around the web
jdupuis | April 28, 2017Like with La La Land a few months back, here we have a jazz-themed documentary that I haven't seen yet but have read an awful lot about.
Unlike La La Land, I actually intend to see Chasing Trane and actually have tickets to see an upcoming showing at a Toronto theatre.
The reviews seem fantastic, with more or less unanimous opinion that the film does justice to Coltrane both as a person and as a musician.
Some of what I've been reading...
Q&A with “Chasing Trane” Filmmaker John Scheinfeld / Down Beat
'Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary' serves the jazz legend well by Noel…
jdupuis | December 20, 2016I don't have the time right now to do this justice, so I'll just lay out the story over the last year or so and let you, faithful reader, follow the thread. This is an amazing story.
This is an amazing initiative at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University in Montreal.
From the press release:
McGill University announces a transformative $20 million donation to the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital
Tanenbaum Open Science Institute to open new horizons and accelerate discovery in neuroscience
The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, was present…
jdupuis | November 11, 2016Update 2017.01.31: First post-inauguration chronology post is done, covering the first week of the Trump administration.
From the point of view of someone sitting North of the Canadian/US border, the results of this week's US Federal election are somewhat terrifying. And honestly and truly as a Canadian and a Torontonian, I say this without a bit of smugness. Been there, done that, if not quite on the same scale.
And by done that, I mean that I've often seen my mission to document important stories in the world. In the past, mostly Canadian or mostly in the library world and all basically…
jdupuis | October 8, 2016
What About the Planet?
Partisan polarization on climate change is worse than ever
Three things Ottawa should do to fight climate change
It’s Happening Now: Climate Change Is Killing Off the Yellow Cedar
‘Next year or the year after, the Arctic will be free of ice’
Could Ontario's climate strategy trigger an industrial exodus?
Why Obama’s top scientist just called keeping fossil fuels in the ground ‘unrealistic’
On Climate Change, Pence and Trump Are a Perfect Match
As climate change worsens wildfires, smokejumpers fight blazes from the sky
Why Trudeau’s Commitment to Harper’s Old Emissions…
jdupuis | October 1, 2016
100 Greatest Music Books of All Time
Does the music business need musicianship
not to speak ill of the dead.. but.. on the demise of other music
What It Takes for an Independent Record Store to Survive Now
Why record stores mattered
How Miles Davis remade jazz over and over again
The Electric Surge of Miles Davis
The Classic Cool of Miles Davis
Brilliant Corners: Approaches to Jazz and Comics
How New York City Became the Epicenter of Jazz
new york’s free jazz loft scene, with tom marcello’s photos from studio rivbea
How Canada's Philanthropic Pop Industrial Complex Took Over The World
Don't…
jdupuis | August 24, 2016I have a son who will be finishing up his undergrad in physics this coming school year with an eye towards possible graduate work in math. As you can imagine, I occasionally see a link or two on the web that I think he might particularly interesting or useful. Thinking on that fact, I surmised that perhaps a) this kind of post might be more efficient and b) other undergrad students might find those links interesting or useful as well. Hence, this series of posts here on the blog.
What is it like to understand advanced mathematics?
How to Write Your First Paper
How to write proofs: a quick…
jdupuis | August 21, 2016
Are We Feeling Collective Grief Over Climate Change?
Astrophysicist wins Twitter burn of the year with her reply to climate change skeptic
The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here
Dazzling blue lakes are forming in Antarctica — and they’ve got scientists worried
The Galileo gambit and other stories: the three main tactics of climate denial
Greenland Melt Could Expose Hazardous Cold War Waste
Time for the hard work on meaningful climate policy
Effective climate change regulation: Let’s transform Canadian cars
Suncor and province discuss “stranding” some oilsands…
jdupuis | July 25, 2016
How climate change may be fueling Canada’s fire season
Environmentalists, automakers applaud Ontario's $8.3B climate change plan
Views from people on the frontlines of climate change
How B.C.'s Climate Plan is Being Co-opted by Big Oil
Once a climate doubter, Tory leadership contender Maxime Bernier now plans to consult scientists
Climate change initiatives a $7-trillion funding opportunity for capital markets: Carney
Nearly Twenty Canadian Companies Sign On to Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition
If You Want To Fight Climate Change, Don't Fight Pipelines
These are the best arguments from the…
jdupuis | June 10, 2016
The academic, economic and societal impacts of Open Access: an evidence-based review
Scholarly Communications: Less of a market, more like general taxation?
“We don’t need OA in our field, everything is on arXiv”. Nope.
>When is the Library Open? and the PS
Scholarly Communication and the Dilemma of Collective Action: Why Academic Journals Cost Too Much
Open Access: the beast that no-one could – or should – control?
Open access: All human knowledge is there—so why can’t everybody access it?
Why embargo periods are bad for academic publishers
Infrastructure is Invisible / Infrastructure is…
jdupuis | May 24, 2016
The record exec, his massive record collection and a future where records won’t matter
What an opera review spiked by the National Post really tells us
Open Letter to YouTube, “Pushers” of Piracy
I’ve sold all my CDs. Can I live without those cracked plastic cases of magic and memories?
Apple Terminating Music Downloads ‘Within 2 Years’
Apple Stole My Music. No, Seriously.
I Remember: The Music of the Holocaust
Revolutionary Eruption: The Violent Sound of Magma and Musical Fusion in 1970s France
MAGMA’S CHEERFULLY INSANE BRAND OF SCI-FI AVANT GARDE MAKE THEM PROG ROCK’S WEIRDEST OUTLIERS
Why…
jdupuis | May 18, 2016Main event. Definitely.
Elsevier's acquisition of the open access journal article and working papers repository and online community Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is definitely a case of Elsevier tipping their hand and giving us all a peek at their real long term strategy.
Much more so than their whack-a-mole antics with Sci-Hub and other "pirate" services.
One of the big hints is how they've tied it's acquisition so closes with their last important, strategic acquisition -- Mendeley. Another hint is that they also tie it in to one of their cornerstone products, Scopus.
From the…
jdupuis | May 6, 2016The town of Fort McMurray, Alberta and it's surrounding region are experiencing a horrific wildfire. Tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate.
The absolute most important thing in the short and medium term is to take care of the people of Fort McMurray. Yes, Fort McMurray is the hub of tar sands development in Canada. Yes, the tar sands and other fossil fuel development projects contribute to climate change. Yes, the tar sands in particular have been identified as a carbon source that needs to be left in the ground. But those aren't short and medium term considerations. Those…
jdupuis | May 3, 2016I have a son who's currently a fourth year physics undergrad who is headed more the direction of math rather than physics for the possibility of grad school. As you can imagine, I may occasionally pass along a link or two to him pointing to stuff on the web I think they might find particularly interesting or useful. Thinking on that fact, I surmised that perhaps a) this kind of post might be more efficient and b) other undergrad students might find those links interesting or useful as well. Hence, this series of posts here on the blog.
The items I've chosen are mostly geared towards science…
jdupuis | April 28, 2016
The math the planet relies on isn’t adding up right now
Reframing The Economics Debate Could Lead To More Action To Fight Climate Change
Abandon hype in climate models
The Future Role of Economics in the IPCC
Climate change will wipe $2.5tn off global financial assets: study
The Unsexy Climate Solution That's a Total No-Brainer
The solution to (nearly) everything: working less
Only One Canadian University Has Divested. Here's How Alumni Can Help Change That
Exxon Using Tobacco’s Failed Free Speech Defense for Decades of Deception on Climate Change
“There is no doubt”: Exxon Knew CO2…
jdupuis | February 22, 2016The controversy about Sci-Hub is raging in the halls of scholarship and academic publishing.
What's the story, in a nutshell?
Sci-Hub is a Russian website that has used donated institutional login credentials to harvest tens of millions of academic articles and has posted them on their site, free to access and read for everyone. This has not pleased the academic publishing community, to say the least. Elsevier is leading the charge to shut them down, succeeding with one iteration of the site last year until, mushroom-like, Sci-Hub has popped up again this year.
My take? Mostly that it's a…
jdupuis | November 29, 2015I think this post might signal the birth of a new all-consuming blogging obsession -- climate change in general and specifically how the realities of climate change play out in the Canadian context, especially as it relates to public policy.
With the COP21 climate talks coming up in Paris, this seems like as good a time as any to focus more carefully and closely on what is probably the most defining issue of our times.
Not that this is the first time I've blogged about climate change. I've kept track of the issues fairly closely over the years and that has spilled into the blog, mostly in the…
jdupuis | October 28, 2015My library is hosting a Ada Lovelace Day event tomorrow (ok, a little late...). Continuing in a tradition of having Women in Science Wikipedia Edit-a-thons, we're hosting our own Wikipedia Women in Science Edit-a-thon!
I've been doing a fair bit of reading over the last couple of years about Wikipedia culture and especially how it relates to the under-representation of women both as editors and as subjects of articles. So I thought I'd share some of my readings here with all of you.
Of course, this list is in no way comprehensive or complete. I welcome suggestions for further readings in the…
jdupuis | July 21, 2015One of the central tensions of modern librarianship is how to allocate limited resources to both make the whole world a better place and to serve our local communities by providing them with the services and collections they need to support their teaching, learning and research.
The particular way we try and change the world that I'm talking about here is working to create a fairer and more equitable scholarly communications ecosystem. We do this by both advocating for increased openness in the publishing system and working to actually create that fairer system via our own local open access…
jdupuis | June 16, 2015I'm just back from an extended sabbatical work/vacation trip to Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin -- yes, I did meet with some science publishers while I was in Europe! -- and while in Europe a couple of the true icons of my childhood died: BB King and Christopher Lee. As well, jazz icon Ornette Coleman also died while I was in Europe and while he wasn't an icon from my childhood years I do respect and understand the impact he had on the world of jazz. Quebec science fiction writer also passed away Joël Champetier.
I thought I'd use this post to remember a thing or two about each of these greats…
jdupuis | May 21, 2015Elsevier has released a new scholarly article sharing policy which is definitely more disappointing than really any cause for cheer.
Basically the crux is that the only place that authors are allowed to have the final publication version of an article in a non-open access Elsevier publication is on the Elsevier website itself. Of course, after any embargo period has elapse or if the author has paid an author processing charge and published in a hybrid or gold open access journal, they are allowed to post the article on their own webpage or institutional repository.
During the time that the…