Re:Discarding too many people
on
Defining Google
·
· Score: 1
Sorry to hear that, but I did say 'probably', so one example doesn't really disprove my 'theory.'
Generally, all theories are instantly disproven upon the discovery of a single counterexample.
But if you can cite lots of specific cases that support your theory (something you didn't do in your initial response), I might be more apt to believe it.
Re:Discarding too many people
on
Defining Google
·
· Score: 0
Google uses perl [sic]?
You can write bad code in any language.
Conversely, you can write very readable, very well structured, and maintainable code in Perl.
Re:Discarding too many people
on
Defining Google
·
· Score: 2
If you don't like their filters, you probably also wouldn't like working there...
Unfortunately for you, there's no way to prove that since you'd never be hired to find out.
There was once a research department of a company I interned with. I liked working there a lot. I made good contributions, published a few papers, and obtained a few patents. I wanted to be hired into that department but they had a filter that you had to have a Ph.D. which I did not have.
I disagreed with their filter and yet I liked working there. I guess that disproves your theory.
As a footnote: interestingly, while I was there, they hired a recent Ph.D. graduate. Personally, I thought he was an idiot. How he managed to obtain a Ph.D. from a good school wasn't clear. As it happened, he didn't last long in the department. So much for their filter.
Re:Discarding too many people
on
Defining Google
·
· Score: 1
Are you saying Google should place a bed in every cubicle, or that employees should live in on-site apartments?
Since I didn't explictly write that, then no, I didn't say that. My examples were only illustrative of a mere two such times that insight can occur. They can occur at any time when not consiously thinking about a problem. That can include walking to the soda machine at work; staring out the window at work; or any other thing at work. Please stop inferring what I didn't explicitly write.
But you completely missed the point. When you leave your job, do you completely stop thinking about a problem you have at work? The point, since you failed to grasp it, is that there are many smart people who simply can't think of solutions instantaneously with the added pressure of doing so during an interview. Such people need time to think and reflect. And those times are unpredictable and occur often when not at work.
Re:Discarding too many people
on
Defining Google
·
· Score: 1
Google may believe that they can teach good programming methods, but they can't teach insight or intuition.
I never said that employees don't need those things. My point was that, in order to work for Google, you need to have those things within seconds of being presented a problem. There are plenty of people who have insight and intuition that simply takes a little longer.
Considering that what they have avaliable works as well or better than anything else on the web, I think they've got "code quality" down pat.
How well it works or how well it's presented to you has no correlation to how "good" the code running it all actually is. You can't tell by looking from the outside.
Discarding too many people
on
Defining Google
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I've mentioned this before: the interview process that Google uses selects only those people who can solve puzzles in real-time. While such people certainly are smart and possess insight and intuition, there's no correlation to being a good programmer.
In my experience, such people are usually poor programmers. When faced with a problem, they may hack together a solution quickly, but the code they write is often poor from a readability, structural, and maintainability perspective because none of those things are "interesting" in their own right.
Google is discarding many people who are very talented programmers, but who just aren't good at solving puzzles in real-time during an interview. Additionally, the added pressure of you getting hired riding on not only your answer but how quickly you can give it is enough to make a lot of people freeze up.
Personally, when faced with a really hard problem, I often think of a solution when I'm not consiously thinking about the problem. Showering and that period between the time I get into bed and the time I actually fall asleep are two examples of such times. (I keep a notpad and pen next to my bed to write down stuff I think of just before falling asleep and often discover that the next morning when I try it it's the solution I was looking for.)
Sure, if you pay $129 to buy Mac OS X, $49 for iLife '04, and some extra for AppleWorks.
Beautiful, virtually crash-less, virus-free OS: $129
iTunes, iPhoto, iDVD, iMovie: 4 great applications worth hundreds: $49
Using it all on a great computer: priceless
Seriously, the above dollar amounts are pocket-change. Cry me a river.
An old G4 tower from about two years ago will have old software from about two years ago.
That's like saying an old radio can only tune-in radio stations that play Big Band music. A G4 Mac can run the latest MacOS X as well as all other current software.
This story perfectly illustrates one of the
differences in patent law between the good
old USA and Germany.
In the USA, the employee's invention & patent
is owned by the employer.
In Germany, the employee's invention & patent
is owned by the employee.
AFAIK, this has nothing to do with US patent law. There is no law in the US that says inventions of employees automatically belong to the employer. What does say that are typical employer agreements employees sign as a precondition of employment. Any company could leave patent rights assigned to the inventing employee if it wanted to.
What you need in the US would be a law either requiring patent rights be assigned to the inventor despite the the employer's wishes (thus making patent assignment clauses in employment contracts illegal) or the converse, i.e., a law forbidding employers from usurping patent rights of inventions by employees.
However, from your demeanor, it would appear that you prefer to have the government hobble things in order to make them better.
Your assumption is invalid. My only assertion is that freedom of speech is not an absolute requirement for a computer communications network to function.
Germany does have a basic guarentee of freedom of speech in its national laws, and the European Convention on Human Rights guarentees freedom of speech in the EU, which France and Germany are both members.
Try publishing something pro-Nazi in either country and see how far you get. You can't even sell Nazi artifacts on eBay in either country. True freedom of speech includes speech you don't like.
There is a difference between working and working well. A communication medium is cheapened if its subject matter is artificially cut.
Please cite specific examples or studies that support your assertion. Two western countries that do not have freedom of speech are France and Germany and yet the Internet seems to be doing just fine in both countries.
There is a pressing need for standards and practices in broadcast television as children are/were able to achieve unfettered access to it with just an arrow key until the advent of the V chip.
This is completely false. A special chip isn't/wasn't ever needed to limit access. It certainly would have been possible to have invented the television such that channels above a certain number would have required a physical key to be inserted into the TV to enable the rotary dial to be switched to them. But when TV was invented, the US was too prudish anyway to have even considered any porn on TV, so the point is moot.
Last time I checked "information and communication" both required freedom of the press and freedom of speech...
The Internet does just fine outside the US's borders. I believe the USA is the exception in that it has "freedom of press and speach" enshrined in its constitution. You don't have that in many other countries, "western" countries included. Hence, you don't need either for the Internet to work.
The part you missed, or are choosing to miss, is that he was referring, lightheartedly, to the fact that many people forget their manners while using their cellphone.
I didn't miss it at all. I used his post, even though it was lighthearted, as a springboard for starting a more serious discussion.
You reply as if he were criticizing you as a cell phone user...
Your interpretation is incorrect.
He never suggested that cellphones were inherently rude.
I never suggested that he suggested it.
Quit trolling.
I'm not. I asked a serious question. I criticized nobody or nothing.
If someone almost runs into me because they're distracted while talking on their cellphone, then I am annoyed because of their rudeness in nearly causing bodily harm.
It's not their rudeness; it's their inattentiveness. Why they're inattentive is irrelevant.
My theory is that talking on a cellphone didn't start out as being considered rude or inherently annoying, but rather, way back when cellphones weren't as common and were used only by important/rich people, people who didn't have them resented those who did:
Joe Sixpack: look at that guy in his fancy suit talking on his expensive cellphone, flauting it out in public, while I'm barely making ends meet at some crappy job.
I.e., cellphone use was regarded as a symbol of status/power/wealth that the Joe Sixpacks of the world resented. The resentment was veiled by the label of rudeness only because most people don't like to admit they envy others.
But now that cellphones are common, the perception of their use being considerred rude has persisted.
Again, the phone is irrelevant. It's equally rude/annoying if a person is talking to another person sitting in the theater (in which there should be no talking by any means).
While in a shared office? Yes.
How is talking on a cellphone more rude/annoying than talking using a landline in a shared office? I've been in plenty of shared office spaces and had people talking way too loudly on their landline.
While driving a car? Yes.
Assuming you're not in that car, I fail to see how this is rude or annoying since you can't hear the conversation. It's more dangerous, perhaps, but not more rude/annoying.
No, seriously: why? Why is a person sitting on a train next to you who is talking on a cellphone rude and/or annoying? Why is it different than a person talking to another person face-to-face?
If the person talking on a cellphone is talking too loudly, then it's the fact that the person is talking too loudly that is annoying. The fact that the person just so happens to be talking on a cellphone while doing it is irrelevant.
I've occasionally been around people who simply talk too loudly to other people.
What I'd really like to know is if the treatment will be a simple once a day pill or a three hour long invasive therapy I have to go through every morning (much like showering).
... can private sector databases truly do better?... Got a problem with your credit? Some possible fraud on your record?
The big difference is that credit-card employees, wearing dark suits and fitted with ear-pieces, won't show up at your door at 3am and drag you off to a holding cell for interrogation for possibly being a terrorist. Errors in your credit history may be a pain, but it's far better than being held without bail or a hearing.
The US Constitution gives us freedom from "unreasonable searches"...
While true, it's irrelevant. People seem to forget that the constitution applies only to the government. You don't have freedom-of-speech in a Best Buy, either.
I don't know exactly whence the issued at hand stems legally (it's impossible to prove a negative), but there's no law granting store employees police-like power to search or detain.
As somebody else mentioned, membership-type places like Costco are different in that they are not open to the general public, but an exclusive club that requires membership (via signing an agreement). You can still refuse to let them search you, but then they can revoke your membership on the spot. Hence, for Costco, you can pull that at most once.
No, but you're free to verify it independently. A store employee can, at best, only stop you by making a citizen's arrest and detain you until the police arrive. When the police arrive and search you and discover nothing wrong, you can sue the store for false arrest (and assault if they physically restrain you). No store is going to risk that.
... they had no problem stopping me at the door to check my receipt.
You don't have to consent to letting them check anything, and there's nothing they can do about it. Most people comply because they don't know any better.
Slashdot Mirror
There was once a research department of a company I interned with. I liked working there a lot. I made good contributions, published a few papers, and obtained a few patents. I wanted to be hired into that department but they had a filter that you had to have a Ph.D. which I did not have. I disagreed with their filter and yet I liked working there. I guess that disproves your theory.
As a footnote: interestingly, while I was there, they hired a recent Ph.D. graduate. Personally, I thought he was an idiot. How he managed to obtain a Ph.D. from a good school wasn't clear. As it happened, he didn't last long in the department. So much for their filter.
But you completely missed the point. When you leave your job, do you completely stop thinking about a problem you have at work? The point, since you failed to grasp it, is that there are many smart people who simply can't think of solutions instantaneously with the added pressure of doing so during an interview. Such people need time to think and reflect. And those times are unpredictable and occur often when not at work.
In my experience, such people are usually poor programmers. When faced with a problem, they may hack together a solution quickly, but the code they write is often poor from a readability, structural, and maintainability perspective because none of those things are "interesting" in their own right.
Google is discarding many people who are very talented programmers, but who just aren't good at solving puzzles in real-time during an interview. Additionally, the added pressure of you getting hired riding on not only your answer but how quickly you can give it is enough to make a lot of people freeze up.
Personally, when faced with a really hard problem, I often think of a solution when I'm not consiously thinking about the problem. Showering and that period between the time I get into bed and the time I actually fall asleep are two examples of such times. (I keep a notpad and pen next to my bed to write down stuff I think of just before falling asleep and often discover that the next morning when I try it it's the solution I was looking for.)
iTunes, iPhoto, iDVD, iMovie: 4 great applications worth hundreds: $49
Using it all on a great computer: priceless
Seriously, the above dollar amounts are pocket-change. Cry me a river.
What you need in the US would be a law either requiring patent rights be assigned to the inventor despite the the employer's wishes (thus making patent assignment clauses in employment contracts illegal) or the converse, i.e., a law forbidding employers from usurping patent rights of inventions by employees.
My theory is that talking on a cellphone didn't start out as being considered rude or inherently annoying, but rather, way back when cellphones weren't as common and were used only by important/rich people, people who didn't have them resented those who did:
I.e., cellphone use was regarded as a symbol of status/power/wealth that the Joe Sixpacks of the world resented. The resentment was veiled by the label of rudeness only because most people don't like to admit they envy others.But now that cellphones are common, the perception of their use being considerred rude has persisted.
If the person talking on a cellphone is talking too loudly, then it's the fact that the person is talking too loudly that is annoying. The fact that the person just so happens to be talking on a cellphone while doing it is irrelevant.
I've occasionally been around people who simply talk too loudly to other people.
I don't know exactly whence the issued at hand stems legally (it's impossible to prove a negative), but there's no law granting store employees police-like power to search or detain.
As somebody else mentioned, membership-type places like Costco are different in that they are not open to the general public, but an exclusive club that requires membership (via signing an agreement). You can still refuse to let them search you, but then they can revoke your membership on the spot. Hence, for Costco, you can pull that at most once.
No, but you're free to verify it independently. A store employee can, at best, only stop you by making a citizen's arrest and detain you until the police arrive. When the police arrive and search you and discover nothing wrong, you can sue the store for false arrest (and assault if they physically restrain you). No store is going to risk that.
The 's' in "imap/s" stands for SSL. The blurb you copied/pasted says nothing about that. RTFQ.
Ah, but juries have a screening process by the lawyers for both sides as well as the judge so bad jurors are thrown out. Voters wouldn't be screened.