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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 2h

More knowledge artifacts as I dig through the big bag of manuals on the boat. A crumpled up piece of paper with the diagram of part of the electrical system. The boat no longer has a generator onboard, so I’m going to say this is out of date.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 2h

I found the owners manual for my boat. One problem . . .

CD-ROM of the owners manual of the Fountain Pajot Hélia 44.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

We make it to the eastern end of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal at 7:30, & ties up at the town dock in Chesapeake City, 3/4 through the canal, at 9:30. After 30 hours of moving, we’re finally at rest for a few hours. Wash down, coffee, real bathroom, sleep, then breakfast are the order of the day.

The boat at the Chesapeake City docks, near the 537 bridge.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The Cape May light is in sight. We must decide whether to cut the corner, in the dark, or continue on 6 more miles to the reach the channel.

View from the cockpit with the jib lit by the deck light and the cockpit by the chartplotter and instruments. The lights from the New Jersey shoreline are visible on the horizon.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Very grey day off the coast of New Jersey. We’re making good time, averaging around 7kts. As forecasted, the wind is abating & slowing clocking to the east. I’m at the edge of nausea, from the sea state mostly but also thinking of the weight of this endeavor, of moving my family onto a boat.

View from the cockpit looking at the thin line of the New Jersey coast on the horizon.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

On the way from Long Island to the Chesapeake on the boat soon to be my home. Nice early morning passage down the East River.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Flashbacks to my master’s thesis!

“The need for "administrative
metadata," as it is labeled by both typologies, what Greenberg (2003, 1881) identifies as
"meta-metadata," highlights a characteristic of metadata noted by the participants of the Warwick conference: "What may appear to be metadata in one context, may look very much like data in another... This recursive relationship of data to metadata may nest to
an arbitrarily deep level" (Lagoze 1996, n.p.). The potential of nested levels, data to
metadata to meta-metadata and so on, and the arbitrariness of the levels from one instance to the next, hints at the possible opening out of metadata beyond the immediate horizon of a particular scheme. It also gestures at the tendency of metadata to beget metadata, what speculatively could be understood as a consequence of metadata's …”

“… constitutive insufficiency in fulfilling its documentary function without supplement.
Here, meta-metadata should be understood by its functional principle, the need for
documentation of the object's surrogate record as a resource in itself.”

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

All right, I’m at the clock in Grand Central. I don’t see anyone I know so I’m not sure this holds up as the place to find people work anymore.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Sure seems relaxing but this is supposed to be the test sail & 10 minutes in the port engines started overheating. Looks like we lost the prime on the raw water pump, so no cooling, which fried the impeller, & now there’s impeller bits likely stuck in the heat exchanger. Luckily we can anchor.

Feet up, lounging on top of the boat at anchor.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

OK, this might very well be the boat. Needs more water.

Selfie in front of the catamaran being hauled by a travel lift.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

A quick walk in Midtown before hoping a train to Norwalk. Tomorrow I survey what could be The Boat. We’ve been planning for this for nearly ten years, so no pressure. [If this doesn’t end up being The Boat, no worries, there are other boats in the sea.]

The Empire State Building, bathed in evening light, seen from Lexington Ave.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Here was the survey haul for the Catalina we bought in California, which happened near my birthday in 2018.

32-foot Catalina sailboat being hauled out of the water for inspection.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Two years ago, an inflatable stand-up paddle board, ordered right around my birthday.

Two inflatable SUPs, one full size, the other for a child, sitting on the grass.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Three years ago, a few weeks after my birthday, I tried to rekindle my youth with a Laser, far better than the old beater I campaigned as a teenager.

Blue and white hulled Laser sailboat strapped to the top of my Subaru.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Thoughts going through my head at the hotel breakfast buffet before I get my coffee: “I’m pretty sure a single leg of pair of tongs in not a ‘tong,’ which would really just be a weirdly shaped spatula. Just as one leg of a pair of scissors would just be a lousy knife. And those aren’t real eggs.”

Sign over the breakfast buffet, directly above a pair of tongs: “Please use a tong to get bagel, bread and muffins.”

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Hope you hit this cultural hot spot, in the food court near the ferry terminal.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Reading Edward Deci’s mid-90s pop-psychology book *Why We Do What We Do* for a reading group. It feels like a distillation of 20th C. liberal social science: trying to merge individual flourishing w/ managerial efficiency, effected through reform of how we talk, & “society” is a sus influence.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

This coffee machine is trolling me.

Screen of an automated espresso machine with an error message: “Door Unclosed”

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Not to be outdone by neighboring Curaçao . . .

Newspaper story from the July 16, 2026, Daily Herald: “Bonaire delegation to Pickle-ball World Cup”

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Finally getting to read Karen Strassler’s latest book, *Demanding Images.* I was the production editor for a bunch of great books on Indonesia when I was at DukeUP, including Karen’s first book, *Refracted Visions,* by the likes of Eben Kirksey, Abidin Kusno, & Rudolf Mrázek. Some of my favorites.

Cover of Karen Strassler’s *Demanding Visions: Democracy, Mediation, and the Image-Even in Indonesia.* Published by Duke University Press in 2020.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Saint Martin notes #24: Breaking news out of St. Eustatius . . .

Headline from the July 14, 2026, Daily Herald: “Carnival 2026 Committee amped for Carnival 2026”

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Saint Martin notes #23: Friday night karaoke: A group of inebriated Dutchmen butchers Gangstas Paradise while the Prime Minister of Sint Maarten (white shirt, by the dart board) looks on, sipping his bottle of beer.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Hey book/publishing studies peeps: Do you know the term for the page (usually the last before the back cover) inserted by print-on-demand printers. Such as 👇 (torn from the latest issue of Limn, where is was mistakenly placed as a middle page).

Page torn from a journal, with nothing but information on the Amazon facility that printed it and the date of the printing.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Actually, they were very precise, at least when it came to evaluating the Dyneema soft shackles & loops I was making.

Two soft shackles, with a loop on one end and a diamond knot on the other, on a work bench.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

I very much appreciate the precision of the guys in the running rigging shop.

Tag on the length of rope: “90 ft maybe”

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

If you are into sailboats, this place is pretty fantastic. My son takes sailing lessons near the Simpson Bay Bridge, so we get to see plenty of boats making the transit close up. This is from one bridge opening a few weeks ago, as the lagoon started to clear out for hurricane season.

Atlantic 47 with the distinctive MastFoil rig.

Looks like an 80/90s era Swan in the 40-44ft range.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

We’ve now lived through an entire sailing reason here in Saint Martin, with several hundred boats stopping in Simpson Bay or the lagoon, everything from 30’ to 350’. We met at least 3 dozen cruising families at the beach bar. Hands down best boat name so far: What Up Fishes.

Iggy in front of the I ❤️ Simpson Bay (Resort Marina & Spa) sign with the anchorage in the background.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

That figure in the blue shirt could very well be me racing a Sunfast with the wife & kid in the Lagoon Regatta at the Saint Martin Yacht Club. It was Iggy’s first regatta as crew: he did great.

Two small keelboats sailing downwind under main and jib.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

That figure in the blue shirt could very well be me, racing a Sunfast in last weekend’s Lagoon Regatta out of the Saint Martin Yacht Club. It was Iggy’s first regatta as crew: he did great.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

So while this tool might provide useful support for editors to find certain things in their manuscripts, it does nothing for “editorial judgement at scale,” mainly because judgement doesn’t scale. Like most such tools, it can be useful for triage. But it also chips away at editorial judgement.

“Supporting editorial judgment at scale

Citation Check connects to existing submission management systems via
API and supports batch processing of manuscripts - making it well-suited to publishers managing high submission volumes.

The tool is designed to support editorial judgment, flagging risks and explaining its reasoning while leaving final decisions
- and the journal's integrity - in the hands of the editors.”

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

So, the problem of self-citations: determining when they are appropriate or excessive. The tool does 2 main things: identifies & locates instances of self-citation, then applies a “risk” score to each instance. This to promote consistency, speed, objectivity in editorial work, “at scale.”

“Addressing a major editorial challenge

Self-citation is a recognized integrity risk in academic publishing. While a degree of self-citation is entirely appropriate, excessive or gratuitous use inflates citation metrics, obscures a paper's originality, and can place a journal's indexing standing in jeopardy.

Identifying that risk has traditionally relied on manual reference review - an approach that is time-consuming, inconsistent across editorial teams, and difficult to sustain at scale.

“Dimensions Citation Check API changes this, bringing consistent, objective integrity screening to every submission.
Editors upload manuscript PDFs as received, and the tool does the rest:

• Resolves author identities against the Dimensions database - the world's largest interconnected global research database
• Pinpoints self-citations at the sentence level
• Applies scoring to assess whether each citation is justified in context or appears gratuitous - surfacing the reasoning behind every risk flag
• Returns a structured report with a clear risk rating”

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Saint Martin notes #21: Techbro fashion outlet

Google Fashion shop in Philipsburg, with several mannequins out front.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

We starting sailing in the Apostles during covid. Magical place.

Looking forward over the deck of a sailboat toward a cloud-filled sky and fading light.

A sailboat drifting on an indistinguishable horizon dividing the sky and surface of a glassy lake.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Heading down to the lagoon to check out this crazy boat.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

And the only way we can scrutinize whether RORATION has achieve "genuine community ownership" is if we *see the detailed terms of the partnership* w/ T&F. Many in the ROR community have been around the block w/ lots of presses, including establishing their own. Some of us know things abt pub deals.

"What we negotiated in return for working with Taylor & Francis is genuine community ownership, low and affordable APCs, and an openness from our publisher to experiment with new forms of publication. We welcome scrutiny of whether that bargain holds."

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

2) "T&F provides ... infrastructure, while ... IP, governance & editorial independence remain w/ RORATION" This isn't a clean tradeoff. Infrastructure ends up doing governance on the sly, which is why thoughtful commentators argue that open doesn't work w/o open infrastructure. This is the trap.

"We considered a number of publishing options with the eventual decision to partner with Taylor & Francis through a newly formed legal association, RORATION, not being made lightly, nor was it made without pushing hard on the terms. T&F provides the necessary infrastructure, while the journal's IP, governance and editorial independence remain with RORATION, and thus the community. We do not present it as a triumph, but rather as an initial step only and a compromise to be monitored and revisited as the publishing industry and the field of research-on-research develop."

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Pointing, for no particular reason, to this deeply illuminating exchange between Barbara Herrnstein Smith & Paul Boghossian, published in SAQ back in 2002. read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlant...

Section of the table of contents of vol 101, issue 1, of South Atlantic Quarterly, listing these three articles:

Cutting-Edge Equivocation: Conceptual Moves and Rhetorical Strategies in Contemporary Anti-Epistemology, by Barbara Herrnstein Smith

Constructivist and Relativist Conceptions of Knowledge in Contemporary (Anti)Epistemology: A Reply to Barbara Herrnstein Smith, by Paul Boghossian

Reply to an Analytic Philosopher, by Barbara Herrnstein Smith

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Here’s how I’ve written abt publishing arrangements as compromise👇. I think my differences w/ the JROR editors is only partly over what can & can’t be lived with. I believe there were arrangements that would have made the compromises less acute.

“All publishing arrangements involve compromises, on how to balance cost, time, labor, and quality, or the interests of authors, readers, editors, and publishers. The question is not whether there is a form of publishing that doesn't involve compromise, but how to distinguish between the compromises we can live with and those we cannot.”

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Saint Martin notes #19: Happy Fish Day to all who celebrate.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Saint Martin notes #18: A local charter company that gives nudist guests a discount.

“Group Charter

Join like-minded traveler's for an unforgettable day at sea. For $220 per adult and $120 per child, enjoy a full-day excursion with snorkelling, paddle-boarding, and a gourmet onboard lunch.”

“Clothing Optional Charter

A liberating and comfortable sailing experience for those who prefer a more natural setting. Priced at $200 per person, this exclusive trip offers the same luxury experience with an open-minded atmosphere.”

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Today at the shop I helped splice together then dress a new mast. It was shipped to SXM in a 30 ft crate, which probably wasn’t cheap but still cheaper than sending a 60 ft crate.

A tangle of messenger lines, used to reeving halyards, tied to the forestay tang.

Sighting down the front of the mast from the masthead.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Quick ontological question . . .

Small bottle of Country Kitchen mixed essence (mélange d’essence).

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

I read the entire, quite comprehensive, page before inquiring into who was providing it. It’s a blog post from something called OpenExamPrep. There’s no About page, just a short My Story section on the front page about Ran Chen, Founder, on his wish to democratize professional exam prep w/ AI.

Screen shot of webpage: picture of Ran Chen above “My Story” section with the headline, “How AI Csn Make Exam Prep Free for Everyone”

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

At @limnpress.bsky.social, we are currently looking for libraries trying to align collections strategies w/ their support for a healthier schol comm system, one where scholars have more influence than stockholders. We are asking them to put funding behind this purpose. Readers of Limn can help out.

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

The catalogue does some very useful articulating, categorizing, & listing of examples, important especially for AHSS scholars who don't recognize the forms of openness already in their own work, or who define their practices in opposition to the forms forced upon them. catalogue.morphss.work

The "practices" grid of the catalogue, the first six of which are: "Academic/Scholarly Podcasting"; "Annotation for Transparent Inquiry"; "Applying the CARE Principles to Data from Marginalised Communities"; "Authorship (Collective, Collaborative, or Communal)"; "Co-production"; and "Collaborative Translation (Co-translation, Collaborative translation, Community translation, Collective translation, or Commoning translation)"

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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

BREAKING: Anthropologist makes front page of paper plus full page coverage of lecture. Report of Francio Guadeloupe’s inaugural lecture at U o’ Amsterdam. He spent several years down here as the head of the U o’ Saint Martin.

The Daily Herald (Saint Martin), March 13-14. Amongst the other front page stories is one with the headline, “Anthropologist Guadeloupe calls for rethinking Dutch Caribbean studies”

Page 7, continuation of front page story.

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