Tl;dr: imagine the success and continuity of not only your career but the careers of your employees had a significant element of random chance involved. Welcome to research.

Now former scientist here. I see the typical “people would do this anyways” comments but I’d wager they don’t understand what it’s like to work in science and academia. It’s publish or perish. In the United States, it’s an absolute capitalist meat grinder and it can be brutal.

As a lead researcher, you are dependent on securing grant money not only to keep your job, but to keep the jobs of your co-workers and the very lab itself afloat.

How do you secure grants? By showing you have the experience and ability to complete the research.

How do you show you have the required experience and ability? By your lab’s record of publishing the results of successful research.

What is successful research? In an ideal world, it would be what was found at the end of an investigation, regardless of if it disproves the null hypothesis or not. In reality, it’s the results of research that have further application, either in industry or that disprove the null hypothesis and act as a step to get you further related grants.

What happens when an investigation flounders? So you didn’t disprove the null hypothesis. In an ideal world, you publish a paper explaining what happened and everyone knows what not to do in the future. In reality, it’s basically unpublishable as journals want what will make them money. Your lab now has the research equivalent of a gap in your resume. You continue with other research and hope it is publishable. If your lab has a streak of bad luck and multiple projects crap out, now it’s harder to secure grants. The downward spiral begins.

Is what this researcher did wrong? Absolutely, but I get it. I 100% get it.

We need serious reform that removes the profit motive. A functional research system would better catch fabricated results before they’re published. It would alleviate the pressures that drive good people to do bad things in the pursuit of doing further good. It would actually enhance scientific discovery as ALL results would be published and without parasitic publishers as unnecessary middlemen.

Seconded, I use a Define 7 and it’s fantastic. Best big black box I’ve ever owned.

So Google Search, even back in 2000, was an AI?

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** partnership also first formed last week, sight unseen.

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Bingo. My first table saw was a heavily used Ryobi direct drive. It was noisy at hell and hard to use with precision, but it only cost $25 and helped me figure out if I wanted to get into woodworking or not.

Seriously, if you’re just getting into this, you don’t need to drop $1000+ on a SawStop. If you have the money, fuck yeah, get one. If not, just use proper technique, tools, and PPE. Be extremely careful as even the cheapest, most underpowered saw will take multiple fingers off in less than a second. If you’re not scared, get scared. I’ve been doing this for over a decade and my table saw still makes me wary. That’s a good thing.

And they’re all out of ideas!

Please stop spreading misinformation. You’re on the internet. Kindly fact check yourself in the future. It’s better for everyone, including you!

We had ours during the pandemic. While my friends and coworkers griped about toilet paper shortages, it was like having a hidden superpower.

Insert Tubgirl.flv

If you don’t know, I don’t know if I’d suggest looking it up.

I looked up the page and it gets worse.

You will need to shop for a car inverter. Find one that is at least 1,500 watts, and it will help you power your refrigerator for up to five hours—usually without damaging your car battery. Considering how much food we keep in our refrigerators, a $200 car inverter is a bargain!

Seriously. If these “media pros” are actually concerned, it appears my personal server adheres to higher standards than their industry.

I’d imagine an increasingly hostile world economy coupled with a then-looming but now beginning climate crisis might have a huge impact there.

I think a lot of the Internet is going to end up shitted up with this kind of nonsense. While leaving Reddit certainly tackles one issue, having a way to filter out the rest of this shit would be useful.

Socialism. When properly implemented, it has a fair amount in common with capitalism but you keep what you earn, the disabled aren’t left to die, and billionaires aren’t an option.

🎶 Toxic marine threatened turtles, toxic marine threatened turtles, toxic marine threatened turtles. Revenge in a half shell, turtle chowder!🎶

Totally understandable, there’s always a risk that a quick, snappy comment conveys the wrong meaning. My wording definitely could have been better, but I’m leaving it for posterity so future generations might learn to do better.

And thanks to you too! Good conversation.

I agree with your point, but want to highlight that at no point did I suggest people can’t be upset about multiple things. No offense intended toward you personally (or anyone really), but your response now seems to be the standard reaction to shut down anyone pointing out the disparity in media/public reaction between things like people dying or being repressed and material goods being vandalized or destroyed. It’s getting better, but the theme of reporting tended to be that property damage is a tragic loss of irreplaceable treasure, while genocide was more akin to “some people went to sleep and didn’t wake up again, maybe they should have complied”.

Of course people can be upset by multiple things. When the magnitude of upset over precious but ultimately replaceable things being destroyed is greater than that for irreplaceable people being destroyed, then we have a problem.

At least that’s my take and I’m anything but infallible.

Oh no, a painting! So much more important and relatable than children dying. That happens all the time.

/s

Edit: I’m agreeing with the above point, folks. Lives are more important than paintings. We need a lot more outrage about people dying and less about property damage.

I’m also disabled. We tend to refer to this as the “disability tax”. Anything that could potentially be billed to insurance or for which there are no other options is incredibly expensive. If we can’t afford it or don’t have insurance, we’re always welcome to go die under a bridge somewhere. Gotta pay for the owner’s yacht.