Mailund on the Internet

Yesterday I got my new iMac. This is my first Mac, and so far I am pretty impressed. The Mac OS X Leopard is really cool. Of course, so far I have only played with the machine, so I don’t know how it is for actual work, but I am looking forward to trying that out.

I decided to get a Mac partly because Storm is speaking so highly of them, and because I want to port my software to OS X. I already have a Windows machine, and I haven’t ported my software to that, something that would be a lot more useful, so I am not sure how real that argument is. I don’t know how to develop software on Windows. Since OS X is essentially a UNIX system I think I should be able to develop my software there, though. At BiRC there’s a few people working with Macs to help me, anyway, so that will help.

Robert S. Zucker of UC Berkeley wrote an excellent letter on the reviewing process. It is worth a read if you, as me, review a lot of papers.

The second mistake often made by reviewers is failing to consider all of the journal’s goals and requirements, including standards and guidelines stated in the editorial policy and gleaned from its articles. Do not reject a manuscript simply because its ideas are not original, if it offers the first strong evidence for an old but important idea. Do not reject a paper with a brilliant new idea simply because the evidence was not as comprehensive as could be imagined. Do not reject a paper simply because it is not of the highest significance, if it is beautifully executed and offers fresh ideas with strong evidence. Seek a balance among criteria in making a recommendation.