I'm so bored that I suddenly have like ten separate things I could post about.
I guess I feel vaguely guilty that I don't review articles anymore.
I really barely do it myself, to be honest.
For a variety of reasons, I've yet to publish a single article after three years in my new field, so nobody who sets reviews knows my name. Also, I've managed to acquire a great big list of conflicts of interest so I might not be eligible anyway.
I was debating adding another post about Only Fans going porn-free. Should I?
This is true of software code reviews as well. Often, you just want to hit "approve" and get on with your day, but you'll have to deal with the mess later anyway, so you dig in, and step through, and write the comments...blurgh.
I'm guessing you can bill for that though.
The whole problem with peer review is that nobody gets paid directly for it.
I have a principled laziness about the second round of reviews. Unless there was a real error the first time around, I think it's ultimately their paper not mine, and so if I give them my best feedback once they can use their judgement about how much to incorporate it or not.
Do you ever reject the second round for not having implemented what you considered to be major revisions?
I just had a paper get rejected in the second round after being so responsive there was a several thousand word response letter.
In retrospect, the first review was telling us to go away when they didn't want to say so.
10: Of course if there's a genuine math problem with the paper that I spotted in the first round I'd need it to be actually addressed, but more often I'm just flagging things like "I got confused at this part, maybe it would be clearer if you did XYZ." I don't think major holes has happened all that often, if at all.
Can you make journals subscribe to your OnlyFan to read the review as a way of monetizing your effort?
Re pessimism about book reviews: reminded of Spengler's opinion of newspapers:
"The people reads the one paper, 'its' paper, which forces itself through the front doors by millions daily, spellbinds the intellect from morning to night, drives the book into oblivion by its more engaging layout, and if one or another specimen of a book does emerge into visibility, forestalls and eliminates its possible effects by 'reviewing' it".
Seems to have inspired Heidegger's (cynical and reactionary) 'Das Man' (the They). Am sure lots of people have said so.
This seems to be one of the more sensible threads about the OnlyFans kerfuffle. I'm not previously familiar with the poster, but they seems to know what they're talking about, and have links to some sources.
I just had my first blurb published on a back cover, so I'm feeling famous.
"Habermas is back and he's once again cornered the market on Teutonic tediousness."
Somehow that reads like a Far Side caption.
"The Arnolds feign death until the Wagners, sensing the sudden awkwardness, are compelled to leave."
My job is about getting people to correct their errors before they are approved to begin construction. Much like Heebie's OP takeaway, the less I find, the less the applicant complains and the easier future rounds of review go. Instead of cutting my comments, I've been expanding them -- which 90% of the time has been working out very well. The trick is that my comments are very specific, and when reading the comment the right response is usually obvious. By removing confusion or theory and identifying very narrow corrections, people usually take the comments better.
The people who have the most problem are the ones who are used to general statements instead of specific comments. Often they'll complain immediately -- to me, their pal in city government, or anyone they think has influence. "Look how overbearing the reviewer is, with their pages and pages of comments!" When they finally talk to me, more than half of them back way off when I point out that the reason that they have so many comments is because the comments are narrow, and the revisions required are specific, unlikely to require them to discuss or persuade me of their design's validity. The other half can't be wrong, but they'd complain about anyone who challenged their vision.
My one cousin has a Facebook that is all Far Side, Winston Churchill, and Art Deco-era paintings. For some reason, he can post something where you can see a woman's nipples without getting reported.
I had a review to do last week and it was clear that English was not the authors' first language so I really tried to give them the benefit of the doubt on clarity. The instructions say grammar is not the reviewers' responsibility and will be edited for clarity later. But the paper was really just horrid so I said reject and it turned out the other reviewer had comments almost identical to mine.
4 reminds me that I have been called for jury duty once in the last 25 years and didn't make it past the sitting around waiting part that one time. I don't know if I'm just not on some list or what.
I got called for jury duty this week.
I've never even gotten to the sitting around waiting part. One time, I got a notice saying to call in every evening, and every evening they told me not to come in the next day. That's it, for twenty-five years of eligibility. I would be a GREAT juror, too.
A previous colleague/boss/professor/mentor (I don't know how to describe our relationship) says he gets called as soon as his exemption is up, like within a week of the 3 year exemption you get after each service. He's also author on a ton of journal articles so maybe there's a connection.
I'm afraid they won't make the suburbanites mask up even though they are supposed to.
17: good thread, thanks. Some of the replies are depressingly trollish, but anyways. Makes me feel a tiny bit guilty about not paying for porn.
If the illustrations from the Wikipedia pages about sex acts are good enough for Mike Pence, they're good enough for anyone
My grandmother had a joke which went:
Tedium. Tedium.
Tedium-tedium-tedium.
Somehow it sounds a little like giddyup in a way that's amusing enough for people to respond like you made a joke.
28: I got called once when I lived in Boston., sat around for the morning and was dismissed. Nothing since.
Jury duty, like peer review for academic journals, is based on a view of society/scientific research where most people are of sufficient means that they can take time to act in the public interest without expecting to be specifically compensated for that time. Book reviews are probably different, but I don't read them. I pick all my books for your references here or by heaving bosoms on the cover art.
I was on the jury for a fight that was part of an interminable neighborhood dispute. (There had been an earlier trial with the same victim and defendant but with the roles reversed.) For me the climax came when one of the witnesses, part of one of the two factions involved, accused someone on the other side of stealing her panties off the clothesline.
That's an accusation I've not seen in a journal review letter.
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NMM to Tom T. Hall.
He wrote a _lot_, much of which I don't know well and seems forgettable, but he's written a handful of songs that are some of the best country songs ever (almost all of which, it turns out, are drawn from his personal experience).
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This is a nice clip from an interview with Tom T Hall.
He has a gentleness to him, which makes sense because his best songs are observational -- it's clear that he pays attention to the world.
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I got called up for jury duty twice in five years of living in Boston, never elsewhere. They said most people living in the city of Boston should expect to get called up once a year.
Currently I'm planning to move back to Boston, so I'm sure I'll regret it next time I get called up for jury duty.
Come to think, it was only four years.
If you don't have to be in the office much, you could live in Vermont.
Frankly, in most parts of Boston, you'd look a bit out of touch living in a yurt, but it's apparently common in Vermont.
". I pick all my books for your references here or by heaving bosoms on the cover art."
If the heaved bosom lands on the cover, that's a Moby Recommends. If the bosom actually hits the title itself, that's a Starred Review.
39-40 I got to interview Tom T. Hall back in 1992 as part of Rev. Will Campbell's book tour. The two of them were going around in Hall's old touring bus. I put my microphone between them and let them talk for about an hour and a half. It was one of the two best interviews I ever got to do. (Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan were the other.)
For the question that meant the most to me, Hall said that every word of "The Little Lady Preacher" was true. I chose to believe him then and still do now.
Speaking of death, I was thinking of signing up for the electric scooter thing and then I remembered my own mortality.