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open access week World Bank video
Have realised that the World Bank seminar event mentioned in my previous post is now accessible (but wasn't available live). Very interesting and thought-provoking. As the finalists of the ASAP commented, getting tenure assessment committees to recognise the extra work required to evaluate open access publishing remains a key barrier to growth in ( Read more... ) -
open access content needs open access tools
Disappointed to discover that unable to access the World Bank Open Access Week event! A discussion about open access content needs to consider open access tools, otherwise known as open source software! Both firefox and opera web browsers are not able to view the event.
Also worthy to note the total reliance upon proprietary "social media" tools; ( Read more... ) -
Waste to Energy
Recently finished listening to a seminar about Waste to Energy
Personally, the first 40 minutes or so was not directly relevant and enjoyed the more focussed discussion during the latter half of the presentation.
For those interested, the file size of the video (horrible, buggy flash format) is an amazing 753 MB! So I did a conversion to reduce the ( Read more... ) -
intra-African trade
Historically intra-African trade has been minimal, at the expense of maintaining colonial link commerce. Yesterday it was reported that Niger is intending to review uranium supply contracts with Areva, after 40 years of automatic contract renewal (see WADR,West Africa democracy radio).
Why now? Increased interest from China's voracious demand for ( Read more... ) -
how low can they go?
Occasionally, the spam mail folder is opened, for some reason the message from 'joinrps' caught attention (see copy text below):
LATEST JOBS ( Read more... ) -
gaps in the open chain...
Read (ironically) about an open source software (Clarity, by the way; a laboratory automation product), published in a traditional proprietary journal. Makes one wonder, how many open source advocates still use proprietary
software to write articles, publish in closed journal, etc.?
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telepathic?
No sooner than the last post, just read another news article about the fool's game that is the post-doc "career dream".
A wry smile whilst reading, because right now should really be trying to submit what could be a final chance at a funding application due in fewer than ten days...enough procrastination!
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progress? Not much here...
Allegedly, there has been some progress in the career development of post-docs according to a recent report. Surprising to read that some (presumably the younger, more naive?) post-docs are yet to realise the absolute imperative importance of self-motivated career development. Having said that, yours truly is currently unemployed...
The article ( Read more... ) -
Remember Desertec?
On the basis of early general press releases, Desertec was a criticised as a fundamentally flawed model, seeking to export energy supply to Europe at the complete disregard of the local population. Little wonder that no much has been heard since the so-called Arab Spring revolutions of north Africa. However instead of exporting the energy north, ( Read more... ) -
end of the road (again)
Read today about Croatian research scientists ability to win EU funds for their research, whereby it was also stated that the average success rate of research applications is about 20 %: on this basis 'energyresearcher' is on the road to becoming another failed academic!
Received news a couple of weeks ago about rejection of the final ( Read more... )