I’ll simplify for manhattan and extrapolate for the four outer boroughs. Ten avenues, a hundred streets. A thousand blocks? One cab per block? One thousand cabs in manhattan? 5,000 total?
That sort of estimation feels a lot easier to me than the "golf balls in a baseball stadium one" that was mentioned by the parent because it's dealing with quantities I can recall having heard before like "how many streets are there in Manhattan" rather than measurements that personally would never stick in my head like "how wide is a golf ball". I'm not sure why, but I've always been awful at making even rough estimates of units. If you gave me the diameter of a golf ball and the dimensions of the stadium, I could do some basic calculations, but even though I physically know about how large a golf ball is, I couldn't tell you whether it's more likely that its diameter is 0.5 or 1.5" (and not having looked it up, I would believe you if you told me it wasn't even within that range)! This gets worse with units I can't visualize (like weight), and when the sizes get larger than I can easy relate to; if you asked me questions like how much a car weighs or how long the Brooklyn Bridge is, I'm doubtful I'd even be within a factor of 2 more often than not.
I'm probably taking this more seriously than it was intended above, but the idea that this is some sort of proxy for "thinking" or "intelligence" feels off to me; doing the math given the size of something might be thinking or intelligence, but knowing roughly "how big" something is seems more like intuition.
I kind of figure a centimeter is about the width of a pinky, then I try to gauge how many pinkies fit in some distance, and go by that. I'd imagine a golf ball is about 4cm in diameter, though I haven't seen one in years.
Yeah, I don't feel confident in the idea that my pinky is around 1/4 of a golf ball. It could be 1/6, or 1/2, or nowhere close to either. A lot of this seems to be an exercise in how confident someone is about arbitrary guesses, and it seems weird to me that a higher willingness to make assumptions is somehow correlated with raw intellect. If someone wants me to do the math with a completely made up number, I can do that, but at that point it seems like the true test is figuring out whether the person asking the question actually cares about the accuracy of the answer or not, and that seems more about the social aspect of an interview. That isn't to say that what it's measuring isn't useful, but I think as someone on the spectrum, it's hard for me not to have a strong reaction to the idea that it's purely a measure of intelligence.
I had a great boss who really liked that kind of question. I disagreed with him. I would rather have someone who knows how to find the official answer online and verify the quality of the source.
The ability to estimate within an order of magnitude or within 2X is vastly more valuable, and beyond being able to have a sense of whether the "official" answer is likely accurate or off by orders of magnitude.
During most of the process of designing anything in or that touches the physical world, you are using rough figures.
Taking time to get the fully accurate and precise answer for every question is a waste of time as you don't need that many decimals of precision to move forward. Every decimal of precision in the answer takes more time and there are MANY of those questions, so being 100% accurate in every answer does not scale.
Of course, when it gets to the end of the process, the accuracy & precision requirements increase, but the emphasis needs to be placed where needed, not everywhere.
Plus, you are not going to find the "official" and accurate number of golf balls in the particular school bus you want to model. You'll find some vaguely similar answer or set of sub-answers, so sure, those will be fully accurate and precise, but THEN you must take those as inputs for your estimate, and we're back to the skill of estimating being most critical.
Being able to estimate and do sound back-of-the-envelope calculations is the far more critical skill, at least on any team I'm building.
Ideally I think the ability to come up with a quick off-the-cuff guess that is correct to one order of magnitude and then find and verify the specific answer are nicely complementary.
No. The bar exam is an outdated, gatekeeping, hazing mechanism that requires rote memorization and application of blackletter law and is altogether unrelated to the practice of law.
However, it wouldn't hurt to shorten law school from three to two years. The third year is a waste.
>The ridiculousness of having to send formulaic, bullshit "thank you" emails after interviews.
Interesting. I get it, but I've never done this myself (or the had the reverse, someone send one to me).
I think it's interesting just how quickly the power dynamics of "work" change. We can shift from companies throwing money at people to sit around, people working 3 or 4 remote jobs (eventually getting fired, but finding new ones), and ghosting interviews or their first-day-of-work, to people claiming it's a "rough job market" or having to write thank you notes for getting an interview...in a matter of years.
I don't think the thank you notes are a sign of the market shift. I started seeing them from people coming fresh out of code camps, and assumed it was just some jobs-hunting coaching recommendation.
Since then I've seen a few more, but not many. I don't think I've ever waited long enough after an interview to meet with others on making a pass / offer decision for a thank you note to make a difference. Even when we had a group for a single position and there was time to pick between candidates, we at least had already passed on our feedback by the time one could be sent. At that point, I don't know that a thank you note would make a big enough difference for me to reach out and change my feedback that would put them above someone else in consideration.
Back when I was working for a company that did take home challenges, those who passed had their challenge as the topic of conversation for the final interview. For those who didn't, I gave written feedback, at least a page if not two.
My thinking was if someone took time to give me something, they deserved something in return, even if it wasn't a job.
If you have not been through the process you may not truly understand how nice (and rare) your thought process is.
Sadly I have chased up situations like that only to get told "you provided one of the strongest pieces of work, however, we decided not to proceed to interview" - or responding at all apparently.
This must be highly cultural. After you done the interview, shook hands and thanked the interviewer there in person there is little point of follow up other than an opportunity of reminding of yourself in the consideration process.
Every interviewer seems to have some set of these weird little expectations about behavior, that are basically arbitrary. Worse, some are mutually exclusive (maybe not so much in this case—though, see elsewhere in the thread where someone mentions this seems like a fresh-out-of-code-camp thing, so it might send a negative signal!) so lots of rejections end up having a reason behind them, but a very stupid reason that you can’t really defend against, to be blunt.
Bullet dodged IMO. I'd rather work somewhere where talent, productivity and genuine charisma gets me ahead instead of ass kissing (yes, it's always ass kissing... These letters are never sent out of a genuine gratitude for being able to interview with you).
I have no problem with thank you notes; I think they’re courteous and easy to send. It never hurts. If you don’t get hired you lose nothing, and if you do, you’re starting on a pleasant note.
But I would definitely want to know more about the governance of an organization that can sustain such a policy as categorically rejecting a candidate (read: contribution) for not meeting an unexpressed expectation.
As a UK interviewer I'd find them both unusual and annoying.
We already discussed you immediately after the interview. It's not going to change anything, but it might hurt your chances if it comes across as cringy or brown-nosing - we're also looking for cultural fit, and most Brits just don't do that. If you introduced new information in the email, you're probably going to force us to discuss you again, which is at best annoying and certainly burns up staff time.
So in a UK context, you're best off just saying "Great to meet you all - hope I'll get to work with you" at the end of the interview, and leave it at that.
Over 25 years as a programmer, I've only seen some very jr developers (no industry experience), do this. It's unlikely to help you in getting the position, which is why it's rare.
Some nearly 15 years ago, one of my elders told me to do this. I was later told this was the reason they picked me over someone else. That's the story of how I got a job at a megacorp. In massive companies, HR people can feel really undervalued. In a sea of a dozen of equally qualified juniors, a hand written card can tip the scale. At least then. It wouldn't have moved me and I don't know when the last time an HR person got to be the final decision maker on a hire, but that's some context.
Maybe? It just seems like good manners. Don't overdo it but as an interviewer I don't expect an email but I'd find it very normal to receive a short polite one.
Despite the title's bold claim, the article isn't very informative; it really feels like a puff piece for these pharma companies.
One thing that I think is underacknowledged in discussions of weight/fat loss is time horizon. Fad diets don't work. You can't expect to lose 30 lbs in 2 months. Set a longer time horizon. What do you want to weigh in a year (or more)? Reduce your calorie intake gradually. Weigh yourself often. Are you making progress? If not, lower your calories a litle bit more. Keep trying. Try to eat healthy foods, but there's nothing wrong with some "unhealthy" foods. Try to be active and exercise, but you don't need to be a marathon runner or powerlifter. Be fair to yourself. You gained the weight over time, so now you have to lose it over time.
I'm skeptical of the audience for such a podcast. Also, seems like it would require a lot of time that could be used to focus on the actual business. Sure, maybe you could assign someone in marketing to run it, but even then I would make sure it didn't take up too much of that person's time. And for startups with low headcounts, I'm not sure there is such a "marketing" person.
Ismailis are a real faction of muslims (they are extremely modern and a progressive sect). Alamut was a real place. The hashish and Garden part were allegations made in the old days. So I am not sure how much this book was the influence for the video game vs. the actual history.
