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Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
@doctorow
May 1, 2021 • 18 tweets • 9 min read • Read on X
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In 2008, I traveled to the world's largest scientific data-centers for a @Nature story. No matter whether the labs were devoted to internet archiving, the human genome, or the Higgs boson, they had two things in common: vast server farms, and @xkcd.

nature.com/news/2008/0809…

1/ One frame from XKCD's 'Types of Scientific Papers' strip; th
Randall Munroe's webcomic is so unabashedly geeky, so unafraid to be obscure or format-breaking, so affectionate and knowing about the triumphs and pitfalls of science that it is absolute catnip for scientists.

2/
Last week, Munroe published strip #2456, "Types of scientific paper," a 3x4 grid of thumbnails of journal articles with titles like, "We put a camera somewhere new" and "My colleague is wrong and I can finally prove it."

xkcd.com/2456/

3/ XKCD 2456, Types of Scientific Papers.
Even by XKCD standards, this is heavy scientist-bait. The research community has risen to the challenge, flooding the net with remixes that are, if anything, even better than the original: works of microfictional genius to rival Hemingway's "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

4/
Many of these have been collected on @bruces' Tumblr blogs, and, taken as a body, they constitute an act of wry, insightful auto-ethnography - self-criticism wrapped in humor that tells a story.

5/
"Types of Paper in Epidemiology and Public Health"

* We counted how many people have a disease, here are maps with poor countries in red

* We found that if you call your research 'genetic epidemiology,' then people are surprisingly OK with eugenics

brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/650002102…

6/ "Types of Paper in Epidemiology and Public Health"
"Types of History Paper"

* Stuff happened: a chronology 1910-1974

* They missed so much stuff, it's honestly embarrassing 1910-1974

* I am so tired of stuff scholarship

* Wokeness is killing stuff scholarship! A senior scholar weighs in

brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/650002102…

7/ "Types of History Paper"
"Types of Glaciology Paper"

* The ocean is doing a bunch of weird stuff to this glacier

* Why is it doing that: the wild physics

* Why is it doing that: now with machine learning

* We found a glacier that's doing fine! Oh, wait, nevermind

brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/650002102…

8/
"Types of Entomology Paper"

* This pesticide is completely safe, says one very restricted metric

* This pesticide will kill us all: extrapolation from irrelevant data

* 39,000 new parasitic wasps

brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/650002102…

9/ "Types of Entomology Paper"
"Types of Climate Science Paper."

* Here's a bad thing about climate change you hadn't even thought about

* Did any of you guys take a statistics course?

* Things are definitely worse than we thought

* Things are definitely better than we thought

brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/650002179…

10/ "Types of Climate Science Paper."
"Types of Quantum Computing Paper"

* Simulating our system with our system

* We've solved QC with our new scripting language

brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/650002179…

11/ "Types of Quantum Computing Paper"
"Types of Remote Sensing Papers"

* We saw stuff on the ground from space

* We saw stuff on the ground better from space

* What's that? Let me see if I can see it from space

* Have you tried neural networks though?

brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/650002179…

12/ "Types of Remote Sensing Papers"
"Types of Building Energy Papers"

* Expensive material improves building efficiency

* Stop climate change by rebuilding all buildings this way

* Insulate all things

wolfliving.tumblr.com/post/650004947…

13/ "Types of Building Energy Papers"
"Types of Housing Papers"

* Why tech workers deserve condos with better walk scores

* Design students' yurts will end poverty

* Supportive housing costs less than boiling poor people in oil and it's more efficient

wolfliving.tumblr.com/post/650004131…

14/ "Types of Housing Papers"
* Elders have rebuilt enough equity for a new round of predatory lending

* Neighborhood gained wealth when rich people moved in

* This city ended homelessness (for left-handed veterans with cats)

15/
I saved my favorite for last: "How a reporter sees types of science papers"

* This journal puts the full paper online

* Quantum

* I know this person responds to emails

* GIF-able video in the supporting information

brucesterling.tumblr.com/post/650002179…

16/ "How a reporter sees types of science papers"
* Fig 1 seems like it basically sums the whole thing up

* Scientist beef!

* I covered their last paper

eof/
ETA - If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2021/05/02/mic…

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More from @doctorow

Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jul 3
As fascism burns across America, it's important to remember that Trump and his policies are *not popular*.

1/ A kneeling figure, shackled hand-and-foot with ball-and-chains at his ankles. His face is that of a turn-of-the-century newsie, grinning broadly under a torn cloth cap. Behind him is a heavily halftoned neon HELP WANTED sign, askew over a indistinct black hellscape ganked from the third panel of Boschs's 'Garden of Earthly Delights.'
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pluralistic.net/2025/07/03/sta…

2/
Sure, the racism and cruelty excites a minority of (very broken) people, but every component of the Trump agenda is *extremely* unpopular with the American people, from tax cuts for billionaires to kidnapping our neighbors and shipping them to concentration camps.

3/
Read 42 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jul 1
If there's one are where tech has shown a consistent aptitude for innovation, it's in accounting tricks that make money-losing companies appear wildly profitable. And AI is the greatest innovator of all (when it comes to accounting gimmicks).

1/ A carny barker waving his top-hat and selling tickets from a roll; his head has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The background is a magnified, halftoned detail from a US$100 bill. Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/06/30/acc…

2/
Since the dotcom era, tech companies have boasted about giving stuff away but "making it up in volume," inventing an ever-sweatier collection of shell-games that let them hide the business's true profit and loss.

3/
Read 42 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jun 28
In 2014, I read a political science paper that nearly convinced me to quit my lifelong career as an activist: "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," published in *Perspectives on Politics*:



1/ cambridge.org/core/journals/…An inflatable pig balloon against a blue sky, bearing the Zohran for Mayor logo. The Chrysler Building sits to one side. Image: Frank Vincentz (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Geeste_-_Biener_Stra%C3%9Fe_-_Speicherbecken_-_Drachenfest_38_ies.jpg Petri Krohn https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chrysler_building-_top.jpg CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/06/28/mam…

2/
The paper's authors are Martin Gilens, a UCLA professor of Public Policy; and Northwestern's Benjamin Page, a professor of Decision Making. Gilens and Page studied a representative sample of 1,779 policy issues.

3/
Read 49 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jun 24
When a company sells you something for $2 that someone else can buy for $1, they're revaluing the dollars in your pocket at half the rate of the other guy's.

1/ A busy 1950s grocery store. The scene has been altered: the massive, menacing, glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' hovers over the store, shooting red beams into the cash register. The store -- but not the shoppers at its front -- is suffused with red light. Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/06/24/pri…

2/
Economists praise "price discrimination" as "efficient." That's when a company charges different customers different amounts based on inferences about their willingness to pay.

3/
Read 50 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Jun 20
Private equity firms are the demon princes of the hellspace that is the imploding, life-destroying, plutocrat-generating American economy.

1/ A billionaire in a tuxedo with dollar-sign cufflinks, stands at a podium, yanking a lever shaped like a gilded dollar sign with one gloved hand. From the other hand, he contemptuously dangles a bloody corpse. His head has been replaced with the head of a doctor in a surgeon's blue cap, with red, glaring eyes. The background is the text of Oregon's new Corporate Practice of Medicine law, in blown-out, red type.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/06/20/the…

2/
Their favorite scam, the "leveraged buyout" is a mafia bustout dressed up in respectable clothes, and if you mourn a beloved, failed business, chances are that an LBO was the murder weapon, and PE was the killer:



3/pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spi…
Read 44 tweets
Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
May 27
On a recent This Machine Kills episode, guest Hagen Blix described the ultimate form of "AI therapy" with a "human in the loop":



1/ soundcloud.com/thismachinekil…A magnified image of the inside of an automated backup tape library, with gleaming racks of silver tape drives receding into the distance. In the foreground is a pile of dirt being shoveled by three figures in prisoner's stripes. Two of the figures' heads have been replaced with cliche hacker-in-hoodie heads, from which shine yellow, inverted Amazon 'smile' logos, such that the smile is a frown. The remaining figure's head has been replaced with a horse's head. Behind the figure is an impatiently posed man in a sharp business suit, frowning at his watch. His head has been replaced with the ...
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pluralistic.net/2025/05/27/ran…

2/
> One actual therapist is just having ten chat GPT windows open where they just like have five seconds to interrupt the chatGPT. They have to scan them all and see if it says something really inappropriate. That's your job, to stop it.

3/
Read 98 tweets

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