I myself am a woman and pursuing my graduate studies in this field. There's no gender bias here in calling out flaws in work that's deeply technical. I have given similar reviews to some enormous claims put forward by my peers(men and women). I agree that person2 could have been more subtle on a public forum. But not even for a second did I associate a gender dimension until person1 brought it into the context.
Since we are talking history - with some search - I found out that Person1 has recently put out a #metoo experience and called out some incidents at Caltech. Don't you think there's not even a little bias here against every possible "person2" who happened to be a male and just gave a technical feedback? Not like that's an invalid statement. He does have valid points in what he said(just the way he said it might not have been ideal). But it escalated very quickly!
So, Person2 acknowledges the importance of Person1's work but then publicly passes judgment on the manner in which they presented it as a way of dismissing Person1's main point. Person1's behavior would be widely ridiculed and probably booed if this happened at a conference.
The more professional approach is to simply present one's case without commenting on the quality, style, or manner of the other's presentation.
No problem at all :) Thanks a lot for the info. I am actually looking for such realistic views about things to set a clear perspective on how to proceed forward. Will definitely look into that!
1. iOS reminders app for to-dos
2. google calendar for day to day tasks and meetings
3. Evernote for weekly, monthly and yearly progress(I should get a better tool for this)
Thanks! I have Masters in CS from a state uni(Have a thesis in Machine learning). Been in industry(FAANG) for 2 years as an ML engineer(I know that's not a great track to be in for research). But I am very much interested in getting into core research teams like FAIR / Google Research as a Research Scientist(trust me when I say that the teams set the bar very clearly with an entry minimum of phd though you are exceptional as an ML engineer and they are highly attached to certain unis too. That's reality). I am not in the 99th percentile with my grades though(3.5/4.0). I understand that's also an important factor with admissions. So I am working on boosting my profile up with some good pubs. Pointers?
A friend in scientific publishing tells me that China is in on the game.
Not wishing to say anything trade confidential, however, a major Western publishing house is having difficulty competing, the reason being turnaround speed. Try and get something published here and it takes a long time. Having a baby can be quicker.
Meanwhile in China you submit to your journal and you get it peer reviewed the following week and published shortly thereafter.
Try it, at least under the pretext of learning about how the world of scientific publishing works in the West as well as in China. Even if you do not get published there will be benefits in knowing what the score is.
Sorry I have no more details to share with you on the internal difficulties of the publishing business, there has been a lot of merger and acquisition activity going on as the business model is currently going through some pains.
It may seem disloyal going to get published by the underdog, however it isn't a biggie. Where do you think growth for journal subscriptions is coming from these days? China. The publishing community is gladly selling them 'our IP'.
Grades don't actually matter that much for admissions. The letters of recommendation are much more important, e.g. from the advisor that you did your thesis with.
Thank you for the pointers. How do PhD admissions look at self-publications? What are your thoughts on below two situations evaluated by the admissions committee at a good university(say MIT/Caltech)?
1. A strong LOR from a PI managing a known lab(but with few moderate pubs on my name) vs.
2. No great LORs but self-publishing one or two good papers(quantified with good number of citations and overall quality)
It's definitely better to have a strong LOR from a PI, even moreso from a PI at the school to which you're applying. "No great LORs but self-publishing" can be shortened to "no great LORs."
Why do you see these things as mutually exclusive? You could self-publish and use it as an "in" to working for a PI over the summer. If you do well and the PI likes you, they likely have a lot of sway with admissions and can help you get into whatever grad program they work with.
Disclaimer: Never applied/went to grad school but know many people who did... I've seen the strategy I described work at a high tier school.
In most schools, PhD admissions are mostly decided by the profs you'd be working for, and they are well-equipped to judge papers on their contents, not where they're published. They may also assign papers to their grad students (your future colleagues) to read and rank. In either case, they're being read by people who know the literature and hope to find people they'll be able to do good work with.
I myself don't put much faith in LoRs unless they're from someone I know pretty well. Other people differ.
If you're sure you can produce a good paper, I think that's better than a LoR. But research can be hit-or-miss.
Your self-published paper on arXiv is not going to get great (lots of) citations. Being a sole basement genius yet doing work that will be noticed by mainstream academia doesn't exist (any more). Even for grad students it's hard finding subjects and angles om them that are publishable.
papers in top journals/conferences supervene everything but let's be realistic: if you're asking here you're probably not publishing in nature/annals/nips etc so unless there's something else exceptional about you (that you're publishing in mediocre journals as a high school student) LORs would carry more weight.
You are right :) If I had something that's good enough that it gets through nature then it's a different game altogether. But let's say even if you had something that was good enough to be published in Nature, what are the chances that it will get through if I directly send it in myself as a single author?(do they even accept such submissions?)
If you had something that good I'd find someone on twitter or locally who would read it and if it was good send it to someone they knew who could help get it published. And if they thought it was good they could forward it on to people. Basically building up a chain of trust via vouching.
Since we are talking history - with some search - I found out that Person1 has recently put out a #metoo experience and called out some incidents at Caltech. Don't you think there's not even a little bias here against every possible "person2" who happened to be a male and just gave a technical feedback? Not like that's an invalid statement. He does have valid points in what he said(just the way he said it might not have been ideal). But it escalated very quickly!