Newest thoughts →

May 2020

I should also note, though, that the original advice that vulnerable individuals could only come out of shielding once there was a vaccine (level 1) was also indefinite confinement for millions as there is no guarantee of a vaccine.

perhaps that's how the world really is in terms of danger, forever after, from now

So the health secretary is tweeting a paywalled article in the Telegraph that contradicts the official http://gov.uk advice for clinically extremely vulnerable people. Another great day in UK health policy.

Bit surprised to hear that the Medical Research Council gave no emergency COVID-19 grants in its first round.

Gove: “Well, I think that different people will take different steps in order to ensure that their eyesight is properly addressed.”

Christ.

Reminded this morning of the appalling charade of UK university league tables. Institutions ranked more highly because they demand higher grades will simply drop those supposed requirements so they can recruit more students who want to go there because they are ranked highly.

It's Trump playbook, though, right? Just lie as outrageously as possible -- the more outlandish the better -- while giving your supporters a kind of knowing grin that you're sticking it to the libs.

I spent the day dosed up to my eyeballs on morphine in serious pain. Woke up feeling pretty bleary and drugged to the DC press conference. Think I need more painkillers now.

Today's reading for me is Ruha Benjamin's Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code

Tonight I read Marquez. "After all, everyone knew that the time of cholera had not ended despite all the joyful statistics from the health officials."

There's a horrendous irony in any transposition of that statement in the novel to the current situation, because they're faking it on the boat.

I am now reading Crow, R. (2009). Income Models for Open Access: An Overview of Current Practice. SPARC. A few threaded notes as I read through will follow.

"Where subscription agents and aggregators serve a journal’s well-established subscription
base, maintaining the current subscription model often requires little active effort on the
part of a publisher."

"In such cases, a change of business model might require a small publisher to deploy resources that it does not possess or to incur risks it is unable to assess fully". Yeah, tell me about it.

I think RC disagrees with @samoore_'s recent stuff on economies of scale. "While there are some economies of scale in journal publishing, larger organizations tend to bear greater overhead costs than smaller organizations". It's not actually specified what those are, though.

Crow uses the business model matrix/canvas that I described here: https://eve.gd/2020/05/14/on-business-model-generation/

RC: "model for an open-access journal addresses a three-sided market in which readers pay with their attention, funders [...] pay for access to the target audience’s attention, " ...

"and authors pay (with their content and, sometimes, with article fees) for the audience reach, research impact, and professional prestige that the journal delivers".

in fact, going to move this to a blog post

https://eve.gd/2020/05/21/notes-on-raym-crow-2009-income-models-for-open-access-an-overview-of-current-practice-sparc/

Oh joy. It turns out that a vaccine will not directly work for me, even if developed, as I cannot produce the antibodies required in response to it. I will need the antibodies to enter the human immunoglobulin supply so that my immune therapy. Great.

That said, ironically, there is a chance that this could happen _sooner_ than a vaccine if the virus continues to spread at current rates among plasma donors worldwide.

I really don't know about this. The time I thought I was capable of competently making small felt toy mice was pretty bad.

New exercise bike arrived. Had the first ride. As it is identical to the old bike, this was underwhelming on the excitement front.

"When considering change, we should contemplate what is spurring us to teach online". Do we have to? https://muse.jhu.edu/book/38784

Strangely, in the list of reasons that people might decide to teach online, "a global deadly pandemic" does not seem to feature.

Put away the never-ending admin pile and did some stimulating research writing and thinking this evening. Really makes a hugely positive difference to how I feel when it's so easy just to be buried.

Wow. Very bad data breach from hospital just now. One of my departments just emailed ALL ITS PATIENTS on a non-blind CC list.

People are now replying to everyone on the list with their personal details

Been wondering quite a bit about the appropriation of the discourse of "critical thinking" by conspiracy theorists. Where does the line actually stand between "question everything and its premises" and thinking the pandemic is a control strategy dreamed up by educated elites?

I haven't yet read it, but this sounds interesting: Maybe Free Thinker but not a Critical One: High Conspiracy Belief is Associated With low Critical Thinking Ability https://psyarxiv.com/8qhx4/

Also looks like an interesting historical perspective w/r/t Horkheimer: Critical theory and the traps of conspiracy thinking https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0191453707081675?journalCode=pscb

STAY HOME > PROTECT THE NHS > DRIVE INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC

Nicked from "Angry People in Local Newspaper"

A diverse day of activities. Administration and digital teaching planning first thing. Then COPIM meetings. Toby earlier sat with me while I read a Ph.D. for examination. Now on a Plan S Ambassadors call.

... and a funding proposal just completed.

We are discussing participatory design in library architecture today at @COPIMproject. I'll try to write something after our session.

Garmin is very confused about:

1. The category under which "indoor exercise cycle" should be filed;
2. How many times I have undertaken this activity;
3. How many times you have to do a yoga session to be a "Zen Master".

It's actually 6 sessions.

An epic trilogy of articles published today at @orbitjournal / @openlibhums on the William Gaddis archive. It has taken the author almost a decade to put together this material. The first article was submitted in 2013. Now unleashed on the world https://orbit.openlibhums.org/issue/147/info/

We usually publish on a rolling basis at Orbit, but these pieces are so interlinked that we held them back to release in a single batch. It's more like a book-length work.

Urgh. Simon. Jenkins. "I have still seen no good argument for keeping schools closed". Here's one: it's to STOP PEOPLE DYING. Why are these morons allowed opinion columns?