Fomite

12 ms·

151.
by Fomite 1y ago
I mean, at one point I was presenting some research next to someone with a network diagram, a map, and a phylogenetic tree and my comment was "That's going to win best poster" and I was right.
152.
by Fomite 1y ago
Interestingly, one of the pieces of advice, about having a punchy title, is a double edged sword. There's some data suggesting papers with "clever" titles have an easier time getting published, but accumulate fewer lifetime c
153.
by Fomite 1y ago
I have definitely said that people can't resist a network diagram, and "people love a good map", and I'm not in ML research. There are things that appeal to people. This tends to not manifest as "We need one of thes
154.
by Fomite 1y ago
"In the old days, people did research for the sake of research, and mostly out of Europe came the greatest scientific works we have seen." In the old days, scientific careers were largely restricted to the independently wealthy or
155.
by Fomite 1y ago
For both grants and papers in my experience, there's a "Doomed"/"Not Doomed" threshold you have to get over, but if you clear that threshold things get fairly stochastic.
156.
by Fomite 1y ago
"Yes."
157.
by Fomite 1y ago
This was my thought too. But somewhat revealing of the mindset involved in an awful lot of the AI "industry". First, start with a pile of money and the vague notion of an AI tool. Usefulness will come later, surely, definitely, be
158.
by Fomite 1y ago
medrxiv was very useful for keeping the various COVID-19 related preprints from completely swamping biorxiv, especially once biorxiv started aggressively rejecting them.
159.
by Fomite 1y ago
It's hard to understate what a drain this is on scientific productivity beyond the direct impact of the budget cuts. It's also just a tremendous distraction - trying to figure out what the various vaguely worded statements mean, w
160.
by Fomite 1y ago
Big pharma has thrived by letting public sector R&D do basic discovery that's high risk, and then pick up the successful projects as part of public-private commercialization programs.
161.
by Fomite 1y ago
This. At most, all I've ever had to do is note that my institution is a land grant university that draws from a diverse pool of applicants, including those in rural areas and 1st generation students. It was maybe a paragraph.
162.
by Fomite 1y ago
Agreed. "I wanted to buff my resume."
163.
by Fomite 1y ago
Not when you want to preserve it as a wedge issue.
164.
by Fomite 1y ago
"I wanted to derisk my resume by working somewhere with high signaling." You can take the founder out of a consultancy, but you can't take the consultancy out of the founder.
165.
by Fomite 1y ago
This. It's been very hard to separate out "Chronic Lyme Disease" as an unfalsifiable self-diagnosis from "Lyme Disease That Which Has Chronic Sequelae", which is fairly well accepted by most infectious disease docto
166.
by Fomite 1y ago
I'm a computational epidemiologist.
167.
by Fomite 1y ago
I should write a blog post entitled "I should have loved computer science"
168.
by Fomite 1y ago
Vivarium workers are so important. And yeah, both they and a lot of students suffer a lot of grief rooted in a necessary but empathetically hard part of their job.
169.
by Fomite 1y ago
Echoing this as well - administration for research is fairly thin in every institution I've worked at. In my career, there's only one position I can definitely point to as "That shouldn't exist" - ironically, it&#
170.
by Fomite 1y ago
> “Indirect costs” were accepted on the theory that this would be used to create job security for professors who did useful work but were not able to secure direct funding. This is an argument that I have literally never heard, despite b
171.
by Fomite 1y ago
Things indirect cost reimbursements fund at my institution: - The research animal facilities - HPC staff, upgrades, etc. - Our BSL-3 facilities (the only ones for a long way) - Various and sundry research cores - New faculty startup funds T
172.
by Fomite 1y ago
> Good idea! Maybe we can limit how much they can spend on overhead. Oh, wait... These rates are negotiated with the federal government. There's already a mechanism for this.
173.
by Fomite 1y ago
A couple things: 1) We refuse them when we can. Like if you have a lower indirect rate, my institution's policy is that has to be located somewhere that's documented, you can't just do it. I did have one where the sponsored p
174.
by Fomite 1y ago
If for no other reason, if you terminate a grant for cause, you have to specify why.
175.
by Fomite 1y ago
Echoing this. I've had two grants pulled in the last admin, and one in this one, and all of them were very sweeping - and wildly inefficient, killing projects during the phase of ramping up, rather than productively working.
176.
by Fomite 1y ago
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/milwaukee-schools-lead-poisonin... This aged wildly poorly.
177.
by Fomite 2y ago
A manta I've been repeating at my institution: There's no number of Good Boy Points that will save you if the administration decides to come for you.
178.
by Fomite 2y ago
If you're worried about this, you also need to be worried about them knowing what zip code you were born in.
179.
by Fomite 2y ago
People don't check your intentions before they discriminate, they just do.
180.
by Fomite 2y ago
"I've encountered plenty of engineers who believe themselves to be masters of the law" So much so that this is a running joke among nearly every lawyer I know in private practice.

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