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sown

3,029 karma · joined May 2, 2008

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sown··on MariaDB 10.1 can do 1M queries per second
Do you use a lot of joins, writes along with the queries? I'm curious as to what might happen with other profiles.
sown··on Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices
I wonder if this is a prelude to some acquisition or merger to make the company more sellable.
sown··on My favorite interview question
This seems like kind of a trick question. The vast majority of interviewers want to hear what they want to hear, or at least have you agree.

We've all been conditioned to expect this. Then, here comes along someone with a different question where if you answer it differently, you probably don't get the job.

In my mind, I'm going to ask, "Is this a serious question? Are we just filling time?"

> Are you ready to be CEO of Google on Monday?" If they say yes, then I'll probably entertain myself by asking how they'd run the company while mentally moving on to the next candidate.

This question...it just seems so loaded and I have to disagree. I can get a 'no' vote (which is enough to end the interview process) because I give a silly answer to an uncertainly question.

If I say, "I want to build apps for non-profits" is that going to sink me during a QA interview? What if I say, "I want to enable non-profits with tech?" during a product or project manager interview? To me, both of those things are heavily intersected. But it seems like I can get stopped right there. God forbid if someone says they want to be a stay-at-home parent.

I'm going to cold read you and tell you what you want to hear.

I feel this question is less-than-helpful because it doesn't really extract any extra information yet is approached with a different angle to make the question intentionally tricky and make good candidates fail.

sown··on [dead]
This is a real and substantial hack. Most adults wouldn't think of doing this.
sown··on Reasons to Turn Down That Startup Job
> ... start something yourself. Or contribute to an open source project. Or write a book. Do something that will have your name put on it.

You say this like I've not thought about it or tried it myself. :)

It's difficult since I don't know what I don't know. I stumble around trying to figure out what I need to figure out and come to realize that I don't know what goes where.

It's also difficult because of sheer time. I spend 13-14 hours going to work, being at work, or coming home from work. Whatever suggestion you have I've probably thought about or tried, so do be considerate if you decide to reply. ;)

sown··on Reasons to Turn Down That Startup Job
> Impulse you rather

Not sure I understand.

Anyways, I've been around engineering teams for a while now and here's what I mean: there's always some principal engineer or fellow (in the terms of a title) that is greatly esteemed and admired because of decades of progressively larger and larger feature creation and system architecture/leadership.

If all I ever do is fix bugs -- forever in my career -- it means I'm not going to build anything and I don't get to be on the team that gets the people to the stars because that team is reserved for aforementioned team of people who have built a lot.

I probably shouldn't be a programmer anymore since all I'm good for is fixing bugs.

sown··on Reasons to Turn Down That Startup Job
> Being able to take an idea and turn it in to a product is a brilliant skill that startups absolutely need, but equally, once the product is out there being used, you need the other skill set to maintain the product and add new things without annoying the users.

But guess who gets the glory? :(

sown··on The US digital service
Not to be a jerk but I'm going to sound like a jerk, but know it is from a position of love: linked lists and arrays are both fundamental data structures.

At the very least you now learned about them. I want you to read this: http://mikerowe.com/2015/08/otw-rejection/

And let me relate to you: I get turned down for jobs all the time. It is not because of capricious reasons that I wish were the case, but it's because of me not knowing something. Yes, it's maddening because they throw out good candidates along with the bad to minimize risk to them. The same facts happen to me and you, but try to have the perspective on them be as positive as you can.

sown··on Open Sourcing Our SDKs
Thank goodness. I thought I was going crazy. Thank you for pointing this out to me. That jar file is not in the sdk I downloaded.
sown··on Ask HN: Is This Enough to Get a Job?
Stuff like logins are extra work the user has to do and it increases your bounce rate -- people seeing it, and then just leaving because of it.

You might want to try comparing how many people show up vs how many people register. Then you'd know.

sown··on Open Sourcing Our SDKs
As an aside, has anyone else noticed on Android SDK 1.10.0 ParseQueryAdapter seems to have disappeared?
sown··on Construction of a Highly Dependable Operating System (2006) [pdf]
This sounds kind of like an exo kernel?
sown··on Profiling in Python
I'm a fan of line_profiler: https://github.com/rkern/line_profiler

        % cat > l.py
        @profile
        def slow_func():
            for i in xrange(1048576):
                continue
            
            return -1
        
        @profile
        def fast_func():
            for i in xrange(10):
                continue
            
            return -1
        @profile
        def the_func():
            for i in xrange(10):
                slow_func()
                fast_func()
                
        if __name__ == "__main__":
            the_func()
            
        % kernprof -l l.py
        % python -m line_profiler l.py.lprof
          Timer unit: 1e-06 s
            
            Total time: 5.21814 s
            File: l.py
            Function: slow_func at line 1
            
            Line #      Hits         Time  Per Hit   % Time  Line Contents
            ==============================================================
                    1                                           @profile
                    2                                           def slow_func():
                    3  10485770      2644263      0.3     50.7      for i in xrange(1048576):
                    4  10485760      2573875      0.2     49.3          continue
                    5                                               
                    6        10            5      0.5      0.0      return -1
            
            Total time: 8.9e-05 s
            File: l.py
            Function: fast_func at line 8
            
            Line #      Hits         Time  Per Hit   % Time  Line Contents
            ==============================================================
                    8                                           @profile
                    9                                           def fast_func():
                    10       110           61      0.6     68.5      for i in xrange(10):
                    11       100           26      0.3     29.2          continue
                    12                                               
                    13        10            2      0.2      2.2      return -1
            
            Total time: 10.5501 s
            File: l.py
            Function: the_func at line 14
            
            Line #      Hits         Time  Per Hit   % Time  Line Contents
            ==============================================================
                    14                                           @profile
                    15                                           def the_func():
                    16        11            3      0.3      0.0      for i in xrange(10):
                    17        10     10549853 1054985.3    100.0          slow_func()
                    18        10          203     20.3      0.0          fast_func()
sown··on Airbnb, My $1B Lesson
I think it's actually makes you look secure in your self, maybe even a bit gutsy. I'm not sure what the right word would be here, but it I like it.

Someday, I hope to join the ranks of VCs but I figure I need to figure things out first.

sown··on Airless Tires Roll Towards Consumer Vehicles
I remember seeing this concept appear over the years. I suppose this means they solved heat dissipation and vibration issues?
sown··on Firefox makes click-to-activate Flash the default
I just noticed notice in the browser window. I didn't recall seeing it earlier so when I saw this headline, I clicked on the link.

I chuckled when I saw this: http://i.imgur.com/CHqRSEZ.png

:)

sown··on Reality doesn’t exist until it is measured, quantum experiment finds
What does this mean? If there was a supernova eons ago in another galaxy and I'm the only human who had been hit by a cosmic ray, does that mean it didn't exist or happen until ... ?

Does measurement have to include an agent? Could measurement mean interaction with other atoms?

sown··on Ask HN: How do you familiarize yourself with a new codebase?
I only recently developed this skill a little.

The Ruby application server I looked at was for doing social network feeds. Posts/Likes/Comments go in, feeds come out.

I followed some common code paths for things such as posting a comment and getting a feed. I would write the stack trace down on paper as I went.

It also helped that I happen to know that this ruby server used wisper and sidekiq. This way I didn't overlook single lines of code such as 'publish: yada yada'

sown··on Ask HN: Do you expect interviewees to “ace” whiteboard coding exercises?
> f you can't figure it out yourself but ask me questions, if you try a simpler problem first, if you talk and explain what you are doing, if you run your ideas with me asking what I think, if you are determined to figure it out, ask for hints and immediately understand them and get this "aha" moment of how didn't I think of it rather than oh sucks I didn't think of it.

I don't understand what you mean with this sentence. Is this a good thing or not?

> If you are excited about the solution more than the fact I gave you hints for it,

Is this the best way? Gauging a person's emotional response? I'm pretty reserved in general and don't show emotions, but I do get fascinated internally by things, even if I don't intuitively show it. I just don't know how.

It feels like I'm being discriminated against because I'm not an extrovert cheerleader. Now that I know this, I can certainly act happy and excited, just for you.

But that's it: it's acting. I don't understand.

sown··on How Naughty Dog Fit Crash Bandicoot into 2MB of RAM on the PS1
Time + Internet = A smaller world that doesn't forget
sown··on The 100-year-old scientist who pushed the FDA to ban artificial trans fat
Maybe just luck, along with good diet and exercise. He looks better than my grandpa did at 70.
sown··on Coding Boot Camp Enrollment Soars as Students Seek Tech Jobs
> Curate your portfolio, show only your best work.

You say these things like I hadn't thought of them. :p :)

sown··on Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but...
> It's about gaming the system to get a job. When you are in a position to hire other people, you can worry about a less awful method to select candidates.

That's true. I have other features that reduces my chances of getting hired, but doesn't eliminate them. Still, I wish I had someone else's mind.

sown··on Coding Boot Camp Enrollment Soars as Students Seek Tech Jobs
> Indeed. So all the talk about C and C++ vs Java and C# was just an excuse. I am willing to bet there are more excuses hiding.

Maybe. That was another poster, though. :) For me, I've spent most of my career fixing bugs. not much new code development. I'm trying to do more in that direction but I lack real honest development experience, even several years into it. I didn't even know design patterns were a thing until recently. shrug.

> By the way, I'm happy to give mock interviews and refer people to my employer.

I might do that. Thanks for the offer.

> I'd be immediately put off by you not learning on your own.. > ...was just an excuse. I am willing to bet there are more excuses hiding.

However, I get the impression you'd hate working with me or near me. I'm kind of slow; I have to take things in kind piece wise until I understand them. It appears to people on the outside that I am a dullard, I suspect. I try to work hard as I can, but people at Google, and you I bet, are smarter and harder working than me. :)

sown··on Coding Boot Camp Enrollment Soars as Students Seek Tech Jobs
> No experience? Make a portfolio of your work.

Yes, I've been doing that. I get close to getting hired often this year but they usually find some reason to not hire me. "We think you're a great hire, a really smart person, but ..."

Anyways, having a portfolio is no guarantee, or even a help. The only time people really look at it is if they are already close to hiring you. As in, they really, really want to but there's something else stopping them. Other than that, no one looks at a portfolio.

A good github will not save me, maybe not help me, but can definitely hurt me if they don't like what they see.

I was already told by one potential employer that some code I had written in a pinch for a project looked wrong so no hire.

sown··on Coding Boot Camp Enrollment Soars as Students Seek Tech Jobs
> If you think that's important, why didn't you fix that in the mean time? Knowing nothing else about you, I'd be immediately put off by you not learning on your own..

Speaking as someone in a similar situation, even after I learn what I can, it's still difficult to get a job using the newer languages I've learned. I know that I don't know what I don't know; perhaps I'm missing something, but it's still difficult to convince employers to hire when you've got no experience.

sown··on Inverting Binary Trees Considered Harmful
This burns a little as I got turned down for a job I think I would have done really well at. I'm wondering what I did wrong exactly. I accepted defeat as graciously as I could but I don't know what my future holds.

I love programming but I'm wondering if programming doesn't love me.

sown··on Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but...
> How is it the best way if you are not going to be writing code on a whiteboard on a daily basis on the job you are going to be interviewing for?

It's not. I hate whiteboarding as much as you but I try not to think of it that way. This method is just a way to increase your chances of succeeding. I've not succeeded in every interview, for sure.

I do what I must to press on. :(

The best thing to do is not to take the rejection personally. I always ask, as nicely as possible, what areas I should focus on to improve for the future.

Sometimes I get no response but I often get replies, good replies.

We do what we must.

sown··on Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but...
> Google is filled with smart people.. but their interview process is pretty stupid.

My guess is that they're unable or unwilling to improve the process but they don't really have to since they're deluged with candidates.

sown··on Nantero comes out of stealth mode: Carbon nanotube based non-volatile RAM
> To be fair, you can say this about pretty much anything. But unlike microbeads, which are intended to be flushed, nobody is suggesting that it would be a good idea to release them into the environment.

Very true. I'm surrounded by stainless steel but I don't get chromium poisoning. I'm just worried about side effects, about extra CWNT getting out into the open, like how prescription drugs are appearing in the environment.

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