| I think you misread and/or misinterpreted OP's point and then jumped on a smug rant on a topic that was honestly quite irrelevant. Later came these repeated and almost manic allegations of some secret cabal of MODs (using your capitalization) who are after you. And then the repeated claims that the wretched lot of ungrateful CS profs should justly suffer, now that they do not have your help to drag them out of their wretched mess. It would also help if you could be less dramatic please. No, even though you think so, it is not really a "scandal". Though I downvoted you for your tone, for sounding too full of yourself, harping on personal issues that I think were irrelevant and for your unfounded insistence about personal persecution, I have to admit that the puerile delusion of grandeur on display was mildly amusing and continues to amuse me. FYI I am just a random unregular on HN. No MOD this. You complained that downvoters did not leave explanatory comments, well, your tone does not really encourage that behavior. Remember it is always a tradeoff. People will evaluate whether it is worth enough to engage in the discussion. Your so called "help" amounted to a rant about your knowledge about measure theory and anecdotes about how you got yourself published, what I gather in journals, and the ignorance and/or the lack of background of the editors/reviewers (I gather) in continuous math. Its great that you have learned some measure theory and real analysis. But assertions of the like, if I may put it in my own words, "I know measure theory. Learn about conditional expectation and Radon-Nikodym theorem and Shannon's work you bumbling fools" does not exactly constitute help or a contribution or as you put it "I did a great service to some lost CS profs". On other hand if you can show that your favorite Neveu calculus can be proved sound according to some computable logic, that would indeed be helpful. Dont let your knowledge in continuous math let you believe that it has never occurred to computer theorists to "mathematize" CS. Computer science (as opposed to engineering or practice) is after all a branch of mathematics. The major chunk of real analysis cant be used in CS because no one yet has a proof that it is sound. Non standard analysis is field that is developing tools so that those concepts can be built ground up keeping computability and soundness in mind. As you have passive aggressively conjectured, a lot indeed has changed in the last 5~6 years in CS publishing and publishing in journals and conferences are a lot different. For example, to follow up on your own example, you wouldn't have had a chance to address the editor or reviewers queries in a conference. This is regardless of whose deficiency it was, such a submission will just get dropped and in the competitive conferences it takes no more than one less than flattering review to ensure a rejection. |
His "point" was not clear: What was more important in the article, that there was a Google+ community discussing some "problems" or the "problems" he listed of concern to that community?
The leading problem listed was difficulty in getting published, and I suggested a way to get published: Do well on "new, correct, and significant" and, in particular, 'mathematize' the field.
Responding to that "problem" was fully appropriate.
In more detail, one of the best ways to mathematize CS is more in probability, especially as it connects with 'information'. It does connect; trust me on that one.
That was a good and helpful suggestion and should have been welcome.
> Later came these repeated and almost manic allegations of some secret cabal of MODs (using your capitalization) who are after you.
There's a LOT of evidence that some MODs are angry with me and for the past month or so have been attacking me personally. For several reasons I've listed on this thread, much of the downvoting had to be from MODs. Apparently HN is a PG PC sandbox, and MODs will downvote anything they feel violates the PC norms of HN and do so without responding.
PG won't respond to deny this.
I would have been a fool to ignore the clear evidence that I was being attacked and a wuss not to defend myself. It's a scandal for HN, and PG has not responded.
On another user ID I was 'hell banned' here at HN.
Today I finally responded in plain terms to defend myself. If by defending myself I get banned from HN, then so be it. But for now the HN community will see that HN attacks some users personally.
I tried to help CS researchers get published. My claim, easy enough to understand, is that the research paradigm of CS is largely bankrupt, and my recommendation is to further mathematize the field. They are in a "wretched mess" if only from their statement of their "problem".
> puerile delusion of grandeur on display was mildly amusing and continues to amuse me
Insulting nonsense. There is no delusion involved. I was quite apparently attacked and have been several times for about a month now. It's personal, not technical or anything else.
> if I may put it in my own words
My own words for my own statement were much more appropriate: To repeat, CS is close to 'information technology', and there 'information' should be taken seriously mathematically. The R-N theorem is one important approach.
The "lack of background" of the Editors in Chief and chaired professors of computer science was surprising and shocking. I used some group theory and probability based on measure theory and got a new family of statistical hypothesis tests both multidimensional and distribution-free and applied them to ASAP detection of anomalies in server farms and networks, a good CS problem, and bluntly too much of the best of the CS community couldn't handle the math.
So, there is a big, huge gap between some of the best of current CS and what it would take to do at all well applying some 'modern probability' to some CS problems. Due to this gap, my suggestion to learn the math is appropriate and should be seen as helpful.
In simple terms, if a student wants a research career in CS, then as an undergraduate it is much more important for them to major in math than CS. And likely similarly at the Master's level. That is a surprising point but potentially quite helpful and should be welcome.
"On other hand if you can show that your favorite Neveu calculus can be proved sound according to some computable logic, that would indeed be helpful."
Nonsense. Neveu is based just on set theory, axiomatic set theory if you wish, the foundations as in Bourbaki if you wish, or P. Suppes, essentially the same as all of math for the past 100 years or so. For the importance of that material, there is nothing anyone should have to "prove". 'Computability' is not directly relevant.
> For example, to follow up on your own example, ... such a submission will just get dropped
I never had a submission dropped in the sense of 'rejected'. For the paper in question, I sent copies to some journals and just asked if they would like a formal submission. Some journal Editors in Chief said that their journal couldn't review the math. With one such I wrote tutorials before he gave up. So, I didn't make a formal submission and, thus, never got rejected or "dropped".
One journal welcomed a formal submission, and we went forward. They had problems getting reviewers who could read the paper, and reluctantly I suggested a qualified friend who did a good review. Eventually the Editor gave up, and for more reviews apparently the Editor in Chief walked the paper around his campus, had the CS guys say the problem was good and had some math guys say the math was good, and the paper was accepted, in an archival journal. I was invited to present the paper at a conference but declined. I just wanted to publish the thing and be done with it; I had no desire to go to a conference.
It's clear: In being mathematized, the CS community is very short on the needed math. I'm sure it's happened before, e.g., Hamming and the start of coding theory based on finite field theory, likely poorly known in the CS community then. For a researcher with the math, there are important CS problems that can be solved fairly easily just sitting there and, thus, are good research opportunities.
E.g., in Feller II is renewal theory, and it has some obvious applications to a lot that goes on in a server farm or network. For more, in Neveu is martingale theory, and there is one of the strongest inequalities in math (knock off the strong law of large numbers in one line) and more, and it's easy to find martingales in nearly any stochastic system. Should be able to get some nice, new, strong inequalities in many algorithms and processes important in CS. There's plenty that can be done with stochastic optimal control. There are the applications of 'machine learning', that is, statistics done very badly, and can solve the problems much better with statistics done well.
For the paper I wrote, there's much more that could be done; one could run off a dozen or so papers as a 'stream' in roughly the same direction by changing some of the assumptions better to fit various real situations.
So, sure, I'm suggesting some 'field crossing', long known to be a good approach to 'innovation'.
Moreover I'm suggesting exploiting some of the best, rock solid math of the last century. So this is a very sound, conservative suggestion.
That the CS community is very short on this math is a big point and a good research direction for anyone wanting to publish in CS.
Indeed, as is painfully obvious, CS has been taking intuitive and heuristic approaches far too seriously and neglecting solid math approaches. This situation makes CS look dumb, but the flip side is a terrific opportunity.
Again, with the right math from the last century, now should be able to knock off important CS problems by the dozens like shooting fish in a barrel.
HN and you don't like this remark. Fine with me.
I tried to offer some help, but you don't want to hear it and want to criticize me for offering. Fine: I won't offer. I've already deleted the post.
With your remark on 'computability', there's no more reason to respond to you.
I wrote a good post. The CS community lost out.
Can lead a horse to water but can't make him drink.
WHAT a MESS.