bookandswordblog @bookandswordblog@scholar.social

Science for the People #533 is damning: to paraphrase psychologist Assoz. Prof. R. Shansky 'biomedical scientists often only study male rodents because they have stable hormone levels, but there is little evidence that the estrus cycle affects many of the things they are trying to measure, and male rodents have just as big hormone fluctuations when they are penned with strangers and become dominant or subordinate' http://www.scienceforthepeople.ca/episodes/breaking-the-rodent-glass-ceiling #podcast #psychology #animalResearch

New post (mis-scheduled a day early): Semitic Words in Greek https://bookandsword.com/2019/09/13/semitic-words-in-greek/ #philology #linguistics #indoEuropean #historicalLinguistics

New Post: Was Hadrian's Wall Proceeded by an Earth-and-Posts Construction? https://bookandsword.com/2019/09/08/was-hadrians-wall-proceeded-by-an-earth-and-post-construction/ #archaeology #postholes #romanBritain

This one does not leave much to the imagination: Saul Justin Newman, "Supercentenarians and the oldest-old are concentrated into regions with no birth certificates and short lifespans" https://doi.org/10.1101/704080 #publishing #academicLife

New Post: The Agricultural Surplus is a Dangerous Idea https://bookandsword.com/2019/09/07/agricultural-surplus-is-a-dangerous-idea/ #economicHistory #agriculture #farming #ancient #economics

From the other Dr. Manning, https://mobile.twitter.com/carabonate

"Why are journal impact factors always reported to a precision of 0.001? This significant figures usage would not pass peer review! (Via jcr.clarivate.com)"

#bibliometrics #citation

Another reason open-access textbooks would be a good thing: creating versions for the visual-impaired (large-print, braille ...) of copyrighted textbooks is a bureaucratic hassle https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/publishers-universities-struggle-to-provide-timely-access-to-accessible-textbooks/ Don't get me started with DRM on scholarly ebooks

In the past few years, I notice a lot of 'likes' on my posts from blogs with a few sketched-out posts, often with plenty of pictures of scantily clad women. That sounds like what I hear from my friends with tumblr or twitter accounts, or spam comments with links on blogspot/blogger/typepad blogs. #stateOfTheInternet #spam

George Bernard Shaw and the world history of clothing prices: Two Dresses a Year https://bookandsword.com/2019/08/31/two-dresses-a-year/ #history #economicHistory #georgeBernardShaw #modern

I love and hate that I can cite 430 years of research on some topics, and that often the things in Latin/German/French before 1914 are the key ones to read. #citation #academicLife #publishing #sisyphus

Got a polite rejection on a journal article, trying to find an alternative venue which is open-access or at least not part of a giant conglomerate.

Have you ever read a citation where you wanted to know the place of publication but not the publisher? Has the place of publication ever been a useful thing for you to know?

Then why in Nisaba's name are there style guides who want you to erase the publisher and =just= give the place? #bibliometrics #citation #styleGuides

An American astronaut is accused of accessing her estranged wife's bank account from orbit. Sometimes the 21st century is cool.

No post this week sorry! I am trying to focus on funding applications and paid writing.

Had to find a notebook with my old SSHRC password to start a new fellowship application! I had not logged in since I moved to my current password management solution #sshrc #canCon

Gigi of La Bella Donna talks about inclusion in #reenactment and #livinghistory at https://fleurtyherald.wordpress.com/2019/05/16/equity-inclusion-and-chivalric-virtues/ This opens some serious philosophical and practical issues, because on one hand one wants to represent a whole culture, but on the other hand the closer you look, the harder it is to make flat statements that "Xes never did Y in Z" (and pretty nobody wants to play a slave ...)

King Robert's Testament is a wonderful poem, but where exactly does it come from? I find out in https://bookandsword.com/2019/08/17/good-king-roberts-testament/