The Netflix Effect: When Software Suggests Students' Courses - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/The-Netflix-Effect-When/127059

<comment><USER2> One of my professors just mentioned the other day that some CS grad students built a course suggestion engine. It apparently worked - all they needed was the cooperation of the registrar's office to incorporate students' course history.

The registrar refused.

<comment><USER3> This would require a lot of work to not violate FERPA, which is a federal law preventing educational records -- such as course history -- from being disclosed without consent from the student.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Even without knowledge of previous performance, computer-assisted course selection can be great.

A friend of mine implemented a genetic algorithm (in Javascript) that mutated possible timetables until it seemingly found the best combination of your chosen criteria. You could select things like "I like Professor X", "I don't want to have lectures on wednesday", "I don't want to get up before 9" and give the algorithm incentives/disincentives for specific lectures.

Worked remarkably well.

<comment><USER5> Any chance of making the script open source? I'd love to give it a try for my classes.

<comment><USER4> I'll have to see if I can reconnect with him

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Course suggestion engines are pretty easy to start with due to limited choices and mandatory paths in programs. In fact I implemented something akin to this as part of a university assignment.

The tool was actually meant to be provided for course coordinators to estimate number of students who are likely to take the course in next semester and sometimes as far as the length of a normal program.

Post-release, maybe past peer history could be used for accuracy. It would not solve the volatile nature of new courses though.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> That would be awesome to have in our school.

All the apps people are making here seem to be confined to course scheduling (whether something conflicts, etc.) or courses we need to graduate. They haven't actually gone into the realm of recommending possible courses we'd be willing to take.

As the article mentions, the schools have all these data they're not using. They can probably predict which students would succeed in courses (they have access to grades), know which similar courses students may be interested in (cross-reference with previous courses taken and see what others have taken with a similar plate) and even "learn" the scheduling habits of the student (see the previous class times the person usually chose for clases - i.e. a morning person scheduling all classes in the morning or someone scheduling all classes at night).

As long as we still have a choice (to accept or reject the recommendation), something like this would be useful (another resource to inform our decisions).

</comment><comment><USER7> Computer-generated suggestions seem likely to me to be "the future". They're getting to be easy to implement, so I doubt it'll be long before they're literally everywhere, and we get used to computers being creepily accurate at predicting what we want.

</comment><comment><USER8> Interesting to see others doing this. I'm working on a similar project at Brown right now with a few friends. We're lucky - the Registrar's office agreed to give us anonymized data to bootstrap our recommendation system.

</comment><comment><USER9> This should be interesting, current course ladders right now are too rigid or very limiting to exactly curate a student's academic career. While it has it its downsides, this would be an experiment worth watching.</comment>


WebM-Enabled Browser Usage Share Exceeds H.264-Enabled ones - <AUTHOR> http://hsivonen.iki.fi/webm-share/ <comment><USER2> This ignores the fact that H.264 often has full hardware acceleration in the CPU or GPU of nearly all modern desktop and mobile platforms, which also covers set top streaming devices.

WebM can often use some portions of this (colorspace conversion, etc.) but until the entire stack is natively supported, there will always be battery life advantages to using H.264.

Not to knock WebM - there are projects out there to implement encode/decode in hardware (<http://www.webmproject.org/hardware/> for one example) - they're just lagging about 5 years behind H.264 in this, and getting CPU/GPU vendors to dedicate space on a chip to a less codified standard will be difficult at best.

<comment><USER3> I keep hearing this battery life thing but how much battery life does H264 hardware acceleration really save? I dare to wager that the majority of the power is used by the screen, not the CPU.

<comment><USER4> The battery savings can vary greatly depending on many hardware issues. The Nexus One, for instance, had some serious limitations.

I wrote some Android video software comparing performance of hardware and software decoders for H.264 and AAC. The Nexus One's H.264 hardware decoder used _2x more_ battery than a software decoder (for much less than 2x frame rate improvement). Further testing suggested that the power usage of moving video data to and from the hardware decoder outweighed any savings from overloading the CPU.

And the Nexus One's AAC hardware decoder was slower than a software decoder.

<comment><USER2> Hmm... on most desktop platforms, the decode happens in the GPU, and the flow is:

storage/network -> CPU -> GPU -> Screen

It sounds like on the Nexus One, there's some copy back into the CPU before it gets to the screen. In the version of the OS is Android doing graphics compositing in it's CPU?

I'd love to see references for this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you consider mobile, which the article did not, the numbers are closer but still slightly favoring webm.

Opportunities for growth 4% world share of Firefox 3.6 users -> webm 26% world share of IE 6-8 users -> up for grabs? iOS/Mac growth -> mostly h.264 Android growth -> both 23% loss for h.264 if/when chrome drops support

Why webm still doesn't matter yet: demographics and fallback availability. The devices that exclusively support h.264 are more valuable users for video (mobile, console, set top box) and have no fallbacks. Most of the webm support base (desktop Firefox, chrome) can fall back to flash h.264 player. Half of the webm support base presently supports h.264 natively anyways (chrome, android)

Other notes: \- webm support can be trivially added to desktop safari and IE9+ by mildly tech savvy users. \- h.264 tools and encoders are better and hardware encode/decode support is far better \- the openness and cheapness of webm will probably improve its tool and hardware support in the long run especially if/as uncertainty about its patent status declines.

<comment><USER6> If WebM is ready for mainstream, Google can just make it the main format for Youtube, and with a fallback to Flash. That shouldn't affect regular users at all (again, if WebM is good enough). The advantage is that by doing this, they can push WebM faster on the web, and as long as it's as good as Flash or better, there shouldn't be any drawback.

<comment><USER7> _"If WebM is ready for mainstream, Google can just make it the main format for Youtube, and with a fallback to Flash. That shouldn't affect regular users at all (again, if WebM is good enough)."_

AFAIK, iOS supports neither Flash nor WebM.

<comment><USER8> Using Flash as a fallback (at least currently) requires an H264 version anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This only considers HTML5 <video> tag support. It does not count browsers with Flash installed as H.264-capable.

<comment><USER10> I think that's a very important point.

The default is h.264 because Flash supports it and that used to be the only way to get video to the people. Now there are other ways, but they are not yet widespread enough, h.264 is consequently still necessary as a fallback.

Outside of Flash browsers are not terribly bad at supporting h.264 either. WebM might be doing better – but not by much. That's the problem.

What someone who picks a video format is thinking: Many don't have built-in support for video so we have to use Flash one way or another. h.264 is the format of choice when using Flash so we need our video in h.264. Oh, and look, that same h.264 video works in a ton of browsers without Flash. So we get kick-ass HTML5 video out of it, too, without doing any additional work. Also: iOS. WebM doesn't even figure into this thinking and why should it? It would only complicate things for minimal gains.

For WebM to claim decisive victory it would need widespread support (I'm guessing well north of two thirds) and h.264 would have to lag very far behind. It doesn't look like that will be happening anytime soon.

h.264 is the strong incumbent, it would take overwhelming force to take it out.

(By the way, when does WebM come to Flash again? I don't think it is already but I think they announced it. I'm not even sure whether that will change much about the dynamic, mostly due to inertia, but I might be wrong.)

<comment><USER11> Although there was an announcement almost 2 years ago regarding VP8 support for Flash, there was no commitment made to support the Matroska container or Vorbis codec at that time, which are both part of the WebM spec.

Since then there has been no release or further communication on the topic, afaik. Looking around the web a couple months ago I found an experimental implementation of WebM decoding in Flash by Ralph Hauwert, but my understanding was that it was only able to achive 5-10 fps due to high CPU usage and no built in hardware support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The title is _highly_ misleading. H.264 is the most widespread codec by far thanks to Flash. In order to show WebM has having greater "share" the article's methodology excludes enablement via Flash. So IE8 and Firefox are considered "not H.264 enabled", even though the vast majority of video viewed by them is undoubtedly H.264.

Now if you retitle it to only refer to native support for the HTML5 <video> tag that would be fair. But this still would have little impact on video codec choice. You want a codec that is widely supported and hardware accelerated, ideally. H.264 fits that bill through a combination of native HTML5 and fill- in Flash support, and that's exactly the best practice for video on the web today.

</comment><comment><USER13> While this is an interesting snapshot of the state of HTML5 video support today, we should keep in mind that not all formats give the same results and that many browsers support multiple formats. Which percentage figure is higher in that table doesn't help to make many useful decisions.

For example, in testing for a new video-based service, we're finding that H.264 gets similar quality with about half the bit-rate of Theora. The MP4 files therefore come out about half the size of the OGVs. That is very significant for bandwidth that the host is paying for, and for people using mobile devices, who typically have much lower data caps in their prepaid plans than a landline broadband connection.

Another consideration is the processing to create the videos in the first place. We do lots of fairly basic video manipulation using automated tools within our workflow, processing lots of video files on not a lot of hardware. H.264 is noticeably faster than all other formats for all of the manipulations we have benchmarked so far, and usually Theora is in last place again. That means supporting H.264 vs. supporting H.264+Theora is a days vs. weeks issue every time we process a new set of videos.

I do appreciate the desire to use more open/royalty-free formats as a general principle. However, until something like WebM/VP8 catches up in terms of compression/quality and just as importantly in terms of performance and availability of tools, I don't see H.264 going anywhere. Browsers that support it will give their users a better experience, and browsers that won't or can't support it will be at a disadvantage.

<comment><USER14> Why are you comparing to Theora rather than webm/vp8?

<comment><USER13> Because the tools to manipulate WebM/VP8 don't seem to be as mature yet. It still requires significant hassle to keep FFMPEG-based tools up to date, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I believe google still hasn't pulled h264 support from chrome despite announcing they would do so quite a few versions back.

</comment><comment><USER16> As OpenCL support picks up, including in the embedded space, hardware acceleration for WebM may be a possibility in the future. It's possible GPU manufacturers will eventually drop native H.264 support & go for a "software based" OpenCL solution. Obviously not going to happen overnight, but OpenCL is already available in something like the PowerVR SGX543MP.

<comment><USER17> AFAIK OpenCL isn't good for video decoding.

<comment><USER16> AFAIK OpenCL isn't really good for "anything" as of right now. There is really nothing practical that uses OpenCL out yet. I'd give it 5 years & then we'll see where we're at. Later versions of OpenCL might even contain video decoding specific extensions that are hardware agnostic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The big thing this article glosses over is ie8. It's counted as No Video, but over the next year the direction they go will tell the story as it is the browser with largest share but no builtin video support

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm guessing that when Chrome added WebRTC last week ([http://www.webrtc.org/blog/webrtcnowavailableinthechromedevc...](http://www.webrtc.org/blog/webrtcnowavailableinthechromedevchannel)} they only added VP8 encoding, so when Firefox adds it the numbers will skew even stronger toward WebM for native encoding.

</comment><comment><USER20> Does this count Chrome as not supporting h.264? As far as I know it still does.

I'm having a hard time believing chrome+safari+ie < chrome+firefox+opera I guess it is a smaller percentage of IE that supports <video> than firefox?

Does anyone else find these numbers off?

<comment><USER21> Yes, it counts Chrome as supporting H.264.

Only IE9 and above support <video>, so the share of IE8 and older doesn't count as H.264 share. Firefox 9 has a larger usage share than IE9.

(I included the script so that people could read it to see what was counted instead of speculating...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Now we just need a faster WebM encoder. libvpx is always slower than x264, even up to 2 times slower.

</comment><comment><USER23> I have HTML5 enabled in Youtube, yet I still cannot watch most of the videos because they are served as Flash only. So why is Google pushing Webm when their top video site does not make use of it?

</comment><comment><USER24> Two things:

a) this doesn't include mobile/tablet browsers, thus it's irrelavent.

b) this is only the case because Google deliberately dropped support for a recognised format backed by open standards, in exchange for an arguably inferior format that it just happens to own.

<comment><USER25> "Open standard" is a vague term. To many people, open doesn't mean "as long as you have a license". Google purchased On2 specifically to release WebM, not "just happens to own".

<comment><USER24> I was making light of Google's Microsoft-ish tactics: Buy tech. Release for free Try to convince people its better than an existing open standard.

<comment><USER25> Please point out a case when Microsoft purchased a company and released their proprietary product with a FLOSS license and a patent grant.

<comment><USER26> He said open standard, not FLOSS.

<comment><USER25> Confirming that it's _not_ a Microsoft-ish tactic.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Official Skype account on Twitter hacked by Syrian Electronic Army - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/Skype/status/418495453471068161 <comment><AUTHOR> "Don't use Microsoft emails(hotmail,outlook),They are monitoring your accounts and selling the data to the governments.More details soon #SEA"

</comment><comment><USER2> No longer available, in case someone has a screenshot, though I don't expect anything fancy in it.</comment>


New X-ray technique images soft-tissue tumors clearer than MRI - <AUTHOR> https://newatlas.com/medical/first-x-ray-elastography-images/ <comment><USER2> From what I remember, MRI doesn't exist without some fairly sophisticated signal processing. The teaser seems to be suggesting they're doing signal processing on Xrays instead of just exposing photography plates (or do they even do that anymore? Are they digital like cameras?)

Many many years ago I recall a project that looked at the tissue all around a tumor, and mapped the refraction from many different angles. They took that information and worked backward to find the exact angles to send radiotherapy beams so that they would cross inside the tumor, reducing side effects. I wonder if any of the principles are the same here.

<comment><USER3> Not sure exactly what signal processing you're referring to - MRI would not work (would take prohibitively long) without compressed sensing. But I would not consider that fairly sophisticated signal processing, it's in the classical limit and uses a simple prior that k-space is sparse.

<comment><USER4> You may be the first person I've ever seen use "simple" and "k-space" in such close proximity.

<comment><USER3> ... as opposed to a much more complicated prior, such as a natural tissue model...

<comment><USER4> Of course, but a) joke and b) if you haven't been exposed to it before--and in many cases, even if you have--it can seem pretty daunting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To summarize the research, the idea is to use X-rays like ultrasound: visualizing the elastic properties of the target instead of the density, but at higher resolution than ultrasound. They were able to create a 2-D image of particles in a gel in the lab.

Keep in mind that this is physic research, not medical research. They show that this imaging is possible. There are a bunch of difficult steps to making this medically useful. First, it is currently 2-D, not 3-D. It also needs to move from creating an image in the lab to a repeatable process, and then turned into a medical equipment product.

TL;DR: This is a lab demonstration of a new imaging technique in a physics journal. The title is entirely speculative. Abstract and paywalled paper here: [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.35848/1882-0786/ab7e06...](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.35848/1882-0786/ab7e06/meta)

<comment><USER6> Just throwing out there: US is 2D, X-ray is 2D, MRI is 2D slices, and CT is also a series of 2D slices but you can reconstruct reasonable guesses at 3D structures with it.

This being 2D doesn't strike me as a huge drawback

<comment><USER7> A collection of 2D slices /is/ a 3D image. Modern CT and MRI are 3D modalities.

<comment><USER6> Reading one 2D slice at a time and calling it 3D is... not wrong. I don't think it's right, either. But we are now splitting hairs and not adding value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't X-rays generally much more dangerous than an MRI? I would think that things like 7 tesla MRI technology would be the future of medical imaging, not X-rays, if only for the fact that X-rays are cancer-causing.

<comment><USER9> A chest x-ray is about 5x _less_ radiation exposure then a transatlantic flight.[1]

1\. [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ionising- radiatio...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ionising-radiation- dose-comparisons/ionising-radiation-dose-comparisons)

<comment><USER8> I think that is an interesting comparison but I'm not sure it's really applicable. A brain MRI can take up to 45 minutes or so. To be honest, I'm doubtful you could image someone's entire brain in detail via X-ray (as the article seems to imply) by using the sort of "one-and-done" X-ray normally used to look for run-of-the-mill bronchial infections, etc.

<comment><USER10> Right, the 3D equivalent is a CT scan which is a much higher radiation dose than a regular x-ray. On average every 1000 CT scans done causes one new case of cancer.

<comment><USER7> Source?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Today I've learned that elastography is a field of medical imaging that focuses on the stiffness or softness of tissues.

I might want to learn even more about it because I always have problems with my tissues and doctors fail to help me.

<comment><USER2> I'm hoping this is a step closer to being able to image connective tissues too. But being able to diagnose muscle tears and such would also be pretty helpful.

Hard to stay healthy when your range of motion is impaired.

<comment><USER6> MRI and US already do. It's just not often helpful, because damage doesn't need to be grossly visible and because we can't do much for it regardless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As someone that was shot in the neck and I have metal that cannot go through an MRI machine... will this be my savior?

<comment><USER13> We are all stuck at home and therefore you cannot just drop this comment without elaborating.

<comment><USER14> > _you cannot just drop this comment without elaborating_

That's false.

<comment><USER12> What is needed? I get shot, I have metal, I have not decided to operate to remove it. Life goes on

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have always wondered how invasive the TSA scanners are and whether one can have an opt-in medical reports that flags potential serious issues from those scans directly sent to you (if something really stands out).

<comment><USER16> As far as I know, all of those scanners as deployed are millimeter-wave, not x-ray. They're not designed to penetrate the skin.

<comment><USER15> oh, so no useful medical info

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not sure if I would choose to get irritated with X-rays if I think I have a cancerous tumor. CT scans are already scary IMHO if you already have cancer. MRI may be safer option.

<comment><USER18> Apparently CT scan use a lot less radiation than they used to and are therefore much safer now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Since the X-rays are being refracted rather than absorbed, will this technique make them much safer as well?

</comment><comment><USER20> This title is a really bad representation of what the actual technology is. Instead, something closer to the actual research is: "X-ray elastography by visualizing propagating shear waves" which actually makes sense. Elastography in X-Ray is what is being described and not an imaging technique that is "clearer" than MRI...

<comment><USER21> How many % of the people not part of the field would understand what 'shear waves' or elastography is?

<comment><USER20> I'm not suggesting that the title be replaced with that, the current title is a blatant misrepresentation of the actual work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How are these vibrations introduced into the body? And how do they affect the patient?

<comment><USER23> With MRI Elastography it's a thing that looks like a ping pong bat, with a hose attached to a subwoofer. I'm sure their are better ways to describe it! It tickles if the patient is ticklish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I can't wait for how much they charge in the US for it. Hundreds of dollars? Thousands?!

</comment><comment><USER25> MRI is actually not "clear" at all most of the time. People should be more aware of this IMO.

Both my wife and I were mis-diagnosed due to this, both with conditions for which it is impossible to spontaneously resolve. Mine required surgery with a 6 month typical recovery (which I declined), and would reduce my shoulder mobility permanently. My wife was told she would be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life in a few years due to an incurable spinal cord issue. We took the news pretty hard. I put my career on hold for a while, and we tried (and failed) to figure out how to live with this diagnosis, reading probably the entirety of scientific literature that exists on the topic and finding no reassurance. Six months later we got another MRI for her, which showed no "abnormality" and nothing to be concerned about.

And my "issue" resolved on its own in a few months as well, although I did not get another MRI - shit's expensive. The funny thing is, if the diagnosis was correct (SLAP tear in the shoulder, if you must know), such things do not resolve on their own.

So if someone tells you "you're gonna die" after looking at a blurry as fuck MRI, go get another MRI at a minimum, and seek a second or even third opinion before you take any of it seriously.</comment>


I regret my decision to go to graduate school, advice? - <AUTHOR> I just finished my first two semesters of a PhD program in computational biology. I was excited by the prestige of going to a PhD program at an ivy league university, but now that that has worn off I am being bombarded by anxiety that I have made the wrong choice and that I will struggle to find a decent job after I graduate in several years.<p>I have previous industry experience, how might I go about transitioning back to a software development position? <comment><USER2> I'm in the 7th year of a PhD (just weeks from submitting my dissertation) and wish I had dropped out at the end of the 3rd year when my supervisor disagreed with the direction of my work.

Whilst I can't help you - only you can make the final decision, I offer some questions which might de-fuzz your thinking.

Other than the motivation of prestige and possibly having "Dr" in front of your name, what excites you about computational biology? Does it still excite you? Do you enjoy reading the stacks of papers by other academics? Have you written any draft papers yet? Do you enjoy the collegiate atmosphere at your uni?

Anxiety is a normal part of the package of being a PhD candidate. Everybody goes through that phase. The bigger issue is whether you are still excited about the area of your research. If not, then it will only get harder to continue. Talk to your advisor, fellow researchers and other PhD students - especially those who have done a few more years and have had some papers published.

Do you plan to go for an academic job? If so, consider that competition is fierce and you will pretty much be writing grant applications and papers and teaching and only doing a small amount of actual research. And all that for a lower salary than a good software developer can earn.

If you are thinking of finding an industry job with your PhD, then what sort of jobs are you thinking of? Have you done any research as to whether your speciality will be in demand? Of course, you could work in a different area, e.g. Wall St (some PhD's in computational biology have made that switch).

If you decide to abandon your PhD work, then the best strategy is to continue from where you left off with your industry experience. If you have acquired any new skills in the past year, then add them to your CV. But otherwise, you might have to pretty much treat the past year as an adventure holiday. Whatever you do, don't expect any potential employer to put any value on your academic work.

</comment><comment><USER3> PhD's are not for everybody. Don't sweat it. I know people who took 6-7 years to figure that out.

Start applying for jobs. Expect rejections and interviews to go badly initially. Working at a PhD lab doesn't really prepare you for the standard dev position interview process. Unless you have worked on something interesting that a company is interested in, you have to put in some interview prep work. Put in the hours in prep, it will pay off.

If you made it into an Ivy League school, you can make it into any dev position you want. I can understand the self doubt and feelings of uncertainty you are experiencing, but the key is to refocus the mind on interview processes and prep. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> In several years, the job market may be such that everybody is struggling to find decent jobs. However, I doubt that computational biologists are likely to struggle significantly more than programmers in general in such a situation.

That doesn't mean that a particular Phd program is the right place for you right now. Maybe it isn't. Maybe there's a better fit in another program, maybe no program is the right fit, maybe it's a good fit an this is just somewhat normal graduate school anxiety.

I guess the deep question is the nature of your motivation for a Phd. There is inherently nothing wrong with pursuing a Phd as an ambitious challenge. There is inherently nothing wrong with pursuing a Phd as vocational training [but it may be a hell of a roundabout way of doing so].

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER5> First, determine whether you really want to stay for the PhD program. You may have made the wrong choice, but you need to decide that for certain. You say you are worried about getting a decent job- personally I find with a PhD in quantitative stuff, the PhD gives you a small additional set of jobs you can do (mostly academic) but good employers in tech will also hire you to just code/analyze data.

Assuming you decide to leave, Prepare your resume and apply for jobs. If you have industry experience and got accepted to a PhD program you shouldn't really have a lot of trouble finding a job if you live in an area with a large pool of jobs (boston, NYC, SF, Seattle).</comment>


A Node.js config object with enviroments support - <AUTHOR> https://www.npmjs.com/package/confee <comment><USER2> Seems like this is just a copy of another module (even the readme).

I'd personally recommend this one: [https://www.npmjs.com/package/config](https://www.npmjs.com/package/config)

<comment><AUTHOR> I know this module and it's quite nice, but I didn't like the way it handles config overwrites. I can assure you it's not a copy of another module 'node- config' from the readme file is the initial name I've assigned to my modules, but unfortunately there is another one with the same name. I'll update the readme file soon :)</comment></comment>


Nvidia Launches GeForce Experience Beta for Optimizing Game Settings - <AUTHOR> http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/nvidia_launches_geforce_experience_beta_optimizing_game_settings123

<comment><USER2> I like to adjust my settings manually</comment>


"Mom, I always told you I'd come back and get my degree" – Zuckerberg - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/4/posts/10103748163337421/ <comment><USER2> Well, if _I_ was a multi-billionaire, I could get a degree from Harvard as well.

I'm far more impressed by the kid who puts himself through a state university while working one or more jobs and trying to deal with debt, a massive lack of spare time, and an uncertain job market.

<comment><USER3> Really? That's more impressive to you than going to harvard, founding a multibillion company and coming back for the degree?

<comment><USER4> Getting in to Harvard is impressive (if it wasn't predestined by your loaded, alumni parents).

Founding a multibillion company is impressive.

Going back to get the degree is not impressive.

<comment><USER3> Sorry just saw your reply. Going back to get the degree is just a nice closing for a very impressive trajectory.</comment></comment></comment></comment>