This post forms part of my ‘aspects of the novel’ collection. Please do note that these entries, which may appear basic, are simply my own notes on the subject. They implicitly or explicitly describe a canon not of my own making or choosing and replicate this from various sources. The original encyclopaedia articles are far more comprehensive, nuanced and worth consulting.

This post forms part of my ‘aspects of the novel’ collection. Please do note that these entries, which may appear basic, are simply my own notes on the subject. They implicitly or explicitly describe a canon not of my own making or choosing and replicate this from various sources. The original encyclopaedia articles are far more comprehensive, nuanced and worth consulting.

Something I am not very good at is decoupling the amount of effort I am expected to put in from the output result. That is, my academic contract has a nominal number of hours that I am expected to work and that should serve as a guide for how much I can get done. In the two full years where I have time tracked everything I do for work, I have ended up substantially “in the red”; i.e. I do many more hours than the contract states. How much more?

Lots about contemporary computation stresses availability and uptime . It is important, for instance, that the OLH servers for which I have ultimate responsibility stay online. Otherwise, the articles that we publish would not be readable. As a result, various tools, such as “Uptime Robot”, have emerged that are designed to alert you when a server goes offline.

In 2021 I spent 506 hours answering email. That’s less than the 558 that I spent on the task in 2020, but it’s still a full 72 days’ worth of my time per year. (My nominal contract is seven hours per day, but for an eight-hour day, it’s still 63 days.) It’s less than some people and more than others.

I gave my final talk of the year, today, at the University of Leeds, on open access in the humanities disciplines. Perhaps predictably, all of the Q&A centred on open licensing and the concerns from humanists around the misuse of their work. My basic line on all this has shifted over time, but I am more cautious now than I used to be and feel better about somewhat more restrictive CC licenses.

I am absolutely delighted to announce that, today, the 15th December 2021 marks the publication of my eighth academic book: Warez: The Infrastructure and Aesthetics of Piracy . The book will be available to buy in print, but it’s already available, open access, to download from the OAPEN library.

I mustn’t say too much in public about this, for fear of being unprofessional. However, I wanted to jot down a few notes about “being a PhD supervisor” and what it means and what it’s like. I am always terrified when my students come up for viva.

Some things we do in life happen once; the first time will be the only and last time. Our births and deaths, of course, are the two key ones. CONTENT WARNING: this post discusses suicide, death, and dying. I am a member of the Swiss organization, Dignitas, which is most well known for its assisted suicide clinic.

One of the basic tenets of digital philosophy is that downloads are non-rivalrous. When I download something it remains accessible to other users to download. But what if this isn’t actually true and what if there is a strong disutility premise at work? Bitcoin has not done much for the world, but it does provide a useful reference point for thinking about this. The annual energy consumption of Bitcoin is enormous.