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backus's profile
John Backus
John Backus
John Backus
@backus

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John Backus

@backus

Seeking alternative compression. Hopefully wrong on average. Shameless. Started @getcognito and @bloom

San Francisco, CA
Joined August 2012

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    1. John Backus‏ @backus Jun 28

      The internet created a lot of new mediums. Blogs, vlogs, tl;dr culture, explainer videos, Twitter, podcasts, clickbait, ELI5, etc. It seems like we never saw new mediums emerge for academia. Probably because the same institutions are consuming and generating the content?

      7 replies 2 retweets 18 likes
      Show this thread
    2. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen Jun 28
      Replying to @backus

      I don’t think of it like that. Journals build brands, and academics who contribute to the journals convert those brands into reputation for themselves, and thus into jobs. So the journals are competing on brand (mostly impact factor and similar), not the quality of the medium.

      1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
    3. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen Jun 28
      Replying to @michael_nielsen @backus

      To pick a slightly self-interested example: most ML researchers would (currently) rather have a NIPS paper than a distill paper, even though the latter is a much more interesting medium. Why? The former has a better chance (at present) of getting you a job

      2 replies 0 retweets 5 likes
    4. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen Jun 28
      Replying to @michael_nielsen @backus

      This can and does change, but usually very slowly. One of the cleverest things done in establishing the preprint arXiv was to recruit leading physicists like Andy Strominger and Ed Witten to contribute in the first few days. Wham! Brand established.

      1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
    5. John Backus‏ @backus Jun 28
      Replying to @michael_nielsen

      Great points. I was talking from a fuzzier perspective. Distill represents one shift where more time and effort goes into a paper, but going in the reverse direction and embracing more casual mediums also seems interesting

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      John Backus‏ @backus Jun 28
      Replying to @backus @michael_nielsen

      For a lot of "learning in public" as @nayafia put it, there aren't expectations about the medium you use in the first place. People can pick between blog posts, tweets, emphasizing visuals, switching up tone, playing w/ how data-oriented vs argument oriented their writing is, etc

      11:49 AM - 28 Jun 2018
      • 2 Likes
      • Sar Haribhakti Nadia Eghbal
      3 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. John Backus‏ @backus Jun 28
          Replying to @backus @michael_nielsen @nayafia

          I'll be the 1st to admit that idk what more casual mediums might look like for academia. I may be totally off base. I'm just curious about how much is filtered out or obscured by a fixed medium that assumes a certain format, length, breakdown, rigor, presentation, etc

          2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. John Backus‏ @backus Jun 28
          Replying to @backus @michael_nielsen @nayafia

          related question: Who on the internet is playing the "gentleman scientist" part but isn't trying to interface w/ academia? These people likely played with the medium a lot @gwern seems like an obvious example. @DanLuu probably? A lot of LW especially back in the day?

          2 replies 0 retweets 7 likes
        4. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen Jun 28
          Replying to @backus @nayafia and

          A few: Bret Victor, 3Blue1Brown, Vi Hart, Satoshi, Eric Drexler, Ted Nelson (in a sense), Alan Kay (ditto). I decided to (mostly) stop writing papers in 2008, and to concentrate on more experimental media.

          0 replies 1 retweet 12 likes
        5. End of conversation
        1. New conversation
        2. Nadia Eghbal‏ @nayafia Jun 28
          Replying to @backus @michael_nielsen

          yup! I think brand is the ultimate validation metric (in that sense I think you're both agreeing). For an academic career, perhaps journals are the primary path to brand. But if the goal is just "research that people pay attention to", you suddenly have more options

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
        3. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen Jun 28
          Replying to @nayafia @backus

          I just mean that if you sit in an academic hiring meeting, or are helping decide on grants, 9 out of 10 people will usually be concerned with things like “how good a journal is that”? Etc. It’s a bad system, but it’s how much hiring works.

          3 replies 2 retweets 2 likes
        4. michael_nielsen‏ @michael_nielsen Jun 28
          Replying to @michael_nielsen @nayafia @backus

          An amusing fact is that organizations which go beyond that can do very well for themselves. I can think of a few hires where (a) they did badly by standard metrics; but (b) someone crucial in the org truly engaged with the actual work, ignoring the metrics.

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
        5. John Backus‏ @backus Jun 28
          Replying to @michael_nielsen @nayafia

          Yeah this reminds me of a hiring/recruiting tip. Basically, it is good to ignore certain signals like top tier university and impressive job history not because they aren't good signals, but because everyone is aware of them. Better if you can identify diamonds in the rough

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        6. End of conversation
        1. Sar Haribhakti‏ @sarthakgh Jun 28
          Replying to @backus @michael_nielsen @nayafia

          Have you seen World After Capital by @albertwenger? It is a living doc thats freely accessible. Would love to see similar format for academia where evolution of research on a topic can be documented. There is a biz model challenge but people would likely pay for a new format

          0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
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