Indeed - just to move the 20TB somewhere is going to take quite a bit of time; put those data in the cloud and you'll wait a LOONG time for a full restoral. If you want single files, ok, but all 20TB?
Larger 'professional' services like BUMI (I'm not a spokesman, but a user) will overnight you an actual, physical disk if you're restoring a huge amount of data and need it _tout de suite_.
Same here. I don't require written tests of people I interview at all levels; I have a pretty standard list of basic knowledge questions (to see the gap between the resume and the person) and mostly I ask questions like "how would you solve this problem?"
But a written skills test? That's just someone trying to make a zeroth-order clown filter.
I didn't see any mention of a written skills test; sounds like a strawman on your part.
I'll stipulate that -- I always figured that any test given by an HR drone would be a written one with a graded key, since an oral exam would be a bit much for JRandomDrone to 'grade'.
FWIW; "a pretty standard list of basic knowledge questions" asked by an interviewer of an interviewee counts as a skills test.
Yes, I'm making this an oral exam, which I'm using to differentiate from a written one; I also am not basing my hiring decision(s) directly on it. It's just as much to try to discern if there's cerebral activity on the part of the applicant. I've also interviewed too many people with "10 years experience" doing <x> that turned out to be 10 times 1 year experience.
Question, though; let's assume you're in a skilled IT job making $75k/year and for whatever of a plethora of reasons you find yourself looking at/for other work. You find a position in an expanding company in your field of interest/expertise that you'd like to work at. The interviewer tells you all's ok so far and upon completion of a basic 10 question written test to verify your problem solving abilities mesh with the needs of the company everything looks good for you to start your new $100k/year position. Do you seriously tell them to stick it?
We all have our price don't we:-) And yet, I have done exactly that: I've told interviewers flat out that if they can't determine that I know my stuff by talking to me first and asking me broad questions, then they're not going to be able to do it on paper, either. Strangely enough, I have a 50% hit ratio on that: fully half the time the interviewer told me "OK, well then we'll not do the written test." (This is not a huge statistical sample, mind you: 2 jobs out of 4, if memory serves.)
I guess, in summary, it's a matter of positioning: if you call it a 'skills assessment', you'll annoy people. If you say 'ok, you list <foo> on your resume, can you tell me about <random simple factoid about foo>, you're still having a 'skills test' but you're not calling it that.
I won't take them. I have turned down several jobs over it.
Same here. I don't require written tests of people I interview at all levels; I have a pretty standard list of basic knowledge questions (to see the gap between the resume and the person) and mostly I ask questions like "how would you solve this problem?"
But a written skills test? That's just someone trying to make a zeroth-order clown filter.
Someone else mentioned "being burned by unscrupulous IT folks who [exaggerated their skillset]". It's far more likely that they've been burned by recruiters who are trying to place warm bodies out there in the hopes of finding someone, anyone to fill a slot (and thus earn a commission). This is especially true for people with more "experience" on their CVs.
(For someone fresh out of college, however, it isn't the worst idea in the world, but the OP is not talking about that situation.)
and I could really do with a hand conveying this to a manager whose only real knowledge of Linux is "if it's so good, why would you give it away for free"?"
RedHat sells it. Oracle sells it. Novell sells it. You can buy it from them, if you have the need to write a check.
Remind me again, how large those finds are compared to, say, Ghawar?
There's Alberta Tar Sands/CANROY too.
Peak is still upon us. Demand can only increase. Think now: we've already got 40% of the world's concrete going to China. They need...you got it!...OIL to make that happen.
Demand is not going down. Discoveries are not going up faster than demand.
Yup. This is the global peak, as opposed to US Peak oil production (in the 1970s) which everyone agreed happened.
It doesn't mean "ice age", however. But do think a bit about the economics of it all: there's now increased global demand for oil, and a decline in the rate of production, no new large discoveries...
Hell, just go to a colocation center and ask them about electricity & cooling costs. They're skyrocketing, and will only continue to do so.
Electricity will become a lot more expensive soon.
After Peak oil hits in 2008, without any real alternatives, we'll either not be using our devices much, or we'll be looking at them through the haze of many more coal-fired power plants.
In fact, when I was doing interviewing, if I thought the candidate kinda sorta had merit, I'd ask, "what do you run at home?"
Some folks said "I run one thing -- a laptop -- and I use it only to check my hotmail."
Some folks said "I've got 4 machines running..." Mostly it was linux but I had one guy -- an über-windows guy -- who had Windows AD running, with redundant controllers, the whole nine yards...neat stuff.
And some folks said "I can only afford one machine; I just got out of school/have a huge debt load, but every week I install something new on it."
The first group of folks got the "hmm...well, OK, we'll get back to you."
Yeah, I went through a similar bit of mathematics when I thought I might have needed a second car for the household. It turned out that buying a cheaper car (like a Scion, e.g.) versus a hybrid was still cheaper for the number of miles I'd be driving. You have to drive pretty heavily for the hybrid to work out economically given the premia on them...
In our data center, we look for a bunch of things in particular in machinery (this is not an all-inclusive list):
For all machines, what type of rack mountings exist? We're stuck with 2-post "telco" racks, not 4-post cabinets, so we need to know what we'll need to get to support this new equipment.
What kinds of power inputs do the machines support (DC or AC)?
Are there redundant power supplies (these tend to go quickly)?
Are there redundant inputs? (Many E-class Suns have multiple supplies but only one input, look at an E450.)
How much power do they use? (If you have only 2 15 A circuits in your rack, you can't put more than 7 or so Dell 1750 machines in that rack)
Are the servers dual-processor capable? Do they come bundled with more than one drive (so you could RAID-1 the O/S)?
What components are hot-swappable?
Does the box come with some kind of Lights-out Management (like Sun's LOM/ALOM)?
Does it support a serial console (so you don't need a full KVM to get remote bare-metal access)
For critical machines, is 24/7 short-order (less than 4 hour) onsite support available?
FORTH didn't die spectacularly after OO Forth; Chuck Moore is even working on a follow-on. Moreover, NEON was an OO Forth that was in use by at least 1986, 'cause I was using it then as a summer programmer.
Back in 1999, I was in San Francisco for the Streaming Media conference, and I met Stacy there. I gave her a ride back to her office after the conference as I was headed back to SFO for my flight back.
Yes, she's cute. Damn cute.
Yes, she's also smart. Damn smart.
Alas, she went and became famous, and I went back to work.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed - just to move the 20TB somewhere is going to take quite a bit of time; put those data in the cloud and you'll wait a LOONG time for a full restoral. If you want single files, ok, but all 20TB?
Larger 'professional' services like BUMI (I'm not a spokesman, but a user) will overnight you an actual, physical disk if you're restoring a huge amount of data and need it _tout de suite_.
M-x psychoanalyze-pinhead
Same here. I don't require written tests of people I interview at all levels; I have a pretty standard list of basic knowledge questions (to see the gap between the resume and the person) and mostly I ask questions like "how would you solve this problem?"
But a written skills test? That's just someone trying to make a zeroth-order clown filter.
I didn't see any mention of a written skills test; sounds like a strawman on your part.
I'll stipulate that -- I always figured that any test given by an HR drone would be a written one with a graded key, since an oral exam would be a bit much for JRandomDrone to 'grade'.
FWIW; "a pretty standard list of basic knowledge questions" asked by an interviewer of an interviewee counts as a skills test.
Yes, I'm making this an oral exam, which I'm using to differentiate from a written one; I also am not basing my hiring decision(s) directly on it. It's just as much to try to discern if there's cerebral activity on the part of the applicant. I've also interviewed too many people with "10 years experience" doing <x> that turned out to be 10 times 1 year experience.
Question, though; let's assume you're in a skilled IT job making $75k/year and for whatever of a plethora of reasons you find yourself looking at/for other work. You find a position in an expanding company in your field of interest/expertise that you'd like to work at. The interviewer tells you all's ok so far and upon completion of a basic 10 question written test to verify your problem solving abilities mesh with the needs of the company everything looks good for you to start your new $100k/year position. Do you seriously tell them to stick it?
We all have our price don't we :-) And yet, I have done exactly that: I've told interviewers flat out that if they can't determine that I know my stuff by talking to me first and asking me broad questions, then they're not going to be able to do it on paper, either. Strangely enough, I have a 50% hit ratio on that: fully half the time the interviewer told me "OK, well then we'll not do the written test." (This is not a huge statistical sample, mind you: 2 jobs out of 4, if memory serves.)
I guess, in summary, it's a matter of positioning: if you call it a 'skills assessment', you'll annoy people. If you say 'ok, you list <foo> on your resume, can you tell me about <random simple factoid about foo>, you're still having a 'skills test' but you're not calling it that.
Same here. I don't require written tests of people I interview at all levels; I have a pretty standard list of basic knowledge questions (to see the gap between the resume and the person) and mostly I ask questions like "how would you solve this problem?"
But a written skills test? That's just someone trying to make a zeroth-order clown filter.
Someone else mentioned "being burned by unscrupulous IT folks who [exaggerated their skillset]". It's far more likely that they've been burned by recruiters who are trying to place warm bodies out there in the hopes of finding someone, anyone to fill a slot (and thus earn a commission). This is especially true for people with more "experience" on their CVs.
(For someone fresh out of college, however, it isn't the worst idea in the world, but the OP is not talking about that situation.)
The NYT magazine had a section of a feature article about this when they were covering Yucca Flats...this must have been close to a decade ago.
Short memories on people, here.
It doesn't mean anything to be under the ground.
It means everything to be able to get it OUT of the ground.
How much energy needs to be put in to get out a gallon of refinable oil in these tar sands/oil shale fields?
RedHat sells it.
Oracle sells it.
Novell sells it.
You can buy it from them, if you have the need to write a check.
Remind me again, how large those finds are compared to, say, Ghawar?
There's Alberta Tar Sands/CANROY too.
Peak is still upon us. Demand can only increase. Think now: we've already got 40% of the world's concrete going to China. They need...you got it!...OIL to make that happen.
Demand is not going down. Discoveries are not going up faster than demand.
Yup. This is the global peak, as opposed to US Peak oil production (in the 1970s) which everyone agreed happened.
It doesn't mean "ice age", however. But do think a bit about the economics of it all: there's now increased global demand for oil, and a decline in the rate of production, no new large discoveries...
Hell, just go to a colocation center and ask them about electricity & cooling costs. They're skyrocketing, and will only continue to do so.
Electricity will become a lot more expensive soon.
After Peak oil hits in 2008, without any real alternatives, we'll either not be using our devices much, or we'll be looking at them through the haze of many more coal-fired power plants.
The time constant on being caught up with can be years and years...karma's a bitch, but she's also slow at times.
...on my Osborne 1, which I purchased with bar mitzvah money lo those many years ago.
- 5" monochrome screen
- 2 massive 92kB 5.25" floppy drives.
- 64 kB bank-switched memory.
- z80A processor.
It weighed in at 20 lbs!
sheeya.
...then it definitely wasn't you! I know, because the guy I interviewed wasn't stupid enough to post something like this to /.
Well -- yes.
I disregarded the people who don't have enough interest in what they do to want to push themselves and teach themselves more about it.
If all you want is 9 to 5, the civil service beckons for you!
(By the way -- I have 3 kids, hobbies, and community service as well, and yet I manage the time for self-training in there.)
In fact, when I was doing interviewing, if I thought the candidate kinda sorta had merit, I'd ask, "what do you run at home?"
..." Mostly it was linux but I had one guy -- an über-windows guy -- who had Windows AD running, with redundant controllers, the whole nine yards...neat stuff.
Some folks said "I run one thing -- a laptop -- and I use it only to check my hotmail."
Some folks said "I've got 4 machines running
And some folks said "I can only afford one machine; I just got out of school/have a huge debt load, but every week I install something new on it."
The first group of folks got the "hmm...well, OK, we'll get back to you."
The latter two got props.
Yeah, I went through a similar bit of mathematics when I thought I might have needed a second car for the household. It turned out that buying a cheaper car (like a Scion, e.g.) versus a hybrid was still cheaper for the number of miles I'd be driving. You have to drive pretty heavily for the hybrid to work out economically given the premia on them...
My brother-in-law needs to tell O'Reilly to update his bio, since the birth of my nephew (his son) some few months ago...
-1 for redundant phrase. There are no other types of apartment brokers in NYC.
Um, Queue is obscure only to people who don't read.Yes, and no.
dayum, youse guys must have slow mail. this was in last month's Queue.
That's a short list of things I look for.
I got a generic ebags laptop backpack bag, it's held up for 5 months now, but who knows what the next 3 years will bring...
Spring for two shoulder straps. Your neck will love you for it.
FORTH didn't die spectacularly after OO Forth; Chuck Moore is even working on a follow-on. Moreover, NEON was an OO Forth that was in use by at least 1986, 'cause I was using it then as a summer programmer.
Grr.
Does the book go into whether or not SPARK is used anywhere in practice, or is it someone's toy compiler?
//jbaltz
Yes, she's cute. Damn cute.
Yes, she's also smart. Damn smart.
Alas, she went and became famous, and I went back to work.