Egg - like a bird's egg

Frenchbloke goes pop

2009-06-24T09:18:00.004+01:00

Yes, it's true. There is a new Frenchbloke mix available on the web. The difference is that you will be paying for this one and feeling good about yourself. Click the link to see the tracklisting and get your juices going.

Frenchbloke is following in Soundhog's footsteps by delivering a mix in exchange for a donation to charity, in this case research into brain tumours in children

Please donate. Five quid isn't much, and perhaps if you have ever downloaded any other of his mixes you'd like to add a fiver for them too.

You can even follow step-by-step instructions from the man himself on how to make your own mix. Sony Acid Pro not included.

FRENCHBLOKE - TRACKLISTING FOR "IT'S WHAT I HEAR AND WHAT I DO"

2008-07-01T14:32:00.004+01:00

Now then, it's taken something special to get me back to the blog, but I'm hoping an army of music nerds will be able to help me. Frenchbloke has been responsible for some of the best mixes I have heard, spanning early eighties indie to mid eighties pop to early nineties techno and he seems to have a penchant for German pop too.

Anyway, I have almost all of his mixes, but around 2006 it seemed he dropped off the internet. No more posting to forums, no more website and - weirdly - no tracklistsings of his mixes anymore. It's like he never happened.

One of the best mixes is the 5 1/2 hour "It's What I Hear & What I Do" which I gather was part of an 11 DVD set he sent out to a hadnful of people in 2006?
This set comprises of parts of his other sets plus some unidentified bits I can't find tracklistsings for. If you know anything about the missing bits, please let me know. And if you want the mix itself, I can stick it on Fileshare if you need it. Thanks for any help!

UPDATE 3/7: Found them all - they were in the original folder with the mp3!

UPDATE 15/6/09: Made a Spotify playlist of all of these track available in the UK. Just click on these for Frenchbloke Inspirations: HTTP or Spotify URI

FRENCHBLOKE - IT'S WHAT I HEAR & WHAT I DO

staying power
-------------
steve wright bbc radio 1 roadshow bits and pieces
killing joke - requiem (malicious demo)
bbc radio 2 announcer
timbaland and magoo - indian flute
kraftwerk - die mensch maschine
bruno brookes or mark goodier - bbc radio 1 top 40 rundown
the league unlimited orchestra - seconds
kelis - milkshake
blancmange - gods kitchen extended version
scars - all about you
sabres of paradise - smokebelch II (beatless)
severed heads - mambo fist miasma
blake baxter - sexuality
wire - ahead
the phuture - acid tracks
opus 3 - it's a fine day
orbital - halcyon 7" version
soft cell - torch (extended mix)
kraftwerk - nummern
lolita str‰p - video screen
dsico - hungover again (frenchbloke's 7" mix)
patrick gibson and michael tee - eno thing
absinken - eingeschlossen (ST Mix) from the das boot soundtrack
japan - the experience of swimming
missy elliot featuring ludacris - one minute man
alien sex fiend - dead and buried
the flashbulb - a walk in maise
paul morley - excerpt from vox pop
can - oh yeah
brian eno - matta
test dept. and the striking welsh miners choir - shockwork
the the - giant
in deep - last night a dj saved my life
the aphex twin - we are the music makers
ministry - he's angry
heaven 17 - let me go
goldfrapp - train (ewan pearson 4/4 instrumental)
beach boys - god only knows
finitribe - de-tstimony (original version)
soundhog - curdler (french curd mix)
harry nilsson - all i think about is you
rolf harris - intro
yellow magic orchestra - behind the mask
whitney houston - it's not right
tauchsieder - mittel
tauchsieder - grob
london 1888 lost cornet wax cylinder recording
australia - 1910 nur wax cylinder recording
anon java 1923 wax cylinder recording
iceland 1928 wax cylinder recording
niigata japan 1911 wax cylinder recording
british columbia 1897 wax cylinder recording
tong hua yie shi field recording
lisbon metro air vent field recording
esper analysis - bladerunner ost esper edition
leons voight kampff test - bladerunner ost esper edition
s express - hey music lover
grafitti - what is the problem
graffiti vs the bug featuring ras bogle - what is the problem
jolly roger - acid man
abc - how to be a millionaire
naum - issimo
the beach boys - whistle in
fad gadget - fireside favourites
patti page - old cape cod
bolz bolz - take a walk (neo-romantic dima remix)
sisqo - the thong song
paula - als es passierte (andreas dorau rmx)
missy elliot - she's a bitch
shakira - whenever wherever
the flirts - passion (12" version)
sylvester - you make me feel (mighty real)
depeche mode - shout (rio mix)
doarau und koehncke - durch die nacht (original mix)
mark stewart - fatal attraction (contagious remix)
ian dury and the blockheads - reasons to be cheerful, part 3 (12" mix)
steve 'silk' hurley - jack your body
christina aguilera - dirrty
madonna - intro
soft cell - a man can get lost
steve poindexter - computer madness
garcons - french boy
attilio mineo - man in space with sounds - soaring science
jean jacques perrey - porcupine rock
the scissor sisters - take your mama
ultravox - astradyne
excerpt from The Power of Music - Interviews 1984 - Stephen Mackerras
altered images - i could be happy (martin rushent extended mix)
ph1 - zoom
scooter - nessaja
renaldo and the loaf - ow! stew the red shoe
mort garson - killing of the witch
a flock of seagulls - the last flight Of yuri gagarin
whitehouse - cruise [track 5]
robert palmer - i dream of wires
skinny puppy - download
william shatner - ideal woman
ya ya choral - gee lately
john barry and his orchestra - 007 and counting
matador - paradise (feat henry rollins)
station 17 - bei manni und bine (dorau und koehncke)
sparks - get in the swing
throbbing gristle - [play it again]
cnut - overture

promo mix deux

vienna boys choir - burning down the house
mc solaar - nouveau western
finitribe - 101 sonic shuffle
mary g blige - family affair
speedy j - de-orbit
tlc - waterfalls
depeche mode - only when i lose myself
roxy music - in every dream home a heartache
quarks vs superpitcher - i walk
depeche mode - master and servant.

back with a big fuck you
------------------------
tom baker introduction
thomas dolby - one of our submarines - hardfloor mix
chicks on speed - love life
the league unlimited orchestra - seconds
consolidated - howie livin'
kelis - milk shake
zazou bikaye - na kenda
simple minds - love song
simple minds - new gold dream 81 82 83 84
vitalic - poney
dave clarke - what was her name?
meat beat manifesto - mindstream (mind the bend the mind)
paul morley
bronski beat - why?
the chekists - global
tramps - disco inferno
the aluminium group - mister butterfly
justus koehncke - was ist musik
shannon - here comes tonight
ultravox - the thin wall
holger hiller - cut
wire - in vivo
pete shelley - homosapien
crystal waters - gypsy woman
depeche mode - dream on
dmx krew - 17 ways to break my heart (good ol' daze)
Yello - unbelievable
severed heads - halo
the residents - diskono 2000
bolz bolz - human race
w biggers - underdog main title
boyd rice and friends - people
stockhausen - struktur xii
kelis - trick me
boards of canada - june 9th
boards of canada - june 9th remix
coil - answers come in dreams
soft cell - torch
moloko - sing it back
ultra nate - free
cream - i feel free
liberace
tubeway army - down in the park
freezepop - freezepop forever
candi staton - you got the love
visage - fade to grey
blancmange - feel me
the gadgets - billposters will be prosecuted
cabaret voltaire - just fascination
kylie - slow
goldfrapp - lovely head - miss world mix
alan ginsberg - a supermarket in california
fm einheit and john caffrey - riots
genesis p orridge - information
laidback - white horse
the cardigans - lovefool
chelo scotti - tiempo
front 242 - rhythm of time - victor the cleaner mix
divine - walk like a man
bobby orlando - the o medley
the beach boys - sloop john b
shock - angel face
green velvet - la la land
severed heads - oblique firefly overlocker
justin timberlake - like i love you
orbital - chime
fad gadget - collapsing new people - westbam remix
tiga - pleasure from the bass
john foxx - plaza
animotion - obsession
a split second - flesh - remix
baccara - yes sir, i can boogie
roxy music - avalon
lenny bruce
music for pleasure

and a big fuck you too
----------------------
music for pleasure
ween - exactly where i'm at
pete waterman
bill wyman - je suis un rock star
fad gadget - ladyshave
japan - life in tokyo
no doubt - hella good
kylie - can't get you out of my head
kraftwerk - die roboter
ulrich schnauss - on my own
x-press 2 - lazy
john barry - golden girl
quentin crisp - stop the music
hall and oates - i can't go for that (no can do)
esplendor geometrico - necrosis en la poya
hula - poison (club mix)
the passions - i'm in love with a german film star
trimmy - billy
new order - confusion
test dept. - statement
timezone - world destruction
ten benson - tits
jona lewie - louise
andy thunderclap newman - andy the dentist
ultravox! - quiet men (12" mix)
british electric foundation - groove thang
the pointer sisters - automatic
britney spears - i' a slave 4 u
boyd rice and daniel miller - cleanliness and order
george martin - theme one
beyonce - crazy in love
odd eyed bastard - fashion

everything you do is wrong
--------------------------
the mekons - never been ion a riot
the silvertones - african dub
bbc radio 1 top 40 jingle
the pet shop boys - left to my own devices
depeche mode - leave in silence
japan - cantonese boy
moloko - bring it back
severed heads - dead eyes opened (joakim re-edit)
lfo - nurture
justus koehncke - 2 after 909
yello - lost again
finitribe - i want more
diigital emotion - get up, action
tiga - burning down (dub)
pete shelley - telephone operator
shriekback - my careful hands
ac marias - just talk
adina howard - freak like me
linkin park - krwlng
robbie williams - millenium
funkadelic - you'll like it too
linkin park - crawling
neneh cherry - manchild
coil - finite bees
crass - nagasaki nightmare
john cage - williams mix (live)
sounds of the new york world's fair 1964-65 - flying to the fair
james tenney - collage #1 blue suede
stockhausen - struktur iii
raymond scott - sprite melonball bounce (2)
mort garson - Thing A Ling (Scared Crow)/In-Man
kraftwerk - expo 2000 (orbital mix)
meat beat manifesto - dog star man
ministry - halloween remix
divine - i'm so beautiful
usher - yeah
death in vegas - hands around my throat
wiseblood - stumbo
the stranglers - five minutes
cursor miner - war machine
carlos peron - et
henri pousseur - scambi
the conet project - 4 note rising scale
cnut - dancing dancing (german radio intro)
the conet project - ready ready 15728
the conet project - 5 dashes
the conet project - counting control
renaldo and the loaf - a medical man
si futures - freestyle disco
test dept. - sweet sedation
the undertones - teenage kicks
the human league - the things that dreams are made of
freiwillige selbstokontrolle - i wish i could sprechen sie deutsch (john peel session) plus intro from the festive 50 1986
radio 1 jingle
julie london - nice girls don't stay for breakfast
lcd soundsystem - tribulations
strawberry switchblade - since yesterday
blancmange - living on the ceiling
mount florida -
ochre - low grav freefall (high altitude mix)
tlc - no scrubs
garry bradbury - haste the long wait frequently
six feet under photek remix
i start counting - ra ra rawhide (moskow chick mix)
andreas dorau - so ist das nunmal
mitte karaoke - vgh
aphex twin - next heap with
kylie minogue and towa tei - german bold italic
delia derbyshire - the dreams - falling
delia derbyshire - the dreams - land
delia derbyshire - delia's theme
rachel stevens - some girls
freiland - rot
felix kubin - live vpro radio intro
havana exotica - surfin' on m.o.o.g.
kraftwerk - computerwelt
chris and cosey - october love song
the hacker - stormy weather
nitzer ebb - join in the chant (burn!)
devo - we're all devo (booji boy and general boy)
nautilis - olaf (the flashbulb audio re-fuck)
devo - through being cool
bauhaus - bela lugosi's dead
katie enlow - walkin' after midnight
in sotto voce - sequence 1
daf - liebe auf den ersten blick (razormaid mix)
godley and creme - i pity inanimate object
t.raumschmiere - bow down big man to get your credit, i watch your system and spit right at it
laibach - wirtscaft ist tot (r.hawtin hardcore noise mix)
severed heads - alaskan polar bear heater
the residents - paint it black
current 93 - jesus wants me for a moonbeam
brmb "problems and prayers" phone in 1987
wall of voodoo - tomorrow (live)
fun boy 3 and bananarama - it aint what you do
the upsetters - freedom dub
bef - ident.

bis - cubis (i love you) unreleased frenchbloke remix

whoops de france extended version (the one with tag team and kraftwerk)

5:30------------end

Our disappearing fivers

2007-06-21T06:21:00.000+01:00

OK - so that is an extreme example, but 5 pound notes in the UK have gotten to be in a terrible state. Everytime I get one (only as change in a shop - never at ATMs) it is invariably crumpled, dirty and obviously old. Now I know why. Banks are not using them, new notes are not coming into circulation and everytime I want to buy a newspaper I have to use a 10 or 20 pound note and walk out of the shop with a load of pocket-busting pound coins. Grrrrr.

What time is it?

2007-05-30T07:59:00.001+01:00

SP_A0083
Originally uploaded by Chris Leonard.

This sign outside a pub (The Ship) near where I work annoys me on so many levels. Leaving aside the 'til/till confusion, what on earth is this time supposed to mean? Food is served until 4.30, I guess, so why does it look like 4.3 o clock. Or it was 3 o clock, but they changed it to 4.30, but couldn't be bothered to paint a new sign. Whatever it is it makes my blood boil to such an extent I have started taking a diffrent route to work.

I am getting old and grouchy.

Tomatoes and Legs

2007-04-20T13:23:00.001+01:00

Tomatoes and Legs
Originally uploaded by ogerrard.

Reminds me of a bizarre shop in Chesham that exclusively sells sewing machines and sausage rolls. Fascinating how they came up with that combination of items. I must ask when I buy my next sewing machine.

What have I been up to?

2007-04-11T13:49:00.000+01:00

Well, in order of how much sleep I've been losing over each one:

I've been becoming a daddy for the first time.
We are about to launch PhysMath Central and its first journals
I've discovered Easter eggs are as bad as coffee before going to bed.

It's a tough life.

Coala vs Man

2007-02-23T11:58:00.001Z

Coala vs Man
Originally uploaded by highglosshighs.

It's Friday, so I am sharing my favourite image ever. Make sure you check out the comments on flickr too.

Dutch banknotes

2007-02-19T15:07:00.000Z

Having lived in Holland for 7 years and seen the Euro takeover the Guilder, I have a lot of sympathy for those Dutch people who mourn the passing of their beautiful banknotes. No-one could truly love the Euro notes, with depictions of non-existent bridges - but I have yet to meet anyone who did not instantly love the old 50 guilder note.

Read more here about the full set of notes and their designer.

New PMC blog (& CC & BMC)

2007-02-13T13:55:00.000Z

OK - they're here! New official blogs for PhysMath Central, BioMed Central & Chemistry Central.

This will probably mean a decrease in postings on here for matters PhysMath-y, but I'll duplicate postings on both blogs where appropriate.

Why not subscribe to all three and see what happens behind the doors of an open-access publishing company?

Awful poo lady gets long-overdue come-uppance

2007-02-12T14:55:00.000Z

When 2 of your favourite bloggers gang-up against someone you have very little time for, the results are synergistically satisfying. The target in this case is 'Dr' Gillian McKeith. I had the misfortune of reading one of her books that my wife had left lying around in the bathroom. Let's just say I was sat in the best place to enjoy McKeith's writing.

Ben Goldacre in The Guardian on Gillian McKeith - 'A menace to science'
Tom Coates on Ben Goldacre on Gillian McKeith

Science & Web2.0 - slowly coming together.

2007-02-12T08:23:00.000Z

Sometimes it seems there are not enough hours in the day. I had planned to spend a part of this weekend having a good look at Yahoo's Pipes (as it were) and seeing how I could integrate RSS feeds form various scientific sources - including BioMed Central - and see what happened as a result. However, domesticity is a cruel mistress and instead I spent the weekend painting, painting and re-painting and touching-up bits I missed the first 3 times.

However, the weekend did throw up several blog postings which indicate that science journalists and bloggers (if not the scientists themselves yet) are noticing that there might just be something useful in this interactive web2.0 thingy. I think we have only just touched the surface with what is possible, but whether it is practical, desirable and useful, remains to be seen. The inherent conservatism of the typical scientist is one thing not in favour of blogs and social networks being rapidly adopted [edit: for research purposes/collaborations], but the newer generation of scientists who have grown up with MySpace and their own blogs may be about to change things fast.

The value of blogs in academia - Flip Tomato
Using Twitter productively - Lifehack [I'd also be interested to hear if anyone is using MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, or any other social network environment for scientific purposes]
One link, many link, social link - Dave Bacon, The Quantum Pontiff

Update: Seems I missed one good link - this recent editorial in Nature Medicine.

Nearly forgot...

2007-02-08T13:02:00.000Z

...we also have a video up on our site - an excellent interview with Jens Vigen, librarian at CERN, on open access & physics publishing. Big thanks to the BioMed Central team for this one.

Watch this

2007-02-08T12:02:00.000Z

One of my favourite bloggers at Microsoft was Robert Scoble - but now he is working for PodTech and seems to spend an inordinate amount of time visiting successful companies and interviewing the movers and shakers behind the scenes. This time his chosen 'company' is SLAC, the Stanford Linear Accelerator team - maybe because they put up the US's first website, but the conversations with the team at SLAC are interesting and diverse and cover not only the birth of the web (both at SLAC ande CERN), but also much about particle physics too.

The videos are kind of long (first one is 76minutes!) but ideal for those of you with video iPods and long journeys to work.

Scoble Show: SLAC (7 Feb 2007)
Video tour of SLAC

Winter's here at last

2007-02-08T11:20:00.001Z

February
Originally uploaded by Chris Leonard.

Having spent last weekend fixing the front door (which meant having it open for a few hours in glorious sunshine) - this is the sight that greeted me when I opened that same door this morning. Seems that winter now starts in February.

APS Meeting in April

2007-02-02T15:09:00.000Z

No time for real blogging right now, we are busy getting on with things for PhysMath Central. Hopefully we will have something to announce sooner rather than later. Also, for those of you planning to be at the APS meeting in Jacksonville in April, you'll be able to come along and meet us, grab some freebies and may even be offered one of our exclusive staplers! Form an orderly queue.

Friday fun fest

2007-01-26T15:10:00.000Z

Time for a few more light hearted links before we can launch into the weekend proper:

Tupper's Self-Referential Formula: As David Vine might have once said - 'errrrrr, remarkable'.
A big welcome to the blogosphere for Matt Hodgkinson, another BMC-based blogger.
Physicist or computer scientist? Is it even important to make such distinctions?
The perils of automated cake-icing.
This week I have mainly been watching Stewart Lee. I commend this to you fully.

Two giant stalking things

2007-01-25T10:37:00.000Z

"Disease and depravation stalk our land like... two giant stalking things."
- Edmund Blackadder

Well, the two giant stalking things on my radar today (I do have a radar, it makes me look like a Teletubby) are these two stories, one good, one decidely less so.

Quantum computation expert Dave Bacon (aka The Quantum Pontiff) has announced the launch of SciRate.com - a digg-like service for arXiv papers - in this humorous posting. This is a very exciting development and could let some of the better papers in arXiv rise to the top and get more attention than they currently do.

A frankly depressing report from Nature on "PR's pit bull" discrediting open access publishing. Peter Suber (see comments) provides the incredulity felt by many.

I think we'll see what advice filtered through to the major publishers in public statements/press releases over the next few months. My guess is that - following this expose - they won't be able to use these arguments even if they wanted to.

Misc., various, assorted.

2007-01-18T10:26:00.000Z

Amid the lashing rain and high winds currently turning much of the UK into a maelstrom (OK - it's a bit wet and breezy) there were a plethora of great posts and links in my Google Reader this morning. I have been very good and condensed these down for you:

Elsevier look to outsource/offshore editorial processing and electronic development to India.
MIT's Lecture Browser. Maybe one day it will be possible to complete a degree without leaving your bed. Good CS, physics and mathematics lectures.
Funny Einstein pixel video.
A new form of journal marketing - it seems to have just enough graphs in it to stop it being an advert, but its a close thing.

Work continues apace on PhysMath Central - get in touch if you want to be involved in any capacity.

Good arrows!

2007-01-15T11:54:00.000Z

It's been a while - but I'm happy to get back in the blogging saddle with a roundup of what's been on my mind for the last week or so.

First of all, congratulations to Martin 'Wolfie' Adams for finally winning the World Darts Championship. In a thrilling best-of-13 sets final, Adams went 6-0 up before the break, but then lost the next 6 sets to Phil 'Nixy' Nixon. He finally held it together in the final set to win 7-6. It's a funny old game, darts. Many people dislike it or have a strong indifference to it, but that's usually because they haven't watched it. I got my wife to watch it with me and she was hooked. Next time you have the chance, tune in and get carried away with the silly nicknames, 180's and 'Let's Play Darts' chanting and general friendliness of the whole competition.

Physics World currently has a special issue on the forthcoming publishing revolution in physics, stemming from an adoption of web2.0 services for online journals. Some articles are free to read online, but you'll need the paper copy to read all about it(!). PhysMath Central will, of course, be a central player here. Some examples of our intentions are spelt out in this interview with First Author: BioMed Central Branches Out.

Finally, FlashEarth is a great mapping application that lets you switch between Google Maps, Yahoo Maps and Microsoft Earth on the fly. Sometimes the simple ideas are the best!

Back to normal

2007-01-05T10:37:00.001Z

It feels like a long time since my last post - due in part to the holiday season, but also because of a somewhat disabling back problem, which finally seems to have cleared up. However I spent much of Christmas and New Year flat on my back (and not due to over-indulgence on the sherry!)

I was going to post a round-up of the end-of-year posts from other maths and physics blogs, but the moment has passed, so I'll wave goodbye to them and assume you read them elsewhere.

More current goings-on:

The new issue of Science is a special issue on astroparticle physics. Well worth looking at.
Great post from Mark Liberman at Language Log on 'executable' articles. I am particularly interested to how this would translate to physics and maths articles.
Heart-warming, real-life hero story from the New York Times.

That's it for now. We are busy recruiting editorial board members for our first journals in high-energy & particle physics, condensed matter, AMO, applied & nonlinear physics. If you or a colleague would be interested in joining the open-access revolution - get in touch with me at this email address: chris.leonard [at] physmathcentral.com

Details about PhysMath Central

2006-12-21T15:54:00.000Z

So, earlier this week I was interviewed for a longer article by the people at First Author.

I thought it would be good to share my answers with you all as it gives an insight into what we are planning for in terms of functionality for PhysMath Central. I should have stated that some of these features may not be there on launch, but it gives our development team something to aim for [sorry guys]. In any case they will be there very soon afterwards.

[FA] How do you think the research needs and/ or interests of the Physics and Maths
differ from those of biomedical researchers? How will you service cater for these
needs?

In most respects they are very similar, but physicists (and latterly mathematicians) were very prescient in seeing the benefits that the internet offers in terms of dissemination of research material, which is no real surprise given the origins of the Web. However, what is missing from arXiv.org is the validation and quality branding that a rigourous peer review process brings. This is why arXiv and traditional journals enjoyed a symbiotic relationship for many years. What we are hearing now from scientists is that once this peer-review process has taken place, they want those results available for free to everyone and not 'locked-up' in subscription journals. This is where open access comes in. With a history of supporting OA for many years in the biosciences, BioMed Central was well placed to expand its reach into the physical sciences.

Physicists and mathematcians do have their own habits which differ to the biosciences though, and we will be accomodating these habits with our journals. What this means in practice is that authors can submit articles in TeX format, submit directly from arXiv and even submit to PhysMath Central and arXiv simultaneously. We will also link to the main databases in physics and provide support for multi-author uploads (where there are 10s or 100s of authors) and specialist publishing entities such as astronomical objects. We will also be adopting the standard PACS and MCS codes for physics and mathematics classifications.

[FA] The physics and maths academic communities were pioneering in their adoption
of open access, notably with the founding of Arxiv. You also have experience in the commercial sector. How will you work with and borrow from the experience of both these sectors?

We are a commercial company provding an open access service. From a commercial standpoint open access makes sense. Scientists are demanding it and it is almost seen as unethical in some fields to publish results in a subscription journal. It is difficult to see the future of subscription journals as rosy.

But open access does not necessarily imply 'free'. If we are based on a sound financial footing, that bodes well for the long-term future of open access. We are not dependent on grants or philanthropy and will be able to grow with the growing interest in open access in the future.

[FA] You recently promised to take advantage of new technologies to communicate research
findings clearly and to meet the challenges of the future. Can you give some examples of these
technologies and how you believe they will change the ways scientists research, collaborate and publish?

Sure - this is one of the most exciting parts of working in open access. Not only can we develop tools and services around our data, but anyone can. All articles are available, for free, to anyone in fully-formed XML, so we hope to see some suite of services like 'Google Labs' develop around this data.

However, for our part we intend to use new technology to support the scientific process in many ways. Apart from the tight arXiv integration already mentioned we are also going to use wikis with the editorial board members to refine the scope of the journals, journal blogs to inform everyone of editorial developments, OAI-PMH to update A&I services, RSS for journal content updates, multimedia to support the online text, comments from readers on each article, and we are very keen in working on ways to further structure and open up our data to other services. Other developments, such as 'tagging' of articles and refining the peer-review process will be considered if there is an appetite for it from the community we serve.

There is also an increasing drive to make raw data of experimental results available alongside the article itself. For particle collision data, for example, this would be problematic given the sheer volume of data - but this barrier will come down with time and for some fields it is already possible to publish raw data, so we will be investigating this option in the coming weeks.

The post before Christmas

2006-12-21T15:33:00.000Z

Heathrow airport is not a happy place this week, especially as I spent several hours trying to get back there this week. I'll spare you the details but if I were tagging the experience, it would run something like this: airport BA cancelled fog bastards redirect dusseldorf cancelled retry amsterdam wrong_voucher pleading hooray landed dealyed_again home taxi m4 breakdown fifty_quid.

Obviously not ideal and its still going on. If you have any options, avoid LHR for the forseeable future.

In other news, it seems that arXiv are delaying the implementation of their 4-figure archive identifiers, until March 2007 at least, to allow for proper testing [from an email from admin]. Seems reasonable enough, especially for librarians who have yet to update systems based on 3-figure identifiers. I wonder if this launch will coincide with the launch of the new archive names and super-archives in astrophysics, high-energy, nuclear and condmat/AMO?

PLoS One has launched. I'll post some more on this soon.

Nature's experiment with open peer review has come to a halt due to a lack of enthusiasm for it.

Using blogs in a research environment for physics.

I also did a brief interview with First Author about PhysMath Central this week. Q&A to follow...

A week is a long time in anything

2006-12-15T10:45:00.000Z

For various reasons I have been offline for the best part of a week, and it is amazing to see just how much has happened in that week. Blogs, RSS and email have made communication easier, but also faster and more bountiful. I wonder how people ever got anything done in the olden days (probably very easily as they didn't have these 'distractions'!).

Anyway, here's what grabbed my interest when I made it back online and ploughed through my emails:

Detectors 101 - great post from JoAnne Hewett at Cosmic Variance on the principles and anatomy of collider detectors, with a nice follow-up about how this applies to Cornell's Electron Storage Ring.
A very bizarre piece about the 'death of peer review' in the usually excellent Guardian. Maybe Ben Goldacre has something to say about this. Stevan Harnard de-bunks.
Oxford University Press reports lukewarm uptake for OA in their hybrid OA/subscription journals, but do so by referring to open-access as 'author-pays', (sigh).
Finally, AIP has released a statement on its position on open access (reprinted from Professional Scholarly Publishing Bulletin, Vol. 6 No.3 p3, Fall 2006)

AIP POSITION ON OPEN ACCESS & PUBLIC ACCESS
AIP’s mission and policy is to achieve that widest dissemination of the research results and other information we publish.
• Since the arrival of the Web, AIP believes it has achieved wider and more affordable dissemination than ever before in history, with more subscribers, more readers and more libraries and other institutions and people using our journals than ever before. Some use them free or at very low cost under various open access models.
• AIP believes it has been extremely successful in using and investing in technology and new online platforms towards that end.
• AIP has instituted and experimented with many business models, including free and open access. AIP believes that publishers should be free to experiment with various business models in the market place of ideas and economics.
• AIP is fearful of and against government mandates that provides rules in favor of one business model over another.
• AIP is against funding agencies mandating free access to articles after they have undergone costly peer review or editing by publishers.
AIP is against the government posting or distributing free copies of articles that publishers have invested in producing.
• AIP believes that funding agencies have every right to report their results to the public, but that if they choose to use publisher-produced, peer-reviewed material to do that, then the publisher should receive appropriate compensation.
• AIP is also fearful about what government agencies might do with articles they receive under any deposit system.
In particular, AIP is fearful of mission creep with government agencies using the deposited material beyond the goal of public access, for example in enhanced publications that compete with the private sector.

See Peter Suber's comments here.

Of course none of this matters when the articles and journals are fully open access and licensed under Creative Commons, as those from PhysMath Central will be.

A moving experience

2006-12-14T16:33:00.000Z

Sorry for the slow down on the blogging front recently - I've been busy moving house. Yes, finally, after 2 months of surveys, solicitors and sellers, we can settle down into our Victorian terrace in Chesham. Only the unpacking and redecorating to do before Christmas now!

Peoples Archive

2006-12-05T14:44:00.000Z

Working in the same building as BioMed Central, Faculty of 1000 and countless other companies (well, several!) I am still being surprised at some of the things I am finding out. One of the most pleasant surprises has been the discovery of the Peoples Archive - strapline: Great People Telling Their Life Stories.

This is a wonderful resource. For physicists, spend a couple of hours watching Freeman Dyson or Murray Gell-Mann telling you about their life to date. Mathematicians can see Benoit Mandelbrot and biologists, Francis Crick.
[perservere if there are streaming problems, its worth it.]

The recent demise of Crick highlights what an invaluable resource this could be in years to come. Documenting the histories of some of our greatest thinkers and making them available on the web makes this a very inspiring diversion on the web.

The plusses and pitfalls of physics co-authorship

2006-12-04T15:53:00.000Z

One thing which is occupying a lot of my thinking at the moment is the concept of co-authorship in scientific papers. Apparently I'm not alone in contemplating this at the moment. Must be something to do with the clear winter air.

Apart from the usual benefits (and possible negatives) of co-authoring a paper, the world of high-energy physics (HEP) has an unusual situtation where hundreds of people can be listed as co-authors. See this paper for an example of 'hyperauthorship'. This arises due to the unique nature of the large experimental apparatus which the physicists work on - much too large to be funded by a single insitution. Thus, large international groups form around these facilities to work on specific experiments (such as CMS and ATLAS at CERN).

So far so good, but HEP has a history of extremely inclusive author lists - so all members of a collaboration are often listed on any paper authored by any member of that group (so long as it relates to their particular experiments).

This, naturally, leads one to question what it means to be a co-author of a HEP paper. How much work has gone into a specific article by each member of the group? Could one outstanding member be responsible for building up the reputation of inactive or less-gifted colleagues? Given that many academic positions in physics, as in other disciplines, relies on the frequency and authority of published research - it is no surprise that this matter has attracted the attention of other researchers.
For a much more comprehensive and indepth investigation into this phenomenon, see Jeremy Birnholtz's paper 'What does it mean to be an author: The intersection of credit, contribution and collaboration in science'. I believe this was recently published by the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technolgy, but a preprint version is available from Jeremy's site.

What's this?

2006-11-29T21:19:00.000Z

All will be revealed tomorrow!

UPDATE: So, did you get it? It's a warning sign for oxygen deprivation deep underground at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. Apparently if you feel weak and need to sit down to look at your crotch, you need help.

Busy time of year

2006-11-28T16:23:00.000Z

Not only am I trying to get physics-specific back-end support up and running for PhysMath Central, but it is also time for the Online exhibition this year - which I hope to be attending tomorrow. And moving house. And planning a trip to Germany. Still, it's better than being bored and I still had time to read and recommend the following:

YouTube for Test tubes: the Journal of Visualized Experiments goes online with an impressive array for instructional videos for lab rats everywhere.
Daniel Dennett reviews The God Delusion: I just finished this and it was a very readable and life-changing experience. Dennett puts his friend's work into some context here.
Looking at the growth of Neanderthal teeth: Modern physics isn't all about searching for the origins of the universe!
CERN use Macs: This many smart people can't be wrong!

Back!

2006-11-27T13:00:00.000Z

It's so nice to be back in cold, dark, grey, windy London after a couple of weeks in Dubai. But the winter weather can't take the shine off the good news that our house purchase is all going ahead as planned and we'll be moving in the next 2 weeks. W00t!

Anyway, no time for detailed blogging right now I'm afraid, just a bit of a linkdump from my email and RSS reader. They're probably better than what I'd write anyway :-)

Questioning the authority of people questioning the authority of peer review - but only, it seems, for papers on Intelligent Design. Hmmmm.
Quantum computation a step nearer - as an outside to QC, I'm absolutely fascinated by the possibility it holds. Let's hope this brings quantum computers to a store near us soon.
Black holes spinning at their theoretical maximum - 950revs/s sounds fast, but given the overall weirdness of these things, it doesn't surprise me too much.
String theory causing more ruckus - it's nice to have some real passionate debate in science, and this one looks like it will run for some time.
Good news from J-Parc - their high intensity proton synchrotron accelerator is up and running.

No work + sunshine = Ahhhhh

2006-11-10T16:03:00.000Z

Sorry folks, it's time for me to leave you all for 10 days or so as I go for a little break in Dubai. Yes, look impressed. As a regular visitor since the mid-90s, I have seen a lot of change there - in fact every time I go there seems to be some new building cropping up somewhere. Take a look at this photo for evidence of that:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/swaalf/54647992/

I'll be online while I'm away, but will only be looking at news and sport websites and responding to the most urgent of emails. I'm sure you'll survive without me.

Presentation tips for science & business

2006-11-07T09:51:00.000Z

Since I am at the interface of these two subjects - and in the process of defining my own presentation style for PhysMath Central, it is always interesting to get tips on how to make presentations more compelling. Two invaluable blog posts have helped me here.

The first and most recent is from Chad Orzel at Uncertain Principles. Specifically aimed at physicists using Powerpoint he gives many bite-sized nuggets of wisdom including 'Equations are death';

Yes, physics is a mathematical science. It doesn't mean that people want to look at slide after slide of nothing but equations. There are few experiences as soul-crushing as sitting in a dark room watching somebody do algebra.

The second is from acclaimmed valley VC Guy Kawasaki. The espouses the 10/20/30 rule of pitching to venture capitalists.

It’s quite simple: a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.

The comments on both postings contain many further tips to turn you into a presentation master. Also, learn how to receive a standing ovation and see some of the best presentations evuh!

Links, links and additional links

2006-11-02T11:56:00.000Z

I have been swanning off around the globe recently to meet all kinds of interesting physicists in anticipation of the launch of PhysMath Central. That means there has been less activity on the blog than I would like - but hey, that's life. I can't be doing everything at once.

However, there have been some great blog posts recently that I wanted to highlight for my lovely readers:

Rafael Sidi, from Really Simple Sidi, points out that Nature have an island in Second Life called... Second Nature. I am really interested to see what will happen with this. I suspect it will be visited by very few authors who currently publish in Nature, but maybe they are aiming for the next-generation of scientists who will publish in a few years time?
An interesting looking series of videos from the Berkman Center on science and (scroll down a little) open source strategies. I confess to not having watched them all yet.
One of my favourite bloggers, Scott Aaranson, describes what makes a computer scientist a scientist (in answering a somewhat cheeky question from CosmicVariance's Sean Carroll). Sample quote: "the theoretical computer scientist is basically a mathematical logician on a safari to the physical world: someone who tries to understand the universe by asking what sorts of mathematical questions can and can't be answered within it. Not whether the universe is a computer, but what kind of computer it is! Naturally, this approach to understanding the world tends to appeal most to people for whom math (and especially discrete math) is reasonably clear, whereas physics is extremely mysterious."

What to study if you are lazy.

2006-10-31T12:43:00.000Z

The BBC reports that the amount of work done by UK students depends on what they study. Hold the front page! The image above (click for larger version) tells you to avoid medicine and dentistry if you want to lie-in after a night on the tiles. You'll be better off studying Languages or History. Don't say you haven't been warned.
Physics and mathematics are in the middle of this table.

PhysMath Central - the first step

2006-10-24T17:21:00.000+01:00

I am inordinately pleased with the new logo for PhysMath Central. This will be the name of the portal for a range of open access journals covering physics and mathematics. It will sit alongside BioMed Central and the newly-formed Chemistry Central under the umbrella of Open Access Central.

Thanks Sukhdev!

2006-10-23T10:54:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately access to my previous blog at Elsevier has been barred for some reason, so I am very grateful to Sukhdev for reprinting a post I wrote about the ideal computer science journal. I think I would change some ideas slightly now and will endeavour to write an updated and expanded version of this soon.

More good OA news

2006-10-23T10:33:00.000+01:00

I go away for the weekend and find I've been blogged on Peter Suber's Open Access News blog - which is the OA-equivalent of being 'slashdotted' in the nerd world ;-)
I'll answer the resulting emails as soon as I can, I promise.

But there was some great news on Friday for the OA movement in particle physics and astronomy, as the UK-based PPARC mandated open access for research that they fund:

PPARC supports the sentiments in the RCUK position statement on research outputs and, following discussions with the other Research Councils, has decided that for grants arising from proposals submitted after 1 December 2006, it will be a requirement of the grant that the full text of any articles resulting from the grant that are published in journals or conference proceedings, whether during or after the period of the grant, must be deposited, at the earliest opportunity, in an appropriate e-print repository, wherever such a repository is available, subject to compliance with publishers' copyright and licensing policies. Wherever possible, the article deposited should be the published version.

In addition, the bibliographical metadata (including a link to the publisher's web site) must wherever possible be deposited, at or around the time of publication, in the relevant e-print repository.

This policy will be reviewed on completion, expected in 2008, of a project to be commissioned by RCUK, with the involvement of journal publishers, to investigate the impact of author-pays and self-archiving on research publication.

Good stuff coming from NPG

2006-10-18T16:38:00.000+01:00

Another good blog post today from David Weinberger about blogs (and much, much more) in science from an interview with Nature Publishing Group's Timo Hannay.

Wikis & blogs in STM?

2006-10-18T15:44:00.000+01:00

Great post from Jake Young summarising the session at the Society for Neuroscience meeting entitled '(R)evolution in Scientific Publishing: How will it Affect You?'

I heard that the attendance at this session was on the sparse side, which is as surprising as it is regrettable as it seems many timely topics were under discussion - although perhaps with not as much passion as may have been expected.

Jake laments the lack of awareness and willingness amongst the publishing community (both publishers and researchers) to use blogs or wikis to spread their research further. I have to agree that the take up of blogs amongst scientists is on the low side and meaningful 'wiki-journals' are still some way off yet (years rather than months). However it isn't always for the lack of trying that publishers don't offer these things, there just doesn't seem to be the same appetite for them amongst researchers as a whole as there is amongst a small group of evangelists. And I say that as an evangelist. It's just a fact.

I also have to pull myself up occasionally and remind myself that the blogosphere is a somewhat rarefied environment of a small percentage of reasonably advanced computer uers. I would be willing to bet if you went into any school, college, university or commercial R&D centre and asked people if they knew what 'blogs' or 'RSS' were, fewer than half the people would put their hands up. The same could be said of publishers too, by the way.
The majority of people in the world don't read or write blogs - and even fewer read or edit wikis - so until some tipping point occurs, these will always be minority publishing fora.

That's not to say that they can't co-exist. I'm still waiting for someone to build something like Plastic for arXiv or all open-access journals (hell, why not all journals full stop? - the abstracts are nearly always freely available at least). Would this then become your first stop on the web each day?

I can't wait until blogs and wikis represent a large part of a scientist's publishing options, but the tentative experiments I know of in this area mean that it is unlikely that any of the major publishing houses will be at the bleeding edge of this development. Maybe it will be up to the smaller publishers to take a chance - or maybe, even, scientists will embrace the punk ethic and do it for themselves. If they can sort out the archival and citing issues, maybe things will happen faster than expected.

Carry on blogging

2006-10-18T14:49:00.000+01:00

So you may have noticed that there hasn't been much happening on here recently. That's because I was hopeful that we would be able to get a blogging platform up and running for PhysMath Central soon, but it looks like that isn't going to happen soon enough for impatient little me, so I am going to carry on blogging on here for a while, mixing business with pleasure, until the new blogs are ready to go.

In other news, house purchase is chugging along slowly and - thanks to my wife being away in Salt Lake City - I have made it up to episode 9 of series 6 of the Sopranos. Can't believe the next mini-series will be the last. The Shield is also ending next year too. What will I watch then?

Open access expansion

2006-10-10T16:16:00.000+01:00

After a hiatus of nearly a year, I'm glad to report that I am back working in the field of scientific publishing. I have been asked by BioMed Central to develop their physics, mathematics & computer science titles which will, like all journals published by BMC, be open access & free to read.

As many of you will know, I left Elsevier late last year and went to work for an interactive music company called Digimpro. They are still going strong with their community-driven site, but the opportunity to get back into the STM world on a more (ahem) respectable side of the fence was too good to pass up.

So - here I am right at the start of what feels like a great adventure. It is only day 2 but I am already very excited about what lies ahead. We haven't concretely decided on very much at the moment, but as soon as there is something to announce I'll be doing it on here.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the people who were so understanding in my previous role and invite them to get in touch (contact details on the right). OA is only getting stronger and it is time for the real scientists to enjoy the benefits that biologists and their medical friends have been enjoying for years!

H-o-u-s-e spells house

2006-10-07T05:39:00.000+01:00

I somehow made it to the age of 34 without ever going through the rigmarole of buying a house in the UK - however I, just this week, popped my property cherry. This explains why there have been no blog postings recently and also explains why my planned week-long holiday of watching the Sopranos and catching up on some reading never really materialised.

So, barring any legal or financial problems or people generally messing us about, we should be moving to the charming market town of Chesham in Buckinghamshire sometime before Christmas. We won't be able to afford a Christmas tree after all that, so I will be 'doing a Homer' and driving out to the forest to chop down a mighty specimen. In my mind, at least. In practice I'll buy a 2ft high plastic one which plays "Jingle Bell Rock" whenever you walk past it. That is what Christmas is all about.

Read this pathetic humans!

2006-10-01T17:20:00.000+01:00

Excellent news. There is a Morbo fansite. May death come quickly to his enemies.

Kate Moss in shopping shocker

2006-09-28T15:35:00.000+01:00

Just been for lunch on Portobello Road and I was strolling back to the office when I was aware of a throng of - I swear - about 40 people outside some shop. They were standing in the road and on the opposite side of the street, all expectant as a bouncer/bodyguard blocked the entrance to the shop. I asked someone who it was (maybe Tony Blair or Kofi Annan was in there) - and they said Kate Moss. Ergh. I walked on to the park to sit on a bench and looking at 2 pigeons fighting over a bit of dried sick on the pavement. It was more interesting.

Avez-vous du mayonnaise?

2006-09-28T13:44:00.001+01:00

Oh man, I know this feeling so well.

Several months ago me and my then girlfriend, now wife, were in Paris for a romantic weekend. Our romantic weekend revolved largely around food and so it was inevitable we ended up in a street-side cafe for a little bowl of frites and a Diet Coke (to negate the fries).

However, when they arrived, the frites were naked. No mayonnaise as we had been used to in Holland, so I called the waitress over and asked in my best GCSE French for some mayonnaise. She gave me a disgusted look, and asked if I was sure. I said yes, thank you, I am sure and it was for the fries. Again she looked perplexed and disgusted and traipsed off.

Some time later (when we'd almost finished, of course) she brought to us a glass of Baileys with ice. Confusing looks all round and then she said, in English, "I thought you said you wanted some Bailey's"!

My other moment of embarassment in the French language came when I went on a shopping day-trip (aka 'booze cruise') from London to somewhere in Northern France. The aim being to stock up on cheap alcohol in France and bring it back to England on the ferry. However, it started at 7am on the coach with someone opening some Pimm's and the day got hazier from that point on.

At around 1pm I found myself slightly drunk and very hungry standing in a hypermarche on the outskirts of Rouen. So I headed for the deli counter where I could see lots of cheese sample on little paper plates balanced precariously on the top of the curved plastic window/guard thingy.

I reached past a gaggle of middle-aged French women stocking up on Camembert and Port Salut to grab some of the free cheese and, in doing so, knocked 4 plates of cheese to the floor with the oversized sleeves of my ski-jacket.

Everyone stopped and looked at me and I felt obliged to say something, but the only French I could remember at this point was "Regardez, les fromages".

I haven't been back.

Hello world!

2006-09-26T08:46:00.000+01:00

At last, a personal blog that I have been looking forward to writing for many a moon. I have previously blogged for Elsevier under the name Computing Chris (alas, no longer available) and for the interactive music company I used to work for, but never for myself - so forgive me if I get too self-indulgent in the early posts. I'm just excited.

Anyone who knows where I got the somewhat esoteric blog name from, deserves comedy props from me. Anyone who doesn't, needs to watch this for an example of what good comedians and bad drugs can do.