There’s no sense in decapitating a badger if you’re not going to make good use of the severed head. So here’s what I did with mine.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been fortunate enough to acquire two medium-sized native mammals, both roadkill specimens in good conditions: a fox and a badger: {.aligncenter .size-large .wp-image-13160 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“13160” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2016/03/27/happy-easter-i-celebrated-by-decapitating-a-fox-and-a-badger/2016-03-27-15-09-09/”

A couple of weeks ago, I was given a pheasant, which I reduced to science and food. When we last saw it, it was down to a skinned and partially defleshed head/neck and feet.

I’m trying to free some space in my office, and I’m going to let my run of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology go: {.aligncenter .size-large .wp-image-13145 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“13145” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2016/03/24/free-to-a-good-home-sixteen-issues-of-the-journal-of-vertebrate-palaeontology/2016-03-24-07-42-13-2-stack-of-jvp/”

I’ve been lucky enough to acquire another beautiful specimen.

The European Commission is putting together a Commission Expert Group to provide advice about the development and implementation of open science policy in Europe. It will be known as the Open Science Policy Platform (OSPP). This is potentially excellent news. The OSPP’s primary goal is to “advise the Commission on how to further develop and practically implement open science policy”. But there’s potentially a downside here.

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This post shouldn’t need to be written, but apparently it does. In recent discussions of Sci-Hub, I still keep seeing people trot out idiot analogies where copying scientific papers is portrayed as the equivalent of stealing physical goods. A couple of examples: Or: It pains me to read the words of experienced and presumably knowledgeable people when they trot out such absolute nonsense.

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Yesterday we asked what will happen if Sci-Hub succeeds (by which I meant that it survives whatever legal challenges come its way, and continues to distribute copyrighted scholarly publications to anyone in the world at zero cost, ignoring the claims of that copyright). Now let’s think about what happens if it fails — that is, if it’s taken down by legal action within Russia, or it’s successfully DDoSed (don’t laugh, I’ve seen it

Let’s think this through. Ignore for now the questions about Sci-Hub’s legality, and just consider the pragmatics. Imagine that it “succeeds” in that it survives whatever legal challenges come its way, and continues to distribute copyrighted scholarly publications to anyone in the world at zero cost, ignoring the claims of that copyright. Then what follows?