The Geyser

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Interview: Howard Browman

An interview with scientist and editor Howard Browman, who has experience working in the US and EU

Song: “Burning Down the House”

This Talking Heads classic, captured beautifully in "Stop Making Sense," still delivers

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Tuesday Notes

Is Post.News a Better Twitter?

A new competitor to Twitter has started rolling out, and it's a promising alternative from people who know how to build technology at scale

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DOJ Arrests Z-Library Pirates

Friday Song: “Freewill”

At this year’s Charleston Conference, I was asked to give a talk about the publisher’s “job,” which in my mind is to serve a community. Steven Heffner of IEEE was my co-presenter, and an excellent one. We reconnected the other day during the virtual portion of the event,

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How Bad Were Things at FTX?

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OA’s Deeper Brand Problems

OA's visual representations may be inconsistent, but its overall brand equity is perhaps the bigger problem

ORCID & “Customer Service”

The directory continues to face challenges with entries that exploit it for SEO benefit

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The Internet’s Mid-Life Crisis

From blockchain to RELX to Nature, the unwinding of techno-utopianism is touching our world, too

Friday Song: “I’m the One”

Rhythm guitarists don’t get the respect they deserve. They’re often overshadowed by the flashy antics of a ripping lead guitarist, despite massive contributions to making a song work. That problem went away for Van Halen, as one of the best rhythm guitarists ever was also one of the

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Of Data, Devils, and Details

A recent preprint study has plenty of gremlins in its data, perhaps enough to invalidate the conclusions

Elephants and Elbakyan

Two notes today — one regarding Sci-Hub’s suit in India, and another a thought-provoking framework comparing dandelions to elephants. Elbakyan’s Effort to Withdraw Copyright Admission Denied In what may be a sign that the suit against Sci-Hub by Wiley, Elsevier, and ACS isn’t going her way, Alexandra Elbakyan

OA vs. Nascent Communities

With "special issues" and reviewers being asked to edit as well, OA publishers are gutting communities and adding to academic burdens

Song: “Primadonna Like Me”

Looking as if Queen and Aerosmith had a child who was then raised by the Rolling Stones and Prince, The Struts are top-shelf performers who have only sporadically made inroads on the US charts with songs like “Body Talks.” Nevertheless, they have a large and growing fan base that covers

Charleston Talk — Community

Journals are more than research, and trusted intermediaries are necessary for a marketplace of ideas

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Bad Data Stewardship Update

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The Inequities and Risks of Free

Friday Song: “Operator”

A 1972 classic, written by an artists whose potential was cut short far too soon.

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Results — Introverts/Extroverts

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Two Bizarre Preprint Studies

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The OSTP Memo Gets Grilled

The House Science, Space and Technology Committee comes down on the OSTP's approach and process

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eLife Hits Rock Bottom

eLife's new approach may take it out of the realm of journals, and clearly caters to author self-interest

Survey — Introvert/Extrovert

Are you introverted or extroverted? A survey to explore this aspect a bit.

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Equity, the OSTP, and the Truth