🔥The 9th Round of Easy Loan, Earn $40 Reward is in progress❗️ ⏰ Promotion Period: January 15th - Feburary 15th, 2025 👉 Register now and check more details at gate.io/campaigns/358

With the world entering a new era of assertive geopolitics, Dr Mike Ryder, Dr Thomas Arnold & Michael Dunn discuss 《Why Warhammer Official matters?》for #scifi and philosophy ⚒️🛡🐉 #mediastudies #warhammercommunity sciphijournal.org/index.php/2024…

Just finished re-reading Adrian Tchaikovsky's Dogs of War for a project I'm working on. Easily one of Tchaikovsky's best books, and arguably one of the best works of SF of the 21st century (Tchaikovsky's Children of Time being another).

Great coverage of the work being done by my PhD student Mengjun Tao.

Announcing Warhammer Conference 2025: warhammer-conference.com/call-for-paper…

Very much so! And if you need a Mental Capacity Assessment to support your POA, then I can recommend an excellent provider: mental-capacity.co.uk [for transparency: I am co-Director]

Just discovered that my university library no longer has subscriptions to several journals I have published in. One of the many unintended (or perhaps intended) consequences of the HE funding crisis is that our access to knowledge is slowly being eroded.

Question for fellow academics: How long do you wait before you follow up with a journal after submitting a paper? I know everyone is busy, but I have x3 papers that have all been with journals >6 months... #academia

Microsoft wants to charge ~£30 extra per year for Office with AI integration. They also hide the cheaper version in the section where you go to cancel your subscription. Not a fan of this. Bad for consumers, many of whom won't 'downgrade' as they won't realise it's an option.

The Office for Students (OfS) has fined the University of Sussex £585,000 after an investigation found the university’s governing documents failed to uphold freedom of speech and academic freedom, as well as failings in the university’s management and governance processes.

A very timely comment given that yesterday I was given a very stern talking to by management asking me why I published a peer reviewed article about interdisciplinarity and the issues we face in academia. According to some, my article brings my university 'into disrepute'...

In other, more positive news, Alexandra Krendel and I have just published an OA article in Medical Humanities all about the role of science fiction in conceptualising the reproductive future. See more here: mh.bmj.com/content/early/…

So this is quite nice... Just spotted that my 'online first' publication in Medical Humanities sits alongside a paper from the wonderful Jess Cox, who supervised my UG dissertation way back in 2010. What a funny ol' world it is!

Each year uni sends out a survey to ask if the workload we are assigned matches the actual work we do. The data is used by OFS/UKRI. Many of us answer 'no'. This year we've been emailed by our dVC to remind us of the financial necessity of answering 'yes'. A worrying precedent.

PC Gamer has published an article about the conference I'm organising in September: pcgamer.com/games/board-ga…

I am so *done* with so-called 'curriculum transformation'. I thought I was done, but apparently not. I've just been sent *another* 26-page form to fill out. 'Nothing but a simple administrative formality.' Why does HE have to be like this?! dailymotion.com/video/x36574i

Classic HE: In July 2024, I was contacted by a dept. at my uni asking me to write up some case studies for the website. I was asked at very short notice with very quick turnaround. Now, **almost a year later**, I have been sent the preview of these cases ready to go live (!)