shoguning

I would just put it on arXiv, or equivalents like biorXiv. You should read a lot of papers in the field and cite the relevant ones. Also, use conventions of the field--LaTeX two column format is frequently used in CS/ML papers.

In my PhD I put some work on biorXiv that I never bothered to put through peer review and was pleasantly surprised to see it cited by a peer-reviewed journal article.

Perhaps you misunderstand. Scientists should study important _topics_ (virology, human genetics, materials science etc.), but within that, research direction should set by scientists not bureaucrats.

Many people share your view, though, and it's a shame. We have all of private industry to focus on short term benefits. Grad school is one place where the grinding expectation of immediate return-on-investment can be suspended. PhD students take low compensation hoping they can use curiosity and passion to direct their research. Increasingly, that's not the case.

>> appreciate the fact that the public is giving you grants and funding because the alternative is you get nothing.

This is cutting off the hand to spite the face. Taxpayers get an _unbelievable bargain_ for the work of PhD students and postdocs. Gutting research funding won't hurt them for long, they'll easily move on to much higher paying work, it's future society that will suffer.

I'd argue you get the best and most significant contributions to society in the long run with stable government funding of basic research. Don't believe me? Ask Steven Chu, Nobel Prize winner and energy secretary:

https://www.amacad.org/multimedia/pdfs/wsjoped.pdf

Did chem eng undergrad, a PhD (not fun), and am now a data scientist! I also worked on a website using public data and found out that only 7% of chem eng majors work in the field...

link: https://careertrend.com/major-chemical-engineering.html

Other majors (e.g. accounting, nursing) work much more in their field. There just arent many chem e jobs.

This is scarily close to me.

I disagree totally. A PhD should be about curiosity and asking the most interesting scientific questions you can think of, also known as 'basic research'. You have the rest of your career to have as much impact on society and commerce as you want.

Unfortunately, the social impact factor has been creeping in, in the form of more 'applied research' funding which is not fundamental and does not move scientific knowledge forward. The government has limited role in funding applied research, since industry is better positioned to understand what applied research is important and has a strong incentive to fund it.

Academia is imperfect, but the genius of the system is that letting scientists chase down interesting things does end up improving society dramatically in the long run.

I think you're right. My suspicion is that if FB/TWTR go totally ban-happy, the social discussion will evolve into a legal one and move towards overt regulation a la utilities.

EDIT: IANAL, but if these platforms start favoring one political group over others, it seems potentially illegal, as it could be considered in-kind political donations.

Since ISP's are not government enterprises should they be able to ban users they don't like?

Legally, maybe you're right, but socially I don't think the argument is as clear cut as you make it sound.

As bad as it is, how can decreasing the number of competitors increase the quality of options for consumers? Are they preventing other companies from operating?

Such a waste of potential. It could be the most amazing time of your life, a chance to ask and answer the most interesting questions you can think of. Instead it ends up being a very negative experience for many.

Interesting to see people picking up on this trend. Just saw on linkedin a former PhD classmate of mine who is now a wine harvester.

I had not heard of RapidMiner either. I looked up its website on Alexa: https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/rapidminer.com

It looks like most users are in China.

Fair point. I think the idea is that there is a due process, and legal recourse if your rights were infringed. The existence of these laws would make public accommodations at least think twice before denying service.

AirBnB is apparently avoiding these laws by putting forced arbitration into its terms of service.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanlebeau/2016/11/02/racial-...

> But nationwide, there's been no mass replacement of local newspapers. Non-profit online sites are largely based in major metro areas.

Is this really true? I've heard of at least a couple of non-profit newspapers opening in small towns including the one I'm from, and I don't really pay that close of attention to this stuff. For enterprising journalists there are a lot of people willing to pay/donate to these causes. Optimistically, the funding can move from ad/subscription more to donations/grants and the local reporting can continue.

Maybe, but it makes it a lot easier to transfer to a different lab. It's also part of a cultural frame of mind. In broad strokes, here are two approaches institutions can take to recruiting grad students:

i) Admit tons of grad students, treat them like shit and just assume many will drop out/quit so you don't have to do any long term planning on resources/admissions.

ii) Plan projects and resources, vet candidates and treat grad students well. Attrition will be lower so this does allow for longer term planning. In addition, here the institution and department are involved in the planning/resource allocation and presumably personnel issues as well. In general culture will be professional.

IMO i) gives signals that harassment and other mistreatment is tacitly allowed. With ii) the grad students are valued and signal is given that this should be a professional environment. Another generalization, but I have observed American universities, especially engineering departments are close to i), European universities (some countries more than others) are closer to ii).

Consider yourself lucky.

Professors have too much control over grad students and academic labs are too insulated from the greater institution. Profs have basically no oversight on how the treat and/or pay grad students. Any institution serious about tackling this and many other issues needs to reform the employment relationship with grad students. Grad student funding should not be coming from one professor's grant money, but the department.

Independence in scientific direction? Yes. Independence in personnel management? No.

Yeah they are all gone. I was worried about first impressions and meeting people but it has never been an issue.

I am in my late 20s and recently lost all my hair from alopecia universalis. It was a shock when it happened, but now I don't think I'd even want to go back. There is zero maintenance, no hair grows anywhere. I only get positive comments on my look. I do work out to stay fit, my face would have no definition otherwise.

For a lot of guys, the slow progression of baldness is a source of anxiety, but now I have it all over with and I don't need to think about it.

So much to unpack here. The STEM label itself is extremely misleading. There are opportunities in TE (technology and engineering) but not in SM (science and math -- well unless you get a PhD, but even then maybe not).

So people hear STEM shortage and go major in chemistry or biology and then find out there are few and poorly paid jobs so they have to accept that or get an advanced degree. Some simplification here, and individual exceptions exist of course.

Perhaps I'm missing something but the capacity factor for solar tends to be around 20%, meaning that 10GW of nameplate capacity generates an average of closer to 2GW in practice. I didn't see it addressed in the article, so I'm assuming the number is nameplate capacity.

AFAIK, these are all implementations of deep learning or similar, not a fundamentally new architecture. We'll continue to see these as DL matures, but it doesn't address the shortcomings of the technique.

For more perspective: https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.00631

I am of a similar opinion. There was a real revolution in ~2011-2013 with deep learning. These have achieved much better results in image/speech tasks. These gains have leveled off, and we're seeing some limitations.

At current trajectory, we're not headed towards a general intelligence. Progress has been made, but there are big gaps. Smart home devices are a great case in point. They are somewhat flexible in the voice commands they accept. Specific phrasing and pronunciation are not necessarily required. Their responses and speech, however, are all pre-programmed and templated by humans.

Edit: There is potential for more breakthroughs in the future, but I am not seeing them on the horizon at the moment.

Work sample tests have been researched extensively in applied psychology [1]. There is a healthy debate on how effective they are.

For me personally, I am not so much for or against 'homework', as would rather see it used correctly. For example, I want to know how it will be evaluated, no tricks. I also think there is a quickly diminishing return on the length of the assignment. Up to ~10 hours may be OK, beyond that seems like a waste.

On the other hand, it's also a way to see who's serious. If you are serious about getting a job, it may take some investment. Also, the most glamorous companies can always demand a higher investment from applicants.

1. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=work...

You don't necessarily need a massive sample size to make a solid conclusion, depending on the effect size. You can use statistics to control your error rates.

A sweet spot might be things which are 'harder' but have other advantages such as cost/health. Commuting by bike, instead of car is one example, though not possible for all.

Not clear. If costs really continue to decline, batteries will make up a bigger and bigger part of the solution, but costs and uncertainty of the massive scale battery projects still seem high to me. Decreasing demand, nuclear, carbon capture, batteries, etc will all play a role IMO.

Maybe I'm missing it, but I don't see an indication of how much storage they are talking about here. The problem with renewables is still intermittence, and geographic dependence. Solar does no good at night, and there are days the wind doesn't blow. The costs of storage for that bulk application still don't seem to make sense, and I don't see it addressed here. The Tesla battery replaced power on the order of seconds, which is still a success, but not enough.

In general, solar has been great for reducing peak demand, since it has highest output during the middle of the day when electricity demand is also greatest. Not clear how much farther it can go, though. Wind may be able to replace some, but wind isn't strong everywhere.

It's actually very common to be in a career not related to your college degree. There is individual level data in the Census Bureau's ACS PUMS data set for those interested in this kind of thing.

Self-promotion alert: I worked on a website that has some statistics about this. I found out that only 8% of chemical engineering grads (my undergrad degree) actually work in the field. (https://careertrend.com/major-chemical-engineering.html)

I wouldn't say outsourcing, it's just there's less industrial research in basic science going on in terms of dollars spent: https://www.vox.com/2015/2/4/7965967/corporate-research-basi...