Public Books has a wonderful newsletter. This edition is all about the 220th anniversary of Haiti's independence and Haiti's influence on world politics since then: https://www.publicbooks.org/?utm_source=PUBLIC BOOKS Newsletter&utm_campaign=9e68afec90-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_01_15&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d048c39403-9e68afec90-181069426&mc_cid=9e68afec90&mc_eid=f8928db7e7
"People say they want real justice... so we fob them off with a slightly less unjust system of justice. Workers howl that they're being flayed like donkeys... so we arrange for the flaying to be a little less severe and slash their howling entitlement, but the exploitation goes on. The workforce would rather not have fatal accidents in the factory... so we make it a teeny bit safer and increase compensation payments to widows.
They'd like to see class divisions eliminated... so we do our best to bring the classes marginally closer or, preferably, just make it seem that way.
They want a revolution... and we give them reforms. We're drowning them in reforms. Or promises of reforms, because let's face it, they're not actually going to get anything."
-- #DarioFo, Accidental Death of an Anarchist (2/2)
I've been reading a lot about the state of scientific publishing. Some people seem to think it's in trouble, but I see signs of health from the various innovations people are trying. Some interesting examples include the use of openreview.net to open up reviews and give credit to reviewers, and the decision by eLife to stop issuing rejections, but open up the process instead. There is an interesting critique of the eLife decision by @MarkHanson located here: https://mahansonresearch.weebly.com/blog/do-we-really-need-journals
It's a weird time for me to be working on a new journal publishing platform, but maybe it's the right time. I've always been bugged by the economics of journal publishing, and that's what got me started working on it. Maybe I should shift my focus to the social process of publishing. The death of #AcademicTwitter hasn't helped, and I don't think LinkedIn and #AcademicChatter on the fediverse have filled the need yet.
@tragiccommons I have vague ideas of a federated academic publishing model (primarily hosted by universities) on an OSS stack... but you're right there is evolution in publishing which may work better than revolution
On connecting with academics, you can also follow @academicchatter
Ever since I got back from my knee injury, I have been playing some pretty good hockey (hope I didn't jinx myself). Had another solid game in the net this morning, and we pulled ahead to win, 7-5. I didn't have a chance on a couple and a few more were very frustrating, but I felt good, anticipated the play, and made some nice saves. I'm thinking of getting new goalie pads but that's like a $1,000 investment and I wonder how much longer I can keep going?
I have been doing something pretty amazing, for me at least. Not only am I getting books read and reviewed, I'm actually cutting into my ridiculously long Currently Reading list. It's down to only 6 books! I wrote 3 reviews yesterday. Unfortunately, none of them knocked me out, but hey, they can't all be grand slams. You can find my reviews here:
#NLI buys Bonar Law collection of historic maps https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22343003/#Maps#IrishHistory Audrey Whitty, Director of the National Library of Ireland, talks to RTE about the acquisition of 19,000 maps and prints of Ireland going back to the 16th century.
@IrishStudiesQUB First question asked in the interview was my first question:
'Any connection to the early 20th c UK prime minister, who was an opponent of home rule?'
Answer given was not entirely clear, but collection is named not for the UK prime minister per se, but rather for the collector, who happens to be the prime minister's 90-year-old grandson and namesake.
Amazon isn’t doing this, their sellers are. What this shows is how full Amazon’s product listings are with counterfeits sold by lazy scammers from China. Don’t trust Amazon for anything.