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Ask HN: What can I do to accelerate scientific research?
131–140 of 179 posts
Re: Ask HN: What can I do to accelerate scientific research?
#132I have a request. Somebody needs to make matplotlib, but with a C API and lots of language bindings instead of only a python API. For example when I'm writing rust, my best option is to use a Python interop library that calls matplotlib...
Python is kind of the gold standard in many areas of research, no? Why would you use Rust, or even anything but Python? I'd only touch Rust (or C/C++) when I need to implement some fast numerical computation that does not already exist in Numpy or Tensorflow, but still call it from Python.
People who mostly do that weird numeric stuff find themselves wishing they could be free from that python interop, for example when 99% of your code is unique rust and at the end all you want is a graph. Another use case is when you want to write an application like ImageJ, to be used by (not necessarily computer-y) scientists other than yourself, where you want fast startup times and all-around good performance. Being able to do away with the python interop won't shatter the Earth but it would be nice. Besides, I love Python, everybody loves Python, but it's not the final end state of programming language evolution (isn't Haskell? ;).
Re: Ask HN: What can I do to accelerate scientific research?
#133My dream would be to have a place I could look at any paper (even if not on a campus internet connection), be able to look at raw data, code, and have a forum to facilitate discussions between researchers. I know the first won't happen for awhile, but it is a dream (open science). The second is direly needed but in some cases not practical. But I think there could be a lot to gain from just having a small portion of…
You might be interested in OpenReview, which is doing something like this, mainly in the ML/AI academic community. (Disclaimer: I’m one of the developers) https://openreview.net
This is different than what I'm seeking. I actually in favor of blind reviews. I don't think they are just good, I think they are essential.
Re: Ask HN: What can I do to accelerate scientific research?
#134My dream would be to have a place I could look at any paper (even if not on a campus internet connection), be able to look at raw data, code, and have a forum to facilitate discussions between researchers. I know the first won't happen for awhile, but it is a dream (open science). The second is direly needed but in some cases not practical. But I think there could be a lot to gain from just having a small portion of…
I wonder if people are reluctant to do this because they would be scrutinized more and perhaps their phd, Grant etc might be at risk? If so, is the only solution to give"credit" towards the phd, grant etc in the form of hours worked towards pushing knowledge acquisition, and not strict results?
I think it is partially that (but minor). Partially embarrassment (frequently code is rushed). Partially people view code/data as a trade secret. The latter I find anti-scientific, especially since a lot of funding comes from public money. I'm okay with holding on to it for a small period of time (because we live in an unfortunate world where sharing knowledge can't come first and people need to secure funding), but I don't think this should be a default mode that people do. Luckily it does seem that many are turning to GitHub/BitBucket/GitLab to make their code available.
And everyone that's in a PhD or has one knows that the majority of work you do is failing (but you learn from that failure).
Side note: I wonder if imposter syndrome would decrease if we were aware about one anothers' failures and didn't only see the accomplishments.
Re: Ask HN: What can I do to accelerate scientific research?
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of this already happens. But you also have to realize that that is not in the spirit of science.
Got it. It's not, agreed, but nobody should work for free. In fact, I believe that doing what OP wants to do is more harmful than building a business around his intentions.
I agree, no one should have to work for free. But there are two competing aspects here. Science is about seeking out knowledge and advancing humanity. But unfortunately we need to buy food to eat.
Re: Ask HN: What can I do to accelerate scientific research?
#136I think you might enjoy this interview with Elon Musk:
Elon Musk - How to Build the Future
Re: Ask HN: What can I do to accelerate scientific research?
#137One of the big challenges for university researchers is trying to find talent and dedication in the enormous pool of undergrads and masters students. Nearly every professor relies heavily on the recommendation system or grabbing from the pool of students in a class. The problem with this is that it's often hit or miss with a net-neutral return on investment.
If I send a PhD student to spend a certain amount of time independently training two students, then I am investing that grad student's time into something that could be spent doing research. If one of those students is flaky and is mostly there to pad their resume, it's largely a lost investment (even more so if their work requires extra effort to fix). If the other is graduated by the following semester, the gained productivity might not exceed the other's loss by the time they leave.
The best situation is when you're working with an undergrad who is destined to continue on to the PhD program because you know they'll be dedicated and possibly have a head-start on their thesis work. If you could figure out how to connect these students with advisors using metrics and private social networking, then you will amplify their productivity significantly. You'll improve the likelihood professors will take on undergrads and potentially push researchers into the field earlier.
How you achieve this, I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps you can make it easy to set up competitions which test the skills you need. The winners will be asked to join the lab to work on some project. If some lab on the other side of the country which does similar research also wants to do the same competition, make it easy for them to share and run it.
Re: Ask HN: What can I do to accelerate scientific research?
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the moment it's "available within collaborations". My former supervisor has had some bad experiences with people using his open-sourced software without acknowledgement etc., which is of course not quite ideal if you actually want to build a career in academia for yourself. Monetisation is not really an option. My toolkit is maybe a bit non-standard in that it has attracted a few external collaborators using it as…
This is a very sad state of affairs, therefore I would like to bring your attention to a petition towards open sourcing all scientific (and generally tax-paid) software: https://publiccode.eu
Does this call for avionics software for the F-22 (and similar taxpayer funded software) to be open sourced?
Re: Ask HN: What can I do to accelerate scientific research?
#139I have a request. Somebody needs to make matplotlib, but with a C API and lots of language bindings instead of only a python API. For example when I'm writing rust, my best option is to use a Python interop library that calls matplotlib...
Have you seen https://github.com/sciapp/gr ?
Re: Ask HN: What can I do to accelerate scientific research?
#140> What ideas do you have on how one can accelerate scientific research? I work in genetics (as a software engineer). If there was a major flaw in current scientific research (that involves software), it's that most labs care more about getting published than they do about the reproduce-ability and validation of their work. This means most of the software written in research is ad-hoc, write once, and often never look…
DBeaver has some kind of engine which allows you to write sql queries against csv files. I think mysql also has csv storage engine which you may find useful to hack into something.