btrettel

23 ms·

241.
by btrettel 4y ago
> This is especially true in math and physics. You will find that no matter what problem you can think of, either it has already been solved to the highest level of abstraction, or it's an unsolved and famous problem, or not worthwh
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by btrettel 4y ago
> There’s yet another problem: the sheer volume of texts. When it comes to Indian and Buddhist traditions, for example, the number of ancient manuscripts that have survived but are yet to be studied has been estimated at around 10m, thou
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by btrettel 4y ago
It varies a lot depending on the field. I was never particularly worried about being scooped during my PhD. I think that's because there were/are few people working on the same problem. To give an example: One idea I've been
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by btrettel 4y ago
Former patent examiner here. There have been quite a few patent drafting softwares over the years. They seem to do a reasonable job guiding someone through the process of writing the patent application. But search and submission are not aut
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by btrettel 4y ago
I wasn't around long enough for many to get to the point where they could be granted. I think I only granted around 3 or so. And those ones were unlikely to cause anyone trouble. I've heard a second-hand story of one examiner who
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by btrettel 4y ago
This is not true. Dependent claims are often viewed as "backup" claims in case the independent claims are rejected in prosecution by the patent examiner or found invalid by a court. It's not hard to find online sources to bac
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by btrettel 4y ago
Anything available to the public can be used in a prior art rejection, not just patents. (I'm a former patent examiner and I frequently used "non-patent literature" as it's called.)
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by btrettel 4y ago
Former patent examiner here. The main problem with quality is as you describe: patent examiners don't get enough time. I've written about this before on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31197809 Note that
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by btrettel 4y ago
I'm not sure we're having a productive conversation. Perhaps I've been unclear, but I didn't say this was a "devastating critique of all science". I said that I thought my field was "for the most part [...
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by btrettel 4y ago
Based on conversations I've had with tenured academics like yourself, providing specifics won't convince you. You could simply say that you aren't qualified in my field so you can't evaluate what I've said, or deny
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by btrettel 4y ago
> Complaining about flaws in a few papers is like saying “I found a piece of software with a bug” and then claiming software engineering is a broken field based on those examples. My point wasn't a complaint about a few papers, ra
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by btrettel 4y ago
> The one positive of this environment that when you see someone who has succeeded in publishing a substantial amount, it's safe to presume that their work is not entirely without merit. That's not a 100% guarantee, but it&#x27
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by btrettel 4y ago
I also have a PhD. There's a major asymmetry in US academia that public accusations can address, if done tactfully, truthfully, and specifically enough to allow a defense. In US academia, subordinates need positive references to get
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by btrettel 4y ago
Some scientists don't even try to hide an obscene acronym: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20100024508 > The development and verification of the Charring Ablating Thermal Protection Implicit System Solver (CATPIS
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by btrettel 4y ago
In the past, I was a patent examiner at the USPTO. Patent examiners have their own problematic performance metrics. In Oct. 2020, the metrics went through a big change that made them a lot more complex. I suspect that part of the motivation
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by btrettel 4y ago
I'm seconding this. Taskwarrior is the program I've used for the longest, by far. I particularly like Taskwarrior's ability to set task dependencies. And I've found tasklib [0] to be nice for writing Python scripts to in
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by btrettel 4y ago
I strongly agree that it's wrong in science based on my experience in fluid dynamics. Some things that are easily demonstrated to be wrong have high citations. I've speculated before that peer review might contribute to Linus&#x27
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by btrettel 4y ago
Here's an argument against the idea that Application Tracking Systems automatically reject a large number of candidates: https://thetechresume.com/samples/ats-myths-busted.html I'm not sure what to believe. M
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by btrettel 4y ago
When I say AI safety is not neglected, I do not mean AI safety is not important. I mean that it is not neglected in the sense that increasing the amount of money and people directed at the problem is not likely to help. That's a common
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by btrettel 4y ago
> they’re pretty much completely unrelated fields Completely unrelated? Even you must accept that they are related through AI. But, I now see that AI ethics and AI alignment are different. Thank you. However, I think my larger point st
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by btrettel 4y ago
I tend to use the terms "AI ethics", "AI safety", and "AI alignment" interchangeably. This may not be technically correct.
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by btrettel 4y ago
To give just one example, I think Effective Altruists focus far too little on meta-science. Much of what they want to do depends on meta-science, and in science it's quite difficult to fund that sort of work, so it seems odd to me that
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by btrettel 4y ago
> we keep seeing examples of AI researchers there not being taken seriously despite the quality of their work This phenomena is not unique to AI safety. It often is driven by management incentives. I agree that AI safety is not a solved
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by btrettel 4y ago
One thing I've wondered is when Effective Altruists are going to stop calling AI ethics neglected . AI ethics as a field is now mainstream, in my view, yet people still keep calling it neglected. I personally think Effective Altruists
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by btrettel 4y ago
What are the options for incentivizing long-term performance?
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by btrettel 4y ago
There are way too many jobs where management doesn't give the front-line worker an appropriate amount of time and/or resources, and when things inevitably go wrong, the front-line worker is blamed, and the problem is studied as if
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by btrettel 4y ago
Stanley Farlow's "Partial Differential Equations for Scientists and Engineers" is a great introduction to partial differential equations. That book was at exactly the right level for me when I was 19 to be introduced to a wid
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by btrettel 4y ago
It is their loss, and I don't want to work with organizations that hire like that. But that's how hiring is done in academia. A lot of the non-academic research labs work similarly. (Classified research does not have strict public
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by btrettel 4y ago
I think the quality of my research is considerably above average. Unfortunately the people making hiring decisions mostly look at things like number of publications and years of experience and rarely the actual publications themselves.
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by btrettel 4y ago
I agree that a PhD is training, though I will disagree that it's independent research training as few PhD graduates can do truly independent research in the sense of not needing to collaborate with others. Academia emphasizes collabo

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