I find it difficult to get a general understanding of Philosophy as this discipline tends to be so big that it is difficult to get a good overview.
What I would suggest is asking yourself what kind of questions you find interesting.
Do you like Politics and have arguments with libertarians, nationalists etc? Maybe you want to read more about that, reading both contemporary authors as well as classic ones such as Rousseau or Mill.
Are you more interested in questions that are linked to science? Go read about authors such as Daniel Dennett, Searle or David Chalmers to find out more about questions e.g. "what is consciousness? How does this relate to AI?" and many other topics.
After a while you will know more names of authors and you will increase your network immensely.
I am afraid you are simplifying the scientific progress quite a bit with "we have a model, then we look for empiric data and if there is conclusive evidence we can conclude that the model matches reality".
It has been shown by many historians (e.g. Thomas Kuhn) that in reality scientists do not just follow these guidelines and in many cases scientific models use assumptions that cannot be verified or falsified, nor would it make sense to adhere to such strict rules.
If you are interested in this topic I also recommend the discussion of Karl Popper and Paul Feyerabend, which has been a very important contribution to how we now think about scientific progress.
Hence I tend to disagree with you and in fact you could probably say that many of the theoretical discussions you find in Physics (such as Quantum Mechanics) can be seen as being actually closer to Philosophical debate.
First of all in academia you will often find subjects that may very well prove to be irrelevant to practical activities, not just in Philosophy, but also in Mathematics, Physics or Political Science.
However, I do think that a great deal of these theoretical questions can be of great help also for practical activities.
Philosophy of Science deals with, among other things, questions such as "is there a particular method with which we can find the truth or is it just anything goes? Is there even truth, and if so, what constitutes truth?" If you are an academic and you are doing research I would say this is a fairly relevant question since the theoretical paradigm you follow directly influences the way you are going to conduct research.
Another example could be AI, where frequently philosophers work together with scientists. IBM or Google are working on remodelling the human brain, but this task is highly difficult since intelligence is not just based on computational power (which explains why advances in technology do not directly correlate with advances in AI), but there are fundamental differences. So philosophers, together with neuroscientists, try to find an understanding of what constitutes the human consciousness, which is a very wide but fascinating field.
Last but not least Ethics also constitutes an important subject in philosophy that has direct influences on the way we deal with future advances in technology and there are too many examples to think of.
Philosophy can be a frustrating subject since there is almost never a satisfying moment where you reach a final conclusion and hence many people dismiss the discipline as a group of people who never tend to shower sit on the couch and talk about the universe. There are many schools of thought, not just postmodern feminism. In fact, there are also an abundance of philosophers that have a true passion for science as well as renowned scientists who also shared a great enthusiasm for this academic discipline. Philosophy helps you to precisize your thoughts and sharpens the theoretical framework of your investigations. How can this not be supporting practical research?
One major reason why I disagree with the article. Social phenomena are impossible to fully compute as human beings do not just apply to comprehensible laws of physics, but there is a whole different dynamic of behavioral and social factors involved that makes statistic modelling a great deal more complex. Unlike the author I also do not think that this problem can just be resolved with technical means, there will always be uncertainty about human behavior and thus Black Swans.
What I would suggest is asking yourself what kind of questions you find interesting. Do you like Politics and have arguments with libertarians, nationalists etc? Maybe you want to read more about that, reading both contemporary authors as well as classic ones such as Rousseau or Mill. Are you more interested in questions that are linked to science? Go read about authors such as Daniel Dennett, Searle or David Chalmers to find out more about questions e.g. "what is consciousness? How does this relate to AI?" and many other topics.
After a while you will know more names of authors and you will increase your network immensely.