Maybe it is time to drop secret peer-review all together. How about open review of scientific papers? Not to mention the so needed open access to scientific knowledge, altogether.
Publishers: What, see the paper BEFORE it goes to press? But, but, how are we going to rip you^H^H^H^H^H^H^H do our hard work and provide our valuable service? You must pay $35 for that 780k PDF, we've put a lot of work into getting it to you!
Sarcasm aside, I agree with you. Greedy publishers don't belong in science anymore. The articles want to be free!
There sure are a lot of posters on Slashdot who want to criticize the current system but have no idea how it works. I mean, I understand that accusations of greed and secrecy are fun to make but, really, shouldn't they have some relationship to what you are criticizing? Even on Slashdot?
Here is a free clue for you: There are highly-respected journals that give away all their content for free on the web for anyone to read. They still use anonymous reviewers. The use of anonymous reviewers has nothing to do with greed or a desire to keep knowledge bottled up.
Peer review is not research. Was Asimov really conflating the two? Also, is his dialog really that bad? Please tell me that is not a direct quote, despite the quotation marks!
Like missing or mislabeled tables, this error might not have been in the draft(s) seen by the peer reviewers but might, instead, have been introduced later in final edits meant to clear up minor grammatical errors, etc. Peer reviewers are not copy editors.
I for one would. I would invest an amount that won't hurt too badly if lost. This way I could be right no matter what happens. If he fails, my decision was right to limit my investment and thus my loss. If he happens to succeed, however unlikely it may be, I get rich.
Goodday,
My name is Joseph kamara, a 39years old Sierra-Leonine. I was before now the chief personal driver to a very rich diamond and gold merchant who lately became actively involved in partisan politics. I came to know of your contact through an acquintance here in Ghana. When I expressed to him a desire to come to your country to invest. Although, he did not say very much about your country but he gave to me your country's website to checkout and I located your contact. I have strong desire to make you my first contact person in your country.
Coming to what prompted this letter to you. I have in the custody of the security vault of Barclays bank, Ghana, $25million USD in cash and some family valuables which are contained in an electronically sealed strong metallic trunk boxes. I want to bring them to you for safe keeping...
That's part of the problem with the scientific community today - they don't do that any more (if they ever did) - they merely say "this does not align with everyone else, so go take a hike".
I'm sure your exhaustive study of the scientific community's flat refusal (without any factual basis) to consider anything not in line with the currently accepted models of the world is going to be included in a followup post to this statement?
Otherwise, you are only assuming the scientific community behaves just like you. I doubt that.
Clearly the GP is doing nothing here except acting as an anti-science troll, as I'm sure you realize. He seems to make a habit of this.
when it is "written in a scientific journal" it is taken to be true.
You've never actually read a scientific journal, have you?
Those of us who make a living reading and writing articles in scientific journals are very skeptical of what gets published. Those of us who make a living teaching others to read and write articles in scientific journals teach our students to be very skeptical of what gets published. Articles in scientific journals are the least trustworthy sources of information, except for all others.
Thanks for letting me know. In that case, modding it overrated was out of line since, as far as I can see, there wasn't anything gratuitously wrong with it. Hey, somebody assign me to meta-moderate the moderation of the GGP so I can meta-mod it as unfair!
Also, somebody lend me a mod point. I want to mod the parent post +1 informative. We'll get this all straightened out yet. Or not.
Well, when I read your comment it was scored 2 (insightful). That seems about right to me. If it had been at 4 or 5 when I read it and I had mod points at that minute, I might have modded it down as overrated as well. Why?
Not because I don't know what you are talking about. I do. I discuss the "No Free Lunch" theorem with members of my research group all the time (particularly when we're eating lunch and I'm not buying).
No, I would have modded it down as overrated because I don't think it was particularly insightful: It was only marginally related to what was being discussed, it wasn't novel, and it wasn't very informative (at least in part because it was a rather confused presentation of the material). Frankly, I don't think you posted it to be informative. I think you posted it to make yourself look bright.
So, next time someone mods you down, don't assume they are ignorant. They may simply want to spare other slashdotters the trouble of reading material that isn't as great as all that.
On a broader note, I see that you, like some other posters, have taken to criticizing moderators for moderating. "Don't mod me down, reply! This flies in the face of moderation in general. If no one ever modded any post up or down, just replied, then there would be no reason to have moderation at all. Well, there is a solution for people who don't like moderation: They can browse at -1. Feel free to campaign for everyone to browse at -1. The rest of us are glad to have moderators mod down overrated material, as well as mod up the really good stuff.
I really don't know if it's that great of an idea to turn of a computer over lunch. One of the hardest things on a computer (hard drive, motherboard, power supply, you name it) is starting up. That's when most hardware failures occur. Shutting the computer down for an hour at a time and rebooting is going to shorten lifetimes of your hardware. I think when that hard drive fries it might well take more energy to construct a new hard drive and restore backups, etc, than you probably would have saved during those 30-60 minutes x however many days.
Absolutely right. After your machine has been off for an hour almost all the oil has drained back into the pan, so it isn't lubricating the engine like it should be. You're better off letting it idle over your lunch hour.
We also went over how search engines work, and I taught them to think of words that would appear on a page that held the answer they were looking for. For instance, if the question is, "How much does the moon weigh?" then you might search for the word "tons" -- even though it's not in the actual question, it would certainly be in the answer.
They might also want to think about the definitions of the words in the question, to make sure they really understand the question, before googling about for an answer.
So this means, even though you file pro-se, the defendant is well within his or her rights to hire a lawyer. A smart lawyer. For those keeping track, you are representing yourself, thus you are a dumb lawyer. Just guess how that turns out.
I guess that I win. Or, at least when I actually tried it, I won. I clobbered the defendant and his lawyer like the Thing clobbering a couple of pigeons.
Take the law seriously but don't be scared of lawyers.
Dean
P.S. No, I wasn't silly enough to try to sue a telemarketer. I was suing my former landlord to get back my security deposit.
When this "airplane" contraption fails (because it will, inevitably), I don't want to be the one caught under it or in it. A car may be slow and restricted to relatively smooth, level, and solid terrain, but at least will not drop from the sky in case of a mechanical failure. And if you run out of fuel, a car can be moved by towing or somebody can push it. If this "airplane" thing looses power, you'll need to land pretty fast. I don't see any future for this whacky "airplane" idea, you crazy technophiles.
Slashdot Mirror
Here is a free clue for you: There are highly-respected journals that give away all their content for free on the web for anyone to read. They still use anonymous reviewers. The use of anonymous reviewers has nothing to do with greed or a desire to keep knowledge bottled up.
Dean
How could the parent post be moderated -1 overrated down to -1 from 0? It was right on target. Was the moderator a sock puppet for the GP?
Nature and Science are not popular rags.
Dean
Peer review is not research. Was Asimov really conflating the two? Also, is his dialog really that bad? Please tell me that is not a direct quote, despite the quotation marks!
Dean
Like missing or mislabeled tables, this error might not have been in the draft(s) seen by the peer reviewers but might, instead, have been introduced later in final edits meant to clear up minor grammatical errors, etc. Peer reviewers are not copy editors.
Dean
Dean
My name is Joseph kamara, a 39years old Sierra-Leonine. I was before now the chief personal driver to a very rich diamond and gold merchant who lately became actively involved in partisan politics. I came to know of your contact through an acquintance here in Ghana. When I expressed to him a desire to come to your country to invest. Although, he did not say very much about your country but he gave to me your country's website to checkout and I located your contact. I have strong desire to make you my first contact person in your country.
Coming to what prompted this letter to you. I have in the custody of the security vault of Barclays bank, Ghana, $25million USD in cash and some family valuables which are contained in an electronically sealed strong metallic trunk boxes. I want to bring them to you for safe keeping
Dean
Those of us who make a living reading and writing articles in scientific journals are very skeptical of what gets published. Those of us who make a living teaching others to read and write articles in scientific journals teach our students to be very skeptical of what gets published. Articles in scientific journals are the least trustworthy sources of information, except for all others.
Dean
Thanks for letting me know. In that case, modding it overrated was out of line since, as far as I can see, there wasn't anything gratuitously wrong with it. Hey, somebody assign me to meta-moderate the moderation of the GGP so I can meta-mod it as unfair!
Also, somebody lend me a mod point. I want to mod the parent post +1 informative. We'll get this all straightened out yet. Or not.
Dean
Well, when I read your comment it was scored 2 (insightful). That seems about right to me. If it had been at 4 or 5 when I read it and I had mod points at that minute, I might have modded it down as overrated as well. Why?
Not because I don't know what you are talking about. I do. I discuss the "No Free Lunch" theorem with members of my research group all the time (particularly when we're eating lunch and I'm not buying).
No, I would have modded it down as overrated because I don't think it was particularly insightful: It was only marginally related to what was being discussed, it wasn't novel, and it wasn't very informative (at least in part because it was a rather confused presentation of the material). Frankly, I don't think you posted it to be informative. I think you posted it to make yourself look bright.
So, next time someone mods you down, don't assume they are ignorant. They may simply want to spare other slashdotters the trouble of reading material that isn't as great as all that.
On a broader note, I see that you, like some other posters, have taken to criticizing moderators for moderating. "Don't mod me down, reply! This flies in the face of moderation in general. If no one ever modded any post up or down, just replied, then there would be no reason to have moderation at all. Well, there is a solution for people who don't like moderation: They can browse at -1. Feel free to campaign for everyone to browse at -1. The rest of us are glad to have moderators mod down overrated material, as well as mod up the really good stuff.
Dean
"I'm the Library of Pergamum
"And I'm the Library of Alexandria
Dean
Okay, somebody help me out here. Am I supposed to mod the parent +1 Funny or -1 Tinfoil Hat?
Thanks,
Dean
Sure, in the actual competition. But in the individual team practice sessions at their home institutions? Grad students. Don't deny it.
Dean
Absolutely right. After your machine has been off for an hour almost all the oil has drained back into the pan, so it isn't lubricating the engine like it should be. You're better off letting it idle over your lunch hour.
Dean
using a grenade launcher.
The coolest thing I'm building now? The robot builders of tomorrow.
Dean
The rest of us try not to.
Dean
So, we should be thanking SCO for bringing this suit after all?
In other news, it turns out down has been up all along.
Dean
Dean
What makes you think they were being honest?
"Something is zorked up with the database!"
"What seems to be the problem?"
"How the fsck should I know? But we've got to post something so they won't know we're clueless."
"Okay, but what?"
"Some posters are guessing we ran out of indexes at message 10^24. We can claim we used 24 bit indexes."
"24 bit indexes, that's the dumbest thing I've heard all day."
"Fine you come up with a better excuse."
"Okay, just post it and get back to figuring out what really went wrong."
Honesty is indistinguishable from a believable lie.
Dean
Parent
Take the law seriously but don't be scared of lawyers.
Dean
P.S. No, I wasn't silly enough to try to sue a telemarketer. I was suing my former landlord to get back my security deposit.
When this "airplane" contraption fails (because it will, inevitably), I don't want to be the one caught under it or in it. A car may be slow and restricted to relatively smooth, level, and solid terrain, but at least will not drop from the sky in case of a mechanical failure. And if you run out of fuel, a car can be moved by towing or somebody can push it. If this "airplane" thing looses power, you'll need to land pretty fast. I don't see any future for this whacky "airplane" idea, you crazy technophiles.
You had oxygen? Lucky bastard! Dean