The story goes that one of Niels Bohr's friends visited him and found him deeply engrossed in writing an application to a fund. Surprised, the friend asked why it took so long for such a prominent scientist as Bohr to write a simple application. Bohr replied, "I'm trying to make it short, but I haven't had time yet."
Don Knuth letter about libraries increasingly unable to afford prices (2003) [pdf]
51–60 of 104 posts
Re: Don Knuth letter about libraries increasingly unable to afford prices (2003) [pdf]
#52Sending a working person a 14 page letter about anything expecting them to read it is wild to me. Perhaps it's the quality of my writing but my personal experience is that even being way more concise, most people wouldn't care.
Some people think that with quantity they can paint over a lack of substance, others think writing more looks as if they did more work, yet others don't seem to think.. at all. Bottom line up. Ususally what you need the other side to grok can be summarized in two sentences. Start with that. Give details after. If you have multiple topics seperate them into sections or make a list. Any message is something the receive…
I think this might be true if the only goal is to convey information.
Here it is more about convincing others and framing information. If you start with the condensed facts, readers who disagree might be put off already.
Re: Don Knuth letter about libraries increasingly unable to afford prices (2003) [pdf]
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's there to understand? It's capitalism 101. Producers will charge the maximum the market will bear.
Yep. Basically, people value ebooks higher.
Sadly this is true for me. Much as I wish ebooks had the freedoms that come with paper, I value reduced physical clutter more than the ability to share and resell.
Re: Don Knuth letter about libraries increasingly unable to afford prices (2003) [pdf]
#54"I love my library and the other libraries that I visit frequently, and my blood boils when I see a library being overcharged." Given the topic and my love for Knuth, I went into this paper ready to agree with him. But Knuth does a great job at stating his case. This sentence caught my eye: "Elsevier, however, ignored my letter and did not reply" - who in their right mind would ignore a letter from Knuth?!
Because people keep throwing huge amounts of money and content to Elsevier while asking them to stop making money. This isn't a defense of Elsevier by the way. The scholarly system is abysmal for publications and it's seemingly incapable of any meaningful change over non-geological timeframes. But if you keep paying people to do something then they're going to keep doing it. If they stop, someone else will appear if…
> Because people keep throwing huge amounts of money and content to Elsevier while asking them to stop making money.
Because the broken rest of the system (i.e. financials tied to "how many papers did you get published") incentivizes everyone to keep the status quo.
The entire academia publishing clusterfuck needs massive government intervention to dismantle.
Re: Don Knuth letter about libraries increasingly unable to afford prices (2003) [pdf]
#55And the outcome was ... ACM Transactions on Algorithms (TALG)[1][2]
[1] https://home.cs.colorado.edu/~hal/s.pdf
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACM_Transactions_on_AlgorithmsRe: Don Knuth letter about libraries increasingly unable to afford prices (2003) [pdf]
#56Sending a working person a 14 page letter about anything expecting them to read it is wild to me. Perhaps it's the quality of my writing but my personal experience is that even being way more concise, most people wouldn't care.
It's not a real letter. It's an (implicit?) open letter that is just a self published article, with the hidden threat that everyone will see it [1] so if they don't agree they will look bad.
[1] And nobody will read it, and everybody agree even the publisher. The publisher want to increase the price anyway, and everyone else want a cheaper journal.
Re: Don Knuth letter about libraries increasingly unable to afford prices (2003) [pdf]
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess you should take into account that you are not (one of) the most preeminent computer scientists in the world, right?
If Don Knuth sent me a 14-page letter, you bet I'm gonna read it. I might frame it.
I was fortunate enough to get one of the last physical reward checks which was accompanied by a printout of my e-mail, written on in pencil.
Fortunately, it survived a house flood which destroyed the book it was in, so now the envelope it's in is prominently displayed on a rack in my living room and would be one of the things I'd grab in the event of a fire.
Every so often, when a co-worker knows who Knuth is I bring it in to a workplace to show off.
Re: Don Knuth letter about libraries increasingly unable to afford prices (2003) [pdf]
#58Can someone return this mans videos? https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/news03.html#videos
It's taking too long. At least 20 years now
Re: Don Knuth letter about libraries increasingly unable to afford prices (2003) [pdf]
#59I'm curious if anyone subscribes to journals they would recommend today?
Well, there's _TUGboat_, the journal of the TeX User's Group --- free with a membership (or membership is free w/ a subscription), but it's rather specialized, and a non-profit thing.
Re: Don Knuth letter about libraries increasingly unable to afford prices (2003) [pdf]
#60He is attending the wrong library. Library Genesis is the way, now. And Library Sci-Hub. And I am only half-kidding.
I am not kidding at all. We have that government library app sort of thing. It makes you wait for a digital copy. Like there's a line of people before you, just like in an old school library.
Why? Just use Genesis