Open-access journals, Al Gore's new station

So I've pretty much been slacking on this whole blog thing, haven't I? Is it my fault the internet hasn't produced anything worthwhile to read for the last week? Of course not!

I will, however, direct your attention to the following things that interest me: first of all, I'm a big fan of opening access to scholarly journals, which usually charge outrageous subscription fees. However, after reading this article, I'm not so sure...it's basically that in lieu of subscription fees, authors would actually pay money to have their articles published, which kinda puts an entire journal's credibility in jeopardy:

It's possible, Drazen said, that an open-access journal would find itself in deep financial trouble and loosen its standards about the papers it accepts. The researchers, possibly from drug companies, will be "more likely to get their paper published because they can afford to get their paper published, and that's exactly the wrong reason."

In other news, it looks like Al Gore's new teevee station is finally getting off the ground, and it sounds pretty promising, assuming the article is accurate. I really like the idea of making television more enduser-interactive, which this project aims to do:

Audience members will be encouraged to not only watch but also shoot, edit and upload their own bite-sized digital video segments to the Current TV website. If the editors and web audience like the segments, they will then be broadcast to the channel's potential viewer pool of 19 million.

"We are asking you to submit your videos and to take part in creating this new network," Gore said Monday night at a hip-hop party in San Francisco attended by several thousand hipsters, including actors Sean Penn and Leonardo DiCaprio, hip-hop stars Mos Def and Talib Kweli, Crown City Rockers, Michael Franti and Spearhead.

I like part of that last line..."several thousand hipsters" - they're everywhere!