You have a friend named "GrubbyButt"?
She doesn't want to embarrass Jammies by name.
If there is money in it, it will be sustained. Someone like Yggles could blog indefinitely provided an employer exists. When someone figures out a business model for blogs they will exist almost indefinitely (and then, they will be called newspapers). Companies will blog as the default way to push information to customers. Otherwise I think we must get over the idea that blogging should be permanent. There is no reason they should be, but people look at newspapers as the nearest equivalent and expect similar lifetimes. At least that's what I guess is happening.
Nonprofitable things are sustained all the time. I work for a nonprofit institution. Why would profit be the only sustainable model?
Nonprofit isn't quite the same as nonprofitable. You profit from your work at your not-for-profit institution.
But doesn't Dub Breeze mean "profitable" under that distinction?
Also, I shed a single tear for the poor unloved LiveJournal bots. They just want to be your friend!
Not necessarily: If there is money in it, it will be sustained. Someone like Yggles could blog indefinitely provided an employer exists.
You'll do your job indefinitely, too, provided an employer exists, right? You have an employer who pays you -- the fact that that employer is a nonprofit institution is beside the point.
Further, universities bring in money. They aren't non-profit in any sense of income-free.
In the very near future, young people will communicate and socialize in ways their elders will find weird, distasteful, and a little frightening.
probably organ exchange
Hey, check out my spleen.
That's a rad spleen, and matches the left kidney.
I got it in Prague, wanna wear it for a while
I leave other possibilities to the group.
Sure, bloggers who want to be make a living as writers need an income stream. I don't think that blogging will become limited to people trying to make a living at it.
I agree with you Heebster. I'm basically arguing that indefinite revenue stream implies indefinite existence. Don't go denying the antecedent here[1], or starting a land war in Asia.
I think no income blogging may kill of, say, large amounts of professional sports writing. Such a blog category could continue indefinitely even if the individual blogs change over time.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying_the_antecedent
Scrapbookking purposes
What about scrapbookqueen purposes? Sexist.
But I think the Unfogged model* - blogging-by-directionless-tidbit - holds the least promise for the future kids.
I'd disagree except for the fact that I don't know what the future kids are interested in. I'm tempted to say that what makes blogs like Unfogged, Making Light, Crooked Timber, Obsidian Wings, maybe Atrios and some others (which ones?) appealing is the community they've built up, one which allows for contestation as well as comity; and while this is an obvious thing to say, and it takes time and dedication to build up such a community, it's sorely lacking in most other online spaces (talking blogs here, not Facebook). And there's a desire for that that I can't imagine future kids being uninterested in.
That said, most of those other blogs do have a theme; Unfogged doesn't, which tests the patience and interest level of readers, which is possibly why threads almost invariably go off-topic. DS said a while back that Unfogged is like a collective LiveJournal, which sounds sort of grim.
*And in fact, Unfogged is not nearly as linky as it used to be.
That cuts way down on readership, doesn't it? Any blog needs a regular influx of new readers.
Anyway, blogging by directionless tidbit, sans links, only works with a charismatic blogger, or set of them, and that'll have a limited lifespan due to burnout. Provide links, have some sort of theme, and make it a group blog, and I don't see why there isn't a place for such things indefinitely.
*And in fact, Unfogged is not nearly as linky as it used to be.
That cuts way down on readership, doesn't it? Any blog needs a regular influx of new readers.
Getting linked to is what really brings in new readers. Linking to other places doesn't necessarily.
Unfogged doesn't, which tests the patience and interest level of readers, which is possibly why threads almost invariably go off-topic.
Is it really the not-having-a-theme that tests the patience and interest level? I can't imagine a set theme wouldn't also test the patience and interest level.
And threads go off-topic because they're conversational, not because of a flaw in topic choice.
Like how bookkeepping has all those double-letters...and ballooning...I just typed without thinking
16: Technically. But linking to other blogs, posts, or articles extends the scope of the discussion so that it doesn't remain so internal (to itself). Commenters are more likely to bring in issues and perspectives raised elsewhere, which makes the discussion generally more dynamic, which in turns makes for better reading and therefore more readers.
This:
I agree with you Heebster. I'm basically arguing that indefinite revenue stream implies indefinite existence. Don't go denying the antecedent here[1], or starting a land war in Asia.
is a more reconciliable statement than this:
Otherwise I think we must get over the idea that blogging should be permanent.
15:Dammit, pars, you stole everything I was going to say.
it's sorely lacking in most other online spaces (talking blogs here
Well, most of the blogs I visit have a community, tho it may be small;or the community doesn't socialize in comments;or the bloggers socialize in other ways that make their blogs and comment sections secondary.
A theme is useful, and bringing a community with you, or sharing one with someone else, when you start a blog is helpful.
And then there are "bloglike" communities. The British SWP site. do they discuss "football" there? Is there some obscure area of Wikipedia talking about Avatar? IMDB has it's boards, which are bloglike, and infested with teenagers.
17: I meant 'theme' much more broadly. Making Light is ostensibly about sf/fantasy writing. CT is academic, specifically humanities. ObWi is political and nothing but. On Making Light, though, you also get quite a few posts that have absolutely nothing to do with the sf world (about cooking, or the weather, or whatever). But there is a general theme in the broad sense, and that keeps the core readership. There are also a *lot* of links in the blogroll.
Anyway, I'm not criticizing unfogged as being flawed in its topic choices. It's just that its core readership is here out of loyalty and friendship and habit, and lurkers delurk in order to join the community. It's not about the topics, really. (Unfogged seems to run like this: this is the music thread. This is the dating thread. This is the child-raising thread. This is the food thread. And so on. That works if you already have a readership. I fear that it's not going to generate new participants.)
I'm really speaking from my own perspective, obviously, about what has staying power in various blogs.
I think there should be a rule
Anyone talking about the Internets has only seen an infinitesimal part of them.
Heck, China and India aren't really connected to us yet. The Web has yet to begin.
http://www.newshelton.com/wet/dry/ is an aimless linky blog that I like pretty well, maybe a temporary version of 3. http://www.spamula.net/blog/ was also not aimless, a beautiful collection of mostly print links. I think that a significant fourth addition is an individual with something to say that takes a few years to saturate, not too different from pop star lifetime, though less vapid due to the different economic structure. Transient passion for a label, maybe.
One issue with facebook or last.fm for people who listen to music is control-- an advantage of a blog for the writer is clear ownership, with at least the theoretical ability to self-archive and transfer, as well as control of whether the framing ads exist and are free of mortgages or porn or whatever. Several specialized music blogs seem pretty long-standing and uncompensated, definitely offering more than the shared playlist communities, which IME do not do well at highlighting interesting midlist or new but not bestselling work in well-defined categories.
This is the dating thread. This is the child-raising thread. This is the food thread.
And I am certain there are thematic blogs, or generalist blogs with a somewhat tighter focus, that attract many people interested in these things.
Does Unfogged want to become part of the FoodWeb? That might be done, with links and controversy. Does this community want to merge with that one, and make the necessary social adjustments?
Unfogged has always struck me as more of a discussion forum pretending to be a blog. And, since discussion forums are pretty much coeval with the internet, I don't see things of an Unfogged-format disappearing anytime soon. I guess I don't see blogs disappearing either, though they may get progressively integrated with other social-networking platforms.
Anyone talking about the Internets has only seen an infinitesimal part of them.
God, so true. I was embarrassed by the small compass of community-like blogs I mentioned.
My new year's resolution is to read wood s lot diligently.
This is a meta thread.
But not as painful as most meta-threads.
(I kid, I enjoy meta-threads, but I wouldn't claim that they're highlights of the blog)
17
Is it really the not-having-a-theme that tests the patience and interest level? ...
No, it's the boring posts.
I never meta a thread I didn't like.
I reckon the blogging format will endure, just become less delimited from everything else - as much a routine feature of the Web as links.
If you want some prediction about new formats, I reckon something Web-like using XMPP might be the way to go - a social network structure like twitbookspace, real-time, capable of semantic/automated filtering/rebroadcast/whatever, with an XML payload. Google Wave is sortof that, but it's not what I'm thinking of. But that's engineery technology-first forecasting.
As far as Fbook and an interactive rolodex goes, isn't that called LinkedIn, or PoFacedBook as I think of it?
The facebookification of the internet is really getting on my nerves. Remember back when people communicated with internet-but-non-web things like "email" and "instant messenger" that didn't require routing all of one's interactions through one web site? Why do people hate that now?
Remember back when people communicated with internet-but-non-web things like "email" and "instant messenger" that didn't require routing all of one's interactions through one web site? Why do people hate that now?
Because they can only be used from a single computer.
I hear you, essear. But the one situation where I prefer to send someone a message over Facebook instead of e-mail is when the person has several e-mail addresses and I don't really know which ones are defunct. I assume they've got Facebook set up to go to their main one if they're active there.
(Or of course where I don't know their e-mail address, because we reconnected solely over Facebook. But I assume you're not talking about that situation.)
Because they can only be used from a single computer.
This is why I don't really understand email clients that download your email. What's the benefit to that over a web-based email? And can you access it from other computers?
Because they can only be used from a single computer.
I don't understand. Do you mean that if you go to a public computer, it's easier to log on to Facebook than to get to your email account? I guess I can see that, if you don't have a way of getting to your email via webmail or ssh and don't know your IMAP server or don't have access to a client that lets you configure it. But how often are people using public computers under those conditions? And I don't understand what you mean at all for IM.
This is why I don't really understand email clients that download your email. What's the benefit to that over a web-based email?
Use IMAP, keep your email on the server, and download a copy to your computer(s) that can be accessed even when you're not online. It's the best of all possible worlds.
I wouldn't count blogs out just yet. Pace Bruce Sterling's Dead Media Project, it's actually kind of unusual for a popular medium to die out completely. Look how long Western Union telegrams still existed long after they had become obsolete.
I don't see much chance that blogging in its current form is going to be big with the post-millenials. Which is fine. Even if I may not get there with you, plenty of Gen X people are going to be holding on to there dead tech for 60 years easy.
I'm starting to think I'm now a crotchety old man.
Nobody in the real world knows what an IMAP server or "ssh" is, essear, you early adopter.
41: Ah, ok. I just remember house sitting for someone who welcomed me to use her computer but under no circumstances was I to touch the email client because then it would download all her mail and she would not be able to access it. I wouldn't have, anyway, of course. I think she probably was just not the most technologically capable person and hadn't figured out to configure it to her specifications.
Also, I sort of thought Ned was making a joke about the single computer thing.
45: She was probably still using POP, the poor dear.
you early adopter
See, now I know you're joking.
One thing to consider is that these media interact with each other in various ways. I think I've mentioned before that my blog gets a surprising amount of traffic from Twitter. And you can link to pretty much anything from Facebook.
I don't follow Twitter, but it is suprisingly useful for seaching for things like up to date muni problem info that can't be found on google.
Updating my facebook status has basically replaced updating my blog in my personal info-chatter world. The only thing that bugs me about it is that it is no good for scrapbookking purposes because you can't easily browse your archives and the whole platform shifts so often that you can't be confident it will be there in five years.
I think what's going to be left of blogs in the near future will be expert/topical blogs, mostly. Teo's energy blog, Ezra Klein on health care, sports blogs, cooking blogs.
Unfogged was always diffuse, and is more so lately (I swear I'll post some soon). It's probably not something that could get started now, and I have no idea what it's future lifespan is likely to be.
what it's future lifespan is likely to be
Well you've just killed one front page poster.
I've never felt confident making predictions, except with respect to the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections (and a fat lot of good those predictions did anybody), but I should think that the typical blog of a particular stripe survives for a period equal to the half-life of its parent grudge (against the New York Times, Joe Lieberman, one's unresponsive college provost, Michael Bay, etc., etc.), multiplied by result of dividing the blogger's offline activities by the sum of the comments and links received during the first week of blogging.
I've wondered why serialized novels don't come back as blogs. Seems like there's been a niche for on-going text-based stories for about as long as printing, right?
I agree that expert/topical blogs will keep going. Writing my water blog is incredibly gratifying for me, even though the readership is tiny. It is such a relief to say exactly what I think about some news article or report with the assumption that the readers have enough context to understand it.
Also, blogging was a revelation for me. I'd never written consistently before FTA. Now blogging is one of my deeper compulsions. I suspect I'll keep at it indefinitely, for me if for no one else. I may ditch comments or change topics, and I don't expect to be as self-revelatory as I was at first again. But I don't expect to stop entirely.
Heebie's thoughts on Twitter are maybe the most thought provoking in the original post.
People aren't going to want to be aggregators, you don't think? Or get much gratification out of a large Twitter following? You think people will find it boring to keep going as Twitterers? But we're at screens ALL DAY, and have the attention span of mayflies. People seem to like taking a break to write tweets.
I think you missed a third stable of category for Twitter: the breaking news category. That's how I followed late night CA budget negotiations, for example. No one else had real-time details and rumor.
A reason for twatbookspaceification - flat real wages and student debt. £1000 for a decent lappy/£500 for a barely adequate desktop I wouldn't have had desk enough to deploy in 2003? Wasn't going to happen.
Further, the well-known fact that most mass market ISPs are ragingly awful at running e-mail (search NANOG's archives for Yahoo e-mail), and you don't want to run all your e-mail through the corporate e-mail servers (a tough thought for 80s/early 90s usenet vets, and academics - often the same people).
Getting linked to is what really brings in new readers. Linking to other places doesn't necessarily.
Isn't there a soft quid pro quo that goes on, where linking to a blog causes that blogger to at least read your blog, and then, if the mood strikes, linking to it? Ogged was good at this.
For instance, I remember one blogger with some interesting ideas about information theory, and all the fun we had!
The essence of unfogged is found in its clean lines, understated yet compelling fonts, and appropriate amounts of white space. So long as those elements are preserved, the blog lives.
I've wondered why serialized novels don't come back as blogs.
They have, just not in English.
I don't understand 57. The argument is that Facebook is a cheaper and more reliable platform for sending messages than any available e-mail account?
And less resource-intensive for the computer.
Really? As opposed to Gmail? Facebook is way buggier and often keeps me from accessing my inbox, and I barely use it.
I barely use it.
(Their mail system, I mean.)
Facebook isn't really very reliable. Their method for constant uptime is not minding if things sometimes (relatively often) fail to show up in your feed.
And even with "flat real wages and student debt", I don't find it plausible that computers are more expensive now than ten or fifteen years ago (even without trying to figure out what that has to do with preferring Facebook to email or IM). There are super-cheap desktops and netbooks that are more than adequate for people who don't do processor-intensive things like calculations or games.
Unless the argument is that Facebook/Twitter/etc are accessible from phones and/or public PCs in a way that allows people to completely forgo having a computer and internet connection of their own. But that doesn't apply to any of the people I know who've been switching to Facebook in lieu of email or IM.
41: Use IMAP, keep your email on the server, and download a copy to your computer(s) that can be accessed even when you're not online. It's the best of all possible worlds.
Agreed. Though I don't know why IMAP is required for this; POP does just as well, as far as I know.
The advantage to downloading your email is that you can set up far more helpful filters with a desktop client than I've ever discovered through any web-based email service, not that I have experience of many. Gmail drives me batty for filtering. And I do like to be able to fiddle around with email archives from time to time when I'm not online.
Don't use POP, for the love of god.
70: I don't know how not to. It's just a failure of knowledge. I'm not downloading my email these days anyway, because my computer has issues, so I'm just leaving it all on the server anyway. Someday, though, I will resume this baroque practice!
Are you still using 56K dial-up, parsimon?
I've wondered why serialized novels don't come back as blogs.
Clearly it's steam engine time.
73: how else is she to access her prodigy account?
No doubt I'll get up to speed in this year 2010, at which time the mysteries of IMAP will become clear. I suspected as much.
Does it make the filters in Gmail better too? Can you unthread discussions?
Given the thread, it's natural to think that 73 was intended as a joke along the lines of 75 and 76, but I was genuinely curious. It was parsimon who used to complain about long unfogged threads loading too slowly on her 56K modem, right?
Yes, that was me, and yes, I'm still on dial-up. It's in the plan in this household to switch soon, maybe not this month, because I have other things to take care of by the end of the month.
pretty much anything from Facebook
Not pdfs.
I'm pointlessly responding to the OP, but I think Heebie is missing things like Tumblr, being outside the target demographic. Those are somewhere in between Facebook and blogs -- a set of curated links shared with your friends and a few random outside readers.
As longs as there are people who are like, "Hmm, I wonder from a fashion perspective how African-American motorcycle gangs dressed in the '60s and '70s", there's going to be cool stuff burbling up. Fifteen years ago someone would have an awesome zine with badly Xeroxed photos. Fifteen years from now maybe we'll all be getting it through our cranial implants.
81: Oh, is that what the point of Tumblr is?
as there are people who are like...
Man, people are so great.
I've wondered why serialized novels don't come back as blogs. Seems like there's been a niche for on-going text-based stories for about as long as printing, right?
Wow, I would love this. I like TV shows so much better than movies because you get to see your favorite characters again and again and again.
I've wondered why serialized novels don't come back as blogs.
Ree Drummond has been doing this with Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, I gather. (I haven't actually read the series; and it is autobiographical, so maybe that doesn't count?)
and yes, I'm still on dial-up.
No kidding.
linking to a blog causes that blogger to at least read your blog
That's how I got here, and just look how that turned out.
It's like those flashback episodes on Family Ties where we go back and remember what happened in the 1984 season -- and it's available at any time!
That is why blogs will continue to take over everyone's mind.
Was 1984 the Family Ties season when Tom Hanks played the alcoholic brother of the mom and drank all of the vanilla extract in the kitchen?
No, it's the boring posts.
Shearer is totally right. The front page linked in 87 is way more interesting than anything we generate these days. How do you find that shit, anyway?
Initially, I spent all my time scouring weird corners of the internet. Then, after a couple years of linking to it, complete strangers started mailing me the absolute weirdest shit imaginable. Made me an increasingly lazy blogger and eventually torpor won out.
The front page linked in 87 is way more interesting than anything we generate these days.
It's interesting reading posts old enough that ogged was still finding his voice. Even at that point they're compelling. He really was a great writer and perfectly suited to the medium of blogs.
If I ever become a psychic, I'm going to call myself the "Medium of Blogs."
The front page linked in 87 is way more interesting than anything we generate these days.
Although it includes ogged linking non-ironically to a Malcolm Gladwell article. Some change really is for the better.
I like TV shows so much better than movies because you get to see your favorite characters again and again and again.
Webcomics are good for this.
97: Also, the comment threads back then barely existed.
The NYT's David Carr (AKA carr2n) thinks Twitter will endure. I suppose that means it'll be vital for at least a couple years before the Next Big Small Thing comes along.
I initially didn't see the point of twitter when my friends were adopting it early, but I have since outpaced many of them in volume. I find I'm expressing more thoughts due to the constraint of the medium, and it's also giving me more reminders of longer-form things I might want to write on my own long-dormant site. Any energy I might put on that, though, has so far been directed at my own tumblr site because the barrier is lower. As a way to create a pile of not-very-curated links, tumblr is a handy thing. It's not a universal blogging tool, but the ability to repost something quickly without really thinking about it encourages a loose approach.
As for facebook, I loathe it. I'm not deleting my account because too many other people rely on it for me to skip out, but it's unreliable and trying to be too many things at once. As a result it's pretty lousy at most of them.
The comments didn't really take off until mid-2004, IIRC.
Hey, it's teo. Teo, I am experiencing a desire for the bizarre jerky available in New Mexico, which instead of being chewy, crumbles to dust upon being bitten. Does this look like a reputable establishment for ordering electronically?
102: I'm not familiar with that particular brand, but it looks reputable enough.
Not really, but there are some that you see regularly in grocery stores and such, and that isn't one of them. I can't recall the names of any others, though, and some may not have an online presence.
Could you name an example of a grocery store that would stock jerky?
Please name an example of a grocery store that would stock jerky.
(I had no idea that ".coop" was an actual type of URL, but it seems that it is.)
I don't like how twitter has reproduced, in a banned analogous way, something like the distinction between articles and books. One of the now worn off novelties of blogs was the idea that a post can be as short or as long as long as you feel like. But twitter seems to have pushed people into making short posts tweets or nothing at all, and longer posts are less frequent. (I'm not counting the blog for a living 15 posts a day people, who may still vary their post lengths quite a bit.)
When I was still blogging under an old pseudonym just days ago, I kept doing some too long for twitter but still short posts, and despite the fact that I wasn't doing anything I hadn't done before, it started to seem weird to blog like that. But I'd have kept doing that.
To expand on my 57, my point is that zeroconf Web services are accessible from whatever institutional/corporate/other person's machine you may be using at the moment. Yes, computers got cheaper; yes, my generation had drastically less money. The netbooks may alter this (as will its becoming generationally normal to get given one).
The name can't be more than a week old, and already I'm struggling to remember who fake accent used to be.
"Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities"
http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/_file_directory_/papers/369.pdf
Science FTW! Obliquely via the cosmic Cosma Shalizi. Now someone read the paper and tell me what's inside!
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BROCK FAREWELL MEETUP
(I was really a slacker for missing the original thread where Brock said that he was taking a new job. I used to be up on people's lives.)
I have sent out an e-mail to Boston-area unfoggeders for whom I have an e-mail address. If I didn't e-mail you, please send me an e-mail, and I'll add you to the list.
Brock's leaving town on the 15th, so we have to do this before then.
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113: "We find that people use microblogging to talk about their daily activities and to seek or share information."
Astounding!
I like TV shows so much better than movies because you get to see your favorite characters again and again and again.
I like movies better than TV shows because movies never ask me to care about the occasional stray nerd and his fucking nerd banter with other nerds, while TV shows tend to build entire seasons around them rather than the crucial elements of explosions and gunfights. I am not a crackpot.
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J's wedding dress. I may have been too harsh in describing it as the Little Bo Peep look.
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114: It'd be a nice gesture for people to bring food that doesn't require refrigeration or reheating, and can be eaten without utensils, to the meetup.
115: That paper has 94 cites! It must be awesome!
117: Yeah, that looks like a pretty standard modern wedding dress.
120: Agreed. It's fully possible, however, that she sucks as a person, independent of the dress.
The hair looks hideous to me. I tend to prefer a straighter dress with a bit of lace without the whoosh. Also, I know that bridesmaid dresses suck generally, but they don't have to.
Apparently she used to be stick thin, and she's gained some weight. She's not totally happy about that, but she said "Well, it doesn't matter, now that I'm married."
I must say, the dresses don't seem at all out of place, but the standing against the brick wall seems delightfully like early- or mid-90s album art, and I sort of wish I had better photoshop skills, so as to write something graffiti-style behind them. Probably in hot pink.
Also, I feel mildly bad commenting on a stranger's photo.
123: what was that site with the band photos where every band was in front of a brick wall?
That site with the band photos where every band was in front of a brick wall.
126 has convinced me that the word douchebag now means nothing.
Why do brides need/get bridesmaids/matrons anyway? It's not like the lives of even upper-class women today are full of ladies in waiting, tender young governesses, innocent wards, naughty country maids, nurses full of rude animal health, taut-bodiced barmaids... I seem to have lost my train of thought.
Apparently she used to be stick thin, and she's gained some weight. She's not totally happy about that, but she said "Well, it doesn't matter, now that I'm married."
BG GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
Okay, I guess no one could ever have characterized me as 'stick' thin, but otherwise... I wouldn't say that last part out loud, but it would be lying not to acknowledge that weight gain while happily partnered has a different set of worries than weight gain while single.
I wish I could fit through doorways.
132: If you send your Killer Robot through them ahead of you, that should widen them out a bit.
Blume,, you are quite trim compared to her. She got sick before her wedding and was able to fit into her dress, but there's a real bulge over her stomach.
The idea that one should take care of oneself and one's looks with the sole purpose of getting married offends my feminist sensibilities.
I'm fatter now than I have ever been in my life, and was horrified by some of the holiday pictures. My only New Year's resolution is to be back under 200 pounds by summer.
Blume,, you are quite trim compared to her.
Well, I've only been married six months. Give me some time!
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I have been on hold onmy doctor's office for 15 minutes. I don't even really want to speak to a patient representative, but there's no direct number for the registration people where you update your information.
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Um, or nephew. Weird that I automatically assigned gender. Because I'm a feminist.
The idea that one should take care of oneself and one's looks with the sole purpose of getting married offends my feminist sensibilities.
The "race is over, now I can get fat" canard is a standard punchline though. I'd take anybody saying it with a grain of salt.
There's also an aspect of realism in it -- single, you're sweating about whether you're appealing to the abstract possible guy out there, and your only access to what he's thinking about you is speculation -- I (and probably other women) end up with a 'just in case, better be skinnier, cuter, whatever, to be absolutely sure I'm appealing enough'. Coupled up, the dude whose opinion you're primarily concerned with is right there and you can ask him; if you're doing all right, you know it.
The race hasn't been on for at least 5 years. Offensive on principle
And I am still on hold. GAH!
Offensive on principle
Eh, so is being catty about other people's weight. Not that it stops me.
Apostropher's so fat that when he sits around the house... it's comfortable, and he isn't necessarily in a hurry to get up and go for a run, you know?!
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I am waiting to start some undefined 2 hour test for a job with one of those fancy Web 2.0 companies all you kids talk about.
I have done the white board version of "Tell me how many golfballs would fit in the vatican?" interviews, but always in person. It is funny how much stress *not* having a fellow human sitting in judgement is causing. There is human camaraderie of bullshit that you can pick up on--where you know if you are still on track or not--the computer does not sound as emotive.
Wish me luck... they fire up the dunking chair in 15 minutes.
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and you can ask him
Just in case, you should ask him fairly frequently. "Honey, am I too fat for you today? How about in these pants?"
Good luck, Ukko. You'll do great. Just imagine that the computer is us, making fun of you as you go along, but rooting for you too.
Good luck! Tell us the questions afterwards -- they'll be fun to bat around.
148: And if you don't like the answer, hit him with a rolling pin!
Actually, tell us the questions while you're doing 'em. Fun and useful!
The idea that one should take care of oneself and one's looks with the sole purpose of getting married offends my feminist sensibilities.
Also completely implausible. There's the lifetime of post-marriage affairs one must plan for.
one of those fancy Web 2.0 companies
Make sure to tell them you're liveblogging the whole shebang in the comments section of a weblog that has since jumped the shark. You're sure to be hired.
taut-bodiced barmaids... I seem to have lost my train of thought.
no no, please, keep going.
122: Seriously, by bridesmaid standards, those dresses are on the nice side. Color: tasteful. Style: no butt bows. Cut: makes neither tall, thin bridesmaid nor short, less-thin bridesmaid look awful. That's a win.
That picture strikes me as quite inoffensive (and even a little unexpectedly fun) generally.
togolosh, I was just thinking that I haven't seen you here recently. (Although now I'm worried that you've been commenting all along.) Good to see you.
160: I've been visiting family in darkestwarmest Africa. They have internets there, but the family is so much more interesting than you lot.
the family is so much more interesting than you lot.
Well, sure. But are they fat?
They stayed skinny until tog came home, but then they plumped right up.
154: I suspect that if I interviewed anywhere that asked me any of those questions, my contempt would be obvious enough to cost me the job.
Have they gotten so fat that you are no longer sexually attracted to them? You need to be honest about this.
143
... Coupled up, the dude whose opinion you're primarily concerned with is right there and you can ask him; ...
In my experience people asking questions like this don't really want or expect completely honest and objective answers meaning this method is of questionable utility.
Those questions vary between hoary consulting-y estimate questions, basic probability, ineptly transcribed logic puzzles, and some really seriously stupid softball questions.
What would it say in your eulogy, really? It would say that I have excellent powerpoint skills, you jackass.
165: I like the Mt. Fuji question , but I suppose "slowly, by main force" isn't the answer they were looking for.
158: I said that to the bridesmaids. With a little alteration they might be able to wear them again. Fabric: ick.
159: That picture is not the worst. The photographer had them do some genuinely weird poses. And the morning pictures in her hotel room as she prepped are over the top.
The point is that she solicited a comment about how pretty she was, and there was nothing exceptionally nice about the dress, her hair or her makeup that deserved complimenting.
I did say other nice things.
169: moving Mt. Fuji by strategy?
The point is that she solicited a comment about how pretty she was, and there was nothing exceptionally nice about the dress, her hair or her makeup that deserved complimenting.
Forgive my masculine ignorance, but isn't telling the bride how pretty she is rather an important responsibility of the ladies' auxiliary in any wedding?
The point is that she solicited a comment about how pretty she was, and there was nothing exceptionally nice about the dress, her hair or her makeup that deserved complimenting.
"You all look wonderfully happy and lovely! You're practically glowing!"
That's why I make the big bucks.
171: I think you mean "strategery."
I have to go with the classics for moving mountains.
It is a sign of my infinite employability that my reaction to each of those questions was, "Well, I'd start by googling it..."
Look, I told her that she looked lovely. I just found it irritating, because I don't like her.
Just so long as you don't have to make Mt. Fuji invisible.
14. What are 5 uncommon uses of a brick, not including building, layering, or a paper-weight? - Kaplan Higher Education Data Analyst
How many nieces and nephews did Henry VIII have, not including his children?
This J problem seems a lot more like a serious personality conflict than any real problem with her weight or her dress (both of which look absolutely fine to me). I find personality conflicts like this really hard because there's just no way that person and you will ever find anything about each other even remotely acceptable. I've had bad conflicts like this with superiors at work and school and found that, unfortunately, I've just had to keep my head down, realize that I am never going to have rational thoughts about them and vice versa, and try to interact with them as little as possible. I try to think, "If someone I did not openly hate and who didn't hate me said X, would I be this upset?" and attempt to behave accordingly. I don't know what else to do.
That's not to say I'm good at it, of course. I recently went to a thing at someone's house and someone I have a deep distaste for (for similar reasons--preening, shallow, heteronormative, infantile ugh) showed up and yanked my last nerve over and over. God, that took some deep breathing.
I interviewed at Microsoft during my senior year of college. They asked me the famous problem that Gauss famously solved as a famous five-year old which I'd never heard of, ie "You've got a ticker tape containing all the numbers from 1 to 10,000, except one number is missing. With one read through, determine the missing number."
My answer was that I'd make a 7x10 grid: 7 rows for the place holder, ie 10s column, 100s column, etc, and 10 columns for the digits 1-10. Then if I saw a number like 5464, I'd put a hatch mark in the (4,5) square, the (3,4) square, the (2,6) square, and the (1,4) square. Then at the end, every square should have full hatch marks, except for the squares containing the digits of the missing number.
I got offered the job of Product Tester, which I'm pretty sure means writing programs to see if pressing the P button 5000 times will break anything. I got offered about 10K more than I currently make, and it was low for 1999, when you sneezed and they offered you a job.
I mean: digits 0-9, of course. Um.
With a little alteration they might be able to wear them again. Fabric: ick.
Are they ever actually going to wear these dresses again? Highly unlikely. Wearing cheap polyester for a day is preferable to spending $200 more for your matchy matchy dress.
As for the future of blogging vs. Twitter or whatever... From high school through not long after college, I was often told that it was important to write something, anything, frequently. Writing frequently would keep me in practice while I worked at some McJob, the logic went, and having a body of work would give me more chances to seize the moment when opportunity knocked, and anyways if I can't keep up with or don't enjoy writing on my own time then I wouldn't much like doing it as a career.
A few years on, I'm not sure if that's true, but maybe it works better for other people and of course plenty of people enjoy writing without any kind of agenda to it. Those people can pick the format that fits their style. Forums and some blogs' comment sections for people who like arguing, Twitter and Facebook for people who like haiku-esque blurbs, blogs for people who enjoy a range of writing from blurbs to longish articles, etc. So I foresee a vibrant market for any medium long after it's no longer a fad, at the very least just made up of writing enthusiasts themselves.
As for weight gain, I'm at my heaviest right now as well, or close to it. Hard to be sure since I only step on a scale after a workout at the gym after work. Also, I've started an experiment with vegetarianism. I have no plans to cut dairy and eggs from my diet, but actual meat seems like low-hanging fruit if I want to eat healthier. I'll be sticking with this until Sunday at the very latest (a full week from when I started, since my roommates ordered pizza on New Year's Day and I had a few slices), and I'll decide then about continuing.
187: Gauss's insight is that it's rather easy to add up all the digits between 1-10,000, by pairing them as so: 1+9999, 2+9998, etc. Since every pair adds up to 10,000, and you've got 5000 pairs, 1-10,000 adds up to 50,000,000. So just add the ticker tape as it goes by, and look at the difference between your answer and 50,000,000.
||
FIOS ordered. Faster internet, here I come!
Sorry, parsi.
|>
And how did this relate to blurring? Or zapping computer monitors back in the early 90s?
Well, they knew I was a math major who had never heard of blurring or zapping, so they were making an effort to speak my language.
Gauss's insight is that it's rather easy to add up all the digits between 1-10,000, by pairing them as so: 1+9999, 2+9998, etc. Since every pair adds up to 10,000, and you've got 5000 pairs, 1-10,000 adds up to 50,000,000.
Do you really teach math?
By which I mean, don't you have to pair them as: 1+10,000, 2+9999, ..., 5000+5001=50,005,000?
188
Gauss's insight is that it's rather easy to add up all the digits between 1-10,000, by pairing them as so: 1+9999, 2+9998, etc. Since every pair adds up to 10,000, and you've got 5000 pairs, 1-10,000 adds up to 50,000,000. So just add the ticker tape as it goes by, and look at the difference between your answer and 50,000,000.
To get 5000 pairs you need to pair 1+10000, 2+9999, ...., 5000+5001 so in fact each pair sums to 10001 and the total is 5005000. Or you can pair 0+10000, 1+9999, 2+9998, ....,4999+5001 but then 5000 is left over and has to be added at the end.
I don't understand 183 either.
193: Oh, yeah, sure, or something.
I don't understand 183 either.
Can you elaborate?
By which I mean, don't you have to pair them as: 1+10,000, 2+9999, ..., 5000+5001=50,005,000?
Although you don't have to alter the pairing. 5000 could just go unpaired and tacked on the end. So there.
183 works. You figure out for each place value how many occurrences of each digit you expect to see if you look at all the numbers 1-10,000, which is, unless I'm overlooking something obvious, for each place value 1000 ones, 1000 twos, and so on. Then you tick off each digit you see as it passes -- "5464. Okay, I tick off five in the thousands place, four in the hundreds, six in the tens, and four in the ones." Then, when you're done, you look at your chart, and you'll see something like "One thousand ticks for nine in the thousands place, one thousand ticks for eight in the thousands, place, nine hundred ninety-nine ticks for seven in the thousands place... the missing number must have seven in the thousands." And so on.
At the time, I also said that when you get ten hatch marks in a square, you tare that square back to zero, so that at the end every box should either have zero or 9. Then you just read off the digits with 9 hatch marks in them.
Although you don't have to alter the pairing. 5000 could just go unpaired and tacked on the end. So there.
But then you don't have 5,000 pairs. And it doesn't add up to 50,00,000. And it's not really a good presentation of "Gauss's insight".
That's actually really interesting from a hiring point of view. They were clearly looking for someone who knew Gauss's trick, so, a test of knowledge of math trivia, plus a certain amount of insight to take it that half-step further. You missed the trivia, but solved the problem cleanly -- your solution is probably less laborious than adding the numbers from 1-10,000 in random order. So, from a hiring point of view, do they care about the trivia (and I can see an argument that it's fair to -- that they want people steeped in math-nerd culture such that they'd know anything plausible along those lines) or do they want people who can solve unfamiliar problems?
196
Can you elaborate?
Why are there 7 rows?
200: You still have 5000 pairs, and one number (5000) left over. You're right that it doesn't add up to 50000000000, though. I just messed that part up. You're wrong that it was a bad presentation of Gauss's insight.
Why are there 7 rows?
Single digits:
Tens column:
Hundreds column:
Ten hundreds column:
Thousands column:
Ten thousands column:
So there are 6 rows. Enough with the third degree.
It's like you all think through what you are reading.
204
... You're wrong that it was a bad presentation of Gauss's insight.
Except that the problem that Gauss solved was just adding the numbers from 1 to n quickly. It had nothing to do with identifying the missing number in a list.
201: To make it a little simpler, one could just add the numbers mod 10000. Or, using Heebie's digitwise focus, add the digits in each place mod 10, and figure out what the sum should be.
You don't really need to chart the ten-thousands column, of course. If that's the missing number, it'd show up as a missing "0,000". But Brock and Shearer are just being picky twerps -- you're perfectly clear.
heebie, did you tell Microsoft about your left-turn and dishwasher-loading ideas? I'm guessing no, because they definitely would have put you in charge of Windows ME™ or something if you had.
you tare
Did you work in a grocery store or in a warehouse? Are there other places where this verb appears? I do not think drug dealers use it. I expected to reead "modulo 10" but maybe that's kind of specialiized.
ineptly transcribed logic puzzles
Hate.
Did you work in a grocery store or in a warehouse? Are there other places where this verb appears? I do not think drug dealers use it.
No, I picked it up from years of slinging smack on the cold streets of Austin. Either that or science class.
The mere existence of ineptly transcribed logic puzzles destroys the enjoyment of many proper ones.
But Brock and Shearer are just being picky twerps -- you're perfectly clear.
Perfectly clearly wrong.
Isn't that better than seeming right but being secretly wrong?
I thought the problem with heebie's presentation was that she ruined the story.
In the version I was told,the teacher had woken up late that morning and so needed something to keep the kids busy while he ate his breakfast.
In the version I was told,the teacher had woken up late that morning and so needed something to keep the kids busy while he ate his breakfast.
In the version I was told, Gauss had been given the exercise of adding all the integers from 1 through 100 as punishment for misbehavior, with the teacher expecting it to take him a long time, and he came up with the answer in 30 seconds or so.
I suspect all these are apocryphal. I somehow doubt there even was a "Gauss".
Just for the record the test was implement a web server in 90 minutes using a language you have never touched before.
I submitted with 3 minutes to go but I my last minute code cleanup I deleted one thing that made it not compile. Oops.
I sent an explanation with the typo free code at T+4 minutes, we will see.
219: Yes, Brock, there is a Gauss!
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/gausss-day-of-reckoning/2
Brock's version is 219 is the one I always heard.
221: You probably believe there was a Homer and a Shakespeare, too.
There is no Gauss, there is no Homer, there is no Shakespeare. There is no peep, there is no Otto. There is only a Brock Landers.
Come on, Brock. Nobody thinks the Simpsons are real.
224: And an impudently mocking egg.
It's like you all think through what you are reading.
And that's what's wrong with this blog.
I sent an explanation with the typo free code at T+4 minutes, we will see.
I'm sure you aren't the only person to do that.
226: Is the egg still there? Or has it been incorporated into the One Brockness?
112: Closer to two weeks since it came up in the baggage handling thread.
I know who it is! This handle is much better because it's distinctive.
I haven't forgotten yet, but I'm being conscious about trying to remember, because I know I will forget. PGD was Perfectly Goddamn Delightful, but was someone before that too, and although I saw the transition happen, I've forgotten the prior identity. (Or maybe I'm thinking of someone else entirely.)
I never did figure out who fake accent was. LB, I'll tell you PGD's original handle if you tell me who fake accent is.
A tide coming in flows. A tide going out ___? Drop a 'b', and you've got it.
I'm thinking of becoming Someone Else Entirely™
At least for those too-frequent6 days when I'm really not myself
Yeah, I realized that as soon as I posted. Okay, fill in the blank and drop the BS.
I'm thinking of becoming Someone Else Entirely™
I'm guessing this should be taken as formal notification?
I wish no one would change their name. But I'm not stopping anyone.
Did you work in a grocery store or in a warehouse? Are there other places where this verb appears? I do not think drug dealers use it. I expected to reead "modulo 10" but maybe that's kind of specialiized.
"Tare" is a button on the electronic scale in most biology or chemistry labs. You put your little container on the scale, push "tare", it gets reset to zero, then you put your stuff in the container.
I bet drug dealers use the same scales we do.
Wow, PGD changed his name quite some time ago.
I bet drug dealers use the same scales we do.
It's nice that Ned doesn't practice othering on drug dealers.
If you want, I could check with my neighbor.
I think everyone gets one free name change, because when you first pick your handle, you may not really have all the information on hand that you'd like to put into such a name-change. Even I first used an underscore instead of a hyphen. Even I.
Heebie thinks everyone gets one free name. And one slave name.
Oh, and as someone who uses the word tare regularly also I have no idea what "modulo 10", or the word "modulo" means.
Your slave name is your real name, Mr. Redundant. Here we run free and giggle.
Modulo n means keep the remainder upon division by n.
Another great explanation brought to you by yours truly.
241: I wish everyone regularly rotated pseuds, keeping each for only a single comment thread. That way everyone would be on a par with me, as I can barely remember the things *I* say from one week to the next, let alone keep track of multiple other people's words. Folk who remember stuff I wrote six months ago creep me the fuck out, like they're psychic or something.
Now I'm trying to remember my alternate pseud from the Great Pseud Change Thread and drawing a blank.
by yours truly
Changing your name?
I'm guessing this should be taken as formal notification?
No, I wouldn't be able to remember a new identity. I'm just having fantasies of being born again.
Folk who remember stuff I wrote six months ago creep me the fuck out
I figured it would just make you absurdly calm and focused.
235: aha! Well, uh, if you had a circus in March (which is to say a march circus) and for some reason wanted to concatenate them by dropping "chcir" from the middle, that's PGD.
I can barely remember the things *I* say from one week to the next
Not quite so bad as week to week, but I admit that when people have referred to something I said 8 months or a year ago, I've been, on occasion, ... rather surprised. Apparently my memory is awful.
I bet implementing a web server in 90 minutes using a language you've never seen before (that uses a paradigm you've never used before, even!) is something that you have to do pretty often, as a software engineer.
I would move Mt. Fuji by picking up a rock somewhere on it and putting it somewhere else on it. This would certainly change the location of its center of mass, which is as good a criterion for whether or not it's been moved as any.
Baby, if I could move Mt. Fuji, I'd put U next to I.
I happen to run a very profitable business filling 747s with ping-pong balls and designing manhole covers.
I would move Mt. Fuji by waiting for an earthquake and then taking credit.
Was it a toy language cooked up for this test or something real-but-obscure like Boo? Was it an attempt to see how well you knew the HTTP spec, general coding behavior (are you an idiot; do you comment your code; etc.) or what? Also, was it OO or were they like rawr functional programming is the new hottness?
I have to go with the classics for moving mountains.
265: It's a M$ interview. The correct answer is to pick another mountain, name it "Fuji" and rename the old one "MicroSoft Volcano(tm)."
Um. Make that say Fuji in your head. Thanks.
Did Mount Fuji move for you too?
I finally read the link in 154 and found it entertaining. I am surprised and frustrated, however, by the fact that they misspelled "dice."
The question on there that sparked my curiosity, actually was the one about trucks:
Given a fleet of 50 trucks, each with a full fuel tank and a range of 100 miles, how far can you deliver a payload? You can transfer the payload from truck to truck, and you can transfer fuel from truck to truck. Extend your answer for n trucks?
Assuming that the trucks start out at the same location, and that you don't mind stranding trucks without fuel, I think the absolute maximum range is
sum(100/n) for n: 1-->50
Obviously the numbers 100 and 50 represent the range of a single truck and the number of trucks respectively.
Does that look right to everybody?
I think the correct answer to how to move Mount Fuji is Why the fuck would you want to move Mount Fuji?
Seriously, moving Mount Fuji is a terrible idea. Think of the ecological consequences! Think of the paperwork! Better to leave Mount Fuji alone and put your efforts toward a more practical goal.
Answers like that are probably the reason I can't seem to land a better job.
The question is underspecified. You would need to know, at minimum, how much fuel a truck can carry as payload (enough to refuel one truck? two trucks? ten trucks?). If one truck* can carry enough fuel to refuel 49 trucks (not implausible, for tank trucks), you could get the last vehicle in the convoy to go 5,000 miles.
*just one truck in the fleet. The rest will not need to refuel as many.)
You would need to know, at minimum, how much fuel a truck can carry as payload
Good question. I was assuming that they would only care fuel in the tank.
280: Surely it's a safe and fair presumption that these trucks can't carry fuel as a payload - it's not as if fuel is a readily-transported commodity (specialized containers, regulations, etc.).
At which point wouldn't you be looking at sending out all 50 trucks 50 miles, transferring the fuel from half the trucks to the other half, going another 50 miles, etc. But that gives you a sloppy number, and so is probably wrong.
At which point wouldn't you be looking at sending out all 50 trucks 50 miles, transferring the fuel from half the trucks to the other half, going another 50 miles, etc. But that gives you a sloppy number, and so is probably wrong.
That was where I started.
My refinement was realizing that you send out all the trucks two miles (100/50), at which point they each have 49/50 of their fuel remaining. You then empty on truck's fuel tank to top off the other 49, and have them each drive (100/49) miles so that each of them have a tank that is 48/49 full.
...
lather, rinse, repeat.
You then empty on truck's fuel tank
"on" s/b "one"
280: That was my initial reading, but it makes the problem too easy -- I think NickS' assumption has got to be the way the problem's meant to work. I get a different answer, though -- put the payload in truck one, with range 100 miles. Convoy all the trucks for fifty miles, and then siphon the gas from truck two into truck one -- now you've got a forty-nine truck convoy, the loaded truck has a full tank, and all the others are half empty. Drive twenty-five miles and drain truck three -- now truck one is still full, and the other fortyseven all have a quarter tank. And so on, halving the distance between draining another tank ever iteration. You end up ditching the next to last truck just short of a hundred miles, with the loaded truck almost full.
I think the formula is the sum from one to fifty of (100/2^(i-1)) but I probably have a fencepost error in there, I usually do. Generally, the sum from one to n of (100/2(i-1)). It is neat that adding trucks doesn't really help much at all.
Damn. I am so pwned, and so wrong.
It is neat that adding trucks doesn't really help much at all.
This is still true. Assuming my solution is correct adding the nth truck only increases total range by (100/n) miles.
So going from 50 to 51 would increase total range by just under 2mi.
It also depends on whether the trucks can carry payload-carrying trucks as a payload, and the starting location of the trucks.
If "truck with payload p" is a valid payload, and you start off with one truck carrying as a payload another truck carrying as its payload … all the way up to the last truck, and you have a way to get the the payload off a truck, then you can go 5000 miles.
Or if the trucks are 100 miles apart.
If "truck with payload p" is a valid payload, and you start off with one truck carrying as a payload another truck carrying as its payload ... all the way up to the last truck, and you have a way to get the the payload off a truck, then you can go 5000 miles.
A wrong answer that only a computer programmer would come think of.
How do you know it's wrong?
I like this question: "If I put you in a sealed room with a phone that had no dial tone, how would you fix it?"
I'd plug it in.
Here's another good one: "What is the probability of throwing 11 and over with 2 dices [sic]?" You can't throw 11 and over with two (I'm assuming six-sided) dice. It would take four to reach the first result that could plausibly be called "11 and over" (23=11+12).
Or perhaps if you had three dice and rolled a five, a six, and a six, you could claim you'd rolled eleven and over eleven, but you'd have to use one die twice, which might not be legit.
I'm assuming six-sided
FOOL!
"Say you are dead- what do you think your eulogy would say about you."
If we say I'm dead, isn't the answer that I don't have any thoughts at all?
I'm starting to think the way people get jobs in academia is the worst possible system for matching people to jobs, except for all the others.
"If I put you in a sealed room with a phone that had no dial tone, how would you fix it?"
Take my cell phone out of my pocket and call someone who knows how to fix phones.
"If I put you in a sealed room with a phone that had no dial tone, how would you fix it?"
I'd ask you to let me out of the room, and I'd find a place to have it fixed (or, if you really wanted me to do it, I'd see what sort of instructions I could find on the internet). If you won't let me out of the room, there's no way I'm fixing your damn phone for you, you sadistic fuck. I'm looking for a way out of the room instead. If you're capable of sealing me in a room against my will, I'm going to assume you're capable of competently disabling the phone, so trying to fix it is probably a waste of my time.
Maybe one of the seals could fix the phone. Or at least keep you company while you wept in your loneliness.
That one really did throw me. Other than plugging it in, what would anyone actually do to fix a phone? What kind of phone are we talking about, anyway? An old-fashioned non-electronic phone, if I had a screwdriver or a dime I suppose I'd look for loose wires, and tighten any connections that looked loose, but beyond that, who knows?
Not all phones have dial tones, anyway. Maybe it's a cell phone.
I thought the answer to the house painter one was "consult the bureau of labor statistics", but it turns out that it's not quite as simple as that.
What the fuck is this one about:
If you were a brick in a wall which brick would you be and why?
Huh?? What is that getting at? I'm totally lost.
On the other hand:
What was your best McGuyver moment?
I was alone in an apartment with one egg, set to expire in 48 hours. At my disposal were a paper plate, a plastic spoon, and a microwave...
I think you can blame problems like the house painter one on Fermi.
Buck was asked in an interview once, "If a chicken and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how many pancakes does it take to shingle the roof of a doghouse?"
He answered "All of them." Then the interviewer asked him to clean his fishtank. He got the job.
I'm confused by the truck question. In addition to the question in 280, how can it be answered without knowing things like fuel economy relative to payload. For example, the first thing that came to mind for me was having a truck tow one or more other trucks at the beginning so that their fuel was not burned and could be offloaded when needed. Whether or how this would work cannot be determined without knowing how much fuel use is affected by the towing.
Then the interviewer asked him to clean his fishtank.
IYKWIM, AIKYD.
307: I think you're making the mistake of thinking it's a question about trucks.
307: The trucks can go 100 miles on a full tank, full stop.
This means, I assume, that the engine efficiency increases as the weight of the payload increases, perhaps, if the payload is heavy enough, beyond the theoretical limits.
If such trucks exist, why they're confined to interview questions is beyond me. Presumably Big Engine is sitting on the technology.
309: That's what's so irritating about most of these. They're testing to see if you either are or can pretend to be someone completely devoid of common sense and experience of the world and just do math of some kind, which might, in fact, be a trick. Am I good enough at math to come up with a clever but elegant and generally useless algorithm? Or am I good enough at math to do some differential equation shit that takes things like fuel weight into account? You pretty much have to know what they're testing for in each of these circumstances. The phone one? Fuck them.
I guess I'd be tempted to answer, to the phone one, "I put on my robe and wizard hat."
The one about the hourglasses isn't so bad.
I came up with: start the four-minute and seven-minute ones at the same time, and flip the four-minute one over as soon as it runs out. Then turn it on its side when the seven-minute one runs out. You can right it again to measure one minute, then flip for four minutes, then flip for four more minutes.
What do your parents think of your career was classist, just right for an investment sales job.
I couldn't tell why so many of these were badly written-- maybe these are the barely edited responses to a web survey? In which case, how many actually got asked, I wonder?
Years ago I interviewed for a job where the reasonable interviewer, who would have been my supervisor, asked some apparently bogus question-- the point of these seems to be how you can think on your feet and answer politely, a little different than the logic puzzle questions. Hiring people is a bitch, it's hard to ask interview questions that get at how well the candidate will do. Having an HR rep ask questions like this would be a warning sign, IMO.
If that sealed room isn't a bathroom, I'm gonna pee on the phone. That'll certainly relieve one problem and, who knows, the phone could learn to sing.
"How many tennis balls are in this room and why?" is a pretty weird one, also. Like, are you supposed to guess if your interviewer has tennis balls hidden in their desk, and whether that's because they like to play tennis or because they like to fuck with interviewees?
It's not that kind of phone and besides, it's already famous.
Which, yeah, Fermi problems, I guess. They are annoying. Jimmy never just has the two apples and gives one to Sarah. There are other things involved, always.
At least the truck problem is being debated in a thread called "The collective fuel".
Like, are you supposed to guess if your interviewer has tennis balls hidden in their desk, and whether that's because they like to play tennis or because they like to fuck with interviewees?
That's what I'd guess.
It would be hilarious if you came to an interview with a tennis ball in your briefcase or whatever, got this question, gave an answer, was told the number the interviewer thought was right, and then drew out your fuzzy ball.
But the question presumably comes up infrequently enough to make the bringing along of the ball not worthwhile.
"But what you, the interviewer, do not know is that there are even more tennis balls in this room -- in my pants!"
The trucks can go 100 miles on a full tank, full stop.
Well, then the answer is 5,000 miles. Start off with truck one, towing the other 49 trucks, with the payload on the last truck. When the gas runs out on truck one, discard it and have truck two tow the 48 other trucks. Repeat until all trucks are used. I can't imagine that this is what the questioner had in mind.
I came up with: start the four-minute and seven-minute ones at the same time, and flip the four-minute one over as soon as it runs out. Then turn it on its side when the seven-minute one runs out. You can right it again to measure one minute, then flip for four minutes, then flip for four more minutes.
Alternative: Turn the 7 min timer over when it runs out. When the 4 minute timer runs out flip the 7 minute back over and it should run for 1 minute at that point.
What?
When are you turning the seven-minute timer over?
Or am I good enough at math to do some differential equation shit that takes things like fuel weight into account?
From your phrasing, I suspect that the answer is "no".
When are you turning the seven-minute timer over?
0 min: start both timers {4min, 7 min):
4 min: the 4 min timer ends, invert {4min, 3min}
7 min: the 7 min timer ends, invert {1min, 7 min}
8 min: 4 min timer ends, invert 7 min timer {0min,1min}
Does that help?
The answer to the dice question is (1) they should learn how to phrase things comprehensibly and then (after parsing the question in the way I suspect it is intended to be parsed) (2) 1/12.
Oh, I see. One minute will have passed, so you can turn it over the other way.
It hardly seems to make a difference.
Also, if I'm thinking of the right solution to the lightbulb question, it's not going to work so well if they're not incandescents.
You are in a room with 3 switches which correspond to 3 bulbs in another room and you don't know which switch corresponds to which bulb. You can only enter the room with the bulbs once. You can NOT use any external equipment (power supplies, resistors, etc.). How do you find out which bulb corresponds to which switch?
That's not a bad question in the abstract (answer), but there's absolutely zero chance I'd come up with the answer under the stress of interview conditions. I guess maybe that just means I'm not cut out for the job, but really, these seem like a silly way to screen candidates.
Oh good. Another thread that makes me want to shoot myself in the face.
It hardly seems to make a difference.
Sort of.
I'm not actually seeing how you get to 9 minutes with your plan: "turn it on its side when the seven-minute one runs out. You can right it again to measure one minute"
Given a square grid of numbers, considering all the numbers at the boundary as one layer and numbers just inside as another layer and so on how would you rotate each of the layers of the numbers by a given amount?
Could someone explain to me what the objective of this question is? I understand the set-up (I think), but I'm not clear on what I'm supposed to be solving.
When the seven-minute timer runs out, you can turn the four-minute one on its side. Three minutes having elapsed, when it is righted it will measure a further minute. When it is flipped it will measure a further four. When it is flipped it will measure a further four. 1+4+4=9.
When the seven-minute timer runs out, you can turn the four-minute one on its side. Three minutes having elapsed, when it is righted it will measure a further minute. When it is flipped it will measure a further four. When it is flipped it will measure a further four
Oh, I see.
In that case, the only difference between my solution and yours is that mine measures 9 min from time 0, whereas yours measures 9 min from time 7min to 16min.
Otherwise, completely the same.
What's (one of) the smallest set of timers, each lasting an integral number of minutes greater than one, such that you can time any integral number of minutes?
What's (one of) the smallest set of timers, each lasting an integral number of minutes greater than one, such that you can time any integral number of minutes?
2 and 3 would do it.
You're peeing on an egg of dubious freshness when suddenly the lights go out. Immediately you know your son's doctor's belly button is missing. How?
two minutes, three minutes? Any two timers measuring a mutually prime pair of times will work, no?
Which is faster: to Wilmington, or by bus?
Which came first, the chicken or the lovebird?
two minutes, three minutes? Any two timers measuring a mutually prime pair of times will work, no?
I think you're making the mistake of thinking it's a question about timers.
How?
I wish I could find that mean-spirited post I put up when Tia was doing all those puzzles.
346: I should think that given the way I phrased my answer it is obvious that I think no such thing, you.
I wish I could find that mean-spirited post
I fed it to Brock's kid.
So, I heard that I passed the test! Now on to the next test!
As for what they were asking. The idea was that you have to write a simple server from scratch, it forces you to do socket I/O, File I/O and some simple string manipulation stuff. I don't want to be too specific about language names but it was a small OO/Functional language with not very good documentation.
Thanks for the moral support!
341: Do you get to prime the timers? That is can you measure umpteen minutes from now, or just umpteen minutes in at some time in the future?
Wasn't I the one who put up the puzzles? I don't remember anything but sugar from Nosflow.
352: Given "any integral number of minutes", must be the latter.
I was recently at a meeting at the school where I teach, and we all were being asked to go around the table and talk about the content of a student paper we'd brought as a sample of decent freshman writing, without being able to describe the assignment, context, texts, etc. A professor read one sentence of my student's paper, and went step-by-step, saying first that whatever the assignment was, it was clearly without academic merit, then that my teaching, in general, was obviously wrong-headed, and then that my own scholarship, and, by extension, my entire existence as a person, was clearly morally bereft. It was dumb, but I cried all afternoon.
This is how I feel when people do this interview-question shit. They're not asking you a question in good faith about how you'd solve something without enough information. They're diagnosing you as this kinda person or that kinda person, without even the generosity that a responsible diagnosis would offer. You see someone steal a quarter? Anyone who says they'd report that is a liar, which may be what they'd be diagnosing, or maybe that you're not detail-oriented enough.
Applicants at my job often sit with me for awhile, and we have a pleasant conversation about what I'm doing. Except, what I'm also doing is intentionally switching back and forth between languages quickly and unexpectedly as a gauge of their language skills.
It's a totally reasonable thing to want to test, but I always feel like a chump going through with it. I sort of wish we just made it transparent that's what's going on: (1) see one aspect of the job and (2) oh, and by the way, I'll be switching languages a lot on purpose.
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I don't get this facebook notification at all:
[Friend] became a fan of You dialed 911 and requested an ambulance for that!
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Your friend is now the fan of some page devoted to mocking people with low pain threshholds.
You see someone steal a quarter
"Hind- or fore-? And what species?"
This seems like the right thread to ask whether anyone else is doing this in a couple of weeks.
Standpipe Bridgeplate became a fan of You posted an off-topic blog comment for that!
Applicants at my job often sit with me for awhile, and we have a pleasant conversation about what I'm doing.
"Naturally, if this were real, I would have first drawn the blinds and started the water running."
Sifu Tweety became a fan of You went to the hospital with chest pains that turned out to be nothing, SUCKER!
363: That Rush Limbaugh thing made me curious whether he'd seesaw the incident into some kung-fu argument about healthcare. Not curious enough to go looking, but curious.
I'm sure it was nothing that couldn't be fixed with a couple bottles of OxyContin.
You see someone steal a quarter
You'd call your local ACLU to report a violation of Amendment 3?
364: Yes, he came out and said what wonderful health care had received and no other country in the world could do as well. SEIU did a nice retort, "Hell Freezes Over: Rush Limbaugh Loves Union Hospitals and Socialized Medicine". A lot of other folks simply pointed out that shockingly, a multi-millionaire received great medical care.
If two cars are traveling in a two lap race on a track of any length, one going 60 mph and the other going 30mph, how fast will the slower car have to go to finish at the same car to finish at the same time?
I don't know what they're trying to test here, but I want to know how they designer tested or her his write to ability English test the. Finish at the same car? How fast will a car going 30 mph go?
Correct answer: I don't want to deal with these illiterates, except as some kind of aid worker.
What was your best McGuyver moment?
I happen to know a Schlumberger senior engineer, although of the electronics persuasion rather than the oil drilling bit one, and this is entirely appropriate for a company whose products include mud-pulse telemetry.
Tell me how you would determine how many house painters there are in the United States?
Look up the national abstract of statistics.
How to measure 9 minutes using only a 4 minute and 7 minute hourglass?
Run hourglass 2) to 100%, then 1) to 50%.
Given a fleet of 50 trucks, each with a full fuel tank and a range of 100 miles, how far can you deliver a payload? You can transfer the payload from truck to truck, and you can transfer fuel from truck to truck. Extend your answer for n trucks?
This is actually quite a good question. However, you'll need more data to answer it, as the range is determined by the size of the payload. The range maximising strategy is to move as much fuel as possible as far forward as possible. Also, do they mean range or radius of action? Can we abandon trucks? Martin van Creveld reckoned that in 1941, on a good day, a German armoured division's logistic train could support it out to 300 miles, or double that by using half the trucks to stage the others - so you lose 50% capacity with each hop.
Like all good questions it's probably designed to elicit good questions.
You are in a room with 3 switches which correspond to 3 bulbs in another room and you don't know which switch corresponds to which bulb. You can only enter the room with the bulbs once. You can NOT use any external equipment (power supplies, resistors, etc.). How do you find out which bulb corresponds to which switch?
Monty Hall!
I divine (without IP help!) 369 was max. Am I hired?
Run hourglass 2) to 100%, then 1) to 50%.
How do you propose to tell when the hourglass has run halfway?
Lacks max's signoff. Also, it wasn't max. Max would also know what the monty hall problem is.
You see someone steal a quarter
Semi-OT: A scoundrel and a thief.
Despite signs deprecating the practice, I often do not content myself with taking only plastic table service when I get food to-go from the cafeteria at my place of work. Now in a New Year's sweep of my desk drawers I have discovered 1 spoon, 2 knives, 8 forks and 9 soup spoons. What is particularly unconscionable is that I grumble when they run out of metal soup spoons.
372: Max would also know what the monty hall problem is.
And I guess it is inconceivable that he would mention the monty hall problem as a joke given the give problem's "threeness" and closed door. Not hired with extreme prejudice!
The real tennis ball question apparently is:
"How many tennis balls can you fill this room with?"
http://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/-Interview-RVW201711.htm
And the answer is none, because I didn't bring any tennis balls and I am not buying any tennis balls.
you flip both hourglasses, then after the 4 minute one runs out (4 minutes) you flip the 4 minute one again, then when the remaining 3 minutes on the 7 minute hourglass runs out you (7 minutes) flip the 7 minute hour glass and when the last minute runs off the 4 minute hourglass ( 8 minutes ), flip the 7 minute hourglass again and when it runs out it will be 9 minutes.
kind of a pain in the ass to tell the time though.
professor read one sentence of my student's paper, and went step-by-step, saying first that whatever the assignment was, it was clearly without academic merit, then that my teaching, in general, was obviously wrong-headed, and then that my own scholarship, and, by extension, my entire existence as a person, was clearly morally bereft. It was dumb, but I cried all afternoon.
That's horrible.
Did you explain that the assignment was to write a Kathy Acker pastiche.
(are there other, better, examples of writers such that someone reading one sentence written in their style would immediately object? SEK has already written about HST imitations)
It wasn't O'Caml. That was at my old job and I loved it. this one is and odd mix that doesn't do currying in the way I expect.
Violated expectations are much harder to deal with I find than just learning something new. At least that is the case when you can't sort out the rhyme or reason of the evil new-fangeledness.
The answer to the switch question assumes that the switches started in the off position. Just open the door, make use of your one entry to position mirrors in such a way as to make it possible to see the bulbs from outside through the still open door, go outside and flip the switches and look. Then take the mirror and smash them over the interviewer's head. Then do the same with the hour glasses and then pelt the interviewer with tennis balls. By that time the trucks should have arrived. Let interviewer = payload. And you're hired.
Buck was asked in an interview once, "If a chicken and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how many pancakes does it take to shingle the roof of a doghouse?"
That's from a nonsense joke. The answer that I heard was "Seven, because ice cream has no bones," though I doubt there's a canonical version.
369 was me. Further, towards a final solution of the truck problem, the maximum uplift of fuel for each hop while the truck returns to base will be achieved by making the hop half its radius of action. Then xfer the spare fuel to the other trucks. So, as half the radius of action is one quarter the range, you send home a quarter of the trucks, spreading the fuel among the others, and so on and so forth. Basically, you need to reinvent the Operation Black Buck flight refuelling scheme, an image of which I can't find on the Web.
it's an interesting OR question I suspect, but unfortunately the interviewer almost certainly knows no OR, so...
(that is, if you do it properly, including stuff like fuel efficiency and so-forth.)
