Ask HN: Data scientists, how are you being evaluated within your company? - <AUTHOR> I've worked places of different sizes as data scientist (from start-up to mega-corp), and I've seen different ways to evaluate employee's performance (think yearly performance review). In my experience, it's ironically often difficult as a data scientist to demonstrate what you have or have not achieved during the year in a quantitative fashion. I would be curious to hear your input, what works and what doesn't in your opinion. Evaluation methodologies I have often seen are:<p>- Demonstration of impact on business: In this case it's up to the data scientist to justify as best as possible what business decision (or internal milestone) was made because of an analysis performed. In theory it makes sense (= your focus should be on impacting business), in practice I don't think I've ever seen a single analysis changing the course of anything; decisions are driven by many factors, your analysis being only one of them.<p>- Tool usage: I guess some programmers are evaluated the same way; basically, you develop a tool for co-workers to perform analyses with. The more the tool is used, the better it is for you (it's assumed that high usage = high business relevance). In this case the usage is sometimes easier to track and more impartial, but it's often difficult to develop a data science tool covering many use-cases, and one frequently ends-up with a niche product with low usage. <comment><USER2> > Tool usage: I guess some programmers are evaluated the same way; basically, > you develop a tool for co-workers to perform analyses with

> often difficult to develop a data science tool covering many use-cases

yes ; yes. if you find the right niche a tool can be very valuable, and it should be possible to estimate or compare the value provided by the tool to the existing process without using the tool.

I worked in a domain where software was used to automate or optimise business decisions as part of a large, expensive construction project. Some components of the work that my colleagues & I did could arguably be framed as data- science (more accurately operations research), although a lot of the work was just software development. Occasionally there were small consulting projects for clients where the output of the project was a report summarising some modelling/simulation with recommendations.

The bulk of the work was building software tools used by the client to automate and optimise business decisions. The value of such tools could be evaluated in a few of obvious ways: How much labour cost did the tool save the client by automating away previously manual processes? How much value did the tool provide the client by making better business decisions than the previous process? How much incidental value did the tool provide by forcing standarisation of previously ad-hoc processes? (e.g. capturing data required as inputs, data quality...) How much did the client pay for the tool? (the above points would inform this one!)

The tools I worked on were used as part of the planning / design process. When they were effective, these tools directly identified designs that would be cheaper to construct than designs produced by the previous process. The value of these construction savings could be estimated and was much larger than the value from automating previous manual work. In at least one case, prior to a sale to a very major client, there was a benchmark & comparison done between the client's existing process and the new process using the proposed tool as part of the business case to fund the sale of the product & related integration work.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this is a problem that most data science teams are facing due to the hype and pressure for ROIs to be generated.

DS teams might work on operational improvements or external customer problems. The same DS team is unlikely to be tasked to do both.

Fairly and factually measuring the impact a team has is not a new problem. Banks have used transfer pricing models to allocate revenue to non-front office teams. This requires a lot of buy-in from higher-ups and it is very sensitive. Management is unlikely to be familiar and comfortable with the notion that a model would calculate the implicit benefit each team is bringing to the table.

Ideas I've seen attempted with various outcomes are:

* If your dashboard leads to hours saved by your internal users, focus on that because this will mean that your DS team's time investment translated into X workhours saved per week or month. Multiply by average salary and you get a cost-saving estimate.

* If your model predicts or calculates something, then it's even easier. It's the same if you are forecasting. It's difficult to measure ROIs on a non-financial investments but it's feasible.

* If your solution does not address an existing modelling need or problem or operational bottleneck and simply modernizes or brings something to the table that was not around before, things are a bit trickier. You need to think about opportunity cost (what could the DS team have been doing instead of this solution) but also what the company's strategic direction is. You also need to address operational risk. If your tool helps minimize the risk, then that's worth something. It's measurable by comparing the data pre and post launch of the tool (maybe a 6 month window of running both is sufficient to compare and contrast).

If you are looking for early stage successes to build the DS team's goodwill - just focus on the first two bullet points. If you already have buy-in, then time is on your side as long as you are productive.

I would also advocate that for conservative companies it's best to ensure that you go to your internal clients and explicitly ask them to nominate projects or problems or issues they need help with. If you can help them with your solutions or data pipelines they will preach for the DS team doing your work for you. Of course, there are a lot of companies where cliques make decisions not just on merit. These companies are going to lose their best people and wither away in time.

</comment><comment><USER4> Question related to this:

I'm applying to jobs in data science (straight outta grad school), and I'm not really sure how to market myself. The problem I keep running up against is that data science is such a broad term that it's hard for me to express how I can provide value to a company without speaking in empty generalities. From my reading of job postings, it seems as though what's called "data science" at one company is "software engineer" at another and "machine learning developer" at a third. How do working data scientists view their role within a company, especially how do their differentiate their purpose from the tools they use?

<comment><USER5> In my mind there are 2 defining axes of data science:

The first is Statistics <-> Machine Learning. On one hand, you can be a data scientist that primarily uses statistics to model user behavior, create metrics, test hypotheses that then inform product design. On the other hand, you can prototype and develop machine learning systems (recommendation engines, predictive analytics etc).

The second axis is developing production code. Some data scientists live in their notebooks and analyses and never write code that directly makes it into production. Others are expected to sit alongside the SWEs and write production level code for the models they have created.

Examples: Data Scientists at Google are statistics heavy and not often writing production code (though this varies by team). On the other hand Quora Data Scientists are mostly developing machine learning models and are expected to write production level code to implement these.</comment></comment>


U.S. House passes controversial bill on NSF research - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/us-house-tees-controversial-bill-nsf-research <comment><USER2> Was this bill reintroduced? It looks like this is from last year and died in the Senate.</comment>


Behind Parallella: The Adapteva Story - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adapteva/parallella-a-supercomputer-for-everyone/posts/336491

<comment><USER2> The back story of Adapteva [1] linked in the article is absolutely humbling and amazing.

Everyone who reads HN, who believes in making things, in facing seeming insurmountable odds against VC inertia, needs to read what Andreas Olofsson is on the cusp of accomplishing.

If any kickstarter project deserves to be funded, this is the one. It's the perfect hacker chip. It's simply asks, Hey here's some amazing compute, go for it, build something.

This is the kind of company that could start a 1000 other companies.

I, if it isn't clear already, am super-excited and hope they get funded.

[1] [http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/eda-designline- blog...](http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/eda-designline- blog/4211089/From-RTL-to-GDSII-in-Just-Six-Weeks-)</comment>


For Katie Bouman, One Day of Science Fame Turned into a Nightmare of Trolling - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/first-picture-black-hole-made-katie-bouman-overnight-celebrity-then-n994081 <comment><AUTHOR> It should be noted that this community here was among the worst in this regard.

This isn't about measuring the exact contribution she may or may not have made to the project. It's that there are limitless stories of "meet the man behind <x>" where that question just never crosses anyone's mind. See "The Man Behind Windows PowerShell" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15250349](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15250349)

Yet for her, the discussion was easily dominated by attempts to tear her down, a few defenders, and entirely transparent attempts to differentiate her case from all the others that avoid the obvious reason.

<comment><USER2> Absolutely. It's a trend I've noticed on HN for some time now unfortunately. Stories with women tend to generate a lot of hysteria around men not being treated fairly or other nonsense.

It's the exact same thing that occurred when there was a program for women to help increase the number of female startup founders and teach them to code [1] or when a manager at Facebook quit over being harassed [2].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19464269](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19464269)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18932815](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18932815)

<comment><USER3> I think it's a fear many have of someone possibly, maybe getting an unfair break. To me it feels a lot like the same reaction I see over the concept of welfare. Can't let anyone past because maybe, possibly, some of them are getting it undeservedly.

In my opinion the fear that others get something they didn't earn or didn't deserve is one of the bigger problems we need to combat in society. It's the biggest foe of social systems that could help raise us all up. And it seems to me it might be an underpinning reason to why some are so afraid to let a woman have some attention that she probably fought her whole professional life for a chance to earn.

<comment><USER4> There's also the odd trend I've noticed of trying to attribute the gender imbalance and the lack of women in technical and scientific fields to genetic factors, implying (sometimes stating outright) that women are simply incapable of comprehending logic, complex mathematics, keeping attention to detail, etc.

Some (or many, judging by the threads here) people seem to assume that a woman in a position of any prestige in such a field must be there due to some feminist agenda giving seats to unqualified women in the name of gender equality, or the leftist press giving women undeserved credit.

It's particularly odd because I suspect many of the proponents of these views are too young to remember the 1960s or 1950s, yet their views on women seem regressive even by that standard, and far more vicious.

<comment><USER5> People attribute genetics or hormones to difference between men and women when they can't find other reasons, and this comes from all side of the political spectrum. Violence and aggression is attributed to biological aspects of men, emotional instability and lack of "cold logic" in women. Risk taking and shorter life span in men, nurturing behavior in women.

It is regressive and the science used in support is spotty at best and more often poorly correlations with a massive dose of cultural bias.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was surprised to see all the people on this site (who should know better) trying to evaluate someone based on lines of code.

Also, it seems like this article is falling surprisingly fast down the front page. dang can you confirm whether this is getting aggressively flagged?

</comment><comment><USER7> A couple of previous HN discussions (of the actual black hole picture, not the trolling):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19632086](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19632086)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19624226](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19624226)

Whenever a woman does anything, it seems to get de-raily attention that goes weird places. I love how that gets captured in this video of the song "Don't Speak" by _No Doubt._

[https://youtu.be/TR3Vdo5etCQ](https://youtu.be/TR3Vdo5etCQ)

<comment><USER8> The idea of a massive pop hit being about male commentary about female achievement was very intriguing.

So I actually looked up the lyrics and I am pretty sure it is about a breakup.

<comment><USER7> I left a link to the video, not a link to the lyrics. Of course the song is about a breakup -- a very famous break-up.

The lead singer Gwen Stefani is the only female member of the band. She initiated a relationship with Tony Kanal, another member of the band:

 _During a party where No Doubt performed in mid-1987, Stefani tried to kiss Kanal when the two went for a walk. Kanal initially rejected her, later commenting, "It was pretty much an unspoken rule that nobody dates Gwen...almost like a bunch of brothers and our sister." He gave in, and the two began dating secretly. The band was suspicious of them, warning Kanal against dating her, but he denied the relationship.

While the band was working on its third album Tragic Kingdom, Kanal broke up with Stefani. She later explained that he was feeling "claustrophobic" in the relationship since he did not have any previous experience being in one. She stated that the break-up "took ages" because the two were close friends and Kanal did not want to hurt her. After the break-up, he offered to leave the band, but Stefani replied that she wanted him to stay. Many of the songs on that album were written by Stefani about the breakup, most notably "Don't Speak". Many years later, Stefani co-wrote her song "Cool" about their relationship as friends for her 2004 debut solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby._

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Kanal](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Kanal)

But if you watch the video closely, it shows the male band members being shoved aside while photographers make Gwen the focus of a photo shoot. Then it shows the guys whispering to each other and, at some point, the guys all hold up a hand as if voting in agreement. Gwen's body language clearly signals frustration, disagreement and defeat, like "Aw, come on!"

Gwen got a lot of media attention as a female lead vocalist of an otherwise all male pop band. A lot of interviews (articles, other coverage) ended up focusing on her and ignoring the male band members.

She became a star in her own right and household name, but a lot fewer people know the names of the other band members. In fact, I always have to look up Tony Kanal's name. I can never remember it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "The theory claims that Chael wrote 850,000 lines of code, which he says is also wrong, adding there are 68,000 lines of code total in the current software"

If I write a line of code and then revise that line later have I written one line or two?</comment>


Humans placed in suspended animation for the first time - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2224004-exclusive-humans-placed-in-suspended-animation-for-the-first-time/ <comment><USER2> How is this different from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_hypothermic_circulatory_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_hypothermic_circulatory_arrest) ?

(My guess is that the technique was used in normal surgeries and now they are using it in ER surgeries too.)

<comment><USER3> "EPR involves rapidly cooling a person to around 10 to 15°C by replacing all of their blood with ice-cold saline."

That part seems to be new.</comment></comment>


Workgroup: Volunteering my time to help you get hired - <AUTHOR> If you're struggling to find work, then here is a signal. An invitation.
Your internet is a dark forest. Your job search is little more than a clearing in the forest. Jobs, strange jobs, come forth from the forest into the clearing of thy illuminated screen, and then go back. You must have the courage to seek them out, but you don't have to go it alone.
I am a first-class community builder. However, I am mortal. Circumstances can conspire to create a challenge even for me.
Last week, I began a job search. I pulled out my bag of uncommon hacks. I got six interviews in seven days. This could be you.
I'm not offering you top-down answers. You'll have to work for it.
Today, I am forming a band of eight. And, I am going to war, and taking the eight with me. We're taking souls. We're winning hearts and minds. We're all getting hired!
You can do it. Join the eight. An exclusive work-group. It's not for everyone. It's not for the others. It's for you buddy.
We're going to hack our way through the forest to the next jobs.
More money within nine weeks. Don't think it's possible... Madness? Madness? This is smarter.
We leave no person behind!
About you: You are ready to take massive action. You have a working webcam and mic. You apply by leaving an introduction in the comments here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/memetics_blockchain-data-howt....
About me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24351810. Let's go! <comment><USER2> I've been job searching since April with no luck- I'd really welcome the help!

<comment><AUTHOR> Sign up by leaving a comment in my LinkedIn post. This is going to help form the group, it's the first pillar. [https://www.linkedin.com/posts/memetics_blockchain-data- howt...](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/memetics_blockchain-data-howto- activity-6707189966218264576-AlSa)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm ready!!! Let's do this!!</comment>


From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones - <AUTHOR> https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/09/13/from-prison-to-ph-d-the-redemption-and-rejection-of-michelle-jones <comment><USER2> I don't understand why we let people out of prison if we aren't prepared to _actually_ let them out of prison. I'm not really bleeding heart about this, I'd be fine with any murder of this sort meaning life in prison. What does not make sense is letting someone out and then not treating them as normal humans again. It only encourages people to revert to evil.

<comment><USER3> Some quotes from the article makes it seem like they are more worried about the potential social and political backlash, than their personal beliefs on whether she has been rehabilitated.

> " _We didn't have some preconceived idea about crucifying Michelle," said > John Stauffer, one of the two American studies professors. "But frankly, we > knew that anyone could just punch her crime into Google, and Fox News would > probably say that P.C. liberal Harvard gave 200 grand of funding to a child > murderer, who also happened to be a minority. I mean, c'mon._ "

This is so cowardly.

<comment><USER4> ... wow. I'm pretty shocked that a Harvard prof would admit to overturning someone's admission due in part to them being a racial minority, fearing the _prospect_ of bad press from _Fox News_. Fox has really won the culture wars in a major way.

<comment><USER5> Why would Harvard actually care what Fox news thinks? Honest question.

<comment><USER6> I was going to say something more 2015-ish, but with Donny's revealing of the wizard behind the curtain, yeah, you are right.

Why do they care?

I mean, they have enough cash in the bank to never let another student in for 200 years, and still be just fine. They have more good-will built up than anything else out there. They make advances in human knowledge comparable to almost nothing else besides another University. They have it all. So what could they want then?

The only thing I can come up with is that they _do_ think Fox would be correct in that assumption. They aren't worried about the money. Maybe they are worried about the woman herself and just are using the Fox stuff as cover? Nothing else really makes sense.

<comment><USER7> The idea that sufficient resources mean you can just ignore politics has historically proven inaccurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can't believe we're to the point of debating whether a private educational institution can base an admissions decision, in part, on a past murder conviction.

This isn't about redemption or rehabilitation. No one is suggesting she's going to beat, starve, abandon and murder another 4-year-old. That's very unlikely.

But, what we are suggesting is that a private institution should be able to consider a person's entire story in their admissions decision.

Crimes have consequences beyond the government imposed sentence. But maybe the issue here is that the woman's punishment was much less than what most people would consider full justice, so they feel compelled to mete out slightly more to compensate.

And you say, but look at all she's contributed to society with her research! And I say we'll never know what her son may have contributed and she took him from the world.

<comment><USER9> >>But maybe the issue here is that the woman's punishment was much less than what most people would consider full justice, so they feel compelled to mete out slightly more to compensate.

Peoples justice is not justice, it's revenge. You can't cherry pick the decisions of the justice system to fit your personal world views. You either believe in the ability of the justice system to impose the correct sentences, or you don't.

This private institution can base their decisions on anything they want, but in this particular case the reasoning is asinine and cowardly. It has nothing to do with her as a person and everything to do with a bad PR incident.

<comment><USER8> Criminal justice attempts to align punishments with the public's sense of fairness, not the other way around.

When people regularly feel compelled to mete out vigilante justice, it's a sign that the justice system is broken _not people 's sense of fairness_.

The alternative is to make the criminal justice system into some kind of religion lecturing to the public about what value system they should have.

And, here, if you polled the general public you'd like get an overwhelming majority who believe that serving 20 years in prison for the beating, starvation, abandonment and murder of a child was too light a sentence. Habitually ignoring such sentiment is detrimental for a society long term as people lose faith in the government being able to protect them and maintain the right to be the sole arbiter of justice. (Avoiding mob justice is equally important, but this is not a case of ambiguous facts or uncertain guilt, just whether 20 years could ever be the right sentence for this abhorrent crime.)

Remember, governments get their power from and serve the people. Not the other way around.

<comment><USER9> I see your point, but nobody is saying the time she served wasn't adequate - yet still they want to force punishment.

Nobody would be complaining if she was trying to receive a HS diploma. But throw a prestigious school in the mix and all of a sudden its an issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Either you believe in forgiveness or you don't. What she did was horrific. What she had done to her was almost as bad, but not an excuse, never an excuse because we are not animals, for what she did. She ended a child's life in a horrible, cruel manner.

But....

The state decided 20 years was enough. You can argue about the length or if she got out at all, but its problematic not to get the most value out of her when we are supposed to reintegrate her into society[1]. The time to argue she should still be in prison is passed. If you did not journey or send comment to the parole board prior to her release, then you did let your voice be heard.

"But frankly, we knew that anyone could just punch her crime into Google, and Fox News would probably say that P.C. liberal Harvard gave 200 grand of funding to a child murderer, who also happened to be a minority. I mean, c'mon."

I can understand this attitude in a single person, but you folks are friggin Harvard. Now, some Fox host is going to do a whole segment on how flexible your values are in the face of opposition.

Conservative politicians do this too when talking to the NYT and it is annoying. Stick to your damn guns or admit you don't actually believe in the principals you ran on. The voting booth back home is more important than being invited to the cool dinner parties.

1) can we get an article on how their rehabilitation works at that prison.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This story is an example of how rehabilitation is acceptable only in concept, not reality for many, regardless of what they might profess. The student added a personal statement (which wasn't required) about her crime and record. Yet, 2 people's "concerns", which they didn't bother to address with the applicant caused the admission to be rescinded. The school's decision in prioritizing appearances/what others will think above a student's future is repugnant.

Good to see she took it in stride:

 _"People don't survive 20 years of incarceration with any kind of grace unless they have the discipline to do their reading and writing in the chaos of that place," Jones said. "Forget Harvard. I've already graduated from the toughest school there is."_

<comment><USER11> There are things you can be rehabilitated from and there are things you can't. Also rehabilitation doesn't have too be complete.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your point is unclear: Are you saying she isn't or can't be rehabilitated or her rehabilitation isn't complete?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For those interested in what her PhD research is actually about, I managed to track down one of her papers:

> Incarcerated Scholars, Qualitative Inquiry, and Subjugated Knowledge: The > Value of Incarcerated and Post-Incarcerated Scholars in the Age of Mass > Incarceration

[http://www.jpp.org/documents/back%20issues/JPP%2025-2.pdf](http://www.jpp.org/documents/back%20issues/JPP%2025-2.pdf)

It looks like it's mostly about the Indiana Women's Prison History Project which she participated in.

<comment><USER13> I'm actually disappointed by how meta that is. And puzzled by the fact that I'm that reaction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> So, Harvard has professors that don't understand/accept the principles of rehabilitation. Sad, but, unfortunately, hardly shocking. There are many people like this all around the world.

<comment><USER15> In fairness, she is a convicted murderer. And just try to imagine the magnitude of the blowback if she ever did anything wrong on campus, particularly to some precious darling of wealthy and connected parents.

I'm not saying the Harvard administration made the right choice here, but they certainly had cause to be cautious.

<comment><USER16> So why ever release prisoners? Should institutions always be doubtful bystanders of the U.S. justice system and its rehabilitation guidelines?

<comment><USER15> > Should institutions always be doubtful bystanders of the U.S. justice system > and its rehabilitation guidelines?

In some cases, that's how it works, yes. Many employers refuse to hire ex- cons. A felony conviction will bar you from some professional certifications entirely. And because of sex-offender registries, people convicted of sex crimes find it very difficult to live in built-up areas, since they are required to live away from areas frequented by children.

A serious criminal record is a quick ticket out of basically all of respectable society, including the part that people try to enter by earning lofty degrees from prestigious institutions of higher learning. We as a society clearly don't have anything close to full confidence in the rehabilitation of criminals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've been less of a fan of "Shawshank Redemption" as I've grown older, cynically seeing it as being overly Pollyannish, but this sounds like a scene right out of it:

> _Incarcerated in 1996, Jones worked for five years in the law library at > Indiana Women's Prison, and got certified as a paralegal. She received a > bachelor's degree from Ball State University in 2004, and audited graduate- > level classes at Indiana University._

> _Her blossoming as a historian began in 2012, when Kelsey Kauffman, a former > professor who volunteered at the prison, encouraged inmates to research the > origins of their involuntary home, which opened in 1873 as the first adult > female correctional facility in the United States. Soon, Jones was placing > library requests for reference books and, when they arrived months later, > scouring the footnotes for what to order next._

</comment><comment><USER17> Reminds of a friends story:

[http://learninginnovationafrica.co.za/sihle- tshabalala/](http://learninginnovationafrica.co.za/sihle-tshabalala/)

[http://leadsa.co.za/articles/7093/sihle-tshabalala-from-a- li...](http://leadsa.co.za/articles/7093/sihle-tshabalala-from-a-life-of- crime-to-leading-change)

It's tough out there.

</comment><comment><USER18> Yikes, talk about an unsympathetic example for criminal justice reform.

There are plenty of felons who are unjustly punished well after they've left jail for crimes that weren't even that serious. Harvard deciding that they didn't want a child murderer around their undergrads isn't an example of that.

</comment><comment><USER19> Also in today's news: "Chelsea Manning named visiting fellow at Harvard." [http://www.militarytimes.com/news/your- military/2017/09/13/c...](http://www.militarytimes.com/news/your- military/2017/09/13/chelsea-manning-named-visiting-fellow-at-harvard/)

</comment><comment><USER20> This feels like a weird echo of the Gina Grant case, which also featured stupid cowardly retraction of admissions on the part of Harvard administration.

</comment><comment><USER21> Unrelated to the story but I'm not too fond of taking over the scroll wheel for transitions. Sure, it's a cool effect here but it tricked me into thinking I had my Ctrl key pressed down somehow.

It's not enough to make me leave but it is a bit disorienting, if not annoying.

<comment><USER22> I'm looking at the page on a MBP and I can't read anything. How did you get it working? Both the touchpad and the up/down arrows just change the size of the text.

<comment><USER5> here is the nytimes version if that helps

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/us/harvard-nyu-prison- mic...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/us/harvard-nyu-prison-michelle- jones.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Jones got pregnant at 14 after what she called non-consensual sex with a > high-school senior.

Why minimize? Sounds like rape.

<comment><USER24> It may be difficult for her to talk about.

<comment><USER23> That's the presentation by the journalist, not a quote.

<comment><USER25> the bit you quote above does say "what she called", which seems to indicate it's an indirect quote.

<comment><USER23> "What she called" is the minimization that I object to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> As a father of three, the heinous crime against a small child, in the way described, in my mind, is unforgivable. I couldn't care less about here PHD - and that smug look in that picture makes her worse in my eyes, not "redeemed"

You don't beat a four year old child then leave them locked in an apartment to die.

Fuck her.

<comment><USER27> That's my only take. She murdered her child. Heinously, if the description is accurate. Harvard has the right to look at a person's entire resume when deciding whether to accept someone, and that is an incredibly dark black mark.

Prison is just the punishment the state metes out. No one's obligated to act as if she never murdered a child.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> " _But the American studies professors said in their memo to administrators that "honest and full narration is an essential part of our enterprise," and questioned whether Jones had met that standard in framing her past. In the personal statement, which was not required, she did not detail her involvement in the crime, but wrote that as a teenager she left Brandon at home alone, that he died, and that she has grieved for him deeply and daily since._

" _[John] Stauffer emphasized in interviews that he and his departmental colleague, Dan Carpenter, were simply trying to ensure that Harvard did its due diligence about the candidacy._ "

The objections serm to be

1\. She would have a hard time fitting into Harvard. Which is horseshit.

2\. She would potentially embarrass Harvard. Which is to be expected of administrators, but seems out of place for faculty. I wonder what the spineless wankers think of the idea of tenure.

3\. She was not penitent enough.

So, yeah. Good job Harvard.

</comment><comment><USER29> She beat her toddler son and left him to slowly die alone. The fact that people with such warped judgement are in charge of influential institutions such as Harvard is disconcerting to say the least.

<comment><USER30> What do you mean? When faculty uncovered more information about the crime (it strongly implies she minimized it), they refused to admit her. That sounds right to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I understand how this is considered unjust, but in a way, Harvard did her a favor.

If Harvard only wants to go to bat for Michelle Jones, august scholar, and not Michelle Jones, convicted murderer, then they don't deserve to draft off of her present work or academic legacy.

Good on NYU for sticking to their guns.

</comment><comment><USER32> _> > At her trial, a former friend testified that Jones confessed to having beaten the boy and then leaving him alone for days in their apartment, eventually returning to find him dead in his bedroom.

Jones was sentenced to 50 years in prison, but released after 20 based on her good behavior and educational attainment._

She could be brilliant and a huge asset to science, but personally don't think she deserves to get out after just 20 years. My opinion. For certain crimes, there's no coming back... You could "murder" your child by hitting him/her accidentally with the car, leaving them unattended etc etc, but this is way different. Real murder.</comment>


ParaSail:A Pointer-Free Pervasively-Parallel Language for Irregular Computations - <AUTHOR> http://programming-journal.org/2019/3/7/ <comment><USER2> This looks good, but since [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19121947](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19121947) was posted a hair earlier, we'll mark this one the dupe.</comment>


Dude, ur going to Twitter jail (updated) - <AUTHOR> https://jenngineering.glitch.me/dude-twitter-jail/ <comment><AUTHOR> Pretty interresting case of a troll faking cop loving black woman in tech weaponizing the abuse function of Twitter to silence someone.</comment>


NOSQL Patterns - <AUTHOR> http://horicky.blogspot.com/2009/11/nosql-patterns.html

<comment><AUTHOR> although is old (nov 2009) this is the best NOSQL blog post that I ever read. I got the URL via IBM/developerworks [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-javadev2-10...](http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-javadev2-10.html?ca=drs-)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for this. I just started exploring CouchDB for my next app.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are there people still running their own mail server? - <AUTHOR> It's been a few days that I've started to gain knowledge in the "mail stack" and I was wondering if there are people who, almost in 2019, are still running their own personal mail server and if so what are the pros & cons of it?<p>I was looking at Mail-in-a-Box [https://mailinabox.email] which seems a "it just works" solution, any worthy alternatives? <comment><USER2> From a service point of view, there are almost no advantages. Large (and even small) companies can do a very good job of providing a secure, redundant, easy-to-use, service at minimal (or no) financial cost.

For you to maintain redundant connectivity, storage, and compute will immediately be a non-trivial workload. Then you need to keep it patched, and monitored, and backed up.

Then you have to run the mail infrastructure, possibly including a web front- end. postfix + dovecot + some-spam-thing. Blacklists. Spam signatures. DNS configuration, SPF, all the other hoops you need to jump through to get the big players to accept your mail.

After a lot of work, and mucking about, and ongoing expense and effort, you can end up with something that will probably be nearly-but-not-quite as good as what you'd get from a commercial provider.

BUT ... it'll be yours, and it'll be how the Internet was meant to be, and you'll be a part of the last bastion of open standards and cooperative distributed systems until such time as the big players decide that they're sick of SMTP and collude to produce a proprietary thing that looks like email, but kinda isn't, and you'll be left talking only to the other diehards.

Personally, I have taken a middle path: I use Pobox/Fastmail with my own domain. That way I maintain the control over it, but I've outsourced the work to someone who can amortize the costs over lots of accounts. I pay for the service, and have chosen a provider who doesn't try to leverage that relationship into a whole-of-life intrusion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok I got your point,but I think that "maintaining control" with the ownership of a domain is the same way I maintain control of my website when I purchase the domain but I host in a service provider dc, right? Anyway I've heard really good things with Fastmail...might give it a try.

<comment><USER3> I used to run my own mail server but moved to FastMail about five years ago (after a short stint with Google Apps).

I haven't looked back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well, some people do it, but in almost every case I don't think its worth the bother. I set up a mail server sometime back just for the experience - and it was a good experience, but I couldn't send emails to GMail or any MS host (Outlook.com etc.) Apparently the IP of my virtual server was already on some black list. And after taking a look at the necessary procedure to get it removed, I decided I'd stick to using someone else's mail server.

It's a burning shame, because email is one of _the_ key technologies of the Internet, and the one that ought to be the most decentralized. (At least, in my idealist mind.) But there we go, I guess reality isn't as idealistic as I am...

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a good point indeed, with all the effort that goes into keeping your cloud server IP out of some blacklist to this day I still get extremely clear phishing mail and spam directly in my inbox on outlook.com and the majority of the time it sits there indefinitely until I manually trash it, other times the spam filter will work it out (but after several hours).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been running my own mail servers since 1994. Currently I use postfix, dovecot, and rspamd.

<comment><USER6> I use Postfix and Dovecot too. Self hosting since 2012.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just discovered that the person who created Postfix is Wietse Venema, I read some things about him in regards to his Computer Forensic work, pretty cool that he also did this!

I'm going to look into this next weekend, thanks for this :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I run a mail server using simple-nixos-mailserver ([https://gitlab.com/simple- nixos-mailserver/nixos-mailserver](https://gitlab.com/simple-nixos- mailserver/nixos-mailserver)) on an AWS EC2.

</comment><comment><USER8> self hosting email server, or server of any type is a small blow against the destruction of the internet. ISP have mixed feelings about it, this is the big con. your emails may be flagged as spam, your ports may be filtered down to nothing over time, all depending on how your provider views server hosting. residential grade connection ususally is not allowed to host servers other than tech industry snooping devices. security is a bigger con, its a major inconveinience to discover you are a major contributor to crimes and haxn via your server. a sudden invoice for extreme bandwidth usage may be received, not so bad as if you were mirroring YTUBE, but not cost effective to say the least. make sure you do your homework, and have data, sware, and hware backups if its a seriously mission critical server.

</comment><comment><USER9> Saw a discussion about self-hosting email on DigitalOcean a couple days ago, seems like the most consistent con is having your sent email get sent into spam (b/c many data centers have their IPs flagged by spam filters).

</comment><comment><USER10> If it's only a personal server that sends a few messages per day, you'll likely never build up a positive enough reputation to avoid falling into the spam folder.

<comment><USER11> For me that's not the case. I am operating my own mail server for years now and am only sending maybe 10-20 emails per day. I own my own IP ranges though and make sure they are super clean.</comment></comment>


Is In-Flight Wi-Fi The End For Airline Magazines? - <AUTHOR> http://jmarbach.com/is-in-flight-wi-fi-the-end-for-airline-magazines <comment><USER2> Wait, people still read the airline magazines? They didn't get killed off by iPhones, Kindles, iPods, laptops with DVD players, portable DVD players, laptops, CD walkmen, walkmen, paperback books, real magazines, and newspapers?

<comment><AUTHOR> With all of the emerging media outlets that you mentioned above, I am more interested in the question: People still advertise in airline magazines?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I sure hope so, airline magazines are 90% the same from one issue to the next, with a bit of variation thrown in to make it appear to be a periodical. Really it's just a lot of boilerplate, have a look at a typical sample and count how many pages (other than ads) are copy written especially for that issue.

I used to fly a lot, and I would simply buy a book or two at the point of departure and read those during the flight rather than stare at an endless procession of advertisements and the catalog of the 'duty free' (read: overpriced stuff that nobody needs, which, inexplainable seem to warrant flying all over the world in spite of never being sold) goods.

I'm so happy I'm not flying 100,000 miles+ per year any longer...

But with in-flight wifi that would make life a lot more bearable. For sure you'll be billed for it though.

And of course it will only last until the next terrorist attempt at blowing up an airliner using the energy in a li-po battery.

</comment><comment><USER4> It has been quite a while since I've flown regularly, but I remember airline magazines as pretty awful.</comment>


EC2 Founders' Nimbula releases 2.0 version of product - <AUTHOR> https://nimbula.com/secure/products/release_note/382/

<comment><USER2> Brilliant - this is great news. I think I'm going to build myself a private cloud in my basement and begin my plans of world domination.</comment>


Ask HN: How essential is math for programming? - <AUTHOR> So here is my story in a nutshell. I'm in my final year of studying computer science/programming in university. I'm pretty good at programming, infact I'm one of the top in my class. However, I struggle with my math classes, barely passing each semester. Is this odd, to be good at programming but be useless at maths? What worries me the most is what I've read about applying for programming positions in places like Google and Microsoft, where they ask you a random math question. I know that I'd panic and just fail on the spot... edit: Thanks for all the tips and advice. I was only using Google and Microsoft as an example, since everyone knows them. Oh and for all the redditors commenting about 'Maths' vs 'Math', I'm not from the US and was unaware that it had a different spelling over there. Perhaps I should forget the MATHS and take up English asap! <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11832136](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11832136)

This is a perfectly fine question to ask. But why are you posting a verbatim copy of another post from just 5 days ago, under a different account?

<comment><USER3> Seems to be a spam account? Seven days ago he was a 3rd year EE student: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11825550](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11825550)

And this is text copied from an old reddit post? [https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/c0iup/how_esse...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/c0iup/how_essential_is_maths/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think programming is more about problem solving than math - now if it is math based problems then math is a desirable skill. But even with dunderhead math skills you can google up most answers and learn solutions. Ive applied and learned more math than I had in school through developing stuff.

</comment><comment><USER5> It isn't very odd, I know a lot of good programmers that are bad at math, but I also know a lot of awesome programmers that are good at math. One does not lead to the other.

That being said, when you are not good at math it is not something that is instilled in you. Probably the way you are being teached in a way that doesn't help you very much. I recommend looking at some online classes and tutorials. Once you get the hang of math it can even be pretty enjoyable!

</comment><comment><USER6> "Is this odd, to be good at programming but be useless at maths?"

Not at all - I suspect the overwhelming majority of development jobs have pretty much no need for anything other than basic mathematical knowledge. I don't think I've ever met anyone who was good at _everything_ so I'd suggest just accepting that maths isn't your thing and focusing on what you do find enjoyable.

</comment><comment><USER7> Most programming these days is more like learning a language than doing maths. Most jobs in the programming world don't require much knowledge of maths at all. However, learning maths will improve your problem solving skills and will broaden the horizon of things you can do.

<comment><USER6> "learning maths will improve your problem solving skills"

I'm not sure about that - I think it helps with dealing with abstractions which can help with design of solutions but I'm not sure that the type of reasoning that maths itself promotes is especially applicable to working out solutions.</comment></comment>


Things the Google manifesto doesn't say that the media claim it says - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailywire.com/news/19464/fake-news-4-things-google-manifesto-doesnt-say-ben-shapiro#exit-modal <comment><USER2> I agree with what he says, but the tone and phrases used ("leftist bias", that CNN are "stupid on average", etc) are going to make sure that the people that need to read this will never reach the end, probably not even the end of the first paragraph.

</comment><comment><USER3> A few days too late. Where were all these journalists when all media outlets were shouting the guy is a sexist jerk who says there is no place for women in the workplace?</comment>


Why you want to keep updating your Perl - <AUTHOR> http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2011-07/msg00623.html

<comment><AUTHOR> And as a little bonus:

[http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing- lists/perl5-porters/2011-...](http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing- lists/perl5-porters/2011-07/msg00645.html)</comment>


3 days to reality [Startup Weekend Boston] - <AUTHOR> http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/10/29/3_days_to_reality/ <comment><USER2> It's a bleak conclusion to this "startup social experiment" when it took 52 people and 54 hours to create that, erm, company.

Looks like good times though.</comment>


Is the Age-Old Quest for a Baldness Cure Reaching Its End? - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/is-the-age-old-quest-for-a-baldness-cure-reaching-its-end <comment><USER2> Just a few days ago, Japanese researchers announced major breakthrough in hair follicle replication and start of pre-clinical trials. [1] Can anyone more knowledgeable about the field dissect how viable this looks?

This is in addition to Shiseido/Replicel in Japan also doing clinical studies [2].

[1] [http://www.organ- technol.co.jp/uploads/2018/06/98a3d5caabf1c...](http://www.organ- technol.co.jp/uploads/2018/06/98a3d5caabf1c7829941ab2d5caf20f8.pdf)

[2] [http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/replicels-cell- ther...](http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/replicels-cell-therapy- pattern-baldness-proceeds-clinical-trial-launch-japan-tsx-venture- rp-2144293.htm)

<comment><USER3> > start of pre-clinical trials.

Means it's still at 10 years away from commercialization, if everything goes fine. in pre-clinical they may find adverse events that kill the drug early. Like most experimental drugs.

<comment><USER2> Interesting. If I understand correctly, this one is not a drug but a means of replicating a single hair follicle (to then be surgically planted one-by-one as in hair transplants)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've always heard, you can't choose if you go bald, but you can choose when you go bald. Just shave your head if you don't like going bald. It seems to me like the people going bald are the ones who care about it. I don't think it affects how others think of you much at all.

Propecia is apparently effective but the sexual side effects seem to make it not worth it.

<comment><USER5> The one scientific text on the matter I found via a quick Google search suggests that a shaved head increases perception of dominance and confidence, but decreases attractiveness: [http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/DPlab/papers/publishedPapers/M...](http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/DPlab/papers/publishedPapers/Mannes_2012_%20Shorn%20scalps%20and%20perceptions%20of%20male%20dominance.pdf)

Oddly, but not surprisingly, the public press over-represented those findings as also suggesting that fully bald men are perceived as more attractive: [https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/4469188/bald-men- perceived...](https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/4469188/bald-men-perceived- more-attractive-confident-dominant-study/)

Which is quite a common thing in this kind of discourse. People are quick to suggest that being bald is really okay and nobody should care, but give the same people 100 pictures of men and they will end up rating those with full hair more attractive than those with hair loss or baldness without further reflection.

Startup idea: creating some kind of stylish, fluffy headgear that somehow replaces hair while still not trying to pose as fake hair / a toupee. This could be huge fashion market.

<comment><USER6> "Startup idea: creating some kind of stylish, fluffy headgear that somehow replaces hair while still not trying to pose as fake hair / a toupee. This could be huge fashion market."

Hats. You're describing hats.

<comment><USER5> No, hats usually have a completely different aesthetic and function than hair, they don't complement the shape of the face in the same way at all. Hats are also mostly worn outside, but seem improper to wear while simply sitting at a desk or lazing on a couch. Someone who would like to cover up a bald head most of the waking time is not well served with most types of hats.

<comment><USER7> > Hats are also mostly worn outside, but seem improper to wear while simply > sitting at a desk or lazing on a couch.

There are many different types of hats. Baseball caps, berets, cowboy hats, beanies, ascot/flat caps, fedoras, boonies, Panama hats, etc. That's mostly just the traditionally male ones too.

Some work better indoors than others. I don't often wear hats anymore, but if I'm wearing a baseball cap type, I'll slide it around backwards when indoors most times.

If I'm lounging on my couch and don't feel Co for table exposing a portion of myself I'm sensitive about and it's not temporary, I've made a major mistake at some point.

What you're suggesting might be useful, but it would just be another type of hat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hair Growth Clinical Therapies Pipeline (from folliclethought.com):

[https://i0.wp.com/www.folliclethought.com/wp- content/uploads...](https://i0.wp.com/www.folliclethought.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/06/FollicleThoughtPipeline-short.png)

It's fair to say that the next few years are interesting for balding men (I am one of them lol)!

</comment><comment><USER9> I am in my late 20s and recently lost all my hair from alopecia universalis. It was a shock when it happened, but now I don't think I'd even want to go back. There is zero maintenance, no hair grows anywhere. I only get positive comments on my look. I do work out to stay fit, my face would have no definition otherwise.

For a lot of guys, the slow progression of baldness is a source of anxiety, but now I have it all over with and I don't need to think about it.

<comment><USER10> > For a lot of guys, the slow progression of baldness is a source of anxiety,

Bald is fine. Full head of hair is fine. IMO, the only problem comes in when people are hanging on to hair when they should really just let go.

I had really long hair in my late teens, early 20s. I noticed it start to go in my 30s and once it hit that point, I just started trimming it super short. Does anyone really care anymore or is this just some thing made up by the media now?

And a bit of tangent to your point, if someone is worried about attractiveness, hitting the gym will do way more for that than grasping on to hair.

<comment><USER11> I guess given straight choice though, would you have preferred to keep your hair?

Maybe that's what this is about. I know I would, given a choice. I like my hair.

<comment><USER10> I would still keep it super short because it is easy and fits my lifestyle, but obviously making a choice is typically better than being forced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Gene Roddenberry was asked by a reporter about casting Patrick Stewart in Star Trek: TNG. "Surely by the 24th century, they would have found a cure for male pattern baldness." And Gene Roddenberry responded "No, by the 24th century, no one will care."

<comment><USER13> Patrick Steward is one of the very few men who looks really, really good with a bald head (which he had from an early age, he was in his early 30s in 1984's "Dune" IIRC). Most men just don't look very good that way.

<comment><USER14> > Patrick Steward is one of the very few men who looks really, really good > with a bald head

Say what? Lot's of guys rock it! Off the top of my head Jason Statham, Michael Jordan, shaved-head Sam Jackson, Johnny Ive, shaved-head Bryan Cranston all pull it off pretty damn well. What would Vin Diesel even look like with hair?

<comment><USER13> You're listing mostly a bunch of very successful actors and entertainers, most of whom (except Jordan) probably wouldn't have gone very far if people thought they were ugly. If Vin Diesel looked bad, he wouldn't have gotten the parts he did.

So this is confirmation bias.

Out of the whole population of bald/balding men, these men are the exceptions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I was hoping this would be able people no longer judging others or feeling judged about their hair. No such luck.

<comment><USER16> It's baked into evolution and sexual selection. Guys with hair look better because it says something about their suitability for reproduction. Not much different than say breast size in women. We can combat such bias at an intellectual level, but that doesn't change our underlying wiring. The nice thing about getting older is I no longer care what anyone thinks about my baldness ;-)

<comment><USER17> To me this sounds like utter nonsense. I never actually met a woman who had a problem with baldness. Only men. It's like a certain other subject that only men worry about and maybe 1% of women.

<comment><USER18> I find that men around me are more judgmental of my baldness than women

<comment><USER19> There's a bit of stigma about a woman commenting on a bald man's head to him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Sometimes an article and the upvoting thereof express HN's insecurities so well it makes me wonder if every single post is in someway tainted by similar psychological issues.

<comment><USER21> You can probably extend that to 90% of what everyone in the world verbalises or writes, we aren't robots, even when being objective we are driven by feelings. It doesn't mean everything is "tainted", just that everything we say and do is entwined with our thread of history, that's a more interesting reality than one where everything is clinical entirely distinct and independent - such a reality would be so inert life probably isn't even possible... what are we talking about?

<comment><USER22> In general the crowd at hacker news prides themselves on being super objective, so I think it's worthwhile to recognize the fundamental subjectivity of being a human.

<comment><USER21> Yes, when looking deeper into objective comments all kinds of things will be revealed, the more you look, the more that "objective" can often seem linguistically superficial.

I think it's an important thing to recognise especially in the worst case when some people exploit this to convincingly present opinion as fact... anyway i'm way off topic, my point was in response to wufufufu: I don't wonder if posts on HN have some kind of psychological biases, I am confident they do, in spite of perceived objectivity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's a cultural thing in the Black community, it's looked at as less attractive to be balding than to be bald. I started having a receding hairline at around 30 and have been shaving my head every since - for the last 15 years.

I chose to keep a bald head at times even in college.

Being clean shaven also helps with ageism as a 40+ year old developer. With no gray hair showing, people assume I'm at most in my early 30s.

<comment><USER24> Have you looked at SMP? It looks really good on darker skin tones, and black guys can pull off a fairly straight/young hairline with it.

<comment><USER23> Why would I? Having a bald head is not considered unattractive in the Black community. Bald with a full beard is also a trend now.

When I'm interviewing, I go completely clean shaven to get rid of the gray hair. I stayed clean shaven at my last job because it was very corporate and the CxO level folks I dealt with as the architect were very conservative.

Now that I work for a smaller company, I let my facial hair grow out but still shave my head.

<comment><USER24> I mean, you'd snap your fingers today and regrow all your hair if you could. Nothing wrong with making small improvements.

IMO having a defined hairline again can really help frame the face. You still look bald/buzzed after the SMP.

<comment><USER23> Actually I wouldn't. Even when I had a full head of hair, I went months with a clean shaven head.

<comment><USER24> shaved full head >= shaved balding head

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Check out SMP, scalp micro-pigmentation, which is essentially thousands of tiny tattoo dots.

I'm SO HAPPY I got an SMP earlier this year. The tattoo dots match the appearance of a recently shaved/buzzed head and make it appear as if you have a full head of 5 o'clock shadow.

<comment><USER25> What did people/girls say who stroke your hair? What was their reaction to you saying it was a tattoo?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> More and more men have embraced baldness, especially with beards being the facial focal point at the moment. If it can prove to be more than a fashion trend, perhaps going bald won't be seen as an "issue" as much as just another style of appearance.

<comment><USER27> Much of it is probably due to the exclusivity of not being bald as you get older. If everyone has a full head of hair, then its value is zero.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Hm, I'd rather have a intimidating set of dragon horns. Maybe something modular for the way I feel atm. Ooo RGB mood horns? They would less to clean and take care of. A way to head butt morons, and keeps the sun off my head and out of my eyes as well as a cool way to do sunglasses. It might be hell on the car roof upholstery. It would also be cheaper than all of the fake products they sell for 'healthy hair'. Also relieve 'Crack cures' on the internet and medical burden as well.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'll take baldness treatments seriously when it doesn't involve taking something or applying something, every month for the rest of your life.

</comment><comment><USER30> I started losing my hair at 20 and by 26 I was shaving it off. I'm 36 now and can honestly say I look far better without hair than I ever did with.

That doesn't stop me from thinking every month or so that maybe I should investigate what's new in regrowth.

<comment><USER31> In my early 20s I shaved my head b/c I thought I would not care. As it turned out, my head is as spherical as a ping-pong ball and of almost the same color and sheen. I'm balding now and more vain about it that I wish I was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Great article for the first ~75%, but why the abrupt transition to a buzzfeed piece on Trump and the lack of conclusion? The author really lost his momentum there..

<comment><USER33> It seems to be a literal compulsion. I think Trump supporters call it "Rent Free" and they aren't wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Off-topic but slightly related question: people with good hair in their 40s what do you do? Do you oil? Shampoo less often? What do you do? Other than genes, what can makes good hair? What can make hair-fall slow?

<comment><USER35> Doesn't answer your question, but men in their twenties can be prescribed Finnasteride which can help prevent testosterone from being metabolized into DHT. It's something they have to continually take though.

<comment><USER36> Also as brand name Propecia.

Many have reported that it causing sexual issues for them, for some they are permanent even after stopping taking it. At the very least, even without big issues - (not sure if it's within posting here guidelines, but still) "morning wood" would be gone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Counterpoint: How about a cure for back hair?

(Asking for a friend.)

<comment><USER38> If you have non-blonde hair... laser removal. For blonde hair it's still electrolysis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> No mention of the Korean paper?

</comment><comment><USER39> Am favorating this since this topic is V V important for me!

</comment><comment><USER40> No

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

</comment><comment><USER41> What is up with todays journalism? Long meandering stories where the meat (facts/news) is hidden or completely left out.

Does someone have a TLDR?

<comment><USER42> "Today's journalism"? It's called long-form journalism, and it's a format for people with longer attention spans who like to read.

If you don't like it, you probably shouldn't read New Yorker articles.

<comment><USER41> Ok. I like to read novels, but when you want to inform me about the status of baldness treatments I rather like you to be to the point.

But I get this is the saucage making for the New Yorker. Unfortunately, this had become a trend. So ok, then just not for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> It was solved a long time ago - just start taking 1mg of Propecia once a day as soon as you start to see the start of hair loss. Propecia will allow you to keep the hair you already have, well into your seventies - just ask Trump. There are even generics so it won't cost that much.

<comment><USER44> Propecia caused some pretty serious hormonal changes in my friend which persisted after stopping. Its apparently a known problem but still not labeled correctly. You can find many support groups across the internet with sufferers.

<comment><USER45> Over the course of a few years taking Propecia, in my late 20s, I completely lost my sex drive.

When I started taking the drug, my doctor warned me of possible side effects. I figured I could just quit if that happened, and things would go back to normal. Eventually, they updated the labeling to say that side effects can persist indefinitely.

I've talked to men who have been on it for years without experiencing side effects. I cannot say for certain Propecia is the root cause to my symptoms, there's really no way to know for sure, but I experienced a radical shift while on it. Taking a powerful but poorly-understood drug that rewires your sex hormones isn't a decision to take lightly.

<comment><USER46> I've read that it's only a problem if men ignore the side-effects and continue taking the drug. Is this not true?

<comment><USER47> It's hard to separate from men who don't take the drug but have erectile dysfunction.

But it is a problem that propeciahelp.com trolls scourge the internet and preach how destructive propecia is.

<comment><USER45> I'm not trolling, I just saw the drug mentioned here and decided to talk about my experience. I was a healthy guy in my twenties, and my sex drive went from high to non-existent while I was on the drug. Like I said, I can't be sure Propecia was to blame, but personally I believe there was a connection.

Anyway, if you take Propecia and don't get side effects, that's great! Nobody said _all_ men will get side effects and nobody's questioning your virility.

<comment><USER46> _Nobody said all men will get side effects and nobody's questioning your virility._

The problem is people implying that you may lose sex drive or the ability to get an erection _for an indefinite period of time_ , essentially out of the blue. Hence why I asked if the ED and sex drive problems persist _if one immediately stops the drug when the effects are first experienced_.

<comment><USER44> I'm not sure how long after discovering the new issues my friend waited before stopping. He was only on it for less than a year, maybe even a half year, to put some constraints.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> It's a real head-scratcher. But this strand of research might be at the root of a solution.</comment>


Several startup ideas, how to do? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I happened to have a few startup ideas that I believe are relevant tech and business wise, how to proceed? One option would be to simply pick up the most promising one, wait some years, sell the company and run the next one, providing it's still relevant. But  isn't it possible to run them in parallel in a way while still maximizing their success and without losing too much equity? <comment><USER2> Have your read "lean startup", by Eric Rise?

I would never run multiple startups, but I think you could do the initial research to see which idea has any real chance of succes by following the method laid out in the book!

<comment><USER3> This... sort your ideas in terms of which ones you like the most - if you like them equally, do a coin flip - as someone said, if you want the coin to land on one side, you actually had a preference.

Talk them over with someone you trust - never keep ideas only to yourself, that's not a good idea.

Then, do some kind of experiment to validate your idea. Do a very early MVP, a "pretotype" \- you might want to take a look at the Design Thinking, there's lot of material, but what you want to know is Pretotyping - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4AqxNekecY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4AqxNekecY)

It's tied to the "Fail Fast" mantra :) , and the Lean Startup by Eric Ries, or my favourites, Steve Blank and Alex Osterwalder - see this slideshow:

[http://www.slideshare.net/Alex.Osterwalder/successful- entrep...](http://www.slideshare.net/Alex.Osterwalder/successful- entrepreneurship-5747012)

I'm doing something of the sort - a very early pretotype to have a starting point to talk with my potential customers and discover their REAL needs (aka what they WOULD pay money for :) ). Remember, "no plan survives contact with the enemy".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Effectively running one company is hard enough. Unless you have a team to help you, I wouldn't recommend running both if you are serious about them.

Picking the one with the most traction is fine. Also picking the one that excites you the most is good. You could pick based on any number of criteria really. But I would still stick to one.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know, I don't necessary want to run them, but maybe be co-founder and tech advisor</comment></comment>


Developing for BlackBerry in 50 Easy Steps - <AUTHOR> http://martingordon.tumblr.com/post/5874277861/developing-for-blackberry-in-50-easy-steps

<comment><USER2> You'd think RIM would have fixed this fiasco by now...</comment>


Search data reveals people turn to the Internet in crises - <AUTHOR> http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/09/search-data-reveals-people-turn-to.html

<comment><USER2> Gems like "gew the fasted" make me wonder if anybody proofreads anymore (surely the spellchecker should catch "gew").</comment>


Virtual Dinner Party - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdKxLOTog4bp8qAK06DtQzVuv_kR06j9GKgr6FmgCa5MqrAMQ/viewform?c=0&w=1 <comment><AUTHOR> Hi - my friend and I are hosting a virtual dinner over a web cam where we exchange fun stories from around the world. We would love for you to join us!

Please fill out the quick Google Doc and we'll invite you. Love to hear what you think! Not commercial or anything, just something fun we've wanted to try.</comment>


Steps to Startup Productivity - <AUTHOR> http://paltman.com/2012/06/13/8-steps-startup-productivity/

<comment><USER2> Thanks Patrick. I've been trying to use what sounds like a similar approach for a while now and I find it works great... I'm getting more done and feeling more productive. I have a list of my top priorities and work against a stopwatch in 1 hour batches, switching every hour no matter what, going over the top 3 tasks. So, I'm making progress on them all and because of the stopwatch I find I have more of a sense of urgency... I dick about less and am not as easily distracted by email etc (I turn them off). Is working for now anyway.</comment>


Apple's Motion to Vacate (Brief and Supporting Declarations) - <AUTHOR> https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2722199-5-15-MJ-00451-SP-USA-v-Black-Lexus-IS300.html <comment><USER2> Apple: If FBI wins, it could also force drug makers to sell death penalty drugs, reporters to produce false stories — [https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/702960598024376320](https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/702960598024376320)</comment>


Liberal and conservative brains handle emotions differently - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/liberal-and-conservative-brains-handle-emotions-differently-2392560248.html <comment><USER2> The primary source seems to be Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults[0].

[0] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like a worthless correlation to me.

Politics in the US just don't make sense anymore.

Those who consider themselves "conservative" push for more military power and control, while those who consider themselves "liberal" fight for individual liberties.

I just don't get it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why do Americans use 'liberal' in such a strange way?

<comment><USER3> As an American libertarian, I have been wondering for a long time. The very words "liberal" and "conservative" seem to be entirely devoid of meaning, and yet they are pervasively used as the main descriptive terms for political ideology here.

Each of the two major parties considers itself to be one of the other, and seems to base its entire ideology on it.

From my perspective, it's utterly nonsensical.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How would you improve Twitter? - <AUTHOR> If you had the power to change, add or remove anything from twitter, what would it be? <comment><USER2> I would invest more development resources into natural language processing, for example:

1\. Calculate "abusiveness score" of a tweet

2\. Calculate "profanity score" of a tweet (I believe that's a different thing from 1.)

3\. Allow users to set thresholds for these scores in settings

4\. Use these scores for sorting replies (optionally?)

5\. Google News-like clustering of news stories, and then tweets linking to them without adding original text

6\. Automatic summarization of news stories

<comment><AUTHOR>
        3. Allow users to set thresholds for these scores in settings

Brilliant. You could have a slider for each of those things in the setting area, along with an example 'worst scenario' tweet that would be allowed with the settings you chose.

        Use these scores for sorting replies (optionally?)

Didn't facebook get heat for attempting to do that? I'm one of those anal retentive people who want so see everything in chronological order, but I may be in the minority there.

        .... news

I'm not sure if automatic summarization is possible, but it shouldn't be difficult to auto-tag tweets by news story and let users filter them out of their primary timeline and into a separate list. Or just ignore them completely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> No censorship. 255 chars.

</comment><comment><USER4> Anything, you say. Can I remove it all and shut it down completely?

</comment><comment><USER5> Remove abusive, awful users from the service?

<comment><USER5> Heh. Of course, never that.

Curious to hear why instituting a heavier-handed DBAD policy would not improve... well, every business/venue/experience?</comment></comment>


Sexism in Tech: Beyond the Outrage - <AUTHOR> https://code.likeagirl.io/sexism-in-tech-beyond-the-outrage-da7f88c8fb3c#.j4br3eut2 <comment><USER2> Different people have different opinions on what is considered equal. Getting outraged over perceived slights only fuels the division, and expecting every company across the country to have the same culture is a bit insane in my opinion.

Also, using the term "mansplaining" is pretty sexist. If we're gonna aim for equality, then let's not put sexual undertones in everything we say. It doesn't add to the conversation, just denigrates the main idea by insulting a large part of the readers. Women can be condescending, too.

<comment><USER3> What's insulting about "mansplaining"?

EDIT: this could be seen as a rhetorical jab, but I really don't mean it that way, I'm just not sure in what context that would be insulting.

<comment><USER2> Good question. The term "mansplaining" is just another way of saying someone is being condescending, but with the underlying implication that they're being condescending because they're male. In our culture, men do tend to be more condescending, but by using the term, it implies that it's due solely to the fact that they're male, which is wrong.

A good example of the same thing would be if a woman that complains a lot and just seems to be in a bad mood is told she's "PMSing." Statistically it may be accurate, but the assumption is rude and sexist.

<comment><USER4> I think one of the points of its colloquial usage is as a form of protest to force us to reflect on our culture.

It's asking us to think about why the term bugs us, as well as how helpless it feels to be unable to stop being dismissed with terms like these no matter how much you explain it. We all have to change.

<comment><USER2> That's an interesting idea, but in my opinion, use of such divisive words are counterproductive, pushing men away from feminism instead of encouraging them to join. If the goal is equality, then foster an equal environment.

<comment><USER4> The goal is for women to be treated equally. That's on us, not them, and words like this being used on us are attempts to communicate that. They've been asking us for the equal environment for centuries. And if you honestly believe in women being equal, nothing would push you away.

"Mansplaining" doesn't hurt my feelings or oppress me and my expression at all. This isn't necessarily true for the hundreds of other words we use to dismiss women and their behaviour.

<comment><USER2> The goal is for everyone to be treated equally, not just women. People tend to create an us-vs-them mentality and form tribes, especially when they feel they're under attack. Much of the online backlash against feminism is due to militant, insulting forms of it that are popular on sites like tumblr that trigger this us-vs-them mentalities. That severely degrades the image of feminism when it seems to be anti-white guy. You can't allow sexism as long as it's against white men. If you do, you're part of why feminism is stalling.

"Mansplaining" doesn't oppress you like "PMSing" doesn't oppress women, which it does. It reinforces negative stereotypes and forms potentially false assumptions. Just because other people say mean things about women doesn't mean you should say mean things about men.

<comment><USER4> What I'm saying is you're deflecting the responsibility of creating ideal feminist societies back onto women to make it palatable to you, which goes against anything I've ever learned about responsibility and accountability after someone(women) tells you(men) something's wrong.

<comment><USER2> I understand what you're saying, but what I'm trying to say is that your approach is wrong. You're fighting fire with fire, and making an environment hostile to men in an attempt to make things equal for women. You won't win support by doing that. If we are to break down the barriers to equality, we must behave in a manner that will foster an equal environment for _both_ sexes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I understand that serious "sexist" incidents take place in the tech industry I always try to read such articles with distance as honestly, this is just a random blog post published after a leaked info of Uber toxic environment, there is no evidence presented and this may be a post by someone seeking attention (I'm not saying that's the case, though). I fail to understand what was preventing them all from releasing all that stuff anonymously prior Uber outrage?

Don't get me wrong, I'm highly critical of sexism but the western political correctness is driving me nuts even more, I could imagine some of the claims in the article being part of a joke, e.g. "Don't be such a woman" the person didn't like or didn't get, seriously this stuff will soon turn into another list of forbidden words one cannot think of without being accused of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia or other more sophisticated phobia I couldn't yet think of. On the other hand if it's true that there was a plan to fire a woman because she was pregnant, it is truly outrageous, but then again, it's just an article on the internet.

I also doubt that all these sexist comments ("don't be such a woman") came out of nowhere, this may sound radical but I can't imagine anyone in the tech field picking on an employee (whatever sex) who is performing well, that said I disagree with the form it allegedly took as the article claims but there are tons of various programs hosted by SV giants and other IT companies across the world that aim to bring more women into the field and let's make it clear, sexism works both ways and I personally haven't seen any complains about these programs, what a surprise. If anything, it's easier for a woman to get into tech nowadays than for a man and this might be one of the reasons why such incidents take place afterwards, when people within the team realize someone is a slacker or his/her abilities are way under the expected average I can imagine such person not being treated equally. What's worse, I can sense this leading to another politically correct absurd like "you can't say I'm not a high performer, because I'm a woman" or the managers not being able to give just criticism to female employees without being accused of sexism.

<comment><USER2> To be fair, the author didn't say she worked with Uber, and in fact didn't even out the compan(y/ies) she was complaining about. It seems like she was just trying to advance the conversation on sex and gender in our field, which is an important topic currently.

In my opinion, what we are experiencing is a combination of culture clash between regions of the country with varying expectations on sex and gender, and disagreements on what an equal society is. There are some places with literal gender quotas, others with an equal opportunity hiring method, and yes, some with real sexism and discrimination. How do we choose in what direction our culture goes? Are the differences in gender all cultural, or are there legitimate psychological differences? In a period of growing inequality and low marriage rates, how do we provide for the modern family? All of these are important social questions with many, many different opinions on them. Please try not to approach these topics with the mindset of "political correctness gone awry."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Going along with this thought, I think providing educational tools for people seems to be one of the things that could help empower those who would be targets of sexism. It seems simple but just educating people on what harassment is and how to react is way better over nothing. Prior to my current job, I'd only worked in companies that had less than 50 people, and not located in CA, so once I went through harassment training I was surprised to learn how much of the frat-boy behavior I'd experienced in small startups was sometimes straight up illegal.</comment>