University of Tokyo Graduate School Entrance Exam – Mathematics (2016) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp/edu/entra/pdf/archive/16math_e.pdf <comment><USER2> Goodness me, this brings back memories having taken the entrance exam back in 2009. I am glad that they have removed the "We do not guarantee the accuracy of the English translation of the original Japanese version of the exam" clause. It should be noted that this is only one "session" of a series of exams that you take in a single day. If I remember correctly there were two computer science sessions as well, followed by a presentation of your thesis in front of the faculty once your exams had been graded. After this you had to wait for a few weeks for the final result.

It should be noted that I don't find these exams to be particularly difficult, the main difficult lies in the fact that the number of potential topics are drawn from the whole University of Tokyo undergraduate curriculum, so if you studied as an undergraduate at a different school or country -- like me -- you are at a significant disadvantage. What I did was to look at ten years or so of exams to get some statistics on what was likely to be on the exam, then locked myself in my room for the whole of January to cover portions that I had not studied before -- like network protocol specifics. In the end, it worked out for me, but I got somewhat lucky in that there were two statistics questions that I could breeze through to cover for my weaker calculus skills given my old school's focus on discrete mathematics.

<comment><USER3> Problem 1.1 seems to be within the realm of casual curiosity for somebody who hasn't even entered _undergraduate_ school. It's basically "I know what a matrix is, and how a matrix multiplies with a vector".

<comment><USER4> Only vaguely related, but I've made it all the way through high school (doing the 2 hardest of three maths subjects) and a software development degree without ever having a lesson on Matrices.

There really seems to be a hole in the system somewhere.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, matrices are also very useful. Instead of needing the "Tribonacci" equation definition, you can approximate or exactly match a large number of equations and operations with matrices.

Anyway, there are many things missing. I feel that _An Introduction to Law and Legal Reasoning_ should be standard middle-school reading; but alas, civics has not been part of the curriculum in my life time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Note that the linked paper is a mathematics exam that applies to the entire faculty (not just CS). In addition to that exam, one must also take a CS- specific exam. It seems that the Summer and Winter exams are rather different:

August 2015: [http://www.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp/edu/course/cs/pdf/2016computer-s....](http://www.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp/edu/course/cs/pdf/2016computer-s.pdf)

February 2016: [http://www.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp/edu/course/cs/pdf/2016computer-w....](http://www.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp/edu/course/cs/pdf/2016computer-w.pdf)

Edit: Looking at the exam guide [0], it seems that it's only if you want to sit the exam in the Summer that you must also take the separate maths exam; the Winter CS paper already includes maths questions so there is no separate maths exam.

[0] [http://www.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp/edu/course/cs/pdf/H29csguide_e.pd...](http://www.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp/edu/course/cs/pdf/H29csguide_e.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoops, I didn't do too much research. I actually thought I linked to that CS- specific exam. I think these look rather hard! (I'm even a last year Bachelor student in Math/CS.)

<comment><USER5> I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this looks difficult. As someone who studied pure undergraduate CS (the course only included a couple of relatively basic maths units) in the UK, I feel I'd have to do a fair amount of self- study before attempting this exam (even the CS-specific exams are quite tough!).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why is it that I find these questions always posed in a way that is MEANT TO make me NOT understand them? Granted, math is not my topic. However, I am interested and want to learn.

I don't mean to be a dick, but I just simply find it frustrating that the goal of most mathematicians is to pose some question/conjecture in as few sentences as humanly possible. It really grinds my gears how interesting problems are always abstracted behind confusing vertical specific language. Even when reading a Wikipedia article about some cool problem, you get hit in the face with some abstraction that makes most problems seem far more complicated than they actually are.

This is probably not a view shared by many here, but if math problems were to be communicated in more natural ways, far more people would be interested in the sciences.

Just my 2 cents!

Ps. I understand that this is an M.SC. exam. I am talking about math in general, not this pdf!

<comment><USER7> Mathematical language is precise. Problem 1 of this problem sheet is expressed in precisely as many words and symbols as is required.

You dont need any more language to fully understand the problem. Any less, and the problem would not be correctly specified.

That is the beauty of mathematics. The things you say are always falsifiable.

When taking a math exam, you can not contest having "misunderstood the question". The question is precise. By saying you "misunderstood it", you acknowledge that you don't understand the topic well enough to pass the exam. There are no ambiguities in correctly expressed math.

Whatever youre going to write down as your answer for problem 1a) is either correct or its not. No amount of arguing is going to change that. We don't need to write essays and we don't want to. We just apply what's been proven correct to solve new problems.

If math problems were "communicated in more natural ways", they would be reduced to problems people are going to argue and reason about, like they do in a liberal arts class. If you don't want cough up the required rigor, just go do something different.

Mathematics does not make amendments for the rigor impaired. If you want to study something math-y without all the rigorous proofs, physics is what you're looking for.

<comment><USER6> > When taking a math exam, you can not contest having "misunderstood the > question". The question is precise. By saying you "misunderstood it", you > acknowledge that you don't understand the topic well enough to pass the > exam.

This right here is completely unfair and infuriating.

Great mathematicians always find themselves taking the wrong turn and producing the wrong result(s) because they "misunderstood the question". Granted they learn form their mistake and revise and iterate until they get their theories and proofs right. But if they constantly fail, how could you then claim that they "don't understand the topic well enough". Are you telling me that Tao does not understand prime numbers well enough because he cannot solve for formula X?

This is the 3rd post that I reply to that seem to illustrate my point. You are RIGHT about the nature of mathematical language. But you CANNOT appeal to the general public with that arrogant attitude. You cannot communicate using dense language and expect non-math people to relate or even care. Granted, you might not give a fuck about that. But that is counter productive because if you want more rigor in society you should introduce more people to math rather than having them being put-off by some elitist attitude.

Once again, this is a M.SC. Exam so it should be this way. My issue is with math communication to the public in general, not this pdf specifically!

<comment><USER7> I don't expect non-math people to relate or even care. If you open a textbook on algebraic topology and you've never studied even the most mundane calculus, you won't understand anything.

Somehow, this infuriates people.

The same people would have no problem admitting that they should probably not read specialized literature on law that requires readers to have gone through 8 years of law school before they can make sense of the content.

Mathematical literature is not meant for casuals. Its impossible to express advanced concepts concisely, in such a way that people who don't know the material can understand them.

This is like asking someone for an explanation on how to walk and then throwing a fit when they reply with "well, place one foot on front of the other in such a way that you dont fall over". You don't expect them to discuss activation levels in skeletal musculature resulting from biochemical processes in the nervous system. But in Math, thats what you want. Clear and concise language that inspires and is fun AND fully describes the problem at the same time.

Not going to happen.

<comment><USER6> You still don't get it... You are arguing against something I did not say!

<comment><USER7> Theres no elitism in math. We just require you to write proof in such a way that it is actually a proof, and not just some idea you've had.

In order to do that, you need to study math. Not because we are elitists but because you need to learn how to prove something. You need to learn the tools.

The same way a mason expects you to learn his craft before he takes you seriously. If you don't have a clue about masonry, you can still semi reliably build a brickwall in your backyard. But not a cathedral. Obviously, you dont expect anyone to allow you to work on a cathedral. But you expect mathematicians to take your thoughts on math seriously.

Its like a bootcamp idiot trying to piss all over a big software project. Just because they know how to vomit on a keyboard doesnt mean they get to make decisions.

<comment><USER6> you STILL dont get it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Some number theory, linear algebra, calculus of variations, combinatorics, etc. From the applied math side of things, it isn't terribly deep. It's actually right about what I would expect from an applied math student who was good at the undergraduate level and ready to study at a competitive university.

For general admissions for any discipline though, I'll agre it's probably a bit rough for non applied math grads. At least it doesn't include any analysis, abstract algebra (groups, rings, fields, etc.), or topology. Which would be murder for non-math majors.

<comment><USER9> Honestly, I thought it was an undergrad entrance exam and was feeling sorry for Japanese high school students, before I checked the title again.

<comment><USER10> Yes, I made that mistake.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Question 1. Linear Algebra Level

Question 2. Calculus II Level

Question 3. Probability & Statistics Level

You learn how to solve all of this in Undergraduate American Engineering courses.

<comment><USER12> Yep. I was going to say the same thing, seems like a pretty solid test. Series and linear algebra, calculus, probability sounds like just about everything I saw in my Mechanical Engineering degree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I believe I could have done all of these questions 12-16 years ago. Shockingly I can't do any of them anymore without refreshing myself for what they are even asking in some cases.

</comment><comment><USER14> Wow, people saying that it is "really simple". I feel dumb.

<comment><USER15> I think that if you have just passed your undergrad degree, these questions are indeed not _that_ hard, because the stuff is still quite fresh in your mind.

If you have left university for some time, chances are you did not do any math in that time inbetween, if you are a software engineer. Software engineering requires logical thinking in a different way than mathematics, so we do not really keep our mathematics skills up to date.

Looking at document, I can remember touching the necessary mathematics to solve this, but not having done any mathematics of the kind makes me too rusty in mathematics to be able to solve it.

With a bit of revision, someone having seen this somewhere in undergrad will probably be able to solve it.

<comment><USER5> An undergraduate degree in maths, sure. But if your degree is in computer science, I think it's likely you'd never come across any of this during the course. Some universities may teach it, but there are probably plenty that don't.

<comment><USER16> Any self respecting university that teaches a formal computer science degree would teach this level of mathematics. Mine went beyond and happily forced students to learn introductory quantum mechanics as well, which annoyed the CS students to no end.

<comment><USER17> MIT, for example, doesn't require their CS students to take a differential equations class. So you're wrong in that respect. The rest is certainly doable though.

<comment><USER16> There's nothing in this exam that requires specific diff eq knowledge.

<comment><USER17> Doesn't question 2, problem 2?

<comment><USER16> No? That's calc 2 level problem, not a diff eq one. Partial derivatives are hardly diff eq territory.

<comment><USER17> Sorry, I'm not american. What does calc 2 normally refer to in the US?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> this is graduate school of information science, not the mathematics department of University of Tokyo

here's the exam (in Japanese)

[http://www.ms.u-tokyo.ac.jp/kyoumu/documents/26english.pdf](http://www.ms.u-tokyo.ac.jp/kyoumu/documents/26english.pdf)

[http://www.ms.u-tokyo.ac.jp/kyoumu/docs/26a%200119.pdf](http://www.ms.u-tokyo.ac.jp/kyoumu/docs/26a%200119.pdf)

[http://www.ms.u-tokyo.ac.jp/kyoumu/docs/26b%200119.pdf](http://www.ms.u-tokyo.ac.jp/kyoumu/docs/26b%200119.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER19> Assuming it is directed towards admission into a Graduate Mathematics / Engineering Program, it looks pretty average to me.

For a student who is in-form (e.g. a fresh graduate or a mature student who has taken 2-3 advanced calculus and algebra+stats courses as refresher), they should be able to perform.

</comment><comment><USER20> And I was angry at my uni,that my cs curriculum contained almost no maths. After reading this paper I realized that I am glad I didn't have to study this. Some calculus would have been useful though, as I am in a machine learning field now

<comment><USER21> That's really shocking to hear. When I was in university CS was almost exclusively math. At the time that was the delineation between CS and computer engineering. One was mostly theoretical expressed through equations. The other was just practical application of EE and software development. And the finance college had the MIS program. They were using java.

<comment><USER5> In my personal experience studying undergraduate CS, apart from the dedicated maths modules, we did use mathematical notation for lambda expressions, regular expressions, finite automata, Turing machines and the like. We didn't cover calculus or probability though (I think you were expected to learn that in secondary school). I vaguely recall that we touched on matrices and eigenvalues/vectors. But essentially, we were only taught the maths that we needed to know for CS. And of course there were units that didn't use much maths at all, such as systems development and human-computer interaction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> No algebra at all---seems very odd because much of modern mathematics relies heavily on group and field theory.

<comment><USER23> Maybe they teach advanced algebra during graduate studies, so you are not expected to know it at the entrance exams? At least in my experience that was the case -- I've only learned group and field theory while doing my CS master.

<comment><USER2> Todai has a strong traditional science profile and traditionally science deals mainly with calculus and statistics. This leads to less of an emphasis on algebra for these exams since they are based on the undergraduate curriculum. It is regrettable, especially for those like myself that came from a school that emphasised algebra and theoretical computer science and only taught advanced calculus at a graduate level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So I never really got too deep into math, once I decided I wasn't going into physics as a career I backed off, but this throws me back into 12th grade AP Physics exams. I'll never forget refusing to take a bad grade on a matrix problem(?) and skipping the next few classes to spend hours trying to do it the long way... I didn't get credit for that question.

That being said, now that I'm on the other side of college and in a steady career, I'm really interested in diving deeper into math. Does anyone have any recommendations on resources for learning from Calculus on? I could probably do with a Calc refresher as well. Thanks!

<comment><USER25> here's a post from mathstackexchange that I always get back to: [http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/843697/learning- high...](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/843697/learning-higher- mathematics-on-your-own)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> For a grad school entrance exam this isn't too difficult. It's first and second-year maths stuff for a decent CS degree that doesn't skip out on the basics.

</comment><comment><USER27> Interesting that this is entirely in English. Is this the English language version for foreign students, or are Japanese masters students expected to be fluent in English?

<comment><USER5> There is also a Japanese language version:

[http://www.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp/edu/entra/pdf/archive/16math_j.pd...](http://www.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp/edu/entra/pdf/archive/16math_j.pdf)

<comment><USER28> That's interesting. I know Japanese has multiple scripts. Problems 1 and 3 appear to be in a much simpler script that looks less dense. Problem 2 is using whatever script that looks closer to Chinese and is full of much more complicated characters. Is there a reason for that? Did Japan import whatever concept question 2 is about from China and developed the math for the other questions independently?

<comment><USER29> As someone with moderate Japanese literacy, I don't really see the distinction between the problems that you're referencing. All problems here are using the same mix of phonetic and logographic characters, which is typical of modern written Japanese.

>Did Japan import whatever concept question 2 is about from China and developed the math for the other questions independently?

Very unlikely. Japanese concepts expressed by the borrowed Chinese logographic script (known locally as kanji) are frequently quite different than the meaning that would be expressed in Chinese.

Additionally, choosing to write a text with relatively dense usage of kanji characters doesn't necessarily imply anything meaningful. For one, the swap between phonetic script and kanji often plays the role that the empty 'space' character plays in western languages. Sometimes the concepts being discussed include words that are homophones/homographs that are difficult to distinguish between in phonetic script, but are easy to distinguish with kanji. For instance, 'hashi' = chopsticks or bridge depending on emphasis. Aside from use of context it's not necessarily clear what you mean if you spell it out, but there are two distinct kanji for either 'chopsticks' or 'bridge' that are usually known, so it's easier to use those to ward off ambiguity. In other cases, choices between use of phonetic scripts or kanji simply comes down to nothing more than convention.

<comment><USER30> > For instance, 'hashi' = chopsticks or bridge depending on emphasis.

or edge.

For the curious readers, since you didn't include the corresponding chinese characters:

hashi (chopsticks): 箸

hashi (bridge): 橋

hashi (edge): 端

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is really really simple btw, for a grad school entrance exam. Anyone who has successfully studied mathematics for a year should be able to score 100% on this exam.

<comment><USER31> 1st question is Linear Algebra

2nd question is Calc 2+Differential Equations

3rd question is probability/stats

an analysis class would probably help as well

I guess it's pretty feasible to take all of those in a year, especially if mathematics is your area of study. This wasn't the case in engineering in my experience. In any case, this wouldn't be so bad with a 4 year degree. Not really any harder than other PhD candidacy exams I've looked at

<comment><USER32> Oh wait, is it for a PhD program? Then it is pretty easy indeed. Although I would still possibly choke on proving that the surface area equals that formula.

I mean, are you supposed to use the standard formula for surface of revolutions ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_of_revolution#Area_for...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_of_revolution#Area_formula))? Are you supposed to derive this formula yourself?

Strictly speaking, I don't even know the definition of surface.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I would have been able to do this with no effort 20 years ago, but nowadays I would be totally incapable of solving even one of the problem. Damn I feel the years.

<comment><USER34> Same feeling here. I only kept up with discrete math and the rest seems completely lost...

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Hah! I gave 3.1 - 3.4 as an assignment to second-year CompSci students literally three weeks ago. Although my version was to determine the values experimentally for n<=8 bits and then estimate values for n up to 64. Bonus marks awarded for a mathematical proof of the pattern (which isn't really all that bad if you apply probability to patterns of two bits).

<comment><USER36> What form does the answer to 3.3 look like? Would it break apart the case for abs(r-s) > 1, which is 0?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Solving 3.1 I think the solution is binomial(n1+r-1,r-1) where n1=n-r, but I obtained that formula by calculating the formula for r=1, then r=2, and the relation f(r,n) = sum(f(r-1,n-i),i,0,n) and using maxima with simpsum and factor to obtain a simplified expression whose form suggest the general rule, but I don't see a simpler way.

<comment><USER38> If you want something to Google, the result is completely standard, and it goes by the name of "stars and bars".

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm a CS grad who is fairly strong with maths but never really did learn to write a proper proof. All of these questions I would have been able to "solve", but the proofs would have been very casual. What would be a valid answer it 2.3 where it basically asks you to integrate an expression of F after substituting y'=dx/dy?

<comment><USER38> "2.3" is a bit ambiguous as a label; do you mean part 3 of question 2, or the part of question 2 in which equation 2.3 occurs?

If you mean part 2 of question 2: my answer would be "dF/dx = del F/del y dy/dx + del F/del y' dy'/dx; but we know del F/del y = d/dx(del F/del y'), so dF/dx = d/dx(del F/del y') dy/dx + del F/del y' dy'/dx, which by the product rule is d/dx(y' del F/del y'). Now integrate both sides."

If you mean part 3 of question 2: just substitute F(y, y') from (2.2) into (2.4).

<comment><USER40> I think a major problem with mathematical language is lack of discoverability. If I don't understand a specific symbol or notation, there is no way to click "go to definition" or look it up on Google.

Furthermore while mathematicians pride themselves on rigor, I would bet that a lot of proofs require the reader to fill in incomplete steps and/or contain notational mistakes. Just try to imagine what kind of code you would end up with if you did not have access to a compiler and relied only on your logical reasoning for writing correct code. Even if the code was reviewed by other peers, who themselves do not have access to a compiler, they would miss some mistakes because, being familiar with the subject, their brain would fill in the correct meanings.

<comment><USER38> I think this might be attached to the wrong comment?

<comment><USER40> Not really. It's simply a general observation I made after reading your post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> What exam is it relative to that : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Japan#School_grad...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Japan#School_grades) ? What are the age of the students ?

<comment><USER42> This is an entrance exam for graduate school, so around age 22–23.

<comment><USER41> Wow seems really easy for that age.

<comment><USER43> Yes, the graduate school paper exam of Todai is not difficult compared to the undergraduate entrance exam for that age. The graduate one only requires the very basics to do research. Requirements are different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Interesting to see how it compares to my undergrad efforts: [http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=003128320891498...](http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=00312832089149851850)

</comment><comment><USER45> I have not truly figured out the difference between permutations and combinations. I know about permutations having 'order' but when I see real questions I got lost. Could someone help this 'lost' soul?

</comment><comment><USER46> In problem 2, the Euler Lagrange equation imply that we are looking for the function y(x) such as the surface is minimal, so the solution is a cylinder, ie y(x)=constant=c=2.

<comment><USER37> The solution to the Euler equation gives the minimal surface with is obtained when y(x) is a catenoid, y=c cosh(x/c) here c satisfies 2=c cosh(1/c). The Euler equation gives the minimal distance when the function F is the length of the arc.

</comment></comment><comment> _-__--- I get stuck after the first few subproblems on all three. Does anyone have a PDF of the solutions? Are the solutions ever released?

I'm a little rusty on my linear algebra.

<comment><USER38> I whipped up a quick answer to q2; I don't know if it's right.

[https://www.patrickstevens.co.uk/misc/TokyoEntrance2016/Toky...](https://www.patrickstevens.co.uk/misc/TokyoEntrance2016/TokyoEntrance2016.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Does anyone have links to Undergraduate entrance exams from other Universities?

I am currently taking one in my country and would like to compare the level with mine.

<comment><USER48> For India, we have entrance exams for admissions into IIT's. Here ([http://cms.fiitjee.co/Resources/DownloadCentre/Document_Pdf_...](http://cms.fiitjee.co/Resources/DownloadCentre/Document_Pdf_42.pdf)) is one solved maths paper of it. Mind you, this is for admission in undergraduate courses straight out of school.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The elitist cunts that are in this chat are the reason why science will never matter to the world.

But hey, at least you are better than everyone else right?</comment>


Tech company career ladders - <AUTHOR> http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2018/04/23/pace/ <comment><USER2> "inhumane quasi-slavery visa situation that we do to our friends who happen to be born somewhere else" \- thank you so much for this rant.

I've spent the last 3 years in Taiwan sitting tight and waiting until I have enough work experience to qualify for the Skilled Migrant Category visa for New Zealand (Canada and Australia are also options, with similar requirements). Now I have those 3 years, I'm trying to get a job at one of the 75 tech companies on the Accredited Employers list who can actually give me a visa. Then, if all goes well, I can get be a Permanent Resident after 2 years. And only then can I think about getting married, learning to drive, settling down. It's been a long road to get to where I am now, aged 28, and I really hope some company will notice my plight and be willing to take me through the last step of finding a country to call home.

<comment><USER3> Is there a reason you need to be sponsored by a company?

Australia has a skilled independent points-based visa which gives you the permanent right to live and work. I've actually just been granted mine about a week ago.

I take it that New Zealand doesn't have an equivalent?

I've written up a little log of what I had to do, which you might find helpful: [https://recklessclicking.com/notes/australian- immigration.ht...](https://recklessclicking.com/notes/australian- immigration.html)

<comment><USER2> Your log is very helpful, thank you! I've done a lot of research and made a lot of life choices to plan this. MEng in Electronic Systems Engineering from a UK university satisfies the education requirement from a Washington Accord country. 3 years continuous relevant work experience was the hardest because I like travelling and moving around, but I stayed here long enough I have that now. Maybe I don't have enough money to do the skilled independent visa, but if I could borrow the capital, I think I have the points.

<comment><USER4> Congratulations on your what you have achieved so far and good luck in the future! Not a lot of people know the amount of research, effort, discipline, money, sacrifice and luck go into immigration.

Hopefully your points are not just over the threshold - if they are, beware of losing your "youth points" and going below the minimum accepted points when you turn 32 or 35 (or whatever the limit is for the countries you're targeting). The years go by so fast!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this article unfairly paints small companies as some nirvana which is obviously not the case. I have plenty of friends at small companies who feel like their c-suite is filled with sociopaths and because the company is under the radar nobody cares how the employees of said company are treated.

<comment><USER6> Even if the people are great, small (5-20 employee) companies often simply don't have scope for much career progression. You might have one layer of management between yourself and the company owner, so unless they start hiring or you plan on taking over the company, you can only be promoted once.

<comment><USER7> Yeah except your promotion isn't usually a level, it's lead, manager, director, or chief. You leverage that and walk to a slightly larger company in that new role after a couple of years. Then rinse & repeat once or twice and you just shaved off years of slogging through the FAANGs.

After all of the above though, I would put 2-3 years in at a FAANG and then do whatever the heck I want.

<comment><USER8> FAANG == Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google

(First time I heard of it; had to look it up)

<comment><USER9> I feel like Netflix is only in there to make the acronym, does it really belong?

It's an odd collection, the others are tech giants yet there's no microsoft and netflix thrown in. Netflix is big but it's not Apple big.

<comment><USER10> It is a stock thing. All of those companies have well performing stocks.

<comment><USER11> Microsoft stock is up 80% in the last 2 years.

edit: and they are ahead of google in market cap again. Been going back and forth for the last little while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What I also seen is people become victim of your their own success. If you over-achieve in one appraisal cycle it is very bad for you because you have increased your base-level of performance. It is like over-achieving sales target.

I have learned the hard way that one needs to spread out the achievements. For example if you have good number of ideas then don't spew out all of them in one go. Introduce them say in each quarter and people will say "Joe always seems to have an idea round the corner". Recency effect matters.

<comment><USER13> That's not really how this works. Right after a promo you're not due for another promo. They are dividing a fixed size promo budget pie. So they rank you lower in order to be able to rank someone else higher. There's no other reason, because it's impossible to accurately measure engineer's "performance", or to even define it in the first place.

At Microsoft, for example, in the olden days at least, managers would keep around a certain percentage of deadwood on the team to give their best people good ratings and meet their firing quota if the need arises.

<comment><USER14> > managers would keep around a certain percentage of deadwood on the team to > give their best people good ratings and meet their firing quota if the need > arises.

Tragic consequences of stupid rules, I'm baffled.

<comment><USER13> Inviolable rule of management: you get the behavior you reward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does anyone else feel really put off on the idea of working at a big tech corporation by articles like this? If I wanted to play the career game, I would have studyied something more business related and got a graduate job at somewhere like KPMG.

<comment><USER16> Honestly, having worked for startups for three years, joining FB was a breath of fresh air. I know my level, I know what is expected of me. When I say to my manager 'I want to get promoted' he says 'ok looks like you're on course' (or not). My compensation is no longer based on how much my manager likes me, it's based on my work and how I present it.

Startups were a mess of failed products, misguided work, and managers who showed no interest in managing, let alone investing in the growth of their reports. Good management is awesome.

<comment><USER17> > My compensation is no longer based on how much my manager likes me, it's > based on my work and how I present it.

"and how I present it" sounds suspiciously like 'how much my manager likes me' (or whoever you present it to). Seems more like "same thing, different name" to me than a real difference here.

<comment><USER18> It's not. For example, up until recently, you didn't need manager approval to get promoted at Google. Obviously feedback from your manager was considered, but if you could demonstrate your growth and your manager didn't like you, it was possible to be promoted anyway.

The people who made this decision we're specifically selected to not be familiar with you or your work. So it couldn't have anything to do with how anyone liked you.

But even beyond that, larger companies more commonly have codified ladders and clear rubrics or criteria for advancement and performance. This means that a manager must justify their rating against a set of objective criteria. Managerial bias can still creep in, but only on borderline cases. (And elsewhere in the workplace, but that's mostly unavoidable)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wish I had this information before I took a job at Google 11 years ago. I probably would have still taken the job, but I would have realized I was really signing up for two jobs:

1) The job I was hired for;

      ... but *more importantly*...

2) The job of navigating the leveling and review systems, including managing your manager.

<comment><USER20> To be fair, this second job exists at every company. Whatever the levels/review systems are called, managing your future is your job, and only your job. Your manager is your employee when it comes to setting up your future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> For those looking to compare levels between the mentioned companies, I found [http://levels.fyi](http://levels.fyi) useful

<comment><USER22> Can anyone attest to the accuracy of this? Levels have pay _ranges_ , right? If so, does this site portray the lower or higher end of the range?

Also, are levels pretty translatable between big corps? Does level at one company have weight when interviewing at another?

<comment><USER23> For Google at least. Salary and Stock are low end of the range. Bonus numbers seem ridiculously high: 49k bonus for an L4, even with Superb you don't get that.

<comment><USER24> I never got a $100k bonus as a T5. I was at Superb when I left too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> i hesitate to pursue a career of any kind, especially tech, because of all this. you have to have a pretty good personality and charisma in order to work well with your manager, or else you will make no progress which means you get fired. people are born with all kinds of quirks, peculiarities and qualities. while im a better programmer than most of the people who i went to college with, i have a special problem with my personality and charisma. i have absolutely zero intuition about what to say to other human beings. conversations with me are always like chewing sandpaper, unless they focus on some very narrow interests of mine. conversations that are very focused and intellectual always get a good response but i seldom meet people who want to have those even among engineers. 99 percent of the people i meet, even among "tech" people, i am rejected. i guess ill just scrape by.

<comment><USER26> > _conversations with me are always like chewing sandpaper, unless they focus > on some very narrow interests of mine._

Basically, that's the problem. In order to establish a repertoire, you need to have more than dense interests. It's cool to be passionate about one or two hobbies. Lots of people have none, and this makes conversation dull. However, it is vital you can maintain ordinary conversation on lay topics too -- It's strange to not be able to talk about the local flair, family or relatives, hot vacation spots, annoying ordinances, and neighborhood politics. If you can't maintain a casual conversation about some the above, you are quickly deemed "dangerous", as you failed the "same species as me" test.

This is not an indictment of you. Just plain fact.

The good news is that it's straightforward to learn. Plain osmosis works. Find some meetups which you won't find totally repulsive (say, boardgames, movies, etc) and just listen to how conversations between normals work. You can literally copy and paste these and pass the "am I human" Voight-Kampff tests with this information.

<comment><USER27> I think the problem is that most casual conversation just isn't relevant. If we're having a conversation to have a conversation, what's the point?

I happen across a lot of conversations where people are just blabbing at each other, but don't actually listen to what the other is saying (or are clearly not interested in what each is saying), but still continue to have a conversation. I don't get that...

<comment><USER28> "If we're having a conversation to have a conversation, what's the point?"

You're actually halfway there with the question. Indeed, the point is not conversation, or at least not the literal contents of the conversation.

When I was younger, I had a hard time understanding this stuff too. I'm not 100% sure why (I'm not convinced I'm even slightly on the spectrum, but it's not out of the question entirely; it's also just possible that I was simply too different as a kid from the other kids), but one of the steps to resolving it is just to realize that yes, there _is_ logic to almost all of what is going on, and it isn't actually _that_ complicated of a logic either. The biggest impediment to not being able to understand these interactions is the belief that you can't understand them, or that there's some sort of virtue in not understanding them. The second-biggest impediment is the belief that these things are essentially irrational, in the older sense of "essential" as meaning something like "inseparable from the whole"; there is actually a level on which this is all _shockingly_ rational behavior. Once you get over those ideas, and accept that the surface levels and what's actually going on in the relationship between two people is not the same thing, it doesn't really take long to figure out what's going on.

(There's... a few other ideas you'll find you may want to discard. For instance, while politically incorrect today, there _are_ reasons to be initially distrustful of people not in "your group". If you can't believe that's true today, it was certainly true in evolutionary terms. So there are instinctual protocols for determining whether someone is "in" or "out", and there are reasons for them, and there are reasons why they involve difficult- to-forge signals like simply knowing some in-knowledge from a culture, or burning time on seemingly-inconsequential conversations. And these things operate at instinct level; it doesn't matter if you think they are wrong, out of date, or politically incorrect; they do what they do anyhow. Start putting a few of these things together and it all starts making much more sense. There's reasons why these things exist and persist.)

<comment><USER27> Unfortunately, I don't really think I got what you were intending to say with this message.

You basically said there 'is' a reason for inconsequential conversation, but then only proceeded to hint at it's existence outside the last paragraph, and that was described as a different idea I might want to discard.

As such I can only hope that I'll eventually figure it out as I get older. So far the only thing I'm finding out as I get older is that humans are indeed irrational, and that often you just have to deal with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> >> What's the takeaway here? Know how the company works before you take the plunge.

This is good advice, but I think it's good advice for any company you join: _understand how performance is going to be measured_.

This is a key question that you should ask during the interview process. Remember, they're not just interviewing you, you are interviewing them.

<comment><USER30> Yup, not having a well-defined comp structure is a red flag even for smaller companies.

I interviewed at a decent-sized company (100+ engineers) recently and when I asked about their salary bands/career ladder/review cycles they just said "oh, we're too small for all that. We'll just promote you when the time is right." Got out of that quick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I work at small companies, not because they are perfect or things are always better and easier, but because I know the things I'm responsible for and the people I'm accountable to, and the thought of being slotted into a byzantine human management framework run by small-minded rule writers fills me with Orwellian dread and disgust.

</comment><comment><USER32> There are a few issues which make moving backwards incredibly difficult. Notably, its almost impossible to negotiate a reduction in pay without being accused of constructive dismissal. When a ladder is put in place its usually tied to comp, so that the engineering organization can have some _semblance_ of a predictable budget.

I really respect Rachel and all her writing. Our industry needs something more widely accepted as a best practice which is transparent to existing employees as well as new people getting into the field.

</comment><comment><USER22>
      Within a job ladder, you then have levels. They tend to map onto
      years of experience, *whether you have a degree or not*,
      what kind of degree it is, how well you do in your interviews,
      how much money you ask for or hint about, and possibly how
      well you did as an intern.

I don't work at a big corp. Has anyone seen career growth stall directly because they lack a (bachelor's) degree (in CS)? This article doesn't directly state that, but I'm tangentially curious.

<comment><USER33> No, but I have seen people's career stall because they worked on the wrong project.

As my manager put it at the time "Nobody gets promoted for reducing the size of a tire fire by 50%".

You have to be really strategic about what you work on, and for who. It's not about the technical contributions, it's about finding and retaining a sponsor higher in the organization. You help them torpedo competing initiatives and increase the headcount they manage (headcount is points), and they help you navigate the political climate to get onto the project du jour.

I worked at an old school BigCo for 3 years and we shipped not a single product from a team of ~300 people if you count peripherally involved people. The only thing that saved us was that we managed and maintained a small software tool used directly by the CTO of the conglomerate, which we could wave as a ward against interference.

Some of those 300 got promotions, some got transferred (far away from their home and family, into different divisions that they had no experience with, aka exile), and some got laid off, even though as far as I could tell none of us had any ability to affect the end result (priorities changed too quickly to make any headway). For the record, I quit.

Mean time between reorganizations, management shakeups, and goal shifts was ~2.5 months.

<comment><USER34> > I have seen people's career stall because they worked on the wrong project.

... and then they wonder why there's so much turnover in our industry. "Due to circumstances completely outside your control, you have no future at this company." "Hm - well, maybe I have a future at this other company then." "What ever happened to loyalty?!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I joined a startup directly from college and only worked at small (3-4 people) companies for the first 3 years of my career. Going from that to a ~250 people organization, when I joined, I figured "Software Engineer" was a good role, but it turned out everyone was surprised that I wasn't a "Senior Software Engineer".

Even though I basically designed and coded the entire data layer of the platform, maintain and administer the entire pipeline (including the production databases), am on call any time anything goes wrong, my title was only very recently changed to "Senior Software Engineer" \- and it was independent from any increase in salary, which didn't happen. The title change was also "promised" to me for a few months after appraisal - presumably to retain me.

It's all weird but strangely, it had started to grate on me the last year that despite all the critical work I did, the salary and position did not reflect it at all. Still doesn't.

<comment><USER27> To be honest, the fact that the title doesn't reflect all the work you do matters to me not at all. I'm happy to change that later.

If the pay doesn't reflect all the responsibility you have though, that's a serious issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> > Know how the company works before you take the plunge. Ask how much > influence the manager has on your progress.

Is this even knowable in most companies?

I'm quite sure that regardless of the official system, charismatic and ambitious managers who deliver results will have much more influence than the rest... and perfectly competent managers may have less influence than the system assumes just because they're not pushing.

So while there's probably a lot of variance between companies, I am very skeptical you could get actionable info on that in the interview process.

</comment><comment><USER37> If anyone's wondering SDE2/L5 at Amazon is the first 'career' role on the engineering ladder.

<comment><USER38> Is that true? I would have guessed it was 3 based on the expected level of responsibility of the respective roles. As an engineer I felt like L5 was a position that meant I could trust the coworker to be effective, but I would be wary of joining a team that had no L6s.

<comment><USER39> L3 at other companies is an L4 at Amazon (I believe only contractors or part- time employees can be < 4). L5 also has a much wider surface area and the gap from L5 to L6 is quite big.

<comment><USER40> Correct. All corporate roles are L4 or above at Amazon, even outside tech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > If you're a citizen or have the appropriate paperwork, this is no big deal.

To a certain extent. However, too many job changes, over too short of a period, looks really bad on a resume. It is possible to job hop yourself into unemployable territory, citizen or not.

</comment><comment><USER41> > _Some companies will dangle money at you as an alternative to going on the > PIP._

Can someone tell me a little about this? Is this a situation where a company pays you to quit without firing you?

<comment><USER42> It's called a severance package. The company isn't giving you money to quit - you're working at-will and they can terminate your employment at any time for any reason. The amount is usually equivalent to a few months worth of paychecks.

What they pay you for is you signing away your ability to sue for wrongful termination. Because they can't really fire you for _any_ reason.

<comment><USER43> It's also because companies want the managers and co-workers to know the company did right by the terminated employee. Laying someone off isn't fun. Seeing your co-workers get laid off isn't fun either. Severance keeps the process more humane.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Sometime s coming in at a lower level will help you stay longer at that company.

</comment><comment><USER45> <redacted>

<comment><USER46> In my view a PIP is all (and only) about management expectations. A person that is being railroaded by incompetent management can outlast them by staying positive.

<comment><USER47> The parent comment is removed, but on the thought of a personal improvement plan (pip), they are often paperwork to protect the company when they terminate you.

This is not always the case, and if you can turn it around, that is fantastic. It really helps to have a manager who can help guide you. A coworker of mine was place on a PIP and, honestly, was expected to be managed out by just about everyone. However! He rose up with guidance from manager and became a _very_ productive team member. To the point now that I am very glad he is on my team and I think a big part of our latest project's success came from him. He grew a lot and is on a great path in our org now.

<comment><USER48> Similar story here. Most PIPs do end in termination or voluntary resignation, but I have seen some engineers completely turn around and blossom under the focus and structure (and frankly, scrutiny) that a PIP provides.

Sometimes people just don't know how to work or how to accomplish what's expected of them and outward observation of lack of productivity can miss the underlying cause that might be correctable.

(It's still the least common outcome, of course, but it's not as rare as I first assumed.)

<comment><USER49> Are PIPs public knowledge at your BigCo of choice?

Sounds like your (peripheral) experience has been positive, so not criticizing, just curious. I've always treated PIPs as something only to be discussed between manager and struggling employee.

One of the most painful things for me in administering PIPs is not the "you are on thin ice, here's a bunch more structure and documentation" part, but rather, the requirement to keep the main focus of my management energy a secret from the rest of the team.

I can't exactly say, "Yeah, [strong team member], I know it would have been way better if I'd done a prep meeting with that hard-to-deal-with team yesterday rather than throwing you in the deep water, but I was too busy making [failing team member]'s life miserable by hyping up the scrutiny and guidance so they stop breaking the team's morale with their shoddy work."

PIPs take a lot of time and effort for managers and the unfortunate recipient of them, so it's kind of a hard thing to conceal.

<comment><USER48> > Are PIPs public knowledge at your BigCo of choice?

We try to have them not be. I'm an exec and have 5 tribes reporting into me for years, so I've had the opportunity/obligation to discuss, strategize, and track the outcome of a couple dozen PIPs in my org over the last decade.

Leaders spending extra time and attention on team members who are struggling is no secret and doesn't need to be. (It's not like the rest of the team doesn't have any idea who is struggling.) It's only the "PIP-p bit" that is formally secret.

I had initially thought of a PIP as a ceremonial formality to be processed along the path to a lawsuit-free termination. Having seen them play out over the years, I now think that's an overly skeptical viewpoint.

<comment><USER46> Is there a common performance shortfall that initiates PIPs or does it vary widely?

<comment><USER48> Great question; I can't think of a single, general theme as they are all over the map. Attendance, competence, intelligence, collaboration, work ethic/drive, judgment, inability to follow process, you name it.

Of the success cases, I think a common/typical unifying thread was lack of good, nearby leadership (team/squad lead or even a "buddy/onboarding mentor") intersecting with someone who wasn't already competent, curious, and self- motivated. I view those successes as (at least partially) leadership failures that we corrected alongside the employee. This framing is both generally accurate, but importantly, also removes the "stain" for future reviews and promotions. We truly do "put it behind us." Anything less would be terrifically unfair. We have ex-PIPers get promoted, go on to lead teams/projects, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> _Through all of this, if your manager isn 't supporting you, you're probably doomed. Unless they do something that's obviously going to get the company in legal trouble, HR won't care. Remember, HR is there to keep the company out of hot water, and they are never there for you._

This is very true in my experience and probably worth underscoring. How many of you feel like your boss isn't supporting you? Whenever that happens, watch out.

There's a flipside, though. It's not as scary to change jobs as it seems. And you'll probably be much happier.

<comment><USER26> On the dark side, the real advice is to join teams where none of the engineers are supporting the manager. Ensure the manager is not a literal demon; just sidelined by engineers "who know best", and then do better. With only a trivial amount of work to meet arbitrary management deadlines, you'll be a hero or saint. "Exceeds Expectations" and promotions will rain down on you.

<comment><USER34> "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> So true. Definitely.</comment>


Antidepressants taken during pregnancy increase risk of autism - <AUTHOR> https://www.researchgate.net/blog/post/antidepressants-taken-during-pregnancy-increase-risk-of-autism-by-87-percent <comment><USER3> Articles reporting negatively on antidepressants should come with a huge disclaimer to those taking them that they should continue to do so unless their doctor / psychiatrist recommends otherwise.

It seems obvious, but after being mostly depression / anxiety free for four years and reading an influx of articles claiming that they do nothing or very little based on new research, I decided to quit. Huge mistake that very nearly ruined my life.

It turned out that despite all the lifestyle changes I made as well as therapy I received to mitigate depression and anxiety, the pills were almost solely responsible for my recovery. Restarting the SSRI of course did the trick, but they don't work fast and I lost nearly a year of my life. I currently regard this as the worst decision I have ever made.

<comment><USER4> I look at it the other way: companies "pushing"[1] antidepressants not just on pregnant women, but on all of us, for years on end, should be putting out a very clear message that you _should not take these medicines_ unless absolutely recommended by your doctor, _and_ other, generally more efficacious methods -- such as talk therapy and lifestyle changes -- have been at least explored, and found to be ineffective (or depending on the severity of your case, not immediately effective).

Unfortunately, this is not what these companies are doing, as a rule. And given what we've found out SSRIs -- and the behavior of some of the major players in this industry, in recent years -- no one should be terribly surprised at the findings in the JAMA study (assuming they hold up to scrutiny).

Also:

 _Restarting the SSRI of course did the trick, but they don 't work fast and I lost nearly a year of my life. I currently regard this as the worst decision I have ever made._

With all due respect to your situation -- and not intended in the least to belittle either your suffering, or the thought you put into the decisions you made -- perhaps the bigger mistake was not going off SSRIs (at which point the die may have been more or less cast for you, in the short- to medium-term) -- but agreeing to go on them in the first place.

[1] Yes, this is a loaded term. But I use it quite intentionally. Having not only studied the tradeoffs associated with one major class of antidepressants, but also having worked for one of the market's leading distributors -- and having made a careful study of their marketing materials -- I'd say "pushing" is not a bad description for the aggressive marketing tactics these companies have used over the years.

<comment><USER5> > such as talk therapy and lifestyle changes

The places where anti-depressants are applied vs talk therapy are applied are fairly different. The idea that there is a cohort of mustache-twirling doctors and pill pushers trying to shove pills down the throat of every person who'd be better suited to talk therapy is about as ridiculous as I made it sound.

For many people, talk therapy is simply not effective or possible. And in many situations there are social forces which MUST be taken into consideration because they can cause lead to more anxiety and depression.

> perhaps the bigger mistake was not going off SSRIs (at which point the die > may have been more or less cast for you, in the short- to medium-term) -- > but agreeing to go on them in the first place.

I get so angry reading this. Hot under the collar even. If you think that SSRIs don't help people then you simply don't understand what a true and chemical despair feels like. The difference they can make, both short term and long, is counted in human lives. Many people like me who used them to bridge a short term gap could barely comprehend days without despair, fear and pain.

To have some smug anti-medicine comment oh-so-politely walk up to someone who says, "Hey I treated my mental illness like a real illness and it worked" and respond with scorn an derision? You simply do not understand what real, clinical, and life-threatening depression is.

If you think you do, if you had a mild case that you talked through? Congratulations! I wish the disease on no one. But that doesn't give you license to skulk about making everyone else with a less treatable form of the illness question everything they've done to secure their right to experience happiness.

<comment><USER6> In any case, the current research consensus is that generally antidepressants and talk therapy are complimentary. So talk therapy is better than nothing and antidepressants are better than nothing and combining both treatments is better than sticking to only one.

<comment><USER5> For me, it is difficult to disentangle my feelings for talk therapy from my fear and antipathy towards the church councillors of my young life who put me on such a destructive path of self-denial.

<comment><USER7> I am very sorry that that happened to you and I completely understand how sometimes church counsellors can cause more problems. I was raised Catholic so believe me when I say that I understand your words about being on a destructive path of self denial.

For what it's worth, as an adult, I had to make a conscious decision not to let the assholes of my youth ruin my life.

It's bullshit that people treated you like that. I'm very sorry that that happened.

<comment><USER5> Thanks. I wish I had been born even 10 years later sometimes, I didn't even know the word for my gender until I was in my 30s. People trying to "correct" my course when I was young left me a lot of scars.

So, I'm not saying my case should shape the world. But I think it's worth considering. People here tend to mix "SSRIs are over-prescribed" with "SSRIs don't work." The data suggests the more focused the study, the stronger the effect, which is usually indicative of practicioners failing to properly use an intervention.

Or so my doctor tells me. He was happy to explain carefully why he uses SSRIs, how long he'll agree to prescribe them for, and what his current reading of the research is. I was surprised, but he says GPs often have to be the first line of defense for people who don't outright end up in the emergency room. I guess that stands to reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article is very one-sided. It's simply an interview with the author of the paper. I would very much like to see what other experts in the field are saying, especially because I think the causation claims here are pretty bold for a register-based study.

Also, this: "Our study is not out to scare women" in the same interview as "We have to remember that thalidomide was labeled as 'safe' for use during pregnancy." If you're bringing up thalidomide, you're absolutely out to scare women. It's like Godwin's Law for discussions about drugs in pregnancy.

<comment><USER9> Thalidomide was never labelled as safe during pregnancy - I don't think there is a single drug on the market that has ever been tested for safety in pregnancy. The best you will get is category A which just says that studies have failed to demonstrate risk [1].

1\. [http://www.drugs.com/pregnancy- categories.html](http://www.drugs.com/pregnancy-categories.html)

<comment><USER10> Thalidomide was used to treat morning sickness in pregnancy.

That's as close to calling it safe for pregnancy as you can get.

<comment><USER9> No it is not. At the time there was no regulatory requirement to test in pregnancy. The only reason it never effected the USA is the FDA were (and are) so slow that the problem was found out before they got around to approving it. If the drug company had launched in the USA first the FDA would have allowed it to be sold.

Interestingly it was tested in pregnant mice, but in mice it doesn't have the same effect as in humans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Actually, it's a misleading title. There's association, but there's no proven causation. Here's the quote:

>This study is consistent with other studies on the same research question. Each study is observational because randomized controlled trials are not ethically possible during pregnancy. Hence, each study is describing an association. The accumulation of such findings will lead to causation

It's observational study, i.e. a study which can only show association. You can easily think of many reasons why you might get such a result. For example, depression and autism might have overlapping genes, and having such gene, results in depression in mother and higher risk of autism in a child.

<comment><USER12> Considering that both are characterized by abnormal brain function and that mental illness tends to run in families this seems extremely likely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > _I would always be very cautious about saying that anything is 'safe' during > pregnancy. We have to remember that thalidomide was labeled as 'safe' for > use during pregnancy._

Holy shit if it isn't manipulative. The most charitable reading, after skimming[0], still says the risk increased from "most likely not going to happen to you" to "still most likely not going to happen to you".

I'd like to see some absolute values please.

[0] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_autism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_autism)

<comment><USER14> I don't see how encouraging caution is manipulative. Although we know SSRIs work, we're still figuring out exactly _how_ they work, and we know even less about developing fetuses and the effects of SSRIs on them. The gold standard for care is $reward > $risk; with many medicines we can define $risk pretty darn well. With SSRIs we can't. Saying "we just don't know" or "here are the correlations we've found so far" is a good thing, as is reminding folks -- and ourselves -- of how science has failed us in the past. Women should be empowered to make _informed_ choices, but we need the information to inform them with.

<comment><USER13> Comparing SSRIs to thalidomide is manipulative _at best_ ; I'd call it something else but let's skip it in the interest of civility. SSRIs have been widely deployed for many years. We don't see significant amount of children whose mothers taken SSRIs being born with deformed limbs and dying young.

A better comparison would be between SSRIs and aspirin. In both cases, we know that the drug works and is mostly harmless, but we have clue how exactly it works.

Caution is fine. Fear-mongering isn't, especially if it can lead people to avoid treatment that could significantly improve their quality of life for little-to-no side-effects.

<comment><USER14> > _We don 't see significant amount of children whose mothers taken SSRIs > being born with deformed limbs and dying young._

This rationalization seems uncompassionate at best, implying that mood/cognitive disorders are less important/disruptive than physical disorders.

> _SSRIs and aspirin. In both cases, we know that the drug works and is mostly > harmless, but we have [no] clue how exactly it works._

To the contrary, the 1982 Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery of the mechanism of action for aspirin. In contrast, although we know SSRIs cause elevated mood and have anti-anxiety effects, their method of action is not understood. This is not in dispute within the medical community.

> _for little-to-no side-effects_

We don't know this, which is the entire point of the article and discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 1.5% inherent * 187% from pills = 2.8% risk of autism.

Risk of having started a course of antidepressants for absolutely no reason = ~0%

Articles with headlines like these seem manufactured to lead the statistically ignorant into bad decisions. Clickbait science.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's important to be aware of the absolute risk even when the relative increase is 87%. In this case the risks are always below 1.5%. I haven't read the paper, but the presence of depression (rather than the SSRIs) could also be a cause for the increase. They might want to look at depressed pregnant women who are treated with alternatives to try to deal with that confounding factor.

</comment><comment><USER10> Suicide is the leading cause of death of mothers in the perinatal period, so I'm glad they said that talking therapies are important.

They present this increased risk as a percentage. No-one understands what that means. People can't translate that increase in risk into actual numbers of people with autism.

<comment><USER17> I'm not sure what you mean. If the current risk of autism in a child is 1 in 20, then it means that if the mother takes anti-depressants, the risk then becomes 1.87 in 20.

<comment><USER13> He probably means that without a reference point, it may as well be a shift from 1 in 20 000 000 to 1.87 in 20 000 000. Or, a shift from 1 in 5 to 4 in 5, which is how an average Joe or Jane will understand such article. Running a headline "Some Common X doubles the risk of Something Very Bad" without giving the baseline risk of Something Very Bad is just fear-mongering.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> In the interview, they state that "the rise in autism...".

That's been shown to be fallacious. Autism is only really a very recent diagnosis, and reporting rates were either low or the condition wasn't diagnosed properly.

Then the author hypothesises that the seratonin levels might be what causes the issues with autism. But those taking SSRIs have a problem with seratonin levels already, right? So how do they know it's the anti-depressant?

I read the comments when study was posted to HN previously, but there doesn't seem to be too much questioning of the the study itself. Perhaps I'm being unfair.

This study has been criticised - I think NOR gives a pretty balanced report here:

[http://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2015/12/14/45966593...](http://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2015/12/14/459665937/a-new-study-raises-old-questions-about- antidepressants-and-autism)

<comment><USER19> > Autism is only really a very recent diagnosis, and reporting rates were > either low or the condition wasn't diagnosed properly.

While you can contribute some of the rise to better screening, we have been seeing increases in the time span of less than a decade. Something else is going on.

[https://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_will_our_kids_be_a_d...](https://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_will_our_kids_be_a_different_species)

<comment><USER20> The best guess last year was due to microparticles in the air and general pollution levels. Was it discredited?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is a good rule of thumb to use when looking at associative studies - <USER2> the effect is not 300% or more then it is unlikely to hold up when tested in a double blind study. Anything under 3 fold is mostly noise or bad experimental design.

As a comparison the risk of lung cancer is 1500% higher in smokers than non- smokers.

</comment><comment><USER21> What are the absolute figures? A relative figure is meaningless (or, at least/highly misleading) if the original chance was miniscule.

<comment><USER22> Relevant section of the abstract:

> Adjusting for potential confounders, use of antidepressants during the > second and/or third trimester was associated with the risk of ASD (31 > exposed infants; adjusted hazard ratio, 1.87; 95% CI, 1.15-3.04). Use of > selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors during the second and/or third > trimester was significantly associated with an increased risk of ASD (22 > exposed infants; adjusted hazard ratio, 2.17; 95% CI, 1.20-3.93). The risk > was persistent even after taking into account maternal history of depression > (29 exposed infants; adjusted hazard ratio, 1.75; 95% CI, 1.03-2.97).

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The linked article claims "antidepressants increase risk". Linked JAMA article plainly says "association".

Sure they eliminated a couple of known associations, which is good. But this isn't a slam dunk cause->effect, particularly since some studies have shown no association.

</comment><comment><USER24> > Randomized controlled trials have also shown that exercise or psychotherapy > are valid treatment options

The research on exercise is rather inconclusive (mostly because it's hard to placebo-control exercise, but see e.g. [1] for an interesting attempt), and I don't know of any trials that demonstrate the validity of switching away from a _working_ depression treatment. The chances of success are generally not great when trying a new depression treatment (~30% for the first one, decreasing with each failed treatment [2]), so I'm not convinced that the validity alluded to here actually translates into any actionable advice in the context of this study.

[1] [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21037212](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21037212)

[2] [http://www.edc.gsph.pitt.edu/stard/](http://www.edc.gsph.pitt.edu/stard/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Reporting an increase of a percentage of risk is horribly misleading.

</comment><comment><USER26> I hate to be the one, but I wonder if Jenny McCarthy is looking into this research as a possible alternative explanation for what she went through.

</comment><comment><USER27> Nobody has mentioned in addition to drugs, talk therapy, food can be a lifesaver wrt depression. Specifically, I and a medical doctor had the same experience that taking fish oil, ie high quality omega 3 DHA/EPA was a lifesaver. Also getting off sugar+ is a huge change to the brain's chemical load.

<comment><USER28> DHA and EPA are fantastic, but I don't think they should be used completely in lieu of eating fish. Two servings per week will do wonders for health.

Humans are fish eaters. Always have been. Why we don't eat it in America boggles my mind but it's a big problem that doesn't get enough mention.

<comment><USER29> Could it be because we polluted our rivers and lakes around the time of the industrial revolution a century ago?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Antidepressents are just a vaccine for depression, anti-vaxxers standpoint confirmed /s</comment>


Third of British population login to Facebook every day (4/5 mobile users) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/14/facebook-users-smartphone-tablet

<comment><USER2> Does that mean third of British population is sad? Well a report says so: [http://www.technostall.com/facebook-makes-you-sad- report/](http://www.technostall.com/facebook-makes-you-sad-report/)</comment>


Why Apple's New Campus Is Bad for Urban America - brown9-2 http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/03/why-apples-new-campus-anti-urban/1473/ <comment><AUTHOR> I think what this person forgets is that some people don't want to live in a city. They like driving their cars everywhere. Apple doesn't want to build a suburb in their campus. They want it to be a great place for employees to do great work.

<comment><USER2> I think in time this will bite Apple. Case in point is Google v. Amazon v. Microsoft in the Seattle area. Google: buildings in a funky neighborhood with lots of amenities. Amazon: buildings just north of downtown in cool neighborhood. Microsoft: commute to suburban Redmond where things get... blander.

I meet lots of go-get-em younger engineers who cross Microsoft off their list of potential employers on the basis of being in Redmond. Microsoft has to bus the hipsters from Capitol Hill.

For better or for worse, a more suburban kind of campus will likely scare off younguns in favor of older, more family-oriented, more car-dependent employees.

<comment><USER3> Don't forget that Google's headquarters is in a sprawling campus near the suburbs in Mountain View... with a small Microsoft campus near by. Your hypothetical "hipster" choosing between Google, Microsoft, and Apple in the bay area is choosing between bland suburbs and bland suburbs.

Google also buses people in from San Francisco... which you have to admit beats the hell out of having them all drive in... or even take up seats on public transit for that matter.

<comment><USER2> Bay Area Google sounds a lot like Microsoft in terms of bussing people in from SF.

And good point--I guess most of the super big tech players in the valley are located in the bland suburbs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article is correct in so far as the new Apple building is not consistent with contemporary urban design principles.

Curved glass aside, it's basically The Pentagon of 1943 in so far as functional layout goes combined with 1957's site planning for the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company plopped in the middle of a contemporary bedroom community's street grid.

What it lacks in comparison to both is any sense of urban scaled outdoor space (the courtyards between rings of the Pentagon and Noguchi's courtyards for the SOM design).

Apple's new building is what Robert Venturi would call "A duck."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Pentagon_January_2008....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Pentagon_January_2008.jpg)

[http://www.som.com/local/common/modules/gallery/dsp_image_ga...](http://www.som.com/local/common/modules/gallery/dsp_image_gallery.cfm/connecticut_general_insurance?galleryCategoryID=504223&ImageIndex=1)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Duck>

</comment><comment><USER5> His complaint that you won't be able to walk across the campus is silly -- the current HP campus is fenced off too.

And I'm not really sure who would be walking where across it anyway. It's bordered on the south side by I-280. There is a strip mall on the other side of Wolfe, on the west side, but immediately to the east is office buildings and a Kaiser Permanente facility -- well, I guess there is some housing on the other side of Tantau, but not much, and east of that is Lawrence Expressway.

It's only across Homestead on the north side that there is much of a residential area.

In short, I don't see that there are many people who would walk across the campus even if they could.

(I live a couple of miles away, and drive by it all the time.)

</comment><comment><USER6> A ridiculous post - this campus is GREAT for Cupertino... but then Cupertino isn't really Urban America.

</comment><comment><USER7> I kind of like all the trees that you see on the new campus. From the ground, the trees even obstruct most of the building. I don't think the extra distance matters much on a bike but I guess if you're walking in that area it's an extra 10 minutes.

Maybe Apple can build a maglev down that main street so people can more easily commute to work and really reduce traffic. Only joking, of course, but Apple does have enough cash to build the high-speed rail from LA to SF.

</comment><comment><USER8> I agree with many of the authors points, prefer downtown/midtown style development and, broadly, think that architecture since the world wars has been an abomination foisted on us by academics and lunatics, implemented by incompetents.

However, I'd like to make one point: it's Apple's money, they can do what they want.

<comment><USER9> > However, I'd like to make one point: it's Apple's money, they can do what > they want.

The city has an "Environmental Impact Review" process whereby citizens OF CUPERTINO at least have the right to whine about it a bit and plead for a few more concessions here and there to "community values". But there's no chance this isn't going through - Apple is by far the biggest taxpayer in Cupertino and the threat that they might move somewhere else if they couldn't do this here is too potent.

Plus it's, you know, kind of cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Meh, I thought the article had some well-meaning but mostly overwrought handwringing, however the comments there were Youtube-level stupid.

</comment><comment><USER11> They're replacing a massive campus covered in parking lots with orchards. They are building an underground parking garage. They're planting thousands of trees. They're building foot paths, they've hired an arborist to make tree selection, they're brining orange groves back to silicon valley. They've designed probably the GREENest campus I've ever seen....

What's not seen on these drawings is the underground freeway[1] that takes cars off of the streets and into the campus, to the parking garages, and other facilities. This means a lot of surface concrete that would be required to support these employees is hidden, leaving more room for grass and trees.

What's wrong with that?

These people would actually RATHER that hugely inefficient parking lot that HP built? Really?

<comment><USER12> Orange groves are nice but they're not necessarily a great form of land use in an urban area. If you build an orange grove in one location then the housing and everything else that could have otherwise been there gets pushed farther out. Distances between things increase and people have to travel farther.

It might become a great campus, but do I think something higher density with a mix of uses would be more environmentally friendly.</comment></comment>


Is your Rails app under-provisioned? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.scoutapp.com/articles/2010/04/08/rails-application-throughput

<comment><USER2> A coworker and I were discussing this yesterday. Our Rails processes take about 50MB of memory each, and can handle only one request. Since our site hits a backend DB that is sometimes slow to return results, requests can last minutes. We could build an out-of-band process to query the backend service and return results asynchronously, but that seems like overkill. However, it's easy for a handful of users to eat up all the connections quickly, if they are all making long-running requests.

It seems silly to have an entire Rails process tied up blocked on results from this backend service. And it seems like a rather severe limitation of Rails' architecture to require 50MB of memory per connection-handling process. How do large sites scale Rails?

<comment><USER3> I haven't used it myself, but you may want to take a look at Mike Perham's Phat. It modifies Rails to use asynchronous I/O and several cooperating Fibers per-thread/process to speed up Rails significantly.

[http://www.mikeperham.com/2010/04/03/introducing-phat-an- asy...](http://www.mikeperham.com/2010/04/03/introducing-phat-an-asynchronous- rails-app/)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1240609>

It

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I signed up for Scout after reading this. It made me realize that this is a plausible soft-failure for my setup and that if it happened I would be totally in the dark until customers started complaining.

Granted, I should be so lucky as to have load problems, but if I had nice pretty graphs I could plan future VPS upgrades such that it never becomes a problem for my customers.

<comment><USER5> How spikey is your traffic? I would have assumed that SEO and Adwords buys would give roughly consistant traffic week after week. I think with that kind of traffic profile you'd almost certainly notice it yourself.

Where it would really hurt would be a sudden massive traffic spike, where your traffic rises above the magic number of hits per second that your rails app servers can deal with, and the delay would spiral out of control, only contained by connection timeouts.

Before I had properly setup my Django site, I experienced an issue like this with Apache worker threads, and that's exactly what happened. It went undetected until we had 100% higher traffic than normal (at the time, normal was growing by 10% a week), and instead of the site being snappy, most connections were timing out. I was completely out of my depth, having never administered a server before, let alone a dynamic web app with high traffic. Learning as I went while losing 10+ players per second was not fun.

<comment><USER4> I'm less worried about traffic spikiness and more worried about unanticipated performance implications of changes I make in summer suddenly biting me on the hindquarters come Halloween. (Peak load and also peak sales, and while I _think_ I should have absolutely no problems, I don't have any way to substantiate that and I don't have anything which would tell me I'm incorrect if the server starts suffering performance degradation but all services stay minimally responsive.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> is there anyone currently using scout that can comment on this utility ?

<comment><USER7> I have been a Scout user for a while now. I primarily use it for its Rails monitoring. They also have a Passenger plugin that monitors a number of Passenger stats. My setup doesn't lend itself to Apache log monitoring (which is what the article refers to).

As a monitoring app, I have no complaints but also have little to compare it to. It's worth a look and hard to beat on price, in my opinion. I'm not someone who would roll his own monitoring system so it works well for me.</comment></comment>