Research as leisure activity

https://www.personalcanon.com/p/research-as-leisure-activity

by gmays • 2 years ago

189 36 2 years ago

Sakos3• 2 years ago

I'm sort of disappointed that this isn't actually about research as leisure activity. I love to learn about topics in-depth, which will entail going through all kinds of literature and scientific papers to see what We've collectively learned about a particular topic. It's basically my replacement for reading novels in my free time. I guess it's not real research in an academic sense, but I try my best to be thorough and systematically go through the papers in detail (more or less, since in the end reading and learning to read papers is an art that can be practiced and refined).

runeblaze• 2 years ago

Reading papers is absolutely part of academic research. The other part is probably producing things and submitting to journals/conferences advancing things based on what one has read (and hopefully having a day job that pays for the publication fees and travel fees...)

Sakos3• 2 years ago

Yes, definitely. But I feel doing research is more associated either with the fringe that is anti-science or academics who are actually doing science and publishing papers. I'm under no illusion that I'm doing anything akin to what a scientist does, but I also don't mean "doing my own research" as some shorthand for being skeptical of all the world's news media and the scientific establishment.

magneticnorth• 2 years ago

It does start out touting a particular piece of software, but the last section, "What does doing research for leisure mean?" does go into research as a leisure activity, and the author promises more posts on the topic in the future.

I'm with you, I really enjoy learning just for the sake of learning and feel very lucky that I get to live now, when there is almost always a rich lode of existing research that I can read on almost any topic that strikes my curiosity.

JohnFen3• 2 years ago

when there is almost always a rich lode of existing research

Yes!

And it highlights how people these days aren't any smarter than the people in times gone by. We just have a greater pile of existing knowledge to mine.

JohnFen3• 2 years ago

I, too, love doing in-depth research of things as a recreational activity. Particularly things that are outside of my sphere of competency.

I also end up writing essays about what I've discovered, basically as a means of having some sort of "goal" for the research.

cableshaft• 2 years ago

Where do you like to go to find and read those research papers? I've been curious about this off and on but don't really know where to hunt down papers beyond the ocassional random one I get linked to.

Rediscover• 2 years ago

It used to be the nearest university (especially if they have an adjoining curriculum), sometimes a local business. Don't be afraid of microfiche for older pubs. Don't be afraid to introduce yourself.

I still find libraries pretty useful while simultaneously being amazed at the quantity of papers online - I have found papers I would have nearly killed for decades ago now online at faculty pages of my favorite researchers. I'm guessing online is better for most, especially when coupled with browsing faculty pages for the author of your random linked papers. Also, look for citations listings that include authors of papers You like (it's printed and at your local research/eng lib for older obscure authors).

Before Eternal September and still today (though maybe less?), sending an intro email to someone that is studying a subject You are interested in is often useful (possibly better for niches). I'm guilty of not responding in a timely manner.

Probably Semi-OT: look at some indexes for CoEvolution Quarterly.

Sakos3• 2 years ago

I generally use sci-hub to get any paper I want to read. It's not quite legal, but I feel locking the world's knowledge behind paywalls is so immoral that I honestly do it with some measure of satisfaction.

gessha• 2 years ago

You are doing research, it’s just the first stage of it. From a computer vision perspective, the steps are

1) pick up a topic 2) do a literature review 3) establish a baseline and state of the art 4) improve upon model until you beat state of the art or find something interesting and unusual 5) publish

mistermann• 2 years ago

Very interesting, this seems like a potential source of great power.

fuzzfactor• 2 years ago

It did so for some of the "gentleman scientists" of previous centuries.

wslh• 2 years ago

At [1] the first chapter is "The Computer Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet". I think it continues to be valid, we are currently amazed about AI but we need to keep our eyes open for more.

[1] https://www.rheingold.com/texts/tft/01.html#Chap01

nico3• 2 years ago

Are there publications for “research as a leisure activity”?

Somewhere where I can read what “amateurs” are researching in their free time?

There’s a few channels I follow on YouTube, but they all seem to be living off of the content they produce

I’m curious about communities of people with scientific inclinations, doing experiments of interesting things “at home”

t_mann• 2 years ago

You seem to equate research as a leisure activity with amateur research. If you read 'leisure' simply as 'outside your main, bread-earning job', then it absolutely can be cutting edge research published in peer-reviewed outlets. It's not even that uncommon, look for people who have a university affiliation (that isn't just teaching) as a side gig. And that's just one way you could be pursing serious research outside your main job, you don't even need a university affiliation - it's certainly helpful with access to resources, feedback, ideas (and, let's be honest, it probably helps with visibility/credibility too), but it's not strictly necessary. As a different example, there are some (rare) examples where legitimate mathematical results were discovered by hobbyists going completely on their own. I also remember a documentary about a crew of retirees, including former physics professors and a precision mechanics engineer, who were performing physics experiments of masses at extremely low accelerations to test some limits of special relativity iirc - which in itself was technically the result of 'leisure research', like several of Einstein's most famous discoveries.

If it's something you're interested in, my suggestion would be to decide on a rough area and then seek out experts to brainstorm ideas for a suitable problem for you to work on, maybe one that leverages your existing skills in a creative way (like the engineer in the above example).

gehwartzen• 2 years ago

look for people who have a university affiliation (that isn't just teaching) as a side gig.

Can you expand on this? Like people who have full time jobs in perhaps a different field but do research on the side using the facilities/resources of a university? If so how does one slide into a gig like that?

agonz253• 2 years ago

Since you mentioned Einstein, it reminded me of a comment by Max Born on the subject, from the Born-Einstein letters:

“Einstein expressed over and over again the thought that one should not couple the quest for knowledge with a bread-and-butter profession, but that research should be done as a private spare-time occupation. He himself wrote the first of his great treatises while earning his living as an employee of the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. He believed that only in this way could one preserve one's independence. What he did not consider, however, was the organizational rigidity of almost all professions, and the importance which individual members of a profession attach to their work. No professional pride could develop without it. To be able successfully to practice science as a hobby, one has to be an Einstein.”

jbiggley• 2 years ago

I do research as a hobby. It resulted in a published data set and news article that was picked up by global media outlets. The article led to a documentary.

And, I just keep doing the research because I love the research part of it. I find it relaxing and it allows me to stretch my tech skills at the same time.

pclmulqdq3• 2 years ago

I have contributed to and written 4 papers "for fun," and have another one going through review. GP seems to want to do it for the prestige marker (the publication), but that publication on its own is kind of worthless. The quality and enjoyment of the research is what matters.

giraffe_lady• 2 years ago

When I was cooking professionally I was pretty serious about it, and one thing that was really striking was that almost all of the good research done about food processes was in response to the needs of large-scale commercial food producers. There are still quite routine kitchen processes that are incompletely understood and not under active research, because they are of no interest to the industrial food system that drives most of the research.

In a totally different vein, there are alternative & traditional sailboat riggings that have no value to race sailors for tightly constrained performance reasons, and have been completely abandoned by production boat builders. The optimal configuration of sail surface and control lines for these rigs on modern hulls is actively researched by amateurs, sometimes with quite a lot of rigor.

Someone I know is an orchardist with an interest in historical/regional pear varietals. Most of them don't stand up well to shipping and so are commercially unviable, but he communicates with a loose network of other similarly interested growers, exchanging information about growing conditions, pests, and results specific to these fruits.

I'm sure there are many many other examples, these are just some that I'm aware of. I don't think there's a single place where this sort of thing happens, I doubt most practitioners even think of themselves as participating in research per se separate from their specific interest.

pclmulqdq3• 2 years ago

Yes, every journal in the world will happily accept "research as a leisure activity" if your paper is high enough quality. The quality bar is somewhat higher than if you are in the academic-industrial complex (like it or not, people can recognize authors by writing style even on blind review), but you are able to do and get through peer review as an independent researcher.

Be prepared to be underwhelmed if you are doing it for the publication, though. Most published papers don't lead to anything. Do the research for fun, and publish to share your results. Actually, if you are a small "research for fun" shop, you can target tier 2 journals and conferences, and you will run into an enthusiastic community of people in your subfield.

Of course, this depends on knowing how to do new research, write research papers, and talk to peer reviewers. That is the bigger barrier to entry.

vjk800• 2 years ago

I'd argue that iNaturalist counts as a leisure research community. It's a platform for tracking animal and plant species and sharing your findings with others. Of course most people who use it don't produce publications or any other conventional outputs of academic research, but still they are participating in researching the ecological communities that are present everywhere.

nico3• 2 years ago

Thank you! Yes, this is very much along the lines of what I was imagining

Now I wonder if there are other communities like that one, but around other topics

mark_l_watson• 2 years ago

That is a beautiful article, but if you are time constrained skip 1/4 down to the definition of research as leisure activity.

I felt like the author was describing me in the paragraph: “”” I’d also say that pretty much every writer, essayist, “cultural critic,” etc—especially someone who’s writing more as a vocation than a profession—has research as their leisure activity. What they do for pleasure (reading books, seeing films, listening to music) shades naturally and inevitably into what they want to write about, and the things they consume for leisure end up incorporated into some written work.”””

greekanalyst• 2 years ago

We need a radical recalibration/rethink of what research is and how it should be done in the 21st century.

There are way too many gatekeepers, far too little creativity and a lot of manufactured noise.

natpalmer1776• 2 years ago

If things had gone slightly differently for me, I would be a neuro-psychiatric medical researcher right now instead of a programmer. As it stands I write code to pay bills because I lacked the money to go to college, and (thankfully) the experience necessary to know how to get the student loans necessary to pay for any of the pre-med programs I was accepted to.

Having lived past the age of 25 and feeling my mind settle down I can say with the utmost confidence I would make a terrible researcher. I'm far too erratic and emotionally invested in my ideas, among many other personal traits I've come to acknowledge.

HOWEVER, if I had been able to pay for college, I would have pursued an academic career because that's what everyone said you should do as I went through the public school system.

Which of course makes me wonder how many people are writing papers and performing research because that's just what you do when you're smart and how many are actually adept at performing research and conducting scientific experimentation?

freilanzer• 2 years ago

Has anyone used are.na? It's mentioned in the first paragraph.

craftuser• 2 years ago

One of the things that stands in the way of this (for me) is that I've been out of academia for nearly ten years. I never even got verified for submitting CS pre-prints https://arxiv.org/ for example, which I should have done before leaving school.

Research as leisure activity

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