i did enjoy looking at old thesis on my university. seing typewriter written thesis with hand drawn plots in graph papers, original gel images, glued in pictures…
those theses are adorable scrapbooks of stress, sweat and tears.
that are so precious
Not really relevant, but: word processors were just starting to be used when I went to college, but I still mostly preferred using my portable electric typewriter. During my junior year the G key broke off and disappeared, so all my papers from that point on have the Gs written in by hand. If they ever invent time travel, I’m going to assume that enough other people are going back to kill baby Hitler and I’ll slap the shit out of 20-year-old me.
that’s a gargantuan grind. go and get your garish young self.
And so damn infuriating when you need them forty years later lol. I’m currently in the middle of some really obscure maths at work and my only reference is a hand typed paper from 1983 with super critial plots on it, but it’s all been scanned in and put online at the lowest possible resolution. It’s torture!
ouch,
It will be read by thousands of LLMs 😀 The knowledge will be just fingertips away. It won’t be human knowledge tho but AI knowledge.
I dunno. I just read multiple papers from years to decades ago on the mechanical factors for popcorn because I kept burning kettle corn.
Who knows who will crack open the book someday and why. You either want to contribute or not. Don’t focus on the perceived impact. It feels like modern culture has made any effort to try new things not seem worth it unless you get recognition but that’s not why we did it originally.
I think you’re missing the point here. This is about research being locked behind a paywall that causes it to not be used.
Yeah. But that doesn’t mean it will never be used. It’s normal to want to be paid for the work done but if people want to share they can just share it.
I think it’s hard to say when someone will want your information and it might be well after you are dead and able to get anything from it.There are lots of free recipes I would never use, and there are lots of paid cookbooks that I haven’t gotten my hands on yet but might one day because of their knowledge of making a good roux is worth saving (bake it, not in a pot)
Researchers dont get paid. In fact, they usually have to pay to be published on reputable platforms. Those platforms are the ones charging.
As for why they publish there if they never profit, academic success is dependant on publishing (“published or perish”), so academics will pay to advance in their field, potentially getting funding for future studies. (Not from the publisher, obviously; but from grant programmes that only fund you if you have a body of work already.)
This is why if you contact a researcher directly, they’ll likely be willing to give you the finished thesis for free.
Generally the difference is a paid service is better and worked on by the author. The work in these thesis ‘services’ is done by others, the research funded by our tax dollars, and the ‘service’ doesn’t contribute much of anything to be paid beyond server storage.
Think about how many painters, authors, artists, etc. have only received notoriety after their death and absolutely have contributed to culture.
HA, get a load of this, everyone! This person thinks researchers get paid royalties by the publishers!
<the entirety of academia grimly chuckles, a single tear of inner pain welling in each eye>
Huh it’s funny how I think to do research for some things but not others. I really enjoy making popcorn on the stove but only half the time does it turn out light and crunchy. I keep at it thinking I’ll figure it out through trial and error but I should probably just look it up like you did.
Oh I am a scientist for everything I do. Make my hypothesis of and test stuff for how I think it would work but also so many people have done it already.
It’s essentially what all recipes are. Someone else did the research and I am taking their effort for an easier time. The best ones even note what changes to make for slight differences.
Also higher heat than you think, 400°F/200°C oil works best but you can also go dry and you will get a more puffed size apparently. To much moisture when cooking makes them dense.
I have discovered a wok is a really great popcorn maker if you don’t want to buy something niche. The high dome lid is double perfect for it and then shaking in the salt.Ah my most recent assumptions seem to be wrong then. I thought I was unevenly heating the kernels and that’s why they weren’t popping fully, but maybe I’m not heating them fast enough actually.
Gonna try the wok thing, I’ve been looking for one more excuse to get one.
I agree… I feel this way often especially now when an ai can write, make music and movies, and no one can actually tell the difference, there isn’t much point to creating anymore. Unless it’s solely for you and you don’t want to show it to anyone else.
I owe my thesis to scihub lol. I can’t stand publishing companies, especially elsevier.
Is this the most boring episode of the twilight zone? I just made this 10 mins ago (was relevant in a convo):
Elsevier is so bad
Missing the frames where they shell out their own $$ to get it into that book that’s locked away.
Not really accurate - publishers might put papers behind paywalls, but researchers themselves are usually glad to send them to anyone who requests them as long as they have time. And it’s totally legal, not like they’re pirating their own papers.
My paper was published in MDPI open access and then a whole heap of publishing companies came along, stole it, and now charge money for it. And they’re the ones you get first if you search for it in Google Scholar.
I’m so mad. I was proud of that and wanted people to see it, but now 90% of people who come across it will incorrectly think its behind a paywall and not bother.
What was your paper on?
And since a grad school thesis isn’t published, there’s definitely no restrictions on the author sharing it. Maybe it’ll get a few citations in the future. Not many, of course, but anything more than zero is nice.
That’s a great point, I’ve reached out to researchers a few times to ask about their research and they have all freely just shared the work with me.
Open AI probably already has it in its training data.
Nice, so someone might actually come across it when searching for something specific that they don’t have the research skills to find normally instead of the research rotting in a closet as this comic indicates.
70% chance the AI uses it to sound more confident, while being entirely incorrect.
You sound awfully confident about that number.
I’m 100% confident that there is a 30% chance that it is correct.
Luckily everyone on my field publishes their papers (preprint) on arxiv as well
“Thesis it?”
“This is it” I guess That he’s finally done with his thesis.
I feel like a more common reaction is “Finally I am rid of this terrible burden that I took on in my naivete. It is riddled with errors that the cruel arrow of time prevents me from rectifying. May I be lucky enough to get a publication or two out of it and then finally be rid of it forever” but maybe I’m speaking too closely to my own experience.
No, this is the way. PhD theses are probably like having an aggressive cancer and then submitting it is like a successful surgery.
The biggest joke here is that he thinks his thesis will be worth something to other people at the time he’s writing it.
It will be used as a midly useful paperweight eventually, dont worry
smh
That guy should be happy that no AI will ever be trained on their work. It’s ok to contribute to progress, but only if it’s progress the cool kids approve of. Know your place, nerds.
Y’know with the Wayback Machine, book scans and public science funding under threat in the USA this sadly isn’t too far off base
Thanks, Robert Maxwell!
