Newest thoughts →

July 2014

Don't get me wrong, there's some dodginess, but manipulation is what I expect from commercial environments.

Is a supermarket "experimenting" on customers if it finds they are more disgruntled when they put bread at back (but buy more)?

There're definitely some dubious usages of the term "experiment" going around to describe tweaking web designs to induce effects in viewers.

I'm trying so hard to put my finger on the design inspiration for the new academia dot edu overhaul. Really can't place it. #sarcasm

Inexplicably, the book (published by Springer) that I read at the weekend on "symbolic exchange" neither cited Bourdieu nor had an index.

I must say that typesetting of proof for forthcoming JLSC article is beautiful, especially tables. Worth a look, designers.

From hereon, I thrash among the brambles of digital communication, seeking vainly the ever-receding lone blackberry of administrative bliss.

Wonderful book launch with @PalgraveLit last night for @agneswoolley1 & me; lovely speech by @sadiseshiah! #WHN2014

Great keynote from @DrImogenTyler on the ways in which disgust and abjection sit within a political economy. #WHN2014

Mack speaking about the "southern grotesque", the figure who often fulfills the "tolerance of extremes" aspect of Southern lit #WHN2014

Mack says that many of these tropes were fulfilled in the submissions they received: one included a radical telephone missionary #WHN2014

Mack says expected aspects of Southern US writers: senses of place and time, kin/family, faith, race, & "tolerance for extremes"! #WHN2014

Mack and Geyer identified historical crossovers between these states. Thinking of "purple states" - neither red nor blue. #WHN2014

Mack and Geyer put together an anthology of 12 original stories and 12 full narrative responses from Texas and Carolina #WHN2014

Geyer speaking about specialisation and fragmentation in 21c literature - thinking about inclusivity of hyphenated pocos #WHN2014

Hmmm, so we've lost Willetts as Higher Education minister. Dread to think which fellow market zealot they'll put next in his place.

Those at #WHN2014: I will be heading to pub on Steep Hill w/ @SimondeBourcier at ~7pm. Wig & Mitre, Widow Cullen's Well or Magna Carter.

Michael Gove: "It's an ideologically motivated minority who are intent on confrontation" ... not at all like the Conservatives, then.

Today's highlight: email debate on hyphenation of compound adjectives in pre-nounal vs postpositive forms w/ @RupertHildyard & @sadiseshiah

I suppose, most of all, he taught generations of young people to self-organise. If you want to do something, collectively work to do it.

He encouraged generations of young people to travel in order to broaden their horizons. He constantly reminded us of our privilege.

Sad day. Influential mentor and teacher from my teenage years died. He was by turns brilliant then infuriating but always inspirational.

Full JATS semantic reference markup from plaintext and a Zotero database. Took me < 30 mins to do a whole article.

This is the height of my Friday night excitement: my XML typesetter now pulls references from Zotero. AND IT WORKS.

Somewhere there must exist a badminton club that isn't called "no strings". Nobody has yet found it, though.

First comment on Guardian article implicitly blames Murray's loss on fact he ditched his coach and appointed a woman. ("The lazy option".)