“âŠI created a spoof manuscript about âmidi-chloriansâ â the fictional entities which live inside cells and give Jedi their powers in Star Wars. I filled it with other references to the galaxy far, far away, and submitted it to nine journals under the names of Dr Lucas McGeorge and Dr Annette Kin.“
Apparently, I never listen to music at 11 AM. I had no idea.
Spotify.me is a really fun complement to last.fm, which of course is a must if you are interested in your listening history.
Om man inte drömmer blir man galen, men mitt i drömmen vÀcks man av förstÄndet, som bestÀller en traditionell engelsk frukost. Man fÄr gÄ halvgalen en dag till.
Werner Aspenström (1976). âDrömmenâ Ur Ordbok.
I very rarely listen to country music but when I do it is often to hear this guy play guitar.
“In this sense, science, as physicist Steven Weinberg has emphasized, does not make it impossible to believe in God, but rather makes it possible to not believe in God. Without science, everything is a miracle. With science, there remains the possibility that nothing is. Religious belief in this case becomes less and less necessary, and also less and less relevant” (Krauss, 2012, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing, p. 182).
I watched⊠No. That is not right. I skipped, like a flat stone on the surface of a calm water, through this YouTube video. Twenty-four years on US television (first on CBS, then syndicated). Amazing.
We have come a long way.
* * *
Today, GoT premieres again. As I intend to wait and binge watch the latest season, this effectively makes YouTube unusable for two months. All things considered, that is probably a good thing.
“Postsocialism was not built on the ruins of communism but with the ruins of communism” (Stark, 2009, The Sense of Dissonance, p. 76).
“The company Bayer is famous for inventing aspirin in 1898, which is arguably one of the worldâs most beloved brands, and for good reason. But I was surprised to learn that just two weeks earlier, the same three guys who gave the world aspirin also created Bayerâs other big brand, heroin, which was marketed for about eight years as the worldâs best cough medicine” (Q&A: Tell Us 5 Things About Your Book: âThe End of Advertisingâ via MA.TT).
Fun if trueâand full of lessons about the drug industry, I suppose.
“I am convinced, however, that we went way wrong with the Web as a platform by basing it from the start on client-server (aka calf-cow), which (to leverage McLuhan) retrieved the mainframe, which retrieved the monopoly, which retrieved the feudal system” (Doc Searls, How the Web failed us, and vice versa).
Leaving Quebec City and the amazingly well organized CPA conference with this five year old memory from its sister conference the IPA, that time in Cardiff.
SÄ varje midsommar, nÀr vi gÄr över alla grÀnser för att vara sÄ dÀr lite extra svenska genom att hoppa runt som smÄ grodor, hjÀlper vi alltsÄ egentligen britterna att hÄna fransmÀnnen. Till fransk melodi.
Dessutom:
“den svenska ambassaden i Paris anvĂ€nde 2003 sĂ„ngen som en del av ett test pĂ„ svensk anknytning för att fĂ„ behĂ„lla sitt svenska medborgarskap.“
Game, set, match för verkligheten över dikten.
KĂ€lla: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sm%C3%A5_grodorna?wprov=sfsi1
âA few months ago, an editor from an academic publisher got in touch to ask if I was interested in writing a book for them.
Iâve ignored these requests in the past. I know of too many colleagues who have responded to such invitations, only to see their books disappear on to a university library shelf in a distant corner of the world.
If someone tried to buy said book â I mean, like a real human being â they would have to pay the equivalent of a return ticket to a sunny destination or a monthâs child benefit. These books start at around ÂŁ60, but they can cost double that, or even more.
This time, however, I decided to play along.â
What follows is a frank description that illustrates a major element of contemporary academic book publishing. In addition to what is mentioned in the article, I have also heard that writers sometimes have to pay for proofreading and other services normally provided by a publisher.
This seems to be a relatively big business for the publishers (they are at least almost guaranteed a small profit on each project) and, as the Anonymous Academic in the Guardian points out, not a very good deal for anyone else.
âSo why donât academics simply stay away from the greedy publishers? The only answer I can think of is vanity.â
I can think of another. These books (and book chapters) often count significantly in various academic reward systems. Compared to getting published in a high-quality peer-reviewed journal, writing these books is simply a good career move.
* This is the title of an article originally appearing in The Guardian 2015-09-04 (which recently came to my attention via my Facebook feed).
