Number Go Up! Meanwhile I'm taking time checking every reference in a submission because I don't want to send out something with psychedelic citations to peer review. (This would have been something left for the [human] copy editor, and still is, but more for reference errors)

FBPE was an eye opener for me. It was the first time a group that I agreed with on objective could be corrosively irritating and evidently mendacious.

This #RDAP26 is quite an adventure for me. I don't know if I should laugh or cry that there is another FAIR out there: the Financial Accountability in Research (FAIR) model. So you could use FAIR to support FAIR. 🤯 The other FAIR: www.aau.edu/key-issues/f...

Correlation something something something causality.

In the same spirt, I've just had an offer to ship IJDC to China by rail. Says they'll bypass "Red Sea/Hormuz security risks entirely". True. True.

This, of course, plus the oh you want to join a meeting? Let me get round to opening up sometime in the next hour or two.

As seen at #RDAP26 today: AI-Ready Data Pilot Project Report by Shannon Sheridan et al. I can see this report and its checklist getting a lot of citations. doi.org/10.2172/3020...

As usual at online conferences, I find my attention drawn away by the day job/real life, but I'm glad at #RDAP26 today I got to hear @adam42smith.bsky.social and Dessi Kirilova from the QDR show results from their survey of Qualitative Data Analysis Software. Definitely one to dig into.

Contemplating the great mysteries. What is dark matter? Who built Stonehenge? How does Word formatting work?

Late stage capitalism and the collapse of customer service.

Every week we seem to smash through another barrier that would have been unthinkable and disturbing a while ago, and I shrug, and scroll on towards the apocalypse.

Just about to send an email. Intended a "hello all" introduction, unintentionally left a "hell all" typo. I think I prefer the latter.

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great everything apps and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as Excel, the second time as ChatGPT.

Good to know our university, probably yours too, has spent lots of money on licensing an entertainment product. I'd have preferred a sports package myself.

Diving into the Gil Scott-Heron catalogue tonight #WhiteyontheMoon

I think this should be one of those things that is a "law" (if not already).

I have not written a book or conducted a major academic study either. But I know that if you ask someone to look at your work, that's not "peer review"; that's a favour.

*Ok, set up account* You need a password *Yes, password, OK* Thank you for entering a password, we will send a code to your email *Right, I just did the password, but ok* Thank you for entering the code, we now need you to set up verification with a phone num... *You know, I'll just not bother*

#RLUK26 sounds like a great conference to be at -- and not because, like any good conference, they invited @lyndamk.bsky.social to speak. Grateful to @emmabooth.bsky.social for the formidable posting!

Thanks to @jennajordan.me for dropping this into my timeline again. It's not just one of the most useful papers, but probably the most useful abstract in my field. Just reading that alone gives you eleven good practices to adopt.

This reminds me of when U2 "gave" the world their new album and "the world" reacted with "WTF is this? How do I get rid of it?". Except Meta decided the lesson was they didn't give it hard enough.

#IDCC26 keynotes. @anticac.bsky.social with researcher perspective engaging with digital curation and open research. doi.org/10.5281/zeno... Lynda/Mikala @datarescueproject.org showed the strength of a volunteer community. doi.org/10.5281/zeno... Grateful for thoughtful and inspiring presentations.

We had 26 lightning talk presentations at @digitalcuration.bsky.social #IDCC26, and the slides are now available: lnkd.in/epneCrBQ A reminder: The International Journal of Digital Curation is open to publishing Brief Reports of Lightning Talks presented at the conference: lnkd.in/eCbEMTuB.

With both AI haters & zealots flooding the zone with increasingly troll-ish posts, it's easy to forget most folks here are normal about the technology. Here's a thread of "normal folks posting about AI" that I enjoyed: 1/n

While my inbox (and timesheets) gently weep.

I'm not dead. Am I a hero? No.

#IDCC26 featured twenty paper presentations. The presentation slides from the paper sessions are now in our Zenodo community, and a number will be appearing as conference papers in IJDC over the coming months: zenodo.org/communities/...

It's disturbing how quickly we went from copyright weaponised to protect commercial interests (see, ever lengthening terms), to, actually copyright is a pain for commercial interests (see, this...).

What's your favourite George Orwell quote? Mine: "Can we not knock it?"

The standard of poster presentations at #IDCC26 was as high as ever, and getting more creative each year we do this. All 36 are now available to view. zenodo.org/communities/...

It's one poll blah blah disclaimer, but nine years ago Conservatives and Labour combined for 82.3 per cent of the vote in the UK General Election.

Just thinking back to when the manager of the football team I support gave a post-match interview where he claimed this was the worst group of players he's ever managed. He was gone within the hour.

Fascinating to watch the Gorton and Denton by-election coverage. That's three out of four parties basically adopting the line: it's not us, it's the electorate that are wrong/corrupt/manipulated [select all applicable options]

Thing is, it's not even the tone. Only *you* the reviewer can write constructive comments (you don't need the adverb here). If you can't, then you're not reviewing.

#IDCC26 featured a poster promoting the Sarah Jones Award, as nominations are open for the next edition. If someone's impressed you with an understanding and commitment to Open Science allied to an attitude towards collaboration, please put their name forward. www.rd-alliance.org/sarah-jones-...

Person on the table opposite got on to the train, sat, and plonked a copy of a book called _Question 7_ on the table. They opened it and lasted about ten minutes before switching to scroll on their phone. They're now smiling, which they weren't when reading the book. #AdventuresOnPublicTransport.

I know it's somewhat down the list of boneheaded behaviour here, but not backing up on Time Machine is just astonishing. It does, however, require connecting a usb to your machine, which is manual labour and therefore beneath the VC class.

Absolutely. Please do number 2 here. I don't think responding to a review request is an outrageous demand, after all, this is the business we have chosen. A "No" is far better to receive than no response at all.

Convinced that this official vetting process must have been along the lines of: "Jeff Epstein, the financier, with the island?" www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Congratulations to the brilliant @datarescueproject.org team: winners of the 2025 @rdapassociation.bsky.social Work of the Year Award. I'm glad they are recognised for their work, but hate they are having to do it. rdapassociation.org/news/13593532

In the Netherlands last year, I was in the vestibule of a crowded train next to a late teen/early twenties man who spent the half-an-hour he was there scrolling through instagram reels of street fighting and football related violence. Imagine dipping your head into that for hours every day.

Great songs don't necessarily make the times, but times eventually find the great songs. My 1990s take on RATM was essentially "alright, calm down lads" but here we are in 2026.

We've had five submissions already this year, all 28 days of it, that are definitely spammy, almost certainly genAI. And this is for a minor league journal on digital curation. God help the big names in experimental science.

It's Christmas in January!

Seems astonishing to me that very important people are still trying to reason with an attitude to the world that is essentially: We do what we want, and you do what we want.

The madman theory, but...he actually is mad! Brilliant.

Also an example of how AI is transforming policing. I remember when West Midlands police had to actually make up evidence themselves.

Of course, the longer this goes on the more I begin to doubt the answer.

To be fair, growing up in southern England, the north did seem to be some mysterious land. Does it have two Huddersfields? I don't know. Does Bradford even exist? Maybe, maybe not. Is Manchester 100 miles wide? Could be.