Comments for Gynoid Times

Comment on Some girls get education, some get shot by Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 07:42:31 +0000

Malala Yousafzai has become a synonym for courage and bravery. As a token of recognition for her stand against militant forces she has been nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by members of Norwegian Parliament

Comment on Campaign to Save our LunchTimes (SOLT) by Anne K

Anne K — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 19:05:35 +0000

True confession! I read this piece eating lunch at my desk. Although I do some “web surfing” in my “lunch break” it hardly adds up to a full 60 minutes – plus it’s not getting me out of the office!

Comment on Will the Finch Report kill off non-commercial open access journals? by Ross Mounce (@rmounce)

Ross Mounce (@rmounce) — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 22:46:14 +0000

“I was interested in a recent email by Jorgen Burchardt to science mailing list in which he says: ‘I have recently made a study of Danish academic journals that shows that 30 % of the authors are unemployed, retired, students or are working for not-research companies/institutions.’ That certainly resonates with what I see submitted to the journals I work with.”

The trick in this statement is the word ‘student’. It would NOT surprise me whatsoever if nearly 30% of authors on papers were PhD candidates of Masters students. The academic system is notoriously pyramidal in structure. Most students I know are *funded* students and thus I think this factoid bares little or no relevance to the anti-Gold OA point you’re trying to make.

Comment on Will the Finch Report kill off non-commercial open access journals? by The covert censorship of Gold Open Access « The Policy Press Blog

The covert censorship of Gold Open Access « The Policy Press Blog — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 13:43:03 +0000

[...] who choose to work with me seem to agree. So do journal editors, as it appears that around one in three authors of articles in academic journals are retired, unemployed, students, practitioner-researchers or independent researchers. Therefore [...]

Comment on Don’t dig there, dig it elsewhere – preferably outside my house by Jason

Jason — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 15:37:51 +0000

It’s not often that someone complains that the road outside their house isn’t being dug up, but I feel your pain. Where I work we have BT broadband, on a 7MBs maximum download speed. In today’s standards I may as well draw websites by hand rather than try to access them.

Comment on Why Read? by Gill Kirkup

Gill Kirkup — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:45:34 +0000

Thanks Tim, I do see your point. I agree that the more books we have from everywhere the better. I only came to read books by African and Afro/American writers as an adult, I did not know of any African childrens’ books – at least when I was a child. But to argue for more books from everywhere to enhance everyone’s appreciate of of different realities (including the fantasy kind) is the opposite of an argument that you can only read books that reflect your own reality (class, culture, gender etc) . This second argument seems very limiting to me.

Comment on Why Read? by Tim Hunt

Tim Hunt — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 09:29:23 +0000

I feel that your list of examples rather misses the point. All the books you read come from the Western European literary tradition:

1. Famous Five – middle class white kids in England.
2. Odysseus – this is pretty much where the European literary tradition stared.
3. Moomintroll – Sure, it is fantasy, but written by a Swede, and so steeped in the western European literary tradition, and Christian morality.
4. Superman – Again, very much western morality.
5. Alan Quatermain – I never read this, (as far as I can remember) but seems to be set in the British Empire.

I don’t anything on your list that is the equivalent of you reading a book by a West Indian writer, steeped in a culture of West Indian / African culture and morality. I don’t I read any books lie that either, and that is sad. I mean, yes. You were reading about exotic locations, and even fantasy characters. But the main protagonists probably at least thought and acted like white middle class characters, and you could relate to that.

I can completely see where the person you heard on the radio was coming from.

Comment on Christmas Solstice by Anne Kirkup

Anne Kirkup — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:58:16 +0000

How about the gold, frankenscence and myrrh?

Comment on The digital scholar: who pays the wages, who buys the servers? by Digital scholarship will not be funded by the toothfairy: it is now time for academics online to tackle the economics of the digital field. | Impact of Social Sciences

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:01:15 +0000

[...] post originally appeared on Gill Kirrup’s blog, Gynoid Times. Read the original posting. Related [...]

Comment on The digital scholar: who pays the wages, who buys the servers? by Amber Thomas

Amber Thomas — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:49:13 +0000

I think this exchange in the comments in characteristic of other discussions I’ve been in. By saying “lets model the costs of change” it doesn’t mean Gill, or Doug, or I are implying that the economics will be found wanting. It just means we’re saying that alongside the arguments about better practice, the ethics/fairness, we also need to thrash out the economic effects of change. JISC funded the Houghton report back in 2009 http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/reports/2009/economicpublishingmodelssummary.aspx and we’re continuing to look at the economic effects of systemwide change.

I find it very interesting that even mentioning costs is seen as reactionary and opposed to change. I suspect often the debaters are on the same “side” and talking at cross purposes … those of us that care enough to debate it usually DO want change and are thinking through how to get from A to B, and what that means in all sorts of ways, including economic models.