I have, today, submitted the manuscript of my book, currently titled _Warez: The Economic Aesthetics and Alternative Reality Games of the Topsite Scene_ to the publisher!

My Ph.D. supervisors were not particularly hands on. This was not slacking on their part -- it suited me just fine and they could see that I had the thesis project in hand. There was a lesson from one of my supervisors that I will never forget, though. I was writing my first conference paper proposal/abstract. I felt it wasn't quite right and asked for his advice.

I usually start my New Year's resolutions on the 28 ^th or 29 ^th December. I do this because I don't like the season of excess; I come out of it feeling unfit, bloated, unstructured etc. Last year's resolutions went somewhat down the pan as the pandemic blew everything away. This year, I have some personal goals: 1. I put on 7kg during the pandemic. I want to lose this. 2. I will achieve this by upping my exercise.

The disciplines that have had it hardest for unwanted appropriation and assumed specialization this year have undoubtedly been various strands of medicine, virology, immunology, and epidemiology. Just going to put it out there, up front, that the notes here are nothing compared to the attempted popular seizure of expertise to which these disciplines have been subjected.

I wrote, last year, that [2019 was pretty bad for me](https://eve.gd/2019/12/14/my-2019-in-review/). Little did any of us know of the grimness that 2020 would bring with the coronavirus pandemic. I have spent almost all of this year "shielding", which can feel somewhat isolating, although I am fortunate to live with my wife, which ameliorates this greatly.

There's a prominent post at Ars Technica called [Linux on laptops: Ubuntu 19.10 on the HP Dragonfly Elite G1](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/01/linux-on-laptops-ubuntu-19-10-on-the-hp-dragonfly-elite-g1/) that implies that it is easy and straightforward to install Ubuntu on the HP Dragonfly Elite laptop.

Studies such as [my Warez book](/2020/10/10/an-update-on-my-warez-book/) fall under the rubric of ‘netnographies’; work that attempt to examine ethnographically the principles and characteristics of various online cultures. A fundamental challenge of working in this space is the issue of ethics, though.

As part of my efforts on Work Package 3 of the COPIM project I am engaged in a project that seeks to convert publishers to business models that will allow them to publish their books openly, without using unaffordable book processing charges (which authors hate and which will not scale). I am pleased to say that, as of today, we can [announce the first press to take the leap: the Central European University

After a Herculean effort, coinciding with open access week 2020, our edited volume Reassembling Scholarly Communications: Histories, Infrastructures, and Global Politics of Open Access has now been published by The MIT Press. It's available both in print to purchase and as a CC BY open-access download. I wanted to take this opportunity to write a few words about the goals of the volume, which speak to my interests in open access.

I am, at present, working on a book currently entitled _Warez: The Economic Artforms and Illicit Crafts of the Topsite Scene_, under contract with punctum books. The title has changed since it went under contract in order to better reflect the content -- and it might well change again.

Today, in the _Observer_, the Sunday national newspaper of the liberal Guardian Media Group, Will Hutton offered a sobering retrospective of the university crisis during the Covid pandemic, from his position as the former principal of Hertford College, Oxford.