The Academic Publishing Scam
Academic publishing is one of the most unique, ingenious, and impactful monopolies of the past 70 years. But now, things might be beginning to change.
What We Saved For With Austerity Cuts
With the near certainty With austerity the hot topic of a ‘new’ Conservative government, lets look at what cuts bought us first time round and the way it impacts people on a day-to-day basis
A Frozen Game of Politics
UK politics is badly broken today. How many new leaders, ministers, and party members does it take to fix the system?
Why Yes #2
Looking at one more reason to vote yes for Scottish Independence at the next available opportunity. An escape from incompetent corruption and a chance for forward progress.
Roe V Wade is Far From a Distant Battle
The rollback of personal freedoms and government intrusion into healthcare that fell on the U.S in June was watched with regret and condemnation worldwide, but it’s not a battle being fought solely within the United States.
Spotify’s Misinformation Dilemma
In the wake of high-profile departures and heated discussion, Spotify have now announced their plans to combat misinformation on their streaming platform. On Monday, the company announced the addition of advisory labels on programming that discusses topics of health, policy, and science with some controversial viewpoints. Arriving late to the party—Spotify are far from the first platform to have to deal with the issue. Amongst the many problems of the pandemic, one of its more arguably positive benefits has been…
Lies, Damn Lies, and Advertising
Getting away with blatantly bad advertising is harder than you’d think. Car mileage, credit cards, and vacuum cleaners flagrantly twist the rules into knots, but their facts and figures are rarely made up out of nothing. More often than not, their fine print is thick with disclaimers and messages which give the ‘real’ numbers underneath. The reason that these companies stick so close to the real-life numbers isn’t because of their outstanding morals or ethics, it’s the law. There are…
As Seen on BBC News!
Perhaps someone at the BBC thought a mid-week feel-good story was just the ticket at a time of global misery. Perhaps they thought a rags to riches, pull yourself up by the bootstraps tale would be heart-warming motivation to get us through a bleak midwinter Wednesday in lockdown. How and why that story was spun, is more interesting than the tall tale itself. The BBC front page led with the interesting story of Ben Gulliver. A 20-year-old ‘entrepreneur’, Ben started…
The Things We can(‘t) Afford
The economy is a bizarre thing. The word alone is as useful as a magic spell is to a movie franchise superhero. It’s brought into action by politicians and pundits to justify everything from the atrocious to the strange. Stick on a channel, any channel, and you’ll very often hear—we simply can’t afford adequate (one week) foodbank stocks right now. We just don’t have the money. Healthcare, justice, policing, and education have been wrung-dry for over the last decade for…
Several Ways to Defeat a Pandemic
The language we use in talking about COVID is difficult to get right. Do we borrow the military dictionary—already co-opted for medical use in cancer treatments and unrelated illnesses—describing our efforts as a ‘battle’ against an invisible ‘enemy’? Rhetoric which was counterproductive, unhelpful, and outdated two decades ago may be a poor choice for this particular diagnosis. The pandemic might be more accurately described as a natural disaster instead. Fitting more appropriately in a list which includes hurricanes such as…