I wonder if this was inspired by a recent xkcd?
At text: People may complain about readability, but even with jpeg compression, extracting the data points is usually computationally feasible if there aren’t too many of them.
Radical Equality
Submitted 8 months ago by morrowind@lemmy.ml to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/610103c9-c201-45b5-a325-cf203b44c489.png
Comments
WeirdAlex03@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Alue42@kbin.social 8 months ago
Maybe for the way in which they are layering them, but I'm pretty sure the reasoning behind it is inspired by content that has been made into comics for quite some time, for example
morrowind@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
Not only is this paper real: arxiv.org/pdf/2304.01393.pdf
But they actually made it practical:
We have implemented two ways to reveal the actual names present in an overlapping stack, when viewing a PDF file on a computer.
First, hovering over the stacked names should pop up a tooltip with the authors listed in their original order, as shown in Figure 1.
This feature works on many desktop PDF viewers (e.g., Acrobat, Evince, Firefox, VSCode), but notably not Chrome, Edge, Safari, or MacOS Preview. It also does not work on mobile devices we tested (probably because they lack a natural notion of “hovering”).
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 8 months ago
That doesn’t sound very practical at all.
All it’s done is force you to read a tooltip. Which is an awful idea. The tooltips still create a first-author situation, so now your forced to screw around with a tooltip for…. Nothing.
morrowind@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
I mean, relatively practical. Just the fact that they actually made an effort. It’s not much different from having it in a footnote
alehc@slrpnk.net 8 months ago
Easy fix (for html). Just embed js to randomly shuffle the order of the authors every time you hover or something.
MBM@lemmings.world 8 months ago
I think the point is to recognise a paper by its author blob so you don’t end up needing the tooltip that much (they talk about it in the paper) I’m not really convinced that it’s worth it, but they did think it through.
grue@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Hmm… it’s not working for me in either Firefox or Okular.
facow@hexbear.net 8 months ago
And the authors are father and son!
mokus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
Now whoever has the longest name has an advantage
rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 8 months ago
International collaboration with Spaniards and Hispanics instantly drops to 0.
667@kbin.social 8 months ago
Every paper comes with an author appendix as cut-out scrabble tiles so readers assemble the names in the order they prefer.
capital@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I honestly didn’t know if this was serious at first…
ThoGot@lemm.ee 8 months ago
It’s funny
mister_monster@monero.town 8 months ago
I thought we already did authorship in alphabetical order so as to avoid any implied hierarchy?
lugal@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
That’s just Adams supremacy
drailin@kbin.social 8 months ago
I thought I was hot shit with a low-priority B name, but the Adams in my collaboration showed me just how truly mid I am. If he wasn't on my dissertation committee... and also a cool dude... and a good scientist..., I would have some choice words for him!
MBM@lemmings.world 8 months ago
They talk about alphabetical order in the introduction, you can see a bit of it in the screenshot. It feels just slightly unfair because you’ll always get Adams et al. and never Zimmer et al.
SquirrelX@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I may be missing the point, but why not instead list names in whatever order, but clarify who contributed what.
jagungal@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Order matters in academia whether the authors want it to or not. Other academics will look at the order of the authors and make judgements based on that, so you’d have to specify something like “authors listed alphabetically”.
Inky@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
In math and (theoretical) physics alphabetical is the presumed norm.
callyral@pawb.social 8 months ago
My idea: have it so every time the document is opened the names are randomly scrambled. I don’t think this would work with PDF or on paper but it’s a fun idea
JoYo@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
I do the same but with all the words.
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 8 months ago
Are you the guy that reviewed the rat testicle paper?
gens@programming.dev 8 months ago
PDF can… embed javascript. So, sadly it is possible.
grue@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It wouldn’t work with PDF, but probably would work with Postscript (being that it’s Turing-complete).
(I say “probably” because I don’t know for a fact that Postscript’s API has a
randomfunction.)brisk@aussie.zone 8 months ago
You can embed javaascript or 3D objects in PDF, surely you can reorder some words
mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
That has to be the furthest possible opposite from what PDF is for.