Since I haven't posted too many pictures lately and since a white Christmas is not that common anymore, here proof of snow on the 25th of December 2010 ;)
Monday, January 10, 2011
Re-re-re-revised revision
Found this while cleaning up my e-mail account:
Sample Cover Letter for Journal Manuscript Resubmissions by Roy F.
Baumeister
Dear Sir, Madame, or Other:
Enclosed is our latest version of Ms # 85-02-22-RRRRR, that is, the
re-re-re-revised revision of our paper. Choke on it. We have again
rewritten the entire manuscript from start to finish. We even changed
the goddamn running head! Hopefully we have suffered enough by now to satisfy even you and your bloodthirsty reviewers.
I shall skip the usual point-by-point description of every single change
we made in response to the critiques. After all, it is fairly clear that
your reviewers are less interested in details of scientific procedure
than in working out their personality problems and sexual frustrations
by seeking some kind of demented glee in the sadistic and arbitrary
exercise of tyrannical power over helpless authors like ourselves who
happen to fall into their clutches. We do understand that, in view of
the misanthropic psychopaths you have on your editorial board, you need to keep sending them papers, for if they weren't reviewing manuscripts they'd probably be out mugging old ladies or clubbing baby seals to death. Still, from this batch of reviewers, C was clearly the most hostile, and we request that you not ask him or her to review this revision. Indeed, we have mailed letter bombs to four or five people we suspected of being reviewer C, so if you send the manuscript back to them the review process could be unduly delayed.
Some of the reviewers' comments we couldn't do anything about. For example, if (as review C suggested) several of my recent ancestors were indeed drawn from other species, it is too late to change that. Other suggestions were implemented, however, and the paper has improved and benefited. Thus, you suggested that we shorten the manuscript by 5 pages, and we were able to accomplish this very effectively by altering the margins and printing the paper in a different font with a smaller typeface. We agree with you that the paper is much better this way.
One perplexing problem was dealing with suggestions #13-28 by Reviewer B. As you may recall (that is, if you even bother reading the reviews before doing your decision letter), that reviewer listed 16 works that he/she felt we should cite in this paper. These were on a variety of different topics, none of which had any relevance to our work that we could see. Indeed, one was an essay on the Spanish-American War from a high school literary magazine. The only common thread was that all 16 were by the same author, presumably someone whom Reviewer B greatly admires and feels should be more widely cited. To handle this, we have modified the Introduction and added, after the review of relevant literature, a subsection entitled "Review of Irrelevant Literature" that discusses these articles and also duly addresses some of the more asinine suggestions in the other reviews.
We hope that you will be pleased with this revision and will finally recognize how urgently deserving of publication this work is. If not, then you are an unscrupulous, depraved monster with no shred of human decency. You ought to be in a cage. May whatever heritage you come from be the butt of the next round of ethnic jokes. If you do accept it, however, we wish to thank you for your patience and wisdom throughout this process and to express our appreciation of your scholarly insights. To repay you, we would be happy to review some manuscripts for you;
please send us the next manuscript that any of these reviewers submits to your journal.
Assuming you accept this paper, we would also like to add a footnote
acknowledging your help with this manuscript and to point out that we
liked the paper much better the way we originally wrote it but you held
the editorial shotgun to our heads and forced us to chop, reshuffle,
restate, hedge, expand, shorten, and in general convert a meaty paper
into stir-fried vegetables. We couldn't, or wouldn't, have done it
without your input.
Sincerely,
...
Sample Cover Letter for Journal Manuscript Resubmissions by Roy F.
Baumeister
Dear Sir, Madame, or Other:
Enclosed is our latest version of Ms # 85-02-22-RRRRR, that is, the
re-re-re-revised revision of our paper. Choke on it. We have again
rewritten the entire manuscript from start to finish. We even changed
the goddamn running head! Hopefully we have suffered enough by now to satisfy even you and your bloodthirsty reviewers.
I shall skip the usual point-by-point description of every single change
we made in response to the critiques. After all, it is fairly clear that
your reviewers are less interested in details of scientific procedure
than in working out their personality problems and sexual frustrations
by seeking some kind of demented glee in the sadistic and arbitrary
exercise of tyrannical power over helpless authors like ourselves who
happen to fall into their clutches. We do understand that, in view of
the misanthropic psychopaths you have on your editorial board, you need to keep sending them papers, for if they weren't reviewing manuscripts they'd probably be out mugging old ladies or clubbing baby seals to death. Still, from this batch of reviewers, C was clearly the most hostile, and we request that you not ask him or her to review this revision. Indeed, we have mailed letter bombs to four or five people we suspected of being reviewer C, so if you send the manuscript back to them the review process could be unduly delayed.
Some of the reviewers' comments we couldn't do anything about. For example, if (as review C suggested) several of my recent ancestors were indeed drawn from other species, it is too late to change that. Other suggestions were implemented, however, and the paper has improved and benefited. Thus, you suggested that we shorten the manuscript by 5 pages, and we were able to accomplish this very effectively by altering the margins and printing the paper in a different font with a smaller typeface. We agree with you that the paper is much better this way.
One perplexing problem was dealing with suggestions #13-28 by Reviewer B. As you may recall (that is, if you even bother reading the reviews before doing your decision letter), that reviewer listed 16 works that he/she felt we should cite in this paper. These were on a variety of different topics, none of which had any relevance to our work that we could see. Indeed, one was an essay on the Spanish-American War from a high school literary magazine. The only common thread was that all 16 were by the same author, presumably someone whom Reviewer B greatly admires and feels should be more widely cited. To handle this, we have modified the Introduction and added, after the review of relevant literature, a subsection entitled "Review of Irrelevant Literature" that discusses these articles and also duly addresses some of the more asinine suggestions in the other reviews.
We hope that you will be pleased with this revision and will finally recognize how urgently deserving of publication this work is. If not, then you are an unscrupulous, depraved monster with no shred of human decency. You ought to be in a cage. May whatever heritage you come from be the butt of the next round of ethnic jokes. If you do accept it, however, we wish to thank you for your patience and wisdom throughout this process and to express our appreciation of your scholarly insights. To repay you, we would be happy to review some manuscripts for you;
please send us the next manuscript that any of these reviewers submits to your journal.
Assuming you accept this paper, we would also like to add a footnote
acknowledging your help with this manuscript and to point out that we
liked the paper much better the way we originally wrote it but you held
the editorial shotgun to our heads and forced us to chop, reshuffle,
restate, hedge, expand, shorten, and in general convert a meaty paper
into stir-fried vegetables. We couldn't, or wouldn't, have done it
without your input.
Sincerely,
...
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Happy New Year!
Yes, I'm a little late but I would also like to take the opportunity to wish everybody a successful and especially healthy year 2011. Actually I had similar thoughts like the ones expressed in the quote below.
"New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that coome with thte coming of drakness on other nights." ~Hamilton Wright Mabie
For some reason, humans need this repetitive celebration at a random time once set by some of our ancestors (of course not completely random since our planet travels around the sun in approximately that time). But we could as well celebrate the new year in the middle of summer or in March or any other month. Or we could celebrate the beginning of every single day. Then we could also wish each other a happy new day, we could have new day's resolutions which may be more realistic than the plans we have at the beginning of a year and which we will have forgotten by the end of January. Maybe we could live in the moment instead of the past or the future and every day could be special. Maybe we would succeed to seize the day instead of following the monotonous daily routine while forgetting which day of the week and which week of the month we have.
So I wish you 365 happy new days, that most days may be successful and special to you and a lot of strength and support for the demanding, unhappy, tough days we all have to survive as well.
Or expressing it in the words of Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BC - 8 BC) commonly known as Horace:
Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.
"Pluck the day, putting as little trust as possible in the future"
which have become even more famous due to being quoted in the " Dead Poet's Society" (an extraordinary and excellent film in my opinion).
"New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that coome with thte coming of drakness on other nights." ~Hamilton Wright Mabie
For some reason, humans need this repetitive celebration at a random time once set by some of our ancestors (of course not completely random since our planet travels around the sun in approximately that time). But we could as well celebrate the new year in the middle of summer or in March or any other month. Or we could celebrate the beginning of every single day. Then we could also wish each other a happy new day, we could have new day's resolutions which may be more realistic than the plans we have at the beginning of a year and which we will have forgotten by the end of January. Maybe we could live in the moment instead of the past or the future and every day could be special. Maybe we would succeed to seize the day instead of following the monotonous daily routine while forgetting which day of the week and which week of the month we have.
So I wish you 365 happy new days, that most days may be successful and special to you and a lot of strength and support for the demanding, unhappy, tough days we all have to survive as well.
Or expressing it in the words of Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BC - 8 BC) commonly known as Horace:
Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.
"Pluck the day, putting as little trust as possible in the future"
which have become even more famous due to being quoted in the " Dead Poet's Society" (an extraordinary and excellent film in my opinion).
Monday, September 6, 2010
PhD
I knew it! They've been pulling my leg.
WHAT PHD REALLY STANDS FOR
P h D
Patiently hoping for a Degree
Piled higher and Deeper (after BS = Bull..., MS = More of the Same...)
Professorship? hah! Dream on!
Please hire. Desperate.
Physiologically Deficient
Pour him (or her) a Drink
Philosophically Disturbed
Probably headed for Divorce
Pathetically hopeless Dweeb
Probably heavily in Debt
Parents have Doubts
Professors had Doubts
Pheromone Deprived
Probably hard to Describe
Patiently headed Downhill...
Permanent head Damage
Pulsating heaving Disaster?
Pretty homely Dork
Potential heavy Drinker
Professional hamburger Dispenser... "Would you like fries with that?"
WHAT PHD REALLY STANDS FOR
P h D
Patiently hoping for a Degree
Piled higher and Deeper (after BS = Bull..., MS = More of the Same...)
Professorship? hah! Dream on!
Please hire. Desperate.
Physiologically Deficient
Pour him (or her) a Drink
Philosophically Disturbed
Probably headed for Divorce
Pathetically hopeless Dweeb
Probably heavily in Debt
Parents have Doubts
Professors had Doubts
Pheromone Deprived
Probably hard to Describe
Patiently headed Downhill...
Permanent head Damage
Pulsating heaving Disaster?
Pretty homely Dork
Potential heavy Drinker
Professional hamburger Dispenser... "Would you like fries with that?"
Friday, August 27, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
How do they know that?
" I didn't doubt the correctness of the information for an instant - I still tend to trust the pronouncements of scientist in the way I trust those of surgeons, plumber, and other possessors of arcane and privilaged information - but I couldn't for the life of me conceive how any human mind could work out what spaces thousands of miles below us, that no eye had ever seen and no X-ray could penetrate could look like and be made of. To me that was just a miracle. That has been my position with science ever since. "
Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dear Bill,
the answer is very simple. Nobody knows. The fact that scientists claim to know doesn't actually imply that they do. Today, science is like business - you manage to sell your product and you can make people believe that our planet is expanding, that the inner core is empty space or whatever you are convinced is the truth. You're not selling - bad luck- why should anybody believe you. Even worse - industry will believe the scientists who promise profit - who cares about the evaluation of the facts anymore?
So where is the purist believe in science today? There is none - science is bullshitting crap just in order to publish something because that is all that matters - quantity not quality.
Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dear Bill,
the answer is very simple. Nobody knows. The fact that scientists claim to know doesn't actually imply that they do. Today, science is like business - you manage to sell your product and you can make people believe that our planet is expanding, that the inner core is empty space or whatever you are convinced is the truth. You're not selling - bad luck- why should anybody believe you. Even worse - industry will believe the scientists who promise profit - who cares about the evaluation of the facts anymore?
So where is the purist believe in science today? There is none - science is bullshitting crap just in order to publish something because that is all that matters - quantity not quality.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
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