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pizza_boy's comments

pizza_boy | 5 years ago | on: Fewer premature babies born since Covid-19 lockdown

I hope this comes across as helpful and not one-upmanship: it is natural to think that having a child is like many of the other things you're used to in life where you can control the outcome.

That can lead to you worrying about and optimising for lots of things that won't matter too much in the grand scheme of things.

I can tell you from first hand experience that you are not in control. You will know you are in a truly stressful situation when you've forgetten about all of the items you've listed above because you're standing there watching, not sure what is going on, just hoping that everything is going to be ok.

I hope you never get to that point and in the meantime try enjoy the ride. I wish you and your family all the best!

pizza_boy | 6 years ago | on: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

I don't have a problem with the comments. They're illuminating under a close reading.

The role of CEO is high status and highly desirable. I think it's safe to assume most readers of this site have coveted it from time to time and had to accept at some point that they're in that role.

It's easier to accept this is you assume CEOs are exceptional and different to you in some way: as founders; impressive track record; or something similar.

However, this article gives an example of someone just like us stepping easily into that role. How can that be? Why can't we have this? Either there is a problem with this CEO or we're missing out. It's easier to believe the former That's what the comments are about.

pizza_boy | 11 years ago | on: Scientific Peer Review Is Broken – Fighting to Fix It with Anonymity

With Publons.com (https://publons.com) we have different philosophy: the more transparency we can bring to the review process, the better. At the same time we recognise that both blind and double-blind peer review play an important role in generating quality research.

Our approach is to focus on turning review of all kinds (including both pre- and post-publication) into a measurable research output -- something you can add to your resume. We support both anonymous and signed review with the idea that it will lead to greater transparency in the long run and also motivate reviewers to contribute more.

We have a significant number of both types of review now and are starting to look ways to measure if there are significant differences between blind and open review.

pizza_boy | 11 years ago | on: Publishing: The peer-review scam

This is one of the problems we're trying to solve with Publons.com. We help reviewers to build an officially verified record of past reviews (which is great when it comes to getting tenure). Editors can then use those records to vett candidate reviewers.

pizza_boy | 12 years ago | on: Elsevier journals – some facts

Hi Doug. Cool graphic. I'm one of the founders of https://publons.com. Our mission is to speed up academic publishing by turning peer review into a measurable research output. Would love to take you up on your offer to meet for a beer and have sent you an email.

pizza_boy | 12 years ago | on: Nobel winner declares boycott of top science journals

The key is to start developing better ways to measure researcher productivity. That's where all the different forms of altmetrics come in. For us (Publons.com) we're using peer review itself to generate article level metrics (and give reviewers credit for it) that focus on the quality and significance of a paper, not just its popularity.

pizza_boy | 12 years ago | on: “Close to 10% of the papers we receive show some sign of academic misconduct”

I've said as much in the article comments, but it's worth repeating here: there's really no surprise that this sort of thing happens when more than a million articles are published every year.

There is so much pressure on researchers to publish. I really do think the way to solve this sort of problem is to find ways to give researchers credit for other forms of contributions.

This is what figshare is doing with datasets, and what we're doing with peer-review: http://blog.publons.com/post/61380784056/announcing-doi-supp...

pizza_boy | 12 years ago | on: Skin in the Game as a Required Heuristic for Acting Under Uncertainty

You're partially correct. I'd say that we tend to adopt the successful cultural adaptations of our ancestors and discard the others.

In other words, when comparing an ancient society to one descended from it, I'd expect the "successful" adaptations of the ancestor culture to be disproportionately present in the descendant. The converse need not be true.

In Taleb's example Taleb of the builder, those ancient heuristics became our tort law (and will be a part of our reputation networks in the future). He doesn't mention all the cultural adaptations we've since dropped...

So it's obvious at best, and an appeal to authority at worst.

pizza_boy | 12 years ago | on: Skin in the Game as a Required Heuristic for Acting Under Uncertainty

It's not immediately obvious there's anything new or interesting in there: how is this heuristic different to a classic Hansonian bet [1]?

One potential advantage is that having "skin in the game" has a more positive connotation than betting on outcomes, to the general public at least. Regardless, Hanson at least deserves a mention.

From a stylistic point of view I'm not a big fan of the appeals to authority (e.g., "the ancients were fully aware" ) either.

From a startup perspective it's worth mentioning that mentorship or advice is also generally more confusing and less useful when the mentor lacks "skin in the game". Hence mentor "whiplash".

[1] http://www.overcomingbias.com/2013/07/bets-argue.html

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