That price pressure from commercial journal publishers highlights the core conundrum of academic publishing: the conflict between the scholarly ideal of universal, open sharing of information, and the economic model of business: to make money by selling things. Source: Academic publishing and scholarly communication: a status report | Harvard Magazine Jan-Feb 2015

Partly inspired by the experience, BSSRS staff member David Dickson later wrote in New Scientist magazine calling for “Community Science Resource Councils”. The idea, which sadly never took off, was a sort of scientific equivalent of legal aid. It would have provided scientific knowledge and technical expertise to minority and under-represented groups, and also allowed them […]

research found that being in a situation where you are trying to concentrate on a task, and an email is sitting unread in your inbox, can reduce your effective IQ by 10 points. And. Wilson showed that the cognitive losses from multitasking are even greater than the cognitive losses from pot‑smoking. via Why the modern […]

Missed the anniversary by a few days, but 1.2.0 shipped today. Onward! Previously.

#5367 WordPress Cookie Authentication Vulnerability takes us back to when the modern password handling in WordPress was born, partially due to a vulnerability report at the time. More because we were ready for it.  It’s great to read through and watch decisions being made as familiarity grew. In that thread, Matt links to the changeset […]