Editing 2341: Scientist Tech Help

The second panel presents a different reality. The scientists are fully confident they can interpret the data on their own, provided they can access it, because the methods of ''recording'' their data are incredibly sub-par. Apparently wasps had infested the lab, and the scientists had to take photos of their equipment through the window. This created a much more fundamental problem of data format than normal (image vs spreadsheet, as opposed to something more normal like pixel-wise vs vertex-based segmentation).  The joke is that the scientists' questions for their tech specialists are very mundane in nature; it presents not a chance to test and prove their machine learning systems, but a simple and tedious process of untangling digital paperwork. [https://old.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/hxt0fw/my_whole_computer_went_black_what_did_you_do/ This is true in real life] — experts' expertise is usually deep, but not broad, and helping them with issues outside their comfort zone is rarely glamorous.

The second panel presents a different reality. The scientists are fully confident they can interpret the data on their own, provided they can access it, because the methods of ''recording'' their data are incredibly sub-par. Apparently wasps had infested the lab, and the scientists had to take photos of their equipment through the window. This created a much more fundamental problem of data format than normal (image vs spreadsheet, as opposed to something more normal like pixel-wise vs vertex-based segmentation).  The joke is that the scientists' questions for their tech specialists are very mundane in nature; it presents not a chance to test and prove their machine learning systems, but a simple and tedious process of untangling digital paperwork. [https://old.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/hxt0fw/my_whole_computer_went_black_what_did_you_do/ This is true in real life] — experts' expertise is usually deep, but not broad, and helping them with issues outside their comfort zone is rarely glamorous.

The title text refers to [https://automeris.io/WebPlotDigitizer/ WebPlotDigitizer], a tool which may be used on visual displays of data such as graphs and charts in order to extract the underlying data. This tool would have the potential to solve the problem which the scientists have by extracting data from the images taken of the equipment. Randall acknowledges the usefulness of the tool, but also expresses some dislike that the tool was invented at all — someone must have had the original data to draw the graph, thus if they had made the data available then he wouldn't have to reverse engineer the plot. Other possibilities are that he simply feels that the tool is too powerful and leaving him less work to do, or that tools so trite and seemingly unnecessary prove so useful in the end.

The title text refers to [https://automeris.io/WebPlotDigitizer/ WebPlotDigitizer], a tool which may be used on visual displays of data such as graphs and charts in order to extract the underlying data. This tool would have the potential to solve the problem which the scientists have by extracting data from the images taken of the equipment. Randall acknowledges the usefulness of the tool, but also expresses some dislike that the tool was invented at all — someone must have had the original data to draw the graph, thus if they had made the data available then he wouldn't have to reverse engineer the plot. Other possibilities are that he simply feels that the tool is too powerful and leaving him less work to do, or that tools so trite and seemingly unnecessary prove so useful in the end.