Newest thoughts →

November 2017

This evening at @birkbeck_arts we have Prof Joe Tabbi from UIC speaking on "Contrasting Futures of Digital Literary Practice: Postmodern Culture, CTheory, and the electronic book review". 6pm in the Keynes Library.

In other news, I am unreasonably excited about getting the pneumovax this afternoon and then potentially not getting pneumonia again.

I also have another textual criticism article I'm working on that has so far resulted in a 60-page table of version variant differences from MS to book. Texts were also serialised in this case though.

Working on my book this morning and now have stemma including French, Japanese, German, Italian, Kindle, and film-script versions of novel I'm focusing on.

An exciting week at @birkbeck_arts ahead for contemporary fiction people. Tomorrow: Julian Barnes. Thursday: Joe Tabbi from UIC.

This Norwegian bar/restaurant I'm in has got the soundtrack nailed. Just did St Etienne Only Love Can Break Your Heart to Depeche Mode Enjoy the Silence.

Ok, so @ajrbyers has built the coolest feature into Janeway: track whether a system email has been delivered or gone missing in action/bounced. Can't say how useful this is for, say, peer review requests.

My favourite item on our "new staff induction checklist" is "Explain what the fire alarm sound is like". "It's sort of an alarm, that's quite loud".

We now have Sir Tim Gowers, Fields medallist (the Nobel of mathematics) up at #12mc2017 on perverse incentives in academia.

Huginn and Muninn the information-gathering ravens of Norse mythology underpin the name of the scholarly communications conference that I'm at!

Ah yes, the "unsafe spaces" programme, where they denigrate ethnic minorities, torment and bully genderfluid and queer kids, and generally stick it to the tyranny of "PC culture" (otherwise known as "not being a dreadful human being")

REF basics from my quick scan: all research staff must be submitted. Average of 2.5 outputs required per FTE. 1 output minimum per staff member, 5 outputs max. Transitional approach to non-portability - both institutions can submit output. Used "first available date" as marker.

Linus T says security problems are "just bugs". Well, yes, but it's like the difference between a bug that means a sidebar scroll link doesn't work and one that lets everyone read all of my emails. Both are just bugs...

The thing I like most about the "millennials should do packed lunches so they can buy houses" line is the follow up headline: millennials are killing the prepackaged food industry and restaurants.

Re-read part of Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory this morning before admin kicks off. Still a remarkable book.

Ploughing through a back-list of @openlibhums library signups. Definitely a satisfying part of the job. Thanks to all our supporters!

Probably lots of Wellcome-funded books there that are more highly cited because of biomed crossover, as opposed to non-OA? @CameronNeylon

Anonymity in name only doesn't protect the author's identity. Just yields a false sense of security. Unveiling usually just a search away.

My experience of editorial work: double-blind peer review is just becoming more and more untenable in the age of the internet.

Dear @zotero, whatever you did in the last update, it's awesome. Seems to have resolved many of my stability issues! Thank you!

Have a series of investigations and follow-ups next week. Apologies if you are awaiting a response and I am slower than usual.

I've been quiet here recently as I've had an episode of sudden sensorineural hearing loss with acutely painful tinnitus. Origin unknown.