AcademicalNerd @academicalnerd@qoto.org
People are more important than wires.
Joined Jan 2021
2021-02-26, 07:03, Friday
I’ll have to go to uni for a few classes today. Corona here seems to be slowing down, but it’s still a bit unnerving to go into subway during rush hour. And there will be a test on crystall chemistry, a very confusing subject. We’ll see how it goes.
Yesterday a new class started. The professor reminded me of something. The most important thing for teacher - for anyone - to remember is that we are all humans. Most of the time we do bad and annoying things not because we are evil but because we are forgetful and collectively dumb. I wish I could remind that to this professor, but this will basically grant me a failed class and it’s not like you can fail a class here in Russia.
Yesterday there was an interesting thought: we are always told that doing mistakes is fine, it is part of the learning process. And it’s true, but the sole existence of the word “mistake” implies consequences, doesn’t it? So I’d reframe it: mistakes are always punished and you’d better avoid the expensive ones. You’ll uninevitable make some because you are human, so don’t expect it to “be fine” somehow, instead be ready to pay the price.
On Publishing And Publishers
TLDR: a quick overview of the situation scientific publishers created and ways to partially solve the problem, or rather bypass it.
Tags: #qotojournal #sciense #publishing #essay
- Introduction
There is a problem in our world, that is not widely talked about, especially on media. These are scientific journal publishers, or rather the system that they have established a long time ago and keep using (and monetizing) to this day. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for capitalism, it’s when it gets in the way of important things when I get slightly disappointed.
Let’s agree on the important stuff first: the era of lonely geniuses is long time over. The science and scientific advancements in the 21st century depend on cooperation of dozens, hundreds and thousands of people throughout the centuries. Information obtained years and decades ago is used to build new knowledge upon. A student in my faculty is required to have at least 20 citations in their coursework in the end of the first year, and it’s not an issue - we usually approach 30 mentioned sources and research even more while doing the literature review. This is a bare minimum to become acquainted with the material. Scientific knowledge can be represented as a tree graph, with it’s roots in ancient philosophy and it’s leaves reaching into quantum physics and abstract algebra. To cherish the fruit of this tree, one needs to reach it’s branches or, abstaining from the methaphore, to research everything that has already been done.
The access to this knowledge in the current model is pricey: one article costs between 30 and 50 dollars and journal subscriptions are expensive even for universities. Of course we violate the law and use Sci-hub extensively. This is very wrong, fundamentally wrong: people should be able to do their work legally, especially when this work is to solve humanities’ problems and improve peoples’ lives on the broadest scale possible. And don’t get me started on the trouble it takes to do the fact-checking on all the articles that are on the web. It would have been so much easier to just read the source. Tough luck!
So there is, as I have mentioned, Sci-hub: illegal, but convenient and free way to obtain most of the articles, otherwise paywalled. For downloading textbooks and various books libgen is very handy and very illegal. Sometimes useng orchid or researchgate is possible to contact authors and request a full-text and even ask a few questions, but this is slow and inconvenient; not everyone is on these plaforms, which makes things worse. There is no way to quickly dismantle the “rule” of publishers, the have been around since the beginning of 20th century. They claim to be important because of the peer-review but I am unsure whether the peer-reviewing is that expensive, especially in modern world.
- Analysis
So let’s list the benefits of scientific publishing. There are some, obviously, and I’m not here to deny them.
1) Peer review. The most important step to keep most of the junk out of the system. Here I refer to pseudoscience and badly written papers as “junk” to save some space.
2) Verification of scientists and institution affiliations. This makes the industry exclusive, but keeps junk out of the system, again.
3) Storing articles and providing a way to access them via identification system (doi).
4) Keeping track of citations.
Now let’s get to downsides. There is plenty, as mentioned above.
1) Paywalls.
2) Very slow system.
3) No way to communicate with authors.
4) Publishers have control over the entire thing.
Now It would be fair to have a look at alternatives and what they can provide. I’m writing this without references so please correct me if something is off.
Sci-hub: free way to bypass paywalls. Solves problem 1, creates legal problem.
Researchgate and orchid: a way to communicate with authors. Solves problem 3 partially.
oaDOI and similar sites: they keep track of open-access articles, this partially and legally solves prolem 1.
That’s it for the most part. It’s not like publishers are going anywhere, as well as doi system. Not in the near future. Maybe we’ll come up with something better than sci-hub, maybe torrent-like system for rticles, who knows. Verification of articles can theoretically be done using blockchain technology. I have no idea what’s next or how to solve the problem, but I am putting Alexandra Elbakyan in my “acknowledgements” list.
Dixi.
2021-02-25, 08:20, Thursday
This morning I remembered where I was almost a year ago, in March of last year. Miserable wreck, brewing coffee with shaking hands and second guessing my decisions. Malleable, manipulated with ease and unconfident to a disgusting extent. It’s been a while and I learned a lot, most importantly to document my own code and neglect others’ opinions. There is a long way to go, but I now have a person to walk alongside and a couple tricks up my sleeve to make a ride more cozy.
2021-02-24, 07:04, Wednesday
Back to my usual schedule. I am a morning person, and it is way more comfortable to wake up at 6 am than to do so at 7-8 am. The old tale about the world that is geared towards early risers is plain bullshit and I stand by it: all the fun stuff happens at night, all the streams, raids in MMORPGs, meetups and parties all happen at night. So being a weirdo that starts falling asleep around 9 pm is not at all helpful, to be honest.
Non-fungible tokens
An interesting thing I originally saw on tiktok: blockchain technology that allows for creating unique collectibles in digital space. I might use it at some point, once I have enough audience and material.
2021-02-23, 12:41, Tuesday
Off to a late start today, going home from my countryhouse. In the night temperature dropped to -30 here and water froze in pipes. Fortunately, or rather thanks to the experience, I had some water prepared in buckets. Enough to do the dishes at least.
Now that I took two days off I need to finish a lot of stuff for work and studying. I hope I’ll manage.
Also, @FailForward , you might find a few other channels interesting if you liked Veritasium. There are a lot of projects John & Hank Green do, there is styropyro with lasers and stuff, 3blue1brown, flammablemaths and Smarter Every Day for a more general scipop.
Also I strongly recommend checking out Exurb1a, although it isn’t exactly scientific, just one of my favourite creators on the platform.
2021-02-22, 17:38, Monday
Plans are changing rapidly and it’s okay. Explicitly stating that things didn’t go as planned and reworking plans according to new reality is the best way to avoid overplanning and anxiety.
Staged
A great sitcom with short 20 minute episodes. David Tennant and Michael Sheen are trying to rehearse a play on zoom. Highly recommend.
2021-02-21, 08:30, Sunday
Nerdassasin
So I heard this term from Joe Rogan’s podcast. It referred to nerdy guys who got pumped in the gym and now are both smart and pumped. I am kinda trying to do this so here are a few things to consider early on. Maybe it inspires someone, who knows.
1) Nutrients. Hit your macros, make sure there is no avitaminosis or overeating. We, nerds, tend to neglect healthy foor, which is wrong. Read up on basic metabolism biochemistry, it’s always useful to know the basics.
2) Habits. Chances are your lifestyle is sedentary. Walk more, walk faster if you can, prepare your cardiovasular system for bigger loads. Stretch carefully, don’t put too much strain on your body early on. Make sure you move as much as you can, think of it as being an animal. Animals don’t need to stretch or warmup, they just move a lot. Also, look up pandiculation.
3) Tendons. Most importantly: don’t lift weights early on. Your muscles will become stronger, but your tendons will lag a few weeks behind, so you risk injury around two weeks in. I suggest doing bodyweight progressions to build some strength and stamina, as well as proper technique.
4) Cardio. Don’t neglect it, this is one of the best things for your brain.
5) Nerd the fuck out of this. Read up, learn anatomy and metabolism mechanisms, know what are fats becessary for, where does lactate come from and other stuff. Set a goal, like 10k run or single-hand push up, and work towards it, as you would with any big project. I suggest checking out bioneer for inspiration.
Good luck.
2021-02-21, 08:05, Sunday
Taking a day off. The 23rd of February is a national holiday in Russia, the dumbest one I know. “Defender of the Motherland’s Day”, the day all men get presents and are reassured that they are (or will be) the Defenders of our country, i.e. the army and the likes.
Militaristic propaganda at it’s finest. Here is how army works here: all men aged 18-27 are to spend a year in the army, unless they are getting an education at the time. The conditions are terrible and you don’t get any choice, basically free “slave for one year” card. No one really cares if you are a pacifist or whatever, and having medical conditions doesn’t necessarily allow you to avoid this: unless it’s severe (there are some regulations) you go along with everyone else.
2021-02-20, 07:15, Saturday
Because of how bizzare holidays are in Russia I don’t get to rest today. A bummer, honestly; hopefully four full days off afterwards will make up for this. By the way, keeping a journal pays off: I manage to record ideas before I forget them. Here is one.
I don’t like BuJo community
I try to adhere to what I call “the golden rule of planning”: spend around 1% of the time planning the thing and 99% of the time doing the thing. It takes me up to ten minutes to write a day plan, an hour or so to make a weekly layout and about the same to do a monthly review. Yearly review takes up to three days, maybe four if I’m unlucky.
Since the beginning of 2021 I’ve been using bullet journal for planning. And it’s almost perfect, there is only one think I dislike: the community. Google it and you’ll see the pretty calligraphy on spreads with drawings and colored pens all around the place. This clearly takes more than ten minutes a day.
The bullet journal is supposed to be a tool with two purposes: plan the day, week or month and get anything that comes up into the inbox, you own ideas as well as any deadlines/appointments. I tend to throw some notes about the day in there, too. It is not a sketchbook, cookbook or a colorbook that you see on the internet.
The bullet journal, or any journal, is a tool that is used often. It gets messy. If it doesn’t you are using it wrong. My Leuchtturm1917’s hard cover A6 dotted notebook has 180 pages inside and I usually fit one day on one page, black gel pen, nothing fancy. It’s simple, nasty and sometimes hard to read because of my handwriting. It works.
2021-02-19, 08:20, Friday
The following was written in the subway from smartphone, I just happened to have an idea. Enjoy.
The hive
We spend the majority of our lives in cities, as humans of the modern era. It’s nothing new or exciting, but I urge you, reader, to stop for a moment and appreciate just how bizzare things have gotten lately.
Imagine a bee hive or an ant colony, the complex structure animals create to dwell in, to ensure comfort and safety. This is what we are, this is what we do. All the asphalt you are used to, all the roads and stores and houses and scyscrapers are a part of an enormous ant hill that expands underground, in the air, even to radiowave frequencies.
Unlike ants or bees, we don’t have a predetermined physiological roles in our colonies and hives; any attempts to artificially create those proven to be disastrous for humankind. We do have roles, though, that’s for certain. The question to ask oneself is which role do you play? What do you consume, produce, or ignore entirely? Whom do you serve and served by? Are you happy with those answers, and if not, what would you like them to be? The answer to this simple question lead me to where I am today. It might do the same for you, who knows.
That’s is for today, thank you for reading. Have a good day, be safe, don’t do illegall stuff (or don’t get caught if it’s torrenting blurays), benefit your hive. Peace.
2021-02-19, 07:02, Friday
The first day of in-person classes. To be precise, I have two classes in uni, then 2.5 hour long break and two more classes in zoom. I am not exactly looking forward to this. To explain why, here is a rough outline of my average holiday/online learning day:
06:00 - wake up, bruch teeth; breakfast, coffee, write here
07:00 - deep work, usually c++/matlab, for 2-3 hours
10:00 - running, around 4-5k these days, thenm shower
11:00 - lunch, break and family time
13:00 (or 14 if I’m lazy) - more work, some translation if necessary; homework or personal project work
16:00-17:00 - go out for an hour-long walk
This is pretty much the perfect day. I work up to 6 hours and this can go for a long time without burnout. With five classes a day it just doesn’t work, unfortunately, but I’ll do my best.
Longread
2021-02-18, 08:57
A rather sentimental longread. Proceed at your own risk.
My digital friend
The summer before final school year, hot, boring and worst of all lonely. I was too busy studying and pursuing different hobbies and at some point realized that everyone in school had a group to spend their time with and a bunch of friends; everyone but myself. So I kept doing what I was good at for a while - learning new things, but this was neither fulfilling nor joyful anymore. Quiet solitude I used to live in turned into sharp razors of loneliness that were shaving bits off my soul, one cut at a time.
I was in Italy with my dad, partly because there were no peers to go with. He is an admirable person, I always learn a ton from him and appreciate it, but there is still a thirty year gap between the two of us. So loneliness peaked and I decided to try and do something with the situation I had gotten myself into. Even then I knew it was entirely my fault. After some tinkering the fake account on vk (Russian facebook) was created and I sent one message to a person with obviously fake account as well. Just what I needed, a stranger to talk to, nameless, faceless, with no bonds between us. Blacklist and forget if anything goes wrong, be grateful for the interaction with human being otherwise.
It’s been three and a half years since, we write to each other every day. I’ve met people along the way that think of such friendship as “fake” or “unreal”. At some point I was called a hypocrite because of this, because “one can’t be their real self without a proper face-to-face interaction”. I’m unsure how common this view is, but I’d list a few reasons why I value this interaction as high as actual interpersonal exchange. Won’t change anyone’s mind but it’s not like I lose anything.
Firstly, it’s immideate. Using messaging services enables you to contact a person whenever you feel like it. If something happens and you write them about it - the emotions are raw and the experience is fresh in your memory. This way of communication tells about you much more than what you would tell in a party after a while, when the information is processed and the emotions have fainted.
Secondly, it eliminates hipocrisy. Which is contrary to what I was told at some point, but whenever I feel like the high school “wasn’t actually too bad”, I can always refer to what I wrote to my friends during breaks. There are a few things other than tiredness and crippling loneliness. My brain is trying to keep good memories and forget everything else, but my messages contain the excruciating mindanity of these days.
Thirdly, it’s the bes practise one could get when it comes to writing. Be precise, convey your emotions in the form of text and make sure your “correspondent” understood you well. Your words should be read the way you intend, with your voice and emotion. Limit your use of emojis and stickers for better experience, and try to keep your grammar and spelling somewhat decent. At least that’s what I do.
Lastly, at least for this text, it is still an interaction with another human being. The means matter little, as long as both parties have consensual fun and take care of each other. And yes, I did intend to say what I have said.
Dixi.
2021-02-18, 06:52, Thursday
Originally a video title by Casey Neistat, a very good standalone slogan. I remembered it yesterday because there was a good idea for an essay and I started writing it right away, in a crowded subway from phone.
I’ve heard people whine about not being able to type fast enough from smartphones because keyboard is so small, but I’ll tell you: swipe gestures and some skill get you to a considerable speed. And most of the time you think slower than you type anyway, so typing on the phone is perfectly fine, or at least it works for me. The essay will be out as soon as I finish it, today’s evening is what I hope for.
2021-02-17, 08:00, Wednesday
No classes today, hence a lot of work. I’ve been reading a lot of manga recently, primarile “the ancient magus apprentice” and “the beginning after the end”. Just felt like it, really. For old days’ sake, when I used to do nothing but read shounens and study. It was, to say the least, miserable; human needs other humans and I denied it at the time. Later I managed to find a friend.
Online, of course: there was an event in some vk group (russian facebook) and I wrote her, out of curiosity; it was the first time I tried something like that.
We write each other to this day, almost every day; met in person once, because we are in different countries and these days borders are closed.
I will probably write an essay on online friends in the next few days; feels like an important topic, all of a sudden.
2021-02-16, 10:30, Tuesday
Stumbled across a video of RC Waldun, a wonderful guy who makes videos about writing and reading. I enjoy watching them and sometimes find new, interesting ideas.
In the latest one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyZFHGj5DVQ) there is a very interesting idea about difference between journal and a diary.
Journal is a log of your personal thoughts and feelings, which is self-centered and probably not interesting for other people.
Diary, on the other hand, contains a coherent story about your day. It takes more effort to put the story together, but it pays off because you flex your writing muscles, essentialy.
I am thinking about keeping a semi-public diary here. The “semi” part refers to a smaller audience on this platform, which is a good thing, really.
2021-02-16, 09:45, Tuesday
So I stopped drinking coffee for a few days, enough for withdrawal symptoms to kick in and subside. The results were marginal improvement in stability and performance and utter misery, because I love coffee. Not worth it, even though I have very bad caffeine metabolism.
And I cauhgt a cold. Unlucky me, this will take a lot of tea and some honey to fix.
2021-02-15, 11:45, Monday
Tensor analysis is beautiful, but heave georgian accent of my professor kinda ruins the mood.
Jokes aside, I happened to listen to some random podcast wth Ali Abdaal (yes, I am a productivity nerd; link is https://youtu.be/a28SdBZNIOc) and there was a very important concept: learning happens not through repeated exposure, but through repeated recall. The book mentioned was “make it stick”, although I never read it.
There was an extreme approach to this problem: don’t write notes, write questions to test yourself. This is extreme and doesn’t work for math-heavy subjects, but writing questions separately is, indeed, a good idea. Especially for chemistry-related subjects that require memorization along with problem-solving skills.
2021-02-15, 08:24, Monday
So yesterday I discovered that I like cidre. And that the st. Valentine’s day is not all that bad when you have someone to celebrate with.
There are a few more things I’d like to write about, but the classes will start soon. I’ll probably manage to noodle something together during English, though.
2021-02-14, 09:20, Sunday
I am taking a break from my brain being violated by crystal chemistry. I don’t like subjects that require a lot of route memorization, it’s boring and exhausting. I’d rather do some more math, honestly.
In order to learn, brain needs to maintain a certain level of activity; at least it’s the case for me. And when information density is too low and no concept are being introduced, my brain basically shuts down.
So there is a professor in my uni that managed to spend 30 minutes on Einstein’s heat capacity theory… without even showing the equation. It’s arguably the easiest thing you can find in solid phase physics and I am blown away by the mere uselessness af the class that is supposed to be fundamental for material scientists.
