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Admin
Ex. patent office employee here.
The USPTO only hires CEs; not CSs, not ITs, etc. I'm not sure why though. They hire around 100 people every month, and about %80 (estimate) will leave in the first two years, so you know they'll hire anyone with a BS in a degree that ends in E.
Why they have that rule, I'm not sure. In all honesty, it doesn't take anything more than general highschool reading comprehension skills and the ability to use google to do that job. It's a very easy job though, so if you have no career goals it's a great place to go.
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I think we all wish you'd figure out how to use one.
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You should try those nice vacuum sealed plastic envelopes, that will do the job.
Admin
A strawman is where you misrepresent your opponents position by presenting a case that appears similar to his position but is easier to argue against. An example might be if I said "There are C programs that won't compile with a C++ compiler", and you said "What do you mean that C programs won't compile with a C++ compiler. Here is a C program that works fine. You clearly don't know what you're talking about".
I think what you're describing is the fallacy of composition. Where you infer something is true of the whole because it is true for part of the whole.
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I would have to agree with JoJo on this one.
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And lest we forget, the patent infringement suits against Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft back in 2007, claiming that - get this - some guy held a patent on the analog joystick. Just to be clear, we're talking about something that dates back to at LEAST the Atari 5200, which would be back in the 1982. When was this patent filed? 1998 - not only after the 5200, but also after the Nintendo 64 and the first DualShock controller.
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the phrase is "for all intents and purposes".
you've made a common mistake based on assigning the phonetically similar "intensive" in place of "intents and", however this means you also never stopped to think about what the meaning of the words in the expression actually are.
what exactly would an intensive purpose be?
Admin
The CIA incident was a test. Some kind of non-linear response was required to demonstrate he can think on his feet. The interviewee failed the test.
Admin
No, Steve said "for all intensive porpoises". It was a deliberate change (like "for hysterical raisins" instead of "for historical reasons").
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I thought the USPTO one was well known, for many, many years the USPTO would specifically refuse to hire computer scientists to evaluate computer patents. In other words you had to be unqualified for the job in order to be allowed to it.
Admin
Just mic the acoustic guitar and voila! Run it through some pedals and the effects loop of your half stack and you can play some metal!
I think career fairs are different. You go in, talk to people and give them your resume. Sometimes you just talk to a person who is in management and might not have much CS background. That person then determines if your personality is compatible with the company. Sucks if you only have knowledge of CS and your strengths would be talking shop.
I also asked an interviewer once what they look for in a prospective employee. They told me that the way they present themselves and any leadership qualities that they have were a major factor in their consideration process. I guess I could see why a well presented resume could potentially reflect how a person presents themselves. However, its unfortunate that sometimes less qualified applicants will get consideration just because of this. I think the morale of the story is no matter how ridiculous it seems, play the game the best you can, because there is really no disadvantage to having a great looking resume.
That being said, I didn't get the internship. So WTF do I know.
Admin
Yes, in real life, companies routinely use irrelevant criteria when hiring people for a job. Whether it's using pretty colored paper for your resume or having the right haircut or whatever. My philosophy is that if I need to get a job right now -- like once in my life I got fired and needed something to pay the mortgage as soon as possible -- then I'll play the game and do all sorts of silly things to get in the door. But most of the time when I've been looking for a job, I already had a job that paid the bills but that I simply decided I didn't like for whatever reason. In that case, the goal isn't to get any job, but to get a job that will be a pleasant place to work. And if the company has a bunch of silly, irrelevant rules for hiring people, then they probably have a bunch of silly, irrelevant rules to be followed when you're working there, and that's probably not where I want to go. So I don't worry about criteria I consider irrelevant, and if they pass me up because of that, than I probably wouldn't have wanted to work there anyway.
That said, I find I have an irrational desire to be liked and respected and all that, so when I get to an interview I tend to break my own rule, and when they bring up silly criteria, I find myself trying to meet it or sound like I meet it.
Admin
Oh.... so THAT explains DOS, and Windows, and VB, and IE.
Wish you'd stuck to law dude. :((
Admin
I think that's a very good analogy for what a C programmer who's just learning C++ is likely to produce. :)
Admin
Cheers guys, the nitpicking over minutia of some of the more obscure aspects of computing in the comments is getting less and less common these days, so it's nice to read a few pages of comments that leave me realising I don't know quite as much about a particular subject as I thought I did; whilst also learning a fair bit.
Proper computery TDWTF comments FTW!!
:)
Admin
Look up "superset." I don't think it means what you think it means.
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And vice versa.
I think C++ programmers just sorta assume that the C code they are producing is 'good' because they understand what they are typing.
Admin
Wow. I've never had anyone sarcastically comment about a technical discussion that since they don't care about no one possibly could. You must be the true alpha geek of all things technical and your obvious wisdom has changed my life forever.
And of course, obscure details must never matter because no one possibly uses them. That's why all real programs use 4th and 5th generation languages.
Admin
Then I'll say it to DanM, too. Get with the program. C is used far more than C# or any other language on your list except Java.
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??
I can assure you, that wasn't ment at all sarcastically, I apologise if it came across that way.
It was actually written after spending about 2 hours reading the comments fully. (and prompted a weekend of brushing up on my C++). I take my job quite seriously, and consider that constantly learning and improving my skills are a big part of that.
I'm sorry if the internet has jaded you to the point that everyone is bitter and sarcastic, but the comment was heartfelt and certanly not ment that way.
No, obscure details are important, they stop you falling into silly traps. (Mind you, if you worked with some of the people I do even simple details are unimportant aparently.)
Again, sorry if I offended, but I genuinely got a lot from yours and Steve's discussion.
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My apologies for misunderstanding then ^_^
Sometimes telling sarcasm from honesty can be tricky without hearing someone's voice. I have encounter the attitude that I thought I was responding to before I jumped to a conclusion.
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When I tell people I'm a contractor for an European institution, they ask me if I'm applying for direct employment. In their mind, it means large amounts of money, no taxes and a guaranteed job whatever happens. To me, it means spending 50% of my time filling a report about why I wrote "standardize" instead of "standardise" or having to explain why we shouldn't develop new projects in pure C on mainframes.
After this comment from CIA, some will have changed their resume to get them hired and sold their soul to government administrativia.
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Glue or flypaper ftw.. but I'd recommend shaving them first, or just sending a hairless..
Admin
How many people replaced the bullets on their resume with arrows after reading this? :3
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Bjarne is that you??
http://www.research.att.com/~bs/bs_faq.html#C-is-subset
Admin
Actually the apostrophe is correct. The possessive form would apply because "best" would be an attribute possessed by this particular example of incompetence.
for review: http://www.meredith.edu/grammar/plural.htm
Admin
"Just look at it," she responded, "it's everything, all around. For example, you used dots for your bullet points and he has these nice arrows."
I never ended up getting a call about a position at the CIA.
^^^ ||| Was this a real story? I think I just lost a little faith in humanity.
Admin
I agree with post analysis Computer Science school | Online degree
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And I'll betcha those dolphins have stunning resumes too!
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You would be correct, somewhat, only if you had a stash of extensive OOP in your back pocket that you acquired elsewhere.
Your musical analogy needs to be changed into: Being a one man band, then being a real orchestra-level conductor/composer.
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As someone who learned C++ first, I can tell you that someone like me might understand a select piece of C, but only after time. We don't recognize the idioms used, which results in a confidence hit.
If C and C++ programmers are both 'mechanics', the C people are more 'machinists'.