phoenixstrike

il y a 3 ansdiscuss

Almost all of the stories in major newspapers are commissioned ("pitched") by interest groups that want to see that article published. It's why a lot of articles contain quotes from weirdly specific people with middle-office titles in specific organizations. Journalists aren't cold calling random office workers to get these quotes. An outline of an article is provided, journalists do some minimal fact-checking and write it out into a proper article. Beat writers that cover a specific topic regularly and have made their own contacts in that field are an exception.

phoenixstrike

il y a 3 ansdiscuss

I know, I did not think for a moment that you were making such an accusation. I was referring to the other comments on HN/reddit over the past week making those accusations. Sorry if my comment came off that way.

phoenixstrike

il y a 3 ansdiscuss

Small. Imperfect contact, unplugged terminals, etc. These are not 1st year grad students who don't know what they are doing. The authors have decades of research and fabrication experience, and publications to back it up. Comments that insinuate it could be those kind of novice mistakes (other comments on HN/reddit, not yours) are frankly insulting and speaks to a profound arrogance in being unable to accept a new discovery.

phoenixstrike

il y a 3 ansdiscuss

I am going to attempt to address the common nitpicks in one fell swoop:

1. Rushed publication, plot quality, grammar, etc. Get over yourselves. This is a pre-print for an instant-Nobel, next-tier-of-civilization level discovery. The proper publication will come in due time. Waiting for a more complete verification is a sheltered view. Being first matters. Things changed after the J/Psi discovery in 1974. For those that don't know, Sam Ting discovered it first, yet sat on it for months waiting for a complete verification. Then Richter's group also discovered it months later and Ting was forced to publish at the same time and share the Nobel. This changed the publication attitude in the field significantly. Being first matters.

2. "Terrible science." Again, get over yourselves. Just because the preprint doesn't match your taste specifically doesn't mean it's bad science. You can't satisfy everyone- there will ALWAYS be someone who complains about some missing measurement or plot they view as essential. Most of the time, the 'missing' component is directly related to their own work. In other words, people want to see what they understandd as being important to them, also reflected in other publications. That does not mean it's a valid criticism. It's nitpicking.

The most realistic timeline is 2-3 months for a positive verification. 6 months for a negative verification. If it works, it will be quicker because a positive reproduction needs less work. A negative verification needs to be more thorough and will take more time.

phoenixstrike

il y a 3 ansdiscuss

Is this satire? I find it difficult to believe this can be serious. If so, this is a sad example of the "i am very smart" culture that is rampant in tech these days.

phoenixstrike

il y a 3 ansdiscuss

This is one of the most important points IMO that does not seem to be on people's minds. Just because you were the first person to think of making a subreddit about some topic doesn't mean you should perpetually have the power to unilaterally make decisions about the community, its users, and its content.

I am happy this API drama has run the gamut and is now tackling what has always been the true issue head-on: anonymous, first-come first-serve moderators of user communities. I have been on reddit for 15 years. These users have the loudest voice, have historically placed more importance on themselves than there actually is, and have an unhealthy amount of power over the content.

If you've ever been on the wrong side of a power-trip by a moderator, you know what I mean. It's super frustrating to be banned or silenced from a sub because one of the mods didn't like what you said. Here I am, one of thousands of like-minded users wanting to participate in a sub about some topic, but my ability to do so is totally at the whim of this anonymous person who is just another user like me but doesn't have to answer to anyone.

We see time and time again that this power gets into the head of many moderators and they begin to exert personal control over the community. Mod drama on reddit is a taint. "But not all mods are like that." Yes they are, on long timescales. Generalization is useful. Many commenters, here included, miss the big picture. APIs/tools/UI will come and go. Reddit has a large cultural moat and that is a fact. Nitpicking details is petty.

In the context of an upcoming potential IPO, it makes sense for reddit to do the following:

Standardize the subreddits, the rules and terms of use, and consolidate control. Make the reddit experience predictable, not wildly variant at the whims of a handful of mods who control a vastly disproportionate amount of subreddits and content. Replacing mods with AI filters is a prime use case.

I will also look forward to a clampdown on nsfw subreddits. Sexuality is kryptonite to the stock market. And good riddance. Every time I start typing a word on the subreddit search, like 5 different variations of a nsfw sub for that word come up. It's frankly gross. An idea floating around is to jettison the nsfw subs into a separate business that can compete with OF. This is a fine idea.

spez gets a lot of shit for what he says, but at least he's putting his face and name next to his words and taking ownership of them. I don't see any mods or supporters of this 'protest' posting with their name and face. Tells you all you need to know.

phoenixstrike

il y a 3 ansdiscuss

This is good research.

>One thing that troubles me in the paper is that the researchers appear to have gone looking for precursor patterns in an ad hoc way, with no physical theory in mind, just trying different binning techniques and delays until they got a signal.

There is nothing wrong with this. In fact this is how most science is done. This is pure experiment - try things and see what comes up.

You're conflating this step with step three of the general way things have traditionally been done in physics:

1. An experiment shows a previously unexplained phenomena.

2. A theory is made to explain the results and predict the results of a future experiment.

3. A future experiment is undertaken with this theory in mind, to see if it has predictive power. If the predictions are correct, it is a good theory.

Your comment is referring to step three. The experiment in the paper is step one.