• (disco) in reply to Polygeekery

    The funny thing is, you're wrong, because two other people have already posted answers through Fermi estimation, based on annual rainfall, that were roughly correct.

  • (disco) in reply to operagost

    Given that they actually had relevant information on hand.

    You'll have a random chance of having any relevant domain knowledge, given a random-domain question.

    Then your Fermi estimate becomes further off.

    Also, let's take a normal over the average educated populous and see how accurate the Fermi estimates are.

    Just because a few successes occur, don't mean the answers are any less a shot in the dark.

    Do you consider the amount of people saying their child has reduced autism disabilities after discontinuing flu vaccines to be anything more than a Fermi Estimate?

  • (disco) in reply to Initech
    Initech:
    If you want to know where someone would look for performance bottlenecks, then ask them where they'd look for performance bottlenecks.

    No, I want to know how they solve problems. Those base skills are suitable for all problem solving.

    Initech:
    If someone answers this question by starting with average rainfall, and your takeaway is that he is likely to look for performance issues in all the wrong places, you are a fucking idiot.

    You might think so, but I have spent over a decade hiring, firing and employing people to solve problems and I have a good track record of hiring the right people and managing them well. You have a track record of...?

    xaade:
    Sure, the mouth of the river can support x gallons per minute, but do x gallons per minute consistently flow? Or does the flow rate vary?

    Is the flow mostly dependent on rain water, or does the flow come from snowy mountain tops where it would be greater in the months following winter?

    There are so many variables.

    All you've done is eliminate variables to give a simpler model, which could be way off if there is enough variance in the flow rate over the year.

    Yeah, but I don't care about all of that. Give them a problem way outside of their comfort zone and see if they dive right in or if they get paralysis by analysis. I would give them bonus points for considering a few of these things, if they got bogged down by constantly analyzing it instead of just fucking starting, I would not want to hire them. Too many people wait for all the lights to turn green before the head down the road of solving the problem. These people generally do good work...eventually. But they paralyze themselves by analyzing all of the minutiae. This is another personality quirk that these questions are meant to expose.

    operagost:
    The funny thing is, you're wrong, because two other people have already posted answers through Fermi estimation, based on annual rainfall, that were roughly correct.

    Not really. Technically, we are both "roughly correct". I am telling you how I would want the solution to be found that would yield the candidate that I wanted to hire. Granted, this is with my only thinking about this problem as it related to the hiring process for the timespan of when I started in this thread and I would possibly probably change that opinion in some way if I were to actually use this question, but I really like the idea for the outcome that it could produce.

  • (disco)

    Hmmm, tides.

  • (disco) in reply to nightware

    indeed. there are some rivers where the incoming tide caused the flow to reverse at the mouth.

    don't think the amazon is one of those rivers though.

  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    EDIT (and for that matter the numbers we say we have... )

    Most of ours are defunct.

    Remember that joke in the Simpsons when ... Sideshow Bob? I think? steals a nuclear weapon and the Wright flyer, and it turns out the nuclear weapon only makes a tiny puff of smoke and has a badge on the side that says "best used before 1965"?

    Yeah that's basically a pretty accurate picture of our nuclear arsenal. Not that there's anything wrong with that-- we probably still have more functional warheads than anybody else. Half our delivery systems are putting up communications satellites at this point, though.

  • (disco) in reply to Polygeekery

    Hey!

    I'm one of those guys that over-analyze.

    On the flip side, I find the problems no one else can. Which is why I get the work no one else wants to do....

    I also align myself with people who keep me in check. I chalk that up to having good management. If a manager only knows how to manage a subset of types of people, his team can only support that subset.

    I think we have value too, as long as we are limited. It's like the sugar portion of your diet. Lightly sprinkle us around, but don't throw us out entirely.

  • (disco) in reply to blakeyrat
    blakeyrat:
    Most of ours are defunct.

    yes, but that's the thing... they could be made to be functional again without too much effort.

    it would take a boffin or two to work out how, but it is well within our technology, and given the half life of the isotopes we're talking about we're still good for fissile material.

  • (disco) in reply to accalia

    I don't know if the flow reverses, but a wave does go upstream, and can be surfed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZuZiLuHM1A

  • (disco) in reply to accalia

    We have the technology,

    We can rebuild [the bombs that devastate whole nations with only a few applications].

  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    yes, but that's the thing... they could be made to be functional again without too much effort.

    Well right; it's just like a mothball fleet. It's stupid to just blow up old ships/weapons, much smarter to preserve them as well as possible so in times of emergency they could (in theory at least) be reactivated. And it's not like a fission bomb refurbished from 1970 is "less" of a deterrent than a brand new one.

    The US military isn't the best in the world because it's dumb.

    accalia:
    it would take a boffin or two to work out how,

    We don't have boffins in the US. We use geeks.

  • (disco) in reply to blakeyrat

    Is that our advantage. The rest of the west is using boffins? No wonder.

    http://wish.halo5.net/~darrell/rpg/bosco.jpg A british scientist.

  • (disco) in reply to xaade

    i don't think i'll ever get tired of quotes from that movie. ;-)

    blakeyrat:
    We don't have boffins in the US. We use geeks.

    eeeh. blame all the british newspapers i read. they do a much better job of covering world wide events than 'murican ones do.

  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    eeeh. blame all the british newspapers i read. they do a much better job of covering world wide events than 'murican ones do.

    Yeah well I follow BBC Breaking News on Twitter and it's utter shit.

  • (disco) in reply to blakeyrat

    what do you expect from having to cram the articles down to 140 characters?

  • (disco) in reply to blakeyrat

    Actually it's just a side effect of news becoming more accurate when it's covered by a third party. British news doesn't cover its domestic issues well either.

  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    what do you expect from having to cram the articles down to 140 characters?

    That's not even close to the most important problem they have. The biggest one is not knowing what the term "breaking news" means.

    Sometimes they'll fail to report a huge event of worldwide import. Because I guess it wasn't breaking enough. Then an hour later, they'll put some soccer scores on it. Because soccer games are, apparently, "breaking" and not well-scheduled in advance. (Every kick of it massively mattering to someone, presumably.)

    Maybe "breaking" means something different in the UK. Like it means, "some retard throws darts at a printout and tweets whatever the dart hits".

  • (disco) in reply to blakeyrat
    blakeyrat:
    Maybe "breaking" means something different in the UK.

    well there is a cultural shift one has to get used to, yes.

    but football scores are breaking in the sense of "the news is current, fresh off the presses, new" rather than the "this news is both new and super important from a world wide perspective"

  • (disco) in reply to blakeyrat
    blakeyrat:

    Maybe "breaking" means something different in the UK. Like it means, "some retard throws darts at a printout and tweets whatever the dart hits".

    No, that's just my facebook timeline.

  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    (i tend to roll with the ocean/sea confusion as i've yet to **meat a manager** that actually got the distinction

    that will probably get you hired...

  • (disco) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    that will probably get you hired...

    are you offering? ;-)

  • (disco) in reply to xaade
    xaade:
    I'm one of those guys that over-analyze.

    So am I, so I have to hire people who will tell me "let's shut up and get started, we can catch anything we missed in the next iteration" when it is necessary. Too many of our type on a project and nothing gets done.

    xaade:
    On the flip side, I find the problems no one else can. Which is why I get the work no one else wants to do....

    Same here, I am always thinking of the edge cases. See above. ;)

    xaade:
    I also align myself with people who keep me in check. I chalk that up to having good management. If a manager only knows how to manage a subset of types of people, his team can only support that subset.

    I think we have value too, as long as we are limited. It's like the sugar portion of your diet. Lightly sprinkle us around, but don't throw us out entirely.

    Agreed. See the many times on this forum that I have spoken out about speaking in absolutes for illustration of the ways that I was partially wrong earlier. People such as yourself are highly valuable when you need to say, "Hey, we are having an obscure issue with X", and you can be turned loose to rummage through documentation until the answer is found. :smile:

  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    but football scores are breaking in the sense of "the news is current, fresh off the presses, new" rather than the "this news is both new and super important from a world wide perspective"

    Something that's scheduled in advance can not, by definition, be "breaking news".

  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    breaking in the sense of "the news is current, fresh off the presses, new"

    No, that's "current" news.

    Breaking news is kinda like.

    So, the score for the gam..... We're sorry to interrupt but we have breaking news, a bomb just went off at a mall and we are following the story now... The [team name] are ahead by 12 points with 12 yards to the endzone.

  • (disco) in reply to ProbablySignedUp
    ProbablySignedUp:
    Another Fermi approach: the Amazon basin covers about half of the South American continent, so 2% of the surface area of the planet (7 continents, world is 70% ocean). The circumference of the planet is 40000km, so (approximating pi as 4) the Amazon drains 8 million square kilometres. Guessing **net annual rainfall (after evaporation) at 1m** gives 8 trillion cubic metres, equal to 1800 trillion gallons.

    Yeah, Fermi estimation is unreasonably effective.

    I have a feeling that many of these numbers come from research after already knowing the number to look for.

  • (disco) in reply to blakeyrat
    blakeyrat:
    Something that's scheduled in advance can not, by definition, be "breaking news".
    xaade:
    No, that's "current" news.

    Breaking news is kinda like.

    By the american definition of breaking news sure. is it surprising that that definition is not universal?

  • (disco) in reply to chubertdev

    Yeah, it's more like.

    You can use any information other than the direct answer. Here's google and wikipedia. Tell me the answer.

    Totally unfair to someone in an interview given a piece of paper, and maybe a writing utensil.

  • (disco) in reply to xaade
    xaade:
    Totally unfair to someone in an interview given a piece of paper, and maybe a writing utensil.

    A really dick interviewer would give them a piece of paper and a needle to prick their finger so they can write their solution in blood.

  • (disco) in reply to accalia

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_news

    "current issue that broadcasters feel warrants the interruption of scheduled programming"

    So, the soccer score warrants interruption of the broadcast of the soccer game.

    No wonder I can't understand the brits.

  • (disco) in reply to blakeyrat
    blakeyrat:
    We don't have boffins in the US. We use geeks.

    I was working on a military project involving something to do with computers and tanks back in the day when scientists still wore suits. I arrived on site with my rucksack and proceeded to put on my motorcycle gear, and climbing boots and helmet. The sergeant in charge of the site watched this procedure and when I finished remarked "You know, Sir, for a boffin you're quite sensible".

    Boffin = scientist or research engineer engaged in military project, considered to be somewhat other worldly and impractical. For all I know, the term is still in use.

  • (disco) in reply to xaade
    xaade:
    No wonder I can't understand the brits.

    no argument there.

    also this is twitter we're talking about.... there's not exactly any scheduled programming on there.

  • (disco) in reply to accalia

    No, but I keep a healthy schedule of brain bleach.

  • (disco) in reply to xaade
    xaade:
    No, but I keep a healthy schedule of brain bleach.

    and that's why i stay away from twitter.

    far away. far far far far away.

  • (disco) in reply to accalia

    facebook is pretty bad right now too. Everyone seems to be concerned with blaming everyone else for a kid holding a gun and pointing it at people.

  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    is it surprising that that definition is not universal?

    Occam's Razor says the BBC Breaking News Twitter account being run by idiots is much more likely than the definition of "breaking news" varying by region.

  • (disco) in reply to derp

    Oh dear god why.

    I don't want to eat someone's face.

  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    are you offering? ;-)

    The position has been filled.

  • (disco) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    The position has been filled.

    :frowning:

    what‽ but i'm already 90% of the way through writing my cover letter!

  • (disco) in reply to blakeyrat
    blakeyrat:
    Occam's Razor says the BBC Breaking News Twitter account being run by idiots is much more likely than the definition of "breaking news" varying by region.

    hmm... also a good point. one should never underestimate the stupidity of people who don't want to learn.

  • (disco)

    All of this talk about "breaking news" is funny after watching Anchorman 2 last night :laughing:

  • (disco) in reply to Polygeekery
    Intercourse:
    Yeah, but I don't care about all of that. Give them a problem way outside of their comfort zone and see if they dive right in or if they get paralysis by analysis. I would give them bonus points for considering a few of these things, if they got bogged down by constantly analyzing it instead of just fucking starting, I would not want to hire them. Too many people wait for all the lights to turn green before the head down the road of solving the problem.

    And too many people like you head off down the road before you have all the pieces, and then discover that one of the "minutiae" you refer to later on, is in fact a game stopper. It depends what you're doing. If this is some kind of web 2.0 user interaction thingy and you've forgotten about the security model, the company can probably fix it in the next iteration and now have enough money to do it. If it is something that actually has to...well, work...and serious money is involved, I wouldn't want you on the team. I'd want someone who can think around the problem. Case in point; all the people who decided that the "minutiae" of what would happen to dates when the calendar clicked over to 2000, weren't worth worrying about.

  • (disco) in reply to kupfernigk
    kupfernigk:
    I wouldn't want you on the team.

    That is why I hire people who compliment me, instead of just another person like myself. Problem solved. You should probably read that entire thread before you go off half-cocked.

  • (disco) in reply to Polygeekery
    Intercourse:
    That is why I hire people who **compliment** me, instead of just another person like myself. Problem solved. You should probably read that entire thread before you go off half-cocked.

    I like your shoes.

  • (disco) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    I like your shoes.

    You know what I meant, you damn California hippie pedant you.

  • (disco) in reply to Polygeekery
    Intercourse:
    You know what I meant, you damn California hippie pedant you.

    CLOSEDWONTFLAG

  • (disco)

    Well, it's a "microsoft interview question", the logic is more important than knowing the answer. The book Programming Pearls has an entire section on Fermi paradoxes, it's quite interesting.

    So, let's try one:

    • Width of amazon? Mmm, let's say 100 km.
    • Depth? Euh, 10m?
    • Flow rate? Let's say 10 cm/s.

    So then, what comes out: 100.000 * 10 * 0.10 = 100.000 m³/s. That's about 3 * 10^15 l/year.

    Is that correct? Of course not but it should be in the right range.

  • (disco) in reply to Carrandas

    This kind of estimation turns out to be incredibly useful in practical software engineering. "Do you understand how many rows of data you're talking about?" "Sending one XML message per transaction on a transaction the average user does, let's say, ten times per week, with 10,000 users...."

  • (disco)

    Interview questions like this are so stupid.

    It's not actually testing anything other than your ability to remain calm when provided stupid requirements. Which means you're going to get a lot of stupid requirements. My immediate response to such a question would be to pull out a coin, and flip it. If it's tails, I explain the analogy and walk out.

    Google realized long ago that this provided about the same usable feedback as a coin flip. It means the company doesn't like thinking, or research, they like bandwagons.

    Anyone asking this is not someone I want to work for. They'll drive their company into the ground.

  • (disco) in reply to evandentremont

    On a related note, the number one indicator of employee tenure and performance was referrals.

  • (disco) in reply to evandentremont

    What, are you saying that in a field where there are more jobs than candidates, having insanely strict/arbitrary interviews is a bad idea? :smirk:

Leave a comment on “The Amazon River”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article