Post #2092584
2026-05-05 21:04 UTC
Replies (7)
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@thatdnaguy@genomic.social 2026-05-05 21:05
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz ah yes. No one wants to pay for maintenance, but also wants everything to keep working.
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@brembs@mastodon.social 2026-05-05 21:34
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz This is a problem that people have been warning about for almost 15 years now, see e.g.: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/limited-access-is-a-symptom-not-the-disease/14465622 Slide 13-17 from 2012. How can it be that so often in science, most people understand and agree that there is a massive problem and yet, nothing happens. When the Flybase shit hit the fan, I contacted them and asked them for their plans for decentralization - they had none, they said.
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@brembs@mastodon.social 2026-05-06 04:07
@allsumnull@mastodon.cloud @albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz That is correct, yes, but a) the people who run, e.g., Flybase now are, to my knowledge, not scientists in this aspect any more and b) if you're going to have a database at all, why not do it right?
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@Beggarmidas@mastodon.social 2026-05-06 00:42
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz Agree. Thousands of hours of stupid cat videos are produced & stored every minute but there's no provisioning for research data? Databrokers accrue (as of 2017) 2.7 Mb of data on every American every day, but we can't find the fucking storage for decades of empirical findings? It's a serious priorities alignment mismatch. ...Maybe the framing is wrong. O_o Just had a bit of inspiration whisper in my ear. Hear me out, doc. It may sound a little crazy, but it might just work!
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@Beggarmidas@mastodon.social 2026-05-06 00:50
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz Let us take advantage of someone elses distress. Insomch as it can be considered that given who i'm about to suggest. I just read a few days ago that Elon Musk was mothballing one of his big server farms. Now i'm no fan of the man, personally. But he *IS* easy to sway, with the right kind of argument & pitch, which this fits VERY neatly. What if an appeal was made to host all that data at his fancy shmancy server farm he's about to let go fallow? It'd be a tax writeoff for him.
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@Beggarmidas@mastodon.social 2026-05-06 01:02
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz Now i'd stress the importance of contractual guarantees beforehand. IRONCLAD ones. The man is Lt Colonel of the ADHD brigade. The only thing that changes faster than his whimsey is how many women he's fathered children with. So it'd have to be moved to some sort of trust to have any guarantee of permanence. But for him, it would be a massive writeoff on an asset set to go fallow he'd still be paying taxes on. It's a win/win for both parties & FOR SCIENCE!
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@CellySally@biologists.social 2026-05-06 06:14
@albertcardona@mathstodon.xyz same story for emousealtas, an amazing invaluable resource built up over many years, then it limped along unfunded for 5 years before being decommisioned in 2023 😞 https://www.emouseatlas.org/emap/home.html