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December 2020

Obviously, anyone who was involved in developing Covid vaccines deserves the Nobel Prize in Medicine. The nature of the award only going to individuals, despite collaborative scientific environments, will mean that so many will go unrecognised (unless they give it to a group).

The pioneers behind mRNA vaccines deserve it. Anyone who has adapted the tech for Covid deserves it. So many.

I've never seen Uncle Vanya, although teaching me the Russian alphabet - featuring Дя́дя Ва́ня - was part of my now-wife's courtship 16 years ago.

"The problem is not schools. It's the household mixing that inevitably occurs in schools."

That's some first-rate thinking from the idiot-in-chief here in the UK.

I remain ever more convinced that Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is a parable of scholarly publishing.

"Mr Norrell could never believe himself ready to publish; he could never be sure that he had got at the truth"

"You could write a monograph on warez chatting alone." - Rehn, Alf, ‘Electronic Potlatch: A Study on New Technologies and Primitive Economic Behaviors’ (unpublished Doctoral Thesis, Royal Institute of Technology, 2001), p. 125.

MPE: on it.

Power: on.

It's hard to know what to write songs about these days. "Write what you know."

"Woke up this morning, walked 5 seconds out of my bedroom into my home office. Did 8 hours of email."

It's got a ring to it.

I'll just turn up the kick drum and see what happens

Whenever the Conservative government announces to the press that it is to "spend" an amount in any area, that sector collectively sighs, wondering which part of their budget will be used to fund it.

It's nearly inevitable, it seems, that, at some point in the Christmas holiday every year, my autoimmune conditions will flare horribly. I thought that it wouldn't happen this year as we just stayed at home. Bang on cue, 5.30pm, Xmas day, intense pain and 24hrs in bed. Doh.

Christmas Eve, in Christmas Eve funk mode.

Just had an idea for a bass riff this afternoon and thought I'd give it a go with a beer

Deep into the editing phase of the book now and feel that I have eradicated most of the repetition that had snuck in. Realised yesterday that I started work on this book in 2013 after a conversation with @the_blochian walking around Brayford Pool in Lincoln.

Current title is /Warez: The Economic Artforms and Alternative Reality Games of the Pirate Topsite Scene/ but this still might change.

A problem has arisen. Toby has realised that he gets a dog advent calendar treat every morning and gets very very excited about it. What on earth are we going to do tomorrow now that the last one has been eaten?!

"Computational criticism construes its objects at a different scale from the conventional practices of literary interpretation". Hmmm.

Kramnick, Jonathan, ‘Criticism and Truth’, Critical Inquiry, 47.2 (2021), 218–40

Not going to lie, felt pretty good to be Christmas #1 on Cowbell Radio - a Christmas show I've listened to for the last decade. Thanks to everyone who voted for me and merry Christmas, in this most terrible of years.

I reflect that lots of humanities academics like solid blocks of research time and struggle with the fragmentation of research during term time. I always note, when I have more time to do my research, that my concentration is shot after four straight hours of reading and writing.

I think that, if I could get a magic lamp, having 3-4 hours per day to do research would be what I would actually like and where I would be most productive, were it possible.

Things are not good in the UK. Stay safe people.

Case spikes are followed by proportionate hospitalisation spikes, on a lag, which are followed by proportionate death spikes, on a lag. Serious trouble.

Unbelievable that there are two studies on the ethics of peer-to-peer filesharing that use Dire Straits puns in their titles.

1. Levin, Aron M., Mary Conway Dato-on, and Kenneth Rhee, ‘Money for Nothing and Hits for Free: The Ethics of Downloading Music from Peer-to-Peer Web Sites’, Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 12.1 (2004), 48–60 <https://doi.org/10.1080/10696679.2004.11658512>

2. Rodman, Gilbert B., and Cheyanne Vanderdonckt, ‘Music for Nothing or, I Want My MP3: The Regulation and Recirculation of Affect’, Cultural Studies, 20.2–3 (2006), 245–61 <https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380500495734>

New shielding regulations for extremely clinically vulnerable in Tier 4 are "do not go to work under any circumstances". Yet family members are still advised to go out, presumably for economic reasons, putting this group back into danger. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tier-4-stay-at-home

My friend's wife - clinically vulnerable - contracted it via him, as he had to go to work. She was very ill but, fortunately, OK at the end. Not everyone will be so lucky.

In the spirit of sharing various bits of *good* news wherever we can find them, 2020 saw some improvements to my hearing! This was a combination of physical repair and cognitive adaptation. Although I haven't been in noisy spaces, I haven't used my hearing aid in 6 months.

Most importantly, perhaps, in my view, the low-frequency hearing loss that was cutting off the fundamental and causing detuning effects seems to have vanished! This was the thing that caused me most distress: music I knew well sounding out of tune.

It also wrecked this release for me, which I was really looking forward to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N66_aN5kBfU

Discussing the philosophy of Isaiah Berlin with my mother via WhatsApp is definitely the highlight of coronavirus politics 2020.

I think the thing that annoys me most is that our government cannot or will not behave proactively for fear of the right-wing libertarian press, so we all live under rapidly changing, last-minute conditions, only when the extent of the slaughter is clear.

Of course, our leaders also share some of those "philosophies".

The "uncertainty" that this all introduces is, of course, a well-known aspect of neoliberal economics. So I suppose it's unsurprising, although I had wondered whether the new authoritarian phase was post-neoliberal, in its reassertion of politics over economics.

I've been in total isolation for 9 months, shielding. The furthest I have been is a dog walk. I was looking forward to seeing my Nan over the winter. It is her 100th Christmas and my niece's first. Dashed because our useless government wouldn't eliminate the virus earlier.

I have actually got a book to finish writing over the holidays. But I've also had a remix commission in and reckon that's a more fun/appropriate start to the holiday.

A note that occurred to me: I don't think I've ever seen a "how much does it cost to run an OA publisher/how much per article" that budgets for contingencies like staff maternity/paternity/shared parental leave. Or perhaps I'm misremembering.

I might do a proper analysis and publication of this at some point, but my most recent figures for OLH's annual cost-per-article are around the £800 mark. Cost per frontlist article per library is approximately £2.48.

A thing I realised today is that I have no idea how images are stored in various tech clipboard frameworks. MS Teams, for instance, will accept the output of copy from The GIMP but not from some copies from Chrome.

I've #justsponsored Shelter on @JustGiving. I do this every year but lots of music friends are putting on an online festival this year in aid of this cause. Please do support this charity to help the most vulnerable https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Shelter-Me-Festival?experiments=b2c_041_fundraising_page_donation_prompts_2%2Cb2c_036_donate_button_colour%2Cb2c_038_secure_donate_buttons%2Cb2c_029_first_to_donate%2Cb2c_040_frp_trust_proposition_bar%2Cb2c_043_generic_share_button_in_inactivity_modal&successType=StaticDonateButtonClick?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socpledgemobile&utm_content=Shelter-Me-Festival?experiments=b2c_041_fundraising_page_donation_prompts_2%2Cb2c_036_donate_button_colour%2Cb2c_038_secure_donate_buttons%2Cb2c_029_first_to_donate%2Cb2c_040_frp_trust_proposition_bar%2Cb2c_043_generic_share_button_in_inactivity_modal&successType=StaticDonateButtonClick&utm_campaign=post-pledge-mobile&utm_term=VgwEZZbnM

I do think it's a scandal that the extremely clinically vulnerable who cannot work from home (not me) and who have been told there is no government support to protect them are not top of the vaccination list. This group have no choice but to put themselves in harm's way.

We had our online departmental Christmas quiz featuring baby pics. Apparently I am the most recognisable member of our department. Also, now it's done, I can release this photoshop effort, courtesy of @ScholTom !

I see the ridiculous "think" tank Civitas has a ranking of "academic freedom" that, I'm not even kidding, marks universities down for having anti-bullying policies.

Oh yes, these all sound like crucial blockers on the ability to pursue ideas. "Will not tolerate bullying / Harassment / Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 / Bullying is offensive / Intimidating / Malicious / Insulting behaviour" http://wonkhe.com/blogs/the-free-speech-university-rankings-stage-a-dramatic-christmas-comeback/

And phew. Teaching is done for the term except for student essay consultations and PhD supervisions. Last conference paper of the year is given. There still feels like quite a lot to do before 6pm on Friday, mind...

Earned this.

My 2020 year in review: the feelgood version where I actually show that I did quite a lot, despite the hideousness of it otherwise... https://eve.gd/2020/12/16/my-2020-year-in-review/

A good bit: published Eve, Martin Paul, and Jonathan Gray, eds., Reassembling Scholarly Communications: Histories, Infrastructures, and Global Politics of Open Access (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2020) https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/document/214156

Also ace: Eve, Martin Paul, Close Reading with Computers: Textual Scholarship, Computational Formalism, and David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019) was made open access! https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/document/158876

Pleased: we finished production on Eve, Martin Paul, Cameron Neylon, Daniel O’Donnell, Samuel Moore, Robert Gadie, Victoria Odeniyi, and others, Reading Peer Review: PLOS ONE and Institutional Change in Academia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021)

I finished writing two other books, including: Eve, Martin Paul, Warez: The Economic Artforms and Illicit Crafts of the Pirate Topsite Scene (New York, NY: punctum books, 2022)

Some good articles, too: Eve, Martin Paul, Paula Clemente Vega, and Caroline Edwards, ‘Lessons From the Open Library of Humanities’, LIBER Quarterly, 30.1 (2020) https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/document/154720

A DFW piece: Eve, Martin Paul, ‘Equivocationary Horseshit: Post-Correlationist Aesthetics and Post-Critical Ethics in the Works of David Foster Wallace’, Open Library of Humanities, 6.1 (2020) https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/document/153804

Article on the two versions of Jennifer Egan's Emerald City: ‘Textual Scholarship and Contemporary Literary Studies: Jennifer Egan’s Editorial Processes and the Archival Edition of Emerald City’, LIT: Literature, Interpretation, Theory, 31.1 (2020), 25–41 https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/document/132295

All of my peer-reviewed articles published this year were gold open access.

I really like this book chapter: ‘Violins in the Subway: Scarcity Correlations, Evaluative Cultures, and Disciplinary Authority in the Digital Humanities’, in Digital Technology and the Practices of Humanities Research,(Cambridge: OBP, 2020), pp. 105–22 https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/document/134537

Gave 11 conference papers this year, with seminars/keynotes at Cambridge and Newcastle (this evening). I gave my 200th ever conference paper.

Workload this year has not been great, though.

There's a "medieval craft workshop" in our department this week. Although it says "whatever your level of experience, we'd love to see you", this is the only thing I have ever made even remotely in this category, so suspect I may not be the intended audience...

Teaching last night featured a silly Christmas hat from me and a foolish jumper from @the_blochian. Facebook melded the two and I now look like Bowie's second pair of eyes.

It quite frankly seems a bit off that paying vehicle tax costs you more if you can't afford to do it in one go. £15 more for 6 months on a card payment vs 12 months. £7.50 more if you pay by monthly direct debit. I know lots of commercial outlets do this, but for tax?

Like most things this government does, it makes things cheaper for those who have money...

I wasn't particularly speedy on the exercise bike today, but I'm absolutely shattered. Must be because it's almost the end of term... Good job I volunteered to give a conference paper this week...

Ah yes, our neighbours have their annual Christmas lights up with a power requirement equal to the entire nation of Sweden.

Today I have 7+ hours straight of interviewing for our new Digital Education Consultant role at Birkbeck. Haven't looked this smart since before the pandemic started...

And here's the gritty "eight-hours later mentally screwed by video calls" face.

I didn't set the reading for this week, but tonight I'm teaching a Jean Baudrillard book and the only article ever to cite it is ‘Christian Demonology in Contemporary American Popular Culture’.

This morning's research work: the activities of "FXP Boards" are so unknown to those studying piracy that the only mention is in Sander Gellaerts's unpublished doctoral thesis: ‘Watermerken Als Juridisch Bewijsmiddel' at Tilburg University, in 2015.

In turn, this is based on legal cases heard in The Hague in 2013, under docket number ‘ECLI:NL:RBROT:2011:BR5610’ and in Rotterdam under docket number ‘ECLI:NL:RBROT:2011:BR5610’ in 2011.

Mercè Molist Ferrer also wrote a self-published book in Spanish that covers their operations in fairly light detail

It's in http://Hackstory.es: La historia nunca contada del underground hacker en la Península Ibérica

OK, I lied, I forgot: there's also a one-sentence mention in Sockanathan, Andrew, ‘Digital Desire and Recorded Music: OiNK, Mnemotechnics and the Private BitTorrent Architecture’ (unpublished Doctoral Thesis, Goldsmiths College, 2011)

I've really struggled with music making this year. Since January I have been suffering with medication-induced clinical depression. That said, I have new material out soon and I sat down for 70 mins or so with an idea stuck in my head. It sounded a lot like this.

I continue to believe that at some point in the next decade, text-generation models are going to make the humanities essay an unworkable assessment format.

The most annoying thing about HMRC tax self-assessment is the number of bits of info they request from paper documents /that they sent me/ several years ago.

Why do they not just know this? They sent it to me in the first place! Argh!

Woah. CDL have Janeway t-shirts for @EarthArXiv!

I mean, it's a shame that it doesn't say "Captained by Janeway", but hey.

Love the Janeway review status overview in the list, giving a clear and clean overview of when reviews are due!

Here showing: reviewer contacted and their status on the review

I'm not saying there are major problems with academic publishing, but the first thing I did when I was given temporary subscription access to a publisher platform was to download the digital versions of record of my own books and book chapters. Actually, that is what I'm saying.

Urgh. Michael Barber, the outgoing head of Office for Students, yesterday: “people say ‘we want autonomy’ then when something like the pandemic comes up, or even a more minor problem, people say, ‘Well, what are you going to do?’”

We hardly have autonomy due to his body, the OfS

Also: the notion of autonomy is not antithetical to public funding. It can be seen that autonomy is beneficial to the public good for some publicly funded bodies, such as universities.

Today is the UN International Day of Disabled Persons. In a pandemic year when the UK government has done far too little to protect disabled people/people with disabilities, I am today wearing purple to highlight this cause.

A truly annoying thing is third-party aggregators who will not simply use an open license to do what they want, but instead insist on publishers assigning them a license. We can't do this as we don't own the copyright, our authors do, but it's so frustrating.