Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image • Hacker News Board

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#381

Post by monksy » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 8:32 PM UTC

radlad wrote: post #380

monksy wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Margaret Hamilton with a stack of papers. That was used to say "well women are doing something very important" (If we're truly focused on equality should be yes.. that is normal.. but why is that important to advertise that message) The feeling that I'm getting from all of this is that the result is showcased to the side and they're trying to make her into a celebrity. I would love to hear her praise "her team" (he…

From the article: > But Dr Bouman, now an assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences at the California Institute of Technology, insisted the team that helped her deserves equal credit. > The effort to capture the image, using telescopes in locations ranging from Antarctica to Chile, involved a team of more than 200 scientists. > "No one of us could've done it alone," she told CNN. "It came together be…

I'm going to edit the parent comment to show my response to that:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19638629

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#382

Post by 6oodfella » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 8:43 PM UTC

Wow, a woman pressed some keys on a computer. Well done.

Did I mention she has a vagina? Because that is the most important thing about this non-story.

It's not even a photo, it's computer image.

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#383

Post by 6oodfella » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 8:47 PM UTC

Wow, a woman pressed some keys on a computer to create a computer image (not a photo). Well done.

Did I mention she has a vagina? Apparently that's the most important part of this non-story.

Gee, it sure is odd that when you look up "What is a black hole? Stephen Hawking's final theory", you find a video, and the thumbnail has the same image of the black hole on it, a whole month before it was digitally-created by a woman, with a vagina and everything. Strange.

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#384

Post by rmc256 » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 8:55 PM UTC

sodafountan wrote: post #335

njepa wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, I think to call her "the woman behind the first black hole image" is a hyperbole. It makes it sound as if she was _the one person_ responsible that all this came about. It doesn't say that though. It says she was behind the image. And as I understand she lead one of the teams responsible for creating the image from the data. So I don't think that is particularly inaccurate as far as headlines go.

Well luckily we can verify just how much code she actually committed to the project. The Event Horizon Telescope Analysis Toolkit is a publicly available repository on Github: https://github.com/sao-eht/eat according to Katie's profile klbouman, she was responsible for a subset of that toolkit known as hopstools - which is described in the readme as "tools to convert data from the HOPS format": https://github.com/klb…

I think you're looking in the wrong place. I don't see anywhere in the eat github repository where there is code similar to the CHIRP algorithm (correct me if I'm wrong). I'd be interested in seeing the actual code used to generate the image (certainly the eat repo was used, but it doesn't look to be the main algorithm?) It looks more plausible that the algorithm is in eht-imaging (https://github.com/achael/eht-imaging), but I haven't looked deeply enough yet. She contributed a lot more to that repo. And having said all that, # lines/commits isn't as important as the algorithm

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#385

Post by sisu2019 » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 8:55 PM UTC

juliendorra wrote: post #103

dunslandsboo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you want to change the behaviour of women regarding their choice of study field?

You misunderstood. We want any person, women and young girls included, to be able to pursue a career path, if they have even the faintest desire of it, without self-censorship, negative remarks, feeling out of place, their vocation and/or skills being continuously challenged randomly, or having to cope with various forms of harassment. If you build an environment that allow that, women presence in the field surge. An…

> without self-censorship, negative remarks, feeling out of place, their vocation and/or skills being continuously challenged randomly

This is the life of all men in competence hierachies. All of these things happend to me within the last half year and have been since I was a boy. Doesn't matter in the least, you couldn't pry me away from my interests with a crowbar.

This is your real problem: generally, girls want to be invited, boys just do.

The reason I speak up at all and will take all the abuse and downvoting thats sure to follow is it irks me so much.

We got into PCs and didn't matter one damn if they came from space aliens or out of the dumpster. We sat at them, we sat at them and we got scolded for it and told to go outside and called nerds. Our status was absolute dogshit and few women would associate willingly with computing in any form.

I am old enough to remember that at parties we mumbled "something with computers" and smiled apologetically hoping the topic would move on. Yes, many of us spent years, decades even, feeling slightly ashamed of our profession.

Now that the best and brightest of us nerds literally reshaped the world into a place where your personal handheld computer became a status symbol here come the women.

And you know, it would be okay, we are very tame men overall, except now you claim your collective absence from this topic is because we hurt you. No, we did not, you all just didn't like computers.

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#386

Post by n1231231231234 » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 9:07 PM UTC

jachee wrote: post #370

realradicalwash wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my criticism is not aimed at her at all - but at the media. and yes, she emphasised this elsewhere, too, which imv shows what a great and humble person she is.

Every media article I've read cites her team-credit emphasis. What more should the media do? "Faceless, nameless team does X, No film at 11 in case that might make someone look like they're getting too much credit."? Every team has a leader ( de facto or otherwise). Having one voice, one face for a globe-spanning team effort is the way the media can convey the amazing, awesome message to the masses in a relatable way…

> Every media article I've read cites her team-credit emphasis.

But that is the problem, actually. Simple question: Is Prof Bouman the team leader that held all this together?

In answering this, consider this is from the ERC website, which is the major funding body of the project:

> Since 2014, this six year research project is being carried out by three lead scientists and their teams; namely Professors Heino Falcke from Radboud University Nijmegen (also Chair of EHT Science Council), Michael Kramer from the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy, and Luciano Rezzolla from Goethe University Frankfurt. [0]

So to answer "What more should the media do?", my guess would be: at some point, mention Falcke, Kramer, and Rezzolla? And the ERC?

[0] https://erc.europa.eu/news/eu-funded-scientists-unveil-first...

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#387

Post by ihnorton » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

sodafountan wrote: post #335

njepa wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, I think to call her "the woman behind the first black hole image" is a hyperbole. It makes it sound as if she was _the one person_ responsible that all this came about. It doesn't say that though. It says she was behind the image. And as I understand she lead one of the teams responsible for creating the image from the data. So I don't think that is particularly inaccurate as far as headlines go.

Well luckily we can verify just how much code she actually committed to the project. The Event Horizon Telescope Analysis Toolkit is a publicly available repository on Github: https://github.com/sao-eht/eat according to Katie's profile klbouman, she was responsible for a subset of that toolkit known as hopstools - which is described in the readme as "tools to convert data from the HOPS format": https://github.com/klb…

I'm reluctant to even dignify this kind of low-effort drivel with a response.

There's a bunch of other commits linked from that very same user profile, related to -- and this will blow your mind -- image reconstruction:

https://github.com/achael/eht-imaging/commits?author=klbouma...

Even if that were not true, scientific code often does not end up public, let alone on github. Not to mention that Dr. Bouman is the first author of a closely-related paper at CVPR, which is one of the most prestigious meetings in a field of study called "computer vision": https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.01413

Obviously this was a massive team effort, but PR frenzies happen to good people all the time and I don't see anyone scrutinizing public commit counts when it's a man in a similar context.

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#388

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 9:54 PM UTC

ihnorton wrote: post #387

sodafountan wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well luckily we can verify just how much code she actually committed to the project. The Event Horizon Telescope Analysis Toolkit is a publicly available repository on Github: https://github.com/sao-eht/eat according to Katie's profile klbouman, she was responsible for a subset of that toolkit known as hopstools - which is described in the readme as "tools to convert data from the HOPS format": https://github.com/klb…

I'm reluctant to even dignify this kind of low-effort drivel with a response. There's a bunch of other commits linked from that very same user profile, related to -- and this will blow your mind -- image reconstruction: https://github.com/achael/eht-imaging/commits?author=klbouma... Even if that were not true, scientific code often does not end up public, let alone on github. Not to mention that Dr. Bouman is the fir…

[deleted]

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#389

Post by telesilla » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 10:00 PM UTC

tropo wrote: post #325

telesilla wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you work in an office with low-level programmers and hardware designers? I do, and I'm one of a handful of women in the building. Actually at the moment, I'm the only one and I'm lobbying for our new hire of managing director to be a woman but it's likely not going to happen because I can't find someone qualified. When I teach in the field at my university, I'm the only woman. And I live in a very popular, large c…

Your "lobbying for our new hire of managing director to be a woman" is fuel for rage and even return fire. I hope you can see how it might be used to justify discrimination in the other direction. You aren't being fair.

Your statement is ignorant of office and network politics: I work surrounded by men who communicate professionally with men, primarily. At conferences they drink and socialise with each other. It's harder as a woman to get into these networks. When there is an opening, this information spreads via the network. Which has few women in it.

You may feel uncomfortable knowing the hiring process is weighted. But I feel uncomfortable being in an office that doesn't have other women. If I can change that WHILE at the same time meeting my hiring standards AND not consciously turning away a clearly better candidate then absolutely, I'm going to use positive discrimination.

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#390

Post by tropo » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 10:12 PM UTC

ihnorton wrote: post #387

sodafountan wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well luckily we can verify just how much code she actually committed to the project. The Event Horizon Telescope Analysis Toolkit is a publicly available repository on Github: https://github.com/sao-eht/eat according to Katie's profile klbouman, she was responsible for a subset of that toolkit known as hopstools - which is described in the readme as "tools to convert data from the HOPS format": https://github.com/klb…

I'm reluctant to even dignify this kind of low-effort drivel with a response. There's a bunch of other commits linked from that very same user profile, related to -- and this will blow your mind -- image reconstruction: https://github.com/achael/eht-imaging/commits?author=klbouma... Even if that were not true, scientific code often does not end up public, let alone on github. Not to mention that Dr. Bouman is the fir…

You're right that we "don't see anyone scrutinizing public commit counts when it's a man in a similar context". Well of course! The media never promotes an inflated story of a man's accomplishments due to him being a man, so it would be silly to suspect it.

Nobody is doubting that it is possible for a woman to do impressive science.

It's just the ordinary problem of trying to promote/advance/assist a particular group of people. Any time that happens, it casts suspicion on the whole group. Both the deserving and the undeserving are suspected of having what isn't earned. Everybody in the group is thus hurt.