Prenatal THC exposure yields hyperdopaminergic phenotype rescued by pregnenolone - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-019-0512-2 <comment><USER2> My wife spent months in the hospital due to Hyperemesis Gravidarum (a disorder during pregnancy that causes continual vomiting and nausea. My wife vomited up to 40 times a day, eventually vomiting blood and breaking vessels in her eyes. She survived on a banana bag and lost 20% of her pre-pregnancy body weight. She said HG feels like being on an unending roller coaster while you're hung over and have the worst flu of your life). We lost the first baby. The second pregnancy was only survivable due to cannabis. It was risk we knew but 7 years later our child shows no signs of developmental disorders. I know, N=1, but still worth sharing.

<comment><USER3> fellow HG sufferer (survivor?) here. i was on multiple medications since week 5 trying to prevent hospitalization, and still on zofran six months in. careful use of medications can be literally lifesaving.

but... i would say due to easier access and state/local legalization, the perceived use of cannabis has skyrocketed in all my pregnancy groups. much much more than 3 years ago with my last pregnancy, i imagine worlds different from 7 years. most pregnant people seem to be using it casually, even more so than alcohol or tobacco. i do have to wonder what we'll see from this trend, and i'm generally glad for any research to define safer amounts of consumption.

<comment><USER2> Yes when my wife was pregnant it was not common at all to use it during pregnancy, and was barely even medically legal outside of pregnancy. She became allergic to Zofran, Diclegis (?) didn't work, and neither did any of the other commonly used HG medicines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not a neuroscientist, I'm not a smoker, and I'm not a woman. The headline result seems like it could be plausible. However...

My first instinct reading the abstract is that the conclusion which finds an effect on male rats and not female rats is an unjustified subgroup analysis and likely a spurious result.

Given the sexiness of the topic (people think weed is harmless, but what if it's not), publication filters for stat. sig results, low a priori power, no adjustment for multiple comparisons, no pre-registration, and this bizarre subgroup contingent result... should we expect this to replicate?

Is there a strong theoretical basis for expecting the subgroup heterogeneity?

<comment><USER5> You think that sexual dimorphism doesn't apply to .. brain development? Frankly, it's absurd to claim that's an inappropriate subgroup. There are certainly valid criticisms to this particular paper, but this sort of analysis is standard and eminently justified for mammalian development work.

I'm also not sure what 'low a priori power' means. Statistical power is well defined and depends only on the sampling involved. You don't need to make any assumptions about it, Bayesian or otherwise.

As for the statistics, if anything the low p-values they get are even more impressive given the modest power of these analyses. The effect size must be enormous. Granted the gross PPI response didn't give a dazzling p-value, the followup is quite convincing, showing obvious quantitative changes by a number of metrics, particularly the NAcS Dopamine time-response.

I'm curious where you think a multiple-comparison adjustment needs to be be made. The authors are quite focused on a narrow analysis of the systems implicated in observational PCE studies.

Where I agree is that I would like the authors to have discussed the sexual dimorphism to some degree. It would be handy to know if there is any pre- existing literature that suggests that PCE affects males more than females; all that I could find was one that found effects in females, not males. Someone in the field likely has some reasonable ideas about what might be going on. However, I'd hesitate to say the issue is avoided; Nature has strict length requirements and such a discussion would necessarily be somewhat meandering.

<comment><USER4> I think there are probably three things I want to follow up on:

1\. I do not believe sexual dimorphism is necessarily irrelevant here. I do believe that any subgroup analysis is a researcher degree of freedom and an avenue for p-hacking or fishing. Ideally subgroups would be well specified in advance: particularly the expectation of an effect in male rats and a null in female rats. Given that this did not happen, I would expect in-text justification for the subgroup analysis. I assume there are many brain development processes which are sexually dimorphic, and many which are not. To trust the study I need to know that this is one such case without reference to the study's results. Your end-of-post comment suggests that dimorphism is valid to explore, but the dimorphism should favour effects in the opposite direction, which causes me to further doubt this study's results (in this statement only I am introducing a Bayesian notion of belief)

2\. By "low a priori power" I mean that the number of units they chose would typically not be well-powered for modest effects in the subgroup. I am not talking about anything Bayesian. If I knew nothing about this subject, but picked a modest effect size on the quantity of interest and did a power analysis, I would find the study is well under 80% powered to detect the effect. That the effect was detected in the actual study should not lead us to say "wow, if it was underpowered but still detected, the effect must be huge", it should lead us to say "wow, this effect is very sensitive to any kind of confounding". This raises additional study integrity concerns and replicability concerns.

3\. There are different points of view about multiple comparison adjustment. In the absence of pre-registration, I am inclined to believe that even closely related hypotheses that are all well justified theoretically should be adjusted for multiple comparisons. The authors report some null results and some significant results, and we are made to infer the null results are true nulls and the significant results are truly significant. The error rate for that joint set of inferences is much higher than the nominal error rate.

To reiterate, my concerns here are exacerbated by the fact that this is a topic likely to get public traction, and which speaks directly to political agendas on both sides of the marijuana policy aisle.

I have limited interest in following up on the neuroscience/biology stuff, since that is not my field. I want to speak only to responsible scientific practice. If neuroscience routinely publishes these kinds low-power multiple- comparison subgroup-analyses, I suspect there will be a replicability crisis in the near future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > The increased legal availability of cannabis has led to a common > misconception that it is a safe natural remedy for, among others, pregnancy- > related ailments such as morning sickness.

Cannabis has been widely recognized among stoners as a natural miracle cure for everything from hangovers to stage IV cancer, and because it is produced by "nature" it is thought to be superior to "chemicals" found in ordinary pharmaceuticals.

If anything, legalizing cannabis will increase the visibility of studies like this and give us a clearer picture of its benefits and drawbacks.

<comment><USER7> Cannabis attenuates inflammation and inflammation is an underlying or contributing cause to just about every disease so the stoners are right, in a way.

[https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Inflammati...](https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Inflammation_A_unifying_theory_of_disease)

<comment><USER8> Inflammation is part of the immune response. It's not a cause, it's a symptom. And much like other symptoms like vomiting or fever, the symptom is actually an effective way for the body to fix root causes.

Being in a perpetual state of fever, vomit, or inflammation is clearly an unhealthy state, but that doesn't mean suppressing these symptoms is useful.

<comment><USER5> Dysregulation of the inflammatory system is, to a growing extent, being considered as a cause of disease _per se_. So it's somewhat more complicated than that; it's plausible that the broad anti-inflammatory effects of cannabis could treat a variety of common diseases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How much THC did they give the rats compared to human quantities? I read an article about monkey brains showing some type of symptom when they looked at white matter under a microscope. Turns out the poor monkeys were given the equivalent of an adult smoking a pound a day.

<comment><USER4> 2mg/kg subcutaneous. I don't know the conversion between subcutaneous and other forms of ingestion, but this would be equivalent of ~150mg of THC for an adult male. I also don't the THC content of weed, but it doesn't sound like an unfathomably high dose. I think the other design concerns are more likely to be the culprit here than external validity worries about dose.

<comment><USER10> Normal weed "flower" is 10-30% THC. So 1 gram of weed is 100-300ish mg of THC. A single prerolled joint is usually 1 gram of flower. So this dose is around 1 joint.

Edit: importantly this info is for smoked flower, edibles and concentrates are a little different because of how they are absorbed.

<comment><USER11> Smoking an entire 1g preroll by yourself is a _huge_ dose for a human who doesn't have a high tolerance.

<comment><USER12> I mean, it would depend on the THC concentration, right? A 1g pre-roll with 30% THC would be 3 times as potent as the one with 10%, so I can totally see someone with rather low tolerance smoking a full 10-12% joint by themselves and feeling just fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What does this mean in plain terms?

<comment><USER7> You usually shouldn't draw such conclusions from single studies. This was a rat model studying a specific gene and a drug therapy for it, it might be one datum among many if you were surveying the literature to try to draw conclusions about plain terms conclusions to extract.

A quote from the abstract "Emerging clinical evidence, however, indicates that prenatal cannabis exposure (PCE) predisposes offspring to various neuropsychiatric disorders linked to aberrant dopaminergic function." is about the best you can do. There is growing clinical evidence that cannabis exposure during gestation leads to problems with dopamine.

<comment><USER14> So, correct me if I am wrong, but to summarize: Smoking marijuana while pregnant is bad for the baby?

<comment><USER15> Possibly. There is growing body of evidence it might be.

<comment><USER16> Please confirm: can I counteract the effects of marijuana on the developing fetus with Cocaine? My drug friends tell me they act like opposites in the body. Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I hope "Don't smoke when pregnant" goes without saying. The mother's blood IS the baby's blood during pregnancy, anything the mother takes the baby gets. That's why 90% of medications are unsafe to take when pregnant.

I would hope this would be common knowledge.

<comment><USER11> > The mother's blood IS the baby's blood during pregnancy, anything the mother > takes the baby gets.

This is not really true[0]:

> In the villi, these vessels eventually branch to form an extensive arterio- > capillary-venous system, bringing the fetal blood extremely close to the > maternal blood; but no intermingling of fetal and maternal blood occurs > ("placental barrier").

There is some pass-through effect, but it is not 100%, and varies depending on the particular chemical.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placenta#Fetoplacental_circula...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placenta#Fetoplacental_circulation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Not the full article but a longer summary of it: [https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-10-thc-rat-pregnancy- res...](https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-10-thc-rat-pregnancy-result- brain.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> Only in male mice, according to the abstract. The arbitraryness of it makes me suspicious.

<comment><USER20> I might be misunderstanding you or the abstract but I think the effect occurs in only in male rats. It isn't that they only tested male rats.

<comment><USER19> Yes, the effect only occurs in male rats. It's extremely specific which is why I'm suspicious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Here, we show that male, but not female, offspring of > Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-exposed dams, a rat PCE model, exhibit > extensive molecular and synaptic changes in dopaminergic neurons of the > ventral tegmental area, including altered excitatory-to-inhibitory balance > and switched polarity of long-term synaptic plasticity.

Very possible that this effect will not be observed in humans. Certainly not a good reason to cease cannabis use if it's part of your pregnancy or birth plan, coordinated with experienced prenatal and neonatal professionals.

The opening of the abstract costs this study substantial credibility in my opinion:

> The increased legal availability of cannabis has led to a common > misconception that it is a safe natural remedy for, among others, pregnancy- > related ailments such as morning sickness.

There is no source provided for the claim that increased legal availability has led to a change in perception, but the use of this phrase to open the abstract betrays an unambiguous agenda.

I'll wait until more human longitudinal studies (the current corpus of which includes many which appear favorable to cannabis as part of a prenatal regimen) before changing my mind.</comment>


The Brompton: The bike every commuter wants - <AUTHOR> http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23797779-from-geek-chic-to-the-bike-every-commuter-wants.do <comment><USER2> I've been looking at buying a folder, and the main draw to the Brompton is the size of the folded bike. The minimum price is about $1000 though, and the cheaper folding bikes, usually American or Taiwanese brands, only fold in the middle so are not nearly as portable. I looked around for a cheaper bike with the same fold as the Brompton, and found one made by a company called Flamingo Bikes, but haven't been able to find a source: [http://www.flamingobike.com/products/products_show.php?pid=5...](http://www.flamingobike.com/products/products_show.php?pid=55&cid=3) .

<comment><USER3> If you're going to be carrying your machine onto buses or trains regularly, the Brompton is in a whole other league compared to even the most compact of it's rivals. It's a proper bike with few major compromises (only the poor gear range really) but folds down to a very neat, compact package.

If you just need something that is easy to store, or to take as luggage on an aeroplane, a Dahon would be a better choice - they fold into a much larger and clumsier package than the Brompton, but are cheaper, lighter and faster. The Brompton is perfectly capable of covering long distances but is far from ideal, especially on poor roads or in hilly areas.

$1000 might seem a lot for a bicycle, but as an everyday mode of transport it is extremely good value. A good quality bicycle will last for decades, requiring only modest maintenance. New brake blocks every 1500 miles, new tyres every 3000 and a chain and rear sprocket after 6-8000 miles add up to a mere two cents per mile. Quality machines like the Brompton hold their value extremely well, with used machines barely depreciating at all after the initial drop from new.

The Brompton is absolutely the perfect means of travel in London, not least because even the top-of-the-range model costs less than an Annual Travelcard for public transport.</comment></comment>


Nasa to hack Mars rover Opportunity to fix 'amnesia' fault - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30642548 <comment><USER2> You would think they'd have engineered at least some basic wear leveling in. I guess it didn't occur to them at design time that it might survive as long as it has.

<comment><USER3> Its maybe worth noting that it's about 11 years into a three month mission, so there's that...</comment></comment>


Great product managers don't spend their time on solutions - <AUTHOR> https://blog.intercom.com/great-product-managers-dont-spend-time-on-solutions/ <comment><USER2> When decisions are heavily sales-driven--be it the loudest voices in the room are the sales team, or a big deal is coming down the pipeline requiring custom work--individual solutions start overriding problem-based thinking. It leads to a nasty cycle where clients just blindly ask for features and changes, but no one actually sits down to discuss or think about the "why" behind them.

Honestly the best way to deal with this is to train sales and client-facing teams to start defining the problem in the first place, and to set expectations with clients that the conversation needs to be about problems instead of proposed solutions. Product then needs to gather all the requirements (scoping how much dev work it takes, metrics on how much a change affects all clients vs. individual ones) to make good decisions on what the best solution should be. It's cheap to say "product teams need to be more problem-focused" because the idea pipeline rarely starts on the product team in the first place. Client-facing teams need to play a stronger role in defining the problem itself.

(This is mostly relevant for B2B, by the way. May not be as true for consumer tech.)

<comment><USER3> In the time before app stores, I gave up on the mobile space because I saw this pattern happen at every B2B place I worked and the places by colleagues had worked.

Every network was a unique snowflake and we would bend over backward to get customer 3, creating a piece of code that was so difficult to land customer 5 that we started burning through money and people.

The worst one was the place where management and the sales people thought we should go after the biggest fish first (because they were looking for an exit). This created a problem where we had given sweetheart deals (low or in many cases negative margins) to the people who we should have had the easiest time getting cashflow positive off of. If only we'd waited to land them until we had more experience.

Don't land the whale until you know what to do with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> PMs spending too much time on specific features is the key reason I advocate for problem-based roadmaps rather than feature roadmaps. All data points and feedback is often retrofitted as support for the initial feature solution (aka the feature you thought of first) rather than being used to diagnose the underlying problem.

I wrote an article about this at [https://medium.com/product-managers-at- work/the-product-road...](https://medium.com/product-managers-at-work/the- product-roadmap-is-dead-welcome-to-the-age-of-problem-roadmaps-7c7745ac8ae0) if you want to learn more.

<comment><USER5> Very interesting article! My doubt is about how to use a "problem roadmap" in practice.

It seems to me that a client problem is rarely completely "solved". _So how to decide when it is time to move on to the next problem?_ It is clear when a feature is "done", it is less clear when a problem is done.

<comment><USER6> Your problems usually should be measurable, and sometimes %80 of the work is creating systems that can measure it. By thinking of how do I solve the problem first, instead of features, you might skip making a lot of stuff that is unnecessary in actually solving the problem.

One example is application startup time. Or revenues. User survey scores and so on.

The problem roadmap informs the feature roadmap.

<comment><USER4> Well said

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > "That's it. That's why most companies don't do it. It's hard work, it's > wrongly viewed as unexciting, it can be hard to justify the initial output."

I have to disagree slightly here. While yes it's hard, unexciting and hard to measure, that still isn't why organizations don't do it.

The reality is that it just takes an incredible amount of time. This is especially true for startups and companies trying to move fast. You have to ask yourself — should I spend 2 sprints talking with customers about their problems, or 2 sprints building a POC that I can then test directly with them. In most cases, good PMs, engineers and designers have some basic idea for a solution that usually gets you 50% of the way there. So while I agree with the article is spirit, it's not a one size fits all process.

<comment><USER8> I've worked at 2 startups for a combined 14 years. One as an engineer and the other as a co-founder. I hate to say it but you and the author are both right.

That's the incredibly frustrating thing about startups. Where to spend your time depends on the context.

At first, you're desperate to validate your product and understand your customers. Spending more time in the lab won't save much time because you have little overhead and changes can happen quickly. Prototypes don't always convey a product's value. Imagine looking at mockups of Dropbox before it was released. I'd be the skeptic saying "So I can only sync one folder? That's stupid!", yet I love Dropbox.

I think Intercom's opinion is based on mature, profitable, companies that build ambitious new products. The proportion of time invested in user research, design and prototyping costs a fraction of changes downstream. My current company is in its sixth year and we have millions of users. In the first six months, users could tweet feature requests and we'd release that week. Building new features today requires a 3-month lead just to be considered for the roadmap.

PM done right can be magical. I don't believe in Smurfs, fairies or 100x devs but I believe in 100x Project Managers.

<comment><USER9> 100x Product Manager, yep.

100x Project Manager? I don't see it. Not that they don't bring value, but project managers just don't have enough leverage in the process to be 100x.

<comment><USER8> I should have mentioned that this magical 100X PM chooses the right solution to the biggest problem. I'm not referring to the PM who manages a project he or she was given. You can't manage your way to glory if you're solving a problem no one cares about.

Think Drew Houston deciding that magically syncing files on save without an explicit "Do you want to sync" step was a good idea. Magic doesn't happen often, but it exists in the world.

<comment><USER10> Yes, in a certain way, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, etc. are millionX PMs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article includes two images taken from "the (fantastic) book given out [to Facebook employees] the day of the IPO" of two pages, one about "ruthless prioritization" [0] and another about "code wins arguments" [1]. Does anyone have info on this book? What is the title? How many pages? Anything else in it of interest? I tried searching using these expressions and only got the @padday post. I'm interested in what seems like a set of guiding principles that was given out just as Facebook was starting out with its IPO.

I agree with the post that code wins arguments doesn't really matter if the problem is misunderstood, but want to learn more as I frequently witness PM- types arguing over technology solutions and deciding without ever building anything to test and present evidence.

[0] [http://blog.intercomassets.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/05/08...](http://blog.intercomassets.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/05/08162710/blog_inline1.png)

[1] [http://blog.intercomassets.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/05/08...](http://blog.intercomassets.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/05/08162722/blog_inline2.png)

<comment><USER12> One of these pages seems to be quotes from this blog post [http://chrisjohnsavage.com/2014/07/09/7000-reasons-to- read-t...](http://chrisjohnsavage.com/2014/07/09/7000-reasons-to-read-this- post-it-will-change-everything/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Couldn't agree more. I've spent a lot of time trying to explain this concept.

I do think the author has overlooked another common reason that problem definition gets overlooked: people simply conflate problems and solutions. Most of the "problems" people bring to me are actually solutions to some assumed and unacknowledged problem, e.g. "the button should be bigger." This preempts all critical evaluation of the problem and all of the alternative solutions.

<comment><USER14> True. Systems Theory really emphasizes this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If so much time is spend on problem definitions, wouldn't it be less time for engineers to actually build the thing? While possibly refining and reducing the scope of your product, I'd say that approach would reduce velocity (at least in the short run? In the long run having less product surface = easier iteration)

<comment><USER16> I think that the point is that direction is more important than velocity. After all if you travel away from the target then the faster you go the more time you lose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Some of this depends on what a "product manager" does. Someone needs to prioritize, define, and design the migration off of the Jabberwocky servers, which haven't had an OS upgrade in ten years, but have their IPs hardcoded all over the code base.

Maybe you have product managers tracking technical debt and strategic technical priorities, but that would be an exception rather than a commonplace thing.

But, even in those problems, focusing on and managing one predefined solution is usually an antipattern.

But when this category of problems is ignored (because it is green field development, often), the build phase blows up because you need to be neck deep in code or deployment on some client facing problem to discover these sorts of issues.

<comment><USER18> This is critically important. As a PM, I view it as one of our responsibilities to keep pushing to address the problems - even as we focus on external facing features.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Isn't this exactly the information that a User Story, as used in Agile, is supposed to capture?

<comment><USER20> Yes, that's what it's _supposed_ to capture.

In practice, what will sometimes (often?) happen is that someone will come up with a solution (e.g. elsewhere in this thread "The button on the right needs to be bigger") and then realize that it doesn't fit into the user story box. So they'll think about it for a second and write it as a user story: "As a user, I want the button on the right to be bigger"

<comment><USER9> yup. 9x out of 10 that's what happens. personally i'm constantly pushing back on this type of story, or design doc requirement, even to principal level people.

<comment><USER20> I think my favourite example was "As a user, I want the $COMPANY logo to be displayed prominently in the top-left corner of the application"

Hell, I even accept that marketing is a valid stakeholder in the product. But just be honest about what it is! "For brand consistency, the marketing department would like the logo to be displayed in the top-left corner of the application, following standard company branding documentation." That's a perfectly fine "user" story (stakeholder story) I think. It answers the "why does the person want this?" question much better.

<comment><USER21> This is a great example. But I still have a bone to pick with the edited user story. It's not really a user story and crosses the line into implementation.

I'd propose a further revision:

"As a user, I'd like the home page to reflect a consistent set of branding guidelines so it reinforces the company's identity for me."

Logo display isn't covered by the branding guidelines? The company doesn't even have a branding guide?

Now you've uncovered a deeper problem. Fix that and hopefully you'll avoid a lot of aimless subjective debates over cosmetic issues in the future.

<comment><USER20> Generally speaking, as a user, I couldn't give a shit about the company's branding guidelines and how they display the logo, so long as it's not taking up 1/3 of the screen ;).

But I get your point, and agree about digging into those aimless debates. "As a user, I'd like a consistent visual experience across $COMPANY's products"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've yet to meet or work with a great PM.

<comment><USER23> Where I work, we have 3 or so truly great PMs (ProDUCT Managers). I am so glad I work where I do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Given the relative weighting of the sections of the product development lifecycle, I would expect Intercom to have approximately equal numbers of engineers and product managers. But based on a brief search of LinkedIn the number looks to be in a much more traditional range (I counted 16 product managers and stopped counting engineers at ~60).

<comment><USER25> Problem definition and prioritisation involve people other than the PM:

"We go to great lengths to apply science to this heavy upfront process. We use our:

Customer Support team (who tag every single conversation they have with customers for our PMs to review. We naturally use Intercom to do this btw)

Sales team and Marketing team (who build a product/market matrix based on inputs from the field)

Research team (who we invested heavily in since the very start)

Analytics team (who we are investing very heavily in now)"

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If only upper management allotted time to this... I'm a product manager and we're flying blind. Even our KPIs are absolutely bare bones.

</comment><comment><USER27> I seem to remember reading some of this content, and found from the source that this article was published in May 2017.

A (2017) tag might be needed.

</comment><comment><USER28> Does anybody know where to find a copy of the facebook book mentioned in the article?</comment>


Writing Multithreaded Applications in C++ - <AUTHOR> http://deathbytape.com/post/110008612055/cpp-threading <comment><USER2> Both of these examples exhibit the "busy waiting" anti pattern where a thread is waiting for something in a loop with a sleep or yield in it. This consumes CPU time, power and resources and may be sleeping more than necessary. The proper fix for this is to wait on a condition variable, which will make sure the thread remains inactive when idle.

This may be fine for a trivial example of std::thread and std::mutex but you should almost never do this in practice (there are some exceptions in kernel space when waiting for an I/O device).

I have a few useful rules of thumb when doing multi threaded programming which I want to share:

1) Almost every mutex should be coupled with one or (usually) more condition variables

2) A mutex variable named "mutex" is a code smell. Ditto for condition variables named "cond". They usually have an easy-to-describe function such as "queue_lock", "not_full" or "not_empty".

<comment><USER3> I'll start by saying that I agree with almost everything you've said. I can think of one time where a loop with a sleep might be appropriate though -- if you have something, perhaps some IO channel like a log, and you want it flushed regularly, but not every time a write is performed. With a long enough sleep (>100ms) the performance overhead ought to be low. Is there a better way to design that though?

<comment><USER4> In that case you don't want to sleep. You want to wait until a condition (new data) or a timeout (100ms) occurs.

The reasoning is that you don't know how much data will arrive in the next 100ms and if you sleep either a buffer could overrun or something else could block. Therefore you need to flush the buffer either when enough data has accumulated or if a timeout has occured.

<comment><USER3> I can see where you're coming from. For my particular apication that's not a concern (and I have sequence numbers to know when I've dropped data).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Qt/C++ users can now use futures with .then() and .await() constructs through this tasks[1] library.

an example of .then() construct is here[2].

an example of .await() construct is here[3].What happens here is the following:

1\. The function is suspected at that line.This suspension does not block the thread and hence the GUI remains responsive. 2\. A thread is created and the lambda is run in the new thread. 3\. When the lambda completes,the function is unblocked and finish up its work.

The above gives easy to read and non blocking synchronous code.

[1] [https://github.com/mhogomchungu/tasks](https://github.com/mhogomchungu/tasks)

[2] [https://github.com/mhogomchungu/zuluCrypt/blob/d0439a4e36521...](https://github.com/mhogomchungu/zuluCrypt/blob/d0439a4e36521e42fa9392b82dcefd3224d53334/zuluMount- gui/mainwindow.cpp#L812)

[3] [https://github.com/mhogomchungu/zuluCrypt/blob/eadd2643291f3...](https://github.com/mhogomchungu/zuluCrypt/blob/eadd2643291f37d8dc96302d854f1ae8e29758d9/zuluCrypt- gui/createkeyfile.cpp#L169)

</comment><comment><USER6> It's nice that C++11 and later have standard wrappers around pthreads. But that doesn't make multithreaded programming any easier. Threads still work the same way. All the usual problems, from race conditions to termination, remain. There's nothing comparable to Go's race detector or Rust's compile-time concurrency checking.

I've done a fair amount of concurrent programming in C++; I wrote most of the code for a DARPA Grand Challenge off-road autonomous vehicle a decade ago. That was fun. Some of the code is hard real time, and some isn't. Thread priorities matter. (This was on QNX, which is a hard real time OS.) There are some unusual techniques; for example, I had a "logprintf" function which was non-blocking. "logprintf" wrote to a queue being written to disk by another thread, and if the queue was full, "..." went into the log. "logprintf" thus could not delay a real-time task and could be used safely in hard real time sections.

<comment><USER7> The Go race detector was pretty much just a port of Google's Thread Sanitizer for C++.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm curious what guarantees c++ gives on reading variables like the 'data' in his first example when it can be modified from elsewhere.

Yes, the lock will prevent concurrent access but will it prevent the compiler from optimizing away the read completely since main() was the last function that wrote to the variable. I've seen nasty optimization bugs like that happen in C with single threading and strict pointer aliasing and they are not easy to track down.

One could interpret his example program like this (unrolled and tweaked a bit).

        int data = 0; //ok data is now guaranteed to be equals to 0
        thread t(produce, &data); //called thread with a pointer to data so if i want to read data again i must invalidate my registers
        {
            lock_guard<mutex> lock(theLock);
            data = 5;  // i know i set data to 5 here
        }
        this_thread::sleep_for(chrono::milliseconds(500));  // call contains no references to data, sleep is a "pure" call
        {
            lock_guard<mutex> lock(theLock);    // call contains no references to data
            if (data == 5)  // i set data to 5 myself, and i haven't done anything that could touch data since then so we optimize away this branch
               cout << "data is 5";
        }

Will the call to lock_guard simply disable all such kind of optimizations? Or are you required to write memory barriers yourself in some way? I guess a simple way to look at it would be that the compiler assumes that thread will keep the pointer to data and that lock_guard has access to that pointer behind the scenes somehow, so that acquiring the mutex "invalidates" your last write, but that would mean acquiring _any_ mutex would invalidate _all_ variables as the mutex doesn't specify which data-sets it is locking. Am i thinking correctly? Where can i find more information regarding this.

<comment><USER9> > Where can i find more information regarding this.

The C++ standard, of course :) But if you prefer some lighter reading, either [http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/mutex/mutex/unlock/](http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/mutex/mutex/unlock/) or [http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/thread/mutex/unlock](http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/thread/mutex/unlock) explain what happens, in slightly different ways. I usually prefer the cppreference version, because it uses terminology from the standard more consistently, but there is no harm in reading multiple explanations about difficult concepts like these :)

I'd repeat the explanation here, but I think you'd best be served by reading one of the two links above.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would recommend using std::async instead of std::thread directly as it leaves it up to the STL implementation to manage a thread pool.

[http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/thread/async](http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/thread/async)

</comment><comment><USER11> Le me recommend the Threading Building Blocks library from Intel - it's great for writing parallel solutions for data parallelism problems.

</comment><comment><USER12> Zmq is most often associated with network communications, but its in process sockets are fantastic for multi-threaded programming.

<comment><USER13> I can't describe how important using ZMQ has been to architecting some pretty heavy lifting solutions. You end up with lots of very well defined boundaries in your application pipeline which are language agnostic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Kudos! So elegant. Both C++11 and the article.

</comment><comment><USER15> OpenMP is still the fastest and easiest way to multithreading in C and C++. Got a for loop with no loop-carried dependencies?

#pragma omp parallel for

for(...)

The Wikipedia page isn't a bad starting point: [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenMP](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenMP)

<comment><USER16> OpenMP is terrible.

While you can argue whether introducing pragmas as control structure is a good idea or not, the performance issues with high load(>80% total cpu) and the caveats(two OpenMP versions in same app, multiple threads running OpenMP paralleled code & etc) are just not worth it.

TBB[0] is much better option(especially with C++11, where you can use lambdas to warp your to-be-paralleled-code and don't have to put it elsewhere), and you get all sort of goodies with it(e.g. thread-safe-containers).

[0] [https://www.threadingbuildingblocks.org/](https://www.threadingbuildingblocks.org/)

<comment><USER17> I've had no trouble using OpenMP (with Visual C++ and GCC), though I admit I haven't rigorously benchmarked it compared to other solutions.

As far as I know, it's just syntactic sugar over a pretty simple thread pool model. What are the performance issues at high load?

<comment><USER18> Many years ago I had benchmarked openmp in comparison to other frameworks. IT was very easy but poorly performing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Using boost::coroutine, resumable functions are already possible. I've implented an AWAIT() macro in my scheduler and its usage looks like this:

[https://github.com/flipcoder/kit/blob/master/toys/src/echo.c...](https://github.com/flipcoder/kit/blob/master/toys/src/echo.cpp#L25)

Implementation upon boost::coroutine here: [https://github.com/flipcoder/kit/blob/master/include/kit/asy...](https://github.com/flipcoder/kit/blob/master/include/kit/async/mx.h)

This is only a proof of concept, but it works.

</comment><comment><USER20> What's the real reason for using threads today ? Why not use multi-process instead ? Or even OpenCL/CUDA if one needs to crunch numbers ?

The only real use-case for thread I can see right now, is for large game engine that need to process sound, graphics, networking, and inputs, all at the same time. What other type of application does need to make use of threads ?

<comment><USER21> In some application domains, the program conceptually operates on a big shared data structure. The usual example applications are mesh triangulation and mesh refinement [1].

For these kind of algorithms, it is not possible to divide work up into isolated jobs that can be run entirely independently of others, as until we start solving something like a refinement problem, we don't know what parts of the graph we will need.

That rules out OpenCL and CUDA, as they want to take a job and run it to completion without having to worry about what anyone else is doing.

It also makes multi-processes less attractive. If you have isolated processes and just pass messages between them, then you have the same problem. Do you have one process that handles the shared data structure? Well then you've effectively serialised your program. Do you divide up the data structure between processes? I wouldn't know how to do that as operations may span the partitions.

Perhaps you'll use shared memory between the processes? Well then you're effectively writing multi-threaded code and you might as well use threads.

In the end the easiest way to do things that we know of is to use multiple threads, shared memory, synchronisation primitives and optimistic algorithms.

[1] K. Pingali, D. Nguyen, M. Kulkarni, M. Burtscher, M. A. Hassaan, R. Kaleem, T.-H. Lee, A. Lenharth, R. Manevich, M. M. ndez-Lojo, D. Prountzos, and X. Sui, "The Tao of Parallelism in Algorithms," presented at the Proceedings of the 32nd Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI), 2011.

<comment><USER22> Thank you for being a voice of sanity on this Chris.

There seems to be a terrible amount of cargo culting around safe concurrent programming and the reinvention of the wheel just because somebody heard the original wheel was bad (c.f. Processes and shared memory vs. threads), and the hope that CSP and similar schemes will act as a magik bullet.

In the end you need to think carefully about the design of your program, work out what races might occur, and try encapsulate any shared state mutation in as small an area as possible where it can be sensibly reasoned about. Remember that using concurrent data structures will not automatically make your code safe, put in comments saying why any shortcut you take is safe, and do really thorough code review.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Please Review our App: Weatherbike.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.weatherbike.com

<comment><USER2> That's a pretty sweet idea but here is a better idea: a site that automatically determines your ZIP (and lets you change it). So basically NOTHING on a page except of:

98023 | 97F | 36 C | "Refresh" button

and maybe an ad or so.

I'm sorry but your design is bad. It has many elements that shouldn't be fucking be there.

In the future, ask yourself: is this bike, which blocks a half of page and makes the essential fucking text less readable, necessary? Is this blue gradient, which slowly gets darker and turns into dark blue right when there is a fucking piece of essential dark text, that necessary? Are we still using Word-fucking-Art to make logos? The text is unreadable.

What the fuck does the "Need to know what your commute has in store?" mean? My first impression: bike + commute + store == a site that gives info on what stuff stores sell as I'm riding my bike on my daily commute!

Also, it's "ZIP code" not "Zip Code" (see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_code>) because ZIP is an acronym and we do not capitalize second (or any not first) word in written English. Bothers my eyes.

Verdict: awesome idea but bad design.

I hope this helped.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that was actually extremely helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> From your about page, "you really just want to know 3 things: How hot or cold is it? Is it raining? What are the winds like?" Really, what value are you bringing to the table that going outside for 5 seconds can't do? Honestly, I would find another app to write that actually solves a need.

<comment><USER4> How is that going to tell you what the weather is like at the location to which you are commuting?

<comment><USER5> how often are you commuting by bike to a location where the weather is significantly different from where you started?

<comment><USER4> San Francisco comes to mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use weather.gov for forecasts. What would be great is to have alerts if weather falls below or above temp thresholds,forecast for rains increases or other changes which would affect my plans for the day or week.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is an interesting start, but what I really need is to know what it's going to be like during the evening commute.

Possibly you could ad a feature to let a user enter their commute times and get an email, SMS or something to let them know automatically what's up that day.

Then, give them an option to enter their route and add some traffic information -- along with highly localized ads and such, of course.

</comment><comment><USER8> With NoScript enabled, this happens:

ActionController::InvalidAuthenticityToken in IndexController#index

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I meant to test that with no JS, slipped my mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It is just a rip/copy of <http://www.umbrellatoday.com/>

Which is a site developed by the Thought Bot folks and used as an example during their rails trainings.

<http://www.thoughtbot.com/services/training>

<comment><AUTHOR> It's actually not, as I've never seen that site until you posted the link, but it is extremely similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd like to know the weather in two, four and eight hours also. I can easily see what the weather will be like on my return ride, which is in my opinion, more important.

You can just look outside to see how it is now, but the return ride is always less certain.

</comment><comment><USER11> Where are you getting your data from?

<comment><AUTHOR> Google weather api</comment></comment>


H-P's Apotheker Challenge: Don't Mess Anything Up - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20101001-710925.html

<comment><USER2> Did you know that Apotheker is the dutch word for Pharmacist?</comment>


Old World Order Alive but Unwell After Four Months of Trump - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-29/old-world-order-is-alive-but-unwell-after-four-months-of-trump <comment><AUTHOR> Instructive is a bar chart in the middle of the article that shows the amounts of money NATO member countries were expected to pay vs. the lesser amount they do pay (with the exception of the US, UK, Greece, and smaller states).

Our infrastructure is falling apart in the US (the NYC subways system had a large article in the NYTimes last week showing a dramatic increase in the number of stoppages and far fewer miles traveled before a problem) in only the past few years.

Really, really tired of the US subsidizing the world. Time to take care of our own.

<comment><USER2> What's interesting is that this is not a new issue, nor is it the first time it has been raised (see [http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/08/news/nato-summit- spending-co...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/08/news/nato-summit-spending- countries/) from last year), yet _Trump_ is apparently the bad guy for mentioning it.

I think a very spirited debate can be held over the need for the United States to spend as much as it does on national defense, but I'm hard-pressed to imagine how one can defend the financial dereliction by many of our NATO allies.

<comment><USER3> The question to ask is whose interests are being served? Why has the United States funded NATO for so long? Like you say, it's not like this is a new issue. So what's changed?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask YC: attend convention for my apps target audience? - <AUTHOR>

My apps target audience is geek gamers, especially Role Players (table top not video game).
http://www.gencon.com/2008/indy/ Gen Con is the largest convention for this audience, and will have representatives of Both the Publishers and Gamers, who I'd be building the product for.
My product isn't that far along (still learning coding so it's going slow), I'm living on a fixed income as a 'full time' college student. I'd have to drive 8 hours and get a hotel for a few days if I wanted to attend the whole thing. (I live in lansing michigan).
Being on the fixed budget I'm not sure I can really afford to go. However, trying to start this business I'm not sure if I can afford not to go. If I were to go, having nothing to show, what should I do? should I approach the publishers? should I poll the gamers attending?
My ideal full launch date would actually be Gen Con next year.
Any advice is welcome. <comment><USER2> If you can't afford to go, you probably shouldn't. However, if you can earn a few bucks between now and then and find a way to keep the cost as low as possible(sharing a hotel, getting a student discount, staying with a friend or a friend's friend), then go for it.

If you go, sign up customers. Even if you don't have the product done yet you can still take email addresses. Then you will be more motivated to build the product once you know you'll have some customers. If you can't get any customers or strong prospects, reconsider your idea before you build it.

<comment><AUTHOR> the only problem I have is in my head (maybe I'm wrong?) my product idea is to sell to consumers... but in a sense I have to get the publishers on board because it's their product I'm selling... as far as signing them up should I just take emails? more? should I rush order some business cards with the businesses current name? should I try to get a place holder site up somewhere?

<comment><USER3> Um, will consumers buy it? Thats a problem you need to ask about. Didn't you say your target audeience is going to be there? Thats what market research is about, standing in front of someone and asking them, "would you buy this?" Usually, people are nice and say yes, so you always have to discount that, but if they say no, then you really need to start thinking about your business.

Ask people how much they would pay for it, what they think of the idea, get any suggestions, ask people what other problems they have. Ask publishers if they are interested in your idea. Don't treat the publishers like consumers. Treat them like businees contacts, because they will be. Network among the publishers, ask them if they would be interested in hearing from you when you get your site up, and get their bsuiness card (Purposely ask for it, they'll all have one). Write down on the back who they are and what you talked to them about, cause in a few months you'll totally have forgotten.

When you're talking to gamers, and if they seem interested, ask them if they would want to sign up to be notified when your site goes live or if they want to be a beta tester, that sort of thing. Don't send them emails before then, and let them know this. Just have a clipboard with a piece of paper on it. I wouldn't ask consumers for a business card, thats kind of awkward, like you might actually call them. It helps not to be pushy, so if people show a real interest, you can always email them. Accept a card if they give it to you.

I wouldn't worry about a placeholder site or business cards, although they are cheap. If you don't have a site yet, its not like too many people are going to be seeking you out. You need their cards. If someone wants your contact info, you can always ask for their card and send them an email that night, or write it on the back of theirs. I mean, cards are cheap, but it won't kill you not to have them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Find a safe place to park and sleep in your car. You can freshen up with some deodorant in the morning and stay 2 days.

If you need to take a shower at a motel, you can usually slip a 20 to the front desk person and do so.

<comment><USER3> hehe. Borrow a tent and go camping, or see if there's a gym that does a two week trial period. Thats pushing it, but hey, bootstrapping is bootstrapping :) If all else fails, there's always www.couchsurfing.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oddly enough I have approached a publisher of a table-top RPG in a similar situation. Nothing was built, but the idea was concrete. The publisher was very receptive and helpful, and even gave us some pointers on community figures that could be of assistance in testing.

<comment><AUTHOR> out of curiosity what was the idea? and what happened to it?

<comment><USER5> I'm not at liberty to give many details, but it was/is related to an online multiplayer implementation of a board-base RPG.</comment></comment></comment>


Announcing Aerobatic transition from Bitbucket - gabor-meszaros https://www.aerobatic.com/blog/announcing-aerobatic-transition/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, Aerobatic co-founder here. $15 p/mth provides quite a bit more than a custom domain - CI/CD, deploy staging environments, health checks, and loads of other features. Other services charge 2x - 3x for all of those capabilities.

[https://www.aerobatic.com/docs](https://www.aerobatic.com/docs)

Also, for our existing users, there is a special pricing discount where it's only $10 p/mth. ICYI, the discount code is BITBUCKET2017 and expires March 1st.

Thanks.

</comment><comment> gabor-meszaros $15/m sounds a bit much to me for a custom domain. You can get the same for $7/$9 on GitHub if you want to make the corresponding repository private (I know, there are other differences too e.g. Jekyll modules). GitLab can work, but it was extremely slow for me (not the hosting but the UI).

My question is that is there a free alternative for Jekyll hosting with custom domain from private repository? I loved aerobatic, but it is too much for me for my hobby sites (3-4).</comment>


Ableton push - ship it in please - <AUTHOR> https://www.ableton.com/en/push/

<comment><USER2> I am very glad Ableton has created dedicated hardware for this. I currently use APC 40, MicroKorg. I had a Kaoss Pad, but that was sold. I have never found the "perfect" midi solution for Ableton. Push looks great.

Push has several things that I want to use. The Touch Strip looks like a smart addition to a midi controller. Reminds me a a bit of the Jazz Mutant Lemur.

I can't wait to try the pads and see how they handle pressure. Live 8 has been great, but definitely excited for 9. The new Gate and Compressor look cool.

The ability to sort and view my instruments by rank will come in very handy.

If I could have Push, an Eigenharp, and a Hang Drum. I would be set.

</comment><comment><USER3> Aside from the innovative product, the new Ableton site is pretty fantastic. Responsive, bold, very well done. Love to see this great company on HN.</comment>


Fortnite's success led to months of intense crunch at Epic Games - <AUTHOR> https://www.polygon.com/2019/4/23/18507750/fortnite-work-crunch-epic-games <comment><USER2> > "One senior guy would say, 'Just get more bodies.' That's what the > contractors were called: bodies.

> Epic rapidly hired new staff to handle the deluge, but that the problem > couldn't simply be solved immediately with more employees. "It happened so > quick. Literally one day, we were a small amount of people. The next day it > was just, 'Hey, by the way, now you have 50 more people on this shift who > have absolutely no training.'

It's amazing to me all these years later how true the lessons of "The Mythical Man Month" were. At the time reading the book in my Freshman Comp Sci course the book seemed so abstract. If anything though, it should be required reading for management, instead of developers.</comment>


Michael Arrington: Editorial Independence - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/06/editorial-independence/

<comment><USER5> Maybe it's just me, but millionaires fighting other millionaires for WordPress admin status makes for little sympathy. I don't work at AOL and don't need to take part in their office politics.

<comment><USER6>
        millionaires fighting other millionaires
        for WordPress admin status

could not phrase this better

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is so much fun. It seems that we now have a fight between two divas -- Arrington and Huffington. It is one of those fights where you do not care who wins, you just hope for lots of bloodshed. It's like a Raiders Broncos game!

So Mike Arrington makes a stand for editorial independence. Now for those of you new to this whole discussion, we should note that Mike editorial independence Arrington started this whole brouhaha by the obvious and blatant conflicts of interest he got himself in. Namely he was investing in companies he covers and now is starting a fund that would seem to be dedicated to investing in companies he covers.

After the ny times called him out on the conflict, it was obvious that TechCrunch's claim of it being an independent news source would be utterly laughable. And that probably prompted Ariana to make her move.

And now Arrington is making a bold stand by resigning in the name of "editorial independence". Probably he did not have a choice but to resign, not because of editorial independence from Ariana Huffington, but because of editorial independence from his own conflicts of interest. But by making this stand he very cleverly tried to divert the attention from his own fuckups and poison the waters for whoever Ariana tries to appoint to lead TechCrunch.

Now I would like to say I am not on Ariana's side. I wanted to point out the blatant hypocracy of Arringrton, but Ariana's career is so full of double dealing and questionable behavior that I doubt TechCrunch would be better with her. Like I said, it is the Raiders playing the Broncos, and I am not choosing sides just enjoying the violence.

<comment><USER8> The conflict of interest is a total red herring. Arrington has _always_ disclosed much more than most. If you think it's not, you don't know how the (tech) news industry works.

<comment><USER9> The news business is always inherently conflicted. In the old days Tony Perkins ran Red Herring and his father was the Perkins in Kleiner Perkins.

A journalist is always getting spin from insiders, and then has to write the story that's true and complete, that engages readers. You're always making a deal with the source, I'll help you get your side out, if you help me get the story closer to the truth. Debunking spin is generally not a way to keep your sources talking to you first, or writing what readers and advertisers want.

That being said, I don't see how you can be a VC, on the board of companies and privy to all their inside dope, and at the same time be a journalist whose job is ferreting out the inside dope from everybody else (including possibly competition) and sharing it with the world and passing judgment on them.

You can't be an insider and an outsider at the same time. You can be a VC, with fiduciary duties impacting your own and your investors' wealth, or a journalist, whose duty is to inform readers as much as possible, but not both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Arrington frames it as a matter of "editorial independence" and doesn't talk about ethics and conflict of interests.

However, I don't see how anyone else (and least of all, the owners of TechCrunch) can ignore those two matters - and the resultant impact on the credibility of TechCrunch.

Ultimately, Arrington made a conscious decision to sell TechCrunch to AOL. He made another conscious decision to become the founder of CrunchFund.

The two-option ultimatum in his post seems like simple posturing. It seems like he is ready to finally leave TechCrunch, but doesn't want to frame it as a simple matter of leaving TechCrunch to become a full-time investor (who also blogs - the Fred Wilson model).

<comment><USER11> > It seems like he is ready to finally leave TechCrunch, but doesn't want to > frame it as a simple matter of leaving TechCrunch to become a full-time > investor

I wonder about this. Even if you accept the premise that his priority is now his fund, it seems like Mike's formally leaving TechCrunch could have a nontrivial impact on "CrunchFund's" deal flow?

<comment><USER12> > Mike's formally leaving TechCrunch could have a nontrivial impact on > "CrunchFund's" deal flow?

No, he's a brand unto himself and he knows it, and is cashing in on that in an admirable way (from a game-theory perspective at least)

<comment><USER13> I second that; Arrington has always been a player.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Most people don't realize this, but The New York Times is a big corporation like AOL (with sometimes similarish market caps).

\- The New York Times has invested in technology companies like AdKeeper, Automattic, Ongo, Brightcove, Federated Media, and funds like Betaworks (which is in dozens of startups in all kinds of fields). Have their reporters ever received tips and information about upcoming companies and tech launches because of these connections? Do they get written about more often than your average startup? You better believe it. If you look through their coverage of these companies they imperfectly acknowledge their involvement (even the ones they've invested in directly).

Federated Media (2 years after an investment by New York Times): [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/30/technology/30online.html?s...](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/30/technology/30online.html?sq=federated%20media&st=Search&scp=1&pagewanted=print)

BrightCove article that was published without due diligence and later corrected eight days later: [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/business/23corner.html?sq=...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/business/23corner.html?sq=bright%20cove&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=print)

GroupMe article where they mention that the company has taken $12 million but neglect to mention they were part of the round through Betaworks: [http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/skype-plans-to- buy-...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/skype-plans-to-buy- messaging-start-up-groupme/?pagemode=print)

These were just three examples I pulled quickly (I sincerely apologize for using these companies as examples since this has nothing to do with them). Do your own search for any New York Times invested or Betaworks company on nytimes.com and you'll see what I mean. Does this change their coverage of other competing tech companies?

Funnily enough, the best resource to follow these connections is Crunchbase: <http://www.crunchbase.com/company/newyorktimes>

\- The New York Times has their own internal division that develops software products and services that other publishing companies and media companies buy. Does this change their coverage on competing technologies and competitors?

\- The New York Times owns a diverse set of businesses in competition with Aol's current strategy including about.com. They also own a chunk of the Boston Red Sox.

I'm going to be blunt. I don't think the New York Times is shady enough to let this change their coverage despite their obvious conflicts of interest (in the BrightCove article in their 8 day later correction stresses that "The New York Times Company owns a small stake of less than five percent in Brightcove". I doubt Michael Arrington owns 5% of any startup he's written about). And since TechCrunch has had (if anything) a policy of more transparency and disclosure than the Times has had, I can't for the life of me see what all the ruckus is about.

My disclosure: I am tangentially connected to most of these companies by investment, friendship, or business relationships and I think the world of them. OwnLocal also works with all kinds of newspapers and publishers as a matter of course.

<comment><USER5> Counterpoint, the NY Times has an ethics policy that would never have allowed anything like TechCrunch (even before the newly announced investment fund plan!).

<http://www.nytco.com/press/ethics.html#keeping>

"44. Staff members may not engage in financial counseling (except through the articles they write). They may not manage money for others, offer investment advice, or help operate an investment company of any sort, with or without pay. They may, however, help family members with ordinary financial planning and serve as executors or administrators of estates of relatives and friends and as court-appointed conservators and guardians."

"They may not offer ideas or proposals to people who figure in their coverage or make investments in productions in their field. (Food writers and editors may not invest in restaurants.) "

Etc etc.

The New York Times company owns a lot of stuff. So does AOL. AOL running an investment fund isn't shady in the least. Having an employee who covers tech startups on one of your media properties run a fund for you that invests in tech startups... Big difference. You don't see whoever's job it is to invest in Automattic at the NY Times out there writing A1 on the technology page.

The main difference here is there is a strict firewall at the New York Times Company and not at TechCrunch. Forget disclosure, the NY Times would never let Mike have the startups beat in the first place because of his personal investment activity. Make that professional investment activity and it's just that much more unacceptable.

<comment><USER14> The New York Times already has a way around this through Op-Ed columnists. Thus, it's okay for someone like Warren Buffett, Robert Reich, or someone the Times hires on spec to completely ignore these policies. If TechCrunch were to adhere to the Times' standard, then Arrington might alternatively be either an Op-Ed columnist paid on spec for his pieces of writing, a reporter paid to do a job, or a staff editorial writer.

The reality is that this is a distinction without difference today (especially when editorial is mixed with reporting). Disclosure should be part of every article, op-ed, or editorial. As far as I'm concerned, TechCrunch is actually setting a more rigorous standard than the Times is for future media.

<comment><USER5> Opinion is different than news. Op-Ed columnists don't get the inside track on news that helps them make money and make money for others. Similarly, reporters stay off the opinion page. It's not just a matter of disclosing, the whole concept is against the policy of any reputable media organization (not that I'm of the opinion TechCrunch is, but that's what this is about).

The NYT doesn't let their reporters trade on companies they cover. Would it seem strange to you if a NYT reporter was hired to simultaneously manage a venture fund to invest in companies that are on his beat?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why do I have the feeling that _we_ (the public) aren't the real target for these posts? This all has the feel of a giant power-play within AOL that we are only one side of.

I know that this is TechCrunch, but do we really have to be exposed to the drama that is normally reserved for office politics? Or is this all just an attempt to give Arrington, et al. cover for when this whole thing just blows up?

Or, it could all be for the pageviews... has it been a slow news month?

<comment><USER16> I would become a lot more suspicious of this being a pageview drive if Arriana replied using huffingtonpost.com

<comment><USER17> It's obviously not a pageview drive... This is making AOL look really bad, so if it's a pageview drive AOL is stupid. Especially because of the post MG wrote last night which sounded very honest and blunt.

<comment><USER18> AOL has been making money hand-over-fist while being the brunt of insults for 10 years now - this wouldn't be the first time.

<comment><USER19> AOL's accumulated profit over its entire existence (pre-merger, merged, and post-merger) is negative $1.1 billion, counting realized and unrealized losses. They haven't made money at all yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Am I the only one who sides with Arrington? I feel that TechCrunch has taken editorial ethics seriously so far, and see no reason why this shouldn't continue.

<comment><USER21> The capital J Journalist folks that MG Siegler referenced in his piece earlier have found TechCrunch's position on editorial ethics so laughable that it's almost hard to quantify the gulf between their expectations and the piddling concessions TechCrunch has offered over the years.

I lived with a capital J journalist for a long time and got to know a lot of his coworkers and contacts, and I was really quite surprised at the lengths those people go to maintain their journalistic integrity. They would not simply disclose conflicts of interest, they would completely avoid them. For example, a lot of them would not even vote in elections or invest in funds that could even potentially contain stock in companies that they could even possibly cover in the future (regardless of whether or not they were even working in that field!). To the individuals that subscribe to that system, Arrington's position as an editor of a tremendously powerful tech news source and an investor in tech companies is absolutely irreconcilable.

I think it's unfortunate that a lot of people really have little comprehension of what this so-called "capital J journalism" is about. In fact, it's pretty sad that someone in MG Siegler's position would even draw such a distinction. There is no such thing as capital J journalism. There's journalism, and then there's bullshit.

edited: originally I referred to Siegler as MC Siegler

<comment><USER22> That's traditional journalism, but traditional journalism is going out of business. Tabloids and demagoguery are an easier sell for dumb audiences, and smart audiences can deal with bias, so there's only a niche market left for impartial journalism. We certainly can't expect it to remain the predominant paradigm.

You and I may think there's something seedy and questionable about writing for a trashy tabloid, but it's not up to us what other people want to read.

<comment><USER21> Tabloids and demagoguery have existed for as long as real journalism. I think it's odd to think that either one is going to replace the other entirely, although it certainly seems that at times one is more prevalent. Every era has its Creelman and Hearst, but most have their Menckens and Pulitzers too.

The New York Times' article about Arrington's questionable ethics was written with the general public in mind, most of whom probably know very little about TC and Arrington. If nothing else, now when they see a TC reference or an Arrington byline in some other venue (or if they click on a link directing them to TC), they'll take whatever is said with a grain of salt. Perhaps that's what you mean by "smart audiences can deal with bias." Unfortunately that doesn't change the fact that even the smart people need a reliable efficient source for startup news that isn't being delivered by people with a monetary interest in what they're covering... Obviously most of the people that are reading HN have enough interest in startup and tech news that they're willing to filter primary sources themselves. But what about someone in another field? Don't they deserve an unbiased, reliable, and informed source?

<comment><USER22> I don't think anyone can afford to be naive anymore. Even traditional journalism, by and large, was a sham--the "impartial" news media is still biased for the most part, they're just better at hiding it under a veneer of professionalism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> John Gruber wins for the best tl;dr I've seen of this drama yet:

> "I Sold My Company (to a Bunch of Idiots) and Expected to Still Maintain > Control Over It."

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/09/06/aol-techcrunch>

</comment><comment><USER24> I briefly worked for AOL on the Winamp team right after they acquired both Winamp and Time Warner. The story that an AOL deal ends up in a total cluster fuck is 10 years old.

With any knowledge of recent history, it is boggling anyone thought this acquisition would work and I don't believe for a second Arrington is writing in earnest.

<comment><USER25> SHOUTcast's recent week-long on and off outage and subsequent crippling of their APIs is evidence enough of how seriously (or lack thereof) they take some of their properties.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Most of the editors at Engadget, another tech blog owned by AOL have left publicly citing AOL's editorial policy. I am surprised by the lack of support that Hacker News community is showing to Arrington. Even in the post announcing the sale to AOL, there was clear stress about the editorial independence of TC. Arrington always has had a weird investment policy, but to his credit, he has maintained a strict transparency about his posts. For people who are alleging what happens to those companies which are competitors, won't the same logic apply to Fred Wilson or Om Malik, both of whom are VCs as well as popular bloggers.

I do think Arrington should not have named his fund CrunchFund. Techcrunch runs a database about companies and people involved in the tech industry called Crunchbase. This brings us to a different question. Michael earlier had a plan for a tablet called CrunchPad, which didn't materialize when he had a fall-out with his technical partner. Does the brand name belong to the company or to the founder ? No matter who owns the trademark and other legal stuff, I believe it should stay with the company.

<comment><USER8> I'm surprised as well. Editorial independence is a real issue (not like the conflict of interest red herring), and we're not defending it for the most influential tech news blog?

<comment><USER26> Agree. I am amazed at how most people just bash TechCrunch and leave the matter. No matter one likes it or not, they are the biggest tech blog and so very influential. TC's well-being is in the interest of the startup community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Arrington & Armstrong created CrunchFund as partners and the controversy is purely Arrington's doing.

This latest breathlessly pissed off post demonstrates Arrington can still post anything he likes to TechCrunch.

So why not write a clear and concise explanation on TC to begin with?

I'd submit that Arrington is ready to leave TC to focus on investing, and there's no better way to do that than with a massive page-view heavy controversy.

<comment><USER8> Sure, Arrington doesn't care if he burns his bridges, he's ready to move on and he knows what a post like this will buy him (respect and enemies). That doesn't mean the controversy is empty though.

It's still ball-sy and more than 99.99% of people in the business would do and yes, for that he gets respect points. Like it or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This makes me suspect that Arrington is one of those people who every now and then digs in his heels and has a complete inability to see things from his opponent's point of view. For example, here he does not even bother to address what seems to me to be the central issue (journalistic conflict of interest).

<comment><USER29> You seem to think this is AOL enforcing journalistic standards. Try reading the whole saga again. The blowtorch that ignited this wasn't CrunchFund itself (which AOL backed), but _AOL CEO Tim Armstrong_ (NOT Arrington) disclaiming journalistic integrity:

 _"TechCrunch is a different property and they have different standards… we have a traditional understanding of journalism with the exception of TechCrunch."_

This is a disaster of AOL's making, not Arrington's.

<comment> brown9-2 Where is he disclaiming journalistic integrity?

Seems to me like he is making a hands-off comment with regards to TechCrunch, as in - we wouldn't allow an editor of a regular property to invest in companies they write about, but TechCrunch has different rules.

<comment><USER29> I don't understand. How is saying "TechCrunch doesn't have to have journalistic integrity" not disclaiming journalistic integrity for TC?

<comment> brown9-2 Perhaps it is, but having a member of the senior staff also running an investment fund that invests in the very subjects of the TechCrunch site is a huge integrity issue. Armstrong seemed to be dodging the question to me, a way to avoid having to answer for what Arrington is up to.

<comment><USER29> I kinda see what you're getting at, but it doesn't really make any sense. Armstrong was actively working with Arrington on the fund. It wouldn't be answering for Arrington (or at least not _just_ Arrington), but for himself and AOL as a whole.

This wasn't something that Arrington just announced out of the blue that AOL has to scramble to react to. Armstrong was active in setting the whole thing up, and _AOL was investing in the fund_. They _knew_ this was happening way in advance, and announced it _with_ Arrington. _Then_ everything went to hell. To whatever degree this could possibly be construed as Arrington's fault, it must also be seen as at _least_ equally AOL's fault.

<comment> brown9-2 I agree wholeheartedly on that last point - it's all of their fault for not making sure that a giant firewall existed between Arrington and TechCrunch as a part of this announcement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's called "selling out" for a reason. If Michael Arrington is genuinely surprised that an acquirer is not holding to the sweet, sweet promises it made him at acquisition time, then he has no business being a tech journalist.

The correct time for this kind of acute episode of journalistic integrity was before cashing the AOL check, not after. He was under no pressure to relinquish his independence.

More likely he sees an opportunity to head for the exit with at least one suitcase still full of money.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'd like to see mass exodus of writers and creating their own brand new site. Sounds familiar.

<comment><USER32> I could see MG Siegler joining Thisismynext/The Verge.

<comment><USER33> And Bankoff (the guy who orchestrated the Weblogs, Inc. merger, and subsequent editorial strategy of the NewAOL which Armstrong is executing on today) would probably be more than happy to welcome them into the fold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's the law of cycles. Techcrunch has had a good run, but in the internet era, a fast paced blog can't last forever. See the downhill progress of Engadget and Gizmodo. Time to make room for a new king of the hill.

</comment><comment><USER35> I think Arrington for got Option 3:

AOL says F __* You Arrington, does what they want since they bought tech crunch and they own it. The past shareholders have no ability to recall the buyout almost a year later and say nevermind we want our company back.

Reality is Arrington sold, Arrington started a new fund. People think this new fund will interfere with Arrington's "Editorial Independence" therefore they claim he will be gone.

At the end of the day it just does not matter that much, If Mike is who he thinks he is he could just go start another blog tomorrow and gain all the traction he wanted. His non-compete (if applicable) is probably non- enforceable after the first twelve months anyhow.

If he is not then he should just go back to his new fund and invest in some startups loudly (which is the Arrington fashion) which is probably what he will do best

</comment><comment><USER36> So presumably this includes the possibility of writing 100% positive articles on CrunchFund funded companies and 100% negative articles on their competitors....

<comment><USER37> NBC is owned by GE, that doesn't restrict NBC Nightly News from reporting on the weapons made by GE that were used by and against Libyan rebels. I understand the levels of separation are a lot deeper with GE/NBC, but as long as full disclosure is given about his relationship with Crunchfund companies I don't see a huge ethical problem.

That said, I really don't see why Arrington would want to try wearing both hats. It brings a huge magnifying glass onto the bias in his articles, and possibly the articles of all those at TechCrunch.

<comment><USER36> I bet NBC Nightly News has a fairly rigorous and well-defined code of ethics.

<comment><USER38> Yup, but "code of ethics" means:

A set of "rules" that sounds good to outsiders but lets insiders do what they want.

Most "code of ethics" make it easy for insiders to call outsiders "unethical" for doing things that insiders do.

For example, "journalists" are allowed to make up quotes. Outsiders aren't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Who didn't see this coming 11 months ago? Many founders seem to regret the sale of their baby...Arrington is no different. Acquisitions are tough when talented people are involved and it's no longer their ship to run.

</comment><comment><USER40> I know I will be voted down, but this reminds me of PGs comments on the AirBbB threads.

</comment><comment><USER41> Like Arrington/TC or not, it is hard to deny that since the AOL acquisition that TC has gone above and beyond to make sure they assert their independence.

It's very interesting to see the internal politics spill out on the main page, and it's fascinating to see the struggle between the competing entities after an acquisition.

I think many/most other media acquisitions would have squashed this - <USER2> any of News Corp media outlets EVER writing/reporting a negative story about News Corp, and the same would go for NBC and MSNBC of GE, and all the others.

I must say, although it can be construed as just grandstanding and attention grabbing, Mike and the TC team have gotten a few extra points from me over these episodes.

Sure, they may have overdone it at times, but it couldn't have been easy for Arrington to stand by and watch his reporters str8 up tell his new overlords "Fuck Off" (literally - one of TC's bloggers tweeted that, can't remember which one).

Glad to see them publicly wrestle with their independence. There is something brave about doing it in public.

</comment><comment><USER42> First off, I should say one thing. I am not a fan of Arrington. In fact, I really dislike him and think he's an over-arrogant POS.

However, I do enjoy his site and prefer its raw ethical nature. They promised editorial independence and this should remain true. I have to side with Arrington. That being said, I don't believe pushing this issue publicly like this is going to help one bit. I'd bet that AOL sees this post and considers it insubordination leaving them with no choices but let him go (if that's even possible?)

One thing I hate about the "big guys" in news is that it is the news "they" want you to hear, and I hate that. If Arrington leaves TechCrunch, and the ethics behind TechCrunch leave with him, I will no longer visit the site.

<comment> brown9-2 Why is "editorial independence" here being taken to mean the same thing as "ethical"?

Aren't these two separate issues? I don't understand how AOL having some editorial control over TechCrunch has anything to do with TechCrunch following standard journalistic ethics with regards to conflicts of interest - <USER3> TechCrunch feels it should have the independence to not disclose conflicts of interest.

<comment><USER43> There seems to be some discussion about exactly what "standard journalistic ethics" is. Some people would probably prefer disclosure in a case where, say, MG Sigler writes about a company that Arrington invested in. TechCruch feels that no disclosure is required in such cases because of their unique lack of editorial oversight (translation: apparently "TechCrunch" is just a bunch of independent writers who don't talk to each other).

<comment> brown9-2 I think it would be more accurate to characterize that dispute as being between TechCrunch and the rest of the entire journalism industry. I don't think anyone else thinks that what TechCrunch would like - <USER4> disclosure, because "you can trust us" - is a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Glad more people are getting introduced to the term editorial independence.

</comment><comment><USER45> So instead of writing this message in an email to the powers at be at AOL, he writes a blog post about it, which is certain to escalate the situation?

Why?

<comment><USER46> I am sure he has written and said many things to AOL at this point. He is grumpy, rich and thinks AOL crossed major boundary lines that were part of their original agreement. At this point, he knows that he can either:

a) Get AOL to bow down to his rants (Charlie Sheen anyone?) and "reimplement" those boundaries. Basically he wants to stick it to the man that gave him 30 million to prove hes bigger than the man.

b) buy TC back from AOL, probably for half as much as they paid.

Inside I am sure he is thinkin this is awesome cuz either way dude walks away with 8 bajillion dollars, synonymous popularity in tech world and every chance in the world to start another uber blog/mediacompany/empire.

Plus, he can pull a Steve Jobs even if he does quit, and resurrect the company at any time he wants to after AOL buries it and Ariana becomes Co-Editor..

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm reminded of the link posted last week [1] arguing that founders make better CEOs. TechCrunch was a valuable asset for AOL to pick up precisely because of the way it was organized and managed.

[1] [http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/steve- jo...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/steve-jobss-law- why-founders-make-the-best-leaders/244439/)

</comment><comment><USER48> This whole saga is nothing short of confusing. I guess the owners of TC lost sight of the picture when they saw a nice financial exit. They've covered AOL long enough to know how bad things might get. What's really interesting is how AOL managed stay alive all these years and even acquire properties with life in them.

<comment><USER16> > how AOL managed stay alive

selling overpriced dialup to old and ignorant people

(not a joke)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> _If Aol cannot accept either of these options, and no other creative solution can be found, I cannot be a part of TechCrunch going forward._

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure AOL just told Arrington they didn't _want_ him to have any significant role at TechCrunch going forward.

</comment><comment><USER50> Pile on Arrington?

Techcrunch is an interesting read now and then and certainly draws people that love what they do and others that don't. Lots of trolls anytime Steve Gilmour or MG Siegler post, it is the nature of the Web.

This very much seems like a spat between Arriana Huffington and Michael Arrington, both of which have very public forums to address their sides. At the end of the day, if the paperwork signed says that TC was to have "editorial independence" from Huffington Post, then AOL needs to address that. If it doesn't, then the parties involved need to figure out how to salve the assorted egos.

The CrunchFund thing? I get the impression that Armstrong and Arrington get along and Armstrong/AOL see the Crunchfund as a way of getting AOL (event at a distance) more involved in developing new companies. Does it make things more complicated? Probably.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

</comment><comment><USER51> He already has editorial independence. What he wants is independence to run a venture fund. It's a crucial distinction, and one AOL's lawyers can surely make -- convincingly -- in court.

</comment><comment><USER52> Does anyone else think that techcrunch has a lot of drama for no good reason? I used to like reading it a while ago, now I just don't care for it.

</comment><comment><USER53> AOL have moved to ensure that TechCrunch maintains its editorial independence... from a venture fund.

</comment><comment><USER54> The solution is obvious: CrunchFund buys back a majority stake in TC from AOL for $20 million.

AOL now owns TC indirectly, as Mike is the middle man.

</comment><comment><USER55> Leaving editorial Independence aside, if Arrington was fired from TC and AOL, how is he able to write this post? Sounds all like a sham!

</comment><comment><USER56> Get stuffed already.

</comment><comment><USER57> I wonder how much of this whole brouhaha was staged.

<comment><USER58> I was just going to post the same comment! 1) Quietly and privately agree on his role, then 2) stage a public melodrama for traffic, and finally 3) bring the drama to a resolution favorable to both TC and AOL. That's worth at least 4 or 5 record-traffic articles if played right. (I'm usually not this cynical, but then again, this is TechCrunch.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> wait for ThisIsMyNextCrunch to launch in the next few months.

<comment><USER34> I've previously suggested that MG and some of the crew should go join the upcoming Verge

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> drama queens

</comment><comment><USER61> "Trolls trolling trolls."

</comment><comment><USER62> The page loaded completely empty for me, even after enabling every prompted script domain via NoScript. Curious, I checked the source, and it looks like the page essentially consists of script elements within an unclosed head tag:

<http://pastebin.com/JkVyL9tb>

sigh...

<comment><USER63> That would likely be PHP throwing a fatal error and bailing out.</comment></comment>


A Ukrainian Hacker Who Became the FBI's Best Weapon and Worst Nightmare - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2016/05/maksym-igor-popov-fbi/ <comment><USER2> It fell on the desk of Stephen Heymann, a tough cybercrime prosecutor who would later gain notoriety for his pursuit of Internet activist Aaron Swartz.</comment>


Inside Pivotal Labs, the Agile Force Behind Twitter  - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2010/10/07/inside-pivotal-labs-the-agile-force-behind-twitter-and-groupon/

<comment><USER2> Not a bad article/video at all, but I don't believe the title of this thread to be appropriate.

They weren't so much behind twitter, as they were brought on partway through the game to help with some (I assume) scaling concerns.

(edit: I like pivotal, but keeping the quality on HN is essential to my being)

<comment><USER3> Title seems appropriate. "...agile...behind Twitter".

keywords: agile (whether you like buzzword or not)

It's more about changing the culture of Twitter engineering department.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good to see Pivotal Labs getting some of the credit they deserve.

<comment><USER5> Definitely. I know a couple of people who work there and they are some of the smartest/best programmers I know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've heard a VC saying that Pivotal is a great company to build polished software for you if you have raised a big chunk of money.

Anyone know how much they actually cost though? Are their rates through the roof because people throw their VC money at them?

<comment><USER7> _Companies pay Pivotal between $150,000 and $600,000 on average, according to VP Technology and Principal Ian McFarland._

(from the article)

Sounds a bit hard to afford if you're not funded. I'd be curious to know what this includes too: how long, how many developers?

<comment><USER2> From 2-7 months, although typically 3-6

(Also from the article ;) )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I tend to like Pivotal and have friends contracting them.

Have any other open source efforts other than Diaspora come out from them? I don't understand how they let Diaspora do a big bang code release of such poor quality if they are the Rails experts they are reported to be.

<comment><USER9> I think the Diaspora just worked in the SF office. I don't believe it was a project out of Pivotal.

<comment><USER10> That's correct. We just let them use the space; we don't code with them.

<comment><USER8> Wow!

Being co-located I would hope folks would have taken an interest and the Diaspora folks having enough maturity to ask for early feedback from the more experienced folks in the room from Pivotal or others.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Was on the First SAT? - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Document-Deep-Dive-What-Was-on-the-First-SAT-202748151.html

<comment><USER2> For comparison, the link below [1] is for the Harvard Entrance Exam in 1899. "Write only as much as you can revise carefully."

[1] [http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvarde...](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvardexam.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm sure in due time we'll find that many of the questions asked today are as inane and conditional as the ability to distinguish between cuts of beef and cow organs.

<comment><USER4> > the ability to distinguish between cuts of beef and cow organs.

This sounds like basic biology to me.

<comment><USER5> Cuts of beef? There is more than one way of doing it, it's completely cultural.

<comment><USER6> That is only vaguely true.

There are some cuts that vary culture to culture (like Americans leave a lot of meat on ribs compared to Europeans), but in general cuts derive from the musculature of the animal and the various boundaries between the muscles. It's pretty obvious to all cultures what the "breast" of a bird is, because the meat all has the same texture.

Cuts mostly derive from nature in the same way mathematical formulas do.

<comment><USER7> It's only obvious to cultures that eat meat. I grew up vegetarian in a Hindu family (in the US). Until late college, I would not have been able to tell you how filet mignon, sirloin, chuck, rib differed -- or even what animal they referred to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That viewer is almost as terrible as Scribd. Does anyone have a link to the document itself?

<comment><USER9> <http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/681564/1926-sat.pdf>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Always wondered what it was like.

At first, looking at the more rote-recall-based verbal section, I thought it didn't live up to the conception that it was an IQ test. But the math section didn't look easy, especially without a calculator, and I imagine that test- takers of the day didn't prepare like they do today, so the unfamiliar format of the test was probably part of the selection process.

<comment><USER11> The math problems appear designed to be workable in your head, fitting the 3-answers-per-minute target: divisions come out as whole numbers, and in the last one with the scary occurrence of pi you don't need to use it (it cancels out -- and I like that, with the time constraint you need to be thinking on your feet). I also like that it's not multiple-choice.

(But we're only seeing the first page of each section; I'll bet it gets harder.)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> In case you don't see DocumentCloud's fullscreen button, here it is so you don't have to sidescroll on the test:

[http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/681564-1926-sat.html#...](http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/681564-1926-sat.html#document/p1)

\----

edit: The info on the test composition is pretty interesting, and telling about how we protect our students from feeling like failures.

[http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/681564-1926-sat.html#...](http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/681564-1926-sat.html#document/p1/a98696)

> _Students had 97 minutes to answer a total of 315 questions on nine sub- > tests..."You had to answer about three questions per minute," says O'Reilly. > "The expectation was that nobody would finish the whole test."... Today, > students have three hours and 45 minutes to tackle 170 questions and an > essay on 10 sections..."Now, you have a little over a minute per question," > says O'Reilly. "We are aiming for 80 percent of students getting to the end > of the test."_

<comment><USER12> It also somewhat changes the nature of the test. Under the original rules, you just had to be good at some subset of the skills/knowledge that were tested. Now you have to be good at pretty much everything on it to get a good score.

I can imagine if it was this way now it would be a lot like a MMORPG. There would be online forums griping that math students are OP and they nerfed chemistry this year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very nice, thanks for sharing

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting that it has a Linguistics section, as in the International Linguistics Olympiad, but not seen on a modern SAT or high school classroom. <http://www.ioling.org/problems/samples/>

I suppose that morphed in to the "logic puzzles" found on the modern LSAT.</comment>