Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What You Find While Cleaning Out the Office of a World-Class Researcher

scottcowley.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–38 of 38 posts

Re: What You Find While Cleaning Out the Office of a World-Class Researcher

#31

Post by marincounty »

bsder wrote: post #17

I have a different take about the books. Worthwhile technical books have not been published since about 2000. Technical publishing died in the dot-bomb. The number of new technical books I bought prior to about 2005 was staggering. The number of new technical books I bought in the past 5 years borders on zero. First, the web killed a bunch of technology publishing. Buying "new" technical books rarely makes sense as t…

I can't blame it all on the Internet.

I am old enough to remember, if you needed to know something, you went to the library.

Even then, I was always disappointed in the new section, most of the Reference section, and technical sections.

I know libraries can't stock a bunch of esoteric technical books, but it shouldn't load(waste precious funds) the library up with dubious self-help psychology books, and books on gardening. I never got the full rack on gardening, and one out of date book on Botany? (Noting has changed in regarding new book buys?)

Re: What You Find While Cleaning Out the Office of a World-Class Researcher

#32

Post by microcolonel »

bsder wrote: post #17

I have a different take about the books. Worthwhile technical books have not been published since about 2000. Technical publishing died in the dot-bomb. The number of new technical books I bought prior to about 2005 was staggering. The number of new technical books I bought in the past 5 years borders on zero. First, the web killed a bunch of technology publishing. Buying "new" technical books rarely makes sense as t…

Idunno, I'm from 1997, and I still buy paper books because the reading experience is better. I don't think that people think "If it isn't on the web, it doesn't exist." even if that's a popular characterization.

Re: What You Find While Cleaning Out the Office of a World-Class Researcher

#33

Post by rokhayakebe »

microcolonel wrote: post #32
bsder wrote: post #17

I have a different take about the books. Worthwhile technical books have not been published since about 2000. Technical publishing died in the dot-bomb. The number of new technical books I bought prior to about 2005 was staggering. The number of new technical books I bought in the past 5 years borders on zero. First, the web killed a bunch of technology publishing. Buying "new" technical books rarely makes sense as t…

Idunno, I'm from 1997, and I still buy paper books because the reading experience is better. I don't think that people think "If it isn't on the web, it doesn't exist." even if that's a popular characterization.

I'm from 1997

I so envy you.

Re: What You Find While Cleaning Out the Office of a World-Class Researcher

#34

Post by ternaryoperator »

The conclusions of this article seem wrong. What the author is seeing are the books the ex-academic left behind. Surely, he took the good ones with him. In fact, he likely took all the things he wanted to keep and left this stuff, which the author deems significant, because he didn't want it.

Re: What You Find While Cleaning Out the Office of a World-Class Researcher

#35

Post by Jugurtha »

Everything in the post almost exactly matches. The only things that don't match are the fridge and the ashtray.

I was like a scavenger roaming in the dark faculties. The best were Physics and Electrical Engineering faculties, and the labs of few of our Maths Profs (I had the ones who wrote our textbooks for Electricity and I'd press them to give me some stuff they had (usually unpublished for personal use). I had few gems along the way.

I've found a lot of stuff and was often burried in the pile they just put next to the appropriate lab's door. It gave a glimpse on where the labs were coming, what was their focus at a given period, what were they working on, thesis titles, how students prepared them, what did they use to produce it, which languages, etc. These things aren't online or in a database.

I still have most of my stuff from college. There's a bunch of things that are cool(the course in 4th year on Control Theory for example: information that _quickly_ gets you to speed on RST digital controllers, Pontryagin, Bellman is pretty scarce). I wasn't in good terms with the Prof, but boy she had a great course.

So I appreciate what I find looking in those dusty places.

Re: What You Find While Cleaning Out the Office of a World-Class Researcher

#37

Post by bsder »

marincounty wrote: post #31
bsder wrote: post #17

I have a different take about the books. Worthwhile technical books have not been published since about 2000. Technical publishing died in the dot-bomb. The number of new technical books I bought prior to about 2005 was staggering. The number of new technical books I bought in the past 5 years borders on zero. First, the web killed a bunch of technology publishing. Buying "new" technical books rarely makes sense as t…

I can't blame it all on the Internet. I am old enough to remember, if you needed to know something, you went to the library. Even then, I was always disappointed in the new section, most of the Reference section, and technical sections. I know libraries can't stock a bunch of esoteric technical books, but it shouldn't load(waste precious funds) the library up with dubious self-help psychology books, and books on gard…

The question is: what purpose should a library serve?

A library that never gets used to check out books, rightfully, deserves to get shut down.

Unfortunately, that means dubious self-help psychology books and the latest Oprah feature.

God help us if someone manages to ever take out the Internet.

Re: What You Find While Cleaning Out the Office of a World-Class Researcher

#38

Post by PhantomGremlin »

irremediable wrote: post #27

Poignant, but IMO not insightful. You could interpret this any way you please. I'm especially pissed off by the way he mentions the anti-depressant medication bottle as a sign of failure. Maybe the professor would have been far more depressed if he hadn't been working on awesome new ideas. Maybe he would have been depressed either way. How is the empty bottle a sign of failure? He sought treatment for his mental heal…

The "anti-depressants" are mentioned in the sentence following this one:

   And you see pictures of a little girl —
   the daughter you know died tragically young.
I've never taken an anti-depressant in my life. But if one of my daughters died I'd certainly consider it.
Post reply on HN