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Oct 26 Round-up
One aspect of my old existence that still persists is that of examining PhDs. This was always one of the roles I enjoyed the most. Last month I went to Sligo, where I examined a PhD along with my good friend Tom Farrelly. It was successful and as always I learnt a lot about a subject by someone who has been embedded deeply in one particular aspect of it. This also prompts me to share two new guides from GO-GN, which Rob Farrow has marshalled and edited, with contributions from GO-GN members: GO-GN Guide to Doctoral Supervision The GO-GN Guide to Doctoral Examination Although these are from the field of…
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First Novel vs Second Album Syndrome
I have a bit of a theory about why people talk about first novel, but second album, syndrome. As I’m no longer an academic, I can just have a theory and don’t need to back it up with evidence or citations, so here goes. First novel syndrome is usually characterised by over-writing, too much plot and infodumping. It stems from an author trying too hard. The eagerness to demonstrate “I am a writer, look!” I say this as someone’s whose first novel has some of these elements (it’s still brilliant and you should buy it, of course). Now that I’m halfway through my fourth novel I can see all those…
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Rambling about curiosity
I was thinking about curiosity the other day, so now you have to suffer through my rambling thoughts. What brought it to mind was a couple of conversations I’ve had with people recently, where they exhibited a distinct lack of curiosity. I have some sympathy with this because, being rather socially awkward, I have failed to show appropriate curiosity about something someone was interested in. Not through an actual lack of interest, but more through an inability to have grasped how the mechanics of conversations work. So maybe the people I was having dialogue with had a similar issue. Or they just weren’t interested. One of the things I have…
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Sept 26 Round-up
Despite being retired, September still has a back-to-school feel about it. After an enjoyable (but hot) summer it was good to get back to my desk again (and to wear jumpers). Things I enjoyed this month: The massive facepalm of the republicans thinking they had a gotcha moment over Jack Smith; watching The Office; Fat Bear week; going to see Welsh singer/harpist Georgia Ruth (pictured); the new seasons of Slow Horses and Ted Lasso; and speaking of Slow Horses, the very Slough House vibe to the whole Fairfield RAF debacle. The ice hockey season has started again, and with it my annual attempt at blogging about the Cardiff Devils. The…
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Flow vs Grind
No, this is not a comparison of dating sites, but rather a reflection on recent writing experience. I’ve published my second novel (I know, why haven’t mentioned this before?), and the writing of that came pretty easily. The characters led the plot and it flowed fairly quickly, in comparison with my first novel. I’ve almost finished my third novel, and that was also in the category of “flow”. While I’m still doing copy-editing on the third novel, but I’ve been getting the fourth one underway. While I have a basic idea for the outline of the novel, getting the voice of the main protagonist right has been firmly in the…
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Hold me back
It seems that periodically we get a story about how AI vendors are fearful about the awesome, apocalyptic power of their tech, and for God’s sake, won’t someone stop them. There’s been a recent round of this from Anthropic. I’ve wondered what the intent behind these stories was, since caring about harm or morality has not hitherto been a strong suit for the AI companies. I’m probably just slow, but it wasn’t until I read Cory Doctorow’s insightful and persuasive Reverse Centaur, that I got it (seriously, everyone should read this book). Doctorow makes the point that first of all, LLMs are simply not capable of the type of intelligence…
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Life beyond ed tech
As part of the DS106 Radio Summer Camp, I did a session with Clint Lalonde on life after ed tech. I’ve been retired for two years and Clint is heading for retirement. We’ve both been in open and ed tech fro a while so thought it would be fun to discuss things outside of that life, and accompany these with record choices, as we’re both vinyl collectors. The fun was in the process. We set up a google doc to throw in some ideas, and then think about a song that might accompany each. We pre-recorded the show so Reclaim could just play it on the day. The topics we…
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August 26 round-up
It’s been an August which saw severe drought across the UK, and wild fires raging in South Wales, so we went to bed with acrid fumes every night. Against this backdrop there are plans to build huge data centres in Cardiff which will use water, generate fumes and add to pollution. I mean, yeah, let’s prioritise AI over people. We had a staycation this month – in the correct sense of that term in that we stayed at home, not just holidayed in the UK. We went to the Big Pit museum, where you can have a tour of a mine. It could be subtitled “capitalism is terrible”, because you…
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Publication day
My new horror novel, The H-Index, is coming out on the 1st September. As an indie horror writer all of the promotion comes down to you. But luckily there are so many services willing to take my money to do it also! Some of these are better than others. Here’s what I’ve tried: Amazon ads – mixed results. Probably broke even on what I spent and what I got back on my last book. Will try again with more refinement for this one. BookBub – you can set up campaigns in here, discounted and promoted. It didn’t really produce any noticeable upturn last time, but I think I may have…
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The Death of an Academic
Like most people working in higher ed, I was horrified by the treatment and death of Professor Jason Arday. It was naked racism, purely and obviously. As a white man, I don’t have the voice to speak to that pain, so here are some Black writers who put it more eloquently than I ever could. Sneha Krishnan writing for Al Jazeera, correctly highlights the underlying motivation behind the campaign against Arday, saying “There was no ambiguity from the beginning that this so-called revelation of “plagiarism” was a cudgel: it was a way to make a point that equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) initiatives are supposedly academically dishonest.” She goes on…
