Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image(bbc.com)
bbc.com
Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47891902
545 comments
Congratulations Katie! It's beautiful to see something that I hoped would be real, especially after seeing Interstellar's gorgeous rendition. And may you inspire hundreds of thousands of girls to enter the fields of science and technology.
from her paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.01413
> Very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) is a technique for imaging celestial radio emissions by simultaneously observing a source from telescopes distributed across Earth. The challenges in reconstructing images from fine angular resolution VLBI data are immense. The data is extremely sparse and noisy, thus requiring statistical image models such as those designed in the computer vision community. In this paper we present a novel Bayesian approach for VLBI image reconstruction. While other methods often require careful tuning and parameter selection for different types of data, our method (CHIRP) produces good results under different settings such as low SNR or extended emission. The success of our method is demonstrated on realistic synthetic experiments as well as publicly available real data. We present this problem in a way that is accessible to members of the community, and provide a dataset website (vlbiimaging.csail.mit.edu) that facilitates controlled comparisons across algorithms.
What strikes me as really amazing is the cross functional nature of these modern achievements. I did not realize that this image was created with statistical image models and a Bayesian approach.
Also, this link included -> http://vlbiimaging.csail.mit.edu/ introduces the field and offers a good explanation for those interested in learning more:
> Imaging distant celestial sources with high resolving power requires telescopes with prohibitively large diameters due to the inverse relationship between angular resolution and telescope diameter. However, by simultaneously collecting data from an array of telescopes located around the Earth, it is possible to emulate samples from a single telescope with a diameter equal to the maximum distance between telescopes in the array. Using multiple telescopes in this manner is referred to as very long baseline interferometry (VLBI).
> Very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) is a technique for imaging celestial radio emissions by simultaneously observing a source from telescopes distributed across Earth. The challenges in reconstructing images from fine angular resolution VLBI data are immense. The data is extremely sparse and noisy, thus requiring statistical image models such as those designed in the computer vision community. In this paper we present a novel Bayesian approach for VLBI image reconstruction. While other methods often require careful tuning and parameter selection for different types of data, our method (CHIRP) produces good results under different settings such as low SNR or extended emission. The success of our method is demonstrated on realistic synthetic experiments as well as publicly available real data. We present this problem in a way that is accessible to members of the community, and provide a dataset website (vlbiimaging.csail.mit.edu) that facilitates controlled comparisons across algorithms.
What strikes me as really amazing is the cross functional nature of these modern achievements. I did not realize that this image was created with statistical image models and a Bayesian approach.
Also, this link included -> http://vlbiimaging.csail.mit.edu/ introduces the field and offers a good explanation for those interested in learning more:
> Imaging distant celestial sources with high resolving power requires telescopes with prohibitively large diameters due to the inverse relationship between angular resolution and telescope diameter. However, by simultaneously collecting data from an array of telescopes located around the Earth, it is possible to emulate samples from a single telescope with a diameter equal to the maximum distance between telescopes in the array. Using multiple telescopes in this manner is referred to as very long baseline interferometry (VLBI).
This sounds similar to Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) [0] which uses a moving antenna to achieve the affect of a very large aperture.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic-aperture_radar
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic-aperture_radar
>large diameters due to the inverse relationship between angular resolution and telescope diameter.
Not trained in this field, but this reads like a certain mistype. Shouldn't resolution increase with telescope diameter?
Not trained in this field, but this reads like a certain mistype. Shouldn't resolution increase with telescope diameter?
No. Angular resolution is essentially the angular distance between two points that are still resolved as separate points. So if your resolution increases, angular resolution decreases, because you can resolve two points that are closer together.
Thanks. I read the Wiki on the matter; should have gone straight there instead of asking. After understanding what it is, angular resolution does make perfect sense a term, but at first glance was certainly a bit counterintuitive.
I think the reason it's confusing is that the way that bit in the article is worded does little to imply that you want a LOW angular resolution, and it doesn't directly mention resolution in and of itself (which is understood to have an inverse relationship with angular resolution, as it is directly affected by diameter).
It took me several rereads and reading the comments here to understand that we want low numbers for angular resolution.
I suppose it's fairly obvious for one well-versed in optics, but to the layman (like me) it's initially opaque.
It took me several rereads and reading the comments here to understand that we want low numbers for angular resolution.
I suppose it's fairly obvious for one well-versed in optics, but to the layman (like me) it's initially opaque.
Yea. Measured in radians/degrees a lower number is a "higher pixel resolution."
It should be pointed out this is a balance against increased diameter which is needed to see anything at all.
Angular resolution is the smallest angle that can be resolved by a telescope. Small angular resolution produces high resolution images.
I'm not sure, but from a class I'm taking right now, I have a faint inkling that the lesser light you let in, the more resolution you have i.e the more you're able to distinguish between two close together objects.
She also has a newer paper, which gives a glimpse on what the people of EHT are up next:
Reconstructing Video from Interferometric Measurements of Time-Varying Sources https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.01357
So maybe we will also see a video of a black hole, soon.
Reconstructing Video from Interferometric Measurements of Time-Varying Sources https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.01357
So maybe we will also see a video of a black hole, soon.
I see a lot of mention on various forums about the storage they used (5pb) but am just wondering if anyone know what kind of backend they used to house this? From what I saw there were too many disks - in the wrong type of enclosure - to be running on a single server, which suggests multiple physical servers. I've seen a prior CERN research paper on gluster and ceph (iirc) and am just wondering if anyone in the know could enlighten me?
The WaPo article also references a few of the interesting issues they had:
"Then they spent the two years parsing literal truckloads of data, some of which had to be shipped on hard drives from the South Pole and defrosted outside a supercomputer facility at MIT."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/04/10/see-black-...
I'd love to read more about this if anyone has an article with more details.
"Then they spent the two years parsing literal truckloads of data, some of which had to be shipped on hard drives from the South Pole and defrosted outside a supercomputer facility at MIT."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/04/10/see-black-...
I'd love to read more about this if anyone has an article with more details.
Seems like what you are seeing on the image of the drives is part of this: https://www.haystack.mit.edu/tech/vlbi/mark6/index.html
Found it through this pdf: https://fskbhe1.puk.ac.za/people/mboett/Texas2017/Doeleman.p...
Found it through this pdf: https://fskbhe1.puk.ac.za/people/mboett/Texas2017/Doeleman.p...
I read yesterday they were using a bunch of servers connected with a 40Gbps network link. I'll try to find the source.
Katie gave a TED talk:
https://youtu.be/BIvezCVcsYs
https://youtu.be/BIvezCVcsYs
It is an interesting presentation, but I do NOT understand Katie's explanation about how they were going to minimize the bias [to "see" already predicted black hole visualization] while creatively interpreting inputs from sparsely placed telescopes around the earth.
Do you understand Katie's explanation?
Do you understand Katie's explanation?
Disclaimer: this is based on watching the talk and some basic machine learning knowledge. Im no expert.
They have a sparse set of data that is part of an image. They have trained a model to look at the sparse set and make an educated guess about what the full image looks like. They do this by feeding it full images.
The full images you feed into the model thus have an effect on the final image generated. In order to see how large that effect is, they trained different versions of the model with different sets of complete images. Some were images of what we thought a black hole looked like. There is potential that this heavily influences the model and ensures that the output looks like what we expect it to, even if that isnt actually true.
They also trained the model with non-blackhole images. Since the output of the model was approximately the same, this indicates that the resulting output picture doesnt look like what we think a black hole looks like just because it was trained with black hole images. It likely really looks like that.
The model doesn't need to be told what a black hole looks like. The sparse measurements combined with knowledge of how sparse data can be combined to form a generic image is enough. The model learned that the sparse data is not likely pure noise, instead there are shapes and lines and gradients that relate the sparse data points to each other.
Her analogy of sketch artists is good. If you have a functionally complete description and give it to 3 sketch artists from different cultures who are used to different looking people, they will still draw the same person. However if your description isnt actually detailed enough, their sketches will significantly differ as they use their existing knowledge and bias to fill in the gaps with what they think is likely.
They have a sparse set of data that is part of an image. They have trained a model to look at the sparse set and make an educated guess about what the full image looks like. They do this by feeding it full images.
The full images you feed into the model thus have an effect on the final image generated. In order to see how large that effect is, they trained different versions of the model with different sets of complete images. Some were images of what we thought a black hole looked like. There is potential that this heavily influences the model and ensures that the output looks like what we expect it to, even if that isnt actually true.
They also trained the model with non-blackhole images. Since the output of the model was approximately the same, this indicates that the resulting output picture doesnt look like what we think a black hole looks like just because it was trained with black hole images. It likely really looks like that.
The model doesn't need to be told what a black hole looks like. The sparse measurements combined with knowledge of how sparse data can be combined to form a generic image is enough. The model learned that the sparse data is not likely pure noise, instead there are shapes and lines and gradients that relate the sparse data points to each other.
Her analogy of sketch artists is good. If you have a functionally complete description and give it to 3 sketch artists from different cultures who are used to different looking people, they will still draw the same person. However if your description isnt actually detailed enough, their sketches will significantly differ as they use their existing knowledge and bias to fill in the gaps with what they think is likely.
Not OP, but I too am confused. I understood the sketch artist analogy but that didn't seem related to this point:
>They also trained the model with non-blackhole images. Since the output of the model was approximately the same, this indicates that the resulting output picture doesnt look like what we think a black hole looks like just because it was trained with black hole images. It likely really looks like that.
If you are feeding non-blackhole images in and getting blackhole results out, wouldn't that be indicative of an over-trained model? Her other analogy was we can't rule out that there is an elephant at the center of the galaxy, but it sounds like if you feed a picture of an elephant in you'll get a picture of a blackhole out?
>They also trained the model with non-blackhole images. Since the output of the model was approximately the same, this indicates that the resulting output picture doesnt look like what we think a black hole looks like just because it was trained with black hole images. It likely really looks like that.
If you are feeding non-blackhole images in and getting blackhole results out, wouldn't that be indicative of an over-trained model? Her other analogy was we can't rule out that there is an elephant at the center of the galaxy, but it sounds like if you feed a picture of an elephant in you'll get a picture of a blackhole out?
This is ensuring that the model is not over trained.
They also showed that when they fed in simulated sparse measurements based on real full images of generic things, they got back fuzzy versions of the real image. [1] So if you put in a sparsely captured elephant (if for instance there was one at the center of the galaxy) you'd get an image of the elephant out, not this black hole.
To complete the artist analogy, imagine that the suspect that is being drawn by each artist is some stereotypical American. The description given to the artists doesnt say that, it just describes how the person looks. One of the three sketch artists is American and the others are Chinese and Ethiopian.
If the American draws a stereotypical American, how can you be sure that the drawing is accurate and thats not just what he assumed the person would look like because everyone he has ever seen looks like that?
You look at what the other two draw. If they both draw the same stereotypical American, even though they have no knowledge of what a stereotypical American looks like, you can be pretty sure that they determined that based on the description provided to them. The actual data.
They did still likely utilize some of their knowledge about what humans in general look like though. This is analogous to how the model uses its training on what a generic image looks like. For instance, maybe several sparse pixels of the same value are likely to have pixels of that same value between them. The model puts things like this together and spits out a picture of what we think a black hole looks like even though its never seen a black hole before.
[1] https://youtu.be/BIvezCVcsYs?t=685
They also showed that when they fed in simulated sparse measurements based on real full images of generic things, they got back fuzzy versions of the real image. [1] So if you put in a sparsely captured elephant (if for instance there was one at the center of the galaxy) you'd get an image of the elephant out, not this black hole.
To complete the artist analogy, imagine that the suspect that is being drawn by each artist is some stereotypical American. The description given to the artists doesnt say that, it just describes how the person looks. One of the three sketch artists is American and the others are Chinese and Ethiopian.
If the American draws a stereotypical American, how can you be sure that the drawing is accurate and thats not just what he assumed the person would look like because everyone he has ever seen looks like that?
You look at what the other two draw. If they both draw the same stereotypical American, even though they have no knowledge of what a stereotypical American looks like, you can be pretty sure that they determined that based on the description provided to them. The actual data.
They did still likely utilize some of their knowledge about what humans in general look like though. This is analogous to how the model uses its training on what a generic image looks like. For instance, maybe several sparse pixels of the same value are likely to have pixels of that same value between them. The model puts things like this together and spits out a picture of what we think a black hole looks like even though its never seen a black hole before.
[1] https://youtu.be/BIvezCVcsYs?t=685
From what I understand, the training input images are just to establish the relationship between sparse data points and full image, regardless of subject matter. Since they were getting the black hole picture out of the trained model regardless of how it was trained, it's likely that the model was producing accurate results of what the "camera" was pointed at. If they had pointed it at an elephant, the model would have produced a picture of something elephant-like because it was somewhat accurately reconstructing a full image from sparse data points.
> getting the black hole picture out of the trained model regardless of how it was trained
Did they try to feed random noise into their trained image builder?
I suspect that the output of that trained image builder is always the same "black hole", even with random noise as an input.
Did they try to feed random noise into their trained image builder?
I suspect that the output of that trained image builder is always the same "black hole", even with random noise as an input.
Probably not with random noise. With random noise there is literally no connection between pixels. With any actual picture there are connections. Like for instance a pixel is more likely to be the value of its neighbor or nearly so than any random value. This follows from the fact that the pictures are of actual objects with physical properties that determine the value of the pixel that maps to them. Most of the image can be characterized by continuous gradients with occasional edges.
I think if you trained with random noise you would get random noise output.
I think if you trained with random noise you would get random noise output.
They're not just training the model to make pictures from nothing. They're training the model to make pictures from an input.
So I assume they're simulating what an input would look like of, say, a planet or astroid or elephant or whatever, given that it was viewed through the relevant type of sensor system. Then when they feed in the black hole sensor data, they get pictures that look like the black holes we imagined. Even if we never told the model what a black hole looks like.
So I assume they're simulating what an input would look like of, say, a planet or astroid or elephant or whatever, given that it was viewed through the relevant type of sensor system. Then when they feed in the black hole sensor data, they get pictures that look like the black holes we imagined. Even if we never told the model what a black hole looks like.
> that effect is, they trained different versions of the model with different sets of complete images
What does training mean?
I thought that the training means to adjust Neural Network until it learns to convert our input into expected output of "complete image".
But if thaining means to teach the model to produce expected "complete image", then how is it possible that "the output of the model was approximately the same" [for different training "complete image"s]?
What does training mean?
I thought that the training means to adjust Neural Network until it learns to convert our input into expected output of "complete image".
But if thaining means to teach the model to produce expected "complete image", then how is it possible that "the output of the model was approximately the same" [for different training "complete image"s]?
Training is to feed in thousands of sets of {sparse sample of actual image, actual image}. The model is adjusted until the total difference between the output image and the actual image is minimized across all training images.
The output images are approximately the same because the model is "looking" at training images at a lower level that we do. The talk says they chop the images up into small pieces. So the model never "sees" the full shapes that are in the full images. It only sees small local features. I guess it turns out that these smaller pieces are pretty generic in that they are common between images of black holes and everything else. The curve of an elephant trunk looks similar to the curve of an event horizon if you cut it out in a small enough piece.
Perhaps if they didnt do this step, then the model would be more sensitive to the images its trained on.
The output images are approximately the same because the model is "looking" at training images at a lower level that we do. The talk says they chop the images up into small pieces. So the model never "sees" the full shapes that are in the full images. It only sees small local features. I guess it turns out that these smaller pieces are pretty generic in that they are common between images of black holes and everything else. The curve of an elephant trunk looks similar to the curve of an event horizon if you cut it out in a small enough piece.
Perhaps if they didnt do this step, then the model would be more sensitive to the images its trained on.
Kathie said [1] "What you can do is to use methods where you [have] do not need any calibration whatsoever and you can still can get pretty good results.
So here on the bottom at the top is the truth image, and this is simulated data, as we are increasing the amount of amplitude error and you can see here ... it's hard to see ... but it breaks down once you add too much gain here. But if we use just closure quantities - we are invariant to that.
So that really, actually, been a really huge step for the project, because we had such bad gains.
"
[1] https://youtu.be/UGL_OL3OrCE?t=1177
Hmm I skimmed the paper on the algorithm this morning and didn't get the impression they trained the model on other images. I thought they jointly estimated patches that make up the image and penalized deviations from these patches (i.e. estimated a sparse basis). I haven't watched the Ted talk yet though
They may have changed approaches since this two year old TED talk was made.
If you want to understand that, do not listen to TED talks. They have a terrible format and are designed to make people feel smart rather than impart knowledge.
I wondered this as well. It seems like a significant problem when doing this sort of thing.
I had the same issue. It seemed like with many plausible solutions, there is some bias in the image. I agree there are some reasonable constraints, like it should be energetic stuff in a sphere around a dark sphere, but how many solutions would have fit that criteria?
You mean Bouman?
... you never referred to someone by their first name in informal talk??
Same person.
It's a TEDx talk. In this case it's an interesting one by an expert in her field, but TEDx have a lot lower demands for participating, so try to keep the distinction clear.
It might have been on TEDx but now it's on TED YouTube channel.
Does it really matter if its a TEDx or TED talk? It just appears like you're trying to diminish her achievements for literally no gain.
I don't see TEDx anywhere on that.
She’s literally standing in front of a sign on the stage that says TEDxBeaconStreet.
I meant on the channel branding, intro, etc. Usually when these things are TEDx they say so really obviously. Did this talk's status get upgraded?
The main TED channel occasionally reposts talks from TEDx conferences. This one should be the original posting: https://youtu.be/P7n2rYt9wfU
So this talk got upgraded then?
They don't make a habit of posting the shitty TEDx talks to the main channel, I'm guessing. (And there's plenty of those.) This is definitely high quality relative to most TEDx talks, so I understand why it was upgraded.
They don't make a habit of posting the shitty TEDx talks to the main channel, I'm guessing. (And there's plenty of those.) This is definitely high quality relative to most TEDx talks, so I understand why it was upgraded.
My eyes are closed that's why I didn't see it.
I just want to see what she named her jupyter notebook. 'black_hole_v4_new_FINAL.ipynb'
Serious question HN:
If Katie was a man do you think people would be going through git histories and their published papers trying to determine if she is being over-credited for her achievements?
If Katie was a man do you think people would be going through git histories and their published papers trying to determine if she is being over-credited for her achievements?
People are already doing this on Reddit[0][1], and it's pretty silly because they obviously have no idea how Github or scientific research works. There's an effort underway to undermine Katie Bouman's contributions and it's absolutely ridiculous.
Edit: I just checked Twitter, apparently there are thousands of idiots who believe this "850,000/900,000 lines written by Andrew, therefore he wrote the algorithm" narrative. It's amazing how willing people are to eat up a low-hanging narrative as long as it confirms their world-view. All it takes is a very crude understanding of how software development works to see through this narrative.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/bbykvf/ka...
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/bbuvff/this_is_andrew...
Edit: I just checked Twitter, apparently there are thousands of idiots who believe this "850,000/900,000 lines written by Andrew, therefore he wrote the algorithm" narrative. It's amazing how willing people are to eat up a low-hanging narrative as long as it confirms their world-view. All it takes is a very crude understanding of how software development works to see through this narrative.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/bbykvf/ka...
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/bbuvff/this_is_andrew...
This[0] comment seems to be another in that vein, though it seems to have more details, even if it repeats the 850k lines stat which doesn't really hold up.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/bbql1i/this_is_dr_kat...
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/bbql1i/this_is_dr_kat...
The analysis you linked to seems to be vastly misrepresenting Andrew Chael's contribution. Quote from the link:
> Andrew Chael wrote 850k out of the 900k lines of code. He was also the leader of the project. Michael D. Johnson wrote 12k lines of code. Chanchikwan wrote 5k lines of code. The woman? Only wrote 2.4k lines of code.
It's a little bit unbelievable that the author of this comment (/u/dragonballcell) nailed all of these fine-grained details (red herrings, perhaps?) and yet glossed over an incredibly important and superficial/trivial detail: that Andrew Chael did not "write 850k LOC", he generated hundreds of thousands of lines of data and committed them to the repo. Needless to say, I think this whole drama is incredibly pointless.
> Andrew Chael wrote 850k out of the 900k lines of code. He was also the leader of the project. Michael D. Johnson wrote 12k lines of code. Chanchikwan wrote 5k lines of code. The woman? Only wrote 2.4k lines of code.
It's a little bit unbelievable that the author of this comment (/u/dragonballcell) nailed all of these fine-grained details (red herrings, perhaps?) and yet glossed over an incredibly important and superficial/trivial detail: that Andrew Chael did not "write 850k LOC", he generated hundreds of thousands of lines of data and committed them to the repo. Needless to say, I think this whole drama is incredibly pointless.
At the same time, it's totally common for professors to ride on the efforts of research students under their direction, to the point of being ethically questionable.
You might as well credit the Linux operating system to only a single man, whose effort is certainly largely responsible, but for who also does not in any way represent the whole of effort.
It's the ship of Theseus all over again.
You might as well credit the Linux operating system to only a single man, whose effort is certainly largely responsible, but for who also does not in any way represent the whole of effort.
It's the ship of Theseus all over again.
I understand how scientific research works. I'm on author on more than ten papers. I don't think it's silly to credit people properly.
Absolutely not.
That said, if Katie was a man, her story would not be as groundbreaking in a social context, and thus she would not be as celebrated.
That said, if Katie was a man, her story would not be as groundbreaking in a social context, and thus she would not be as celebrated.
We celebrated Mohawk NASA dude just as much as she’s being celebrated. Maybe we just like unabashedly enthusiastic engineers.
This article has 832 up vote points.
Can you link the HN article with the "Mohawk NASA dude". Searching on "Mohawk NASA" gave me a 1 point article that didn't get a single upvote.
Searching on "Bobak Ferdowsi" gives zero articles on HN, and I could not find any article where even comments were celebrating the achievements of Bobak Ferdowsi, and obviously no 832 point upvoted ones.
No, I must conclude that there is no articled named "Bobak Ferdowsi, the scientist behind the Curiosity rover", and definitively not one that got just as much celebration as this one.
Can you link the HN article with the "Mohawk NASA dude". Searching on "Mohawk NASA" gave me a 1 point article that didn't get a single upvote.
Searching on "Bobak Ferdowsi" gives zero articles on HN, and I could not find any article where even comments were celebrating the achievements of Bobak Ferdowsi, and obviously no 832 point upvoted ones.
No, I must conclude that there is no articled named "Bobak Ferdowsi, the scientist behind the Curiosity rover", and definitively not one that got just as much celebration as this one.
Oh, not on here: this site is clearly full of people who hate both fun and science. But the complaint was about how she was being covered by the media, not how she is being discussed here, and there wasn’t a 800+ comment thread complaining about how Ferdowsi, Who got fat more vapid coverage, must not actually have done anything and didn’t deserve attention, and he wasn’t even first author of something.
I don't think he received this much praise.
So how do you explain all the famous male scientists and inventors of history? The most famous of them all are because they discovered cool things, not necessarily the "hardest" or "most significant" thing. Everyone knows e=mc2, but most people do not know about von neuman architecture, even though the latter has had a significantly greater impact on peoples lives. Taking the first picture of a black hole is as sexy as it gets in science. Katie would be famous no matter what she was.
Not_a_pizza(1)
I am not a female, but I am a bootcamp grad with no college degree working as a sw engineer. At almost every place I've worked at so far I've had co-workers go through my GitHub and then make comments about how I shouldn't be working there.
I have no idea why people are doing this to Dr. Bouman, if it's gender related or not. Just stating my experiences.
Just so I'm fair, my GitHub does suck.
I have no idea why people are doing this to Dr. Bouman, if it's gender related or not. Just stating my experiences.
Just so I'm fair, my GitHub does suck.
that sucks and is very weird
It does, but after some months of just taking what they said and keeping on smiling, they lose interest. Every time.
Some companies addressed it directly and some let it happen. It also was not every co-worker at every job. Just a select few personality types mainly.
Some companies addressed it directly and some let it happen. It also was not every co-worker at every job. Just a select few personality types mainly.
Also, this is a few articles and a Facebook meme. There's no Nobel prize or anything. Why begrudge someone their 15 minutes of science fame for leading a cool effort, making cool science happen?
I think people get consistently annoyed when blanket credit is given to eg Elon Musk regarding SpaceX (as though he's an aerospace god that did it all by himself), and when far too much credit was given to Steve Jobs regarding the iPhone. SpaceX is a case where Gwynne Shotwell deserves a chunk of the credit that is typically thrown at Musk by the media (because his stardom sells).
It's not that they don't deserve their fair share of credit, to be clear. It's that they do not deserve the level of overwhelming credit the media intentionally tries to bestow upon them, to create an idol that sells / generates clicks.
You pretty well see it in every thread regarding those two people. The hype train tries to give them credit, whether the media or fans, and other people get annoyed by it and call it out because it's obviously ridiculous to so overly credit such vast accomplishments requiring thousands of contributors to a given individual.
It's not that they don't deserve their fair share of credit, to be clear. It's that they do not deserve the level of overwhelming credit the media intentionally tries to bestow upon them, to create an idol that sells / generates clicks.
You pretty well see it in every thread regarding those two people. The hype train tries to give them credit, whether the media or fans, and other people get annoyed by it and call it out because it's obviously ridiculous to so overly credit such vast accomplishments requiring thousands of contributors to a given individual.
I think it goes both ways. If she was a man she would have never had any fame from this. However, a man wouldn't have his git checked.
On the one hand, no, not in a public setting.
On the other hand, looking at git histories is basically how the social parts of engineering (e.g., money and power) at a place like Google works, at its fundamental level.
This has persisted for a very, very long time. I still remember when people would comment things like, "I worked with so-and-so unorthodox former Google employee, and he didn't commit code."
There are a lot of Googlers on HN. There are a lot of people who work at places that culturally align themselves with how that company runs.
It probably has something to do with why some women feel underpaid or unwelcome at these places.
It definitely has something to do with people commenting things like, "So is this the case of the product manager taking credit..." The tension between the product manager who "didn't do anything" and the engineer who "did all the work" and how the "org" sees that and measures "performance" are all swimming in the back of HN people's heads when they snipe some random academic.
Settling the score in a way so reductive is extremely appealing. But at least in duels, the other person gets to fire back.
On the other hand, looking at git histories is basically how the social parts of engineering (e.g., money and power) at a place like Google works, at its fundamental level.
This has persisted for a very, very long time. I still remember when people would comment things like, "I worked with so-and-so unorthodox former Google employee, and he didn't commit code."
There are a lot of Googlers on HN. There are a lot of people who work at places that culturally align themselves with how that company runs.
It probably has something to do with why some women feel underpaid or unwelcome at these places.
It definitely has something to do with people commenting things like, "So is this the case of the product manager taking credit..." The tension between the product manager who "didn't do anything" and the engineer who "did all the work" and how the "org" sees that and measures "performance" are all swimming in the back of HN people's heads when they snipe some random academic.
Settling the score in a way so reductive is extremely appealing. But at least in duels, the other person gets to fire back.
But why would she be assumed to be the product manager (or its equivalent in the academic realm)? She has a doctorate in Computer Science from MIT, so she clearly has the technical chops. And she's in the early stages of her academic career, so she hasn't reached the point where she would have the ability to claim grad students' work as her own (which would also be a huge ethical lapse, though apparently it does happen [often with women as the victims]).
In my experience, people don't start looking into these things without some other suspicion. In a work setting, that would be things like impressions of poor productivity, claimed output not matching perceptions of competency, etc. But those involve a ton of data points, based on direct interactions with the person. In this case, the article gives us the following demographic data points:
- 29 years old
- Woman
- Computer Science doctorate from MIT
- Assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences at the California Institute of Technology
Which of those data points suggests that her work output should be questioned?
In my experience, people don't start looking into these things without some other suspicion. In a work setting, that would be things like impressions of poor productivity, claimed output not matching perceptions of competency, etc. But those involve a ton of data points, based on direct interactions with the person. In this case, the article gives us the following demographic data points:
- 29 years old
- Woman
- Computer Science doctorate from MIT
- Assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences at the California Institute of Technology
Which of those data points suggests that her work output should be questioned?
If Katie was a man, no one would care about her.
Bullshit, this discovery was front page news worldwide. It's ridiculous on its face to assert that recognition isn't given to male scientists, given how many famous male scientists there are.
Do you think that "random male scientist #237" would be getting as much news coverage, photo-ops and retweets by "YAAS QUEEN SLAY" females as Katie?
Why are you so bent out of shape by this?
Is that you're rebuttal? Attacking my character?
People do the analog of this all the time in cases where they believe an individual is receiving disproportionate accolade for a team effort. It's extremely common in entrepreneurial situations. As a typical example, take Elon Musk. Whenever anybody directly attributed e.g. SpaceX's rockets to him, they'd often be quickly "corrected" by a rather large number of people. Elon himself would also go out of his way to emphasize that the things "he" had achieved were largely a product of the great people that made up his team.
I think people let their own personal biases destroy their impartiality. Replace her name with Musk, algorithm with science/engineering, and 'image of a black-hole' with reusable rocket. The article would (and does) read like something posted by a sycophantic fanboy. It wouldn't be doing him any favors, and certainly isn't doing her any favors. However, I also do not think this article is representative of her in any way, shape, or form.
For instance it tries to frame things in the most narcissistic way possible. They found one image posted where the developer stated, "Watching in disbelief as the first image I ever made of a black hole was in the process of being reconstructed." So she made that image. Not a team, not the project of a coordinate global effort, no - she made that image. Even the image framing itself is indicative. It's a tiny out of focus image of a laptop and a giant in focus image of her with an artificial pose. The article itself continues with a similar narrative in all the eye-catching spots such as the headline and image captions: "Katie Bouman designed an algorithm that made the image possible" "Katie Bouman: The woman behind the first black hole image", and so on.
But as mentioned, I doubt this is indicative of the developer herself. She's probably just being used by the media. She's attractive, young, and has the right genitalia = stories that'll get a million clicks and shares = $$$. When you actually read the very small number of quotes from her, they seem much more realistic and in stark contrast to the media sensationalism:
- "No one of us could've done it alone. It came together because of lots of different people from many different backgrounds."
- "We're a melting pot of astronomers, physicists, mathematicians and engineers, and that's what it took to achieve something once thought impossible".
I think people let their own personal biases destroy their impartiality. Replace her name with Musk, algorithm with science/engineering, and 'image of a black-hole' with reusable rocket. The article would (and does) read like something posted by a sycophantic fanboy. It wouldn't be doing him any favors, and certainly isn't doing her any favors. However, I also do not think this article is representative of her in any way, shape, or form.
For instance it tries to frame things in the most narcissistic way possible. They found one image posted where the developer stated, "Watching in disbelief as the first image I ever made of a black hole was in the process of being reconstructed." So she made that image. Not a team, not the project of a coordinate global effort, no - she made that image. Even the image framing itself is indicative. It's a tiny out of focus image of a laptop and a giant in focus image of her with an artificial pose. The article itself continues with a similar narrative in all the eye-catching spots such as the headline and image captions: "Katie Bouman designed an algorithm that made the image possible" "Katie Bouman: The woman behind the first black hole image", and so on.
But as mentioned, I doubt this is indicative of the developer herself. She's probably just being used by the media. She's attractive, young, and has the right genitalia = stories that'll get a million clicks and shares = $$$. When you actually read the very small number of quotes from her, they seem much more realistic and in stark contrast to the media sensationalism:
- "No one of us could've done it alone. It came together because of lots of different people from many different backgrounds."
- "We're a melting pot of astronomers, physicists, mathematicians and engineers, and that's what it took to achieve something once thought impossible".
Of course they would. At least some feminists would. Even now some Nobel prizes (e.g. Watson for DNA structure) and the credit for some discoveries attributed to some men is disputed by some feminist activists. I hate all this identity politics though.
Also if she was a man her story and contribution wouldn't be as sensationalized as has been done.
Also if she was a man her story and contribution wouldn't be as sensationalized as has been done.
Outside of the serious tech community, no one knows who Linus Torvald is. They do know that Linux exists.
Well, I take part of that back. He did have some personal pieces about "he's the guy that's a bully of the project" (when he took a personal hiatus from the project)
Well, I take part of that back. He did have some personal pieces about "he's the guy that's a bully of the project" (when he took a personal hiatus from the project)
If Katie was a man, there would still be a large question as whether to praise one person, except as the leader of the effort.
Yes, I think they would. Why do you have to bring gender into this?
I mean if she was a man I doubt two members of congress would've have bothered to comment or that there'd be article after article focusing on them specifically.
Do you think a man in a similar position would be elevated on a pedestal, to the exclusion of the algorithm designer (Mareki Honma) and the primary software author (Andrew Chael)?
Who gets elevated on a pedestal and who actually did the work appear to be so badly correlated across the entire breadth of human cultures that you would assume that they only share the most tenuous of causal linkages.
So yes, that happens a lot.
So yes, that happens a lot.
Yes I think the world would be interested to meet the person behind viewing the first black hole regardless of their gender.
>to the exclusion of the algorithm designer and the primary software author?
How can you possibly infer that from a git history?
>to the exclusion of the algorithm designer and the primary software author?
How can you possibly infer that from a git history?
Was making a photographic image the main aim of the project? Or is the image just a byproduct?
I mean hard to imagine such a large project being taken up, for the benefit of public being able to see a picture of the black hole.
Would this kind of multi telescope effort be capable of producing surface images of extra solar planets for example?
I mean hard to imagine such a large project being taken up, for the benefit of public being able to see a picture of the black hole.
Would this kind of multi telescope effort be capable of producing surface images of extra solar planets for example?
It wasn't a photographic image (they're using radio waves, not visible light). This is a visual representation of the radio waves.
And yes, this is one way of representing the data. I'm not sure exactly what your question is though, as actually getting this data is really important to confirm a variety of theories and also to potentially open up new avenues for investigation. And this cost orders of magnitude less than Hubble, whose purpose was also to generate photographs, seeing as how they simply connected together existing radio telescopes.
The point was to demonstrate that this technique is feasible. Now they can use it to image all sorts of other stuff and learn lots more.
And yes, this is one way of representing the data. I'm not sure exactly what your question is though, as actually getting this data is really important to confirm a variety of theories and also to potentially open up new avenues for investigation. And this cost orders of magnitude less than Hubble, whose purpose was also to generate photographs, seeing as how they simply connected together existing radio telescopes.
The point was to demonstrate that this technique is feasible. Now they can use it to image all sorts of other stuff and learn lots more.
> This is a visual representation of the radio waves
So a photograph.
So a photograph.
An image (or picture). I'm no expert but I think it's more like an MRI than a photograph or x-ray. It's not a direct image or projection. It's calculated.
>The point was to demonstrate that this technique is feasible.
Is it wrong to say this is a logical improvement, extension of radio interferometry?
Is it wrong to say this is a logical improvement, extension of radio interferometry?
Question is, what did the project aim to achieve? Take a picture of the black hole?
Or gather data that will help us study blackholes?
Because the press is largely focusing on the picture and not telling much else detail.
And is Boumans contributions to do with the making of this image?
Or gather data that will help us study blackholes?
Because the press is largely focusing on the picture and not telling much else detail.
And is Boumans contributions to do with the making of this image?
I'm confused. Given that "images" are just data, how is taking a bunch of data about a black hole and combining it into a single "picture" of a black hole not also gathering data to help us study black holes?
As I understand it, the notability of the project is that it found a novel way to process data from coordinated data collectors scattered around the earth into a single coherent data set (with more resolution than any single collector could gather).
As I understand it, the notability of the project is that it found a novel way to process data from coordinated data collectors scattered around the earth into a single coherent data set (with more resolution than any single collector could gather).
It also appears to have confirmed some of Einstein's theories (from what I understood)
Did you watch the announcement press conferences and Katie's TED talk? All this info is out there. Start with the links from yesterday on the HN story.
Relevant repository - https://github.com/achael/eht-imaging
It's also in the links in that repo, but may be more interesting to some folks here:
Katie's paper on VLBI reconstruction: https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.01413
This is how I learned about the topic and I think it's well suited for computery folks, since it was published in CVPR.
Katie's paper on VLBI reconstruction: https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.01413
This is how I learned about the topic and I think it's well suited for computery folks, since it was published in CVPR.
There are 6 authors for that paper, the way you linked it suggested it's solely by her; are the other authors listed honorarily?
Similarly the title suggests she worked alone on the project. Which seems exceedingly unlikely given the need for telescope time and computing time and the wide range of disciplines I imagine the project covers ... did she work alone. That must be almost unique in experimentalism nowadays?
Similarly the title suggests she worked alone on the project. Which seems exceedingly unlikely given the need for telescope time and computing time and the wide range of disciplines I imagine the project covers ... did she work alone. That must be almost unique in experimentalism nowadays?
It depends a bit on the scientific field, but in mine (computer vision, which this was also published in) the first author is the "main" author, usually doing most if not all the "ground work", then you have collaborators and co-authors, and finally the supervisors (in the case of the PhD student that she was at the time). It is becoming more common to see papers with "Author1, Author2, Author3..." lists, where the "*" authors count with equal contribution. This is important for attribution and the infamous metrics that funding often depends on, but it's not the case here.
So I'm certain those authors did their part, so maybe yes, I should have linked this as "Bouman et al." but I wouldn't expect this to be six equal contributions either.
That all being said, she's certainly standing on the shoulders of a pyramid of giants there.
Edit: to the people downvoting the parent, maybe explain? I didn't take this as a bad faith comment. It can be genuinely confusing to someone who doesn't know the ins and outs of academic attribution...
So I'm certain those authors did their part, so maybe yes, I should have linked this as "Bouman et al." but I wouldn't expect this to be six equal contributions either.
That all being said, she's certainly standing on the shoulders of a pyramid of giants there.
Edit: to the people downvoting the parent, maybe explain? I didn't take this as a bad faith comment. It can be genuinely confusing to someone who doesn't know the ins and outs of academic attribution...
I'd argue that in practice science is more of a pile of giants.
Giant turtles. Its giant turtles all the way down.
I've found that CS contributions in academia are often poorly credited (sometimes even entirely neglected) to endeavors not purely executed within CS itself.
It's interesting considering how many modern scientific endeavors are dependent on new innovative algorithms, software, and computing techniques in both experimental and theoretical work then its frequently just hand-waved away as "technology."
I'm not saying such contributions (typically, though they can,) lay groundwork for an experiment or theory in another domain, but I am saying active CS involvement/expertise is typically critical to many scientific endeavors' success these days. If a project is interdiscipinary, there's probably a computer scientist on the team helping out.
It's interesting considering how many modern scientific endeavors are dependent on new innovative algorithms, software, and computing techniques in both experimental and theoretical work then its frequently just hand-waved away as "technology."
I'm not saying such contributions (typically, though they can,) lay groundwork for an experiment or theory in another domain, but I am saying active CS involvement/expertise is typically critical to many scientific endeavors' success these days. If a project is interdiscipinary, there's probably a computer scientist on the team helping out.
I’ve gotten authorship when I have collaborated on the paper itself (rather than just research: that’s how you get into acknowledgements, same as lab techs, collaborators who didn’t work on this specific paper, etc.)
Although I agree with the point you have raised, it can sometimes be a little tricky to draw the line. Should we have Microsoft cited for projects completed using their software or system? Should we always cite Newton when using calculus?
I think society implicitly assumes that there has been a tone of people backing up a single individual towards their main achievements and that the individual is humble enough to know and to try - ever so slightly - to show appreciation.
I think society implicitly assumes that there has been a tone of people backing up a single individual towards their main achievements and that the individual is humble enough to know and to try - ever so slightly - to show appreciation.
That's why I said "actively."
From my perspective, if in order to accomplish your work, you need consult or active collaboration with a computer scientist and otherwise could not develop/test your theory or conduct your experiment, then they almost certainly should be cited as an author/collaborator.
If you utilize something OTS outside the project that just works for you and don't need a computer scientist, then whatever entity created that OTS IP isn't really an author/collaborator, but it's likely their work should be cited/referenced if it's part of the critical methodology (as part of disclosure and repeatability).
If your project used Microsoft Word to write up a report, it's not important to the underlying science you conducted. You could have substituted it with TeX, other Word processors, or pen/paper and it wouldn't change the outcome of the underlying theory/experiment you developed. If you used an Ansys package to perform analysis for some purpose, you should probably mention that out of rigor but Ansys isn't an author or collaborator.
If on the other hand you need someone to architect a solution to handle processing your massive dataset, needed someone to write custom code because nothing could do what you needed, needed a new algorithm because you had no clue how to approach the problem, or even needed someone to modify source code significantly to something that existed but couldn't do what you needed, then they are certainly an author/collaborator. If you took existing code/algorithm and made it more efficient in order to accomplish a task that would have taken too long otherwise, you're a contributor/collaborator and should be listed as an author.
This has been a huge issue in academic research but it's been getting a bit better and researchers are starting even more to acknowledge/credit computing professionals as crucial contributors and authors, as they rightfully should be.
From my perspective, if in order to accomplish your work, you need consult or active collaboration with a computer scientist and otherwise could not develop/test your theory or conduct your experiment, then they almost certainly should be cited as an author/collaborator.
If you utilize something OTS outside the project that just works for you and don't need a computer scientist, then whatever entity created that OTS IP isn't really an author/collaborator, but it's likely their work should be cited/referenced if it's part of the critical methodology (as part of disclosure and repeatability).
If your project used Microsoft Word to write up a report, it's not important to the underlying science you conducted. You could have substituted it with TeX, other Word processors, or pen/paper and it wouldn't change the outcome of the underlying theory/experiment you developed. If you used an Ansys package to perform analysis for some purpose, you should probably mention that out of rigor but Ansys isn't an author or collaborator.
If on the other hand you need someone to architect a solution to handle processing your massive dataset, needed someone to write custom code because nothing could do what you needed, needed a new algorithm because you had no clue how to approach the problem, or even needed someone to modify source code significantly to something that existed but couldn't do what you needed, then they are certainly an author/collaborator. If you took existing code/algorithm and made it more efficient in order to accomplish a task that would have taken too long otherwise, you're a contributor/collaborator and should be listed as an author.
This has been a huge issue in academic research but it's been getting a bit better and researchers are starting even more to acknowledge/credit computing professionals as crucial contributors and authors, as they rightfully should be.
> That's why I said "actively."
That's one of the reasons I said "I agree with the point you have raised".
I also think you have once again, raised some good points. Hopefully, others will use similar structures when writing and publishing their research.
That's one of the reasons I said "I agree with the point you have raised".
I also think you have once again, raised some good points. Hopefully, others will use similar structures when writing and publishing their research.
In this case she is a Computer Scientist, so the CS contributions are the first author on the paper.
Not just CS, but depending on the discipline, math and statistics more generally.
Papers are routinely credited to their first author. Everyone understand the co-authors also took part. She also clearly credits the rest of the team in the posted BBC article.
She does clearly credit the rest of the team, which is admirable as she's also clearly been key to this piece of work.
Somehow though my facebook feed is already littered with images saying she was single-handedly responsible and no one's talking about her.
https://bit.ly/2Gkfk7f
Somehow though my facebook feed is already littered with images saying she was single-handedly responsible and no one's talking about her.
https://bit.ly/2Gkfk7f
pbhjpbhj(4)
Very few science papers have a single author these days. She's listed as first author, so presumably her contribution was at least as important as anyone else's.
If we want to be pedantic, this paper is the work of millions of humans throughout history, who have helped developed the math knowledge for such a project to even be feasible.
> https://github.com/achael/eht-imaging/graphs/contributors
Huh, I wonder how accurate this is. All the code is beyond me in any case, I'm in no position to judge the relative value of any of it.
Huh, I wonder how accurate this is. All the code is beyond me in any case, I'm in no position to judge the relative value of any of it.
Number of lines is not an indicator of contribution. The reason I posted this repo was so that folks curious about the programming behind this science could have their fill. I am just happy to see an academic project using good version control practices released under a proper license.
I'm not sure what the idea behind posting this is? In a large scale project rarely does someone high up the command chain do any of the "grunt" work (i.e. programming). Also, by training she appears to be dealing more with theory than the actual implementation aspect of this all.
ok, so just so everyone is clear, the point between parent and grandparent is Andrew Chael seems to have written a hell of a lot more code than Katie Bouman, for a lot longer
* achael 566 commits 850,275 ++ 131,044 --
* klbouman 90 commits 2,410 ++ 1,265 --
However, at least at the level of reading the commit messages, Katie's are pretty math heavy:
"fixed bug in the fake briggs weighting"
"starting to fix chirp problems with polrep"
"made it possible to do a min uv cut on closure phase when adding it a..."
While Andrew's lean frequently toward code maintenance:
"updated some docstrings in imager_utils"
"moved imgsum to plotting.summary_plots"
"modified README"
That said, Andrew and others seem to have pretty good insight too.
* achael 566 commits 850,275 ++ 131,044 --
* klbouman 90 commits 2,410 ++ 1,265 --
However, at least at the level of reading the commit messages, Katie's are pretty math heavy:
"fixed bug in the fake briggs weighting"
"starting to fix chirp problems with polrep"
"made it possible to do a min uv cut on closure phase when adding it a..."
While Andrew's lean frequently toward code maintenance:
"updated some docstrings in imager_utils"
"moved imgsum to plotting.summary_plots"
"modified README"
That said, Andrew and others seem to have pretty good insight too.
To add some more context... of the 850k lines, 500k lines are mostly models and machine generated code. Andrew is definitely smart (smarter than an average HN user) and his code is very important but I have never seen so much display of misogyny and sexism against a woman scientist. She never took any credit and clearly said that this was a team effort. Some of the top posts on reddit are trying to mischaracterize the work that Dr.Katie has done and the comments are so vile.
One of the few redeeming features of the HN conventions of civility and seriousness is that we don't have Reddit's problems and we don't need to talk about Reddit.
But what could possibly qualify you to say that "Andrew is definitely smart (smarter than an average HN user) and his code is very important"?
But what could possibly qualify you to say that "Andrew is definitely smart (smarter than an average HN user) and his code is very important"?
pbhjpbhj(1)
> so much display of misogyny and sexism against a woman scientist
There are no woman scientists, science has no gender.
The article is sexiest not people who are curious what Dr. Bouman actually did to be honored to mention in BBC article.
There are no woman scientists, science has no gender.
The article is sexiest not people who are curious what Dr. Bouman actually did to be honored to mention in BBC article.
It's fallacious to presume that — because gender, sex, race, etc. shouldn't impact peoples' opportunities — that we should treat is as though it doesn't impact them.
This is a good article on the concept: https://everydayfeminism.com/2013/09/dont-see-race/
[Edit:] Or this, as a complementary one: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-dont-see-race
This is a good article on the concept: https://everydayfeminism.com/2013/09/dont-see-race/
[Edit:] Or this, as a complementary one: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-dont-see-race
We don’t exist in a purely meritocratic and egalitarian society. Maybe you have never been told that you are not good enough for some work but growing up in deeply paternalistic society, I constantly heard “women are too stupid for hard sciences and they should just stick to kitchens”. If celebrating her achievements in this way changes minds of a few people and inspires a few girls to believe in themselves, I think it is worth the “biased” coverage that she is getting for her work.
People don’t surrender their outside identity when they become a scientist.
People don't surrender their outside political views, their lineage, sexual orientation and other background either. See how stupid the article would sound if titled: "Jane Doe: The divorced homosexual black democratic woman with three children behind the first black hole image". Science matters.
True, but that need not be of high importance when assigning credit. Especially in projects that involve a lot of implementation, the high level algorithms and techniques are developed by someone who might be far removed from actually writing code, and that aspect is outsourced to someone much more competent at programming. A lot of PhD students / professors do not have the talent or have not developed the thought process to write complex code, simply because their focus has been on other things.
Exactly. One project I worked on a while back involved me taking a big pile of very clever and complicated Matlab code and rewriting it in python in a way that made it easy to use from other projects and able to read a couple of additional input file formats. If you just look at the commits on that project it would look like I was responsible for 90+% of the entire thing, while in truth I was basically just doing transcribing and cleaning and had basically nothing to do with any of the difficult parts.
she could have written 0 lines and be "the woman behind the picture".
Writing code is easy, figuring out complex algorithms is something very different, and does not require coding knowledge
Writing code is easy, figuring out complex algorithms is something very different, and does not require coding knowledge
https://github.com/achael/eht-imaging/commit/886b07b8a00d142...
one commit with 524,306 additions. adding a model.
one commit with 524,306 additions. adding a model.
This is deeply offensive. I'm the owner and founder of my company and I haven't written any meaningful code for our core products in 10 years. Our github repo has barely a scratch from me in it. Does this make my work, my hard long hours in managing my team and designing the product, worthless?
It's offensive and frustrating. I don't understand why people have to try and pull holes in this kind of celebration like there is some conspiracy to promote Katie at the cost of others.
If I read it right, she mentioned and praised her team as well.
If I read it right, she mentioned and praised her team as well.
Honestly I'd take satisfaction in what I had built. As a leader I'd greatly enjoy giving credit to the team who committed to my vision and made it a reality.
Hacker’s News is so sexist they can’t just find the joy in this algorithm genius’ success. She solved one of those hard technical problems we always talk about, and the world is richer for it.
Redirect your confusion towards that unprofessional media outlet. What Dr. Bouman has to do with this? Read or listen to her interviews, she always highlights that it was a team effort.
Mega Science projects are always huge collaborative efforts. This remarkable scientific achievement is now unfairly focused on an individual. Lets compare this with a couple of other mega science discoveries. The gravitational waves detection discovery was not attributed to any single individual. The collaboration got the credit for it. Back in 2012 when ATLAS experiment at CERN announced the discovery of Higgs boson, the collaboration spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti made the announcement through quite an impressive presentation of the results. Yet the discovery was attributed to the whole collaboration. In both these occasions no Eureka moment photographs were publicized and stole the credit.
In particle physics, these practices evolved over decades, when specific individuals tried to claim credits for discoveries in an unfair way(Nobel dream by Gary Taubes gives a beautiful account of this). Many particle physics collaborations now have detailed constitution and guidelines on what images/graphs they can show to the public. Someone who first made the first Higgs mass plot which shows a 5 sigma evidence of Higgs observation could not have leaked that plot on social media.
However this narrative is inspiring and perhaps motivate many young woman to take up careers in science and promote a more welcoming atmosphere for women in STEM.
In particle physics, these practices evolved over decades, when specific individuals tried to claim credits for discoveries in an unfair way(Nobel dream by Gary Taubes gives a beautiful account of this). Many particle physics collaborations now have detailed constitution and guidelines on what images/graphs they can show to the public. Someone who first made the first Higgs mass plot which shows a 5 sigma evidence of Higgs observation could not have leaked that plot on social media.
However this narrative is inspiring and perhaps motivate many young woman to take up careers in science and promote a more welcoming atmosphere for women in STEM.
black-tea(1)
Slightly off-topic - is anyone able to identify the software used in this photo of the first time seeing the black hole?
[1] https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/190410153403-katie-bo...
[1] https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/190410153403-katie-bo...
BBC covered it more as a team effort for this BBC4 doc I watched last night.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00042l4/how-to-see-a-...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00042l4/how-to-see-a-...
How come she is everywhere on the internet but not at the presentation panel on live conference that was yesterday?
Jeez why the downvotes? It's a legitimate question I had.
Jeez why the downvotes? It's a legitimate question I had.
The downvotes are typical in gender politics threads. There are two fronts aggressively arguing in a “you are either with us or against us fashion”
For the people questioning if she’s receiving unfair attention because of her gender they view you comment as an attack on the establishment ala: “How dare they exclude her!? Is it just because she’s a woman?” And downvote you. For the people arguing that her media coverage is being unfairly criticized because she’s a woman they view your question as an attack on the assertion that she deserves the attention so they downvote you.
In either case I think it’s interesting to ask why the proclaimed “woman behind the image” wasn’t there for the unvailing of the image.
For the people questioning if she’s receiving unfair attention because of her gender they view you comment as an attack on the establishment ala: “How dare they exclude her!? Is it just because she’s a woman?” And downvote you. For the people arguing that her media coverage is being unfairly criticized because she’s a woman they view your question as an attack on the assertion that she deserves the attention so they downvote you.
In either case I think it’s interesting to ask why the proclaimed “woman behind the image” wasn’t there for the unvailing of the image.
This is very curious - the OP is functioning like a Rorschach for HN readers.
“ 29-year-old computer scientist”
She’s not an astronomer?
She’s not an astronomer?
She is definitely not an astronomer. A lot of highly specialized and talented people who aren't astronomers or physicists are are critical to the success of big science projects.
Best to see her bio [1]:
I am a postdoctoral fellow with the Event Horizon Telescope and will be an Assistant Professor in the CMS department at Caltech beginning in 2019.
[1] https://people.csail.mit.edu/klbouman/
I am a postdoctoral fellow with the Event Horizon Telescope and will be an Assistant Professor in the CMS department at Caltech beginning in 2019.
[1] https://people.csail.mit.edu/klbouman/
Astronomy is about computers to the same extent that computer science is about telescopes, as I think Dijkstra said.
Maybe not on paper, but she is definitely an astronomer.
[deleted]
black-tea(1)
hidden figures? eerily similar
She is getting a lot of press:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/computer-scientists-play-key-ro...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/computer-scientists-play-key-ro...
from april 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIvezCVcsYs
It's so awesome! I thought it was kinda cool that it actually looks a little bit like the one from Interstellar.
<sarcasm> I just wish they had used a camera from this century </sarcasm>
<sarcasm> I just wish they had used a camera from this century </sarcasm>
Is this the correct repo?
https://github.com/achael/eht-imaging/graphs/contributors
I didn't realize this was public code.
It looks like one "achael" is the author of this, though.
https://github.com/achael/eht-imaging/graphs/contributors
I didn't realize this was public code.
It looks like one "achael" is the author of this, though.
govg(1)
bigbaguette(2)
What many people here committing is logical fallacy of Tu Quoque[0]. Just because people wrongly attributed disproportionate credence of such creativity, fame, and inspiration to Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and all, it doesn't mean they must be mute to such continued disproportionate bias of limelight and recognition when add another one adds to the list. We are always allowed to correct ourselves whenever we find such bias regardless of it emanating from some implied message of jealousy or butt hurt attitude because a minority section has achieved. This is why I like HN( and back in the day, Quora). They are so beautifully intelligent minded that they won't even leave git histories and published papers. This, I have seen on many submissions here.
Never have men at large objected to such bias when women have cited theories and concepts discovered by men to publish papers and win medals in the field of mathematics. That is something naysayers should ponder over.
All the documentaries, autobiographies, and famous books that peered deep into the lives of those inspirational people always give proportionate credit to those contributors of success either by these people or the authentic researchers. Katie was no less enthusiastic when it was her turn.
But these news agencies play with people's emotions, desires,aspirations, etc. These news agencies are capitalistic and optimize over consumerism. These news agencies are shameless whores to betray the principles of intellectual honesty and journalistic ethics in dissemination of facts by kowtowing to the appeasement of the disgruntled - who happen to be majority of their viewers.
But? We, the layman, are hapless to (1) gain knowledge from immediate sources (2) draw immediate conclusions from these sources. We can't be blamed for not putting efforts to gain complete picture or check the veracity of middlemen called the media. We run forward the self fulling prophecy originating from media. The trust was put in reputed media and that is why the media should care for its reputation. That trust was put in the media because it was touted as fourth pillar of democracy who can't commit hypocrisy in its main endeavors to expose the truth.
Whereas otherwise, the organization Katie Bouman is working, official representatives such as MIT blogs, and TED talks have all credited to the development of original algorithm, though when it was at nascent stage, to THE Katie Bouman, while at the same time to her team for handling in subsequent parts.
I salute her. With relevant degree and using her education in imaging black holes, she set the discourse of the main branch that others picked up. If the idea and algorithm germinated in her mind, she should get credit for it, simple. All she needed is few people to delegate implementation of her ideas or modify it for sustenance. If somebody furthered her ideas enough that it can be versioned as 2.0 or 3.0, then they get equal credit and status as her in final mission[1]. She can patent her invention rightly for conjuring the initial stages of algorithm using all of her own cognitive capabilities.
But we should go only so far. Even women aspirants will get disheartened and show recidivism by wrongly strengthening the bias that they are somehow less capable in attaining pinnacles of STEM, when they learn that the achievements of women in reality is not what media portrays. This is why I consider the twitter photo of her being placed aside Margaret Hamilton as the efforts are no way comparable ceteris paribus.
Moreover, if lack of minority role models is enough of a reason to discourage that aspiring minority from their passions, then it would be no less effective in discouragement of non-minority's passions when there is lack of attention and acknowledgement to non-majority's achievements. I mean how did Katie meander through her success to begin with, if there were no role models to her in the field she is working, in the first place?
People say that men had plenty of men in annals of history to look up to, but I'd contend that women aren't in anyway stopped to take inspiration and pique their curiosity in men's achievements just like men take inspiration from Marie Curie or Hedy Lamarr apart from the sea of men.
[0]rationalwiki.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
[1] I mean Prof Falcke.
Never have men at large objected to such bias when women have cited theories and concepts discovered by men to publish papers and win medals in the field of mathematics. That is something naysayers should ponder over.
All the documentaries, autobiographies, and famous books that peered deep into the lives of those inspirational people always give proportionate credit to those contributors of success either by these people or the authentic researchers. Katie was no less enthusiastic when it was her turn.
But these news agencies play with people's emotions, desires,aspirations, etc. These news agencies are capitalistic and optimize over consumerism. These news agencies are shameless whores to betray the principles of intellectual honesty and journalistic ethics in dissemination of facts by kowtowing to the appeasement of the disgruntled - who happen to be majority of their viewers.
But? We, the layman, are hapless to (1) gain knowledge from immediate sources (2) draw immediate conclusions from these sources. We can't be blamed for not putting efforts to gain complete picture or check the veracity of middlemen called the media. We run forward the self fulling prophecy originating from media. The trust was put in reputed media and that is why the media should care for its reputation. That trust was put in the media because it was touted as fourth pillar of democracy who can't commit hypocrisy in its main endeavors to expose the truth.
Whereas otherwise, the organization Katie Bouman is working, official representatives such as MIT blogs, and TED talks have all credited to the development of original algorithm, though when it was at nascent stage, to THE Katie Bouman, while at the same time to her team for handling in subsequent parts.
I salute her. With relevant degree and using her education in imaging black holes, she set the discourse of the main branch that others picked up. If the idea and algorithm germinated in her mind, she should get credit for it, simple. All she needed is few people to delegate implementation of her ideas or modify it for sustenance. If somebody furthered her ideas enough that it can be versioned as 2.0 or 3.0, then they get equal credit and status as her in final mission[1]. She can patent her invention rightly for conjuring the initial stages of algorithm using all of her own cognitive capabilities.
But we should go only so far. Even women aspirants will get disheartened and show recidivism by wrongly strengthening the bias that they are somehow less capable in attaining pinnacles of STEM, when they learn that the achievements of women in reality is not what media portrays. This is why I consider the twitter photo of her being placed aside Margaret Hamilton as the efforts are no way comparable ceteris paribus.
Moreover, if lack of minority role models is enough of a reason to discourage that aspiring minority from their passions, then it would be no less effective in discouragement of non-minority's passions when there is lack of attention and acknowledgement to non-majority's achievements. I mean how did Katie meander through her success to begin with, if there were no role models to her in the field she is working, in the first place?
People say that men had plenty of men in annals of history to look up to, but I'd contend that women aren't in anyway stopped to take inspiration and pique their curiosity in men's achievements just like men take inspiration from Marie Curie or Hedy Lamarr apart from the sea of men.
[0]rationalwiki.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
[1] I mean Prof Falcke.
The Chinese military used a similar method to find US spy planes - they used background signals from e.g. cell phone towers and looked for the area where there was a "blank spot" - which was the spy plane's absorption of the spectrum.
This is a popular hypothesis, but how exactly do you think it may work? It's not like you can see a "blank spot" by looking from radio sources, you'd need to put your antennas in a position where the plain will intersect your line of sight to the transmitter. And not just one, but massive number of lines if you plan to track it and deliver a missile there.
It sounds pretty improbable and I believe it's just an urban myth.
It sounds pretty improbable and I believe it's just an urban myth.
Why let the facts get in the way of your unexamined beliefs?
References a paper from 2009 (classified research could well have been much earlier):
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-u-s-navys-next-hawkeye-...
Guess what emits UHF/VHF? Terrestrial TV stations and 900Mhz and 700Mhz cell phone towers , like Sprint and Nextel used to operate in the USA before their spectrum was traded/sold back to the government.
China claims can track F22 fighter even in stealth configuration: https://news.yahoo.com/stealth-no-more-china-claims-02470090...
And this is what is publicly released for public consumption...
References a paper from 2009 (classified research could well have been much earlier):
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-u-s-navys-next-hawkeye-...
Guess what emits UHF/VHF? Terrestrial TV stations and 900Mhz and 700Mhz cell phone towers , like Sprint and Nextel used to operate in the USA before their spectrum was traded/sold back to the government.
China claims can track F22 fighter even in stealth configuration: https://news.yahoo.com/stealth-no-more-china-claims-02470090...
And this is what is publicly released for public consumption...
It's well known that low frequency radars can detect stealth airplanes. But it's difficult to target a missile using them, and they're too big to put anywhere but on the ground.
I've read comments on Hacker News for many years, often finding them a useful source of additional information and insight into details from whatever the linked piece is. Sometimes these threads are full of only subtly veiled hatred and leave me with a feeling of disgust. This thread is one of those.
There have been countless threads over the years where a man gets the credit for something a team has worked on and there is practically never any comments about this. For once a woman gets credit and this thread is full of people complaining that there was an entire team.
Yes, there was a team, but that doesn't matter. For once a woman is getting credit for the great work they've done and this should be applauded. Stories like this help bring more women into STEM fields. Anyone who is complaining about the lack of fairness in this is making themselves look ignorant by ignoring the last thousand years of scientific progress.
There have been countless threads over the years where a man gets the credit for something a team has worked on and there is practically never any comments about this. For once a woman gets credit and this thread is full of people complaining that there was an entire team.
Yes, there was a team, but that doesn't matter. For once a woman is getting credit for the great work they've done and this should be applauded. Stories like this help bring more women into STEM fields. Anyone who is complaining about the lack of fairness in this is making themselves look ignorant by ignoring the last thousand years of scientific progress.
In my experience this is common for this type of news about "prodigies" on HN. I remember the same types of reactions a few years ago about an article about a child who made the headlines (it even prompted a response by pg IIRC). Was it Malala? I can't remember.
I think it's just that many people feel threatened or inadequate when they (naturally) compare themselves to these people. It's tempting to put them down so that we feel better about ourselves. I think most of us here on HN like to think that we're clever but when people like Katie Bouman get under the spotlight suddenly most of us realize that we're not such hot shots after all.
It's probably worse when it's a woman/child/minority/... because it gives us the convenient excuse of "this is probably a PR stunt" to dismiss them. It's lazy and it's intellectually dishonest but it's also very human unfortunately.
I think it's just that many people feel threatened or inadequate when they (naturally) compare themselves to these people. It's tempting to put them down so that we feel better about ourselves. I think most of us here on HN like to think that we're clever but when people like Katie Bouman get under the spotlight suddenly most of us realize that we're not such hot shots after all.
It's probably worse when it's a woman/child/minority/... because it gives us the convenient excuse of "this is probably a PR stunt" to dismiss them. It's lazy and it's intellectually dishonest but it's also very human unfortunately.
Indeed, one of the most poisonous things going on in Hollywood/TV right now is writers and actors getting told they didn't get the job because "diversity is hot right now" or some similar rubbish. It reinforces the idea that "the best" people should get the job (not the best people for the job) whilst simultaneously implying that "diverse" people are not "the best".
This leads to people getting rejected thinking it's part of some culture war, when the truth is that most people get rejected, some of those people would have been brilliant in the role they got rejected for and it's exactly the same brutal industry that it was in the 1980s.
This leads to people getting rejected thinking it's part of some culture war, when the truth is that most people get rejected, some of those people would have been brilliant in the role they got rejected for and it's exactly the same brutal industry that it was in the 1980s.
>In my experience this is common for this type of news about "prodigies" on HN. I remember the same types of reactions a few years ago about an article about a child who made the headlines (it even prompted a response by pg IIRC). Was it Malala? I can't remember.
For an example of this that involves a male, the media has been hyping the Ocean Cleanup project because it provides them with a great prodigy story, but people on HN have been rightly pushing back against its merits.
For an example of this that involves a male, the media has been hyping the Ocean Cleanup project because it provides them with a great prodigy story, but people on HN have been rightly pushing back against its merits.
I would hope that isn't it. While her trajectory might be uncommon it isn't abnormal. This is the kind of thing you are supposed to do with a PhD from MIT.
But the amount of hours worked are probably insane. I wouldn't be surprised if she was in her lab 12 hours a day for her whole post-doc or something like that.
Many people are intelligent enough, but are not going to work hard enough.
Many people are intelligent enough, but are not going to work hard enough.
Reading about this reminds me of Dawn Wall. The guy who climbed it was absolutely one of the best climbers in the world, but the reason he was the one to succeed was because he was the one of those best climbers who spent seven years obsessed with a single wall.
She became interested in this problem in high school and stuck with it all the way through. She is a genius, and also the genius who did the work that let this happen.
She became interested in this problem in high school and stuck with it all the way through. She is a genius, and also the genius who did the work that let this happen.
the closest one that comes to mind is the teenager who was credited with that article summarizing algorithm that I think Yahoo or someone ended up buying. My memory is pretty hazy on it, but in that case it seemed more like a group of researchers actually made it and I'm not 100% certain how he was connected. I remember that one getting a bit of "hey, what a second" kind of comments about it.
I think in this particular case, I have no problem with it. One, she obviously had a big part in it. Maybe it is blow back because they feel a picture of the inside of a black hole isn't a big deal and people are making it into something big? In my opinion, it is. I remember middle school teachers almost scoffing at the idea of a picture of a black hole and yet, 25 years later, here we are. Regardless, she in her twenties has generated something that researchers spend a lifetime trying to find so kudos to her. I'm sure there is a certain gendered element to it in both cases (for and against) and it'd probably be naive to think there wasn't.
Even if this were a smaller aspect of what these researchers were aiming for, I'd love to see a documentary series on what various team members worked on (and in her case, discovered). An image generated by radio waves and she (maybe with others?) was able to construct an image out of that? That's impressive. Probably not, but I'd be curious if this kind of thing could be localized in a way that it could be the "sound to visual model" element of a system so that blind people could make out the world a bit more directly (obviously, there'd need to be a means for them to consume said model. All of this is way above me and my pay grade).
I think in this particular case, I have no problem with it. One, she obviously had a big part in it. Maybe it is blow back because they feel a picture of the inside of a black hole isn't a big deal and people are making it into something big? In my opinion, it is. I remember middle school teachers almost scoffing at the idea of a picture of a black hole and yet, 25 years later, here we are. Regardless, she in her twenties has generated something that researchers spend a lifetime trying to find so kudos to her. I'm sure there is a certain gendered element to it in both cases (for and against) and it'd probably be naive to think there wasn't.
Even if this were a smaller aspect of what these researchers were aiming for, I'd love to see a documentary series on what various team members worked on (and in her case, discovered). An image generated by radio waves and she (maybe with others?) was able to construct an image out of that? That's impressive. Probably not, but I'd be curious if this kind of thing could be localized in a way that it could be the "sound to visual model" element of a system so that blind people could make out the world a bit more directly (obviously, there'd need to be a means for them to consume said model. All of this is way above me and my pay grade).
You were probably thinking about the startup Summly, which was founded by a 16 yo [0]. Summly eventually got bought by Marissa Mayer while at the helms at Yahoo! for $30 million [1].
0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3399377
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5442290
0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3399377
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5442290
I am glad she got credit and I am glad in that respect she got treated equally. I am a little sad that her gender is a 'thing', as in I think I have seen more comments on various news site comments, social media, etc. that are quick to specifically point out she is a woman. I get they are trying to be positive, but it also has this weird reverse side where it is like "An amazing feat in STEM has been achieved, but you better brace yourself, it wasn't done by a man, it was done by a woman! A real living woman!". I understand the argument of needing to make a shout about it to help encourage more women into the field and to try to push against previous years of women not being in the limelight for work like this. But at the same point, every time it is specifically called out, it feels like something that is (obviously) only done for a woman, so therefore it is treating the achievement differently than if a man had achieved it.
Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Anyway, I do not want to sidetrack from this amazing achievement.
Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Anyway, I do not want to sidetrack from this amazing achievement.
Yeah, the most important fact for the humanity that they did it, they created the first image of a black hole, is it a man, a woman, a child, a muslim, a white man, what does it even matter?
I kinda hate the recent trend to focus more on gender or race if somebody achieves anything. Look what Morgan Freeman said about racism [0]. Is it really important that she is a woman? Do people think a lot of women can't achieve these things? And if 1 woman achieved this, all women are better than men? Do everybody just expect men to be smarter and if they do something outstanding it's ok, but when a woman does it, it's extraordinary... Why focus so much on this?
In discussions like this we should really focus on the person (and also the team behind her/him, I doubt she could do it alone without the team), not the gender or race or whatever.
I really hope this positive discrimination hype dies out, it doesn't help anybody. Let the best person for the job get the job.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3cGfrExozQ
I kinda hate the recent trend to focus more on gender or race if somebody achieves anything. Look what Morgan Freeman said about racism [0]. Is it really important that she is a woman? Do people think a lot of women can't achieve these things? And if 1 woman achieved this, all women are better than men? Do everybody just expect men to be smarter and if they do something outstanding it's ok, but when a woman does it, it's extraordinary... Why focus so much on this?
In discussions like this we should really focus on the person (and also the team behind her/him, I doubt she could do it alone without the team), not the gender or race or whatever.
I really hope this positive discrimination hype dies out, it doesn't help anybody. Let the best person for the job get the job.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3cGfrExozQ
If a headline said “the man who discovered the cure” you wouldn’t think they were making a big deal out of his gender. You only see it as being attention-seeking because you are experiencing cognitive dissonance, and you are blaming it on their language instead of your mental patterns.
Spot on.
I think this might be one of those cases where we just have to agree to disagree, but I, well, disagree with the premise that the reaction to men is any different on this point.
There are regularly posts here linking to articles about misattribution of credit in science and technology, the problem with the "great man theory," laments about the role of social media in creating hype, and there are plenty of male figures discussed here who engender bitter discussions about how credit should be assigned. I honestly don't see any difference between this discussion and any other discussion. I seem to remember similar discussions emerging about discovery of the Meltdown and Spectre hardware vulnerabilities, and many other physics discoveries involving large teams of researchers, just to take a few examples.
The way credit is assigned in science is a significant moral crisis in my opinion (as it is in work in general; cf. rampant income inequality), and it really doesn't matter what the genders of the individuals involved are. Strangely enough, I think attention is being paid to this argument here because of her gender. It's one of these unfortunate circumstances where I think two competing ethical goals are kind of conflicting, one being the better representation of women and minorities in science, the other being lack of fair representation for all in credit.
There are regularly posts here linking to articles about misattribution of credit in science and technology, the problem with the "great man theory," laments about the role of social media in creating hype, and there are plenty of male figures discussed here who engender bitter discussions about how credit should be assigned. I honestly don't see any difference between this discussion and any other discussion. I seem to remember similar discussions emerging about discovery of the Meltdown and Spectre hardware vulnerabilities, and many other physics discoveries involving large teams of researchers, just to take a few examples.
The way credit is assigned in science is a significant moral crisis in my opinion (as it is in work in general; cf. rampant income inequality), and it really doesn't matter what the genders of the individuals involved are. Strangely enough, I think attention is being paid to this argument here because of her gender. It's one of these unfortunate circumstances where I think two competing ethical goals are kind of conflicting, one being the better representation of women and minorities in science, the other being lack of fair representation for all in credit.
Yeah, these arguments happen all the time, with plenty of male figures as well.
It's the same on Reddit.
The sheer toxicity of many of the comments is something I haven't seen for a long time. They really hate that a women is getting credit and that others aren't getting the same level of attention.
I wonder how those same people think about Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs etc. They had huge teams behind them as well.
The sheer toxicity of many of the comments is something I haven't seen for a long time. They really hate that a women is getting credit and that others aren't getting the same level of attention.
I wonder how those same people think about Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs etc. They had huge teams behind them as well.
Yeah I'm reading all these comments and I hope these people are NOT the sames ones asking why more girls/women don't get into tech, because I've been a programmer for > 8 years and shit like this is off putting to me, a grown ass woman.
Dumb attitude.
For every extraordinarily recognized academic/professional person, there’s always going to be many times more people who are never publicly recognized for their achievements.
Maybe they fly under the radar, maybe they picked the wrong subject to focus on or industry for career, maybe their timing is bad, maybe there’s nothing wrong with them.
I’m proud of this (stranger to me) girl for accomplishing something so large at this age. Being about the same age, I’m not jealous - but it is one more reminder that somewhere along the line my record-player skipped a few years. My 20s disappeared too quickly, or maybe I was focused on the wrong things (work) instead of passion.
For every extraordinarily recognized academic/professional person, there’s always going to be many times more people who are never publicly recognized for their achievements.
Maybe they fly under the radar, maybe they picked the wrong subject to focus on or industry for career, maybe their timing is bad, maybe there’s nothing wrong with them.
I’m proud of this (stranger to me) girl for accomplishing something so large at this age. Being about the same age, I’m not jealous - but it is one more reminder that somewhere along the line my record-player skipped a few years. My 20s disappeared too quickly, or maybe I was focused on the wrong things (work) instead of passion.
Agreed with you that her accomplishment is great.
As in engineering, it's helpful to use proper terminology with people:
if using a gender is necessary for the narrative …
- under 13: girl
- 13 – 18: girl / teenager / young woman (depends on context; 16? – 25?)
- 18 or over: woman
As in engineering, it's helpful to use proper terminology with people:
if using a gender is necessary for the narrative …
- under 13: girl
- 13 – 18: girl / teenager / young woman (depends on context; 16? – 25?)
- 18 or over: woman
Some additional anecdotal information on the above comment:
My wife absolutely loathes being called "girl". It is used to reinforce the toxic idea that women are less mature and capable than men. Same feeling from other women that I've discussed this with.
18 or over = woman.
My wife absolutely loathes being called "girl". It is used to reinforce the toxic idea that women are less mature and capable than men. Same feeling from other women that I've discussed this with.
18 or over = woman.
it's important not to allow age-based vocab to drift when you are talking about a woman vs. a man, but I think it's more contextual than you present it. there are plenty of males over the age of eighteen whom I would not refer to as "men". if you changed only the gender of these people, I would probably not refer to them as "women" either.
Eh, if it was a man, a lot of people would call them a guy and nobody would care. Girl is opposite both boy and guy and encompasses the range.
Please stop spamming the thread with this link. This doesn't meet the bar for substantive discussion here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I like how you highlight some admittedly minor commits in big scary red boxes while ignoring technically significant ones like "added function to figure out amt of systematic noise you need to add to get a chi squared of 1",
This is why people say there's sexism in tech bud. A male MIT PhD who was the public face of their project would not be subjected to nearly this much doubt and accusations of being deadweight by insecure 4chan weirdos combing through git logs.
This is why people say there's sexism in tech bud. A male MIT PhD who was the public face of their project would not be subjected to nearly this much doubt and accusations of being deadweight by insecure 4chan weirdos combing through git logs.
Yeah, this comment section is really bad.
As someone who's been interested in astronomy my entire life, and considered getting a degree in it but only ended up with a minor since I sensibly prioritized CS and wanted to graduate in four years, this is an awesome, amazing, really clever accomplishment. And yet many of the comments here are just so negative, either outright sexist, picking nits and trying to argue that it isn't a big breakthrough or anything, or going through code contributions line-by-line trying to establish that really someone else had more to do with it.
All I know is, she must be insanely intelligent and hard-working. What an awesome PhD project, and at MIT no less!, an institution that I have enormous respect for and that I somewhat identify with because my dad attended and I've been there for many events. I'm jealous. This would've been the exact kind of thing I'd have gone into in astronomy for (because of my background in programming) had I seriously pursued it, but I know I'm just not diligent enough to have seen it through. And being honest, I didn't apply myself well enough in undergrad to have gotten good enough grades to get into a good grad school.
It sucks that so many people jump into "push people down" mode instead of "life people up" mode in these kinds of situations rather, because this is an amazing scientific accomplishment that deserves celebrating. One of the PIs in one of the press conferences said that this was the most important accomplishment in astronomy since 2014 [when Rosetta landed a probe on a comet], and I tend to agree. It's not just about this one image, but about establishing the feasibility of a virtual planet-sized radio telescope that is capable of imaging lots more than just black holes. A lot more discoveries are likely to come out of this technique, and guess who came up with the algorithm to make sense of all those petabytes of data?
As someone who's been interested in astronomy my entire life, and considered getting a degree in it but only ended up with a minor since I sensibly prioritized CS and wanted to graduate in four years, this is an awesome, amazing, really clever accomplishment. And yet many of the comments here are just so negative, either outright sexist, picking nits and trying to argue that it isn't a big breakthrough or anything, or going through code contributions line-by-line trying to establish that really someone else had more to do with it.
All I know is, she must be insanely intelligent and hard-working. What an awesome PhD project, and at MIT no less!, an institution that I have enormous respect for and that I somewhat identify with because my dad attended and I've been there for many events. I'm jealous. This would've been the exact kind of thing I'd have gone into in astronomy for (because of my background in programming) had I seriously pursued it, but I know I'm just not diligent enough to have seen it through. And being honest, I didn't apply myself well enough in undergrad to have gotten good enough grades to get into a good grad school.
It sucks that so many people jump into "push people down" mode instead of "life people up" mode in these kinds of situations rather, because this is an amazing scientific accomplishment that deserves celebrating. One of the PIs in one of the press conferences said that this was the most important accomplishment in astronomy since 2014 [when Rosetta landed a probe on a comet], and I tend to agree. It's not just about this one image, but about establishing the feasibility of a virtual planet-sized radio telescope that is capable of imaging lots more than just black holes. A lot more discoveries are likely to come out of this technique, and guess who came up with the algorithm to make sense of all those petabytes of data?
I agree with your general sentiment but two comments:
1) Look back at any physic journal for similar stories of experimental success (example gravitational waves), you won't find news stories of focus pieces on a single team member because it is a COLLABORATIVE effort. The only cases were single people get recognition is for theorists like Prof Higgs, Hawkings etc, but not for the individual experimentalists at the LHC or other astronomical projects.
2) The idea of focussing on a single team member is a technique for creating a clear narrative that readers can follow. The story would get less interest if you were told about the live and works of all of the team members.
It's not all hate :)
1) Look back at any physic journal for similar stories of experimental success (example gravitational waves), you won't find news stories of focus pieces on a single team member because it is a COLLABORATIVE effort. The only cases were single people get recognition is for theorists like Prof Higgs, Hawkings etc, but not for the individual experimentalists at the LHC or other astronomical projects.
2) The idea of focussing on a single team member is a technique for creating a clear narrative that readers can follow. The story would get less interest if you were told about the live and works of all of the team members.
It's not all hate :)
Craig Venter
Hacker News isn't some monolithic community. Each time, you're seeing different people express their opinions. There's no hypocrisy there.
I think it's friggin awesome to see women in science. But even if Bouman was male I would still be cautious of attributing so much of an international collaboration to one person in the form of "Meet the _____ behind the first black hole image". That phrasing disregards too much hard work. I see no reason to offer Bouman special treatment in this regard at the expense of others solely because of her gender. That isn't equality.
I think it's friggin awesome to see women in science. But even if Bouman was male I would still be cautious of attributing so much of an international collaboration to one person in the form of "Meet the _____ behind the first black hole image". That phrasing disregards too much hard work. I see no reason to offer Bouman special treatment in this regard at the expense of others solely because of her gender. That isn't equality.
I don't really think she's getting special treatment because of her gender though. I think she's in the spotlight because:
1/ She led the team and was first author on the image reconstruction paper
2/ She gave a Ted talk on the topic a while back
3/ There's a brilliant photo of her initial reaction to the image that captures the excitement of scientific discovery circulating on the internet
1/ She led the team and was first author on the image reconstruction paper
2/ She gave a Ted talk on the topic a while back
3/ There's a brilliant photo of her initial reaction to the image that captures the excitement of scientific discovery circulating on the internet
Thanks for mentioning the Ted talk, I'm about to check it out now.
The first headline on Google for me when searching "black hole image" is this very BBC article.
It was clearly written to grab the reader's attention, and it grabs it away from the actual phenomenon as well as all of the other brilliant minds who came together to make this happen.
She led the CS team. But very-long-baseline interferometry has been around for half a century. Heino Falcke proposed the experiment. Shep Doeleman led the entire EHT initiative. Scientists around the world brought techniques to the table.
I imagine even Bouman takes issue with being labeled "the scientist behind the first image of the black hole". She is surely aware and appreciative of the massive international effort involved.
The first headline on Google for me when searching "black hole image" is this very BBC article.
It was clearly written to grab the reader's attention, and it grabs it away from the actual phenomenon as well as all of the other brilliant minds who came together to make this happen.
She led the CS team. But very-long-baseline interferometry has been around for half a century. Heino Falcke proposed the experiment. Shep Doeleman led the entire EHT initiative. Scientists around the world brought techniques to the table.
I imagine even Bouman takes issue with being labeled "the scientist behind the first image of the black hole". She is surely aware and appreciative of the massive international effort involved.
Her existence is not a distraction from the science, and her being a her definitely isn’t. If it distracted you, that sounds like a you problem. You could try spend time reading about various women’s accomplishments until their gender is simply a fact rather than a “distraction”.
You are arguing against a strawman. I never made any such claim that "her existence is a distraction from the science".
I never made any comment as to her gender being a distraction, either?
Your post is very mean-spirited, ignorant of the views I just expressed, and honestly I don't like your implication that I am not familiar with the accomplishments of women in the past, especially in my field. Or that I have a problem with their gender. Ada Lovelace and Joan of Arc are two of my greatest inspirations! Cut the obvious virtue signalling.
My entire point is that gender has no bearing on this discussion. It's a discussion about misattributing a massive group effort to one individual. The point is that gender should not play a role in either direction, because that would be sexist. Everything you've extrapolated upon you just pulled out of the aether and not my mouth.
I never made any comment as to her gender being a distraction, either?
Your post is very mean-spirited, ignorant of the views I just expressed, and honestly I don't like your implication that I am not familiar with the accomplishments of women in the past, especially in my field. Or that I have a problem with their gender. Ada Lovelace and Joan of Arc are two of my greatest inspirations! Cut the obvious virtue signalling.
My entire point is that gender has no bearing on this discussion. It's a discussion about misattributing a massive group effort to one individual. The point is that gender should not play a role in either direction, because that would be sexist. Everything you've extrapolated upon you just pulled out of the aether and not my mouth.
[deleted]
Yes, quite a number of big academic, scientific or industry figures have had stories about their achievements without any major reference to their (obviously necessary) team. No-one felt moved to point out there were contributions from the graduate students and staff that worked with Yann LeCun, Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio in the HN story about the latter three's Turing Award.
I don't think I've ever seen so many people suddenly desperately concerned that the Little People get a mention, and I'm at least part-way convinced that gender (and maybe youth? she's 29...) has a good deal to do with it (apparently the other thing that triggers the "harrumph, what about the team" crowd are stories about child prodigies, according to another thread).
I don't think I've ever seen so many people suddenly desperately concerned that the Little People get a mention, and I'm at least part-way convinced that gender (and maybe youth? she's 29...) has a good deal to do with it (apparently the other thing that triggers the "harrumph, what about the team" crowd are stories about child prodigies, according to another thread).
“Women and children” is a phrase for a reason: men tend to treat both patronizingly, rather than identifying with them.
Imagine you had just had your invention create a picture of a black hole, you wrote the paper where you were the first author describing this and then the press came knocking: would you be as gracious as she has been? Or would you feel like the fucking rockstar you would, in fact, be?
Imagine you had just had your invention create a picture of a black hole, you wrote the paper where you were the first author describing this and then the press came knocking: would you be as gracious as she has been? Or would you feel like the fucking rockstar you would, in fact, be?
I think there is a misconception here.
Dr. Bouman is a talented, enthusiastic and no doubt indispensable force on the larger team responsible for this achievement. Her role is as a co-lead for one small team which is responsible for one algorithm (out of four) used for imaging, as well as for an imagine verification algorithm (with Dr. Bouman's focus more on the latter). The larger imaging group (about 45 people by my rough count, led by Drs. Michael Johnson and Kazunori Akiyama) is itself one part of the analysis group, which has three other working groups, and then the analysis group is one of a half dozen larger groups in the EHT project which produced this result.
So it's not a case of the project lead being presented as the face of the project, which is par for the course in academia (and the outside world). It is a postdoc one level above the grad students who form the least-senior rung of the project, and many levels from the top suddenly being misleadingly presented as the key figure in a major result.
Imagine you worked on a small team of a couple of postdocs and a few grad students near the bottom of a hierarchy of teams involving hundreds of people, and then came in one day and your colleague and co-lead at the same level as you was suddenly presented as the face and key contributor for not only your small slice of things, not even the larger component to which the slice belongs, but the entire project?
You'd probably be pretty happy for them, but also confused as to why the many people with the actual role as overall group leaders or the project leaders aren't mentioned. One might also note how distant the general public is from the machinations of the academic world that no one is asking how a 20-something CS postdoc ended up leading a multinational astronomy project involving top faculty from top institutions? In terms of notability and improbability, that would probably be a bigger story than any image produced by the group!
Explaining her actual position and contribution is not in any way to detract from her contributions: only to clarify the record in the face of an onslaught of misleading media articles, which seemed to largely sourced (transitively) from a few misleading tweets, themselves triggered by a viral image.
On top of that, none of this is doing Dr. Bouman any favors. Although they are mostly silent, no one in the EHT project is confused about her role, and none of the other people in her faculty or almost anyone else who matters will be under any misconception despite the headlines. If anything, academia is even more picky than other fields when it comes to attribution, so any type of misplaced credit can be viewed very negatively and can attach itself to a person indefinitely. Now she hasn't invited this or propagated this story, so one should consider her a blameless victim here: but not everyone in a position to care will necessarily remember that subtlety.
Dr. Bouman is a talented, enthusiastic and no doubt indispensable force on the larger team responsible for this achievement. Her role is as a co-lead for one small team which is responsible for one algorithm (out of four) used for imaging, as well as for an imagine verification algorithm (with Dr. Bouman's focus more on the latter). The larger imaging group (about 45 people by my rough count, led by Drs. Michael Johnson and Kazunori Akiyama) is itself one part of the analysis group, which has three other working groups, and then the analysis group is one of a half dozen larger groups in the EHT project which produced this result.
So it's not a case of the project lead being presented as the face of the project, which is par for the course in academia (and the outside world). It is a postdoc one level above the grad students who form the least-senior rung of the project, and many levels from the top suddenly being misleadingly presented as the key figure in a major result.
Imagine you worked on a small team of a couple of postdocs and a few grad students near the bottom of a hierarchy of teams involving hundreds of people, and then came in one day and your colleague and co-lead at the same level as you was suddenly presented as the face and key contributor for not only your small slice of things, not even the larger component to which the slice belongs, but the entire project?
You'd probably be pretty happy for them, but also confused as to why the many people with the actual role as overall group leaders or the project leaders aren't mentioned. One might also note how distant the general public is from the machinations of the academic world that no one is asking how a 20-something CS postdoc ended up leading a multinational astronomy project involving top faculty from top institutions? In terms of notability and improbability, that would probably be a bigger story than any image produced by the group!
Explaining her actual position and contribution is not in any way to detract from her contributions: only to clarify the record in the face of an onslaught of misleading media articles, which seemed to largely sourced (transitively) from a few misleading tweets, themselves triggered by a viral image.
On top of that, none of this is doing Dr. Bouman any favors. Although they are mostly silent, no one in the EHT project is confused about her role, and none of the other people in her faculty or almost anyone else who matters will be under any misconception despite the headlines. If anything, academia is even more picky than other fields when it comes to attribution, so any type of misplaced credit can be viewed very negatively and can attach itself to a person indefinitely. Now she hasn't invited this or propagated this story, so one should consider her a blameless victim here: but not everyone in a position to care will necessarily remember that subtlety.
Are you personally involved with the project? I'm curious about the motivation to write (via a throwaway account) a massive thesis debunking the supposedly excessive contribution given to someone who you also refer to as a "no doubt indispensable force".
In much of STEM women are basically at parity. With computer science, and engineering being obvious exceptions. Further there is a study which has shown that in countries with greater gender equality women choose STEM occupations less. Overall women get more graduate degrees than men and have been for the last ten years.
HN seems to have an unfortunate problem where any time women are promoted in tech it creates incredibly toxic threads with lots of thrashing and gnashing about how unfair it is.
One needs to just look at another large thread that generated controversy to get an idea of the growing trend [1].
Which means one has to ask themselves: Is HN cultivating an environment that's only going to get worse? And personally, I think the answer would be yes.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19464269
One needs to just look at another large thread that generated controversy to get an idea of the growing trend [1].
Which means one has to ask themselves: Is HN cultivating an environment that's only going to get worse? And personally, I think the answer would be yes.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19464269
I think those comments try to react to the fact that this news got overblown because the researcher is a very talented woman.
She definitely did something amazing and unfortunately it turned political because it fits the narrative that some people love to push currently.
I'm not a fan of the liberal agenda of positive//negative discrimination. I really believe that it is making everyone worse off, especially women that are being treated like little kids that need to be shown the correct path.
She definitely did something amazing and unfortunately it turned political because it fits the narrative that some people love to push currently.
I'm not a fan of the liberal agenda of positive//negative discrimination. I really believe that it is making everyone worse off, especially women that are being treated like little kids that need to be shown the correct path.
Nobody is aiming to treat women like little kids.
We just want to show that you if you accomplish something in tech you aren't going to be diminished or dismissed simply because you're a woman.
We just want to show that you if you accomplish something in tech you aren't going to be diminished or dismissed simply because you're a woman.
Is there some blind spot people have when a woman is involved? Achievements by men are run through a gamut of informed and not-so-informed criticism all the time on HN. Bouman is getting standard treatment.
I disagree with the premise that it is possible to overblow the news about a picture of a black hole. What kind of crappy nerd thinks science is getting too much press!?!!
> Stories like this help bring more women into STEM fields
How do you know?
How do you know?
One of the reasons I felt isolated in STEM 20 years ago was the very lack of role models. That's changing and I know for a fact, as I interact with young women, that seeing another woman in action as a professional in STEM helps them feel there is a place for them. It definitely fosters a sense of encouragement to pursue higher dreams.
What prevents you from taking a man as a role model?
I do! And many of them. But imagine you have a strong, particular physical trait and you are in a room with others who do not share that trait. Usually you forget about it, but sometimes it matters because you have to use a different bathroom, or you don't get easily invited out for drinks because of tension or maybe you don't speak the language well, or maybe there are perceived cultural barriers. If you saw someone on television or in the news about someone with your trait and excelling in your field, imagine how delighted you would feel! That somehow, after all you do belong in that field. It's a natural human response to want to feel part of a community, and that's hard to do when you are a singular type of a clearly-visible trait.
Except in most of STEM there are already an equal number of women. As soon as the baby boomers retire itll be obvious. Women get more PhDs than men, and have been for a while.
Do you work in an office with low-level programmers and hardware designers? I do, and I'm one of a handful of women in the building. Actually at the moment, I'm the only one and I'm lobbying for our new hire of managing director to be a woman but it's likely not going to happen because I can't find someone qualified. When I teach in the field at my university, I'm the only woman. And I live in a very popular, large city. Even less, as owners - when I go to a conference of hundreds of businesses, I'm maybe one or 3 or 4 in my field who owns her company. We're not equal yet. Maybe California and the East Coast have some slight more balance, but it's not distributed to the rest of the world yet.
In spite of this, I'm lucky to have an amazing network of other women in my field, and thanks to the internet and cultural exchanges, we don't feel so alone these days.
In spite of this, I'm lucky to have an amazing network of other women in my field, and thanks to the internet and cultural exchanges, we don't feel so alone these days.
EE is from what I have seen one of the most, if not the most, male dominated field in STEM though. I am not sure why, but it could be that it is not old enough to be traditional, but not new enough to be accessible. Wouldn't surprise me if there are more women in EE research than in EE.
Unfortunately, we're not there yet in California, either.
I worked at one of the most progressive / women-friendly companies in San Francisco, and as of last year, only 34.3% of our technical roles were filled by women (company size ~1,000). I'm eager to see this year's numbers, and hope they've improved, but there's undoubtedly a lot of room to grow.
I worked at one of the most progressive / women-friendly companies in San Francisco, and as of last year, only 34.3% of our technical roles were filled by women (company size ~1,000). I'm eager to see this year's numbers, and hope they've improved, but there's undoubtedly a lot of room to grow.
Your "lobbying for our new hire of managing director to be a woman" is fuel for rage and even return fire. I hope you can see how it might be used to justify discrimination in the other direction. You aren't being fair.
Your statement is ignorant of office and network politics: I work surrounded by men who communicate professionally with men, primarily. At conferences they drink and socialise with each other. It's harder as a woman to get into these networks. When there is an opening, this information spreads via the network. Which has few women in it.
You may feel uncomfortable knowing the hiring process is weighted. But I feel uncomfortable being in an office that doesn't have other women. If I can change that WHILE at the same time meeting my hiring standards AND not consciously turning away a clearly better candidate then absolutely, I'm going to use positive discrimination.
You may feel uncomfortable knowing the hiring process is weighted. But I feel uncomfortable being in an office that doesn't have other women. If I can change that WHILE at the same time meeting my hiring standards AND not consciously turning away a clearly better candidate then absolutely, I'm going to use positive discrimination.
I'm a man and I am ignorant of this alleged man-only social network that supposedly helps me get notice of job openings. Doesn't that suggest that it doesn't exist? If it does exist yet I'm ignorant of it, doesn't that suggest that the same might exist for women? I propose that there is a woman-only social network that is helping you to get notice of job openings, and you are exactly as ignorant of it as I am ignorant of the one helping me.
The women-only network is tiny. It's true, we rally together and encourage more women to work with us, for fear that the field of STEM will continue to be unbalanced. Where the continued creation of technology is primarily designed by and for the global minority (non-working class men), we lose out on innovation and this affects everyone.
Women make up 48 percent of the total work force, yet only 24 percent of STEM workers https://haasinstitute.berkeley.edu/women-stem-its-not-just-n...
https://www.commerce.gov/sites/default/files/migrated/report...
15% of engineering professionals are women https://ngcproject.org/statistics
Women make up less than 10% overall in computer science and engineering https://www.higheredtoday.org/2015/03/03/where-are-the-women...
Women make up 48 percent of the total work force, yet only 24 percent of STEM workers https://haasinstitute.berkeley.edu/women-stem-its-not-just-n...
https://www.commerce.gov/sites/default/files/migrated/report...
15% of engineering professionals are women https://ngcproject.org/statistics
Women make up less than 10% overall in computer science and engineering https://www.higheredtoday.org/2015/03/03/where-are-the-women...
It seems very likely that as a woman, you would have an easier time to get into those assumed networks (and so would other women). Don't believe all the propaganda.
[deleted]
A 'role model' is someone who shares your background and is successful in an area of interest where you would like to participate/contribute (science, art, sports, politics, ...) .
It's someone who demonstrates that 'someone like you' can be successful, too.
Therefore, the closer this role model is to your inherent and unchangeable properties (age, sex/gender, origin, social class), the more it can inspire you.
Surely, a man can be a role model for a woman in science (and vice versa) - e.g., if you are from the same small ethnic minority as the role model. However, male/female lifestyle, upbringing, interests, challenges, etc. are quite different in general, even in otherwise very homogeneous (western) societies. Therefore, the role model having the same sex/gender is very important.
(Just my view - I don't have evidence or experience in this regard).
Surely, a man can be a role model for a woman in science (and vice versa) - e.g., if you are from the same small ethnic minority as the role model. However, male/female lifestyle, upbringing, interests, challenges, etc. are quite different in general, even in otherwise very homogeneous (western) societies. Therefore, the role model having the same sex/gender is very important.
(Just my view - I don't have evidence or experience in this regard).
>the closer this role model is to your inherent and unchangeable properties (age, sex/gender, origin, social class), the more it can inspire you. //
Citation?
I call bunkum on that. TBH it seems both sexist and racist to say one can only be inspired by people of one's own characteristics (in science).
In this case the sex and race are irrelevant to Bouman's contribution AFAICT.
If you were talking about someone like Payne-Gaposchkin, then she overcame a deal of sexism, fair enough.
The whole she did it and had ovaries, omg, seems so condescending and unnecessary.
Citation?
I call bunkum on that. TBH it seems both sexist and racist to say one can only be inspired by people of one's own characteristics (in science).
In this case the sex and race are irrelevant to Bouman's contribution AFAICT.
If you were talking about someone like Payne-Gaposchkin, then she overcame a deal of sexism, fair enough.
The whole she did it and had ovaries, omg, seems so condescending and unnecessary.
Dude where does it say we can only be inspired?
> The whole she did it and had ovaries, omg, seems so condescending and unnecessary.
it's not omg she had ovaries, it's omg she did it, knowing she's going to get shit on by people (e.g. these comments) instead of applauded for what her and her team did for science. That's how it's inspiring to me.
> The whole she did it and had ovaries, omg, seems so condescending and unnecessary.
it's not omg she had ovaries, it's omg she did it, knowing she's going to get shit on by people (e.g. these comments) instead of applauded for what her and her team did for science. That's how it's inspiring to me.
>A 'role model' is someone who shares your background and is successful in an area of interest where you would like to participate/contribute
That may be your personal definition, but that is not the actual denotation of "role model". Some definitions I found are:
"a person whose behavior, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people. "
and
"a person whose behavior in a particular role is imitated by others"
There is no mention or qualifier of it needing to be someone who shares one's background
That may be your personal definition, but that is not the actual denotation of "role model". Some definitions I found are:
"a person whose behavior, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people. "
and
"a person whose behavior in a particular role is imitated by others"
There is no mention or qualifier of it needing to be someone who shares one's background
bubblewrap(2)
(FYI I'm not directing this anger at you dude, it's generalized) what the fuck don't people understand about a woman wanting a woman role model? I got the same questions asked to me in the Marissa Mayer thread a day or two ago.
Like yeah I got some male role models too, but fuck I want some representation! Someone who I can relate to! Someone who I know went through what I did!
Like yeah I got some male role models too, but fuck I want some representation! Someone who I can relate to! Someone who I know went through what I did!
"Someone who I know went through what I did!"
Which is what, exactly? What is so fundamental different abotu your experience? The immeasurable pain of being a minority in a group of people?
Which is what, exactly? What is so fundamental different abotu your experience? The immeasurable pain of being a minority in a group of people?
A few things. I wouldn't say these if I didn't think you had the capacity to listen and learn.
1. Your tone is excessively combative for Hacker News. If you're put off by my saying that, ask yourself what a non-combative way to take that in and reflect on it would be. As a concrete example, you said "What makes women unable to have male role models, but men able to have female role models?", in a thread after the OP had already replied to you that she had/has men as role models. It implies either that you aren't listening, or that you're being antagonistic for the sake of being antagonistic. Neither is welcome here.
2. Using phrases like "toxic feminism" make you sound intellectually feeble. Try to be more specific and concrete about what you're addressing without using charged words like that. Unironically using the phrase "toxic feminism" instantly undermines any argument you might make. Again, if your point really is to learn from / share with others, find ways to communicate that don't put up walls.
3. If you're legitimately interested in finding out about why representation matters — and I sincerely hope you are — this is a good piece on it: https://medium.com/@uxdiogenes/just-a-brown-hand-313db35230c...
1. Your tone is excessively combative for Hacker News. If you're put off by my saying that, ask yourself what a non-combative way to take that in and reflect on it would be. As a concrete example, you said "What makes women unable to have male role models, but men able to have female role models?", in a thread after the OP had already replied to you that she had/has men as role models. It implies either that you aren't listening, or that you're being antagonistic for the sake of being antagonistic. Neither is welcome here.
2. Using phrases like "toxic feminism" make you sound intellectually feeble. Try to be more specific and concrete about what you're addressing without using charged words like that. Unironically using the phrase "toxic feminism" instantly undermines any argument you might make. Again, if your point really is to learn from / share with others, find ways to communicate that don't put up walls.
3. If you're legitimately interested in finding out about why representation matters — and I sincerely hope you are — this is a good piece on it: https://medium.com/@uxdiogenes/just-a-brown-hand-313db35230c...
This paper[1] gets at it for one.
From the abstract:
" Consistent with the importance of exposure effects in career selection, women and disadvantaged youth are as underrepresented among high-impact inventors as they are among inventors as a whole. These findings suggest that there are many “lost Einsteins”—individuals who would have had highly impactful inventions had they been exposed to innovation in childhood—especially among women, minorities, and children from low-income families."
[1] https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/134/2/647/5218...
From the abstract:
" Consistent with the importance of exposure effects in career selection, women and disadvantaged youth are as underrepresented among high-impact inventors as they are among inventors as a whole. These findings suggest that there are many “lost Einsteins”—individuals who would have had highly impactful inventions had they been exposed to innovation in childhood—especially among women, minorities, and children from low-income families."
[1] https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/134/2/647/5218...
Why do you want to change the behaviour of women regarding their choice of study field?
You misunderstood. We want any person, women and young girls included, to be able to pursue a career path, if they have even the faintest desire of it, without self-censorship, negative remarks, feeling out of place, their vocation and/or skills being continuously challenged randomly, or having to cope with various forms of harassment.
If you build an environment that allow that, women presence in the field surge.
And then you see retrospectively that many women wanted to try this field, but it was really the field that didn’t want women to try.
Because, as you will probably agree, desire for a career is not natural destiny, it’s the result of many factors including avoiding being hurt.
Maybe you can help me understand. So how do you explain why there are fewer women in STEM fields in Scandinavia and more in Turkey, Tunesia and United Arab Emirates?
Well at least according to the paper "The Gender-Equality Paradox in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Gijsbert Stoet, David C. Geary"
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761774171...
Well at least according to the paper "The Gender-Equality Paradox in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Gijsbert Stoet, David C. Geary"
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761774171...
That is some just-so-story that doesn’t present a disprovable hypothesis. There was a better-supported causal hypothesis floating around that exposure to the internet, in particular, turned women off of CS because the culture #onhere was so full of sexism. Try looking up “ambient belonging”: I remember some thing about all you had to do to get more women interested was change the decor to not suggest they were going to have to put up with sexist bullshit if they chose the field.
Do you realize that women aren't a monolithic group? Various effects can be at play at the same time - women preferring on average other kinds of work isn't an argument in favour of discriminating against those that do not.
Scandinavia has hundreds of years of mostly unbroken history in STEM. It is literally the home of the Nobel prize. It isn't really comparable to nations that have rapidly shifted their workforce and industries more recently.
> without self-censorship, negative remarks, feeling out of place, their vocation and/or skills being continuously challenged randomly
This is the life of all men in competence hierachies. All of these things happend to me within the last half year and have been since I was a boy. Doesn't matter in the least, you couldn't pry me away from my interests with a crowbar.
This is your real problem: generally, girls want to be invited, boys just do.
The reason I speak up at all and will take all the abuse and downvoting thats sure to follow is it irks me so much.
We got into PCs and didn't matter one damn if they came from space aliens or out of the dumpster. We sat at them, we sat at them and we got scolded for it and told to go outside and called nerds. Our status was absolute dogshit and few women would associate willingly with computing in any form.
I am old enough to remember that at parties we mumbled "something with computers" and smiled apologetically hoping the topic would move on. Yes, many of us spent years, decades even, feeling slightly ashamed of our profession.
Now that the best and brightest of us nerds literally reshaped the world into a place where your personal handheld computer became a status symbol here come the women.
And you know, it would be okay, we are very tame men overall, except now you claim your collective absence from this topic is because we hurt you. No, we did not, you all just didn't like computers.
This is the life of all men in competence hierachies. All of these things happend to me within the last half year and have been since I was a boy. Doesn't matter in the least, you couldn't pry me away from my interests with a crowbar.
This is your real problem: generally, girls want to be invited, boys just do.
The reason I speak up at all and will take all the abuse and downvoting thats sure to follow is it irks me so much.
We got into PCs and didn't matter one damn if they came from space aliens or out of the dumpster. We sat at them, we sat at them and we got scolded for it and told to go outside and called nerds. Our status was absolute dogshit and few women would associate willingly with computing in any form.
I am old enough to remember that at parties we mumbled "something with computers" and smiled apologetically hoping the topic would move on. Yes, many of us spent years, decades even, feeling slightly ashamed of our profession.
Now that the best and brightest of us nerds literally reshaped the world into a place where your personal handheld computer became a status symbol here come the women.
And you know, it would be okay, we are very tame men overall, except now you claim your collective absence from this topic is because we hurt you. No, we did not, you all just didn't like computers.
In more equal societies women tend to choose STEM less though
To add to this, another important question to ask is: what kind of equality, in general, do you want? Do you want equality of opportunity or equality of outcome? They are mutually exclusive.
Optimal application of talent. The concept of "choice" isn't very consistent, especially when applied to populations instead of individuals.
Really? You could easily find comments on here talking about how Steve Jobs wasn't really the genius at Apple, but rather it was Steve Wozniak. We do care who really did it. Always.
ralusek(3)
Can you point to some of those threads (men getting credit)?
Search for Elon Musk.
You would say that's the same thing? Seeing as Elon Musk initiated all the things himself (and raised/provided the money)? I don't think he is getting credit for constructing rockets, for example, but for making the project happen.
There was, however, an extra article about his rocket engineer on HN. Mabye that is more like it.
There was, however, an extra article about his rocket engineer on HN. Mabye that is more like it.
Fun fact: Elon Musk is not the founder of Tesla. He became an investor and board member a year after the company was founded by two other people. His role grew and now he is synonymous with the company.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc.
I guess we didn't the read the same threads about Elon Musk on HN.
Title ought to reflect the fact that this woman has a doctorate from MIT and should rightfully be addressed as Dr. Katie Bouman.
Her name is Katie Bouman. She can also be addressed as Dr. Katie Bouman.
Sure.
But in a published headline, one ought to be addressed by their formal title.
Differences exist between casual conversation and publication. A distinction I shouldn’t have to point out as one that exists.
But in a published headline, one ought to be addressed by their formal title.
Differences exist between casual conversation and publication. A distinction I shouldn’t have to point out as one that exists.
Looking at the style guide, looks like the title may have been dropped because the length was already longer than 55 characters? I couldn't find a formal rule related to titles in headlines.
As long as the BBC is consistent (and not biased because of gender or other factors), I don't think it's a big deal.
From the BBC's style guide[1]:
Doctor
Use the title Dr (always abbreviated) for doctors of medicine, scientific doctors and church ministers who hold doctorates - but only when it is relevant. So it would be Mr Liam Fox. But do not use Dr for politicians who have a doctorate in politics, history etc. Surgeons should be referred to as Mr/Mrs/Ms.
headlines
Index-level headlines must be 30-39 characters long, including gaps - usually five to seven words. Story-level headlines can be up to 55 characters (a little longer as long as key words are within the 55) and should aim to include key terms to attract search engine referrals.
Avoid the US convention of using a comma in place of the word "and" (eg: "Crowe, Roberts in Oscar triumph").
If the attribution is clear, there is no need for quotation marks (eg: I’ve had enough, says Smith). Any quotation marks in a headline must be single.
Headlines might appear without an accompanying summary, so keep them simple. A cryptic headline, out of context, may be meaningless.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art201310101127407...
As long as the BBC is consistent (and not biased because of gender or other factors), I don't think it's a big deal.
From the BBC's style guide[1]:
Doctor
Use the title Dr (always abbreviated) for doctors of medicine, scientific doctors and church ministers who hold doctorates - but only when it is relevant. So it would be Mr Liam Fox. But do not use Dr for politicians who have a doctorate in politics, history etc. Surgeons should be referred to as Mr/Mrs/Ms.
headlines
Index-level headlines must be 30-39 characters long, including gaps - usually five to seven words. Story-level headlines can be up to 55 characters (a little longer as long as key words are within the 55) and should aim to include key terms to attract search engine referrals.
Avoid the US convention of using a comma in place of the word "and" (eg: "Crowe, Roberts in Oscar triumph").
If the attribution is clear, there is no need for quotation marks (eg: I’ve had enough, says Smith). Any quotation marks in a headline must be single.
Headlines might appear without an accompanying summary, so keep them simple. A cryptic headline, out of context, may be meaningless.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art201310101127407...
I appreciate you taking the time to go and find what BBC’s editorial standards are for formal titles in their headlines. It’s entirely possible you’re right and this is why it was dropped, I should have gone and looked for their style guide the way you did.
May have found my own answer much sooner but thanks nonetheless for that bit of information.
May have found my own answer much sooner but thanks nonetheless for that bit of information.
Given that it was the BBC, who in my mind would take a "stuffier" approach to these things, I was curious what was in their style guide.
This is an assumption, but I would think that all the recommendations in their style guide were put in there with at least some consideration.
This is an assumption, but I would think that all the recommendations in their style guide were put in there with at least some consideration.
In the headline? They call her "Dr" just a few sentences into the article. The rule of headlines is to use as few words as possible, and every one of them should be necessary. I've never heard that formal titles MUST be used in headlines, and indeed in practice this doesn't seem to be the case. Shaquille O'Neal has a PhD and I've never seen him referenced as Dr. Shaquille O'Neal, in a headline or otherwise (and no, I'm not joking, this is apparently real).
I don't think this is an attempt to minimize her accomplishments, unlike many of the comments here in this very thread.
I don't think this is an attempt to minimize her accomplishments, unlike many of the comments here in this very thread.
Note that I didn’t say she MUST be referred to as doctor. You did. I said ought, because the accomplishment is worthy of merit as a scientific achievement and in this scenario I think it’s quite proper the doctor is formally addressed as Doctor, it’s highly relevant and germane to the topic in the article.
My statement isn’t an assertion of requirement on the part part of the BBC. This is just opinion and really ought not be looked upon as something incendiary or contentious.
My statement isn’t an assertion of requirement on the part part of the BBC. This is just opinion and really ought not be looked upon as something incendiary or contentious.
I agree with you, however the difference is that her Dr is relevant to the article, and Shaq's Phd usually isnt.
Neil deGrasse Tyson has a PhD in astrophysics and isn't typically referred to as "Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson" in headlines either. Same for Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and many others. Titles simply tend to be dropped in headlines and casual conversations; they certainly aren't universally used, or even close to it.
Are you at all, in any way willing to entertain a viewpoint that suggests that those gentlemen have their titles dropped possibly because they have become synonymous with their crafts and a lifetime of achievement that-at least in the case of Dr. Sagan has spanned generations (Dr. deGrasse-Tyson's work and personality on the cusp of enjoying the exact same), and their names closely associated with a deep personal connection to the dissemination of science as a form of consumable entertainment (that also happens to inform) and that this maybe serves as an important distinction between someone who is appreciating their first bit of notoriety for their scientific accomplishments?
I personally think they should all be addressed by the titles they've worked lifetimes to earn, that anyone who holds a formal title such as Doctor should be addressed as such in a non-casual/non-informal environment, but I'm also willing to entertain that this is a possibility for why the difference may exist between Dr.'s Sagan, deGrasse-Tyson, and Bouman. And yes, there are probably, most likely others that are far less nuanced and charitable.
Would you be willing to entertain that viewpoint?
I personally think they should all be addressed by the titles they've worked lifetimes to earn, that anyone who holds a formal title such as Doctor should be addressed as such in a non-casual/non-informal environment, but I'm also willing to entertain that this is a possibility for why the difference may exist between Dr.'s Sagan, deGrasse-Tyson, and Bouman. And yes, there are probably, most likely others that are far less nuanced and charitable.
Would you be willing to entertain that viewpoint?
"Are you at all, in any way willing to entertain a viewpoint that suggests that those gentlemen have their titles dropped possibly because they have become synonymous with their crafts and a lifetime of achievement that-at least in the case of Dr. Sagan has spanned generations (Dr. deGrasse-Tyson's work and personality on the cusp of enjoying the exact same), and their names closely associated with a deep personal connection to the dissemination of science as a form of consumable entertainment (that also happens to inform) and that this maybe serves as an important distinction between someone who is appreciating their first bit of notoriety for their scientific accomplishments?"
Nope.
I think you are now beating a dead horse with this argument.
Nope.
I think you are now beating a dead horse with this argument.
Sagan's critics were wary of pop science. Would the need to entertain come before rigor and accuracy?
And their fears were realized with Tyson. Possibly the sloppiest, most inaccurate pop science celebrity ever.
May I take it with me to the grave. I think someone who is, in fact, a doctor ought to be addressed as such. Regardless of their gender.
Apparently that is a problem for some in this community which is a damn shame.
Apparently that is a problem for some in this community which is a damn shame.
Eh, I think it's kind of pretentious to demand using a special title when referring to people like this. It's just a degree. I don't demand people refer to me by using my work title in front of my name and I've been doing this for a lot longer than 5-7 years. The people I've met who correct you on how to address them by their title invariably come off as (and usually are) arrogant assholes.
Titles in general seem quaint and obsolete to me (and to many others). Seems like a relic from centuries ago, like from monarchies. I don't see why not participating in this is a "problem" or a "damn shame".
Titles in general seem quaint and obsolete to me (and to many others). Seems like a relic from centuries ago, like from monarchies. I don't see why not participating in this is a "problem" or a "damn shame".
The title of Doctor witnesses that the owner advanced humanity’s knowledge, and often turned the impossible into possible (as here).
It’s not “just” a degree. It’s also not inherited. That you compare work titles with that suggests you have no idea on what you’re talking about.
One can make intelligent arguments about the use of such titles. These aren’t.
One can make intelligent arguments about the use of such titles. These aren’t.
She should be referred by her proper title. Can and should.
The policy on Hacker News, according to their guidelines, is they use the original article title, unless there's a good reason to change it.
Her story is trully inspiring! She seems like a really likable person, has been hard working, with great results, making a major contribution. The photo with her and the hard drives is amazing and I am sure she will inspire many to enter science.
However, I think to call her "the woman behind the first black hole image" is a hyperbole. It makes it sound as if she was _the one person_ responsible that all this came about. -- But that is not the case. Arguably, there are others who have contributed as much if not more. This is what makes me somewhat feel that this focus on her is not quite fair.
Coverage in mainland Europe has been different so far: Prof Falcke gets a lot of credit for the image/project. Falcke is heading one of the major teams that contributed to the project. In fact, many here attribute the conception of the project to him. But how many in the English speaking sphere have heard or will ever hear about Falcke? Why is that?
My personal guess is that the reason for this is: 1) The Anglo-american media were looking for inspiring EHT scientists from the English-speaking world. 2) Bouman fit that description best.
So, imv, something like "The inspiring story of Katie Bouman" and some credit to some of the other major figures like Falcke would have been fairer.
However, I think to call her "the woman behind the first black hole image" is a hyperbole. It makes it sound as if she was _the one person_ responsible that all this came about. -- But that is not the case. Arguably, there are others who have contributed as much if not more. This is what makes me somewhat feel that this focus on her is not quite fair.
Coverage in mainland Europe has been different so far: Prof Falcke gets a lot of credit for the image/project. Falcke is heading one of the major teams that contributed to the project. In fact, many here attribute the conception of the project to him. But how many in the English speaking sphere have heard or will ever hear about Falcke? Why is that?
My personal guess is that the reason for this is: 1) The Anglo-american media were looking for inspiring EHT scientists from the English-speaking world. 2) Bouman fit that description best.
So, imv, something like "The inspiring story of Katie Bouman" and some credit to some of the other major figures like Falcke would have been fairer.
> This is what makes me somewhat feel that this focus on her is not quite fair.
Thought experiment: if you saw an article titled "Jony Ive: The Man Behind The iPhone" would you be commenting on how unfair it is to single him out? After all, he just designed the thing, a huge team of people built the software and the hardware that actually made it possible.
Thought experiment: if you saw an article titled "Jony Ive: The Man Behind The iPhone" would you be commenting on how unfair it is to single him out? After all, he just designed the thing, a huge team of people built the software and the hardware that actually made it possible.
Yes, absolutely. I've made comments before to the effect of: I cringe hard enough to actually feel physical discomfort every time a headline refers to a team effort of SpaceX as "Elon Musk's Rocket."
Ok, how about "Turing: the genius that cracked the ENIGMA code"?
I would start by informing them that ENIGMA was actually broken by Poland, and they invited the British two weeks before the German invasions to show them how it worked and give them a prototype enigma breaking machine. They didn't want the technique and knowledge in how to break enigma to be lost after Germany invaded. The French also got a copy, and it was actually the French intelligence service that had gathered the initial data and it was unknown to them that this enabled the polish to break ENIGMA.
What turning did was to take the initial prototype they received and build a even more powerful and refined version. In particular he improved the technique so it broke the naval version of enigma which was more complicated than the army version that the polish had broken earlier. This was in part possible because the British had captured a working naval enigma from a German submarine.
(A lot of this comes a book called The Code Book by Simon Singh. The last chapter on modern ciphers is a bit dated but the chapters on enigma was quite good.
What turning did was to take the initial prototype they received and build a even more powerful and refined version. In particular he improved the technique so it broke the naval version of enigma which was more complicated than the army version that the polish had broken earlier. This was in part possible because the British had captured a working naval enigma from a German submarine.
(A lot of this comes a book called The Code Book by Simon Singh. The last chapter on modern ciphers is a bit dated but the chapters on enigma was quite good.
Well, other arguments aside, there is a little bit of a difference between a single-system ENIGMA and building multi-system spaceships.
Well since he founded and owns the company.. legally it would be his Rocket, would it not?
Does anyone here believe that rocket system would exist without Musk?
> Thought experiment: if you saw an article titled "Jony Ive: The Man Behind The iPhone" would you be commenting on how unfair it is to single him out?
Yes, and that’s what happens in each of those hyperbolic articles (that are mostly about Jobs, but same thing)
Yes, and that’s what happens in each of those hyperbolic articles (that are mostly about Jobs, but same thing)
this is hard to say, tbh.
first: by alluding to Ive, you insert a gender component. i don't want to make this about gender - which is what happened itt. as mentioned, i think the difference in focus is because of geo-cultural reasons. another piece of evidence for this hypothesis comes from the following: over here, the EU also gets a lot of praise for providing the main chunk of the funding for the project. a quick check tells me that this detail is often omitted in US articles about the project. also, a note on myself: i work in a field where the majority of people are female. so is my boss. her work is great and i love working here. at the same time, i am aware that the bar to get here was higher for my female colleagues than it is for men. also, i see the glass ceiling having an effect on the careers of my sisters and my female friends. and i am painfully aware of the struggles that my mum and other women of her generation had/have to go through. so i consider myself a feminist, in the sense that i believe that we should have full equality and that we do not have it yet.
second: think iphone, i think jobs. so what "Jony Ive: The Man Behind The iPhone" would imply to me is that Ive is _the one person_ that had the biggest impact on the development of the iphone. i don't know enough about Ive to evaluate this. but here's the thing: if it turned out that another person contributed as much if not more than Ive, then i'd say: hey, it's nice that the article introduces Ive and gives him some credit, but let's not exaggerate and let's not forget about the other people who have also greatly contributed to the project.
edit: to clarify: i find it hard to say, because it's somewhat hypothetical. i truly hope for myself that i would react the same way / that gender has no impact on my thought process.
first: by alluding to Ive, you insert a gender component. i don't want to make this about gender - which is what happened itt. as mentioned, i think the difference in focus is because of geo-cultural reasons. another piece of evidence for this hypothesis comes from the following: over here, the EU also gets a lot of praise for providing the main chunk of the funding for the project. a quick check tells me that this detail is often omitted in US articles about the project. also, a note on myself: i work in a field where the majority of people are female. so is my boss. her work is great and i love working here. at the same time, i am aware that the bar to get here was higher for my female colleagues than it is for men. also, i see the glass ceiling having an effect on the careers of my sisters and my female friends. and i am painfully aware of the struggles that my mum and other women of her generation had/have to go through. so i consider myself a feminist, in the sense that i believe that we should have full equality and that we do not have it yet.
second: think iphone, i think jobs. so what "Jony Ive: The Man Behind The iPhone" would imply to me is that Ive is _the one person_ that had the biggest impact on the development of the iphone. i don't know enough about Ive to evaluate this. but here's the thing: if it turned out that another person contributed as much if not more than Ive, then i'd say: hey, it's nice that the article introduces Ive and gives him some credit, but let's not exaggerate and let's not forget about the other people who have also greatly contributed to the project.
edit: to clarify: i find it hard to say, because it's somewhat hypothetical. i truly hope for myself that i would react the same way / that gender has no impact on my thought process.
> first: by alluding to Ive, you insert a gender component
Personally, I want to say the gender component actually happened right about here:
>> Her story is trully inspiring! She seems like a really likable person
We have interesting ways and subtext when we talk about people that show our biases. Actually beyond that the entire article isn't anything about asking Katie questions or how she came about her algorithm. It's more about her fast rising popularity. It's an article that says a woman did something without saying that. I'm not judging if that's offensive or merely a reflection on how we relay news given our society.
Personally, I want to say the gender component actually happened right about here:
>> Her story is trully inspiring! She seems like a really likable person
We have interesting ways and subtext when we talk about people that show our biases. Actually beyond that the entire article isn't anything about asking Katie questions or how she came about her algorithm. It's more about her fast rising popularity. It's an article that says a woman did something without saying that. I'm not judging if that's offensive or merely a reflection on how we relay news given our society.
The title of the article reveals a lot about the biases at play here. "Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind..." - keyword 'the'. She isn't 'the' computer scientist behind it, she is 'a' computer scientist behind it. If it were merely a case of putting an interesting person with likable facial features at the heart of the story the news articles' titles and descriptions could actually be accurate. In actuality we have misplaced attribution caused by the biases of the news media. Whether they're political or not, its easy to see through them and it adds an unnecessary off-note to the otherwise interesting scientific achievement.
EDIT: it looks like the title of the article has either changed or SEO causes some to see different titles than others. Regardless my initial comment should still be valid.
EDIT: it looks like the title of the article has either changed or SEO causes some to see different titles than others. Regardless my initial comment should still be valid.
The fact that you are making it about her appearance instead of her scientific achievement is you, my dude, not the article and not the media. She is first author, she came up with the algorithm, she did this thing, and all your attempts to belittle that just prove Joanna Russ’ absolute correctness.
Actually her appearance is relevant to the discussion at hand, within the context of this specific thread. There is no belittling going on here.
I would, it's just like Steve Jobs being a* hole while taking credit for everyone's work. In those cases it's a result of hierarchy in this case it's a case of the media looking for a media darling for their story. In either case it's not painting reality correctly. That being said it's not her fault and she should be proud of her accomplishment. It's the media which likes to paint pictures of reality like this, to single out a single person to take credit for what a team of researchers did or what a corporation did.
Maybe I'm alone in this, but I disliked the guy after hearing how he was promoted.
Make a BBC Horizon story about how he came to his best work and about him. That's cool. But to frame it as just being him and not the others behind the work.. it's nothing but hero worship.
Make a BBC Horizon story about how he came to his best work and about him. That's cool. But to frame it as just being him and not the others behind the work.. it's nothing but hero worship.
Yes - this is a constant peeve of mine. Stories are so much more powerful if there's a single inspirational character, but that's rarely how these types of scientific projects or development efforts came to fruition - especially in Jony Ive's case.
People do that all the time when everything Apple gets attributed to Steve Jobs.
Jony Ive actually was truly essential to the work behind the iPhone, so it wouldn't be unfair to single him out.
I hate it when news outlets and movie production companies focus on individuals and ignore the team effort and dynamic, and it's not because I care about distributing credit. I want them to tell more stories about teams and communities working together to build things, not more lone genius stories.
I get it. I truly do.
But consider the context: This picture of a blackhole is going around along with an iconic picture of a woman with a ton of hard-drives that resembles the iconic picture of Margaret Hamilton with a stack of papers. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who knows little to nothing about this project. What questions do you think people have?
Headlines have to create irresistible questions that lure people in and this one is using the tried and true "Who's this genius?" formula.
Once they've grabbed this casual reader (see headline), they're not going to dive too deep into the project. This isn't serious science journalism, this is a human interest story in the science section.
Why did they pick her? Because she lead the team and was a key figure in conceiving and implementing the algorithm. Because she was already the face, spokesperson and active promoter for this project. Look at her TED talk from 2017.
I get it. Tons of people deserve credit. More importantly, the story of how this team collaborated should be told. But that's not what this profile piece is about.
But let's get serious. You're critiquing the accuracy of a very casual profile piece for average readers. Most of them really don't care what statements are slightly hyperbolic, they just want to understand the gist of the project and her role.
I get it. I truly do.
But consider the context: This picture of a blackhole is going around along with an iconic picture of a woman with a ton of hard-drives that resembles the iconic picture of Margaret Hamilton with a stack of papers. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who knows little to nothing about this project. What questions do you think people have?
Headlines have to create irresistible questions that lure people in and this one is using the tried and true "Who's this genius?" formula.
Once they've grabbed this casual reader (see headline), they're not going to dive too deep into the project. This isn't serious science journalism, this is a human interest story in the science section.
Why did they pick her? Because she lead the team and was a key figure in conceiving and implementing the algorithm. Because she was already the face, spokesperson and active promoter for this project. Look at her TED talk from 2017.
I get it. Tons of people deserve credit. More importantly, the story of how this team collaborated should be told. But that's not what this profile piece is about.
But let's get serious. You're critiquing the accuracy of a very casual profile piece for average readers. Most of them really don't care what statements are slightly hyperbolic, they just want to understand the gist of the project and her role.
The ironic thing is that this seems to be a case when someone doing the science gets to represent the project and get credit rather than just institutions and senior researchers.
[deleted]
> Margaret Hamilton with a stack of papers.
That was used to say "well women are doing something very important" (If we're truly focused on equality should be yes.. that is normal.. but why is that important to advertise that message)
The feeling that I'm getting from all of this is that the result is showcased to the side and they're trying to make her into a celebrity. I would love to hear her praise "her team" (her team is a subset of people in the whole project) Although, I don't think she has enough experience to realize that it's a good thing to do. (That's something you get from working in teams outside academia)
If you go to the moon, you don't just praise the one guy who did it. You bring the whole group of astronauts who went and did something. If they're smart they're going to admit that there were a ton of people who helped.
EDIT-Update on the comment about the team praise: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19638629
That was used to say "well women are doing something very important" (If we're truly focused on equality should be yes.. that is normal.. but why is that important to advertise that message)
The feeling that I'm getting from all of this is that the result is showcased to the side and they're trying to make her into a celebrity. I would love to hear her praise "her team" (her team is a subset of people in the whole project) Although, I don't think she has enough experience to realize that it's a good thing to do. (That's something you get from working in teams outside academia)
If you go to the moon, you don't just praise the one guy who did it. You bring the whole group of astronauts who went and did something. If they're smart they're going to admit that there were a ton of people who helped.
EDIT-Update on the comment about the team praise: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19638629
> I would love to hear her praise "her team" (her team is a subset of people in the whole project) Although, I don't think she has enough experience to realize that it's a good thing to do.
She did that in the TED talk. And in the article linked above. And basically everywhere else she's spoken.
She did that in the TED talk. And in the article linked above. And basically everywhere else she's spoken.
Oh.. I had no idea. That's awesome. I made the assumption that she did the academic thing which is "i did this" signed advisor. The assumption was based on the focus of the articles. (editorial bias)
No need to avoid your own responsibility and bias in making that assumption. It's not accurate to blame it on the media coverage alone. Strikes me as more like confirmation bias around what your expectations are for academics, women, or both.
Excuse me?
I admitted that I was incorrect in my impression. I could have deleted the original comment but posted an admission that I was too quick to jump to conclusions.
You should be aware of what the media is trying to say, and how it's presented. This comment section is showing how different countries are presenting the same situation.
Confirmation bias in academics:
It's very common to escalate the work from undergrad->grad->postdoc->professors. (Doing the most work to the least in that order). It's pretty terrible.. but that's how it operates. Does the advisor do much? Do they get their name on the paper, yes. (In many times at the top)
Women- Her gender doesn't matter on this. The work she did for her research is awesome, it's clearly her work. (It's similar to super-resolution) This wasn't a single I just applied my algorithm and everything happened. Lots of people were involved in collecting, cleaning, managing, and adapting her improvement to existing CV algorithms to reproduce what a blackhole looks like.
I admitted that I was incorrect in my impression. I could have deleted the original comment but posted an admission that I was too quick to jump to conclusions.
You should be aware of what the media is trying to say, and how it's presented. This comment section is showing how different countries are presenting the same situation.
Confirmation bias in academics:
It's very common to escalate the work from undergrad->grad->postdoc->professors. (Doing the most work to the least in that order). It's pretty terrible.. but that's how it operates. Does the advisor do much? Do they get their name on the paper, yes. (In many times at the top)
Women- Her gender doesn't matter on this. The work she did for her research is awesome, it's clearly her work. (It's similar to super-resolution) This wasn't a single I just applied my algorithm and everything happened. Lots of people were involved in collecting, cleaning, managing, and adapting her improvement to existing CV algorithms to reproduce what a blackhole looks like.
Not arguing that you didn't admit the assumption was incorrect ... Just that in saying it was based on the editorial bias in the articles you're ignoring your own participation in making the assumption.
You admit you were too quick to jump to conclusions: but I'd argue you were quick because those conclusions "seemed right" based on your own biases. I dunno. Maybe your statement "Although, I don't think she has enough experience to realize that it's a good thing to do." didn't have anything to do with her being a woman and it's just a coincidence that women struggle with being seen as less experienced than their male peers. It just came across to me as a really patronising and insulting thing to say, and hard thing to blame on the reporting of others.
You admit you were too quick to jump to conclusions: but I'd argue you were quick because those conclusions "seemed right" based on your own biases. I dunno. Maybe your statement "Although, I don't think she has enough experience to realize that it's a good thing to do." didn't have anything to do with her being a woman and it's just a coincidence that women struggle with being seen as less experienced than their male peers. It just came across to me as a really patronising and insulting thing to say, and hard thing to blame on the reporting of others.
From the article:
> But Dr Bouman, now an assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences at the California Institute of Technology, insisted the team that helped her deserves equal credit.
> The effort to capture the image, using telescopes in locations ranging from Antarctica to Chile, involved a team of more than 200 scientists.
> "No one of us could've done it alone," she told CNN. "It came together because of lots of different people from many different backgrounds."
> "We're a melting pot of astronomers, physicists, mathematicians and engineers, and that's what it took to achieve something once thought impossible," Dr Bouman says.
> But Dr Bouman, now an assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences at the California Institute of Technology, insisted the team that helped her deserves equal credit.
> The effort to capture the image, using telescopes in locations ranging from Antarctica to Chile, involved a team of more than 200 scientists.
> "No one of us could've done it alone," she told CNN. "It came together because of lots of different people from many different backgrounds."
> "We're a melting pot of astronomers, physicists, mathematicians and engineers, and that's what it took to achieve something once thought impossible," Dr Bouman says.
I'm going to edit the parent comment to show my response to that:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19638629
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19638629
Next time, just don't comment if your contribution is to cast doubt on the experience and intentions of a woman based only on your bias.
I don't selectively cast doubts on the experience and intentions of a woman because they are a woman. That would be sexist.
The suggestion that people should avoid casting doubt/criticism due to a person's gender is sexist.
The suggestion that people should avoid casting doubt/criticism due to a person's gender is sexist.
"I don't think she has enough experience"
You see how sexist that assumption is, right? Don't be that guy. Give her the benefit of the doubt you'd give a male researcher.
You see how sexist that assumption is, right? Don't be that guy. Give her the benefit of the doubt you'd give a male researcher.
In the 2 comments you made to me, you're assuming my premise is to criticize her over her gender.
My comment would have remained the same if Dr. Bouman identified as male. The age of an individual when they get their PhD is somewhere around 27-29 (depends on when they start grad school.. it's usually about 5 years) People with more experience realize it's better to work and recognize the team rather than not. Kids fresh out of school just don't have that experience.
My comment would have remained the same if Dr. Bouman identified as male. The age of an individual when they get their PhD is somewhere around 27-29 (depends on when they start grad school.. it's usually about 5 years) People with more experience realize it's better to work and recognize the team rather than not. Kids fresh out of school just don't have that experience.
I don't understand how "the woman behind the first black hole image" is hyperbole. She's a woman and she's behind the first black hole image.
I don't think anybody truly believes that taking images of black holes is a one-person job. And the title doesn't imply that. Neither does the next, boldface paragraph in the article:
> A 29-year-old computer scientist has earned plaudits worldwide for helping develop the algorithm that created the first-ever image of a black hole.
Immediately followed by:
> Katie Bouman led development of a computer program that made the breakthrough image possible.
I don't think anybody truly believes that taking images of black holes is a one-person job. And the title doesn't imply that. Neither does the next, boldface paragraph in the article:
> A 29-year-old computer scientist has earned plaudits worldwide for helping develop the algorithm that created the first-ever image of a black hole.
Immediately followed by:
> Katie Bouman led development of a computer program that made the breakthrough image possible.
The problem is with the article "the". She's one of many people behind the first black hole image.
It doesn't say "A woman behind", it says "THE woman behind". Big difference.
I agree. She's said many times she wasn't the only one involved and it's really a team win. The issue is that the media likes to have one winner and she was it. It's another version of the media dumbing down science coverage.
It's not dumbing down science. Is making science relatable to an audience that otherwise would not care much about an image of a black hole. Having a "hero" in a story serves a purpose (many purposes, in this case) and it happens in every single field you can imagine.
Is that sport player really a star os is he/she a star because he has an amazing team that creates the opportunities for him/her to stand out?
Is this law championed by a politician really his/her idea or does he/she have a team of advisors that helped shape it?
Nobody lives in a vacuum. There isn't a single person, dead or alive, that has accomplish anything of importance without the help of others (knowingly or unknowingly, wether directly or indirectly) but at some point you have to take that for granted, to a certain degree, and focus on the figure that drives the enterprise, or makes a new discovery thanks to previous ones, or leads a team, or publish a paper.
It's not media who loves to have a winner, in any case. It's all of us, and the media obliges because it knows that a story with a hero is better told and better heard. It just happens that for some reason, in this case, having a hero seems to be unacceptable for some and I can't quite put my finger on why...
Is that sport player really a star os is he/she a star because he has an amazing team that creates the opportunities for him/her to stand out?
Is this law championed by a politician really his/her idea or does he/she have a team of advisors that helped shape it?
Nobody lives in a vacuum. There isn't a single person, dead or alive, that has accomplish anything of importance without the help of others (knowingly or unknowingly, wether directly or indirectly) but at some point you have to take that for granted, to a certain degree, and focus on the figure that drives the enterprise, or makes a new discovery thanks to previous ones, or leads a team, or publish a paper.
It's not media who loves to have a winner, in any case. It's all of us, and the media obliges because it knows that a story with a hero is better told and better heard. It just happens that for some reason, in this case, having a hero seems to be unacceptable for some and I can't quite put my finger on why...
You're wrong, she did most of the work on the algorithm to make this work: https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.01413
> However, I think to call her "the woman behind the first black hole image" is a hyperbole. It makes it sound as if she was _the one person_ responsible that all this came about.
It doesn't say that though. It says she was behind the image. And as I understand she lead one of the teams responsible for creating the image from the data. So I don't think that is particularly inaccurate as far as headlines go.
It doesn't say that though. It says she was behind the image. And as I understand she lead one of the teams responsible for creating the image from the data. So I don't think that is particularly inaccurate as far as headlines go.
sodafountan(7)
From the article:
"But Dr Bouman, ...insisted the team that helped her deserves equal credit."
"But Dr Bouman, ...insisted the team that helped her deserves equal credit."
my criticism is not aimed at her at all - but at the media.
and yes, she emphasised this elsewhere, too, which imv shows what a great and humble person she is.
and yes, she emphasised this elsewhere, too, which imv shows what a great and humble person she is.
Every media article I've read cites her team-credit emphasis.
What more should the media do? "Faceless, nameless team does X, No film at 11 in case that might make someone look like they're getting too much credit."?
Every team has a leader (de facto or otherwise). Having one voice, one face for a globe-spanning team effort is the way the media can convey the amazing, awesome message to the masses in a relatable way.
What more should the media do? "Faceless, nameless team does X, No film at 11 in case that might make someone look like they're getting too much credit."?
Every team has a leader (de facto or otherwise). Having one voice, one face for a globe-spanning team effort is the way the media can convey the amazing, awesome message to the masses in a relatable way.
> Every media article I've read cites her team-credit emphasis.
But that is the problem, actually. Simple question: Is Prof Bouman the team leader that held all this together?
In answering this, consider this is from the ERC website, which is the major funding body of the project:
> Since 2014, this six year research project is being carried out by three lead scientists and their teams; namely Professors Heino Falcke from Radboud University Nijmegen (also Chair of EHT Science Council), Michael Kramer from the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy, and Luciano Rezzolla from Goethe University Frankfurt. [0]
So to answer "What more should the media do?", my guess would be: at some point, mention Falcke, Kramer, and Rezzolla? And the ERC?
[0] https://erc.europa.eu/news/eu-funded-scientists-unveil-first...
But that is the problem, actually. Simple question: Is Prof Bouman the team leader that held all this together?
In answering this, consider this is from the ERC website, which is the major funding body of the project:
> Since 2014, this six year research project is being carried out by three lead scientists and their teams; namely Professors Heino Falcke from Radboud University Nijmegen (also Chair of EHT Science Council), Michael Kramer from the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy, and Luciano Rezzolla from Goethe University Frankfurt. [0]
So to answer "What more should the media do?", my guess would be: at some point, mention Falcke, Kramer, and Rezzolla? And the ERC?
[0] https://erc.europa.eu/news/eu-funded-scientists-unveil-first...
> Simple question: Is Prof Bouman the team leader that held all this together?
Why does this bother you so much? What do you lose by her getting credit? Or anyone? What actual harm is it doing?
Why does this bother you so much? What do you lose by her getting credit? Or anyone? What actual harm is it doing?
People generally value fairness and crediting people unfairly goes against that. If it appears to you that other members of the team might have contributed just as much or even more but weren't credited accordingly, then that goes against this "instinct", and why shouldn't it? You're missing the point, the question is whether she was unfairly credited or not.
Meanwhile, capitalism is wholly predicated on unfairness, where the "haves" exploit the "have nots" to get as much for themselves as they can.
Why does a woman getting "credited unfairly" strike a nerve when it happens every day that a CEO takes singular credit for an entire corporation worth of people's work with no "Unfair credit!" reaction?
Why does a woman getting "credited unfairly" strike a nerve when it happens every day that a CEO takes singular credit for an entire corporation worth of people's work with no "Unfair credit!" reaction?
Exactly.
I can take so many examples but one that comes to mind.
The so many articles you read about Steve Jobs and the iPhone.
Did you once say/ask “it was not just Steve Jobs. It was a whole team of people who created the iPhone”?
The media and the public in general give him the credit because he led the team that developed the iPhone.
The first man to walk on the moon. He couldn’t have done it without a whole team of people working before, during and after they landed. Most of the media does not go into detail when they write stories about it.
It’s silly to say that everyone on a team should be mentioned by name in every article that comes out about an accomplishment.
The so many articles you read about Steve Jobs and the iPhone.
Did you once say/ask “it was not just Steve Jobs. It was a whole team of people who created the iPhone”?
The media and the public in general give him the credit because he led the team that developed the iPhone.
The first man to walk on the moon. He couldn’t have done it without a whole team of people working before, during and after they landed. Most of the media does not go into detail when they write stories about it.
It’s silly to say that everyone on a team should be mentioned by name in every article that comes out about an accomplishment.
This is easy peasy elementary stuff my friends: two wrongs don't make a right.
And, yes, I personally do speak out when CEOs and such take credit. [The Google Android project head is one example from recent memory].
And, yes, I personally do speak out when CEOs and such take credit. [The Google Android project head is one example from recent memory].
interacting with the outside world must be exhausting with its naturally undeconstructed appearance and operation.
my criticism is not...
i mean, is it even really "your criticism?" why aren't you giving credit to others who are speculating the same issues? you're basically saying you're the first person to ever think this, did you even search for others or are you content in helping them to toil in obscurity?
my criticism is not...
i mean, is it even really "your criticism?" why aren't you giving credit to others who are speculating the same issues? you're basically saying you're the first person to ever think this, did you even search for others or are you content in helping them to toil in obscurity?
Just like the Portuguese scientist involved is getting more coverage than her here in Portugal. It's just natural I guess. People want to find someone relatable.
One difference is that you're all Portuguese in Portugal. But they are not all women in the US or whatever and they will react if they sense "unfairness". There are no (substantial) non-Portuguese in Portugal to react!
Yes won't someone spare a thought for the men
No one would read that story. No one knows Katie Bouman. Everyone knows the blackhole.
You're thinking like a programmer. Think not like a programmer and then explain why the original headline is better.
Why was the article written?
You're thinking like a programmer. Think not like a programmer and then explain why the original headline is better.
Why was the article written?
[deleted]
Here's a HN story from a while back titled "The Man Behind Windows PowerShell"[0].
Of the 129 comments on that story, not one discussed how software development at Microsoft is always a team effort. Or checked any repositories counting LoC to quantify the value of his contribution.
Meanwhile, in this thread, I see 6 of 73 comments as of now not discussing a woman's relative contribution to a team effort, and how she does or does not deserve praise.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15250349
Of the 129 comments on that story, not one discussed how software development at Microsoft is always a team effort. Or checked any repositories counting LoC to quantify the value of his contribution.
Meanwhile, in this thread, I see 6 of 73 comments as of now not discussing a woman's relative contribution to a team effort, and how she does or does not deserve praise.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15250349
Not really a fitting comparison. Snover is describing himself as inventor of power shell, he pushed the project against resistance of his peers/superiors in Microsoft and implemented the first prototype. Without him it simply wouldn’t exist.
Without her, this wouldn’t exist.
Top post:
>It's a miserable language, full of unexpected behaviors and badly designed features.
I agree. That no one is tearing apart the horribly written python in the git repo is extremely sexist.
Holy shit, you're using comments as version control, the 70s called and what their code practices back.
Oh my god, did you even read the thread? It gets better with each post:
>I haven't met a single person who likes PowerShell. It's perhaps the textbook example of ugly design that looks technically consistent but utterly unfriendly and mind bogglingly verbose. [...] The designers of this thing should have been demoted, let alone making them "Distinguished Engineer".
>PowerShell is one of the few bits of software which has actually made me throw a computer in anger. The idea has potential but the implementation is just bad.
And they go on and on.
>It's a miserable language, full of unexpected behaviors and badly designed features.
I agree. That no one is tearing apart the horribly written python in the git repo is extremely sexist.
Holy shit, you're using comments as version control, the 70s called and what their code practices back.
Oh my god, did you even read the thread? It gets better with each post:
>I haven't met a single person who likes PowerShell. It's perhaps the textbook example of ugly design that looks technically consistent but utterly unfriendly and mind bogglingly verbose. [...] The designers of this thing should have been demoted, let alone making them "Distinguished Engineer".
>PowerShell is one of the few bits of software which has actually made me throw a computer in anger. The idea has potential but the implementation is just bad.
And they go on and on.
At least they're talking about PowerShell rather than gender!
This is why I'd wish we stopped seeing people's individual achievements in relation to the groups they belong to. I've noticed recently whenever a girl or black guy achieves anything some people (often rightly) become suspicious that their achievements are being exaggerated or are due to quotas or affirmative action. And that robs the individual of the credit they deserve.
[deleted]
[deleted]
Also not one person complained about how the journalist was making Such A Big Deal out of his gender and overblowig his accomplishments by using the word “man”.
If you ask people in the know "who is the person behind Windows PowerShell?" it is very likely that they will agree.
I wouldn't expect the answer to "who is the person behind the first black hole image?" to be so clear.
I wouldn't expect the answer to "who is the person behind the first black hole image?" to be so clear.
Is it me or is the article written like for 5 year olds? It feels like I am reading a child book.
However, this is such a great achievement. Would be awesome to learn more about the algorithm.
However, this is such a great achievement. Would be awesome to learn more about the algorithm.
Because it is. If it reads like a child book they did a great job. If you studied journalism you’d know making it as easy as possible for all audiences is a key skill each journalist needs to have. It’s not a science journal that it needs to be full of jargon. It’s meant for general audience and they did a great job. If you want a hard piece go read the journal papers that got published.
There are degrees of this. If you compare science reporting against the mainstream financial news it is like chalk and cheese. If the numbers represent money, technical jargon is everywhere, if the subject is scientific, even the numbers are considered scary, never mind a technical discussion around them.
It's called dumbing down.
Welcome to 99% of the BBC's science output. Outside of Radio4, it has become a barren wasteland where no numbers can increment.
Why is that a bad thing? One of the main drivers of people getting into STEM is and has always been popular science - taking a complicated subject like this project, or gravitational waves, or the LHC etc, and describing it in a language that everyone can understand. And if you can understand it, there's a higher chance it interests you, which will lead to digging some more, etc etc etc.
As I understand it that’s how articles look when a major organisation establishes SEO as a primary metric.
negamax(2)
pgreenspun(1)
THE woman? I am not sure how other women team members should feel about the article. Or even men. She may made important contribution but so did many others. Attributing the credit to a single person in such a large scale project is not fair to any team member. I am sure it is not her fault but whoever pushed to have BBC publish a story like this is hurting the science endeavor overall more than helping it.
We see articles about 'the man behind' stuff all the time. Just go to Google News and search for 'the man behind', you'll see pages and pages of them just for the last few weeks. In fact, check out articles with 'the man behind' in the title on HN[0]. It's a common shorthand which I think most of us recognise as not necessarily disrespectful to a team they might have lead.
[0]https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%27the%20man%20behind%27&sort=...
But uh oh, now there's a woman behind something all of a sudden it's a huge problem and the thread is packed with complaints about it. I wonder why that is?
[0]https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%27the%20man%20behind%27&sort=...
But uh oh, now there's a woman behind something all of a sudden it's a huge problem and the thread is packed with complaints about it. I wonder why that is?
Congratulations. You didn't even bother to read one sentence beyond the headline.
"A 29-year-old computer scientist has earned plaudits worldwide for helping develop the algorithm"
Or even a few sentences in:
"There, she led the project, assisted by a team from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory .."
But hey who needs to read articles when you can jump to conclusions and surface your clear biases.
"A 29-year-old computer scientist has earned plaudits worldwide for helping develop the algorithm"
Or even a few sentences in:
"There, she led the project, assisted by a team from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory .."
But hey who needs to read articles when you can jump to conclusions and surface your clear biases.
This article is full of mentions about the fact that there was a team behind the work. Please stop being so obviously ridiculous.
There, she led the project, assisted by a team from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the MIT Haystack Observatory.
But Dr Bouman, now an assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences at the California Institute of Technology, insisted the team that helped her deserves equal credit.
The effort to capture the image, using telescopes in locations ranging from Antarctica to Chile, involved a team of more than 200 scientists.
"No one of us could've done it alone," she told CNN. "It came together because of lots of different people from many different backgrounds."
There, she led the project, assisted by a team from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the MIT Haystack Observatory.
But Dr Bouman, now an assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences at the California Institute of Technology, insisted the team that helped her deserves equal credit.
The effort to capture the image, using telescopes in locations ranging from Antarctica to Chile, involved a team of more than 200 scientists.
"No one of us could've done it alone," she told CNN. "It came together because of lots of different people from many different backgrounds."
vectorEQ(2)
She actually wrote 2k lines of code. Alex Chael wrote 850.000 out of the 900k total, but is ignored.
Katie's lines of code did two things: 1) integrated the code of others 2) allowed you to change the font-size
Katie's lines of code did two things: 1) integrated the code of others 2) allowed you to change the font-size
aphextim(7)
mhsabbagh(1)
[deleted]
I posted a comment 10 minutes ago and it got immediately downvoted into oblivion. Could you guys please tell me why it is such a bad question to ask? Thank you! Here it is:
Does it really count as an image of a black hole? Since no light is reflected by the black hole, all we see is light bend by the gravity of the black hole.
Haven't we seen that before? I have the strong feeling there have been photos of star constellations that seem distorted because of black holes.
A quick googling brings up this article from 2014 for example:
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/12/tech/black-hole-nasa-nust....
"Black hole bends light, space, time -- and NASA's NuSTAR can see it all unfold"
Does it really count as an image of a black hole? Since no light is reflected by the black hole, all we see is light bend by the gravity of the black hole.
Haven't we seen that before? I have the strong feeling there have been photos of star constellations that seem distorted because of black holes.
A quick googling brings up this article from 2014 for example:
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/12/tech/black-hole-nasa-nust....
"Black hole bends light, space, time -- and NASA's NuSTAR can see it all unfold"
> Could you guys please tell me why it is such a bad question to ask?
Because it's nitpicking[0]. When scientists show you results of several years of work of many people, you effectively chose to ask question like "Is it really violet? Seems more purple to me". You don't contribute anything to discussion, but just want to sound smart-ass.
[0] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nitpicking
Because it's nitpicking[0]. When scientists show you results of several years of work of many people, you effectively chose to ask question like "Is it really violet? Seems more purple to me". You don't contribute anything to discussion, but just want to sound smart-ass.
[0] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nitpicking
No, it's a legit question. Before I read this article I heard mention of a new picture of a black hole, and I was wondering how it was different from previous pictures.
My understanding now is that this is the first time we've observed one accurately enough to get a picture of the Einstein ring around a black hole. And even there, it's heavily reconstructed using machine learning, which I wouldn't call a "photo", more of a "AI artist rendition".
My understanding now is that this is the first time we've observed one accurately enough to get a picture of the Einstein ring around a black hole. And even there, it's heavily reconstructed using machine learning, which I wouldn't call a "photo", more of a "AI artist rendition".
Any digital photo is a reconstruction. Consider all the pictures from the Hubble telescope: these techniques are a far more sophisticated version of the same kinds of techniques used to clean those up.
Thanks!
The link says nitpicking is "Looking for small or unimportant errors".
That is certainly not what I want to do.
The press is full of articles about this "First photo of a black hole". This seems to imply that it is somehow important. But so far, I fail to see what is important about it.
So my question still stands. I would really like to know in what sense this is the first image of a black hole. And if there is something we can learn from looking at it.
My first impression is "Yeah, it's round. I would have thought so." :)
The link says nitpicking is "Looking for small or unimportant errors".
That is certainly not what I want to do.
The press is full of articles about this "First photo of a black hole". This seems to imply that it is somehow important. But so far, I fail to see what is important about it.
So my question still stands. I would really like to know in what sense this is the first image of a black hole. And if there is something we can learn from looking at it.
My first impression is "Yeah, it's round. I would have thought so." :)
Is anyone knowledgeable about the project calling it a "photo" (i.e., the term you used) or are they calling it (more accurately) an "image"?
My take in response to your original question is that it seems like nitpicking or armchair quarterbacking or something else related to that.
I'm always wary of succumbing to the "appeal to authority" fallacy, but this does seem like a case where all the experts and leading figures in a field are saying this is a big deal, and publishing a lot of info about it, so the right approach just seems to be to take the time to read/listen to what they're saying and learn, rather than posting simplistic skeptical questions in web forums.
If you didn't intend to come across that way, then perhaps rethink your question or the way you worded it.
My take in response to your original question is that it seems like nitpicking or armchair quarterbacking or something else related to that.
I'm always wary of succumbing to the "appeal to authority" fallacy, but this does seem like a case where all the experts and leading figures in a field are saying this is a big deal, and publishing a lot of info about it, so the right approach just seems to be to take the time to read/listen to what they're saying and learn, rather than posting simplistic skeptical questions in web forums.
If you didn't intend to come across that way, then perhaps rethink your question or the way you worded it.
Well, what would be a "first image"? There have been countless images depicting black holes since forever:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=black+hole&t=h_&ia=images&iax=imag...
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=black+hole&t=h_&ia=images&iax=imag...
Since everybody seems to be looking for subterfuge in these comments, I'll try to answer the actual question you've asked.
The images in the google search link you supplied are all, without exception that i can see, artistic renderings of a black hole.
There are images of gravitational lensing [1] that show a basic distortion of light from gravity, but none of them reach the intensity of a black hole's 'event horizon'.
The body that we are seeing is at the center of the bright spot in this image [2], and is the source of the blue jet of material coming out. (I originally thought that jet was projected laterally, but in one of the two recent Veritasium videos on this topic he says it's actually heading almost straight at us and is 5000 light years long.) However, it's such an infinitessimally small part of the above image (about 1/10,000,000th the size) that we do not possess the optical resolving power to actually see it. For example, Hubble can resolve down to approximately .05 arcsecond. This image is approximately .00004 arcsecond. To get that resolving power they had to combine signals from radio telescopes all over the world using a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry. The contribution of Katie and her team is to extract a useful image from the petabyates of data that came from that exercise.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens#/media/File...
[2] - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/M87_jet....
The images in the google search link you supplied are all, without exception that i can see, artistic renderings of a black hole.
There are images of gravitational lensing [1] that show a basic distortion of light from gravity, but none of them reach the intensity of a black hole's 'event horizon'.
The body that we are seeing is at the center of the bright spot in this image [2], and is the source of the blue jet of material coming out. (I originally thought that jet was projected laterally, but in one of the two recent Veritasium videos on this topic he says it's actually heading almost straight at us and is 5000 light years long.) However, it's such an infinitessimally small part of the above image (about 1/10,000,000th the size) that we do not possess the optical resolving power to actually see it. For example, Hubble can resolve down to approximately .05 arcsecond. This image is approximately .00004 arcsecond. To get that resolving power they had to combine signals from radio telescopes all over the world using a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry. The contribution of Katie and her team is to extract a useful image from the petabyates of data that came from that exercise.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens#/media/File...
[2] - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/M87_jet....
This is an image rendered from photons that had passed around the black hole, and travelled to Earth and been captured by a radio telescope that humans built.
It's the first time that's been done.
All the images in the DDG search are artistic constructions.
Edit: The thing that's so remarkable is that it does look like what scientists predicted it would look like, and thus some of those artistic representations are similar to what we're now seeing in this image.
It's the first time that's been done.
All the images in the DDG search are artistic constructions.
Edit: The thing that's so remarkable is that it does look like what scientists predicted it would look like, and thus some of those artistic representations are similar to what we're now seeing in this image.
It seems like a valid question. We're also told that a black hole isn't visible, and we're told that this image is reconstructed from sensor data. Whether or not it's really fair to consider it a "photograph" of a black hole boils down to exactly how much artistic license is taken in reconstructing the sensor data. Not knowing how much of this is artistic license, I'm willing to take the scientists at their word, but to ask the question doesn't seem like a nitpick.
EDIT: In Dr Bouman's TED talk, she notes that there are an infinite number of ways the sensor data could be constructed into an image, and that they were looking for a construction that looks like what they expect things in our universe look like. So, there's some ambiguity in the definition of "photograph"
EDIT: In Dr Bouman's TED talk, she notes that there are an infinite number of ways the sensor data could be constructed into an image, and that they were looking for a construction that looks like what they expect things in our universe look like. So, there's some ambiguity in the definition of "photograph"
Must admit, I feel kind of the same. It's also probably more of an artistic rendering than a photograph in the classical sense.
Humans can only see a tiny sliver of the enormous Electromagnetic spectrum. Just because it's not a photograph in visible light doesn't mean it's not our best rendering of EM data and what that would look like to us if it was in the visible spectrum.
We do the same thing with digital cameras, X-rays, MRI, etc.
We do the same thing with digital cameras, X-rays, MRI, etc.
I'm not biased anyway but thinking Is it fair to attribute this entire thing to one person leaving out the team of collaborators? Doesn't it sound like what happens with Jobsism?
Edit: While I'm being rapidly downvoted, I'd like to clarify that I didn't mean to demean this because it's a female nor any of the feat this research has achieved. My point was only about why is it reported as if individual feat while many of such things are a strong team work.
For some other questions - will you say the same about Elon musk - of course i've argued this among my peers and that's exactly why I called it similar to `Jobsism`
To Quote: Another recent incident, While AI Godfathers got Turing award, many questioned why this person hasn't got and that person hasn't got.
My idea for this comment was a constructive discussion but it took a different spin that my comment is against this woman which definitely not my intention.
Edit: While I'm being rapidly downvoted, I'd like to clarify that I didn't mean to demean this because it's a female nor any of the feat this research has achieved. My point was only about why is it reported as if individual feat while many of such things are a strong team work.
For some other questions - will you say the same about Elon musk - of course i've argued this among my peers and that's exactly why I called it similar to `Jobsism`
To Quote: Another recent incident, While AI Godfathers got Turing award, many questioned why this person hasn't got and that person hasn't got.
My idea for this comment was a constructive discussion but it took a different spin that my comment is against this woman which definitely not my intention.
From article: But Dr Bouman, now an assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences at the California Institute of Technology, insisted the team that helped her deserves equal credit.
The effort to capture the image, using telescopes in locations ranging from Antarctica to Chile, involved a team of more than 200 scientists.
"No one of us could've done it alone," she told CNN. "It came together because of lots of different people from many different backgrounds."
The effort to capture the image, using telescopes in locations ranging from Antarctica to Chile, involved a team of more than 200 scientists.
"No one of us could've done it alone," she told CNN. "It came together because of lots of different people from many different backgrounds."
i don't think the criticism of "jobsism" is directed at her, but rather at media outlets who are spinning the story this way.
So you attack a brilliant scientist with a post doctorate? You say she doesn't deserve credit for being the cornerstone that allowed this amazing discovery to happen?
Already read your coward excuse that you are only attacking the media, don't bother justifying your misogyny and insecurities.
Your profile has less than a year, can't be traced to the real you and all/most of what you say is just cheap criticism. From what I see, you are nothing than a mere internet troll that got some attention; an information parasite.
Know that you represent the worst of the information age.
Already read your coward excuse that you are only attacking the media, don't bother justifying your misogyny and insecurities.
Your profile has less than a year, can't be traced to the real you and all/most of what you say is just cheap criticism. From what I see, you are nothing than a mere internet troll that got some attention; an information parasite.
Know that you represent the worst of the information age.
It's a scientific feat that's ranked in the top 50 HN stories of all time, yet you somehow feel a profile of the central figure is somehow inappropriate?
How would you rate "Meet Robert Oppenheimer, father of the bomb"?
I'd also love anyone to point me to any similar discussion on Elon Musk and one of his companies.
How would you rate "Meet Robert Oppenheimer, father of the bomb"?
I'd also love anyone to point me to any similar discussion on Elon Musk and one of his companies.
Clarity: I definitely didn't mean to demean her effort or profile. I'm just pointing out how media outlets are reporting this feat.
It's a bit of both - she was the lead behind the algorithm used to process the data, so she rightly deserves credit for that aspect (being the first to do something always gets the credit in the research community). At the same time, it's disingenuous to say it would have been impossible without her, there were multiple competing methods that could have pulled this off, and there were large parts of this achievement that had nothing to do with computational photography research (the astronomy / radio physicists teams).
Yes, and she's the first to acknowledge this:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1021332602552304...
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1021332602552304...
Focus on an academic superstar at the expense of their team - or a big 'team lead' at a place like Google or Facebook is far from remarkable. Any particular reason that this story stands out for you?
~I feel bad for the team. I would rather see the whole team praised for the success not just one person that fits the narrative "women in tech".~
People I right, I made an assumption based on the title and not the content.
People I right, I made an assumption based on the title and not the content.
"Elon Musk single handedly saves the world with electric cars and revolutionises spaces travel"
The media have highlighted the lead, she credits the team, and the article outlines the numbers who worked on it.
The media have highlighted the lead, she credits the team, and the article outlines the numbers who worked on it.
Nobody is claiming it is a one person effort. Nobody.
And whilst she is getting more attention it has not come at the expense of anyone else.
And you wonder why women hate to work in IT with comments like yours where you've dismissed her accomplishments simply because she is a "women in tech".
And whilst she is getting more attention it has not come at the expense of anyone else.
And you wonder why women hate to work in IT with comments like yours where you've dismissed her accomplishments simply because she is a "women in tech".
I'm not sure this will get the suitably nuanced discussion it should on Hacker News, but there's a whole school of discussion about 'Great man theory' view of history.
Everyone, from government to education to tech companies really, really, really want more women in STEM. A smart, photogenic woman making a contribution is the real story because it fits that narrative. I don't mean to take away from her contributions and I'm not making value judgments, that's just how I see it.
antt(5)
So is the 200 people team a frontrunner for the Nobel Prize in Physics?
Reading some of the comments in here and in previous texts, I think everyone should try to heed to the following guidelines:
- When an individual/team's work is emphasized by their biological characteristics, it is often meant for clicks or to drive emotions (positive & negative)
- When that happens, ask yourself whether the author of the paper did it for nefarious reasons or not.
- If the cause doesn't seem nefarious, ask yourself whether the society around you has outgrown the biases towards X biological characteristics
- When interacting with others, do not base your actions and thoughts on their biological characteristics.
- Celebrate, debate and criticize the work that the individual/team did, the work the author of the article did and the comments.
- When an individual/team's work is emphasized by their biological characteristics, it is often meant for clicks or to drive emotions (positive & negative)
- When that happens, ask yourself whether the author of the paper did it for nefarious reasons or not.
- If the cause doesn't seem nefarious, ask yourself whether the society around you has outgrown the biases towards X biological characteristics
- When interacting with others, do not base your actions and thoughts on their biological characteristics.
- Celebrate, debate and criticize the work that the individual/team did, the work the author of the article did and the comments.
Nothing about this “emphasized” her “biological characteristics”: people are merely massively overreacting to her existence.
Seems to me that you are the one emphasizing “biological characteristics”. The article does not. Are you projecting, maybe?
The Ycombinator text doesn't say it, but the link does. I think a lot of the negative reaction in here comes from the way people have started to perceive the narrative created by the media and personal feelings of threat (which is often unfounded).
I am all in for getting more people from all backgrounds into Computer & Sciences. I also agree that sometimes it is beneficial to have 'biological characteristics' added to articles to get certain groups to find someone to look up to. Humans are biologically set-up to do that, what the guideline implies is for everyone to do 'at least that' before creating biased comments.
Care to explain how the 'guidelines' comment is projecting?
I am all in for getting more people from all backgrounds into Computer & Sciences. I also agree that sometimes it is beneficial to have 'biological characteristics' added to articles to get certain groups to find someone to look up to. Humans are biologically set-up to do that, what the guideline implies is for everyone to do 'at least that' before creating biased comments.
Care to explain how the 'guidelines' comment is projecting?
> The Ycombinator text doesn’t say it, but the link does.
The title of the article as of this moment is, “Katie Bouman: The woman behind the first black hole image.” Saying, “the woman behind X” doesn’t emphasize gender any more than saying “the man behind X” does. Again, this is you projecting, perhaps because you think “normal” is male, and thus “woman” is somehow making a statement?
I see nothing in the body of the article that mentions her gender in any way other than using the pronoun “she.” It seems to me that you read an article about a female scientist and projected some kind of ulterior motive on the part of the author, which says a lot more about you than it does about the author.
The title of the article as of this moment is, “Katie Bouman: The woman behind the first black hole image.” Saying, “the woman behind X” doesn’t emphasize gender any more than saying “the man behind X” does. Again, this is you projecting, perhaps because you think “normal” is male, and thus “woman” is somehow making a statement?
I see nothing in the body of the article that mentions her gender in any way other than using the pronoun “she.” It seems to me that you read an article about a female scientist and projected some kind of ulterior motive on the part of the author, which says a lot more about you than it does about the author.
Did you bother to read some of the comments people have written here and did you even read my whole text or just hand-picked something that triggered you and decided to argue?
Like I said before, based on OTHER PEOPLES COMMENTS, I recommended them to consider those guidelines. I still have no idea why it became about me projecting something.
Regardless, to cover your point, media companies use titles to instill something in the reader and emotion is often a tool. "The woman behind..." or "The man behind..." doesn't have any impact on the way I process the information, however, it does for others (positive and negative). For a children, it can be a source of inspiration, for someone else it can trigger something negative based on the current environment of things. This tool has been used to glorify astronauts, soldiers and many other areas. I didn't project anything, I read OTHER PEOPLES COMMENTS and thought it was important for them to consider what I said.
Hopefully in the future, everyone will stop putting so much emphasis in biological characteristics (READ OTHER COMMENTS HERE AND ELSEWHERE) and take it for what it is, a bright scientist gave us a snapshot of something we have been curious to see for decades. Regardless, you should re-read my comments to realize your points are null and you likely misconstrued my points based on your preconceived notion and current state of mind. If you are willing to have a healthy debate, I would be more than willing to dig into some of the topics you may have, including the amazing work Dr. Katie Bouman did. Now if your aim is to continue to attack me for something I didn't do, then I hope you have a good day.
Like I said before, based on OTHER PEOPLES COMMENTS, I recommended them to consider those guidelines. I still have no idea why it became about me projecting something.
Regardless, to cover your point, media companies use titles to instill something in the reader and emotion is often a tool. "The woman behind..." or "The man behind..." doesn't have any impact on the way I process the information, however, it does for others (positive and negative). For a children, it can be a source of inspiration, for someone else it can trigger something negative based on the current environment of things. This tool has been used to glorify astronauts, soldiers and many other areas. I didn't project anything, I read OTHER PEOPLES COMMENTS and thought it was important for them to consider what I said.
Hopefully in the future, everyone will stop putting so much emphasis in biological characteristics (READ OTHER COMMENTS HERE AND ELSEWHERE) and take it for what it is, a bright scientist gave us a snapshot of something we have been curious to see for decades. Regardless, you should re-read my comments to realize your points are null and you likely misconstrued my points based on your preconceived notion and current state of mind. If you are willing to have a healthy debate, I would be more than willing to dig into some of the topics you may have, including the amazing work Dr. Katie Bouman did. Now if your aim is to continue to attack me for something I didn't do, then I hope you have a good day.
I’m pretty sure you are arguing in bad faith here, as your original comment and your first reply are clearly referring to the article, and implying that it is emphasizing her gender for clicks, when it does no such thing.
Thanks, dad.