I asked, [yesterday on Twitter](https://twitter.com/martin_eve/status/1428438157712842756), whether anybody had written about one of the most prominent verbal tics in humanistic academic discourse: "I am interested in". This phrase is used to justify critical attention to almost any object while also placing the idea of such scrutiny beyond any challenge. Why should we _care_ that you are _interested_ in something?

This week, I decided that I should move my VPN system that I run on all my devices to use the new Wireguard protocol, replacing the OpenVPN setup. To do this, I used [NetMaker](https://github.com/gravitl/netmaker) for the configuration and setup and I have to say that it is superb. It works a treat on systems that have Wireguard easily installed and you then get a really neat web interface for administering clients.

One of the core plot devices (in so far as there is a plot) in Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel, _Gravity's Rainbow_, is the S-Gerät: the Schwarzgerät or "black device", made from the plastic Imipolex G. While working on another project (on the history of television), I found a curious set of projects from the war, designated Y-Gerät and X-Gerät, which are part of the so-called [Battle of the Beams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Beams)

Some incomplete notes on the introduction to Gaskill, Nicholas, _Chromographia: American Literature and the Modernization of Color_ (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018), [originally a Twitter thread](https://twitter.com/martin_eve/status/1422458629555433487). This morning, I am kicking off by reading Nicholas Gaskill's "Chromographia: American Literature and the Modernization of Color". Amusingly, I'm reading it on an e-reading

Some very incomplete and casual-in-tone notes on Monique, Zerdoun Bat-Yehouda. 2003. Les Encres Noires au Moyen Age. Paris: CNRS EDITIONS. Originally a Twitter thread. Pp 3-4: claims that previous studies have been limited to describing colour, shades and broad properties. Wants to add scientific principles that will help to date and localise specific inks. But also to find methods for restoration projects.

For quite some time, I've wanted to have an internet system that could fallback to a 4G connection if the primary internet connection failed. This would be helpful for when I need to work/go to online meetings and my Virgin Media connection dies. At the weekend, I found the LBR20 system, which is part of the Netgear Orbi system. It has precisely this functionality.

Giorgio Agamben gets around a lot on literature syllabi. His "What is the Contemporary?" is a staple of theoretical courses, his concept of "bare life" is used to think through the structures of contemporary biopower, and his thinking around "states of exception" and "states of emergency" find a fruitful home in many places. Here's the problem, though: Agamben has just shown us the logical outcome of his thinking and it's not good.

It has always "amused" me, to some extent, that the Augar review of post-18 education and funding was conducted by a bloke whose name is a near homonym for "augur", the noun form of which denoted, in Ancient Rome, a religious official who observed natural signs, especially the behaviour of birds, interpreting these as an indication of divine approval or disapproval of a proposed action.

The government has told us that we must “learn to live with the virus”. It is undoubtedly true that coronavirus is not going to disappear any time soon. However, a sizeable minority of people cannot learn to live with a virus that continues to pose a deadly risk. I suffer from panhypogammaglobulinemia. This unpronounceable condition was triggered by the chemotherapy drugs that I received a decade ago.

Yesterday, I examined a Ph.D. It's not an unusual experience -- and huge congratulations to the candidate who had a well-deserved pass! But every time I go through this process I spot a number of weaknesses in the UK examination system that really should be put right. These reflections are not specific to the thesis I just examined. They are, rather, a broader policy reflection on the process.

Most major studies of the discipline of English that I know of, such as Gerald Graff's _Professing Literature: An Institutional History_ (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1989) and Franklin E. Court's _Institutionalizing English Literature: Culture and Politics of Literary Study, 1750–1900_ (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), situate its birth as “English language and literature” in 1828 at the University of London (referring