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I think you're quite wrong about these things. "Only the very biggest of tech companies like Google, Palintir, Apple, Facebook, are able to tackle the really h

I think you're quite wrong about these things. "Only the very biggest of tech companies like Google, Palintir, Apple, Facebook, are able to tackle the really hard problem." Wrong and wrong. First, all of those companies made concrete progress on hard problems when their size was less than 10 people. Woz pretty much singlehandedly designed the first PC for normal people. Zuckerberg built a pile of code that would become one of the largest social networks. Let's talk about the "really hard problem". Let's talk about John Carmack, friend. Made the first realtime 3D fps games, the networked dialup realtime 3D games, the first networked shooters over the internet, the first true commercial 3D engine, and is basically responsible for the fact we have GPUs in consumer desktops now. Dude only had two (2) semesters of college under his belt, and he runs rings around the academic CS wanks, because he fucking ships code that works. No cutesy benchmarks. No government funding. No papers, barring perhaps some stuff in Graphics Programming Black Book, none of that. All of that stuff running on consumer hardware without graphics accelerators. There are plenty of hard problems being tackled by small teams, even on shoestring budgets. To say otherwise is magical thinking. ~ If you want to publish a paper, you don't have to actually be in academia. If you want to do research, you don't have to be in grad school. In fact, and hopefully more people will get in on this, you will probably do better work in a healthier environment. What does academia get you? It seems in the vast majority of times, it gets you... ...an "advisor" who is more concerned with finding funding and keeping lab space than making progress. ...an "advisor" whose last original contribution to the field was, almost by definition, probably a decade ago. ...a chance to talk with world experts in your field--the same chance available to any schmuck with an email account. ...a chance to submit papers whose only circulation will be behind paywalls. ...a chance to be woefully underpaid for the above, because they know you are stupid and naive enough to take it. Fuck that. The author was smart to get out while they were only slightly behind.

dalke 12y ago
Being affiliated with a university or large tech company also gives you access to the literature locked behind those paywalls. Lack of access makes it really hard to publish a paper. A paper should describe how the work fits into previous work in the field and what's new about it. For example, if you publish on X it might turn out that someone else published on that topic two years previous, but in a journal you can't access. In one project I worked on, I developed a new algorithm. Or so I thought. Then I went to the chemistry library about an hour away to read the papers they have on the shelves, available at no cost. Turns out the basic approach was done in the 1970s! Luckily, further reading showed how what I did really was something new. In another project, I managed to dig up another paper from the 1970s which solved a problem I had been working on for a couple of years. I am self-employed, and don't have the $30/paper just to find out that it's worthless for what I'm doing. It also gives you cheaper rates for conferences. As a "commercial" attendee, I pay a lot more than academics, even though I make less than most academics. In many cases it also gives you physical access to those world experts, who may visit your institution because of your advisor.

dalke 12y ago

Being affiliated with a university or large tech company also gives you access to the literature locked behind those paywalls. Lack of access makes it really hard to publish a paper. A paper should describe how the work fits into previous work in the field and what's new about it. For example, if you publish on X it might turn out that someone else published on that topic two years previous, but in a journal you can't access. In one project I worked on, I developed a new algorithm. Or so I thought. Then I went to the chemistry library about an hour away to read the papers they have on the shelves, available at no cost. Turns out the basic approach was done in the 1970s! Luckily, further reading showed how what I did really was something new. In another project, I managed to dig up another paper from the 1970s which solved a problem I had been working on for a couple of years. I am self-employed, and don't have the $30/paper just to find out that it's worthless for what I'm doing. It also gives you cheaper rates for conferences. As a "commercial" attendee, I pay a lot more than academics, even though I make less than most academics. In many cases it also gives you physical access to those world experts, who may visit your institution because of your advisor.