Progress

In a post two years ago I discussed how difficult it was to find good tools for editing scientific texts by multiple authors simultaneously.  As there is a great demand for this functionality it does not come to a surprise that the situation has improved considerably. I will describe two solutions here that in our group we now use on a daily base.

Read more... (496 words, 1 image, estimated 1:59 minutes reading time)

Some time ago I was asked by Oxford University Press to write an article for their Library Magazine about which document format is better: pdf or xml. I defended pdf and following is my text. Martin Fenner defended xml. You can download both contributions as pdf file (!) here.

Read more... (437 words, 2 images, estimated 1:45 minutes reading time)

Much more has been said about the failure of current grant system than that has actually changed. My favorite opinion piece is this one by Peter A. Lawrence. The single-sentence abstract says it all: “The granting system turns young scientists into bureaucrats and then betrays them.” There are a couple of suggestions for improving the funding distribution in that article but the title of a comment by Markus Noll says enough about why nothing is changing: “Scientists in power will never change their system unless forced.”

Read more... (434 words, 1 image, estimated 1:44 minutes reading time)