Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Having read his book "The Ontological Turn" some years ago, this seems right on brand. 000
Reposted by Philip R. ConwayJewish Currents @jewishcurrents.bsky.social · 01/10/2026On this episode of On the Nose, Arielle Angel speaks to Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing) and Rami Younis (Lyd) about NAZA and the function of cinema focused on the perpetrators of genocide. jewishcurrents.org/naza-and-the... 0159
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 30/09/2026www.youtube.com/live/T7KucXv...youtube.comReading the Crisis: Democracy with Richard SeymourYouTube video by Stuart Hall Foundation 000
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Not the worst book I've ever read, but perhaps the most astonishingly overhyped. The lesson, I think, is that if the elevator pitch of your book basically flatters the common sense of the liberal commentariat, you can fill it with as much leftish verbiage as you like and they will lap it up. 051
Reposted by Philip R. ConwayMark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Wrote a short weird little book about far-right death threats against me + my fam, fleeing our home, Trumpism, + my experience as a Jew amidst the resurgence of fascism + genocide in Gaza Coming January 2027 from @melvillehouse.bsky.social mhpbooks.com/books/unpunc... #NoPasarán #FreePalestine 721974
Reposted by Philip R. ConwayOlúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 16/08/2026Philosophers often bring up the "principle of charity": a willingness to assume good faith in an interlocutor and treat them accordingly. It's good to do in many circumstances. But it is worth formulating a principle of not being a fucking mark. If not during the rise of fascism, then when? 12/ 253673797
Reposted by Philip R. ConwayRoyal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 31/07/2026"Details, in their singularity and idiosyncrasy, point to the capaciousness of human experience." New today in the Society's journal 'Transactions': Joe Moran 'On Detail in Historical Writing': bit.ly/44UMi8C Now available OA @joemoransblog.bsky.social @massobsarchive.bsky.social #Skystorians 1/2 212763
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 04/07/2026The short answer is this: pandoc.org/demo/example... bcdavasconcelos.github.io/citetools/do... The long answer is that I wrote a long script to make this functionality work for me and I’ve been meaning to write a blog post about it, but I haven’t gotten around to that yet.pandoc.orgCitations 130
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 04/07/2026You don’t have to speak in full sentences. I.e. you can just dictate words or phrases and it will know whether this is part of a sentence automatically. It’s easy to train it to recognise your own vocabulary. You can use it for editing (i.e. “select ‘this phrase’“; “go to start of paragraph”). 110
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 04/07/2026Thanks. I’ve been using these sorts of models for dictating emails, etc. However, for writing complex documents there’s still no substitute for Dragon, imo. 110
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 04/07/2026I use pandoc.org/demo/example...pandoc.orgCitations 020
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 04/07/2026“Digital sovereignty“ is a tangled nest of dependencies, but there are simple things we can do to make our own lives easier. Adopting a plain text workflow where possible is, I think, one of them! 020
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 04/07/2026Unfortunately, there is a complete monopoly in dictation software. There are no meaningful competitors to Dragon. The software is buggy and outdated, in addition to being ludicrously overpriced. But if you need it, you need it. 210
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 04/07/2026This also (mostly) freed me from the clutches of the Microsoft enshittification machine. The main sticking point is that, in 2021, Microsoft acquired the company that makes Dragon dictation software, killing consumer licenses, jacking up the price, and marketing it as a corporate productivity tool. 120
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 04/07/2026The solution I ended up with was writing in Markdown, using Dragon Dictate when necessary, and using pandoc to format references. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandoc The pandoc part required learning some command line shenanigans, but it was worth it. (Actually, it was a lot of fun.)en.wikipedia.orgPandoc - Wikipedia 120
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 04/07/2026It is far, far easier to generate and edit text using voice dictation software when it is in plain text format (like .txt) than when it is trapped in a proprietary format (like .docx). 110
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 04/07/2026Thus, I ensured that no document I was working with would ever be too large again. However, there were also accessibility reasons for making this shift. I had (and continue to have) problems with chronic pain. 110
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 04/07/2026It took a full 50 minutes to work through the document, formatting the bibliography, and any error that cropped up (and there were many) meant the process had to start again from scratch. After that, I resolved to work only in plain text, using Markdown formatting. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdownen.wikipedia.orgMarkdown - Wikipedia 110
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 04/07/2026I decided I never wanted to use Word again in late 2018, as I was trying to generate the final version of my PhD thesis. It had a *lot* of references and, when I came to put all the chapters together, the Word+Zotero combination ground to a halt. 2141
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 04/07/2026I’ve been writing in Markdown for years and never going back. Pandoc for converting to docx and formatting references. The one wrinkle: tracked changes. But LibreOffice handles those just fine. 2122
Reposted by Philip R. ConwayWorking Class History @workingclasshistory.com · 07/06/2026#OtD 7 Jun 2020 Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol, UK, pulled down a statue of enslaver Edward Colston and threw it into Bristol Harbour. Colston's Royal African Company transported more than 100,000 enslaved Africans in the 17th century stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1072... 3378121
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 25/05/2026Seems that I re-skeet this earlier and earlier each year … 040
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 20/05/2026The one occasion that I was asked to peer review a text that referenced my work, it was very clear they hadn’t read or understood it at all. My excitement was very short-lived 😂 010
Reposted by Philip R. ConwayPhilip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 20/05/2026To be fair, if there is a formula for academic success, as I have observed it, it is basically this: Do decent quality research. Parcel that research into as many strategically positioned papers as possible. Never put in more effort (or expend more material) than is necessary for any given paper. 221
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 20/05/2026It’s that last part, in particular, that I never got the hang of. Always trying to make everything I write as good as I can make it, rather than just good enough. I would never go so far as to have AI do my writing for me. I have standards. But there may be a balance to be struck somewhere in there 010
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 20/05/2026To be fair, if there is a formula for academic success, as I have observed it, it is basically this: Do decent quality research. Parcel that research into as many strategically positioned papers as possible. Never put in more effort (or expend more material) than is necessary for any given paper. 221
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 20/05/2026FWIW, I’m very much on Team can-only-cite-half-of-what-I’ve-read-because-otherwise-the-entire-article-would-be-bibliography. But this does seem very much *not* the way to get ahead. 010
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 20/05/2026I mean… it's wrong, but it's not irrational. If your decision making process is basically a risk/reward calculation designed to maximise your chances of professional success, then cutting corners (actually reading your sources/actually writing your manuscript) is probably beneficial, up to a point. 200
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 11/05/2026These people must just waft through life, surrounded by peers and sycophants, their self-assurance matched only by their ignorance. 020
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 09/05/2026Something similar might be found on the left—see the absorption of Corbynism by the Greens. Party loyalty is no longer normative. Nevertheless, this remains a political struggle that needs party organisation. 000
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 09/05/2026Increasingly, then, the right takes on a kind of slime mold existence, swimming in a rich fluid medium of cash, attention, and access to power. 110
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 09/05/2026Labour MPs still depend on their party as a career advancement structure, but Tories don’t. At least not to the same extent. Conservatism in the literal sense is dead. There is no tradition for tradition’s sake any more. It’s opportunists all the way down. Griftopia. 100
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 09/05/2026It’s not just that the English right no longer needs the Conservative Party, it no longer needs the traditional party form. Reform is just the latest iteration of an assemblage that dissolves and congeals every few years. It’s malleable, dynamic, pragmatic, postmodern. 100
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 09/05/2026Their party is losing, but their side is winning. 1204
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 12/04/2026I was in Budapest four years ago, on the day of the previous election. I saw Viktor Orbán leaving a fancy restaurant at lunchtime, looking very pleased with himself. It seemed unthinkable at that time that he could be out, but here we are. Congratulations Hungary. 020
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 27/03/2026Thought of a funny bit. DuckDuckGoed it. Already exists: em-dash-appreciation.orgem-dash-appreciation.orgEm Dash Appreciation Society 010
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 26/03/2026It would be so easy to tell a university-based story that is both dramatically interesting and realistic: Dishevelled twenty-something wakes up in stealthily parked car; gingerly exits. Sneaks in back door of public gym; showers and brushes teeth. Walks out onto campus. “Oh, hi Dr Smith!” Etc. 031
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 25/03/2026Completely agree with your critique of the methodologisation/disciplinisation of conjunctural analysis. It’s a political technique, first and foremost. 020
Reposted by Philip R. ConwayThe Polycrisis @thepolycrisis.bsky.social · 25/03/2026Our podcast has landed! Electric World Order: ep 1 - looks at the second wave of the energy transition, and why & how China is making it happenpod.link 22210
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 15/03/2026You would inevitably have a lot of references needing to be checked manually (e.g. in history journals where you have a lot of older sources and archives). But for fields that mostly reference recent journal articles (like anglophone philosophy) I think you could catch a significant percentage. 010
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 15/03/2026If references are correctly formatted then extracting the relevant information from each of them automatically should be trivial. Given access to appropriate APIs on the metadata side, a half-decent programmer should be able to whip something up in a few hours. 111
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 15/03/2026The tricky part would be getting reliable metadata to check against. This is no problem with journal articles published by major publishers in the last 20 years or so. That should be extremely automatable, but other sources would be more problematic. 110
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 10/03/2026Abolition is the floor. The minimum. A reasonable compromise. 001
Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 08/03/2026I wrote about being unemployed, middle-aged, and trying to find a creative voice in a world ever more dominated by self-satisfied mediocrity polycritical.substack.com/p/letter-to-...polycritical.substack.comLetter to a friend (who definitely isn’t just me in a trench coat)On being unemployed and middle-aged, with aspirations of creativity 010
