Hacker News Reader

Comment by Sakos | Hacker News Reader

I'm sort of disappointed that this isn't actually about research as leisure activity. I love to learn about topics in-depth, which will entail going through all kinds of literature and scientific papers to see what We've collectively learned about a particular topic. It's basically my replacement for reading novels in my free time. I guess it's not real research in an academic sense, but I try my best to be thorough and systematically go through the papers in detail (more or less, since in the end reading and learning to read papers is an art that can be practiced and refined).

View on HN

It does start out touting a particular piece of software, but the last section, "What does doing research for leisure mean?" does go into research as a leisure activity, and the author promises more posts on the topic in the future.

I'm with you, I really enjoy learning just for the sake of learning and feel very lucky that I get to live now, when there is almost always a rich lode of existing research that I can read on almost any topic that strikes my curiosity.

> when there is almost always a rich lode of existing research

Yes!

And it highlights how people these days aren't any smarter than the people in times gone by. We just have a greater pile of existing knowledge to mine.

Reading papers is absolutely part of academic research. The other part is probably producing things and submitting to journals/conferences advancing things based on what one has read (and hopefully having a day job that pays for the publication fees and travel fees...)

Yes, definitely. But I feel doing research is more associated either with the fringe that is anti-science or academics who are actually doing science and publishing papers. I'm under no illusion that I'm doing anything akin to what a scientist does, but I also don't mean "doing my own research" as some shorthand for being skeptical of all the world's news media and the scientific establishment.

I, too, love doing in-depth research of things as a recreational activity. Particularly things that are outside of my sphere of competency.

I also end up writing essays about what I've discovered, basically as a means of having some sort of "goal" for the research.

You are doing research, it’s just the first stage of it. From a computer vision perspective, the steps are

1) pick up a topic 2) do a literature review 3) establish a baseline and state of the art 4) improve upon model until you beat state of the art or find something interesting and unusual 5) publish

Where do you like to go to find and read those research papers? I've been curious about this off and on but don't really know where to hunt down papers beyond the ocassional random one I get linked to.

It used to be the nearest university (especially if they have an adjoining curriculum), sometimes a local business. Don't be afraid of microfiche for older pubs. Don't be afraid to introduce yourself.

I still find libraries pretty useful while simultaneously being amazed at the quantity of papers online - I have found papers I would have nearly killed for decades ago now online at faculty pages of my favorite researchers. I'm guessing online is better for most, especially when coupled with browsing faculty pages for the author of your random linked papers. Also, look for citations listings that include authors of papers You like (it's printed and at your local research/eng lib for older obscure authors).

Before Eternal September and still today (though maybe less?), sending an intro email to someone that is studying a subject You are interested in is often useful (possibly better for niches). I'm guilty of not responding in a timely manner.

Probably Semi-OT: look at some indexes for CoEvolution Quarterly.

> Don't be afraid of microfiche for older pubs

A million times this, and the value of libraries. There is a vast amount of information online, but the amount that isn't is still even greater.

I generally use sci-hub to get any paper I want to read. It's not quite legal, but I feel locking the world's knowledge behind paywalls is so immoral that I honestly do it with some measure of satisfaction.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com