Trouble in Flatland I

Trouble in Flatland IMole "For why should the thirst for knowledge be aroused, only to be disappointed and punished?"Ugh. Another rejection, oh woe is me.This one was weird.We carefully revised the paper with a year of work, addressed every one of the myriad comments and were really happy with the revision.And then reviewer three (no, it isn't always reviewer three, but yeh, this time it was), who initially really seemed to like it, decided that no, they really hated it.So yes, we thirsted for knowledge, only to be disappointed and punished.Off to another journalanother list of complaints and much, much more work.Woe is us.But the quote isn't mineit is Edward A. Abbott's, from his book 'Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions'.I hope you know it; if you don't, then by all means stop reading my rant and look it up.It is superficially a novella written by a two-dimensional individual (A Square) living in a two-dimensional world (Flatland) and thus a book about geometry.But really, it is a biting social satire of the time.But I'm not really talking about that Flatland, I'm talking about our Flatlandthe two-dimensional space in which our results are disseminated to the public.You know, publishing.The place where we are punished on a regular basis.And while I'm particularly