A dissenting voice from the positive reception here on HN, I thought that this paper was a joke. Single author, no affiliation, snarky language. Why not be civil instead?
I'd say that all of these are factors that don't add or detract from the value of the paper itself - it's a "hey I tried this and it works ok despite not going in the obvious direction". So, limited experiments but IMO competently done and with usable information.
It's a pity that all papers nowadays have a gazillion authors, from well-funded research labs, with as-dry-as-possible language that hides the real research behind a "we knew this all along rather than figuring it out along the way" facade. OTOH that's what you get in a large fairly mature research field, where most competent people get hired by research labs and then do lots of collaborative research that scales well and subsequently need to show publication counts to secure further funding.
Its a shame that professionalism and showing personality are so at odds all over the place, from papers to the workplace. For the most part, professional has aligned with formal. It's clear why, but still sad :(
While informal, I do not think his tone lacked civility.
I strongly prefer papers written in this style. Not only are they more enjoyable to read, but they are often easier to understand and more geniune as well. Papers written in a formal style often obscure the real motivation and instead provide a fancy-sounding retroactive justification. It makes the authors feel smarter, and I guess some readers feel smarter as well, but it belies the reality of research.
What’s wrong with single authorship and no affiliation?
At the end of the day, if the paper proposes some idea or method, and achieves the stated claims (with reproducible code), then I don’t care who wrote it, how many authors there were, and who the authors work for.
I'll second this. The style is clunky and reads as though the author were trying too hard to make every sentence entertaining which mostly detracts from the work. I know Stephen Merity is a serious researcher and the content here is legit given his body of work. But the style /prose in this preprint reminded me a lot of the some of garbage Siraj Raval peddled. Again, to reiterate, I am not commenting on the substance, only the style.
I'd say that all of these are factors that don't add or detract from the value of the paper itself - it's a "hey I tried this and it works ok despite not going in the obvious direction". So, limited experiments but IMO competently done and with usable information.
It's a pity that all papers nowadays have a gazillion authors, from well-funded research labs, with as-dry-as-possible language that hides the real research behind a "we knew this all along rather than figuring it out along the way" facade. OTOH that's what you get in a large fairly mature research field, where most competent people get hired by research labs and then do lots of collaborative research that scales well and subsequently need to show publication counts to secure further funding.