The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

gwenhwyfaer:
YourMoFoFriend:
gwenhwyfaer:
YourMoFoFriend:
I do not think you're an arse, and I don't know what made you think I am.
No, you don't, you poor little lamb, and I don't suppose you ever will...
My bad. You're right, you are an arse. Sorry I underestimated you so much.
See? A satisfactory outcome for all concerned.

Yeah dude, go start a revolution. But then again, you might start next Apple or Google... or Enron, just as likely...

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

gwenhwyfaer:
YourMoFoFriend:
Dude, this is not 1984, you can be as unconformist as you like
My experiences - and about 75% of responses to this thread - tell me otherwise. I can be as nonconformist as everyone else is prepared to tolerate; that isn't exactly the same, is it?

No it's not. That's called society. You like anarchy? Not that I'm totally against anarchy, it's just not many companies are totally for it. So if that's what you like, then you should perhaps start your own, hire like minded people and show the world the benefits of the system. You never know, it might catch on.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

gwenhwyfaer:
Undefined Reference:
Game or not, it is reasonable for the company to ask you to submit to this exam for employment, as it decreases their risk.
We live in a world where employers want interchangeable assembly-line operatives in every role, where real individualism and flair are banished in favour of unquestioning conformity, where people are governed by the kind of idiots who think that hollow corporate-mandated "morale boosters" are better than actually treating people like something other than SKUs, where anyone who isn't a "team player" is automatically relegated to the scrapheap, where having an ego - kind of necessary for pride in one's work and the willingness to defend one's beliefs - is a problem in the workplace, where some poor ready-brainwashed fuckwit on this thread actually thought that responding to me with "No hire, not a team player" did anything other than prove the very point I was making...
You know what? Their risks are low enough already.

Your making quite a generalization there. Not all companies are after workers who have no soul. Most will settle for consistantly hiring competent but not earth shattering workers.

And not every company can afford to take on poor hires. Try running a business yourself, and you'll see the costs that even one hiring mistake can bring.

Its a tool. It is potentially an effective tool. Your problem with it seems to be that it allows them to hire workers consistantly. You feel, that its an attempt to fit workers into easily replacable molds.

But besides a negative bias, you don't have much proof that such a reliable measure is bad for either the companies or the workers. Instead, having the ability for the market to accurately measure competency can only improve the standing for those with more of it.

If you had a stupid question along the lines of "If you could be any animal, what would you be?" which you found was an accurate predicter of how much you would enjoy working somewhere, would you have the same hesitation about asking it in an interview? If you wouldn't ask it, why not?

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

YourMoFoFriend:
Anonymous Cow-herd:
Before the interview, I consider what I can do for the company. After the interview, I consider what the company can do for me.
Wouldn't the same go for the company?

Yes, the same does go for them. If they don't like how the interview goes, they can just not send me a formal offer.

YourMoFoFriend:
They are trying to figure out whether you CAN provide what they're looking for.

And I'm trying to figure out whether they can provide what I'm looking for. Again, I am in position to turn down offers simply because the work in question is not interesting enough.

YourMoFoFriend:
If they are looking for a guy who can handle a bit of pressure why wouldn't they put you in a somewhat uncomfortable situation and see how you do rather than ask "How do you do in a high pressure situation" and just trust your prepared answer?

Every interview I've had, they managed to give me an unexpected situation question, and yet the question still manages to at least have a decent chance of being related to the job responsibilities or work environment.

YourMoFoFriend:
On the other note, must be nice to be able to go "Oh, they ask brainteasers on an interview. This company sucks.", and walk away... Must nice, just not very wise :)

What's so unwise about choosing not to work for a company you don't want to work for? Or perhaps you're still too hung up on the idea that an interview/offer is inherently an "opportunity." If I don't see the work as interesting, I don't see the job in question as an opportunity. In my current situation, I see it as undesirable; in less favorable times, I may see it as the least of several evils.

YourMoFoFriend:
Look, if you're being interviewed for a position that requires any customer interaction at all, how can the company be confident you won't call their customers stupid and storm out the room even if the customer IS STUPID? I can tell you that walking out of an interview does not help a bit. :))

At this point, the decision is a no, regardless of whether or not the company worries that I might storm out on a customer: even if they send me an offer, I'm not going to accept it.

Another Anon Coward:
And all you such people are forgetting another important thing -- the point of the game is to win (i.e. get a job offer, which you can then evaluate and turn down or accept), not to be self-righteous.

No, the goal is to get a job I like. An unappealing offer is as good as no offer at all.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

I've thought of another "riddle" to ask when giving job interviews. It goes something like: "Have you ever posted a comment on Worse Than Failure?"

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

Speechless...!

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

KattMan:
Man ok, I have to concede on this one, a million test cases fully random, with verifiable code. If I waited for the series and bet I still win about half the time, not more than half.
I have to admit it is confusing, and I now know the difference.

Man, gotta say, props for being big enough to learn from being wrong, and for remaining cool despite some people being rude.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

OutsideInwards:
zip:
Can you find the step that created the inconsistent state, or prove that it isn't an inconsistent state?
Doesn't seem like a trick question to me.
No, it is a trick question because it pretty much just amounts to making the person being asked look stupid for not knowing the answer (assuming s/he did not know already know the answer).

Isn't that precisely what's at the heart of debugging? Your program crashes, your user is staring at you, and at the moment, you don't know what's going on.

You can get all self-righteous and angry or you can say, "Hmmm, give me a moment to figure out what's going on here." Guess which really makes us look stupid.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

gwenhwyfaer:
Another Anon Coward:
And all you such people are forgetting another important thing -- the point of the game is to win (i.e. get a job offer, which you can then evaluate and turn down or accept), not to be self-righteous.
If you can't even hold on to your integrity at the interview stage, what hope do you have of demonstrating it over the course of your employment?

My integrity? I just don't have the bitter, wounded Weltanschauung you seem to have. Nothing the interviewer says or does can affect my integrity or my human dignity. I am there to propose a business deal, not to struggle with my personal drama.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

A few of my colleagues and I were moving from one company to another. Fortunately, I was able to talk to some of the people who had been interviewed and caught wind of some of the asinine questions they asked.

The one that sticks out to me is "How many barbers are there in the US?" The intent was to get us to try and define an equation based on the number of Americans, the frequency with which they get their hair cut, and come up with a rough number.

I checked the US Department of Labor Statistics and got the exact answer, and when they asked me the question, I just cited that report. When explained the point of the exercise, I said that in any circumstance, developing included, if I have access to real data, I'd always use that instead of what would undoubtedly be a completely inaccurate estimation of my own. I got the job.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

Another Anon Coward:
OutsideInwards:
No, it is a trick question because it pretty much just amounts to making the person being asked look stupid for not knowing the answer (assuming s/he did not know already know the answer).

Isn't that precisely what's at the heart of debugging? Your program crashes, your user is staring at you, and at the moment, you don't know what's going on.

You don't need input from a user or customer to find yourself in a situation like that. Suppose you're approached by some co-worker who asks "why does this piece of code keep crashing?" Do you:

A) Look at that piece of code until you find the problem, or B) Make sure the problem is with that piece of code (ie. validate the question before trying to answer it)

The world of software development is very far from the ideal environment where you can just write your code within a limited scope according to a perfect specification. It's a complex if not chaotic-dynamic environment, full of (among other nasty things) false questions. The first priority of any interviewer should be to confirm that the candidate has what it takes to function well under those conditions. The $29 question legitimately tries to address those concerns. There's more to programming, obviously, but if you can't even see how the question may be relevant, you fail in a very serious way.

I'd ask the question (or something similar) if only to quickly discard those candidates who are offended by it.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

<sigh> A person who sees two hats of the same color should guess that his is the opposite color. A person who sees one hat of each color should pass. This gives survival odds of 75%. That's the best that can be achieved.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

Not A Robot:
A person who sees one hat of each color should pass. This gives survival odds of 75%. That's the best that can be achieved.

How do you know that there is no better strategy? Show off some math

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

anon:
Not A Robot:
A person who sees one hat of each color should pass. This gives survival odds of 75%. That's the best that can be achieved.

How do you know that there is no better strategy? Show off some math

Are you serious? Have you actually read any of the other responses to this thread? There are proofs abound if you care to flick through and do a spot of reading. :P

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

anon:
Not A Robot:
A person who sees one hat of each color should pass. This gives survival odds of 75%. That's the best that can be achieved.

How do you know that there is no better strategy? Show off some math

The only information available to A is hat(B) and hat(C). He cannot make his decision based on anything else.

So, any strategy for a player can be expressed in terms of what he'd do in each of the four possible scenarios. And what he could do is guess red, guess blue or pass. That gives 12 possible strategies for each player, for a total of 12^3=1728 for the trio. There's a symmetry to the situation, making most of those redundant, but never mind.

Point is, there's a manageable number of strategies, you can enumerate them easily, and each has to be tested only 8 times. So someone with too much time on his hands could easily go about finding the best strategy. My gut tells me you'll find what's been proposed already.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

Jonno:
Are you serious? Have you actually read any of the other responses to this thread? There are proofs abound if you care to flick through and do a spot of reading. :P

Actually, I didn't notice anyone proving it's the best possible strategy. It was proven quite a few times that the odds are 75%, not that those odds are the best you could hope for.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

He didn't ask for proof that you can get 75%. He asked for proof that you can't get more.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

Anonymouse:
That gives 12 possible strategies for each player, for a total of 12^3=1728 for the trio.

That should of course have read 3^4=81 combinations and 81^3=531441 for the group. Still, no problem to search through those.

akatherder · 2007-05-18 Reply Admin

Brainteasers and riddles can tell an interviewer several things about you.

Can you listen, process, and form specs around verbally communicated information?

Can you ask questions intelligently to clarify the problem?

Are you clever?

How do you react to a question when you don't know the answer?

How do you go about breaking down a problem and solving it, especially when there isn't one single correct answer? Can you cope with the fact that you might not select the answer that they feel is optimal?

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

KattMan:
Fazed:

Go ahead and run the simulation, wait for three in a row before betting the opposite color and see how often you win and lose.
50%, of course. This is basic probability.
I understand what you are saying, and I think you know what I am saying. I think this calls for a true test of hypotheses which I can not do at this time, so I will have to concede by simply saying we disagree on this point. I will say that eventually I will run this through a simulator and IF i am correct I know what I am betting on next time I hit the casino. problem is, series really do not happen that often.

Let me show you why it must be 50%, using the more common "heads/tails" rather than "red/blue". (I hope you agree that this is the same thing with different names.)

What are the odds that 4 coin tosses will be HHHH? One in 16, of course. What are the odds that they will be HHHT? Also 1 in 16.

Do we agree so far?

Now, you are at the point where you have already tossed the coin 3 times and arrived at HHH. According to you, since "HHHH" is one in 16, the odds are one in 16 that the next will be H. However, you have also agreed that HHHT is one in 16, so using your logic, the odds that the next toss is T is 1 in 16 as well. That means that the odds are only 2 in 16 that there will be any result after the next toss. Obviously, the odds of all possible outcomes must be 100%. Therefore, there must be some problem in one of the previous steps.

Look at it another way. The odds of HHHH and HHHT are both the same. Prior to any tosses, they're both 1 in 16. However, after getting HHH, there are only two possible outcomes -- HHHH or HHHT. Since both are of equal probability, the odds are 50-50 for either H or T.

You have to realize that, even though the odds of getting HHH on the first three tosses is 1 in 8, the fact that your scenario says "you have gotten HHH on the first three tosses" means that the 1 in 8 has already been met, leaving a 1 in 2 chance to mean the 1 in 16 odds you started with.

Along a similar line...

What are the odds that a lottery which draws a random 3-digit number will pick the same number two days in a row?

It's amazing how many times people react when this happens in real life with amazement about the "million to one odds" that were beat.

The real answer, of course, is one in a thousand.

How can that be when there are a million 3-digit-number pairs? Simple. What are the odds that a given 3-digit number will be picked? One in a thousand, of course. What are the odds that tomorrow's number is the same as today's? No different than any other particular number -- one in a thousand.

Yes, beforehand, what are the odds that any two particular numbers will be picked? One in a million. However, we have not predetermined the first number, only that the second number be the same. Even if you were to predetermine the pair of numbers, your scenario presupposes that the first number was already picked, meaning that the "one in a thousand odds" of that number being picked has already come to fruition.

Boy, this post has gotten a lot longer than I originally envisioned. I hope people are still reading it...

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

Yes, the same does go for them. If they don't like how the interview goes, they can just not send me a formal offer. <...> And I'm trying to figure out whether they can provide what I'm looking for. Again, I am in position to turn down offers simply because the work in question is not interesting enough.

Of course. Question is at which point do you decide that the job is not for you? As soon as you hear them ask you a puzzle?

Every interview I've had, they managed to give me an unexpected situation question, and yet the question still manages to at least have a decent chance of being related to the job responsibilities or work environment.

Is that your criteria then? Work related questions only?

What's so unwise about choosing not to work for a company you don't want to work for? Or perhaps you're still too hung up on the idea that an interview/offer is inherently an "opportunity." If I don't see the work as interesting, I don't see the job in question as an opportunity. In my current situation, I see it as undesirable; in less favorable times, I may see it as the least of several evils.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with declining an offer if you're not interested, what's unwise is to make a decision you are not interested based on them giving you a puzzle at an interview only. And yes, an interview is an opportunity, at the very least it's an opportunity to sharpen your interviewing skills, doesn't mean you should take the job provided they offered you one :).

Look, if you're being interviewed for a position that requires any customer interaction at all, how can the company be confident you won't call their customers stupid and storm out the room even if the customer IS STUPID? I can tell you that walking out of an interview does not help a bit. :))
At this point, the decision is a no, regardless of whether or not the company worries that I might storm out on a customer: even if they send me an offer, I'm not going to accept it.

Then it works nicely for all involved. They want to see that you don't go postal when faced with unexpected, you DO go postal, they don't offer and you wouldn't accept anyway. Everyone is happy.

No, the goal is to get a job I like. An unappealing offer is as good as no offer at all.

True, true. And obviously a rookie interviewer will render a job you otherwise would like, into something completely "unappealing" by asking you a question you deem stupid?

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

KattMan:
I have to admit it is confusing, and I now know the difference. Given a set of three what are the odds that at least one of them will be different? 75% Given two values that are similar what are the odds the next one is different? 50% These two questions are subtly different, but therein lies the trap I fell into. The tree hats question and the rules don't apply because of this difference.

I thought I felt an increase in the flow of electricity as a lightbulb went on.

Congratulations in arriving at the "reality is sometimes counterintuitive, or at least not always instinctive" side of the universe.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

vt_mruhlin:
Saladin:
Quick. Given eight quarters -- one weighing more or less than the rest -- and a balance scale, if you were faced with the task of figuring out which was the odd coin out using the fewest weighings possible, what would you do?
Obviously, I pocket the quarters and leave this stupid interview, giving me enough change to buy a Coke and pay the highway toll on the way to my next (hopefully better) job interview.

I actually saw a good discussion of this one, and how that particular example can be used to guage programming skills. Correct solution was to do a binary sort on on. Put 4 coins on each side of the scale, discard the lighter half, weigh the remaining 4, then weigh the remaining two.....

Course the person who answers that correctly probably just heard it before. Nobody thinks about weighing quarters that fast.

the fun part about that is that there is a faster solution. ;)

real_aardvark · 2007-05-18 Reply Admin

Nope, I'm still with Gwenhyfaer on this one.

akatherder:
Brainteasers and riddles can tell an interviewer several things about you.
Can you listen, process, and form specs around verbally communicated information?

Or the interviewer could ask a question with direct relevance to the job.

akatherder:
Can you ask questions intelligently to clarify the problem?

Why clarify a problem that has no relevance to the job? In any case, what sort of question would "clarify" the "problems" presented in this thread?

akatherder:
Are you clever?

Well, the modish way to look at this is that there are several types of IQ. There is "conventional" intelligence, there is "body" intelligence, there is "artistic" intelligence ... there is also the sort of intelligence that causes you to walk away from an interview when they ask a tom-fool question like this.

Put another way, is the interviewer clever?

akatherder:
How do you react to a question when you don't know the answer?

I put one hand on my waist, stick the other in the air, and repeat in my finest Lady Bracknell voice, "I'm a teapot! I'm a teapot!" What do you do?

akatherder:
How do you go about breaking down a problem and solving it, especially when there isn't one single correct answer? Can you cope with the fact that you might not select the answer that they feel is optimal?

This is rather missing the point. I can break the problem down (perhaps), I can solve it (perhaps), I don't particularly care whether there is no correct answer, or one, or a set bounded by an infinity greater than aleph-null. I feel it's more appropriate to walk away.

Incidentally, anyone referring to Gwenhyfaer as "dude" or "guy" might profitably brush up their knowledge of Arthurian legend. They might also consider reading "How do you move Mount Fuji," which comes to the reasoned conclusion that questions like these are a silly way to conduct an interview. I suppose they're all too busy bitching about how some ingrates don't "get" the awesome beauty of using logic puzzles when trying to determine a good fit for a job.

How do I move Mount Fuji? I read it a particularly heart-rending haiku...

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

Jack:
Wait. Where is the dollar? I was hoping someone would post the solution but I haven't seen it. j/k

It's a trick question. The final question "where did the dollar go" is based on a false representation of the facts.

The question says "they paid $27, plus the $2 kept by the bellboy, adds up to $29" rather than the $30 originally paid. Read that statement again. And again. Eventually you will see the "trick".

They paid $27. The $2 kept by the bellboy was part of that $27, not in addition to it. That leaves $25, which is what the hotel received.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

richieb:
Round is the only shape that guarantees, no matter how you orient the cover, that the cover will not fall into the manhole and onto the man in the hole. That's why I only ever use round covers on my manhole.
Actually no. There is another shape that works. But that's another interview question...

There are an infinite number of shapes that work. However, the circle is unique in that it will fit regardless of rotation. The others require proper alignment of cover and hole.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

I have not yet heard any evidence that there is no correlation between performance on riddle questions (or the qualitative assessment of attempted reasoning) and employer satisfaction with a new hire.

I'd be interested in hard evidence either way. But hard to condemn something absolutely without facts. (OK, its actually really easy, but rather pointless I'd say.)

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

Aboyd:
YourMoFoFriend:
The whole point is to see HOW you'd approach the problem as presented :), that's perhaps the most important part... and really, if they judge you by +/-N from a "correct" answer, they do not deserve to be in business :)) Though in my experience on both sides of the table I've never heard of someone being that stupid to actually expect on an interview a real answer to the tooth fairy question, or to expect a correct answer to any puzzle for that matter. I guess I was lucky :))
I agree, you were lucky. In my experience on both sides of the table, these kinds of questions are used as a crutch. I concede that it may not be 100% and you may be the exception. However, I've had people ask me these questions (25 horses, 5 pirates, a few others) and they always get stuck on me delivering the exact perfect answer.

I don't think I was luckier then most. Out of a 100+ interviews I was asked puzzles and "tooth fairies" maybe a dozen times and I never felt they were looking for an exact answer or were out to just humiliate me. On the other hand there been so-o-o many times when the question was "work related" and the guy WAS looking for an answer HE KNEW despite the fact that there is virtually always more than one way to solve a programming challenge. All I'm saying is that puzzle is just a tool and just like any other tool it can be used wrong, that's all. BTW, if someone asks me a puzzle and I have feeling he's just using it as a "crutch"... oh man, that's a cause for celebration. That means the guy doesn't know what he is doing, YOU can take control of the interview now. Normally I'm not all that much into "life gives you lemons, make lemonade" crap, but this one is a no-brainer, given a choice "interviewer is a rookie, what do I do? Get pissed and walk out or own the guy?" I think I'll go for the kill :))

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

Jonno:
anon:
Not A Robot:
A person who sees one hat of each color should pass. This gives survival odds of 75%. That's the best that can be achieved.
How do you know that there is no better strategy? Show off some math
Are you serious? Have you actually read any of the other responses to this thread? There are proofs abound if you care to flick through and do a spot of reading. :P

There have been proofs that this strategy yields a 75% success rate. I don't recall seeing any proofs that this is the optimal strategy. (Though it is the best yet presented.)

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

Ken:
Jack:
Wait. Where is the dollar? I was hoping someone would post the solution but I haven't seen it. j/k
It's a trick question. The final question "where did the dollar go" is based on a false representation of the facts.
The question says "they paid $27, plus the $2 kept by the bellboy, adds up to $29" rather than the $30 originally paid. Read that statement again. And again. Eventually you will see the "trick".

They paid $27. The $2 kept by the bellboy was part of that $27, not in addition to it. That leaves $25, which is what the hotel received.

Yeah, the j/k was for "just kidding". Just wanted to make it clear that I wasn't an idiot. At least not on this count.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

real_aardvark:
Or the interviewer could ask a question with direct relevance to the job.

Why? Why would he ask you any more work related questions? Real life scenario: I only have about an hour with you, we talked about your previous projects for 10-15 min, I run you thru the technical part for another 30 min or so, now I know you did work on the projects that are in your resume, I know you're reasonably sharp technically, you know your "normalizations", fluent in OOD, have a good understanding of software development cycle and can program in the language we use in the company. Why would I spend last 10 minutes I have with you on more of the same??? So, with 10 minutes left I ask you this question: "I'm thinking of a number from 1 to 20, can you guess it?". I'm not trying to be an ass, I'll take ANY response. Smile and say "13"? OK by me. Say "Sure I can guess, and I have 5% chance of getting it right..." - awesome answer too. Just about any reasonable reply will do, but if you get all up in arms and storm off... oh well, at this point it doesn't matter how good you're technically, you're an asshole and a pain in the rear to work with. And if you feel all righteous and now think the whole company sucks because you think I'm an asshole for asking you this "outrageously stupid and inappropriate question"... so be it, no harm done, everyone is happy, my only regret I didn't ask you this in the first 10 minutes of the interview, could've saved some time for both of us.

real_aardvark:
How do you react to a question when you don't know the answer?

I put one hand on my waist, stick the other in the air, and repeat in my finest Lady Bracknell voice, "I'm a teapot! I'm a teapot!" What do you do?

I'd laugh and ask if that's what you plan on doing in front of a customers too? How about your boss? You know, bosses very often ask questions that sound really stupid, not because bosses are stupid (well, some are), but because they don't know any better. Gona do a "teapot" performance there too?

real_aardvark:
This is rather missing the point. I can break the problem down (perhaps), I can solve it (perhaps), I don't particularly care whether there is no correct answer, or one, or a set bounded by an infinity greater than aleph-null. I feel it's more appropriate to walk away.

You should absolutely do what you feel is right. Walk away. No good can be said about a company if they dare to ask you something you don't feel is appropriate.

real_aardvark:
Incidentally, anyone referring to Gwenhyfaer as "dude" or "guy" might profitably brush up their knowledge of Arthurian legend.

Guilty. I called him both. I'll read up on "Arthurian legend", but I fail to see how that's supposed to change my opinion about a real guy I'm having an argument with right now (not you, the Gwenhyfaer dude)?

real_aardvark:
They might also consider reading "How do you move Mount Fuji," which comes to the reasoned conclusion that questions like these are a silly way to conduct an interview.

To build a whole interview around puzzles is a silly idea. Use something that can show a bit of your personality rather than your technical knowledge I don't think is all that silly. And I'd rather work my way thru a logical puzzle even if it's moving the mountain to the other side of town, than answer them "Tell me about a time when your boss was incorrect and you were right about something but he insisted that he's right and you're wrong. How did you handle that conflict?" behavioral bullshit questions. Though, I guess when used properly they also can be a useful interviewing tool.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

gwenhwyfaer:
Jack:
You are REALLY saying that if I were in a situation where I was out of a job, responsible for a mortgage and feeding 3 kids, myself, and my wife, and I was in a job interview for a company I wanted to work for, if I don't walk out when a person asks me a riddle I'm spineless? REALLY? Cause most people would consider that being a responsible adult.
Um, what is it about your wife that renders her unable to work? And what is "responsible" about living so far outside your means that you have to prostitute your integrity to cover it?
I'm not saying you don't have the right to act as you do - obviously you do. Just don't pretend it's anything other than a trade-off you're making; to claim that your choices are not choices, or that a compromised integrity is a sign of virtue, is an abrogation of the responsibility you take so seriously. Be conscious of what you hold dear, and of the compromises you make for its sake.

You are assuming alot about my situation. You know nothing about me other that a few words on a message board. As far as the "Be conscious of what you hold dear, and of the compromises you make for its sake", what I hold dear is my family and and I will compromise anything, including my integrity, for them. I'm glad and proud of that fact.

The reality of the situation is that the "argument" I was having ended up with me and the other person making amends of sorts and being ok with the situation. You, on the other hand, are a troll and I refuse to be trolled.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

real_aardvark:
Incidentally, anyone referring to Gwenhyfaer as "dude" or "guy" might profitably brush up their knowledge of Arthurian legend.
Guilty. I called him both. I'll read up on "Arthurian legend", but I fail to see how that's supposed to change my opinion about a real guy I'm having an argument with right now (not you, the Gwenhyfaer dude)?

Mea culpa. Apparently she is an ass, not he.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

Jack:
Ken:
Jack:
Wait. Where is the dollar? I was hoping someone would post the solution but I haven't seen it. j/k
It's a trick question. The final question "where did the dollar go" is based on a false representation of the facts.
...
Yeah, the j/k was for "just kidding". Just wanted to make it clear that I wasn't an idiot. At least not on this count.

I guess that's a problem when "Jack" signs off "j/k". :-)

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

Ken:
Jack:
Yeah, the j/k was for "just kidding". Just wanted to make it clear that I wasn't an idiot. At least not on this count.
I guess that's a problem when "Jack" signs off "j/k". :-)

Didn't even think of that. I'll have to be more careful in the future!

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

kftgr:
Your last 3 steps (labeled above) are wrong. Step 2, M gets annoyed by S since F is on the other side of river. Step 3, M kills S Step 4, F gets stranded on one side while M, D, G, and P move on. :)
The correct solution is:
1        d               (f, m) -->           s, g, p
2        d           <-- (m)	     f,    s, g, p
3                        (d, m) -->     f,    s, g, p
4                                 m, d, f, s, g, p

You are correct of course. Thanks for pointing out the error and for providing the correction.

captcha: doom

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

That's ridiculous. Tire pressure doesn't work like that.

akatherder · 2007-05-18 Reply Admin

real_aardvark:

akatherder:
How do you react to a question when you don't know the answer?
I put one hand on my waist, stick the other in the air, and repeat in my finest Lady Bracknell voice, "I'm a teapot! I'm a teapot!" What do you do?

Well that settles it. You're exactly the type of candidate people are trying to weed out when they ask riddles and brainteasers. If you are too narrow minded to draw any correlation between real life scenarios, seemingly pointless hypothetical scenarios, and programming then you are pretty much just qualified to go sit in the corner, read a tech spec, and be a good little coder who can't think. There are definitely positions for you, but these aren't the positions they are interviewing for.

Thanks for giving me hope and confidence that I am even more qualified than I thought. Even after explaining it and dumbing things down, you still can't catch on to why these techniques are useful.

"Move a mountain? I'm not actually going to be moving mountains in this job am I!?"

"Excuse me, I was here to interview for the programmer position. What do probability, statistics, cleverness, gross estimation, and problem solving have to do with anything? Here let me show you how I can write a binary search. SEE, I ARE A GOOD PROGRAMMER!"

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

Another Anon Coward:
Isn't that precisely what's at the heart of debugging? Your program crashes, your user is staring at you, and at the moment, you don't know what's going on.

It may be at the heart of debugging, but there is vast difference between the 2 realms. In debugging software, I can count on the fact that the computer is extremely logical and consistent and use that knowledge to assist me. In brainteasers, neither of these are consistent. Take for example another riddle I had once been asked in an interview (to determine how well I can "think outside the box"): You are in a completely stable, cube shaped room made out of an indestructable material. There are no doors and no windows. The only items in the room with you is a table and a mirror. How do you get out?

Another Anon Coward:
You can get all self-righteous and angry or you can say, "Hmmm, give me a moment to figure out what's going on here." Guess which really makes us look stupid.

To reiterate my position on the subject, I don't mind "brainteasers" which allow a person to relate their process of reasoning and such (and then, only when being used for such). What I think most of the nay-sayers on here are saying is that brainteasers in interviews are predominantly (at least in our experiences) used in this manner. They are merely being thrown to simply be just a brainteaser (and quite often, a yes or no is dependent on successfully getting the "correct" answer).

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

akatherder:
Brainteasers and riddles can tell an interviewer several things about you.

They can also tell me about the potential employer (my boss, the company, etc.). Do they like belittling their employees? Do they generally provide stupid, silly, and/or irrelevant specs at me and expect to read their mind? Are they haughty and arrogant? How do they treat their employees who disagree with unjust and unsound <whatever>?

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

I interviewed with MS back in college and at the big CS meeting about MS before the interviews were setup the presenter made mention of "why manholes are round and not any other shape". Naturally I knew the answer was so that the cover couldn't fall inside. I went up to him after the interview to tell him that and him and a few other students simply disagreed and deemed my explanation as stupid.

Incidentally I got an interview... with that same guy. I didn't get the job probably due to the fact that I researched the shape of manhole covers and brought in a stack of papers proving my explanation.

As far as the little brain teasers, mine were fairly simple.

In a single elimination soccer tournament with 64 teams, how many rounds are there? (Clearly an attempt to force you to think in base 2)
Given a scale x number of marbles that are the same shape and size, with one being heavier, how do you figure out which one is the heavier one in the least number of steps?

I think that was all of the ones they asked me. Nobody from my University got hired that time around.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

It's a sort of triangle.
Start with an equilateral Triangle, then make each edge curved out by using a compass with the point on the opposite vertex. So it's like a triangle, but with curved sides, the arc of which is a segment of a circle centered on the vertex of the triangle opposite the edge. This triangle has a constant cross section (ALl lines through thecenter are the same length) therefore it cannot fall through any hole built in the same shape and slightly smaller.

richieb:
Round is the only shape that guarantees, no matter how you orient the cover, that the cover will not fall into the manhole and onto the man in the hole. That's why I only ever use round covers on my manhole.
Actually no. There is another shape that works. But that's another interview question...

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

keego:
That's ridiculous. Tire pressure doesn't work like that.

(Looking back at original post he's replying to -- weight equals tire pressure times contact area with tarmac.)

If tire pressure "doesn't work like that", then can you please explain how it does work?

Now, granted that if this thread has taught us anything, it's that the intuitive answer is not necessarily the right answer, but...

Let's say that the tire pressure in the tire is 30 pounds per square inch (psi). Let's further say that the tire has 25 square inches in contact with the ground. Finally, there are four tires, all with the same pressure and contact area. That's 30psi times 100 square inches, for 3000 pounds of pressure at the tire-to-surface contact area. Is that not the weight of the car?

If the weight were more than 3000 pounds, then the pressure exerted by the air in the tires would be insuffient to support the car. If the weight were less than 3000 pounds, then the pressure exerted by the air would cause the car to rise.

Is the intuitive answer wrong?

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

YourMoFoFriend:
BTW, if someone asks me a puzzle and I have feeling he's just using it as a "crutch"... oh man, that's a cause for celebration. That means the guy doesn't know what he is doing, YOU can take control of the interview now. Normally I'm not all that much into "life gives you lemons, make lemonade" crap, but this one is a no-brainer, given a choice "interviewer is a rookie, what do I do? Get pissed and walk out or own the guy?" I think I'll go for the kill :))

An excellent point that zooms over the heads of people too wrapped up in their self-righteousness. You frequently hear people complaining that they didn't get the job because the interviewer was a total idiot. And it's like, well, dude, if you can't put on a good song and dance for a total idiot, what hope would you have with a real sharpie?

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

OutsideInwards:
It may be at the heart of debugging, but there is vast difference between the 2 realms. In debugging software, I can count on the fact that the computer is extremely logical and consistent and use that knowledge to assist me.

Clearly you haven’t debugged some of the stuff I had to :) If only there was a forum where people could share their programming horror stories… :))

OutsideInwards:
There are no doors and no windows. The only items in the room with you is a table and a mirror. How do you get out?

So, what did you say?

OutsideInwards:
To reiterate my position on the subject, I don't mind "brainteasers" which allow a person to relate their process of reasoning and such (and then, only when being used for such). What I think most of the nay-sayers on here are saying is that brainteasers in interviews are predominantly (at least in our experiences) used in this manner. They are merely being thrown to simply be just a brainteaser (and quite often, a yes or no is dependent on successfully getting the "correct" answer).

I’ll agree with that. What I disagree with is an attempt to justify a “walk-out” in a situation like that. To me it’s kind of… oh what’s the word I’m looking for… somehow the only thing that comes to my mind is Carlos Mencia going “Tee-Tee-Dee”… :) But I guess that’s good since if walking out is what they think is right, who am I to question their wisdom? By all means – walk.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

OutsideInwards:
It may be at the heart of debugging, but there is vast difference between the 2 realms. In debugging software, I can count on the fact that the computer is extremely logical and consistent and use that knowledge to assist me. In brainteasers, neither of these are consistent. Take for example another riddle I had once been asked in an interview (to determine how well I can "think outside the box"): You are in a completely stable, cube shaped room made out of an indestructable material. There are no doors and no windows. The only items in the room with you is a table and a mirror. How do you get out?

That is a particularly bad interview question, except strictly as a "compatible personality / joke" type question. The "missing dollar" question from the Paleozoic is also pretty bad, and any employer thinking that only a genius could solve it is probably suspect. However... as people have pointed out, these are more signs of a bad interviewer who doens't understand the point of brainteasers. Look, these are flaws in riddles, but these flaws tend to be much worse for other types of questions, as stories of questions from people unfamiliar with technology X have proved.

If your interviewer can't seem to grasp that your solution to a riddle is correct or understand your approach to it, then yes, mark the company down. But if your interviewer seemingly has no clue about the technical questions, then that should raise far more alarm.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

OutsideInwards:
Another Anon Coward:
Isn't that precisely what's at the heart of debugging? Your program crashes, your user is staring at you, and at the moment, you don't know what's going on.
It may be at the heart of debugging, but there is vast difference between the 2 realms. In debugging software, I can count on the fact that the computer is extremely logical and consistent and use that knowledge to assist me.

I bet you've never had to debug a program which would refuse to fail inside the debugger.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

YourMoFoFriend:

OutsideInwards:
There are no doors and no windows. The only items in the room with you is a table and a mirror. How do you get out?
So, what did you say?

For those who don't know that joke (it's a joke, not a riddle)... you look in the mirror. You see what you saw. You use the saw to cut the table in half. Two halves make a whole. You climb out of the hole.

Mildly amusing, but utterly impossible to "solve," and if the interviewer wants to ask a truly impossible question, there are plenty of better ones (for instance, ask the person how they would solve a variant on the Halting Problem, and see if they figure out what you actually asked).

akatherder · 2007-05-18 Reply Admin

OutsideInwards:
akatherder:
Brainteasers and riddles can tell an interviewer several things about you.
They can also tell me about the potential employer (my boss, the company, etc.). Do they like belittling their employees? Do they generally provide stupid, silly, and/or irrelevant specs at me and expect to read their mind? Are they haughty and arrogant? How do they treat their employees who disagree with unjust and unsound <whatever>?

Geez, it sounds like you missed a really good job opportunity because you didn't "get" a riddle. Now you're bitter and fighting the evil which is brainteasers. Fight the good fight. They aren't out to get you. They determined the riddles can tell them something about you that asking you to program some stack methods won't.

I've worked places where the tech spec was gospel. I've worked another place where it was a rough draft at best. Here are some general ideas... go talk to the customer, marketing, etc. when you get a framework done. They are different kinds of positions, but you're still a developer. Some people just aren't good enough to "wing it" and work with what they have, then fill in some pieces later.

2007-05-18 Reply Admin

SBGamesCone:
I interviewed with MS back in college and at the big CS meeting about MS before the interviews were setup the presenter made mention of "why manholes are round and not any other shape". Naturally I knew the answer was so that the cover couldn't fall inside. I went up to him after the interview to tell him that and him and a few other students simply disagreed and deemed my explanation as stupid.

What was the presenter's reason?

And, given that there are an infinite number of shapes that cannot fall through the corresponding hole, why use only the circle?

Finally, what about the fact that some places use other shapes for covering such holes?

Job Interview 2.0: Now With Riddles!

Leave a comment on “Job Interview 2.0: Now With Riddles!”