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January 2016

But I also love the "outsiderness", the liminality, of blogging and especially so when it can make it back into the academy.

Of course, there's a place for peer review, and I want the digital preservation & labour of formal publishing cf @openlibhums.

Instead: how can you bring your training and critical faculties to material that doesn't have these signposts? What do YOU think?

... how will we evaluate? What are the prestige markers? For a colleague to disregard these and say: I think this is good...

... it's so nice that colleagues can recommend blogs. I spend so much time in circles that ask: with the rise of the internet...

Incredible that a university replied to the Green Paper arguing for a pure metrics REF every ten years based on impact factor of journals.

And now, in the green paper, the marketised precarity is to be used against institution to precipitate their "market exit" (bankruptcy).

Many in universities were and are appalled by the reorientation of education as a private consumer good and marched against this policy.

"So what does the future hold for passwords? Most likely a sysadmin will electrify a banana in order to enable a 1-time wifi key."

I did not predict that the future of passwords would involve a wired-up banana in my @objectsobjects book. I feel like such a failure.

Had a pretty laidback Saturday, but I have managed to get most of the DOI metadata retrieval functionality built for @MLACommons CORE.

Went to hear Prof David Latchman's Master's Address at @BirkbeckNews this afternoon with colleagues. A kind of state of the union address.

Pro poetry tip: get that Keston Sutherland vibe and rhythm by proofreading your manuscript backwards while accentuating arbitrary words.

"We're happy you're here" says MS Windows on a first boot. Little did it know it's the only boot before I rip it out and replace with Linux.

Those following my "history of redaction/blanks" quest might like to know that I was recommended Craig Dworkin's /No Medium/ this evening.

I've heard that if I were to give up caffeine, I would eventually feel better. Not that I feel bad at the moment. How long is "eventually"?

And as though those with a mission have less of a reason to ensure the ongoing operation of the thing they believe in.

I disagree w/ "for profit is the only way to sustainability" rationale. As though the only reason anyone would act is out of self interest.

I don't know any academic colleagues who feel so time rich that they can take breaks to play football in the day, as that viral article says

"We have heard from the sector that they expect that the TEF will offer significant reputational advantage" [CITATION NEEDED]

Was going to hit the ground running today back to work but got hit by some awful migraine in the night and now feel terrible. Urgh.

Quite liked "Skyfall" but never really "got" Adele. Very much like her track "River Lea", though, which flows near to my home.

Same logic there with TEF etc for HE: gov logic is that best way to improve substandard institutions is to withdraw their resources.