>> It astonishes me that people don't care to learn about something they use every day, for perhaps hours on end.
Quick, answer these questions:
How many tumblers are in the lock on your house/apartment door. How about in your car door? Your ignition?
What voltage is on your home phone line? What's the ring voltage? What's the max ring current?
What frequency is your favorite TV channel transmitted on? What is the bandwidth? Modulation scheme? How about the encoding for the IR your remote control sends to your TV to turn it on?
If we required users of all these devices to understand them the way us "geeks" understand computers, no-one would use cars or telephones, watch TV, or lock their doors.
People who understand things like computers often have a mistaken perception that understanding them is easy, and that everyone should. It's generally a position taken by people who want to belittle others (the "lusers") and make themselves feel better.
Buy stock in them, since if the government isn't allowed to collect and analyze the data, they will simply outsource the analysis to the private companies who aren't subject to the new law.
- If you had read the article you would have seen that it maintains a certain height because there are numerous tethers attaching it to the ground.
- If you _could_ turn off the effect of gravity on an object, it would _appear_ to fly off the earth as it travelled in a straight line. I did some rough calculations, (may be wrong, feel free to correct, assuming that your standing at the equator) and after 10 seconds the object would be about 9.3 ft in the air. after 20, 37 ft. after 30, 84 ft.
With all that said, it appears that the devices they are discussing are actually ion engines (also talked about in the article), so the above calculations are meaningless for this topic.
The following folks might be offended that you don't consider them "enterprises", (especially Enterprise Rent-a-car):
1&1 Internet AG
Alta Resources
Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI)
Austrian Ministry of the Interior
Avanade
Bank of New York
Belgian Federal Public Service of Foreign Affairs
CIGNA Corporation
City of Hamburg, Information Technology Office
Clalit Health Services
Cornell Theory Center
Digex
Eka Chemicals
Enterasys Networks
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
GE Medical Systems
GMAC Commercial Mortgage
GoldQuest International Ltd
Honeywell
Infospace, Inc.
Interland
Intrawest
Inventure Solutions Inc.
JetBlue Airways
Johns Hopkins
Kentucky Department of Education
LexisNexis Group
Liberty Medical Supply
LifeCenter Northwest
London Stock Exchange
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
MEI Hotels
Mercator Bank & Insurances Group
Motorola, Inc.
Ocean Spray
PFE International
QUALCOMM
Qwest
Rackspace Managed Hosting
Reuters
Safeway, Inc.
Saks Incorporated
Sandvik
Siemens
SmartPipes, Inc.
Sony Ericsson
Steelpoint Technologies
Tesco.com
The Space Needle Corporation
Timex
U.S. Air Force Standard Systems Group (SSG)
UNX, Inc. (Universal Network Exchange)
WebCentral
WestAmerica Mortgage Company
Might be a good idea to try some diet changes...
on
Working with ADHD?
·
· Score: 1
There's been a real ramp-up of the use of excitotoxins in food over the past several decades. Substances like aspartame, MSG, and others have been found to incite ADHD-like symptoms in children, so I would assume the same could be true for adults. Some people have even gone so far as to say that the increased rate of incidents of ADHD has tracked almost exactly with the increaed use of MSG and similar substances in food, but I've never seen the source data for that claim.
Warning! I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but if you start looking into this, you'll find that MSG is added to almost everything we eat here in the U.S. Not only is it added, but it's often hidden in other ingredients or labeled as "Natural Flavoring" which is legal in some cases since it is actually derived from natural sources.
If you suffer from any of the following, it might be worth looking into MSG a little closer.
Try cutting it out of your diet for 3 weeks and see if you feel better. Worst case, you eat healthy for a few weeks and then return to your old ways if it doesn't do anything for you!
Now if they take this same idea and integrate it into a keyboard, we could see some real benefits in the workplace.
You could tie it into Visual Studio's syntax checker. Mis-spell a function name? ZAP! Forget that semicolon? ZAP! It would be loads of fun to watch the developers nervously type at their workstations.. Same concept could apply to spell checkers!
To bad they'll probably still make us type a pin on that greasy keypad.
As for previous posts about portable scanners, this could easily be solved by:
- Limit the range of the rf elements in the credit card. - Have a scrambler card in your wallet that has greater range & RF output - Build in some kind of biometric (like your picture showing up on the authorization terminal, privacy - blah blah blah...)
When will people realize that microwave ovens aren't magic, or necessarily all that powerful. Creating microwave level effects in free space is as simple as disabling the safety switch and leaving the door of your microwave open. Then you could place the CD in _front_ of the microwave oven. It might not be a good idea to stand next to it, but it would hardly be a calamity for the whole human race. I think we can blame the misperception on whoever started using the term "nuke" to apply to microwave ovens... Military radars create this "effect" in free space all the time.
To return to the topic, if an EMP was powerful enough to harm magnetic media, then it could probably also harm optical media that uses thin conductive films... EMP weapons in effect create the microwave effect in a wide area of free space. The EM energy creates high currents in _any_ metals, and thus damage unshielded electronics...
At what point did the puzzle state that you must use euclidean geometry? It didn't... The question was stated in standard (accepted) english, so it would be a reasonable assumption that it should be addressed under those terms. If asked the question "What is the shortest distance between two points?" most people will say "A straight line". Not "A straight line segment defined by points A & B". (People look at you funny if you talk like that in public!) I would also argue that the projection of a line onto the curved surface of a sphere is commonly accepted as being a line. For prior art, look at our long history of flat-map projections used for navigation. No offense, but strict euclidean interpretation of the english language is usually restricted to academia and math-club-geeks...
To get back on topic, the point is that they want a solution to the problem. Within the definition of the puzzle there is room for assumptions. The skill that the interviewer is testing is the ability to make these assumptions and find _any_ solution.
If a customer comes to me and says "I want you to build x, but I've only got a budget of y", and I know he can't build x for y, I'm not going to tell him to pound sand. I'll propose a solution that gives him as much of x as I can for y, and let him know how much more it would cost to get the rest. It's called being flexible...
If this had been talking about interviewing for a position as a math professor at a university, your answer would be best, but we're talking about a company who tries to write software to help people run businesses (and homes, and the world, etc.)... They're looking for creative, out-of-the-box, non-rigid thinkers who can come up with solutions for problems. I work in various areas of IT & Computing and one of our biggest problems if having developers and administrators who like to find a reason why something _can't_ be done because of some constraint, real or unreal. Our top performers are the folks who find ways that things _can_ be done regardless of the constraints.
As for the penny puzzle, here's my take. My first inclination was that the solution must be three dimensional (probably because of the hint in the text). I started to think of ways to arrange the pennies on a sphere. While I was thinking about this it occured to me that just placing the 4 pennies in a straight line does produce 2 line segments containing three pennies each (and "line segments" is what most people mean when they say "lines"). This is a solution that should be acceptable... But the three dimensional "hint" made me curious about the "other" solution. So I went back to the sphere and attacked it more methodically. Since 2 pennies must be included in each of the two lines, I put them on the north and south polls of the sphere. Place the other two pennies _anywhere_ on the sphere and there will be two "lines" of three pennies along the spherical surface. Of course for a Microsoft interview I'd make the sphere the earth, and I'd put one movable penny in Redmond, and another in DC... Just for kicks... Also, if you throw out the laws of physics you can just co-locate the pennies at a single point in space and meet the requirement... Or you fuzzify the requirements.. Do the lines have to go through the _center_ of the pennies? So many solutions to such a simple problem.
If you've gotten this far, I'm not just rambling for the sake of it... A lot can be said about a problem solver by how they attack a relatively _simple_ puzzle. If you ask this question in an inteview and ask the interviewee to explain thier thought process, you can see how they attack problems (methodical, imaginitive, systematic, out-of-the-box, etc.) and you can also guage their communication skills as related to problem solving. Many people can snap to the answer, but if they can't explain how they got there, they probably wouldn't be able to work in a team solving complex problems. The puzzles aren't always the answer, but they can be a valuable tool when used by a skilled interviewer...
Wouldn't it be cooler to put a giant laser in space? Our GI's could just carry a laser rangefinder with a built-in compass & GPS. They do a quick spot on the target, upload the coordinates to the sattelite and ZZAAAPPP! a bit bolt of evil-clensing laser light strikes down from the heavens...
What are the cross-implications of this precedent in the Internet world? I know many people have pointed out the "do-not-spam" or "do-not-/." list possibilities, but in effect this is access control by legislation. The same paridigm could be used to set-up a list of otherwise publically available internet resources that it would be illegal for certain groups to access. Maybe a national "do-not-hack" list?
Slashdot Mirror
Wouldn't this be a more direct competitor? (Note the Microsoft Corp Copyright on the page...)
>> It astonishes me that people don't care to learn about something they use every day, for perhaps hours on end.
Quick, answer these questions:
How many tumblers are in the lock on your house/apartment door. How about in your car door? Your ignition?
What voltage is on your home phone line? What's the ring voltage? What's the max ring current?
What frequency is your favorite TV channel transmitted on? What is the bandwidth? Modulation scheme? How about the encoding for the IR your remote control sends to your TV to turn it on?
If we required users of all these devices to understand them the way us "geeks" understand computers, no-one would use cars or telephones, watch TV, or lock their doors.
People who understand things like computers often have a mistaken perception that understanding them is easy, and that everyone should. It's generally a position taken by people who want to belittle others (the "lusers") and make themselves feel better.
Isn't that already patented by Bezos?
Dell has a press release that shows that they're not afraid of SCO's claims...
Buy stock in them, since if the government isn't allowed to collect and analyze the data, they will simply outsource the analysis to the private companies who aren't subject to the new law.
How is it slower than MS Office on Linux?
- If you had read the article you would have seen that it maintains a certain height because there are numerous tethers attaching it to the ground.
- If you _could_ turn off the effect of gravity on an object, it would _appear_ to fly off the earth as it travelled in a straight line. I did some rough calculations, (may be wrong, feel free to correct, assuming that your standing at the equator) and after 10 seconds the object would be about 9.3 ft in the air. after 20, 37 ft. after 30, 84 ft.
With all that said, it appears that the devices they are discussing are actually ion engines (also talked about in the article), so the above calculations are meaningless for this topic.
or somewhere else if you think that MS doesn't do well in the enterprise environment.
As for scalability and transaction processing, MS Currently hold the record for TPC-C Non-clustered, TPC-H, and TPC-W...
The following folks might be offended that you don't consider them "enterprises", (especially Enterprise Rent-a-car):
1&1 Internet AG
Alta Resources
Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI)
Austrian Ministry of the Interior
Avanade
Bank of New York
Belgian Federal Public Service of Foreign Affairs
CIGNA Corporation
City of Hamburg, Information Technology Office
Clalit Health Services
Cornell Theory Center
Digex
Eka Chemicals
Enterasys Networks
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
GE Medical Systems
GMAC Commercial Mortgage
GoldQuest International Ltd
Honeywell
Infospace, Inc.
Interland
Intrawest
Inventure Solutions Inc.
JetBlue Airways
Johns Hopkins
Kentucky Department of Education
LexisNexis Group
Liberty Medical Supply
LifeCenter Northwest
London Stock Exchange
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
MEI Hotels
Mercator Bank & Insurances Group
Motorola, Inc.
Ocean Spray
PFE International
QUALCOMM
Qwest
Rackspace Managed Hosting
Reuters
Safeway, Inc.
Saks Incorporated
Sandvik
Siemens
SmartPipes, Inc.
Sony Ericsson
Steelpoint Technologies
Tesco.com
The Space Needle Corporation
Timex
U.S. Air Force Standard Systems Group (SSG)
UNX, Inc. (Universal Network Exchange)
WebCentral
WestAmerica Mortgage Company
Link to the Microsoft Marketting Machine where I scammed this list
Here...
There's been a real ramp-up of the use of excitotoxins in food over the past several decades. Substances like aspartame, MSG, and others have been found to incite ADHD-like symptoms in children, so I would assume the same could be true for adults. Some people have even gone so far as to say that the increased rate of incidents of ADHD has tracked almost exactly with the increaed use of MSG and similar substances in food, but I've never seen the source data for that claim.
More info can be found by starting here: nomsg.com or here: truthinlabeling.com
Warning! I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but if you start looking into this, you'll find that MSG is added to almost everything we eat here in the U.S. Not only is it added, but it's often hidden in other ingredients or labeled as "Natural Flavoring" which is legal in some cases since it is actually derived from natural sources.
If you suffer from any of the following, it might be worth looking into MSG a little closer.
headaches migraines, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma attacks, shortness of breath, anxiety or panic attacks, heart palpitations, heart attack-like symptoms, balance difficulties, mental confusion, mood swings, neurological disorders, behavioral disorders, allergy-type symptoms, mouth lesions, depression
Try cutting it out of your diet for 3 weeks and see if you feel better. Worst case, you eat healthy for a few weeks and then return to your old ways if it doesn't do anything for you!
I'm reminded of the old SNL skit "Poking a grizzly bear with a short stick."
Take that Mr. Grizzly Bear!
It might also have to do with tighter control of the flow of information and a (previous) government that scared the $hit out of it's citizens.
Now if they take this same idea and integrate it into a keyboard, we could see some real benefits in the workplace.
You could tie it into Visual Studio's syntax checker. Mis-spell a function name? ZAP! Forget that semicolon? ZAP! It would be loads of fun to watch the developers nervously type at their workstations.. Same concept could apply to spell checkers!
To bad they'll probably still make us type a pin on that greasy keypad.
As for previous posts about portable scanners, this could easily be solved by:
- Limit the range of the rf elements in the credit card.
- Have a scrambler card in your wallet that has greater range & RF output
- Build in some kind of biometric (like your picture showing up on the authorization terminal, privacy - blah blah blah...)
When will people realize that microwave ovens aren't magic, or necessarily all that powerful. Creating microwave level effects in free space is as simple as disabling the safety switch and leaving the door of your microwave open. Then you could place the CD in _front_ of the microwave oven. It might not be a good idea to stand next to it, but it would hardly be a calamity for the whole human race. I think we can blame the misperception on whoever started using the term "nuke" to apply to microwave ovens... Military radars create this "effect" in free space all the time.
To return to the topic, if an EMP was powerful enough to harm magnetic media, then it could probably also harm optical media that uses thin conductive films... EMP weapons in effect create the microwave effect in a wide area of free space. The EM energy creates high currents in _any_ metals, and thus damage unshielded electronics...
Haven't you ever put a CDR in a microwave? Pretty lights! (I take no responsibility for any damage to your microwave...)
The point you're missing is the customized hardware that checks the software's signature before running it.
At what point did the puzzle state that you must use euclidean geometry? It didn't... The question was stated in standard (accepted) english, so it would be a reasonable assumption that it should be addressed under those terms. If asked the question "What is the shortest distance between two points?" most people will say "A straight line". Not "A straight line segment defined by points A & B". (People look at you funny if you talk like that in public!) I would also argue that the projection of a line onto the curved surface of a sphere is commonly accepted as being a line. For prior art, look at our long history of flat-map projections used for navigation. No offense, but strict euclidean interpretation of the english language is usually restricted to academia and math-club-geeks...
To get back on topic, the point is that they want a solution to the problem. Within the definition of the puzzle there is room for assumptions. The skill that the interviewer is testing is the ability to make these assumptions and find _any_ solution.
If a customer comes to me and says "I want you to build x, but I've only got a budget of y", and I know he can't build x for y, I'm not going to tell him to pound sand. I'll propose a solution that gives him as much of x as I can for y, and let him know how much more it would cost to get the rest. It's called being flexible...
If this had been talking about interviewing for a position as a math professor at a university, your answer would be best, but we're talking about a company who tries to write software to help people run businesses (and homes, and the world, etc.)... They're looking for creative, out-of-the-box, non-rigid thinkers who can come up with solutions for problems. I work in various areas of IT & Computing and one of our biggest problems if having developers and administrators who like to find a reason why something _can't_ be done because of some constraint, real or unreal. Our top performers are the folks who find ways that things _can_ be done regardless of the constraints.
I forgot to mention, but the answer is the same for 9 billiard balls. Unfortunatly, more people figure it out when you say nine (that's a hint!)
This one has been around a while, so I wouldn't "trust" it as an interview question.. Here's the answer:
2
(or did you want to know how?)
Trick or no trick, the journey is what matters...
As for the penny puzzle, here's my take. My first inclination was that the solution must be three dimensional (probably because of the hint in the text). I started to think of ways to arrange the pennies on a sphere. While I was thinking about this it occured to me that just placing the 4 pennies in a straight line does produce 2 line segments containing three pennies each (and "line segments" is what most people mean when they say "lines"). This is a solution that should be acceptable... But the three dimensional "hint" made me curious about the "other" solution. So I went back to the sphere and attacked it more methodically. Since 2 pennies must be included in each of the two lines, I put them on the north and south polls of the sphere. Place the other two pennies _anywhere_ on the sphere and there will be two "lines" of three pennies along the spherical surface. Of course for a Microsoft interview I'd make the sphere the earth, and I'd put one movable penny in Redmond, and another in DC... Just for kicks... Also, if you throw out the laws of physics you can just co-locate the pennies at a single point in space and meet the requirement... Or you fuzzify the requirements.. Do the lines have to go through the _center_ of the pennies? So many solutions to such a simple problem.
If you've gotten this far, I'm not just rambling for the sake of it... A lot can be said about a problem solver by how they attack a relatively _simple_ puzzle. If you ask this question in an inteview and ask the interviewee to explain thier thought process, you can see how they attack problems (methodical, imaginitive, systematic, out-of-the-box, etc.) and you can also guage their communication skills as related to problem solving. Many people can snap to the answer, but if they can't explain how they got there, they probably wouldn't be able to work in a team solving complex problems. The puzzles aren't always the answer, but they can be a valuable tool when used by a skilled interviewer...
The time-traveller is really CmdrTaco... The dupes are just a side effect of him being in multiple times at the same place...
Wouldn't it be cooler to put a giant laser in space? Our GI's could just carry a laser rangefinder with a built-in compass & GPS. They do a quick spot on the target, upload the coordinates to the sattelite and ZZAAAPPP! a bit bolt of evil-clensing laser light strikes down from the heavens...
http://www.geocities.com/killereaglesoftware/archi ve/rot13.htm
What are the cross-implications of this precedent in the Internet world? I know many people have pointed out the "do-not-spam" or "do-not-/." list possibilities, but in effect this is access control by legislation. The same paridigm could be used to set-up a list of otherwise publically available internet resources that it would be illegal for certain groups to access. Maybe a national "do-not-hack" list?