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0 pointsryukoposting2y ago0 comments

This is a great philosophy in software, where meaningful contributions can be made by any given person with a laptop. It's not as compelling when the only people who can meaningfully advance the research need to spend millions in grant money and/or allocate time to use expensive equipment that's shared across other research groups.

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brutusborn2y ago

What is the difference? I would argue it is more important to publish early when using shared expensive equipment, since there is a huge opportunity cost to wasting resources when better information exists.

bckr2y ago

But in what case is this the reality?

Science is generally dealing with more data than any one person can look at. Anyone with a laptop can provide unique analyses of the data which can fuel new hypotheses, which can be explored with simulations and further analysis.

the big machines represent a bottleneck only in the physical experiments that they enable, but a lot of science can be done around that.

Tighten the feedback loops by all means I say

Especially for public science, but that’s another story

ryukopostingOP2y ago

Just want to add to this thought: this isn't to say I believe the status quo in academia isn't antiquated. It is. My point is that we can't just "take open source and move it over there," so to speak.

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