/arts-week-2017-grin-and-bear-it-peter-fifield-on-virginia-woolfs-teeth/

GPs in Shropshire to demand NHS patients must pay for routine appointments - https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/health/2017/05/16/gps-in-shropshire-to-demand-nhs-patients-must-pay-for-routine-appointments/

Theresa May to unveil policy of making older people pay for social care - https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/17/theresa-may-conservative-tory-policy-older-people-pay-for-social-care?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Fenix

Looking forward to my own Arts Week event tomorrow: American fiction since the 1960s and politics. Free to attend! https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/he-doesnt-talk-politics-anymore-the-role-of-politics-in-contemporary-us-fiction-tickets-33212353042

Sci-Hub study suggests publishers’ embargoes ‘not viable’ | THE News - https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/sci-hub-study-suggests-publishers-embargoes-not-viable

Now seeing Jane Seaton, Ben Worthy and @the_blochian speaking on: Will 2017 be 1984? Rethinking Orwell's Dystopia.

Google’s AI subsidiary was given ‘legally inappropriate’ access to UK medical data - https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/16/15645832/google-deepmind-nhs-patient-data-deal-ndg-letter

What’s that coming over the hill? Is it a metric monster? - http://wonkhe.com/blogs/data-coming-over-metric-monster/

Currently hearing about Virginia Woolf's teeth from @PeterFifield as part of @birkbeck_arts Arts Week. Packed room!

Arts Week 2017: What goes around. Fifty years of ‘The Third Policeman’ - my review of last night's event http://blogs.bbk.ac.uk/events/2017/05/17/arts-week-2017-what-goes-around-fifty-years-of-the-third-policeman/

University rankings are fake news. How do we fix them? - http://occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2017/05/16/university-rankings-are-fake-news/

Seminar: The Moral Rights of Authors in the Age of Cognitive Capitalism, Birkbeck, London 14–15 June - http://criticallegalthinking.com/2017/02/17/seminar-moral-rights-authors-age-cognitive-capitalism/

Arriving for our @birkbeck_arts event on 50 Years of The Third Policeman!

In my New Horizons series! (Though can't claim I commissioned it...) https://x.com/BloomsburyLit/status/864491230754897920

Birkbeck has a new website! http://www.bbk.ac.uk/ I've also updated my deeply unofficial calendar parser for it https://github.com/MartinPaulEve/BBKCal

"We've come up with some great new metrics for ranking unis! Wealth, age of institution, respectability, name brand-value."

"Our university league table is looking odd. Wrong unis doing well. No-one will believe it."

"Add spend-per student."

"That's better."

38,000 People a Year Die Early Because of Diesel Emissions Testing Failures - http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/gTWf51dH8Fs/38000-people-a-year-die-early-because-of-diesel-emissions-testing-failures

We can report that Mary loves the new paste and wolfed it down!

Tl;dr: Royal Free shared data with Google for testing, which is not ok under implied consent since not direct care https://x.com/halhod/status/864202437191774209

Specialist vet advice is to mash up Mary's food with baby veggy paste & boiled bottled mineral water. Our evening.

Scholarly Association Journal to Launch on @openlibhums https://about.openlibhums.org/2017/05/15/scholarly-association-journal-to-launch-on-olh/

Also pleased to report that my paper, co-authored with the neural network trained on Textual Practice, was accepted!

1. proposals are hideous and wrong in their own right; but 2. totally inappropriate metrics. See ch4 of Metric Tide http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/files/2015/07/2015_metrictide.pdf https://x.com/JamesBSumner/status/863406890264522753

5. On humanities-data computing and its challenges at Birkbeck

4. On determining whether Thomas Pynchon is the author of Cow Country using authorship attribution techniques at La Rochelle

3. On reading David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas with computational techniques at St Andrews

2. on symptomatic reading and metadata in Mark Blacklock's I'm Jack and Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven, at Bucks

I'm doing some fun literary talks in coming weeks. 1. this Thursday at Birkbeck, on politics in post-60s US literary fiction.

Fresh out at @openlibhums this morning: The Multiple Textual Identities of a 13th-Century Holy Woman https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.88

Scientists Achieve Direct Counterfactual Quantum Communication For The First Time - http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/VQKXrlwd0p0/scientists-achieve-direct-counterfactual-quantum-communication-for-the-first-time

Nurses vote overwhelmingly to strike for first time ever over 1% pay rises http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nurses-vote-overwhelmingly-to-strike-for-first-time-ever-over-1-pay-rises-a7735451.html?cmpid=facebook-post

Is the editor of the Daily Mail the most dangerous man in Britain?

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/may/14/is-paul-dacre-most-dangerous-man-in-britain-daily-mail?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Fenix

Sunday AM, reading PhD students' work and listening to King Jammy Meets Dry & Heavy - Radical Dubber https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyC7DCvBs0Q

We’re not in 2014 anymore … - https://andrewmcgettigan.org/2017/05/12/were-not-in-2014-anymore/

The cost of abolishing tuition fees - https://andrewmcgettigan.org/2017/05/12/the-cost-of-abolishing-tuition-fees/

Guest appearance by @lemnsissay at last night's amazing @Leftfield gig!

Oh yes

If attack on NHS is targeted and not just a generic worm, it's sickening and really trashed any faith I might've had in humanity.

A note to myself really: post-critique in different fields does different things w/r/t politics. On Latour & Felski. https://www.martineve.com/2017/05/12/two-types-of-post-critique/

Next Thursday, I'm giving a free public lecture on politics in American literary fiction since the 60s. Do come! https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/he-doesnt-talk-politics-anymore-the-role-of-politics-in-contemporary-us-fiction-tickets-33212353042

An act that Labour must repeal to save higher education - https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/may/11/an-act-that-labour-must-repeal-to-save-higher-education?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Fenix

“We’re not firing anybody. We’re just letting you know that there will be no payroll.” https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/may/11/fyre-festival-billy-mcfarland-employees-not-paid?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Fenix

Finally, a Labour manifesto to really get behind - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/11/finally-a-labour-manifesto-to-really-get-behind?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Fenix

In case of any use, here's a CSV file of all the articles published by @openlibhums on the Ubiquity Press platform https://github.com/MartinPaulEve/OLH_PDFs

Epistemology and Kinship: Reading Resistance Literature on Westernised Education out now & OA at @openlibhums http://doi.org/10.16995/olh.123

Private Philanthropy Cannot Replace the NEH - https://mellon.org/resources/shared-experiences-blog/private-philanthropy-cannot-replace-neh/

How Leftfield's Leftism redefined dance music - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39870759

Birkbeck has a shiny new website going live next week. Pleased that we've focused on accessibility as a priority! https://youtu.be/gCGfNEt6fg4

Replace the word "smart" with the phrase "personal surveillance computer" in any tech product and you've about got it.

Best line in this piece is that there are students who have tried to use alcohol to improve cognitive performance https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/may/10/universities-do-more-tackle-smart-drugs-say-experts-uk-exams?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I can safely say that today is the best I have felt, health-wise, in well over a year. Since before I had my stroke. Good stuff!

University of Manchester to cut 171 jobs - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-39873778

OLH flips innovative archaeology conference proceedings to open access journal https://about.openlibhums.org/2017/05/10/olh-flips-innovative-archaeology-conference-proceedings-to-open-access-journal/

I see Amazon is putting a permanent homeless shelter inside one of its facilities. Nice to see a company help its under-paid staff.

Academia dot edu and Self-Branding - https://openreflections.wordpress.com/2017/05/09/academia-edu-and-self-branding/

The problem with Leftfield playing Leftism in its entirety is that Release the Pressure is such a strong opener that it's hard to recover.

The aforementioned psychometric profiler is at http://applymagicsauce.com

Myers-Brigss stuff may be nonsense but Cambridge soc. media profiler labels me as INTJ (introversion, intuition, thinking, judgment).

Getting really excited now. Just 3 days until LEFTFIELD play the whole of Leftism live at @O2academybrix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViefbD6fYMY

This is the type of hidden labour that many people don't think about in scholarly publishing.

I mean that quite literally. This is going to have taken me a whole day by the time I finish, I'd estimate.

I'm doing one right now. If every library that supports us was this detailed, we would need extra staff to complete them, raising costs.

An interesting point from my experience. Library evaluations of resources are important, but they take so much time for small publishers.

So yeah, there's an academic book collection proposed here on Star Trek: Voyager http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/05/05/star-trek-voyager

INAKTIV live @ Piramida 6 maj 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTilwmc9BQc

"Elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy" - https://markcarrigan.net/2017/05/08/elections-cannot-be-allowed-to-change-economic-policy/

The “enough is enough” point with Elsevier http://intheopen.net/2017/05/when-is-enough-enough/

I just donated to the Council for At-Risk Academics in solidarity with Turkish colleagues. A worthy cause. http://www.cara.ngo/

OH WHAT A SURPRISE. They are funded by Elsevier, aka RELX group. https://cpip.gmu.edu/about/supporters/ https://x.com/martin_eve/status/861672692226949121

A one-sided report that cites none of the counter-evidence and is seeped in ideological suppositions to support their poor argument. https://x.com/cpipgmu/status/861648408108560385

I'd like to know whether the authors received any funding from a scholarly publisher in the publication of this article. It reads like it. https://x.com/cpipgmu/status/861648408108560385

Also, given how keen the authors are on evidence, they cite none of the studies showing NO DAMAGE to publishers' models from OA. https://x.com/cpipgmu/status/861648408108560385

Actually, they don't. They give a condition for receiving public money that you allow the public to read and re-use the work that is funded. https://x.com/cpipgmu/status/861648408108560385

I love that "Martin and Bill" "meeting up in a pub in England" on Pynchon's birthday "has spread around the world". http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/conspiracy-pynchon-in-public-day-author

A squeaking comes across the sky. #pynchoninpublic @PynchonInPublic

Wrecked my spreadsheet but made my day.

I've been doing a comprehensive overhaul of OLH finances today; serious spreadsheeting. Just as I finished the sheet, we got another signup!

Huge relief after only 11 million people vote for a fascist - http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/huge-relief-after-only-11-million-people-vote-for-a-fascist-20170508127219

"For all their faults" https://x.com/DMReporter/status/861332669082292224

Happy 80th birthday to Thomas Pynchon!

Pepe the Frog creator kills off internet meme co-opted by white supremacists https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/08/pepe-the-frog-creator-kills-off-internet-meme-co-opted-by-white-supremacists

Court Allows Case Over Violating Open Source License - http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/DUpwDxWdm-8/court-allows-case-over-violating-open-source-license

"At least it's not fascism" seems to be the new rallying cry. :/

Ah ha ha ha ha ha https://x.com/LeaveEUOfficial/status/861284167115575297

Here Be Monsters (and Douchebags): A Punctum Publishing Primer https://punctumbooks.com/blog/here-be-monsters-and-douchebags-a-punctum-publishing-primer/

"Potential economic chaos" warns party that caused definitive Brexit economic chaos to resolve their internal squabble. https://x.com/Conservatives/status/861173964118347776

The other thing I learned: Windows 8 is a truly terrible operating system.

Research shows prejudice, not principle, often underpins 'free-speech defense' of racist language < what a surprise http://news.ku.edu/2017/05/01/research-shows-prejudice-not-principle-often-underpins-free-speech-defense-racist

notes on academic alienation and mass intellectuality by @HallyMk1 - http://www.richard-hall.org/2017/05/05/notes-on-academic-alienation-and-mass-intellectuality/

Friday afternoon article-acceptance vibe.

Institute for English Studies Director, Rick Rylance, appointed Dean of School of Advanced Study http://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/about-us/news/ies-director-rick-rylance-appointed-dean-school-advanced-study

My son died in 1994 but his heart only stopped beating this year http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-39422660

Was the slogan "taking the 'care' out of 'healthcare'"?

Mmm. Remastered and remixed and signed.

Police Tweets & Public Perceptions of Safety & Police Performance: An Experiment on Framing & Other Tweet Content https://olh.openlibhums.org/article/10.16995/olh.198/

#solidarity to US friends. I would be dead without our NHS. Healthcare is a right.

HEFCE Accountability Returns: Advice on Academic Assurances and Avoiding Burden - http://ahua.ac.uk/seeking-assurances-avoiding-burden/

Co-operative Leadership and Higher Education: four case studies - http://josswinn.org/2017/05/04/co-operative-leadership-and-higher-education-four-case-studies/

Tape is "archive heroin"- http://blog.dshr.org/2017/05/tape-is-archive-heroin.html

CFP: Future Past – Researching Archives in the Digital Age - http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DigitalHumanitiesNow/~3/irKLUaYhRQA/

CFP: Metadata and Semantics Research - http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DigitalHumanitiesNow/~3/bbhyKK5FC-0/

Hmmm, UCU threatened with an injunction and damages by London Metropolitan University (LMU) over boycott advice apparently.

I think @axfelix is probably that 0.0001%.

(And I didn't have to chroot.)

For the 0.0001% of my Twitter followers who care: I fixed it. Unetbootin is a godsend. Boot-repair knows its stuff.

This evening's "fun": managed to wreck a kernel update due to no device space on disk and removed all other kernels. #repairing

Louisiana State University suing Elsevier. Latter blocked their vet school apparently... https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/05/03/louisiana-state-takes-disagreement-elsevier-court

Annual donations to UK universities pass £1bn mark for first time. But 46% of it to two institutions.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/may/03/annual-donations-to-uk-universities-passes-1bn-mark-for-first-time?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Fenix

CRISPR Eliminates HIV In Live Animals - http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/rGk88-xkcvk/crispr-eliminates-hiv-in-live-animals

Nice they realise it now. This policy killed part-time study & nearly shuttered institutions. https://x.com/PeterHorrocks/status/859652216260628480

I know the Ithaka study...

Does anyone know of any good work on the cost of publishing (not creating) critical editions?

Intel's remote AMT vulnerablity - http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/48429.html

Imagine if this article wasn't paywalled so politicians and journalists could actually read it... https://x.com/martinmckee/status/859022157157982208

A May Day mix that I recorded last night... @jon_fugler @ernestopriego @CarinaWestling
https://soundcloud.com/martin-eve/mayday