MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions - <AUTHOR> https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/a-special-announcement-about-sat-subject-tests/ <comment><USER3> Anybody cheering the exclusion of some test or other, because it was a pain to study for in high school, is simply not noticing the frog-boiling secondary effects going on. Every bit of emphasis taken out of objective results mean more advantage for smooth talking, photogenic, well-connected people.

Yes, some misguided parents waste thousands of dollars on SAT courses. But students can also prep using the $20 official book, which is what I did, and what I still regard as the best option. Even if money helps incrementally for tests, it helps for everything else even more. International volunteer work? An inspiring (i.e. college counselor approved) essay? Recommendation letters from authoritative people? Anything that requires equipment, like computer labs or robotics? It all costs money -- and in many cases literally measures nothing besides how much money you have.

<comment> dawg- What you call a "smooth-talker" is what someone else would call an articulate, socially well-adjusted person who can communicate their values and opinions in an intelligent way and who is comfortable making connections with others. Perhaps if this was the standard college admissions used, public schools would have more incentive to educate students as functional humans rather than test- taking drones.

<comment><USER4> The problem is that "articulate, socially well-adjusted person who can communicate their values and opinions in an intelligent way and who is comfortable making connections with others" is (a) highly subjective, and (b) only a means to an end. The end is to have a productive civil society where people do not prey on other people. Unfortunately, all these highly subjective characteristics are used by people to prey on other people instead of to help with having a productive, civil society. So by themselves they can't be used as a standard. There has to be some objective criterion to distinguish people who can actually contribute to a productive civil society from people who prey on other people.

<comment><USER5> Distrusting social skills, linguistic ability, and emotional intelligence doesn't sound like a recipe for success.

It's not like there aren't plenty of engineers, scientists, math folks, i.e. those "honest", quantitative folks, who aren't also crappy or deceptive people.

Just look at Facebook! ;)

<comment><USER4> _> Distrusting social skills, linguistic ability, and emotional intelligence doesn't sound like a recipe for success._

It's not a matter of "trusting" vs. "distrusting" them. It's a matter of what universities (and other exclusive institutions, for that matter) select for. If you select for "social skills, linguistic ability, and emotional intelligence" without also having any objective way of measuring actual productive potential, not to mention evaluating a person's actual willingness to use their talents in support of a cooperative civil society, you're going to get a lot of people who will be very good at preying on others and using the system they are gaining entrance to as a tool to that end.

 _> It's not like there aren't plenty of engineers, scientists, math folks, i.e. those "honest", quantitative folks, who aren't also crappy or deceptive people_

Yes, that's true, but without those social skills they do a lot less damage, because they can't get very many people to interact with them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I used to think the SATs were fair. Until I found out how much money was being spent on SAT prep. And those expensive prep courses had the potential to increase scores over 100 points.

I took the recommended SAT prep course through my high school. It was 2 weekends of going over material that might be on the exam and a workbook recommended by The College Board. Imagine my surprise going to university and meeting students much richer than I who had multi year SAT prep courses with actual exam questions!

<comment><USER7> The SAT is not fair. By taking an expensive prep course, you can potentially increase your SAT score by 100 (although that's quite extreme, the average improvement attributed to SAT prep is closer to 20 points). That's a significant, but not earth-shattering improvement: it moves you from the 75th percentile to the 84th, or from the 97th percentile to the 99th.

Now let's compare that to other criteria used in the college admissions process.

It's way easier to have impressive and relevant extracurricular activities if you're rich and go to a good school. And unlike SAT prep, acquiring good extracurriculars will definitely take years of your time and money.

Well-written admissions essay? MIT requires one. But you do it at home, instead of a tightly controlled testing center. So if you're rich enough, you can have ghost-written admissions essays. Needless to say, this process can turn even a completely worthless essay into an impressive one.

Creative portfolio? Unless you're in the 99th percentile of musical talent, the difference between "I write songs that I play on an old guitar" and "an orchestra performed my composition" is money. The former is probably not even 75th percentile; the latter, probably 95+.

Alumni parents who would be likely to donate big bucks? You don't need an expensive prep course to get that, yet it can provide your application with a much bigger boost than 100 SAT points. And unlike the SAT, if you don't have alumni parents to begin with, then you'll never get this boost, no matter how much extra work you put in.

The SAT is not fair. But it's the fairest admissions criterion used by U.S. universities today.

(note: MIT still relies on the SAT; today's announcement concerns the SAT Subject Tests)

<comment><USER8> > it's the fairest admissions criterion

I have yet to see an "abolish standardized tests" type suggest a workable alternative (or even an unworkable one).

<comment><USER9> You don't _need_ to use the SAT or ACT as a criterion. The problem if you don't is probably two-fold.

1.) You're throwing out a signal that has proven to be pretty reliable in at least establishing a floor as what students have a good chance of succeeding and

2.) As a related matter, it's a very simple, quantitative, standardized metric (with decent predictive power) that lets you bucket applicants pretty easily.

Do you maybe throw out some applicants who are really bad at standardized tests, but would otherwise thrive in an undergraduate academic setting? Probably. But the data suggests that standardized testing is a pretty good predictor of success in school (which, of course, is not necessarily the same as success in life).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is indeed a strange decision for MIT. The conventional wisdom has long been that the SAT subject tests are MORE predictive of future success at MIT, because the influence of test prep, cramming, test coaches, etc. is minimal for the subject tests. While there are reports of people raising their scores artificially on the non-subject tests by hundreds of points through these short-term methods, the subjects tests have long had a reputation as being more representative of what you really know.

<comment><USER11> > The conventional wisdom has long been that the SAT subject tests are MORE > predictive of future success at MIT, because the influence of test prep, > cramming, test coaches, etc. is minimal for the subject tests.

Who cares what the conventional wisdom says? The psychometric results are that SAT I scores and SAT II scores predict performance about equally well in isolation and don't have more predictive value in combination than they do in isolation. In other words, they measure exactly the same thing.

(Contrast the other major predictor, high school GPA, where the predictive value of considering GPA + SAT in combination somewhat exceeds the predictive value of either metric individually.)

<comment><USER12> There is another implication as a consequence of the statement "the influence of test prep, cramming, test coaches, etc. is minimal for the subject tests." That is, I first read thag _the students don 't suffer under these conditions_. It is a valuable trait no doubt, to be able to cram swaths of loosely associated facts. I'd argue that it's a vital trade for study, but perhaps it is less severe than only twenty years ago, because very powerful memory aids have become ubiquitious.

> predict performance about equally well

having no tires or no engine predicts performance of a car--or rather the lack thereof--equally well. Yet grip and horsepower are independent variables. I think that means SAT scores don't predict success too well at all beyond a certain threshold.

Having the right motivation (haha, a pun) for a certain disciplin might make a huge difference. So you can test e.g. vocabulary learning in general, or top9cal knowledge, which requires precise choices of vocabulary nonetheless, but one not found in a general dictionary. It's more like knowing which dictionaries exist, and what texts are referenced therein.

<comment><USER11> > I think that means SAT scores don't predict success too well at all beyond a > certain threshold.

Try reading about it.

[https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Webb_RM_2001_Top.pdf](https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Webb_RM_2001_Top.pdf)

> There is another implication as a consequence of the statement "the > influence of test prep, cramming, test coaches, etc. is minimal for the > subject tests." That is, I first read tha[t] the students _don 't suffer > under these conditions_.

This is not a valid inference to draw; the influence of test prep, cramming, coaches, etc. is also minimal for the main SAT, but students suffer through them anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A number of comments here seem to be confusing SAT subject tests, which are domain-specific tests about subjects like biology, with the "standard" SAT. It's only the former that MIT is dropping from consideration in admissions:

> We will continue to require the SAT or the ACT, because our research has > shown these tests, in combination with a student's high school grades and > coursework, are predictive of success in our challenging curriculum.

</comment><comment><USER14> Note to those who haven't been in high school for some time: these aren't the main test. The main test still gets considered (in addition to your parents' money)

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

<comment><USER15> > (in addition to your parents' money)

That is not true. MIT is need blind which means it doesn't consider financial needs [1].

[1] [https://mitadmissions.org/afford/cost-aid-basics/access- affo...](https://mitadmissions.org/afford/cost-aid-basics/access- affordability/)

<comment><USER16> "As for the children of prominent campus donors, [former MIT director of undergraduate admissions] Crowley said a college's development office might reach out to the dean of admissions to say, "Hey, just so you know, Lisa's dad has been very generous to us in the past, or something."

<comment><USER17> Since one isn't provided this is the top google result containing the quote [1].

The context of the linked article is that Crowley now works for an admission prep company IvyWise and this quote may not directly reference MIT but his broader experience in this more recent role.

[1] [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/college-cheating- scanda...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/college-cheating-scandal-two- ex-admissions-officers-explain-behind-scenes-n983796)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm sure that I will get in trouble for this but...

The SAT/ACT system is corrupt. It's plain an simple. Follow the money. It's as simple as that. The root of most issues involve simple economics. (Maybe a little broad of a statement, so take it with a grain of salt, but certainly applies in this case.)

The tests are built on revenue from the taking the tests and industry selling you prep material. I don't have time to find the article but the SAT organization got busted a while back for charging different prices for different zip codes.

Although I can't prove it, but I'm sure there were kickback for universities that used the tests. It's a little unsubstantiated claim but we already know you can bribe your way into to school. (The Rick Singer debacle) Why wouldn't these "Testing" companies be doing the same.

Memorizing a method/strategy to take test is a waste of time and national resources.

<comment><USER19> How can you be sure of something that you cannot prove?

<comment><USER18> I said I couldn't prove it.

If I was an investigative journalist and or I had significant amount of time, then I would look into it.

<comment><USER19> "...I can't prove it, but I'm sure..."

You said you can't prove it AND that you're sure.

This is not a good way to think.

In the words of Mark Twain, "It's not what we don't know that gets us in trouble. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so."

<comment><USER18> Well anybody that quotes Mark Twain, wins the battle.

But I will politely quote Ben Folds Five: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y1wm7CFRCQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y1wm7CFRCQ)

Some cherry pop music for these crazy times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Earlier this year, Caltech made the decision to eliminate the SAT subject tests: [https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/caltech-eliminate- require...](https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/caltech-eliminate-requirement- sat-subject-test-scores-admissions)

</comment><comment><USER21> Slightly unrelated but could be useful to any HS seniors here: My n=1 study method got me a 1520. I would study for the SAT in a dark room, with horror movie music or war sound effects playing in earbuds, while planking. For every incorrect answer, I'd do 10 pushups or 3 pull-ups (can adapt to your own level). Rationale was that if I could do well in the worst conditions possible, then I'd do better sitting in a quiet room.

I'm a pretty bad student also, I had like a 3 GPA.

</comment><comment><USER22> "And last, but certainly not least: I know we are making this announcement during the COVID-19 pandemic. We had already been planning to make this change, and decided to announce as soon as possible in part because we wanted to make sure no one was spending more time or energy studying for tests they wouldn't have to take for us, especially during a public health emergency. "

Riiiiiiiight. 'Cuz nobody that applies to MIT ever applies to a back-up school. You know, just in case they don't get accepted. I've heard that can happen.

<comment><USER23> SAT Subject Tests are either optional or not considered at most schools. I personally took a few SAT Subject Tests that were only required for a single school I was applying to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The SAT subject tests just felt like a joke to me anyways. My high school was a public high school in Singapore, a country generally considered to have great education. With a generally good mastery of the normal high school curriculum, these tests were considered very easy. Pretty much all my friends and I got 800 out of 800 for all the subject tests. And these perfect scores ended up not mattering that much in college admissions anyways.

The normal SAT I tests, on the other hand, seemed to require more critical thinking, higher reading comprehension and reasoning skills, skills that are sorely needed in an age of blatant misinformation. These are much harder to score well, which is why so many people spend a lot studying for them. Not so much for the SAT subject tests.

<comment><USER25> It depends heavily on the SAT subject test. Math II, for instance, is heavily curved and anyone with a solid understanding of high school math and their calculator should have no problem getting an 800. But I'm not sure if the same is true for all of the tests in the humanities and social sciences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> In my home country Iran we had the equivalent of SAT general and subject tests. I did pretty poorly in general tests, but the subject tests saved me (near perfect scores in physics and math) and opened the door for me to go to a good university in my country. Just to get a clear understanding of my financials, I was living off 1$ per month at that time which was just enough to buy heavily subsidized food stamps in college. I ended up graduating with a PhD degree and worked at several top companies in the US later. This seems to me like a case of a cure that is worse than the disease.

</comment><comment><USER27> To be fair, the SAT is pretty useless when you have enough applicants with 99 percentile scores that you can fill your class multiple times over. It was never a differentiator.

</comment><comment><USER28> If they ever extend this to the SAT / ACT itself (and not just the subject tests) I will have lost a lot of respect for MIT.

A goal of higher education is to give the opportunity to people who will likely make the best use of the education, and have the greatest chance of succeeding given their preparation. Spots at top colleges are a _limited resource_. There has to be a selection function, and an unbiased test that asks questions about math, reading comprehension, etc. is as close as you're going to get.

The SAT, regardless of your opinion of whether it exacerbates or merely reflects inequities in the system, is a very strong indicator of whether a person has the preparation to succeed at university. You cannot get around that fact.

Whether high-priced prep courses or studying out of a book from the library help you pass the test, the person doing either of those things has gotten education and skills along the way. God forbid you consider the idea that someone actually learned something even though the test was standardized. And the fact that even poor families will pay to put their kids through test prep courses suggests they see value in it. It's not like they're paying to be given instructions on how to cheat the system.

People who want to water down the admissions criteria to be a social equalizer ought not mask their motives by saying that the test is flawed. The test is perfectly fine, and it reflects people's preparation and abilities to succeed at university. If you want to change the outcome, change the inputs -- and work on getting more people qualified to pass that test.

</comment><comment><USER29> Most of this is to obscure their admission criteria. Harvard has come under fire for actively discriminating against Asian applicants. By removing a standard test, these colleges can actively discriminate whilst making it more difficult to prove admissions bias from a numerical and arguably more objective standard.

<comment><USER30> They are removing the extra optional tests, not the main SAT test. Sounds great to me, as these extra tests just show you have the money to take them. Your comment is an unfounded opinion, please do not present it with the certainty of a fact.

<comment><USER31> The SAT IIs are not extra/optional if you're applying to most selective colleges/universities. They aren't the main SAT, but they are far from optional for students who would be considering MIT.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The majority of comments in this thread are an abject demonstration of a failure in reading comprehension.

If only we had a test for that...

</comment><comment><USER33> These are the tests that are no longer being considered: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT_Subject_Tests](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT_Subject_Tests). They are not "the SAT".

It makes intuitive sense to me that MIT wouldn't find these useful. They test subjects that students study in school. They're tests of knowledge, and have multiple choice questions like "One purpose of the Marshall Plan of 1948 was to..."

As far as I know, everyone's score on these tests correlated extremely well with 1) their school grade in the relevant course 2) the relevant Advanced Placement test.

</comment><comment><USER34> Honestly welcome change. The SAT Subject tests (at least for people around me in HS) were always considered as a much easier test you'd take after the AP for that very same subject. I just equated it to another way for collegeboard to get money especially since the questions were way more straightforward than AP. I am slightly concerned about what this means for schools where AP classes are not offered (I imagine SAT Subject tests presented the most accessible opportunity for these students to demonstrate their aptitude in a subject).

EDIT: changed wording in response to child comment.

<comment><USER35> You can take the AP test without taking an AP course.

<comment><USER34> Yep! But there are a few more barriers in the way if your school does not offer AP courses (you'd need to find neighboring schools that do allow it and talk to the AP coordinator at that school). For subject tests, there are pretty minimal barriers associated with signing up. You just register as you normally would for an SAT exam IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> These were called "Achievement Tests" in the early 90s, and man, they were much harder than the SAT. If the current "Subject Tests" approximate their level of difficulty, then it's a clear mistake for MIT to disregard these datapoints. When I was applying to college, yes, people paid for SAT prep but very few paid for Achievement Test prep, and so Achievement Tests were a superior indicator.

<comment><USER13> > These were called "Achievement Tests" in the early 90s, and man, they were > much harder than the SAT. If the current "Subject Tests" approximate their > level of difficulty, then it's a clear mistake for MIT to disregard these > datapoints

Difficulty as perceived by test takers is irrelevant. What MIT cares about is how well test performance predicts undergrad performance. As TFA notes, MIT is retaining the standard SAT because their data indicates that performance on that test _is_ predictive.

<comment><USER36> We don't disagree. I remain dubious that excluding a subject test term wouldn't deteriorate MIT's scoring model.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is a bad decision.

Subject tests helped me get into MIT from a public school in one of the states in the bottom 5 for education spending.

Take away the tests, and you take away the merit.

</comment><comment><USER37> Is SAT prep known to make any difference?

Back when I applied to MIT (early 80s) our entire SAT prep was "fill in the circles completely, bring only #2 pencils to the test and if you can't eliminate even one possible answer skip the question." Back then I never heard of anyone using any more advice than just that.

A few years ago I bought some SAT prep books for my kid and he never cracked them.

<comment><USER38> Practice definitely helped me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Makes sense; doesn't everybody pretty much get perfect scores on these? (at least everyone who is a serious applicant to an institution like MIT) If everyone gets the same (perfect) score then the test doesn't really help the admissions committee select for the best applicants. Tests like AMC 12 may be more useful for this type of purpose.

<comment><USER40> Yep. SAT Math II is all but worthless at this point. The middle 50% for top universities ranges from 800-800 (aka the max score).

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Oxford also tried something similar by implementing their own entrance tests for engineering and physics (and other subjects). The idea was to stop private school kids with straight A GCSEs and A-levels from dominating. The entrance tests are supposed to be harder to prepare for, and therefore fairer - <USER2> that did was force the rich kids to get tutors and the situation remains largely the same.

One of the main reasons I didn't apply to the US for grad school is having to sit through the GRE (which I had no time to prepare for during my final year) and then to redo all my Masters courses because the US doesn't recognise foreign qualifications. Virtually anywhere else in the world you can convert your grades to local standard, and a masters is a masters. At grad level an interview is much more useful to gauge ability, as grades are a poor predictor of research output.

</comment><comment><USER42> To clarify, SAT subject tests are the ones like physics, chemistry, Spanish, etc. Not the main verbal and math portion. For students smart enough to get into MIT, the subject tests are way too easy. Most students applying to MIT probably have near perfect score already, so for MIT it's probably not a useful indicator.

</comment><comment><USER43> When I was at university, the head of admissions position at the school of physics was forced on someone who didn't want it. So he used it as an opportunity for an experiment.

He offered a place to everyone who applied. People with low grades, people without the maths prerequisite, anyone really.

Our intake swelled from about 60 students to almost 100. The ones without maths really struggled. Many dropped out.

But to him that was the whole point: if you're smart/hungry/hardworking enough to pass you'd pass. If you weren't, you'd drop out or fail. Either way, why should he try to "pick winners"? This way winners without math prereq (or whatever) still hey a chance.

That changed the way I thought about admissions as 2 of the extra 30 got a degree they never gave had a chance at otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER44> A comment section of people who didn't read the article lol. They explicitly said they consider SAT to be a predictive metric of success at MIT. This is not critical of SAT, only SAT subject tests.

While they weren't explicit about why SAT subject tests won't be accepted, this may be a clue:

> No: in fairness to all applicants, we won't consider them for anyone. We > think it would be unfair to consider scores only from those who have scored > well and therefore choose to send them to us.

Seems reasonable to expect tests which are optional to suffer from heavy selection bias as they described. I'd expect optional tests to also skew towards the rich because there is a cost to each test.

<comment><USER45> Cost for tests can be waived using exam vouchers, even for the subject tests. I think the actual factor would be preparation time/cost of other resources, which can be either really small or thousands of dollars for a test prep course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Oh... this actually makes sense. MIT is still accepting the main SAT test _and_ AP tests.

SAT subject tests were always a weird thing in the middle. AP tests cover the same goal, but with more rigor and differentiation. (I remember taking the SAT subject tests just to "cover my bases", because they were there, not because there seemed to be any real reason.)

Also -- remember, even if your high school doesn't offer AP courses, you can still study for and take the AP tests on your own.

</comment><comment><USER47> It was over 35 years ago, so it has absolutely no influence on me anymore, but I achieved a perfect 800 on the SAT math achievement test, along with a 5 on the Calculus BC.

But on the regular SAT, I only achieved around 1300 total, and the math part was somewhere between 780-800 (did I have a bad day?).

I never completed college, but I have been successful nonetheless.

I think that there is more to one's ability than simply achievement test scores, grade point averages, or college degrees.

</comment><comment><USER48> Is there some other standardised exam (AP? IB?) that they will be considering instead? I went through a very non-traditional route to university, and standardised exams were an important part of me being able to demonstrate preparedness for university. I hesitate to just go on what grades someone gets at school, as it simply puts them at the mercy of their teachers and administrators, and some people like me didn't really go to school...

</comment><comment><USER49> It isn't exactly a surprise. Back then, in school, we toured the national synchrotron facility, and the same question came up: if didn't have much physics at school can you still study physics? The answer was: if you study physics they'll teach you physics just fine, where you'll run into trouble is the adjacent subjects, chemistry, biology, computing. You'll need to take care of that yourself.

</comment><comment><USER50> >For all applicants: We require the SAT or the ACT. We do not require the ACT writing section or the SAT optional essay. > we still require the score because it is predictive in conjunction with other acedemic factors

So.....basically nothing has changed and the headline is extremely misleading.

Edit: so apparently this applies to the "subject" tests. I never took those and didn't know they were a thing, now I do.

</comment><comment><USER51> To clarify, SATs are still required, subject tests are different.

From page:

"Will you still require the SAT or the ACT?"

"We will continue to require the SAT or the ACT, because..."

edited: formatting

</comment><comment><USER52> > "... for non-native English speakers, we strongly recommend taking the TOEFL > if you have been using English for less than 5 years or do not speak English > at home or in school..."

I hope that TOEFL is offered on a pass/fail criteria. For. e.g. if you score (say) 85% or more, it shouldn't matter if you score 100% for purposes or communication or comprehension.

<comment><USER16> The only criteria for English should be abilities at least as good as the worst teaching assistant in the undergraduate college. This is the lowest possible standard of English language proficiency.

""" WHEN Mark W. Eichin showed up for his course in differential equations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this year, he found that his instructor was a Hindustani whose spoken English was ''almost incomprehensible.'' Along with most of his classmates, the freshman stopped attending lectures. ''People just got their assignments and left,'' he recalled. """

^ Consistent with my own undergrad experience.

<comment><USER53> Wouldn't demanding English language abilities help to reduce instances of this in the future? Like if they're letting students graduate with language deficits then the chance of tutors/teachers/professors having less language ability than desirable would seem to go up?

<comment><USER45> The University of Illinois requires TOEFL and in person English language interviews before a TA or professor from a foreign country is allowed to teach any section. Students still face similar issues, due to accents and the fact that fluency in a language guarantees that you can convey an idea, not that you can engage listeners and use idioms which translate well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I'm sure this is for the sake of "diversity" yet this only harms those kids who can't do any extracurricular activities or similar and had to rely on standardized tests to have a chance. I should know, I was one of them.

So this can only backfire (if the goal really is to get more people from different backgrounds in), as these initiatives always do.

</comment><comment><USER55> I am a class of 2020 MIT student. Taking these tests was sort of awkward in my case. My high school allowed me to take the ACT once for free. I did not have to take SAT Subject Tests for any of my other college applications. I am happy with Stu's decision here. I can speak more on my experience if people would like me to do so.

</comment><comment><USER56> Nearly none of the comments are really about what they're eliminating: SAT subject tests (NOT the SAT!)

The main SAT is basically a basic skills and IQ test while the SUBJECT tests are almost entirely about preparation, making them much easier to game/prepare for.

Source: I tutored the SAT and subject tests.

</comment><comment><USER57> I did poorly for SAT general ability test. But was at the top most percentile (I can't remember the exact number here, long time back) in the subject tests (I think I took Math and Physics). I wonder how that happened if both tests predict performance equally well.

</comment><comment><USER58> What about the College boards initiative to consider adversity? Has that initiative gone anywhere or is it dead? I would rather consider adversity of a child's upbringing in context of standardized test results then any immutable traits.

</comment><comment><USER59> Title nitpick, "SAT Subject Tests" is in a specific case in the original title, and the lack of title-case on "Subject Tests" is making it hard to understand the true announcement.

IE. SATs are staying, SAT Subject Tests are not.

</comment><comment> ismail-khan What's the point of the subject tests anyway when you already have AP exams?

It was pointless for me to do both in high school, the subject tests were much easier.

</comment><comment><USER60> Another item on the list of recent things MIT has done/participated in to reduce its reputation in favor of pleasing the rich and powerful.

</comment><comment><USER61> I took the SAT from Australia and was blown away by how ridiculously easy it was.

Maybe it'd be a better predictor of ability if they made it a bit harder.

<comment><USER25> What's easy for you is not easy for everyone. It currently is a pretty good predictor of ability in college.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> "Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes."

</comment><comment><USER63> The post is a little misleading. MIT will still require SAT or ACT, just not the subject tests.

<comment><USER64> That's exactly what the headline says.

<comment><USER65> So you still have to submit it, but they won't consider it? I'm confused.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Does MIT ask for AMC/AIME scores which are miles above the SAT Math Subject tests?

<comment><USER67> Yes, they are accepted on the application. Many of the undergrads at MIT qualified for the AIME. A substantial number qualified for the USAMO or IMO as well - just look at the Putnam results every year.

Frankly, in order to stand out among MIT applicants by demonstrating some sort of mathematical ability on these exams, the minimum is probably USAMO qualification (top 270 of ~200k AMC takers). Otherwise it's a nice thing to have but not particularly unique. Even then I know a reasonable number of USAMO qualifiers who have been rejected.

Source: was a MIT undergrad < 5 years ago

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Wow I totally forgot about these. I can't even remember which one's I took!

</comment><comment><USER69> I am always wary of universities removing testing requirements as they are usually motivated by activist pressure (vilifying meritocracy and pushing for equity, AKA equality of outcomes) rather than evaluating for the best talent more precisely. Anyone know more about what the story is behind this one?

</comment><comment><USER70> What fraction of applicants were taking the subject tests in the first place?

</comment><comment><USER71> I wonder if this has something to do with the pandemic.

</comment><comment><USER72> Itt: hackernews.txt

</comment><comment><USER73> Ah man, 20 years too late for me!

</comment><comment> awinter-py boolean satisfiability?

</comment><comment><USER74> The only question that now matters: Do you like Trump? if yes, you are out.

</comment><comment><USER75> Everyone here claiming that SATs aren't fair don't seem to realize that SATs are the most fair and most objective criteria in college admissions. It's not perfect but it's the best and only objective measure we have.

GPA is far worse than SATs because not only are each high schools grading standards different, each teacher's grading policy is different. There are plenty of dumb 4.0s out there but there aren't that many dumb 1600s.

Extra-curricular is more unfair than SATs because you generally need time and money and parental involvement for rowing classes.

Interviews are worse because it's a lot more about how the interviewer likes and relates to you.

Of course the most unfair part is legacy admissions which nobody wants to get rid of.

Sure, SATs aren't perfect, but it is the best and most objective measure we have. It's actually the only tool we have to objectively measure and expose racial discrimination in admissions policy. Now, people are fighting against SATs. The only reason I can come up with is that these universities want to participate in racial discrimination.

SATs, GPAs, Extra-curriculur, interview, etc should all be part of a student's portfolio for admissions. That universities want to remove the ONLY, though not perfect, objective measure is worrisome.

</comment><comment><USER76> I'm glad I didn't study at all or have any coaching for the 1600 pt SAT I in the mid 90's because it would've been entirely unnecessary. I missed one question on the math section and it was a dumb mistake on my part. Our school's graduating class alone had over a dozen perfect SATs, multiple full rides to Harvard/MIT/Stanford and around 70 over 1500. ~97% had test prep.

Now go to India, take the JEE and find out how fun testing can be because the SAT is not much harder than a driving test. :) (Emphasis on the JEE being a much better measure because it's more difficult and more voluminous so that it would make Einstein feel insecure and inadequate.)

</comment><comment><USER77> 34 years too goddamn late for me. Yes I'm still angry I didn't get in, because my SATs sucked. Now I run a software company. EAT IT MIT! :)

</comment><comment><USER78> Sometimes, there's good news from coronavirus

</comment><comment><USER79> So they will consider what ? Recommendation letters ? Maybe they dont realise that people from disadvantaged groups dont really have the luxury to volunteer at one of those fancy NGOs. Standardized tests are actually except for the super expensive textbooks in the US. If these books for basic education could somehow be made free but oh wait - socialism.

<comment><USER80> > So they will consider what?

They explain it very clearly: The SAT or ACT, and high school grades.

They are just skipping the _subject_ _tests_ , because they don't think they are useful.

The subject tests are the optional tests that students can take in addition to the normal SAT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> I can project the going south of MIT.

<comment><USER71> BU?</comment></comment>


Trip Hawkins' latest game for Facebook is "best idea I've ever had" - <AUTHOR> http://games.venturebeat.com/2010/03/24/sixteen-years-in-the-making-trip-hawkins-latest-game-for-facebook-is-best-idea-ive-ever-had/

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder how many days until Zynga clones this game.</comment>


When there's so much conflicting startup advice, why even bother reading? - <AUTHOR> http://beaforceofgood.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/742/

<comment><USER2> Hey there. Thanks for posting this on hackernews.</comment>


My So-Called (Millennial) Entitlement - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/s/trustissues/my-so-called-millennial-entitlement-9be84343c713 <comment><USER2> I love the cynicism. Perhaps it's a perspective you normally find in someone older. As a gen-Xer I am sick and tired of people bashing millennials. That Simon Sinek talk is just the worst. Almost every sentence in that talk is completely false. (Heck, not just that Sinek talk, but pretty much all his talks are filled with falsehoods). People _want_ to hear bad things about millennials, but it's just not true.

"Because the worst has already happened. It is happening, and it will continue to happen."

Au-contrair; much, much worse is yet to come.

But I really like her response to the situation. To take personal responsibility and find happiness in the moment. More evidence that the general pop-media consensus on millenials is wrong.

<comment><USER3> They did it to us too. Called us "slackers." America just shits on its young, I guess, and squanders the investment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > You've had a bachelor's degree for three months. It cost $100,000 to earn, > all before interest.

$100,000 well spent. Possibly the best article I've read in years.

</comment><comment><USER5> Agree with all of it, or not, it's a good and thought-provoking read.</comment>


The machine that copies itself - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jul/03/copy.machine.reprap <comment><USER2> Anyone succeeded in making one of these? It looks like they sell a lot of the stuff you would need but are you SOL if you don't know anyone who has one to replicate the custom plastic parts?

<http://dev.www.reprap.org/bin/view/Main/PartsSupplies>

<comment><USER3> You can build a RepStrap to bootstrap your RepRap: <http://dev.www.reprap.org/bin/view/Main/RepStrap>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> RepRap is a cool project, but it's an exaggeration to say that it copies itself. It can make its own plastic parts, but you still need to obtain some metal parts, a motor, etc, and assemble it. Sort of like a metal shop, which is nothing new.</comment>


Show HN: PerfAudit – Performance audit of caniuse.com - <AUTHOR> http://perfaudit.com/case-study/caniuse.com/

<comment><USER2> Cool to see someone else doing this.

If I was doing this myself, I'd suggest working on js.php. It's taking over 1s to get that single file, which appears [1] cacheable. An nginx reverse proxy or something comparable would make this way faster. If there are uncacheable parts of this file, then those could be separated out.

It is interesting that the script is loaded async with "defer", so the page is functional (but not ajax-y) before it's loaded. So the long load time isn't quite so bad. But I'd be interested to hear why the whole file isn't just cached.

Also, for a single-page website like this, where all navigations are loaded with AJAX, I'd suggest inlining all the CSS and JS.

Finally, I'd think about making the entire page itself cached. There doesn't appear to be any sort of login, so it's probably feasible. But I'm not sure how the Settings stuff is implemented; if that's persisted server-side then caching the page wouldn't work.

[1] The Cache-Control header specifies a max-age but not public/private. I honestly don't even know what semantics this has - but it's probably best to make it explicit.

<comment><USER3> @strommen, [1] agree with making static resources cacheable and even using CDN for the same.

[2] inlining all CSS and JS, might not be a good idea, as it has several issues related to the same e.g. not being cacheable to start with, parallel resource request etc.

There are several other optimizations possible to reduce the page load time that we could share, though the issue in hand which required immediate attention and seemed to be causing a serious damage to the user's experience was its rendering performance, which we have focused in our discussion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You could also try [http://perfmonkey.com](http://perfmonkey.com) for automating these perf audits. If uses the same tools used by Chromium for finding perf telemetry - [http://axemclion.github.com/browser- perf](http://axemclion.github.com/browser-perf).

Here is a run for canIuse using the automated tool - [http://www.perfmonkey.com/#/trynow/results/travis/53663113](http://www.perfmonkey.com/#/trynow/results/travis/53663113)

<comment><USER5> Wanted to get an example on one of my projects. Sadly it requires write access to my public repositaries. Sorry - no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Liked the concept of performance auditing websites, are you guys working as consultants?

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now we are just looking for awesome websites to audit as case studies and share with developers. Open to audit requests.

<comment><USER7> We'd love an audit of [https://sourcegraph.com](https://sourcegraph.com)! :)

<comment><USER4> You could try using [http://perfmonkey.com](http://perfmonkey.com) to run a simple scroll test on your webpage. If you are looking at more powerful tests, try out [http://github.com/axemclion/browser- perf](http://github.com/axemclion/browser-perf).

Here is the result I got - [http://www.perfmonkey.com/#/trynow/results/travis/53664194](http://www.perfmonkey.com/#/trynow/results/travis/53664194)

Here is a test I ran on bootstrap CSS library over all its versions - [http://axemclion.github.io/bootstrap- perf](http://axemclion.github.io/bootstrap-perf)

<comment><USER7> Cool, thanks! We get a thumbs down for mean frame time. It'd be great to know where we fit (%ile). Do you think it's because we use Bootstrap and SVGs?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is what we are trying to solve. Using automated tool you know that "your site is painting slow or loading slow". But "Why" is something that is still missing in such tools.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tutorial of Testing on Android Wearables with Appium - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jX7llLI_gE

<comment><USER2> Is that a standard Appium or somehow modified?</comment>


My Guantánamo Nightmare - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/my-guantanamo-nightmare.html?_r=2

<comment><USER2> Astonishing and depressing. Apart from the obvious American political ramifications, the weak-sauce generalization one might derive is: organizations make mistakes. Sometimes big ones. It's never too late to mend them.

Most of the organizations people here are involved with don't make the kind if mistakes that rend families, crush souls, and sour geopolitics, but the admonition still applies.</comment>


Men Say They Want Paid Leave but Then Don't Use All of It. What Stops Them? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/upshot/fathers-parental-leave-unequal.html <comment><USER2> These discussions tend to dance around the elephant in the room: For most of us, work doesn't halt when we're on leave or on vacation. The company fills in the gaps with other employees and continues to evolve without you. The longer you're away from the company, the more likely it is to evolve away from needing you.

It's the same reason people don't take all of their vacation. Being out of the loop is inherently negative for your career at fast moving companies. When you have a new child at home you have more expenses and fewer members of the household able to work. The last thing you want is to fall behind at your job, so you want to get back as soon as possible.</comment>


How I use my Raspberry Pis to help me work on with my side projects - <AUTHOR> https://www.techcoil.com/blog/how-i-use-my-raspberry-pis-to-help-me-work-on-with-my-side-projects/ <comment><USER2> It's not clear exactly how this helps him work compared to just using hosted versions of the services.

It looks like there could potentially be a lot of maintenance to keep multiple individual servers up and running, and this is probably multiple side project in and of itself.

<comment><USER3> I was well on my way to having a forest of RPis. The boxes are cheap, and "they only use 5W"... until you have 10 of them.

I replaced each and every one of them with an Intel NUC (6. gen Celeron) running FreeBSD, and created a jail for each of the services the individual RPIs maintained.

It uses 5-9W (Idle), which is like 80% of the time. It has real Gigabit Ethernet, as well as a SATA SSD, and that alone is enough to provide much higher performance (for me)

The only RPis i have left running are the individual nodes in my video/climate surveillance.

<comment><USER4> Chick-Fil-A use a small cabinet of NUCs and deploy an arbitrary number of services via Kubernetes to all there restaurants. It's a pretty neat setup.

[https://medium.com/@cfatechblog/bare-metal-k8s-clustering- at...](https://medium.com/@cfatechblog/bare-metal-k8s-clustering-at-chick-fil- a-scale-7b0607bd3541)

<comment><USER5> I'm sure i've seen this as a talk too, it was pretty humble iirc they seemed surprised how practical it turned out to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have a 3B+ set up on my desk with a BitScope USB oscilloscope and the Arduino IDE running on it for my hardware projects, a 2B in a closet running Gitea and Docker as "build box" for my containers (it's speedy enough when you move the Docker storage to an external USB HDD) and another 3B to run my 3D printer.

I'm not very keen on running ordinary services on them (my home automation setup runs on an ODROID, with Node—RED and homebridge Docker containers, which benefit from EMMC storage and twice the RAM as a Pi), but I've found the Pi to be a great platform for small self-contained tasks that really benefit from having a dedicated machine with a stable configuration.

Also, I've found them to be quite reliable from the 2B onwards (I even ran a Swarm cluster on a set of mine for a couple of years) — I have all the setup info for most of these on my GitHub profile at [https://GitHub.com/rcarmo](https://GitHub.com/rcarmo)

<comment><USER7> Random question. How is the BitScope USB o-scope?

I'm actually looking for a new O-scope (since I am loosing access to a lab) and I'm looking for something small and compact.

<comment><USER6> It's not ideal for high frequencies, but as a simple logic analyser it's ok. I have used it only for tweaking small oscillators for now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Undeniably, Raspberry Pi has revolutionised the way we use computing > technology in our lives

??? Shouldn't that be "Smartphones" instead? Even if the Raspberry Pi is popular among a certain segment of people, it is nowhere close to being as mainstream as smartphones which have revolutionized the way we use technology.

<comment><USER9> Also, most of my developer friends who have one booted theirs once or twice before disappearing in the closet. We used one as a home server, but replaced it by a NUC, since IO on the Pi is too constrained.

The Micro:Bit at least actually got a foothold in UK education.

<comment><USER10> The Pi is an awkward inbetweener - it's too power-hungry to substitute for a microcontroller, but too basic to replace an x86 computer in most applications.

To be fair, the Micro:Bit exists because of the lessons learned from the failure of the Raspberry Pi in education. In a strange sense, it's the 2.0 version of what the Pi was supposed to be; the Pi lives on because of the hobbyist community, but it failed fairly comprehensively at its intended purpose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The main point of using a Raspberry Pi is for access to the GPIO pins and the built-in camera interface. As others have said, there are better alternatives if all you need is a server.

<comment><USER12> Can you name the alternatives?

<comment><USER13> Rent a vps, digital ocean, linode... buy a desktop computer. My mac broke recently and while in the shop I bought a crappy new desktop for less than 200€. It's running linux and would happily run all this software. it becames cheaper than buying lots of raspberry pi's cases and sdcards and it's easier to mantain.

But if one's doing it for the fun of it as the original author appear to have done, then I have no moral complains to present. :)

<comment><USER14> Why is an old crappy desktop computer universally better than a raspberry pi? I use two raspberry pi to run internal DNS and a couple other things small things. They are silent, take up no space and use almost no power and are almost certainly cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have been experimenting with RPi for the past few months, and when I first got back into it I lost a couple hours diagnosing strange issues that ultimately all led to faulty SD cards. These are decent Samsung cards that work fine in an action camera, but the Pi was frequently dropping SSH sessions and even disconnecting from the network intermittently.

Eventually I tried other cards with better results. Since then I started using ATP aMLC "industrial" Flash, which has been very reliable.

<comment><USER16> Were you using a WiFi adapter?

Intermittent drops often come from undervoltage. You may need a 3.5v power adapter.

Also, slow ssh can come from dns troubles: [http://jrs-s.net/2017/07/01/slow- ssh-logins/](http://jrs-s.net/2017/07/01/slow-ssh-logins/)

<comment><USER17> > You may need a 3.5v power adapter

Do you mean a 3.5A power adapter? The Pi runs at 5v.

I have one running on a 2.0A adapter and it's been running for a few years now. Though it uses ethernet so there's less power consumption compared to one using WiFi.

<comment><USER16> >> Do you mean a 3.5 power adapter?

Yeah- sorry. Trying to do this from memory. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> yjftsjthsd-h So basically, it's a tiny Linux server, and can run various server stacks/webapps, and is relatively accessible to beginners.

<comment><USER18> Except is not x86 therefore less packages available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It felt like a clickbait title after reading the content... Hosting a phpMyAdmin? I was hoping to see some creative ideas...

<comment><USER20> I made an Elixir app[1] that worked on RPi and read various sensors, adjusted lighting and was driving some pumps with PWM. I was trying to grow some exotic plants and wanted to automate as much as possible. It was a fun project, the distributed nature of the language/OTP was really neat and when I bought the second Pi for monitoring the inside of a case it was very easy to hook it up with the former Pi and make it into one system.

Unfortunately, all the plants died after a while - mostly because I didn't finish all the features I wanted to write fast enough... - and I abandoned it. I've been considering doing a write up on it since then, but I'm not sure if that would be interesting to anyone other than me.

I wonder, would that count as creative? Maybe I should do the writeup after all (seeing as simply running some PHP on a few Pis got to the frontpage...)

[1] [https://github.com/piotrklibert/planties](https://github.com/piotrklibert/planties)

<comment><USER21> I'd be very interested; I'm learning Elixir at a new job, and I've got a Raspberry Pi that's been sitting around since two christmases ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> With this many applications I would be looking at getting one higher powered server and running docker on it. Would be more power efficient as you only need one OS and one PSU as well as likely much cheaper.

<comment><USER23> Why docker? Seems like overkill for not much gain.

<comment><USER22> Docker is not overkill at all. Having 20 servers to run a few very low utilization is overkill. When you run a whole bunch of stuff on the same server it becomes a lot simpler than installing them the traditional way. A lot of self hosted server software is not in the repos so you end up having to add extra repos and after you do that a few times I find that something always ends up breaking and ruining the whole OS. Its much simpler to keep the host os basically stock debian with docker installed and then if anything goes bad its contained.

<comment><USER24> but then you have to learn docker and how docker does networking is the overhead they're talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Setup a Raspberry Pi git server

For the love of $DEITY, please at least use an external USB disk. In RAID1, if possible. (Perhaps some multi-RPI git mirroring scheme could work as well? Anyone ever done something like that?)

Do not EVER trust your valuable data on SD-cards on a Raspberry Pi!

<comment><USER6> The 2B and newer boards are much more reliable, especially when running Ubuntu ARM.

<comment><USER25> I think it often depends on the power supply quality. I think many of the cards were corrupted due to bad power.

Regardless, 3 bits per cell TLC SD cards (or QLC, 4 bits per cell, ugh) are not made for repeated writes, like git or database workloads. They will get corrupted even in the best conditions.

You could use industrial SD-cards, but I think it's easier just to plug in a USB drive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> At first a I used a Raspberry Pi as an infrared sending device so I could control my air conditioner and lights remotely. Now I've built that functionality into its own PCB, but as I'm developing that product I need an MQTT broker to connect to. So the Pi now functions as a local MQTT broker until I have a hosted one I'm satisfied with.

Next thing I want to do with it is run a little web app that displays local train and bus times, garbage collection days, weather forecasts, and that sort of thing. They're great for prototyping hardware ideas and running various one-off web services locally!

</comment><comment><USER26> I prefer to think of and use my RPis as home network appliances, things that can run hassle-free.

Examples from my house are: Pihole - Adblock for all wifi devices

Shairport - audio airplay target

Plex - media server

My family members and I simply use these services without even knowing/remembering they're hosted on a RPis. If it requires tinkering or isn't permanent, it goes on a VPS.

Many of the examples listed in the post are things that I would simply host on docker, a VPS or in a VM.

</comment><comment><USER27> I have 3 RPi,s at home.

I have Pi2 that acts as a dashboard for real time data on my train to work, my wife's bus route, weather temp and rain probability. I am using sensehat to present this information through pixels.

I have a Pi3 running home automation (hass.io) which I am new to and find amazing in most part.

And final one in my daughters room which is a Pi0 with Envirophat that's monitoring temperature.

All side project and I am not a developer.

<comment><USER18> What dashboard software you're using?

<comment><USER27> I designed my own. You can read about it here.

[https://goo.gl/Zmdoit](https://goo.gl/Zmdoit)

It has become integral part of our daily routine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm running a completely silent mini ITX J1900 build for a long time now, it has an x86 arch and 4 core CPU with Intel VT-x support where you can run as many KVM instances as your RAM allows for, don't really see how a dozen Raspberry PIs could be better but to each his own. I always recommend silent SOC x86 builds for home dev use instead of RPi

<comment><USER14> Your requirements aren't necessarily the same as everyone else. For people who want something silent and inexpensive to run a few containers, rpi can be hard to beat. Extremely cheap, extremely low power and take up very little physical space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I always used to use various dusty old netbooks for this kind of stuff, and would run many applications on the same one.

A dedicated raspberry pi in a nice little case for each is certainly modern and cool, but it doesn't give me quite the same nostalgia as a ancient laptop shoved in a corner...

</comment><comment><USER30> The article has 9 subchapters. It could have 2 or 3 by saying "Install GitLab", but maybe GitLab can't run on a Raspberry? If you are not restricted to a Pi however, try GitLab and you are done with all the steps described in this article.

</comment><comment><USER31> It should be noted that most single board computers out there can be used to do the same things; a lot of them are more convenient than the Raspberries.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is content spam, correct?

<comment><USER33> He seems to be using a content spam technique. He's effectively pointing to a verbose table of contents for his blog, with a slew of shameless plugs of tangential affiliate links.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> so one of the things not really covered here is how to deal with SD card failure.

Any application that requires any level of writing to disk will almost certainly die in short order.

I have a boatload of Pis, doing a bunch of things, and one of the annoying things is having cards die on me. Everything is in ansible, so its not that much effort to rebuild.

However having any important data living on a pi's SD card is a nono

<comment> mellow-lake-day > so one of the things not really covered here is how to deal with SD card > failure.

I recommend a program like win32diskimager ([https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/)) so you can make images of your SD cards in their working state and if they get corrupted quickly get them back to working order.

> However having any important data living on a pi's SD card is a nono

That is why I wrote a script using the Fabric Python module to log in to my rpi3 and download important files. Ideally the script would run automatically every day but I haven't quite gotten there yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I have always been quite paranoid about port forwarding anything into my home network.

<comment><USER36> I've found ngrok [1] useful for hosting stuff without opening ports. The only problem is you need to pay to get a fixed domain name.

1\. [https://ngrok.com/](https://ngrok.com/)

<comment><USER35> Ah very good. Yip, I've used ngrok before, and it's a beautiful piece of software.. nice!

I do control my pi through telegram (polls a bot), which works nicely for the things I do want to control.

I think for me, I'll just stick with my little linode VPS for hosting side projects :). But, I like the idea of ngrok!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to manage maintenance work vs. developing new products? - <AUTHOR> Both is important. Maintaining current products, which are in the market and making money. And developing new products (or new major updates which take longer) to increase or secure revenue in the future.
Maintaining means here fixing mainly bugs, making changes customers request and developing minor new features. Basically keeping everything running with changing Windows versions, hardware upgrades, etc. Also improving the performance.
Developing new products means creating a new software, which can be included into the offering for example or can be launched on its own.
If a team focusses too much on maintaining, there might be not much growth. If it focusses on developing new products too much, it would lose customers, because the existing products break apart.
How do you handle such a situation? Fixed days in a month for maintenance? Or a fixed day in a week? Or a dedicated person? <comment><USER2> Having one person work on bugs and then rotating that person or group makes a lot of sense for a small/medium size team. If the company is very small the most senior dev usually works on the difficult bugs but you usually support your own feature. Big company there would be teams for each.</comment>


Train control centre passwords revealed on BBC TV - <AUTHOR> https://grahamcluley.com/2015/05/train-control-centre-passwords-revealed/

<comment><USER2> >It's quite possible that the password is for the purpose of logging into the physical desktop computer itself, but still... You've reduced the point of a password if you've stuck it on the very device which needs the password.

1\. Given the adage "physical access is root access", there's not much point _not_ writing it on the device.

2\. It may be that they are using logins to emulate views (e.g. the system only supports one saved view per user), and that is the login for the view for that particular screen. It might even be a completely read-only account.</comment>


Ask HN: How do investors feel about married couples? - <AUTHOR> I'm married, and my wife and I have been working on a startup together. Both of us have skills in our startup space, and thus far have contributed equally to our endeavor.
However, I know some investors might take issue with two founders being married (we have a third founder).
So, I was curious if anyone had any insight/thoughts? Particularly, how does YC feel about this? <comment><USER2> In general VCs may view this negatively, but traction trumps everything. If you can prove that you can execute and that you may be onto a billion dollar opportunity then investors will tolerate essentially anything.

Compared to other teams you may need to be further along (in terms of traction) to prove that you can work well together.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. I'd say anything that distracts a founder from focusing on their business and growing 10x may be viewed negatively. But prove that there's traction and everything else doesn't really matter. You could probably convince others that being married is the only way you guys can keep sane so the both of you can grow the company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lanyrd was developed while the founders (Simon Willison and Natalie Downe) were on honeymoon, and was subsequently accepted into YC (Jan 2011) and has since been acquired by Eventbrite.

The story of the site is well worth a read - [http://blog.natbat.net/post/61658401806/lanyrd-from-idea- to-...](http://blog.natbat.net/post/61658401806/lanyrd-from-idea-to-exit-the- story-of-our)

</comment><comment><USER5> Most investors will view this as a factor among many when deciding whether to invest. Sometimes that factor will be a negative, sometimes a positive, sometimes neutral -- depending on the circumstances. It definitely does give them something to think about and to be concerned about; but doesn't mean investors won't invest.

What will a VC care about when analyzing this factor? The best explanation of what the VC will consider is probably similar to what a couple-team should be considering before forming a startup.

</comment><comment><USER6> I founded a startup with my wife 4 years ago. We're now at Series B from top tier investors (Sequoia, Lightspeed) and it has never been an issue for us. I think the fact that we complemented each other so well was actually a plus.

I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. We actually worried about it quite a bit so I understand got concerns.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's fine, but you need to have an agreed strategy for what happens to the company if you break up. Will one founder leave, what happens to the stock, etc.

As long as you can treat it professionally it shouldn't be a problem for most serious investors.

</comment><comment><USER8> your customers opinion of the product matters more than everything else. two of YC's founders Paul n Jessica are married .

<comment><USER9> although they married quite some years after YC was founded</comment></comment>


Tech World in 52 Cards – One of a Kind Poker Deck about the Tech/Startup World - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedentmakers.com/ <comment><USER2> Hi guys,

I'm Minh, I'm a newbie designer based in VN. I've been pouring my heart into this really cool deck about tech/startups.

I plan to launch this on KickStarter this November but I'm really struggling to spread the words about this.

If you found it cool, please share it to turn this project into reality.

Feel free to ask me if you have any question.

Thank you guysssss

Minh</comment>


Ask HN: How do you monetise or shut up free-riders? - <AUTHOR> In the last five years, my modest attempts at internet B2C met an increasing number of vocal, self-entitled or just angry free-riders that added a lot of noise without providing any value. I understand free-riding is just another social expression these days and cheeky devs can just exploit that by offloading beta-testing to them. In the mid-to-long term of the life of a service, though, free-riders inevitably become a nuisance. How do you keep that noise under control? The simplest way is to fence your service by just giving one or two features for free without any assistance, while charging for the core, that is a paywall. Any other way? More subtle strategies to convert at least a part or have some acting as evangelists in disguise? Thanks. <comment><USER2> Don't think of it as "free-riders". I had a person who would idle in my service for free. They had a small bankroll and my system required $30K and my service is rather expensive compared to my competitors, which would have eaten up all their money.

The person would initiate discussions with new people and helped foster a healthy discussion in our chatroom just by asking questions which were of importance to them. Further, they would ask me more questions about my system, which I never thought about because my account size was significantly larger and it never dawned on me. I was able to create a Discord channel with all the answers to the questions they asked and that helped convert new users who joined the channel at a faster rate.

Some people have capital to spend, some have time to spend. Oddly enough this person was so encouraged they posted about my service on their own social media accounts without me asking and it helped grow my community of followers much faster. However, I don't have a "free" tier only a trial tier, so maybe that is what allowed me to not spend too much time on catering to people without the required capital to spend. In fact, many people don't sign up for the trial and are waiting to grow their accounts before they exhaust the free trial. So maybe, you can do the same, allow the "free" features as a trial. I do post some plans in the #general channel for free for stocks that someone with a small bankroll can get in on, but that's on a random basis.

I am curious to hear what people's opinion is of the evangelist perspective.</comment>


Facebook Gets it. Google Doesn't.  - <AUTHOR> http://uncrunched.com/2014/04/30/facebook-gets-it-google-doesnt/ <comment><USER2> > Facebook is addressing a strong desire for privacy by its users

This is some serious horseshit by Arrington. Only a fool would believe this[1]. Facebook's entire history is anti-privacy from the very beginning (here's a nice list: [http://pleasedeletefacebook.com](http://pleasedeletefacebook.com)) and they do their business a disservice by not collecting as much as possible. Facebook users don't care about privacy; it's the reason they still use the service even after every privacy violation.

Trying to spin this into a Facebook vs Google match is absurd. Facebook wants all of your data just as much as Google. They're called Big Data for a reason and information is their currency.

1\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7675962](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7675962)

<comment><USER3> When you want companies to change their behavior, it's not fair to forever judge them by the same set if historical facts.

Zuckerberg used to say "real name for eveything." Later he said he could see good reasons to remain anonymous online sometimes. And this "anonymous login" feature sounds great.

Meanwhile Google is forcing everyone into creating Google Plus pages, real name usage on YouTube, lining all services into one, etc.

Look at the arc of their actions--the trend. I think Arrington got this one right. Facebook is improving their treatment of privacy as Google is getting worse.

<comment><USER2> > it's not fair to forever judge them by the same set if historical facts

Disagree. The spots on the leopard don't simply change and there's no such thing as "anonymous" to Facebook. That's antithesis to their business. This is purely a PR play.

By the way, we learned from the AOL data breach in 2006 that "anonymous" doesn't actually exist on the internet[1]. So let's not pretend Facebook is trying to do us all a great favor.

1\. [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09aol.html?page...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09aol.html?pagewanted=all) "A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749"

<comment><USER4> I didn't think that it would change magically either, which is why I asked the question I mentioned in another comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Arrrrrington is off his rocker again. Harkening the death of Google and Google+ as if he'd spent enough time around there to know what he's talking about.

He doesn't even bother researching the technology he's writing about

> "I don't know the details"

Yet he tries to pass it off as some miraculous milestone. It's an interesting feature set that I've never thought about before, and I've never seen envisioned before. An identity platform that doesn't reveal your identity. Bringing all the joys of single sign-on without any of the permissions.

But he then uses it as an excuse to complain and whine about Google+, which while some of us have reasons against it concerning anonymity and privacy, remains a brilliant identity platform that's done wonders for any service it's been integrated in - at least for me personally.

There's a reason I don't have Uncrunched in my RSS reader anymore, and it has a LOT to do with how he's completely let his emotions overrule any journalistic integrity he might have once had.

<comment><USER6> Research isn't exactly his forte. I've had to experience that myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Doesn't matter which large company "gets" it -- what we really need is a good, decentralized, easy to use, open, optionally-anonymous identity system on the web. Easy-to-use being the key feature.

Until that happens, whether it's FB or Google or whomever else, we're stuck as the "product, not the consumer" (as Arrington correctly puts it).

<comment><USER8> How does Mozilla Persona satisfy your requirements?

<comment><USER7> It doesn't, however I think Mozilla is the one organization that _could_ pull it off.

1) They've basically killed it

2) It's just a Facebook Connect clone, without your social graph (no incentive for the implementor)

3) Normal people had no clue what "Persona" was; it was confusing (no incentive for the user)

4) Not decentralized enough (they wanted it to be; just never got there.)

5) Not enough integration with the browser (also wanted it; never got there)

I realize the final two are contradictions to a certain extent. There were a lot more issues with it; this is just the ones that came to mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd enjoy being able to give my users a line-item veto on permissions. It isn't really difficult to code around missing data, so I'd just assume treat it as a request up front.

</comment><comment><USER10> Sorry, if you think Facebook "gets it", you are deluded.

<comment><USER6> It's Michael Arrington. Deluded is an understatement.

<comment><USER10> It's funny because I didn't notice that at first. Followed up with "ohhhhhh, right". :-P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why does anyone care about this?

Both of these companies have access to your data if you use their service.

Let me repeat that.

If you use Facebook, Facebook can use and do whatever with your data.

If you use Google's services, Google can use and do whatever with your data.

If you don't want them to use your data don't use their service.

This is getting redundant people.

</comment><comment><USER12> I hate this "gets it" mentality that gets brought into the picture anytime any product can be described with the word "social" in the description. It's a product, and taking the Hank Hill approach, the quality of the product should be the priority.

</comment><comment><USER13>
        No one uses Google+, but the whole Internet has an account there.

Author can't be so ignorant and supremely egotistical.

A friend of mine uses Google+ to post pictures. He has over a million views and an audience that he wouldn't have otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER14> Am I the only one who feels a real mental disconnect with the people complaining about Facebook? I read interviews by developers there, where it's pretty evident that they have reasonable perspectives (i.e. they aren't evil), then I see a barrage of ridiculous vitriol. I then go to all the sites where people list "why Facebook is evil", and all I can find is misinformation, opinion, and minor understandable things blown out of proportion.

<comment><USER10> Facebook is 'evil' because their actual, factual business plan is collecting and selling your personal information. You just can't really argue your way out of that one.

No, of course I don't think the people that work there are off their rocker, or actually evil -- I just don't intend to participate in their monetization plan is all.

<comment><USER14> So this free website that serves billions of people makes money off the data you knowingly give it to target advertisements. That's what is considered evil nowadays?

Does it escape people that this is the only way we're going to get free social media or search engines? Here are the options the currently existing websites have:

      1. Free and sells data to advertisers
      2. Not free
      3. Nonexistent

If none of those options please you, then it's not some concern about malpractice, it's just being unrealistic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A Google employee has recently posted this: [https://plus.google.com/+BrianWhite1/posts/T56nDLcMHVk](https://plus.google.com/+BrianWhite1/posts/T56nDLcMHVk)

<comment><USER10> That's utterly meaningless. I don't think Google is amoral; I do think their product is selling my information to advertisers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Google is a dinosaur, it's sad but at this point it's pretty clear that's how it is. The top executives are detached from the way that the internet is used / moving towards. They grew up before an era where internet communication is the dominant form of communication. I hope they do great things with AI and wearables but in internet communications they are done.

</comment><comment><USER17> Perfect linkbait title. The details matter tremendously, both companies get a lot of things.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is this guy paid to write bullshit? WTF is he talking about? Facebook got its ass reamed by the FTC because it was retroactively changing its privacy terms, and making previously private user data, public. They are not "motivated by the privacy demands of their users."

OP is a moron.

</comment><comment><USER19> Arrington is still around? When will he go away? Thankfully techcrunch is mostly irrelevant lately, but ugh seeing Arrington posts is enough to last awhile.</comment>


10 Reasons Why Great Advisors Matter - <AUTHOR> http://advisorgarage.wordpress.com/2007/03/02/10-reasons-why-great-advisors-matter/ <comment><USER2> I disagree. From my blog post, "I recently dissolved the advisor group. Advisors are a fixture of startups. Advice is nice, but I much prefer effort - because Talk is Easy but Effort shows Commitment." For advisors, look to books by Kawasaki, Paul Graham etc. I would rather get a good team.</comment>


Minerva Forum is a winner in EdTech. Is there an open source alternative? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Couldn't you just combine some open source LMS + skype group calls? Or if you want video conf to be open source too, maybe jitsi? See [https://jitsi.org/news/new-feature-brady-bunch-style- layout/](https://jitsi.org/news/new-feature-brady-bunch-style-layout/)

Looking at [https://aribadernatal.com/projects/Minerva/](https://aribadernatal.com/projects/Minerva/) it seems there are a bunch of other tools like "Degree Planner", "Course Builder" and "Assessment tool suite" but I guess you can expect som lesser version of the tools will be available in the LMS.

I don't think it's just the software that makes Minerva a winner... It's probably the well though out curriculum and teachers leading the classes. Also I hear they are fairly selective about students they accept. Basically, smart students + dedicated teacher + good curriculum = score, and software probably just gets some assist points.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Minerva's Innovative Platform Makes High Quality Higher Ed Personal And Affordable

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomvanderark/2019/04/08/minerva...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomvanderark/2019/04/08/minervas- innovative-platform-makes-high-quality-higher-ed-personal-and- affordable/#2b2441f95742)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Live Online Video Classes Are 'The New Face-to-Face.' So How Many Students Can They Handle at a Time?

[https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-04-16-live-online-video- cl...](https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-04-16-live-online-video-classes-are- the-new-face-to-face-so-how-many-students-can-they-handle-at-a-time)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Minerva Project Raises $57M to Support Its Tech Platform—and Spin Off Its School

[https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-07-11-minerva-project- rais...](https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-07-11-minerva-project- raises-57m-to-support-its-tech-platform-and-spin-off-its-school)</comment>


Shakespeare would have had a blog - <AUTHOR> http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/story/rich-and-strange

<comment><USER2> That was interesting, somewhat over the top in it's literary pretensions, but I think the point is correct. Shakespeare loved the mediums of his time, worked within them and expanded them. If he was around, he'd be blogging, and we'd all be intimidated by how prolific he is.</comment>