Media Consumption & Cost

[Utisz]

Scientific journals can be very expensive if you not an academic at a university. Even universities are constantly reducing journal access to save money, which is a roadblock to science. If you want a subscription to all the major science journal publishers (Springer, Elsevier etc) then it costs tens of thousands a year. This is why most research is done by indentured academics and large corporates. I am neither, so must pay or find ways to get access that I will not go into but usually involve having some sort of university connection. For many years I lectured part-time or had honorary research fellowships for instance.

There is a change occurring though, with more and more open access journals. I publish all my own research open access as I believe in it, but there are issues around this too. It costs money and time to properly peer review and publish journals, and there is a whole industry now around 'predatory journals' where the authors pay a publication and the scrutiny of peer review is not what it should be. There are lists out there of them that academics must look out for lest they publish in one. What constitutes a predatory journal though is debated.

The EU now insists that papers published from projects it funds are open access, but there are multiple ways to do this. The authors can pay a fee to a traditional journal to make it open access (thousands of pounds) and a lot of tax money goes on this as academics want to go in journals with high impact factor to get their stats up. Some journals allow a different format to be placed on a portal like Research Gate, so people do not get to read the 'branded journal' but still get to access the research. Some allow a pre-print (prior to peer review version as submitted) to publish on a portal.

Then there are truly free, properly peer-reviewed open access journals. These rely on funding from somewhere (usually the university at which they are based), and time given by the editorial team. Peer reviewers do not get paid by any journals so no cost there. I like these and use them, but generally, they do not have high impact factors and are therefore not as prestigious.

The growers periodicals I read would be expensive cumulatively if I paid the sticker price, but most of them mil me a copy for free as I contribute articles every now and then.

It's the same in Computer Science, though the revolution is coming. The Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR) (an open access, no author fees, rigorous peer review, high impact factor, etc., etc., journal) has far surpassed the Springer and Elsevier journals for Machine Learning in terms of prestige, and many researchers in the area have committed to boycotting the traditional journals. They even told Nature to go fuck themselves (in more diplomatic terms, of course).

JMLR is a wonderful example for the naysayers. Their handling costs work out at around $10 per paper.

[ashi]

I subscribe to no video services, having long ago lost my taste and tolerance for TV and the majority of new films. I pay for the major local newspaper, a few podcasts, and get books and old films wherever I can find them. By which I mean I own hundreds of DVDs and can't stop amassing them please send help.

[Spartan26]

By which I mean I own hundreds of DVDs and can't stop amassing them please send help.

Do you convert your DVDs to digital files? I maybe have a couple hundred and feel like I should have digital backups or just have them easily accessible from anywhere. I don't know why, it's not like I need this function now. I bought some blu ray discs that give you a code for a digital copy and never downloaded them, despite one friend who'd constantly scold me about this. I think one site that you could house your digital downloads, or you could convert and upload a dvd for a buck each, went out of business. So where would I be now. The point of having them digitally still remains.

I had to buy a DVD/CD reader for a class I took. I've been meaning to rip all my CDs, though many I had done years ago when my desktop actually had that capability. Part of me wants to rip my old vinyl collection just out of fear of losing my albums and there are some songs I have not see available for download purchase or even streaming. Though I'm not the audio snob I was in my 20s, there still seems something sacrilege about converting vinyl to digital.

[Lilith]

My media consumption has increased since COVID. Still avoid cable and digital news subscription.

I have HBOMax, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple, Disney+, Crunchyroll, Funimation and Pandora for tv and mobile. Plus SiriusXM in my car. I have Audible and Medium too.

[MoneyJungle]

I got Peacock for the Premier League and now I watch Hunter for some reason

[Spartan26]

I got Peacock for the Premier League and now I watch Hunter for some reason

I never got into Hunter but I always felt Stepfanie Kramer was far more appealing than other "hot female sidekicks" of the tough guy 80s action series cluster, like Heather Locklear and Heather Thomas. I was thinking just the other day of wanting Peacock to watch Strangers with Candy or O'Grady but then I realized those would be Paramount +, I believe, not Peacock. Which, I don't know how much of a desire I'd have to subscribe to it but I wonder if all of Paramount's films would be available? Like, I've not seen advertisements saying "Subscribe to Paramount Plus & see all the Mission Impossibles!" or a picture of Leo & Kate with the caption "Relive Titanic, now on Paramount +." There was some Paramount Network on about 5 years ago that I was getting, and they had some decent 70s films but they were with commercial breaks so I said forget it and never really watched. Some old Starksy & Hutch may've been a 5-minute hoot to watch but I never tuned back in. With Peacock, I wonder if they'll try to keep any content exclusive for the Olympics? Maybe offer the chance to view events live? It's so irksome to get unintended updates on the results 5 hours before they'll show it on TV. I thought it was crazy they couldn't show the 100 Meters race live even though it was in Korea back in '88. But I was a bit more forgiving due to the time zones. Turns out that had nothing to do with it. They're just sucky people who want to tape delay live sports.

[starla]

We pay for Netflix and Amazon prime. I usually only watch the free stuff on Amazon prime, but we rented Spy one night and it was $4 well spent. I wish I could tell Melissa McCarthy that her movie is the only one I've ever rented online, I feel like that's got to be a compliment. We got Disney+ as a Christmas gift from my sister. I'm not sure why she thought a DINK household needed a Disney+ subscription but whatever. I think we've watched one movie on there and it was ok, and I watched most of WandaVision though I know nothing of Marvel.

I also recently subscribed to Headspace, but that was just today so I haven't used it yet. I did the free seven day trial of Calm, but they don't have enough content for me to spend the $70 on a subscription and the content they do have doesn't interest me all that much. Headspace was only $10/year with the student discount, and I used a virtual credit card number so they can't re-up the charges once it expires (because god knows I won't remember to cancel in a year).

I used to subscribe to the Economist, though I found if you don't read it every week a lot of the articles are hard to follow. I didn't really have time to read it cover to cover anymore so I cancelled. I also subscribed to NYT for a while because I needed an article for a class. With that, I spent too much time reading it so I had to cancel.

[Utisz]

Both Madrigal and I have Netflix accounts. This arose from before Madrigal made the pilgrimage across the Andes. Madrigal says that her sisters use her account, so there's that. I got Netflix to watch Gran Hotel when I was trying to learn Spanish, but just continued with it, as I guess is all part of their game plan.

Movies and TV only available on other media I acquire through what Madrigal would term "nerd magic". Most stuff is otherwise unavailable (even pay-to-watch) in Chile.

[Ferrus]

It's the same in Computer Science, though the revolution is coming. The Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR) (an open access, no author fees, rigorous peer review, high impact factor, etc., etc., journal) has far surpassed the Springer and Elsevier journals for Machine Learning in terms of prestige, and many researchers in the area have committed to boycotting the traditional journals. They even told Nature to go fuck themselves (in more diplomatic terms, of course).

JMLR is a wonderful example for the naysayers. Their handling costs work out at around $10 per paper.

I'm currently doing a low-effort one module a term PG Cert in Data Science with the Uni of London external program as it is the easiest and cheapest way to get access to these. I can't help but feel the universities have always benefitted from a cozy relationship with the publishers, outside large city libraries most public libraries don't have these resources.

[Spartan26]

We pay for Netflix and Amazon prime.

Do you do much shopping on Amazon? Second question, have you seen the series called The Patriot?