US software companies congregate in Silicon Valley, Puget Sound, and New York because that's where the active labor markets for those skills currently exist. A company anywhere else has to settle for an entire team of people desperate enough to bet everything on the fortunes of that one company.
MAJOR US software companies. There are millions of smaller software companies spread all over the place, not the least of which are both Albuquerque and Las Cruces.
These two towns are not some backwater podunk piece of shit place. New Mexico has two national labs, (Sandia National Labs, and Los Alamos National Labs) one of which has combined security with an Air Force base, (Sandia Labs) and New Mexico also has a missle test range. (White Sands Missle Range, or WSMR for short)
There is certainly not a shortage of available software positions here in New Mexico. And one need not "bet the farm" to come here for a job with Sandia National Labs. In fact, If you get a job there you're likely set for a career that will bring you darn good earnings (like my Father, who worked for SNL). We also have, as I repeated at one time the biggest Intel chip fabrication facility in the world.
Now, why you're seem to be so bone-headed as to think that the only good jobs are in Silicon Valley, Pugent Sound, and New York, is beyond me. And why you think think that other places can't offer you a decent job, have decent career opportunities in their area, and allow someone to actually earn a living, again, beyond my comprehension.
It is a fact that a family relocation program is a horrible idea for all people involved with the intention, or even the implied possibility that that person would not continue to work for you for at least a year. My relocation benefits with Microsoft, in fact, must be paid back if I leave my job before 12 months after my start date.
As a family, any move is a risk, and a hassle (unless you're in the Military, then it's just a hassle) and to have the looming fact that if you don't measure up during your first 3 months that you would be left stranded without a job (because you're not going to have one immediately lined up even if you are in the big three areas) owing money to the company that paid to move you there, and above all that stress, would be added on just the plain stresses involved with moving in the first place.
This probation idea is something like communism and capitalism. They look AWESOME on paper, when it's all just theory, and people all willingly work together, or fairly tensioned against each other, respectively. But one you start considering the impact of the proposal, it all just falls apart for all but the ideal situations.
In fact, as far as this probation period, I can only see this being used for leverage by a single person, who's belongings still fit in a single small U-Haul van. Because moving for them is no hassle, and relatively no stress, and thus they can actually deal with the fact that they may not be staying at this place for more than 3 months.
A link to the research is attached, with a quoting of the relavent text. As to my personal response. While working on PearPC in the beginning I spend 48 hours straight programming (yes, straight, I didn't eat, I didn't sleep, and I hardly drank anything.)
I continued similar behaviour for at least a week, likely close to two weeks. Of continuous computer usage programming until I passed out from exhaustion. (Totally god-honest serious here.)
I developed no pain from typing, and not even mild discomfort. By anyone's reckoning of the cause of RSI, 2 weeks of essentially straight programming until the person passes out should at least cause some noticable pain due to RSI.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: Light at the End of the Tunnel?
Until mid-1990s, carpal tunnel syndrome was not taken seriously by the media. Other sorts of repetitive-strain injury (RSI)account for 34% of workplace injuries in the U.S.
Then office workers began to be dianosed with the disease, and reporters who are office workers themselves took notice. The belief was that people using keyboards were at particular risk. 23% of reported cases during 1999 were linked to typing. In a recent study in the U.S. some interesting findings were reported.
A survey was done of employees who were identified as frequent computer users. Although 29.6% of the employees reported hand paresthesias, only 27 employees (10.5%) met clinical criteria for carpal tunnel syndrome, and in 9 (3.5%) the syndrome was confirmed by nerve conduction studies. Affected and unaffected employees had similar occupations, years using a computer, and time using the computer during the day.
Interesting is the authors conclusion that the frequency of carpal tunnel syndrome in computer users is similar to that in the general population
The findings, if confirmed, suggest that carpal tunnel syndrome is not caused by typing. In tuern, this may explain why the benefits of so-called "ergonomic" keyboards remain elusive. Free Abstract, full article requires subscription
Stevens, J. C. et al. (June 2001).The frequency of carpal tunnel syndrome in computer users at a medical facility: Neurology, Vol. 56,1568-1570 Commentary about the article, requires subscription
While I can't argue results, as I have not taken Vipasanna, there's one problem with Vipasanna and RSI agravation from typing.
If you stop typing and rest your wrists for a couple of hours, the problem tends to go away.
So, even if Vipasanna wasn't doing anything at all, but getting the person away from the keyboard to rest their wrists, then it would be fine.
Also, placebo effect is enormously powerful. Last, testimonial is the worst form of advertising to believe. There are testimonials for every product that makes money, even unpaid testimonials.
In fact, Penn and Teller on their show Bullshit proved that they could coax testimonials out of people for *THE* stupidest shit in the world. Like magnet therapy that looks like someone glued play magnets onto oven mits (which is exactly what it was), and then, at that the magnets were demagnetised before the people had even seen them.
While I won't argue Vipasanna with you as I've not done any research into its validity, any claims such as these immediately raise my doubts to epic levels.
While I'm on the subject, split keyboards not only do not keep my wrists straight, they do just the opposite. In order to type of one of those monsters, I have to bend my wrists in an unnatural and highly uncomfortable position.
Not all bodies are built the same. I have a friend from college, and he showed me that it would be impossible for him to use a standard keyboard and have his wrists naturally straight. He *has* to use an ergnomic keyboard to keep them straight.
The guy is a large guy. His elbows are wide away from the center of his body, unlike the skinny freaks that are the people who can type perfectly fine on a regular keyboard.
Some of us are skinny enough bastards that we can keep our wrists straight and still have our fingers on the ASDF-HJK; home-row.
I'll grant you, this isn't everyone, and it isn't even most people. But personally, I find ergnomically split keyboards a big pain in the ass because my elbow has to hang off in the middle of the air like I'm doing the chicken dance.
Nobody is built the same, and while I grant that some people need to use an ergnomic keyboard (or learn a different angular homerow) some don't.
I had a friend who showed me that he needed an ergnomic keyboard. He's large enough that to keep his wrists straight, he had to hold his elbows out in front of him, because otherwise, they'd consume the flesh that was right next to his stomach.
I'm not that big. I'm a skinny little bastard. And my wrists are just perfectly straight while typing, with my elbows right next to my body.
Actually most of this stuff about keyboard typing *causing* RSI is pure bunk also.
There's been research that shows that people who use typing a lot in their lives do not develop RSI in any greater percentage than in those who do not.
Just if you *do* have RSI, the keyboards agrivate it a lot.
If this guy has been typing since he was 8, and he's 30 now, he'll likely not develop RSI.
The stress of moving, and uprooting children and wife just to have the job fall out from underneath you, far outweigh the unfortunate situation where someone already lives there and loses his job.
Perhaps, maybe you've not thought of this. There are plenty of jobs that are within commuting distance to sustain your career. Just the one with the most money, and the best chances for sucess, is not where you live.
I live in Albuquerque, NM. Here we have Sandia National Labs, Intel (during the late '90's this was their largest fab in the world. I do not know if this is still the case.) we have a ton of tech jobs in the Computer Science field.
But, when Company XY comes along and waives a big paycheck in your face, it's kind of hard to tell them that you're not interested because you're not interested in relocating. Especially when it's a significant coefficient larger than your current earnings.
In short, if you're supporting a wife and kids, you're not in some career-vacuum environment in the area of your commuting ability. You've been working and sustaining your career. But Company XY comes along with a better offer, or you get laid off and Company XY comes along with an offer period. They're just in a different town.
Shit like this happens dude. And don't try and tell me that moving your whole family to have your job taken away after 3 months is a GOOD THING for that family, because if you're going to tell me that, you're smoking some fucked up crack.
*sigh* you ever stop and think maybe I passed the puzzle? Like, because I already KNEW and UNDERSTOOD the decision tree process required to solve the puzzle?
There are a great number of variations in the puzzle, if you didn't know. Let's take 9 coins, one is different. This is the basis of the question. The most basic version is that the different coin is lighter or heavier, but it's known which it is. Find it in 2 weighings. (It can be done, each weighing returns either A is heavier/lighter/equal to B, this is a 3 result decision. Then with two weighings, we can produce 3^2=9 results. Exactly sufficient to solve the problem.)
The variation of this puzzle is that you have 9 coins, one weighs differently, but it's not said how. (heavier or lighter, could be either), and just by weighing them, find the coin, and which it is (heavier or lighter) in just 2 weighings. Note, that this can't be done. We have 9 possible outcomes, but 18 different possible solutions. With 3 weighings it can be done, as we have 27 possible outcomes. 27 > 18.
So... first of all, you only need 2 weighings if you know that you're looking for a coin that is known to be either heavier or lighter. But you know which it is.
So... clue to you. Don't open your mouth before you understand the problem, unless you're asking for clarification to the problem (which is exactly what I was doing during the interview process.)
Perhaps the interviewer understood plenty of the problem to "pick up on that", but he felt that the way that I approached the problem was the REAL goal of the puzzle, and not the actual solution to the puzzle.
Which, by the way. I did solve the puzzle during the interview, in both the heavier situation, and also in the unknown just a different weight situation.
Well, in the two interviews that I just recently went through (one about a month ago, the other just a week ago) there were a total of 10 people who interviewed me for positions.
Of these 10, I had one interview where the guy asked me a puzzle question. ("Given 9 coins, and a balance-" Then I cut him off with "is the odd one heavier or lighter?")
Over all, Microsoft as of late has stopped asking so many puzzle questions, partly because (I think) they've found them to be ineffectual. If you know the puzzle, then you can solve it before they even ask the question. If they don't know the puzzle, then they end up running around like a chicken with their head cut off, trying to come up with a solution.
This would work in some cases, but take for example, Mr. XY, who has a wife, 3 kids, and a house.
This means, to work for this company, he's have to uproot his wife three kids, and sell his house, buy a new one, all for a 3 month contract that might not even pan out.
That's harsh.
So, let's take the attitude that the company wouldn't be a dick like that, and would supply him with individual housing for 3 months, and he can keep his family where it's at, until the end of the probationary period... then the guy's away from his family for 3 months, gonna rack up a hell of a phone bill, and then he'll have to still go through the tortures of relocating his family 3 months after he's got his bearings there.
Again, everything has a downside, and in many ways doing something like this just wouldn't please any one but the company...
Totally. Your job as a pre-sales dude, is not to sell the customer. That's the salesman's job. Your job is to back up the salesman.
AND LORDY LORDY! If you go over the salesman's head and talk directly to the customer about something that the salesman said wrong.
There is a "chain of command" in the real world. You don't take your issues anywhere except to the person right above you. And the customer is above the salesman.
By giving the answer that the GP did, he's telling Microsoft that he doesn't care about protocol and formalities, or heirarchies, or any of that stuff.
Had a friend interview with Google. The group loved him, but he was under the GPA requirement. They fought long and hard saying, "This is the perfect guy for the job, we just need to waive the GPA requirement."
Eventually, the executive board decided not to waive the GPA requirement for him, and they ended up not hiring the guy who the group themselves thought was as good as you could get for the job.
Any company that doesn't listen to their group, which is fighting to hire a guy, are absolute morons.
You can't hire everyone who applies on a probationary period.
You have to distill the group somehow, and whether it be interview, skill test, or GPA.... it's always going to be "flawed".
Now, I say "flawed" because if the purpose of it is to reduce to applicant pool, and give some better quality per person increase, then all of these work. They're just not ideal for picking the perfect applicant.
But just like how the best scheduler is impossible to achieve, same is finding THE BEST applicant for a position.
I'll chime in under you, because you seem to be on-topic to what I'm planning on saying.
First, Microsoft interviews are not "How would you move Mt. Fuji?" questions anymore. Microsoft asks hardly ANY of these interview questions anymore.
Second, Microsoft has a recruiting group that works on campus. There are two ways to enter their system. Either, A.) you submit an application, or B.) a recruiter hears about you, and starts selling you to groups, or the group themselves gets a recruiter out to talk to you.
Now, Microsoft has not actually researched how much you know about any particular field, they just know that you studied in it. So, naturally the first they they're going to want to do, is find out if you actually know what you're talking about. The only way to do this is to ask you technical questions.
If they've come after you, you can be sure that they're not looking at you to see if you're an "out of the box" thinker. They don't *need* you to be. If Microsoft contacts you, they have a very good idea of what job they want you to do, and they want to make sure that you know that field, and that you would be able to fit in with the group, and also that you'd be able to handle the work.
If you want a job with a good company, there are some hoops you have to jump through. And just because it lists on your resume that you know XY technology, does not mean that you know it. I mean, COME ON! How many people lie on their resume, and you think they should TRUST it implicitly? They *do* need a short little tech interview to find out if your resume is anywhere near accurate.
I can almost guarentee you that this guy was not asked questiosn like "Why are manhole covers round?"
It's really in many ways an issue of your being aware of it, and noticing it. If you were to just let the issue go, and not consider the author a compete moron anytime you read it, then you'd find that you'll stop caring as much. (This is implicitly true, as the conclusion follows directly from the definition of the pretense. Like saying if you legalize drugs, there will be a drop in drug crime.)
Anyways, yes, I agree there are a number of things that people can do in their writing that make it just outright frustrating to read. I usually overlook simple errors and typos. They're not worth my time to correct.
If the person makes enough errors to be entirely unintelligable, then I politely ask them, if they could please attempt some corrections as I can't understand them.
I certainly don't just blurt out, "It's 'should've' not 'should of'"... unless they're a good friend, and I'm just teasing them.
I'll definitely say that a large number of Slashdot users don't exhibit proper Slashdot etiquette; in either pedanticly correcting people over trivial errors, and not doing so in either a courteous or humourous manner.
Well, the unfortunate thing is that English refers both to American and International (UK) English.
I'll agree that American English should probably have a better more unambiguous term. But at this point, we're splitting hairs, and running into the definition of a language that I prefer the most: "A Language is a Dialect with an army."
This is used to explain why Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish are all highly mutually intelligable, but are considered different languages, while most people consider Mandarin and Cantonese to be "dialects" of Chinese, even though they are entirely mutually unintelligable.
So, I'd prefer a better term, but it's all just semantic hair-splitting at this point.
"Should of" could develop meaning, and has since developed meaning. The same as "Angst" has in English.
This word drives me nuts, because English uses it slightly differently from the German word "Angst".
If you don't like that, then "uber" would be an even better example.
Language changes. Reading a style guide of my mother's bygone college years, it listed not to use neologisms. In the list, I had either not ever heard of the word, or I had heard it so much that I had no idea that it was a *new* word just 30~40 years ago.
Style. Spelling. Grammar. EVERYTHING of a language evolves. Maybe some day a large culture *will* say "I of eaten" and have it make sense. But then you'll denounce it as a sloppy, or poor grammar, even though the same language will have *more* grammatical forms than English.
If you didn't catch that. I'm talking about Ebonics. Ebonics has a greater number of tense/aspect/mood markers than standardized American English. Just cause it doesn't match up to people's pretty nice standards people say it's sloppy, and lazy speech. And this is Bullshit. It's even more complex and detailed than English, and I'd like to see the first thing in the world that's more complex and detailed, yet still sloppier and lazier.
Last thing I'm going to say, is that people have this attitude towards standardized language stating that anything varying from it is inferior. And this too is Bullshit. Just because it doesn't fit your pretty standards doesn't mean that there is anything *wrong* with it, unless it's in a formal forum (where standardized grammar and spelling is a matter of etiquette.) Slashdot is *not* a formal forum.
So stick your formal etiquette in your ears you bastards. Slashdot is *NOT* a culture of proper etiquette.
Queen/King's English only applies to those nations where the Queen/King of England is also their monarch.
But this doesn't work in English. The most direct point here is that Queen's English is "colour", not the American English "color".
American English has no standards body, nor originating source of definition.
"American English" is known linguistically as "White English Vernacular" as opposed to "Black English Vernacular" (Ebonics) Don't take these terms a racist. It's like NAACP, it was coined before such terms were deemed offensive.
WEV is determined by a sorta semi-communal agreement among American English professors.
Actually, it was OpenSSH, the only service open on the machine.
It was the whole privsep thing that was going on, which allowed it to be hacked into. Darn thing bit me at my home, right after I had patched 2 machines at work, and my laptop, and desktop.
If it weren't for the single exploit in the default install in OpenBSD in 4 years, I'd have not gotten hacked either.
The only service available from my BSD box was SSH. Everything else went on to my router.
I definitely see a strength in the execesive paranoid lock-down of a machine, but many times it's just not really necessary.
And why the hell would the thing even *be* breakable from SMB scans? This is running linux right? And I assume you uninstalled all SMB code, since a.) it's not necessary, and b.) it opens up exploitability.
A lot of your claims are just like... hogwash. As securely as you locked the computer down, there's little way anyone could hack into that box. (Physical access and a couple of weeks. Maybe just enough to copy the CD image, then work on it at home, then replace it with a hacked version.)
Port scan != attack, btw. I've portscanned my whole university IP range before, not because I was looking for an exploit to use, but because I was looking for machines that were exploited just like mine. I didn't find any, but if I had, I would have given them a heads up, and offered to help them out.
Me and my friends were making fun of the French *before* the Iraqi War.
I remember getting kicked out of our IRC channel, because I called a guy "Frenchie" This was well before we (the US) even started talking about going into Iraq. At least a year in fact.
Don't assume that all French bashing is done in malice over the Iraqi War. While it's true that most of it is because of this (hey, it became popular to make fun of the French.) But some people just made fun of France before then, just because.
Besides, they smell.
Seriously though, this is not really intended with any real heart people. I have no malice intended in my bashing of France. It's just a light hearting target of our bashing-rants. Like the one kid at school, who always got teased. I think France is doing a pretty damn fine job, and they've done miracles with their military at times.
And I will not take the claim that France's military sucks because they couldn't take out Germany in WW1, and were taken over in WW2. They were in a bad spot, against a very strong military opponent. In WW1, they deserve all the credit for holding out as long as they did. In WW2... hell, look what happened to Poland. It fell faster than France. Only reason why Britain took so long was the channel between the mainland and them. If Hitler had had the chunnel, England would have been his.
So, I don't make fun of France just because they didn't support the Iraqi War. I also don't make fun of France because I have some true malice in my heart. It's light-hearted, like when I make fun of Laughing Boy for having the most annoying laugh in the world. (Serious, he could be on the other side of Wal-mart and you would know he were laughing.)
"Shit" and "Scheisse" come from the same Germanic origin (they are cognates) but "shit" is certainly not from German.
This is like humans evolved from chimpanzees. No. We both evolved from a common ancestor which was neither human nor chimp.
In the same way, Germanic split out of the Indo-European tree (where it differs from its acestral connection to other languages like Latin, and Greek.)
Germanic then split into North, East, and West Germanic. North Germanic was basically the Gothic languages, and has since died out before any good specimens of the languages could be recorded.
North Germanic became the Scandanavian languages (or language, depending on where you draw your political boundaries)
West Germanic developed into low and high German. Low German developed into English, Frisian, Dutch, and Plattdeutsch.
High German developed into New High German, and various dialects based on it.
Also, English, before being altered by the influx of French into England, was altered by the Scandanavians and their occupation of England.
So, before we even have the original origins that are pretty similar to German, we have alterations due to Scandanavian occupation, and French alterations due to Norman occupation.
"shit" is definitively *not* from German. It's Germanic in origin, but it does not come from German.
The English neologism "uber", *is* from German. "shit" is not.
(Interesting note: German geeks can now be said to have two words now "über" and "uber", the first being the original meaning, and the second being a borrowing of the English word "uber" which was origianlly borrowed from the German word "über".)
Slashdot Mirror
US software companies congregate in Silicon Valley, Puget Sound, and New York because that's where the active labor markets for those skills currently exist. A company anywhere else has to settle for an entire team of people desperate enough to bet everything on the fortunes of that one company.
MAJOR US software companies. There are millions of smaller software companies spread all over the place, not the least of which are both Albuquerque and Las Cruces.
These two towns are not some backwater podunk piece of shit place. New Mexico has two national labs, (Sandia National Labs, and Los Alamos National Labs) one of which has combined security with an Air Force base, (Sandia Labs) and New Mexico also has a missle test range. (White Sands Missle Range, or WSMR for short)
There is certainly not a shortage of available software positions here in New Mexico. And one need not "bet the farm" to come here for a job with Sandia National Labs. In fact, If you get a job there you're likely set for a career that will bring you darn good earnings (like my Father, who worked for SNL). We also have, as I repeated at one time the biggest Intel chip fabrication facility in the world.
Now, why you're seem to be so bone-headed as to think that the only good jobs are in Silicon Valley, Pugent Sound, and New York, is beyond me. And why you think think that other places can't offer you a decent job, have decent career opportunities in their area, and allow someone to actually earn a living, again, beyond my comprehension.
It is a fact that a family relocation program is a horrible idea for all people involved with the intention, or even the implied possibility that that person would not continue to work for you for at least a year. My relocation benefits with Microsoft, in fact, must be paid back if I leave my job before 12 months after my start date.
As a family, any move is a risk, and a hassle (unless you're in the Military, then it's just a hassle) and to have the looming fact that if you don't measure up during your first 3 months that you would be left stranded without a job (because you're not going to have one immediately lined up even if you are in the big three areas) owing money to the company that paid to move you there, and above all that stress, would be added on just the plain stresses involved with moving in the first place.
This probation idea is something like communism and capitalism. They look AWESOME on paper, when it's all just theory, and people all willingly work together, or fairly tensioned against each other, respectively. But one you start considering the impact of the proposal, it all just falls apart for all but the ideal situations.
In fact, as far as this probation period, I can only see this being used for leverage by a single person, who's belongings still fit in a single small U-Haul van. Because moving for them is no hassle, and relatively no stress, and thus they can actually deal with the fact that they may not be staying at this place for more than 3 months.
I continued similar behaviour for at least a week, likely close to two weeks. Of continuous computer usage programming until I passed out from exhaustion. (Totally god-honest serious here.)
I developed no pain from typing, and not even mild discomfort. By anyone's reckoning of the cause of RSI, 2 weeks of essentially straight programming until the person passes out should at least cause some noticable pain due to RSI.
Google: RSI "not caused by typing" research
http://health.weburb.dk/show.php3?research
While I can't argue results, as I have not taken Vipasanna, there's one problem with Vipasanna and RSI agravation from typing.
If you stop typing and rest your wrists for a couple of hours, the problem tends to go away.
So, even if Vipasanna wasn't doing anything at all, but getting the person away from the keyboard to rest their wrists, then it would be fine.
Also, placebo effect is enormously powerful. Last, testimonial is the worst form of advertising to believe. There are testimonials for every product that makes money, even unpaid testimonials.
In fact, Penn and Teller on their show Bullshit proved that they could coax testimonials out of people for *THE* stupidest shit in the world. Like magnet therapy that looks like someone glued play magnets onto oven mits (which is exactly what it was), and then, at that the magnets were demagnetised before the people had even seen them.
While I won't argue Vipasanna with you as I've not done any research into its validity, any claims such as these immediately raise my doubts to epic levels.
While I'm on the subject, split keyboards not only do not keep my wrists straight, they do just the opposite. In order to type of one of those monsters, I have to bend my wrists in an unnatural and highly uncomfortable position.
Not all bodies are built the same. I have a friend from college, and he showed me that it would be impossible for him to use a standard keyboard and have his wrists naturally straight. He *has* to use an ergnomic keyboard to keep them straight.
The guy is a large guy. His elbows are wide away from the center of his body, unlike the skinny freaks that are the people who can type perfectly fine on a regular keyboard.
The keyboard mods that I've seen for easy of VI usage have mainly been replacing the caps lock with the ESC key.
You might want to look to that. In fact, usually, you can just turn on a keyswap that'll do that for you, as this is a "normal" key mangulation.
You know, the French have the AZERTY map, you insensitive clod. ;) just teasing.
Some of us are skinny enough bastards that we can keep our wrists straight and still have our fingers on the ASDF-HJK; home-row.
I'll grant you, this isn't everyone, and it isn't even most people. But personally, I find ergnomically split keyboards a big pain in the ass because my elbow has to hang off in the middle of the air like I'm doing the chicken dance.
Nobody is built the same, and while I grant that some people need to use an ergnomic keyboard (or learn a different angular homerow) some don't.
I had a friend who showed me that he needed an ergnomic keyboard. He's large enough that to keep his wrists straight, he had to hold his elbows out in front of him, because otherwise, they'd consume the flesh that was right next to his stomach.
I'm not that big. I'm a skinny little bastard. And my wrists are just perfectly straight while typing, with my elbows right next to my body.
Actually most of this stuff about keyboard typing *causing* RSI is pure bunk also.
There's been research that shows that people who use typing a lot in their lives do not develop RSI in any greater percentage than in those who do not.
Just if you *do* have RSI, the keyboards agrivate it a lot.
If this guy has been typing since he was 8, and he's 30 now, he'll likely not develop RSI.
Perhaps you're missing something.
The stress of moving, and uprooting children and wife just to have the job fall out from underneath you, far outweigh the unfortunate situation where someone already lives there and loses his job.
Perhaps, maybe you've not thought of this. There are plenty of jobs that are within commuting distance to sustain your career. Just the one with the most money, and the best chances for sucess, is not where you live.
I live in Albuquerque, NM. Here we have Sandia National Labs, Intel (during the late '90's this was their largest fab in the world. I do not know if this is still the case.) we have a ton of tech jobs in the Computer Science field.
But, when Company XY comes along and waives a big paycheck in your face, it's kind of hard to tell them that you're not interested because you're not interested in relocating. Especially when it's a significant coefficient larger than your current earnings.
In short, if you're supporting a wife and kids, you're not in some career-vacuum environment in the area of your commuting ability. You've been working and sustaining your career. But Company XY comes along with a better offer, or you get laid off and Company XY comes along with an offer period. They're just in a different town.
Shit like this happens dude. And don't try and tell me that moving your whole family to have your job taken away after 3 months is a GOOD THING for that family, because if you're going to tell me that, you're smoking some fucked up crack.
*sigh* you ever stop and think maybe I passed the puzzle? Like, because I already KNEW and UNDERSTOOD the decision tree process required to solve the puzzle?
There are a great number of variations in the puzzle, if you didn't know. Let's take 9 coins, one is different. This is the basis of the question. The most basic version is that the different coin is lighter or heavier, but it's known which it is. Find it in 2 weighings. (It can be done, each weighing returns either A is heavier/lighter/equal to B, this is a 3 result decision. Then with two weighings, we can produce 3^2=9 results. Exactly sufficient to solve the problem.)
The variation of this puzzle is that you have 9 coins, one weighs differently, but it's not said how. (heavier or lighter, could be either), and just by weighing them, find the coin, and which it is (heavier or lighter) in just 2 weighings. Note, that this can't be done. We have 9 possible outcomes, but 18 different possible solutions. With 3 weighings it can be done, as we have 27 possible outcomes. 27 > 18.
So... first of all, you only need 2 weighings if you know that you're looking for a coin that is known to be either heavier or lighter. But you know which it is.
So... clue to you. Don't open your mouth before you understand the problem, unless you're asking for clarification to the problem (which is exactly what I was doing during the interview process.)
Perhaps the interviewer understood plenty of the problem to "pick up on that", but he felt that the way that I approached the problem was the REAL goal of the puzzle, and not the actual solution to the puzzle.
Which, by the way. I did solve the puzzle during the interview, in both the heavier situation, and also in the unknown just a different weight situation.
Well, in the two interviews that I just recently went through (one about a month ago, the other just a week ago) there were a total of 10 people who interviewed me for positions.
Of these 10, I had one interview where the guy asked me a puzzle question. ("Given 9 coins, and a balance-" Then I cut him off with "is the odd one heavier or lighter?")
Over all, Microsoft as of late has stopped asking so many puzzle questions, partly because (I think) they've found them to be ineffectual. If you know the puzzle, then you can solve it before they even ask the question. If they don't know the puzzle, then they end up running around like a chicken with their head cut off, trying to come up with a solution.
I bet you go to Church also.
Yes
Let me guess . . . Catholic ? I'm guessing Catholic because your ilk likes to use the work "heirarchy" like it's a good thing.
No, I'm Presbyterian. The place where I got "heirarchy is a good thing" is from the Army.
Not every conservative minded idiot is conditioned by the Catholic Church.
This would work in some cases, but take for example, Mr. XY, who has a wife, 3 kids, and a house.
This means, to work for this company, he's have to uproot his wife three kids, and sell his house, buy a new one, all for a 3 month contract that might not even pan out.
That's harsh.
So, let's take the attitude that the company wouldn't be a dick like that, and would supply him with individual housing for 3 months, and he can keep his family where it's at, until the end of the probationary period... then the guy's away from his family for 3 months, gonna rack up a hell of a phone bill, and then he'll have to still go through the tortures of relocating his family 3 months after he's got his bearings there.
Again, everything has a downside, and in many ways doing something like this just wouldn't please any one but the company...
Totally. Your job as a pre-sales dude, is not to sell the customer. That's the salesman's job. Your job is to back up the salesman.
AND LORDY LORDY! If you go over the salesman's head and talk directly to the customer about something that the salesman said wrong.
There is a "chain of command" in the real world. You don't take your issues anywhere except to the person right above you. And the customer is above the salesman.
By giving the answer that the GP did, he's telling Microsoft that he doesn't care about protocol and formalities, or heirarchies, or any of that stuff.
This is *NOT* a good attitude to take.
Had a friend interview with Google. The group loved him, but he was under the GPA requirement. They fought long and hard saying, "This is the perfect guy for the job, we just need to waive the GPA requirement."
Eventually, the executive board decided not to waive the GPA requirement for him, and they ended up not hiring the guy who the group themselves thought was as good as you could get for the job.
Any company that doesn't listen to their group, which is fighting to hire a guy, are absolute morons.
You can't hire everyone who applies on a probationary period.
You have to distill the group somehow, and whether it be interview, skill test, or GPA.... it's always going to be "flawed".
Now, I say "flawed" because if the purpose of it is to reduce to applicant pool, and give some better quality per person increase, then all of these work. They're just not ideal for picking the perfect applicant.
But just like how the best scheduler is impossible to achieve, same is finding THE BEST applicant for a position.
I'll chime in under you, because you seem to be on-topic to what I'm planning on saying.
First, Microsoft interviews are not "How would you move Mt. Fuji?" questions anymore. Microsoft asks hardly ANY of these interview questions anymore.
Second, Microsoft has a recruiting group that works on campus. There are two ways to enter their system. Either, A.) you submit an application, or B.) a recruiter hears about you, and starts selling you to groups, or the group themselves gets a recruiter out to talk to you.
Now, Microsoft has not actually researched how much you know about any particular field, they just know that you studied in it. So, naturally the first they they're going to want to do, is find out if you actually know what you're talking about. The only way to do this is to ask you technical questions.
If they've come after you, you can be sure that they're not looking at you to see if you're an "out of the box" thinker. They don't *need* you to be. If Microsoft contacts you, they have a very good idea of what job they want you to do, and they want to make sure that you know that field, and that you would be able to fit in with the group, and also that you'd be able to handle the work.
If you want a job with a good company, there are some hoops you have to jump through. And just because it lists on your resume that you know XY technology, does not mean that you know it. I mean, COME ON! How many people lie on their resume, and you think they should TRUST it implicitly? They *do* need a short little tech interview to find out if your resume is anywhere near accurate.
I can almost guarentee you that this guy was not asked questiosn like "Why are manhole covers round?"
It's really in many ways an issue of your being aware of it, and noticing it. If you were to just let the issue go, and not consider the author a compete moron anytime you read it, then you'd find that you'll stop caring as much. (This is implicitly true, as the conclusion follows directly from the definition of the pretense. Like saying if you legalize drugs, there will be a drop in drug crime.)
Anyways, yes, I agree there are a number of things that people can do in their writing that make it just outright frustrating to read. I usually overlook simple errors and typos. They're not worth my time to correct.
If the person makes enough errors to be entirely unintelligable, then I politely ask them, if they could please attempt some corrections as I can't understand them.
I certainly don't just blurt out, "It's 'should've' not 'should of'"... unless they're a good friend, and I'm just teasing them.
I'll definitely say that a large number of Slashdot users don't exhibit proper Slashdot etiquette; in either pedanticly correcting people over trivial errors, and not doing so in either a courteous or humourous manner.
Well, the unfortunate thing is that English refers both to American and International (UK) English.
I'll agree that American English should probably have a better more unambiguous term. But at this point, we're splitting hairs, and running into the definition of a language that I prefer the most: "A Language is a Dialect with an army."
This is used to explain why Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish are all highly mutually intelligable, but are considered different languages, while most people consider Mandarin and Cantonese to be "dialects" of Chinese, even though they are entirely mutually unintelligable.
So, I'd prefer a better term, but it's all just semantic hair-splitting at this point.
"Should of" could develop meaning, and has since developed meaning. The same as "Angst" has in English.
This word drives me nuts, because English uses it slightly differently from the German word "Angst".
If you don't like that, then "uber" would be an even better example.
Language changes. Reading a style guide of my mother's bygone college years, it listed not to use neologisms. In the list, I had either not ever heard of the word, or I had heard it so much that I had no idea that it was a *new* word just 30~40 years ago.
Style. Spelling. Grammar. EVERYTHING of a language evolves. Maybe some day a large culture *will* say "I of eaten" and have it make sense. But then you'll denounce it as a sloppy, or poor grammar, even though the same language will have *more* grammatical forms than English.
If you didn't catch that. I'm talking about Ebonics. Ebonics has a greater number of tense/aspect/mood markers than standardized American English. Just cause it doesn't match up to people's pretty nice standards people say it's sloppy, and lazy speech. And this is Bullshit. It's even more complex and detailed than English, and I'd like to see the first thing in the world that's more complex and detailed, yet still sloppier and lazier.
Last thing I'm going to say, is that people have this attitude towards standardized language stating that anything varying from it is inferior. And this too is Bullshit. Just because it doesn't fit your pretty standards doesn't mean that there is anything *wrong* with it, unless it's in a formal forum (where standardized grammar and spelling is a matter of etiquette.) Slashdot is *not* a formal forum.
So stick your formal etiquette in your ears you bastards. Slashdot is *NOT* a culture of proper etiquette.
Queen/King's English only applies to those nations where the Queen/King of England is also their monarch.
But this doesn't work in English. The most direct point here is that Queen's English is "colour", not the American English "color".
American English has no standards body, nor originating source of definition.
"American English" is known linguistically as "White English Vernacular" as opposed to "Black English Vernacular" (Ebonics) Don't take these terms a racist. It's like NAACP, it was coined before such terms were deemed offensive.
WEV is determined by a sorta semi-communal agreement among American English professors.
Actually, it was OpenSSH, the only service open on the machine.
:(
It was the whole privsep thing that was going on, which allowed it to be hacked into. Darn thing bit me at my home, right after I had patched 2 machines at work, and my laptop, and desktop.
Forgot about the server
If it weren't for the single exploit in the default install in OpenBSD in 4 years, I'd have not gotten hacked either.
The only service available from my BSD box was SSH. Everything else went on to my router.
I definitely see a strength in the execesive paranoid lock-down of a machine, but many times it's just not really necessary.
And why the hell would the thing even *be* breakable from SMB scans? This is running linux right? And I assume you uninstalled all SMB code, since a.) it's not necessary, and b.) it opens up exploitability.
A lot of your claims are just like... hogwash. As securely as you locked the computer down, there's little way anyone could hack into that box. (Physical access and a couple of weeks. Maybe just enough to copy the CD image, then work on it at home, then replace it with a hacked version.)
Port scan != attack, btw. I've portscanned my whole university IP range before, not because I was looking for an exploit to use, but because I was looking for machines that were exploited just like mine. I didn't find any, but if I had, I would have given them a heads up, and offered to help them out.
Me and my friends were making fun of the French *before* the Iraqi War.
I remember getting kicked out of our IRC channel, because I called a guy "Frenchie" This was well before we (the US) even started talking about going into Iraq. At least a year in fact.
Don't assume that all French bashing is done in malice over the Iraqi War. While it's true that most of it is because of this (hey, it became popular to make fun of the French.) But some people just made fun of France before then, just because.
Besides, they smell.
Seriously though, this is not really intended with any real heart people. I have no malice intended in my bashing of France. It's just a light hearting target of our bashing-rants. Like the one kid at school, who always got teased. I think France is doing a pretty damn fine job, and they've done miracles with their military at times.
And I will not take the claim that France's military sucks because they couldn't take out Germany in WW1, and were taken over in WW2. They were in a bad spot, against a very strong military opponent. In WW1, they deserve all the credit for holding out as long as they did. In WW2... hell, look what happened to Poland. It fell faster than France. Only reason why Britain took so long was the channel between the mainland and them. If Hitler had had the chunnel, England would have been his.
So, I don't make fun of France just because they didn't support the Iraqi War. I also don't make fun of France because I have some true malice in my heart. It's light-hearted, like when I make fun of Laughing Boy for having the most annoying laugh in the world. (Serious, he could be on the other side of Wal-mart and you would know he were laughing.)
Some of us are just kidding around.
"Shit" and "Scheisse" come from the same Germanic origin (they are cognates) but "shit" is certainly not from German.
This is like humans evolved from chimpanzees. No. We both evolved from a common ancestor which was neither human nor chimp.
In the same way, Germanic split out of the Indo-European tree (where it differs from its acestral connection to other languages like Latin, and Greek.)
Germanic then split into North, East, and West Germanic. North Germanic was basically the Gothic languages, and has since died out before any good specimens of the languages could be recorded.
North Germanic became the Scandanavian languages (or language, depending on where you draw your political boundaries)
West Germanic developed into low and high German. Low German developed into English, Frisian, Dutch, and Plattdeutsch.
High German developed into New High German, and various dialects based on it.
Also, English, before being altered by the influx of French into England, was altered by the Scandanavians and their occupation of England.
So, before we even have the original origins that are pretty similar to German, we have alterations due to Scandanavian occupation, and French alterations due to Norman occupation.
"shit" is definitively *not* from German. It's Germanic in origin, but it does not come from German.
The English neologism "uber", *is* from German. "shit" is not.
(Interesting note: German geeks can now be said to have two words now "über" and "uber", the first being the original meaning, and the second being a borrowing of the English word "uber" which was origianlly borrowed from the German word "über".)