Newest thoughts →

July 2013

Just had a wonderfully exciting Google Hangout. Looks like the OA Toolset Alliance is happening. Website to follow in coming days.

Wow. So, latest NSA revelations: if you encrypt documents, use PGP or a VPN, you are an anomalous event. Ridiculous.

Phew. Today I typeset an article for Orbit, improving our parser greatly in the process, & read some very good MA dissertation drafts.

Have several big writing projects looming. Considering setting up a Gitorious repo on server & trying to get it to diff OpenOffice docs.

Oh joy: "The main assumption is that there will be a post-2014 REF that operates, substantially, on the same basis as the 2014 REF"

Just returned to the expected mountain of (often exciting) emails after a few days away in beautiful Croatia and Bosnia.

Looks like Chase Farm hospital is well versed in spin. It isn't closing its maternity ward, oh no, it's just moving it. To another hospital.

What I really want from Google+'s recommended people is not those who might be connected to me, but people who are /active/ on the network.

Clearing Inbox and tasks ready for some leave... starting with Punchdrunk's The Drowned Man promenade performance tonight!

For those interested, @ReportSchick is live-tweeting the #WarrenHill hearing on constitutional issues around US death penalty.

Had v. enjoyable discussions today with @Nadine_Muller and @sadiseshiah. Am also succeeding in battling down the inbox and writing things!

Just received @BobEaglestone's Contemporary Fiction: A Very Short Introduction in the post. Looks good! And mentions @Alluviumjournal...

Not sure it's wise to isolate the racism of the Zimmerman trial to USA; nailbomb outside a mosque in UK on Friday that was barely reported.

I have just read a piece where Zimmerman's lawyer says he "just wishes he could get his life back". Words fail me.

Have an exciting piece for Orbit forthcoming from @desertnaut. He's exposing some quirks in my typesetter, though! ;P

Definitely scope for someone to develop a great open source mechanism for presenting and sharing academic material in git repos...

GitHub is proprietary, closed-source, web interface for git repositories. I like GH, but it's bad linguistic framing; like PC = Windows.

It's interesting that, when people are advocating for version-controlled publishing using git, they refer to GitHub. Seems problematic.

#FF to the people I've bumped into/met up with at the @britishlibrary today! @19thc4d, @collinsactually and @avoiding_bears

Argh, apologies for that sudden deluge... it's all good stuff, I promise! A "feed to Twitter" set just all went off at once :/

Have spent the morning re-tracing Foucault's engagement with first-generation Frankfurt School. (With a bit of Habermas for good measure.)

Overhearing conversation on OA by an advocate and a sceptic in BL café. Don't recognise/know either. #mainstream

I am impressed that @ULHistory schedule a visit to a workhouse for new first year undergraduates. Good to lay out work ethic expectations.

I'd just like to point out that those in education face the 3rd consecutive year of real-term pay cuts. MPs' salaries going up by £10k.

Best moments of yesterday courtesy of @josswinn, @sadiseshah and @mgmcquillan. Kicking off today with @ubiquitypress!

Looks like the trains from Lincoln today are operating on @plashingvole's adjectival model. The "alleged" 17:22.

Thanks to all at #hack4ac! I got a load further on a good project. Especially enjoyed talking with @IanMulvany, @Protohedgehog & @kaveh1000

Level up! Typesetter now semantically marks headings as such, guessing from para's w/ solely bolded text (for instance) #hack4ac

Best comment found in own code: "I have no idea why I need this, but I apparently do. TODO: find out what is going on"

Achievement of the morning: my typesetter can handle images from MS Word and encode them in NLM-XML. #hack4ac

Looking forward to #hack4ac tomorrow, even though fairly tired. Hope someone would like to hack on my XML typesetter...

Resisting retweeting every post by @Total_Pynchon is proving very difficult. Setting myself hard limits.

Anybody interested in experimenting with Twitter for teaching and learning in humanities, @Joparsons would like to talk! #digitalliteracy

Will be showing one of @adelinekoh's ace #dhpoco #DHPocoSS bit strips in my #digitalliteracy presentation, starting soon!

Rayner thinks that projects like @dpla are naive. I have no problem w/ pro-publisher stance, but this was false distinction #digitalliteracy

Now Rayner is citing example of @dpla. Confused that she cites Darnton's "defence" of such an undertaking. #digitalliteracy

Think there are some issues around overlap between academic and trade publishing that need further exploration here #digitalliteracy

The Marlowe Papers by @rosbarber being cited by Rayner as a Star Text, despite far lower sales figures. #digitalliteracy

Place of the publisher in keeping some forms of genre in circulation. I'm going to do stuff on this later. #digitalliteracy

Academic book by PJC Fields shown. £150. Has taken 2 decades to research (but that's Fields' time primarily I assume?) #digitalliteracy

Rayner looking at scholarly versions of Malory and focusing on canonisation and versioning/authenticity #digitalliteracy

This, of course, is in marked contrast to many more radical theorisations seen at #oabooks earlier this week #digitalliteracy

Rayner focuses on authenticity of texts and stability for business models for publishers both academic and trade. #digitalliteracy

Oh, there are a LOT of Star Trek puns in the first 5 mins of this presentation. It's a book, Jim. #digitalliteracy

Often value the critical comments and article works out better as a result, but there's always that first moment of irritation!

Had another pair of reviews (3rd time of this experience) where 1st reads: major revisions. The 2nd: don't change this at all it's amazing.

I'd like some more critical framing of production from Wisker. Authors "inviting" fan contributions (Gaiman) are commercial #digitalliteracy

Wisker's most viewed paper is called "Vampires and Schoolgirls". So, if you want an unsavoury audience, you know how! #digitalliteracy

Aesthetic of paratextual interface determined by extra-textual sociality says @zara_dinnen (I think) #digitalliteracy

Emails as numbered list in smaller fonts, graphically distinct. Do people write emails as short as Heti's? #digitalliteracy

Sheila Heti also one of @zara_dinnen's focuses. Been meaning to read "How Should a Person Be". #digitalliteracy

Don't have to be defined as digital humanities for the humanities to be digital says @zara_dinnen #digitalliteracy

Mention of Refresh Refresh by @zara_dinnen - she did some work on this at #bbkiraq earlier in the year, also. #digitalliteracy

Now up: @zara_dinnen on how various modes of software studies are applicable to literary studies #digitalliteracy

Halden's demonstration of fan canons just shows me how implicitly "alive" the author remains. Bad luck Barthes. #digitalliteracy

Freedom, uncertainty of results, element of unproductiveness, governed by some kind of rules, imaginative quality. See? #digitalliteracy

The list that Halden puts up from Caillois' ingredients of play could, basically, define "research"! #digitalliteracy

Fan forums generate consensus for "head canon" - agreement on speculative aspects of authoritative canon says Halden #digitalliteracy

We're getting some definitions of "fandom" terms from Halden. "Text extension" is paratext? #digitalliteracy

Mediation of personal and solitary reading practice with shared public space of digital interconnection noted by Halden #digitalliteracy

Grace Halden now up on The Digitalisation of Reader Response. Starts with The Velveteen Rabbit! #digitalliteracy

Bassett ending with intersection of aesthetic that shows eruption of digital into physical. #digitalliteracy

Lots of Moretti in Bassett's talk. We know how to read texts. Now learning how not to read them. New formalist mode. #digitalliteracy

"What is left of the literary, what is left of the specific in these vast data readings?" asks Bassett rhetorically #digitalliteracy

Bassett concerned with integration of close and distance techniques. Sounds quite critical theory-esque in whole-and-part #digitalliteracy

Bassett shows gephi diagram of fact to fiction in Ian M Banks. Extremely distanced reading technique. #digitalliteracy

Bassett's study "showed" how book produced ipad... BUT genealogy only emerges if ideology of book is presumed #digitalliteracy

Bassett having fun talking about ipad version of Hitchhikers' Guide & levels of influence and remediation #digitalliteracy

Bassett suggests, though, that might be more profitable to think of network, rather than device #digitalliteracy

Bassett: Digital devices that have produced latest claims of death of book all replicate cultural imaginary of book object #digitalliteracy

Literalist correctionism: eg "Joyce would have been better if he'd used/had hypertext" - Bassett critiquing #digitalliteracy

Book has been "digital" for ages. Bassett cites rise of PC & union disputes in Wapping. Rise of "literalist correctionism" #digitalliteracy

Popular understanding of "history of the book" pre-shapes thinking of the "book" says Bassett #digitalliteracy

Bassett's 3 qs: why future & death of book at same time?; what implications for lit?; what is influence of idea of book? #digitalliteracy

Caroline Bassett talking about networks and the universal library into which books and other libraries will be wired #digitalliteracy

Book-as-dead-tree itself is perhaps skeuomorphic of the idea of the book already says Caroline Bassett #heaconf

Presenting tomorrow at the "e-reading between the lines" conference on overlaps of value systems in diff forms of publishing.

I don't think we in the humanities are much/any better at critiquing our contexts and practices, by the way! #oabooks @CameronNeylon

I'm a big fan of this thinking - discourse control forms disciplines and enables/limits thoughts in those spheres #oabooks

Tension of the integral physical object monograph against the purpose of scholarly communication in Hums: discourse! says @CameronNeylon

The fantastic @ahacker now talking about Heidelburg's strong library-driven OA publishing programme #oabooks

“@carenmilloy @martin_eve we can call the next conference 'on page'?” < Enter the Codex? #oabooks

Ok, I'm definitely on page with their idea of building open source free academic publishing tool chain. On page. Good metaphor for #oabooks

Hybrid Publishers talking about "dynamic publishing" - "when the book becomes unbound". Assume this is versioned changes? #OAbooks

Scientific backdrop to #altmetrics has left research monographs at the starting gate says @LucyMontgomery #oabooks

Lots of worse things to be called than "Dr Batman" says @willbrooker. "Mr Batman?" says @the_blochian. #OAbooks

Culture change from Wellcome might be more on funders than researchers initially says @ellenscollins #oabooks

Wellcome has strong OA mandate on phased implementation for books. Oct 2014 for new grantees, Oct 2014 for grantees. #OAbooks

RCUK will consider applications for monograph APCs says @ellenscollins, a fact that she picked up from panel earlier #oabooks

My question for Adema, which looks like it won't get asked, was whether DOAB simply replicates blacklist probs on whitelist basis #oabooks

Many OA activists need to be confessed conservatives in the quality control sphere to counter vanity perception notes Adema #oabooks

Janneke Adema showing the familiar (to me) spam email from predatory book publishers. Oh look, not an OA publisher though... #OAbooks

Getting a good summary of the collaborative process that underpinned the Jisc CC guide from @ernestopriego #oabooks

If entering ORCID when submitting, will the system track pub. rejections? Is this the kind of "value-added" for paying members? #oabooks

Not sure that @epentz example of Facebook as an analogous model of the strong privacy features of ORCID was the best choice! #OAbooks

Looking forward to ORCID integration strategies - not having to populate multiple sources (IR etc) would be good #oabooks

I like the ORCID idea & have an ID but always feel that nagging worry in further quantification of research. #OAbooks

Good question for @kfitz on how to persuade people that creating artificial scarcity through peer review is not the way. #OAbooks

We now have @kfitz presenting very finely on her findings re peer-to-peer review. #OAbooks (lots of this in Planned Obsolescence)

YES! Brilliant chairing from Martin Hall. Asks HEFCE rep whether neg response was mostly because of extreme APCs. #oabooks

Fantastic impassioned speech from @rupertgatti - @MikeTaylor's argument reiterated: if an LS paywalls, it's cart before the horse. #OAbooks

OA only a piece in an ecosystem of digital dissemination says @rupertgatti. Embargo period of anything is a nonsense. #OAbooks

Predatory publishers /not/ unique to OA. I get emails all the time asking me to submit my stuff to subscription predators. #OAbooks

I think Hardy has it the wrong way around on CC licenses. The world that is wrong is the one that won't allow inclusion... #OAbooks

Sally Hardy speaking on behalf of learned societies (a heterogeneous group). LS have been slow to engage. #OAbooks

Change to symbolic value of research must come from those securely in system. ECRs can't take risk says @jcdrg.

Examination of peer review process is key to understanding value in the humanities says @jcdrg. These are the social fixes. #OAbooks

I'm loving this part. Back to lineage of FLOSS and Stallman for #OAbooks. Tracing of genealogy in free/open code says @jcdrg.

Ah ha - now @jcdrg getting on to the system of accreditation and prestige of economy. Comes down to type of social entity needed. #OAbooks

Symbolic economy of "author" and "ownership" are /not/ the point of research and publication notes @jcdrg. #OAbooks

My q: despite internet as driver, isn't this all constrained by national & institutional assessments? Social problem, not tech... #OAbooks

A more collective mode of production argued for by @jcdrg. Abandoning the lone romantic author. Easy to say, but hard to do... #OAbooks

Very used to fixed system of production - thesis to book for example - says @jcdrg. All will fade and be reversed, he argues. #OAbooks

Citation of @kfitz by @jcdrg on importance of thinking differently about relationships between texts #OAbooks

Not about "monographs", it's about people says @jcdrg. Explicating through reference to "What is an Author?" #OAbooks

Sociology of documents is 1st touchstone for @jcdrg. Extension of McKenzie's sociology of texts. How do books relate to each other? #OAbooks

By the way, I've heard that there will be hard copies of the @britac collection for all attending the Jisc OA monographs conference today.