| cmaloney | Good morning | 14:13 |
|---|---|---|
| brousch__ | Yes | 14:16 |
| cmaloney | It's a start. :) | 14:19 |
| cmaloney | I swear the worst thing you can give a recruiter is your phone number | 15:19 |
| cmaloney | now I'm not only getting odd-calls, but odd text messages | 15:19 |
| Zimdale | Tell them you want a pizza | 15:19 |
| cmaloney | STOP | 15:20 |
| Zimdale | https://youtu.be/vVlEVRKv4is?t=57s | 15:21 |
| cmaloney | heh | 15:22 |
| Zimdale | I always wanted to ask for shit, but I don't think that would make them less annoying | 15:24 |
| cmaloney | Well, I love th "I didn't get you on your phone so now I'll text you" approach | 15:24 |
| cmaloney | "I was busy with something else. That's why I didn't pick up the phone" | 15:25 |
| Zimdale | "You didn't answer your phone so I figured I'd spy on your through the bushes at your home" | 15:25 |
| cmaloney | "oh, and by the way email is awesome for this scheduling shit" | 15:25 |
| Zimdale | Is it teksystems? | 15:27 |
| cmaloney | No, it's the company that you passed along to me | 15:27 |
| Zimdale | Oh that crazy spam email one? | 15:27 |
| cmaloney | Yeah | 15:27 |
| Zimdale | Yeah I could see that | 15:27 |
| cmaloney | Unfortunately it's a hit | 15:28 |
| cmaloney | so I get to do a screen-sharing coding session with Deepfield | 15:28 |
| cmaloney | I'm really starting to hate this industry. | 15:29 |
| cmaloney | "Sure, we'd love to see what you're made of. So let's schedule the most awkward test to see how you perform." | 15:29 |
| Zimdale | ooo you'd be part of Nokia | 15:30 |
| cmaloney | I already was when it was called Alcatel Lucent. | 15:30 |
| cmaloney | It was no Bell Labs then | 15:30 |
| Zimdale | Was it a hit from that same email over a month ago? O.o | 15:31 |
| cmaloney | Same with another automotive supplier that had to (no shit) show me two presentations about how they could trace their lineage to the Dodge Brothers. | 15:31 |
| cmaloney | even though they were so far removed from it (being owned by a Chinese company) | 15:31 |
| cmaloney | Zimdale: A-yep. | 15:31 |
| Zimdale | wat | 15:31 |
| Zimdale | Man moving that slow sounds like a red flag by itself | 15:31 |
| cmaloney | It's a start-up with the baggage of Nokia | 15:31 |
| cmaloney | what do you expect. | 15:31 |
| Zimdale | hahaha | 15:32 |
| cmaloney | Oh, sorry, "THE POWER OF NOKIA WITH THE NIMBLENESS OF A STARTUP" | 15:32 |
| cmaloney | "together combined like Voltron to defend the universe" | 15:32 |
| Zimdale | apparently leadership there is a shit show | 15:37 |
| cmaloney | At Nokia? | 15:39 |
| Zimdale | At deepfield | 15:41 |
| cmaloney | doesn't surprise me | 15:41 |
| cmaloney | I'm sure most of them will be replaced in the near future when their golden handcuffs disappear and they can divest themselves. | 15:41 |
| cmaloney | I'm looking at it more as practice. | 15:42 |
| Zimdale | True dat | 15:43 |
| Zimdale | Plus you could put time in while looking for a place you like more | 15:43 |
| cmaloney | Yeah | 15:43 |
| cmaloney | Right now I'm at the "I'd like my income to not be the charity of others" | 15:44 |
| Zimdale | Yeah :( | 15:44 |
| Zimdale | I am a little surprised MUG hasn't gotten you in. Usually companies really like community involvement | 15:48 |
| cmaloney | MUG isn't the problem. Coding tests are. | 15:49 |
| Zimdale | Ah | 15:49 |
| cmaloney | 90 minutes to submit 3 problems / 2 puppet examples where the system doesn't handle STDIN the same way that my local machine does tends to limit ones options. | 15:50 |
| Zimdale | weird | 15:50 |
| cmaloney | It was some strange site where they treated all of the languages interchangeably | 15:51 |
| cmaloney | and I'm not sure if what they had for Python really worked or not | 15:51 |
| cmaloney | but I'm sure all they saw was none of the test cases worked | 15:51 |
| cmaloney | which is true, because none of the data made it to my program | 15:52 |
| Zimdale | hahaha sounds typical | 15:52 |
| cmaloney | But hey, algorithms don't lie, | 15:52 |
| cmaloney | no bias there. | 15:52 |
| * cmaloney is trying not to be too salty | 15:52 | |
| Zimdale | hahaha | 15:56 |
| Zimdale | Yeah I had many fights over those tests | 16:05 |
| Zimdale | we had someone that wanted to give a test that tested efficiency of a recursive brute for algorithm | 16:06 |
| Zimdale | brute forcing* | 16:06 |
| Zimdale | irked me becuase unless you did a lot of recursion you're going to struggle with it and it shows nothing more than experience with that style algorithm | 16:06 |
| cmaloney | Is there much call for that as part of the job? | 16:06 |
| cmaloney | I mean, maybe you were applying to be a technical editor for a computer science textbook | 16:07 |
| Zimdale | lolno | 16:07 |
| cmaloney | Exactly | 16:08 |
| Zimdale | all we did was put forms on websites... | 16:08 |
| cmaloney | it's somewhat pointless to ask someone to white-board out a fibbonacci sequence | 16:08 |
| Zimdale | yeah | 16:08 |
| cmaloney | or test efficiency of algorithms (recursive / brute-force) | 16:08 |
| Zimdale | Like it's okay as long as you tell them that is what they are being tested on | 16:09 |
| cmaloney | unless that's something that you value as part of the day-to-day. | 16:09 |
| Zimdale | so you can test how well they can learn new things | 16:09 |
| cmaloney | I got salty in one interview (for a publishing company) | 16:09 |
| Zimdale | and not how well they already know a thing that they may never use | 16:09 |
| cmaloney | they wanted me to white-board out a fibbonacci sequence | 16:09 |
| cmaloney | I asked them if this was something that came up often in the job | 16:09 |
| Zimdale | hahaha | 16:10 |
| Zimdale | in theory it tests "problem solving abilities" | 16:10 |
| cmaloney | I appreciated in one job interview that they liked when I wrote out the brute-force steps for something and then said "Upon thinking about this more I could just remove the spaces and use the built-in reverse function) | 16:11 |
| cmaloney | problem is I don't know what they're looking for. Are you looking for my shitty first-draft thinking or something where I've had some time to think about it? | 16:11 |
| cmaloney | because shitty-first-draft thinking looks a whole lot like Atari BASIC / Pascal. | 16:12 |
| Zimdale | I am sure htey don't know what they are looking for | 16:12 |
| cmaloney | or old C code | 16:12 |
| cmaloney | unless it's something that I've done recently in Python | 16:12 |
| Zimdale | When we interviewed we almost never looked for clean designed code | 16:12 |
| cmaloney | Whenever I play around on Codewars I don't know all of the little clever tricks that folks can use to make three lines of tightly-integrated code. | 16:13 |
| Zimdale | But usually depends on how arrogant the interviewer is | 16:13 |
| Zimdale | We usually got better information just asking them about past experience and how they solved it | 16:13 |
| cmaloney | Yeah | 16:13 |
| Zimdale | But depending on past work experience that is also something that doesn't always work | 16:14 |
| cmaloney | I don't even mind the "here's something that happened from the job with the serial-numbers filed off" | 16:14 |
| Zimdale | I really wish there were more panels on tech interviewing at pcon | 16:14 |
| cmaloney | talk me through what you think would happen. | 16:14 |
| cmaloney | Tech interviewing is a skill | 16:14 |
| cmaloney | there's no question in my mind that this is something that people have to learn | 16:15 |
| Zimdale | On both sides of the table | 16:15 |
| cmaloney | And I don't mean some douchey "crack the coding interview" sort of thing | 16:15 |
| Zimdale | it would be nice if there were more resources out there debunking a lot of people's idea of "what is the right programmer" | 16:15 |
| cmaloney | I mean something where both sides of the table are genuine with each other | 16:16 |
| cmaloney | God yes. | 16:16 |
| cmaloney | Problem I've seen a lot of is "we need to fill the (whomever) shaped hole that left" | 16:16 |
| Zimdale | Yeah | 16:16 |
| Zimdale | when we were interviewing we were looking for people with similar experiences and qualities as the rest of the team had | 16:17 |
| cmaloney | So, (whomever) was an expert at (technology). We need more of that. | 16:17 |
| Zimdale | and often overlooked that diversity actually lends itself more to problem solving than the exact same experiences as your "best dev" | 16:17 |
| Zimdale | A lot of it is sad because it's definitely not intentional, it's mostly just not realizing that it's possible | 16:19 |
| cmaloney | Totally | 16:19 |
| Zimdale | That someone with far less experience than you could solve a problem better than you can just because they come from a different background | 16:20 |
| cmaloney | One of the "fun"questions I was asked at lunch for an interview was "Marvel vs. DC" and "Star Wars vs. Star Trek". | 16:20 |
| cmaloney | "I don't read comics" tends to land flat. | 16:20 |
| cmaloney | Oh yeah | 16:20 |
| Zimdale | Yeah that sounds like a "break awkward silence" question | 16:20 |
| cmaloney | JoDee and I have joked that these "Data Scientist" positions wouold be best with both of us | 16:21 |
| cmaloney | she's a physicist / astronomer that doesn't have the programming background | 16:21 |
| cmaloney | I have the programming background but I need Free42 to compute how much a 32oz bag of coffee costs per ounce. | 16:21 |
| cmaloney | Together we're perfect for the role. | 16:21 |
| cmaloney | Hell, one of JoDee's friends teaches math, but he's struggling to get the programming experience | 16:22 |
| Zimdale | I struggled at math and do programming \o/ | 16:22 |
| cmaloney | so you've already limited yourself to a) folks that just came out of college b) with programming experience c) and fresh stats experience | 16:23 |
| Zimdale | I enjoy how much the default idea of CS falls flat all the time. | 16:23 |
| cmaloney | JoDee took a look at my transcripts from Hope. She was mortified at my math grades. | 16:23 |
| cmaloney | One coding test I had was how many 1 inch straws (matches) could one put together to make a rectangle | 16:25 |
| cmaloney | and what was the largest area that rectangle could cover | 16:25 |
| cmaloney | Which is an awesome question for someone who got a C in Algebra and a D- in Calc II | 16:26 |
| Zimdale | wat | 16:28 |
| Zimdale | That's weird | 16:28 |
| Zimdale | is the answer 6? | 16:28 |
| cmaloney | You were given a numbmer of straws (matches) and had to compute it out | 16:28 |
| Zimdale | oh | 16:28 |
| cmaloney | So for 9 matches the answer was 3 | 16:29 |
| Zimdale | Yeah I still don't understand that | 16:30 |
| cmaloney | Right | 16:30 |
| cmaloney | So it assumes a few things | 16:30 |
| cmaloney | 1) That you remember how to compute area | 16:30 |
| cmaloney | (Length * Width) | 16:30 |
| Zimdale | ohhhhhhh | 16:31 |
| Zimdale | I missed the "and what was the largest area that rectangle could cover | 16:31 |
| cmaloney | 2) That you're mathematically savvy enough to come up with an algorithm wherin you can determine if the number of matches that still make up a rectangle | 16:32 |
| cmaloney | Oh, and it's timed | 16:32 |
| cmaloney | and you get three tries to submit code | 16:32 |
| cmaloney | and you can't leave the window without a stern warning that you'll end the test if you do | 16:33 |
| Zimdale | so you can't use the googs? | 16:33 |
| cmaloney | Nope. | 16:34 |
| cmaloney | (at least, not on that machine. ;) ) | 16:34 |
| Zimdale | fuck that noise | 16:34 |
| Zimdale | My favorite one to give was a piglatin translator and they were allowed to use google | 16:34 |
| cmaloney | That makes sense | 16:35 |
| Zimdale | It was simple enough that most people could figure it out one way or another and was fast enough where people could go back and improve their code on site | 16:35 |
| cmaloney | Yeah, those are simple rules to follow | 16:35 |
| cmaloney | and it does some simple string manipulation | 16:36 |
| Zimdale | yup | 16:36 |
| Zimdale | Just take the first letter drop it at the end and add ay | 16:36 |
| cmaloney | and if it's not 100% correct at least you get an idea of where they were coming from | 16:36 |
| Zimdale | then do some shit with case and multiple words | 16:36 |
| cmaloney | there's rules for vowels | 16:36 |
| cmaloney | apple-ay | 16:36 |
| Zimdale | Yeah we never bothered with those | 16:36 |
| Zimdale | It was enough where we could weed out people that couldn't program at all pretty easily | 16:37 |
| Zimdale | Like if you struggled through the creation of a function, chances are you shouldn't be trying to get into a sr role | 16:37 |
| cmaloney | THing is you could do that easily with "sum the first 100 numbers" | 16:37 |
| cmaloney | or "write a for loop to sing 99 bottles of beer" | 16:38 |
| cmaloney | here's a function with the text | 16:38 |
| Zimdale | Yeah | 16:38 |
| Zimdale | we did this one but write an algorithm to solve it http://thescienceexplorer.com/technology/can-you-solve-1000-school-lockers-riddle | 16:39 |
| cmaloney | I don't like Fizz Buzz because it relies heavily on modulus, but it's not too horrible | 16:39 |
| Zimdale | fizz buzz is too well known to realistically use it | 16:40 |
| Zimdale | and yeah modulus that I have almost never used professionally | 16:40 |
| cmaloney | I don't like the locker one without the solution being presented | 16:41 |
| Zimdale | The locker one is pretty easy if you're writing an algorithm for it | 16:43 |
| cmaloney | Oh, I see | 16:43 |
| Zimdale | just an array of 1000 booleans | 16:43 |
| cmaloney | Right | 16:43 |
| Zimdale | and iterating through it | 16:43 |
| cmaloney | That's not too horrible | 16:43 |
| cmaloney | and then count up the ones that are still left in the "open" state | 16:43 |
| Zimdale | yup | 16:44 |
| Zimdale | just asking it and expecting them to do it in their head would be bad | 16:44 |
| cmaloney | Well, and you can ask them to scale it up | 16:44 |
| cmaloney | 10,000 lockers | 16:44 |
| cmaloney | not necessarily understand the "it's the squares, idiot" | 16:45 |
| Zimdale | yeah | 16:45 |
| cmaloney | Yeah, I think that's fine | 16:46 |
| brousch__ | cmaloney: I had one live remote coding test and it did not go well, but I also failed a whiteboard fibonnaci | 17:23 |
| brousch__ | Turns out I didn't want that job anyways, but it still sucked | 17:23 |
| brousch__ | Oh, and startup with the baggage of Nokia sounds a lot like startup with the baggage of Caterpillar | 17:24 |
| brousch__ | That was a spectacular implosion | 17:24 |
| cmaloney | brousch__: Yeah, and considering they have the indigestion of ALU to go along with it... | 17:42 |
| jrwren | crazy stuff: https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for-cloud-and-iot-rather-than-phone-and-convergence/ | 17:53 |
| brousch__ | oh wow | 17:55 |
| cmaloney | I had a feeling this was coming | 17:55 |
| cmaloney | a) Microsoft has taken the lead on convergence | 17:56 |
| jrwren | lol, wut? they have? | 17:56 |
| cmaloney | The Surface is what we're calling "Convergent devices" afaict | 17:56 |
| cmaloney | aka tablets with keyboards = laptops | 17:57 |
| cmaloney | b) THe Phone Carriers in the USA are dicks | 17:57 |
| brousch__ | It makes sense, but dropping Unity surprises me | 17:57 |
| cmaloney | so getting one of them to take a risk is not happening | 17:58 |
| cmaloney | It was a dead-end | 17:58 |
| cmaloney | I wonder if this is also the end of Mir | 17:58 |
| brousch__ | I always hated it, but some people liked it | 17:58 |
| cmaloney | I grew to like Unity | 18:05 |
| cmaloney | It has a certain NeXT charm to it | 18:05 |
| jrwren | I'm still not really sure what unity ever was. people always compared to gnome or kde, but those are whole app environments. AFAICT unity was only ever the launcher bar, WM and LD_PRELOAD hacks to move the main menu. That is a far cry from comprehensive nature of gnome or kde. | 18:09 |
| jcastro | it was basically a gnome fork | 18:10 |
| jrwren | really? it was a fork of the gnome project, with all the same goals? That is a rather lofty set of goals. | 18:10 |
| jcastro | well, it had compiz as the window manager | 18:11 |
| jcastro | but like, the menu and stuff wasn't accepted upstream so we had to carry old versions of gnome with patches | 18:11 |
| cmaloney | I have to say, the menu in the top bar is my favorite feature | 18:12 |
| cmaloney | (title-bar? notsomuch) | 18:12 |
| cmaloney | That's a rough decision to make though. I give Mark credit for falling on his sword like that | 18:14 |
| cmaloney | Something tells me that re-writing Unity in Qt was a PITA though | 18:14 |
| jcastro | I always switch it to the title bar and then always-on | 18:14 |
| cmaloney | ugh | 18:15 |
| greg-g | from a coworker: "Ubuntu is giving up on Unity and going back to Gnome. not many differences to Debian left after that?" ;) | 18:46 |
| greg-g | I replied with "Landscape ;)" | 18:46 |
| jrwren | soooo many differences. | 18:46 |
| jrwren | i should make a list of differences to remind me. :) | 18:47 |
| cmaloney | heh | 18:50 |
| jrwren | does debian even cloudimg? :) | 18:57 |
| cmaloney | https://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/76463369/do-you-even-lift-guy-debian-do-you-even-cloudimg.jpg | 18:59 |
| jrwren | oh no. | 19:01 |
| jrwren | lol, did you just... make that? | 19:01 |
| cmaloney | Yes | 19:01 |
| greg-g | meme generators are quick like that :) | 19:02 |
| cmaloney | ;) | 19:02 |
| brousch__ | I like https://memegen.link/ | 19:02 |
| brousch__ | But that meme isn't on there | 19:02 |
| jrwren | debian does cloud: https://wiki.debian.org/Cloud/SystemsComparison | 19:03 |
| gamerchick02 | computer almost set back up completely woohoo | 22:15 |
| cmaloney | Cool | 22:25 |
| gamerchick02 | very! | 22:37 |
| gamerchick02 | i'm installing steam games and Assassin's Creed Black Flag right now | 22:37 |
| gamerchick02 | my internet connection is getting hammered. lol | 22:37 |
| greg-g | when your personal browser profile's collection of tabs is just a sad reminder of things you won't get done... | 22:53 |
| greg-g | where "personal" == "non-work" | 22:54 |
| jrwren | gamerchick02: what was the deal? bad mobo? | 22:54 |
| gamerchick02 | i... i... knocked the connection off the on/off switch pins *hangs head in shame* | 22:54 |
| gamerchick02 | lol greg-g | 22:55 |
| greg-g | 4 tabs on a topic and WP article to improve, a tab for a review of your favorite podcast, I guess that's really it for now, it felt like more | 22:56 |
| gamerchick02 | heh | 22:56 |
| gamerchick02 | i have a habit of opening articles. but then i'll stick them in instapaper and... forget about them sometimes | 22:56 |
| greg-g | yeah, there's a couple "to-read" in there as well | 22:57 |
| gamerchick02 | but regarding the computer, i can't believe i did what i did and then schlepped the whole thing down to microcenter for them to tell me that i accidently unhooked the on/off button. | 22:57 |
| gamerchick02 | no new mobo or chip or power supply so i guess that's good. i almost wanted it to be that. i'd at least get an upgrade out of it, you know? | 22:58 |
| jrwren | gamerchick02: dang!!! I hope they didn't charge you to much for that. Glad you are up and running again. | 23:09 |
| gamerchick02 | $40 | 23:34 |
| jrwren | not too bad. | 23:35 |
| gamerchick02 | no not at all | 23:36 |
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