Re: Math challenge
RichD
> How many railroad cars of gravel would it take to fill the lower 9th
> ward to sea level?
During job interviews, Microsoft used to present brain
twisters to candidates (maybe still do), looking for
ingenuity, resourcefulness, etc.
One item: "How would you move Mt. Fuji?"
You are an interviewee. How do you answer?
--
Rich
Spehro Pefhany
Jump up and down. The amount of required motion is not specified, so
any amount will do (perhaps a billionth of the diameter of an
electron).
osmium
Find a computer and type the query
"how do you move mount fuji"
in as a Google search target.
lang...@fonz.dk
"where do you want it?"
:)
-Lasse
Androcles
"RichD" <r_dela...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:c88f2b14-ed0b-4248...@l20g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
0> Move Mt. Fuji relative to what?
1> No need, Mt. Fuji is already moving by natural erosion.
2> Pick up a pebble that was part of Mt. Fuji.
3> One snowflake at a time.
4> If Mt. Fuji won't go to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to Mt. Fuji.
5> Take a photograph on Fujifilm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujifilm
Michael A. Terrell
Take a photo, print it and lay it on the interviewer's desk.
--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.
Ben Pfaff
> One item: "How would you move Mt. Fuji?"
>
> You are an interviewee. How do you answer?
"I don't think that would approved by the environmental review
board."
--
Ben Pfaff
http://benpfaff.org
Pascal J. Bourguignon
Relative to what?
If it's relative to any thing smaller than it, I'd try to move the
smaller thing first. ;-)
Where to?
If we just want an horizontal translation, I would pierce parallel
tunnels underneath, and place wheeled supports, and then pierce other
parallel tunnels between the first tunnels, and place wheeled
supports, and so on until there remains no rock between the parallel
tunnels. Then the mount would be over my wheeled supports, and I
could drive it someplace where (of course, in the mean time a very
large road would have been build to the destination.
Now, Mt Fuji is 3776 m high, so the weight under the summit would be
about 5*3776 = 18880 tons. Perhaps we can't make wheeled supports
strong enough. In this case we could use a bath of mercury. We would
have to pierce only little holes, fill them with mercury, and pierce
other little holes in between, etc until the mount is detached and
flots on the mercury (eg. like the Eiffel Tower). Then we would just
have to make a mercury canal where to we want to move it, and call
Tokyo metro pushers to push the mount. (In case of countrary wind, we
could pump out the mercury and let the mount stand in the canal bed.)
If we want a vertical translation, I would go for the cut and slice
method, using big lasers, I would cut it in little cubes, and wrap
them up, and call UPS or Arianespace, depending on the destination.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
mpm
That's easy.
I would just open up any Microsoft mapping program and point out that
they had the coordinates wrong!
-mpm
Dirk Bruere at NeoPax
--
Dirk
http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onetribe - Occult Talk Show
Tim Wescott
"Tell Bill Gates that Oracle was making money with it where it is".
(I would rather starve than work at Microsoft).
--
Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com
Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" was written for you.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html
Dan
I think that such a question serves more to study how you will
"respond" to such an open-ended question while under pressure than it
is to see what type of technical solution you may come up with. In
fact, attempting to answer in a technical way may just open the door
nice and wide so that you can walk out and away from the unsuccessful
interview ( unless of course, you think anyone can easily just pop
off a viable technical way to move a mountain while sitting in an
interview ).
:-)
>
> --
> Rich
quasi
Exactly.
My immediate reaction would be that the question is being posed as a
test of judgement (and maturity).
Thus, my answer, with almost no delay:
"You don't! Next question?"
quasi
Moi
I don't even know where mount Fugi is.
I know the mont Ventoux
and maybe a few others
but is it important ?
maybe I could generalize:
give me a fixed point and I could move the universe
AvK
[Oh, and I don't want to work for microsoft. Just in case]
whit3rd
> One item: "How would you move Mt. Fuji?"
>
> You are an interviewee. How do you answer?
A peak is typically located by the coordinates of the
highest spot. If it's a smooth peak, the sensitivity of
that high spot is large to the movement of relatively
small amounts of material. So, small motions are easy.
Travel cost is large, though, I'd hire a local agency to
perform the work, and maybe a second to inspect it.
Joel Koltner
news:2d201217-8c49-4b66...@d8g2000yqf.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 2, 10:42 am, RichD <r_delaney2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>I think that such a question serves more to study how you will
>"respond" to such an open-ended question while under pressure than it
>is to see what type of technical solution you may come up with.
You're probably right.
>In
>fact, attempting to answer in a technical way may just open the door
>nice and wide so that you can walk out and away from the unsuccessful
>interview
I'd prefer to work for a company where, if you have a would-be customer who
asks something along the lines of, "How do I move Mt. Fuji?" (i.e., some
near-impossible task), they're being serious and fully expect you to come up
with a serious answer rather than being cute or clever and telling them you'll
give them a photo of the mountain or that you don't need to do anything at all
because the Earth is constantly in motion anyway.
Of course, when someone asks you to do something that's close to impossible,
the only serious response is that you first need to find out a lot more
details as to what the problem really is and what the constraints are; in the
case of Mt. Fuji it's pretty self-evident that the first barrier you'll have
to moving the mountain is far more political than technical -- until you get
permission to move it, there's little point in spending many engineering
dollars worrying about how it's going to be done! (It's not uncommon for a
customer to e.g., ask you to move Mt. Fuji when in actuality all they want to
do is build a railroad from one side of it to the other and it's actually
perfectly acceptable to bore a tunnel through it, which ends up being far
faster/earier/cheaper.)
---Joel
Les Cargill
So M$ is full of people who didn't answer "I don't."
Makes lots of sense.
--
Les Cargill
Sjouke Burry
quasi
Or maybe they're also testing for a sense of humor (in which case, I
like Sjouke Burry's simple response "Piece by piece").
quasi
Gene
wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Sep 2010 11:42:25 -0700 (PDT), RichD
>
Or take a bucket of earth from the north face and dump it on the
south.
Tim Wescott
> On 02/09/2010 19:50, osmium wrote:
>> "RichD" wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On Sep 2, Joe Snod<joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> How many railroad cars of gravel would it take to fill the lower 9th
>>>> ward to sea level?
>>>
>>> During job interviews, Microsoft used to present brain
>>> twisters to candidates (maybe still do), looking for
>>> ingenuity, resourcefulness, etc.
>>>
>>> One item: "How would you move Mt. Fuji?"
>>>
>>> You are an interviewee. How do you answer?
>>
>> Find a computer and type the query
>> "how do you move mount fuji"
>> in as a Google search target.
>>
>>
> Bing - next...
No, Bing is connected to Yahoo, not Google.
(Microsoft now does all the searches for Yahoo, which explains why my
Altavista searches are broken. So now I have to find out if Google
advanced search is any good).
m II
> No, Bing is connected to Yahoo, not Google.
>
> (Microsoft now does all the searches for Yahoo, which explains why my
> Altavista searches are broken. So now I have to find out if Google
> advanced search is any good).
>
http://ixquick.com/eng/power-search.html
and, as a bonus, they promise not to spy on you.
mike
dagmarg...@yahoo.com
Spehro already took the best answer. Hmmm.
Answer #1:
"With a haiku." (Or perhaps a sonnet.)
Answer #2:
"Why are some doves white?" (Whereupon the interviewer, stunned,
suddenly reaches enlightenment.)
--
Cheers,
James Arthur
m II
m II wrote:
> http://ixquick.com/eng/power-search.html
>
>
> and, as a bonus, they promise not to spy on you.
It just keeps getting better and better....
http://ixquick.com/eng/advanced-search.html
mike
Daniel T.
Tell me how you would gauge whether or not I succeeded, and I will tell
you how I'll move it.
Test first mountain moving anybody? :-)
Jon
"Daniel T." <dani...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:daniel_t-FBF87B...@70-3-168-216.pools.spcsdns.net...
Use a mustard seed?
Francesco S. Carta
> On Sep 2, Joe Snod<joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> How many railroad cars of gravel would it take to fill the lower 9th
>> ward to sea level?
>
> During job interviews, Microsoft used to present brain
> twisters to candidates (maybe still do), looking for
> ingenuity, resourcefulness, etc.
>
> One item: "How would you move Mt. Fuji?"
>
> You are an interviewee. How do you answer?
Carefully :-)
---
In the page...
http://www.careerknowhow.com/interviewtips/mtfuji.htm
...the section about "The impossible question" reports these (formatted
and numbered here for convenience)...
> 1) How many piano tuners are there in the world?
> 2) If the Star Trek transporter was for real, how would that affect the transportation industry?
> 3) Why does a mirror reverse right and left instead of up and down?
> 4) If you could remove any of the fifty U.S. states, which would it be?
> 5) Why are beer cans tapered on the ends?
> 6) How long would it take to move Mount Fuji?
...then the excerpt continues so...
> In the human resources trade, some of these riddles are privately known as impossible questions.
...and that's so weird... everybody knows that:
1) there are no piano tuners at all on Earth, because
2) they were all transported to a Klingon spaceship when
3) mirrors revealed their stupidly/reflective paradox in
4) the fifty-first state, where the interviewee
5) finished inspecting the inside of the last can and
6) asked back "the one on the left, or that on the right?"
--
FSC - http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/59948
http://fscode.altervista.org - http://sardinias.com
pete
>
> On Sep 2, Joe Snod <joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > How many railroad cars of gravel would it take to fill the lower 9th
> > ward to sea level?
>
> During job interviews, Microsoft used to present brain
> twisters to candidates (maybe still do), looking for
> ingenuity, resourcefulness, etc.
>
> One item: "How would you move Mt. Fuji?"
>
> You are an interviewee. How do you answer?
Shoot the hostage.
--
pete
PeterD
BTW, the *correct* answer is:
"Why would I want to move it again?"
This answer demonstrates that the applicant has a positive attitude
about his/her abilities and feels they can do anything. Often in life,
success is based on attitude first, then abilities. Of course if an
application has a great attitude but has no abilities you still would
not hire him/her, but that attitude would be a determining factor!
Androcles
"PeterD" <pet...@hipson.net> wrote in message
news:43r1869lhpfsrlm50...@4ax.com...
| On Thu, 2 Sep 2010 11:42:25 -0700 (PDT), RichD
| <r_dela...@yahoo.com> wrote:
|
| >On Sep 2, Joe Snod <joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
| >> How many railroad cars of gravel would it take to fill the lower 9th
| >> ward to sea level?
| >
| >During job interviews, Microsoft used to present brain
| >twisters to candidates (maybe still do), looking for
| >ingenuity, resourcefulness, etc.
| >
| >One item: "How would you move Mt. Fuji?"
| >
| >You are an interviewee. How do you answer?
|
| BTW, the *correct* answer is:
|
| "Why would I want to move it again?"
|
| This answer demonstrates that the applicant has a positive attitude
| about his/her abilities and feels they can do anything.
This answer demonstrates that the psychotic egomaniac has a
positive attitude about his/her abilities and feels they can do
the impossible.
Engineering is teamwork, no one person can design a plane, a car
or a cruise liner. A primadonna like that would be disruptive and
upset the other team members.
Everyone knows that ant can't move a rubber tree plant! (but
the entire colony can).
Don't call us, we'll call you. Next, please.
Sylvia Else
> On Sep 2, Joe Snod<joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> How many railroad cars of gravel would it take to fill the lower 9th
>> ward to sea level?
>
> During job interviews, Microsoft used to present brain
> twisters to candidates (maybe still do), looking for
> ingenuity, resourcefulness, etc.
Can't imagine why. There's no evidence that they make use of it
subsequently.
Sylvia.
Spehro Pefhany
To cripple the competition. A common theme in industry (and
geopolitics).
osmium
Perhaps the people who administer the test don't know what the right answer
is either, so they give a pass to the wrong people?
The Fuji question still seems pointless to me.
m II
>> During job interviews, Microsoft used to present brain
>> twisters to candidates (maybe still do), looking for
>> ingenuity, resourcefulness, etc.
>
> Can't imagine why. There's no evidence that they make use of it
> subsequently.
Perhaps if they did software engineering instead of imaginary mountain
moving..
How does a company get so far with such horrible products? If a car
company's products had even a small percentage of Microsoft's flaws,
they would have been bankrupt or sued out of existence YEARS ago.
"That's not a huge turd...It's a FEATURE"
B. Gates
mike
George Herold
> On Sep 2, Joe Snod <joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > How many railroad cars of gravel would it take to fill the lower 9th
> > ward to sea level?
>
> twisters to candidates (maybe still do), looking for
> ingenuity, resourcefulness, etc.
>
>
> You are an interviewee. How do you answer?
>
> Rich
Sorry I don't know the area of the 9th ward nor it's hieght above or
below sea level.
But if I wanted to rasie the height by say 10 feet I'd guess about 200
rail cars per acre. (Assuming a rail car is about 10'x10'x20')
George H.
George Herold
Ahh moving mount Fuji, My wife claims that I sometimes "make the
earth move for her", so I would book a second honeymoon on Mount Fuji
and we would keep at it till it moved.
George H.
Rui Maciel
> Perhaps the people who administer the test don't know what the right
> answer is either, so they give a pass to the wrong people?
I believe that that is the case with all the employment decisions made exclusively by HR
departments/consultants. In those cases you get your employment decisions being made by incompetent
people who are absolutely clueless about what they are dealing with.
Rui Maciel
Rui Maciel
> How does a company get so far with such horrible products? If a car
> company's products had even a small percentage of Microsoft's flaws,
> they would have been bankrupt or sued out of existence YEARS ago.
Any company can succeed, no matter how crappy their product/service is, as long as it is the only
company supplying a market.
Rui Maciel
Androcles
"Rui Maciel" <rui.m...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4c8108c4$0$6947$a729...@news.telepac.pt...
Microsoft were not the only company supplying a market, they
were the FIRST company supplying software to the domestic and
small business markets. IBM had OS2 but it arrived on the scene
too late; Apple were busy playing space invaders.
Same with VHS and Betamax VCRs. Phillips had a superior 4-head
recorder but the market was swamped with VHS movies, people
were not interested in freezing frames. Now VCRs are dead,
replaced by DVDs and freezing frames is no problem. DVDs
won't last long, they'll be replaced with non-mechanical technology.
Ford sold cars that were rubbish compared to Rolls Royce, but
they worked and were cheap and acceptable to the domestic and
small business markets.
The current interest in HDTV isn't really working, it only has novelty
value. The current definition (resolution) is acceptable for watching
any old movies. News broadcasts where people are recording events
on mobile phones are scarcely "high definition TV" but better than
no images at all. We can expect to see improvements in that.
There is a threshold of acceptability which Microsoft meets
for the domestic and accountancy markets, although the purists
will always demand better quality. That costs money and I don't
need a Rolls Royce or a Formula One racing car to go grocery
shopping. I do need groceries, a Ford is acceptable and so is
Microsoft Windows.
Tim Wescott
When I was doing research for my junior thesis I got to use a library
indexing system that would let you use boolean expressions:
(control AND loop AND adaptive) NOT (steam OR PID OR sewage)
I'm still waiting for that to come to web searches.
Tim Wescott
>
Thanks -- that seems to work like Altavista used to, before they
realized they needed to make money. So as long as IxQuick's money holds
out...
Muzaffer Kal
wrote:
>On 09/02/2010 07:20 PM, m II wrote:
>>
>> m II wrote:
>>
>>> http://ixquick.com/eng/power-search.html
>>>
>>>
>>> and, as a bonus, they promise not to spy on you.
>>
>>
>> It just keeps getting better and better....
>>
>>
>> http://ixquick.com/eng/advanced-search.html
>
>When I was doing research for my junior thesis I got to use a library
>indexing system that would let you use boolean expressions:
>
>(control AND loop AND adaptive) NOT (steam OR PID OR sewage)
>
>I'm still waiting for that to come to web searches.
Waiting for some which is already here is probably a race condition,
eh?
Bing supports this (alas you can't make a link to the help page which
shows it):
"Advanced search options
Find what you're looking for in less time. Use the following symbols
to quickly modify your search term or search function:
Symbol Function
+ Finds webpages that contain all the terms that are preceded by
the + symbol. Also allows you to include terms that are usually
ignored.
" " Finds the exact words in a phrase.
() Finds or excludes webpages that contain a group of words.
AND or & Finds webpages that contain all the terms or phrases.
NOT or - Excludes webpages that contain a term or phrase.
OR or | Finds webpages that contain either of the terms or
phrases."
Also google has something pretty close.
--
Muzaffer Kal
DSPIA INC.
ASIC/FPGA Design Services
Joel Koltner
> How does a company get so far with such horrible products? If a car
> company's products had even a small percentage of Microsoft's flaws,
> they would have been bankrupt or sued out of existence YEARS ago.
They're not really "horrible," though -- I've certainly had cars that broke
down more often than Windows does these days. :-)
The other thing to keep in mind is that you're kinda comparing apples and
oranges anyway: With an operating system, you add software that interacts with
the core OS in very close relationship, yet when there's a problem people tend
to blame the OS when, in the vast majority of cases, it's really an
application bug. Certainly one can argue that the OS could and should be more
"bulletproof" wrt errant applications, but wrt cars, while there certainly are
a few people adding turbo chargers or re-programmed engine timing profiles or
similar to their vehicles, the vast majority of "vehicle accessories"
("software") in no way interacts with the main control and propulsion systems
in the vehicle.
But the point I really wanted to make is... how did Microsoft become so big
when there were technically superior products available? The answer there is
basically Steve Ballmer. The guy has always worked far harder than the
average bear to drum up sales for Microsoft, and it's a classic example of
where good marketing can easily overcome technical flaws in a system.
---JOel
Joel Koltner
news:Tv8go.30638$M56....@newsfe14.ams2...
> The current interest in HDTV isn't really working, it only has novelty
> value.
You mean over-the-air HDTV (ATSC)? That's probably true... in fact, as Joerg
likes to point out occasionally, in some ways it's worse than NTSC was.
But HDTVs (the physical televisions) have been phenomenally successful -- back
in the '80s and much of the '90s television sales were pretty stagnant, and in
the '00s LCD and plasma TVs really re-ignited the market, and high-definition
has just added to it.
> The current definition (resolution) is acceptable for watching
> any old movies.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people ready and willing to
get out their wallets to new technologies that they find *preferable*.
Especially on a big-screen, very few people would *prefer* to watch, e.g., a
VHS taped copy of a movie over the Blu-Ray version! :-)
> There is a threshold of acceptability which Microsoft meets
> for the domestic and accountancy markets, although the purists
> will always demand better quality.
The thing is, it's not really clear-cut that the Mac OS, Linux, etc. *are*
truly better quality. Linux has a lot of attraction, though, because at least
by being "open" anyone can go and take a look and decide for themselves just
what the quality level is if they care to. But the fact of life today is that
*all* major operating systems now provide regularly (weekly or monthly) *lots*
of patches and security fixes, indicating that there is no one has a monopoly
on OS quality.
> That costs money and I don't
> need a Rolls Royce or a Formula One racing car to go grocery
> shopping. I do need groceries, a Ford is acceptable and so is
> Microsoft Windows.
Yep, agreed. Outside of, "PC or Mac?," the vast majority of people don't even
what the other options *are*, and they do just fine.
---Joel
Rich Grise
> On Sep 2, Joe Snod <joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> How many railroad cars of gravel would it take to fill the lower 9th
>> ward to sea level?
>
> During job interviews, Microsoft used to present brain
> twisters to candidates (maybe still do), looking for
> ingenuity, resourcefulness, etc.
>
> One item: "How would you move Mt. Fuji?"
>
> You are an interviewee. How do you answer?
I wouldn't. I'd move the audience, like David Copperfield did
when he made the Statue of Liberty disappear. ;-)
Cheers!
Rich
Rich Grise
> "Daniel T." <dani...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>>> On Sep 2, Joe Snod <joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > How many railroad cars of gravel would it take to fill the lower 9th
>>> > ward to sea level?
>>>
>>> During job interviews, Microsoft used to present brain
>>> twisters to candidates (maybe still do), looking for
>>> ingenuity, resourcefulness, etc.
>>>
>>> One item: "How would you move Mt. Fuji?"
>>>
>>> You are an interviewee. How do you answer?
>>
>> Tell me how you would gauge whether or not I succeeded, and I will tell
>> you how I'll move it.
>>
>> Test first mountain moving anybody? :-)
>
> Use a mustard seed?
Well, that old adage isn't "With faith, you can have a mountain moved
for you;" it's "with faith, YOU can move mountains." So be sure to
bring a shovel along with your mustard seed. ;-)
Cheers!
Rich
Rich Grise
>> 3) Why does a mirror reverse right and left instead of up and down?
It doesn't. It reverses front-to-back. ;-)
Cheers!
Rich
Androcles
"Joel Koltner" <zapwireD...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:mZ9go.116330$Bh.8...@en-nntp-12.dc1.easynews.com...
| "Androcles" <Headm...@Hogwarts.physics_aa> wrote in message
| news:Tv8go.30638$M56....@newsfe14.ams2...
| > The current interest in HDTV isn't really working, it only has novelty
| > value.
|
| You mean over-the-air HDTV (ATSC)? That's probably true... in fact, as
Joerg
| likes to point out occasionally, in some ways it's worse than NTSC was.
|
| But HDTVs (the physical televisions) have been phenomenally successful --
back
| in the '80s and much of the '90s television sales were pretty stagnant,
and in
| the '00s LCD and plasma TVs really re-ignited the market, and
high-definition
| has just added to it.
Yes, but that has more to do with the volume of room space the old tube sets
took up than the image quality. It may be great to see someone's eyelash in
detailed closeup the first time you see it, but that novelty soon wears off.
| > The current definition (resolution) is acceptable for watching
| > any old movies.
|
| Yeah, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people ready and
willing to
| get out their wallets to new technologies that they find *preferable*.
| Especially on a big-screen, very few people would *prefer* to watch, e.g.,
a
| VHS taped copy of a movie over the Blu-Ray version! :-)
Sure, and I'd have a better car/computer if had more money and
wanted one, but I can't honestly say I NEED a better car. As it is
I have twin screens, a GeForce 9800 video card, a TV card, an
X-Box 360 gamepad, a joystick, steering wheel and pedals, plus
the usual printer/scanner, mouse and keyboard, and it all works just
fine. I get the occasional glitch by playing Leisure Suit Larry Box
Office Bust and the TV card doesn't work afterwards without a
reboot, but so what? I just turn the computer off and go to bed
instead of leaving it in standby as I usually do. Then there is always
the standby computer, and the old standby computer out in the
shed. The darn things are so cheap nowadays anyone can have
several, but I won't buy a laptop on the principle that I spill coffee
or vodka and coke on Ł6.95 keyboards regularly. The vodka is
more expensive and Coca Cola isn't cheap.
| > There is a threshold of acceptability which Microsoft meets
| > for the domestic and accountancy markets, although the purists
| > will always demand better quality.
|
| The thing is, it's not really clear-cut that the Mac OS, Linux, etc. *are*
| truly better quality. Linux has a lot of attraction, though, because at
least
| by being "open" anyone can go and take a look and decide for themselves
just
| what the quality level is if they care to. But the fact of life today is
that
| *all* major operating systems now provide regularly (weekly or monthly)
*lots*
| of patches and security fixes, indicating that there is no one has a
monopoly
| on OS quality.
I stopped worrying about that when I retired and swore never to write
code again. Nowadays the most I do is the occasional spreadsheet.
Francesco S. Carta
Very good, you spotted /one/ of the non-impossible questions :-)
PeterD
A chain (or team) is only as strong as its weakest link! <g>
Androcles
"How would you move Mt. Fuji?"
and payment arranged for the feasibility study.
Hire geologists to estimate the difficulties... yada yada yada...
just as it is done in normal business. Moving Mt. Fuji is just
another engineering project, much less difficult than reaching
the Moon. One presumes the Japanese want it moved for a
reason and have some idea where they want it moved to, but it
will not be cheap; it could be a lucrative contract, so there will
be competition for it. Your facetious answer will not win the
contract, you are a weak link.
k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz
<zapwireD...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>"m II" <c...@in.the.hat> wrote in message news:4c81...@news.x-privat.org...
>> How does a company get so far with such horrible products? If a car
>> company's products had even a small percentage of Microsoft's flaws,
>> they would have been bankrupt or sued out of existence YEARS ago.
>
>They're not really "horrible," though -- I've certainly had cars that broke
>down more often than Windows does these days. :-)
Odd. I certainly wouldn't have a car that crashed as often as Windows does.
>The other thing to keep in mind is that you're kinda comparing apples and
>oranges anyway: With an operating system, you add software that interacts with
>the core OS in very close relationship, yet when there's a problem people tend
>to blame the OS when, in the vast majority of cases, it's really an
>application bug.
Applications should *never* be able to bring down an OS. If that happens it
is the OS's fault anyway. OSs aren't applications and have to be held to a
higher standard, as should their programmers.
>Certainly one can argue that the OS could and should be more
>"bulletproof" wrt errant applications, but wrt cars, while there certainly are
>a few people adding turbo chargers or re-programmed engine timing profiles or
>similar to their vehicles, the vast majority of "vehicle accessories"
>("software") in no way interacts with the main control and propulsion systems
>in the vehicle.
>But the point I really wanted to make is... how did Microsoft become so big
>when there were technically superior products available? The answer there is
>basically Steve Ballmer. The guy has always worked far harder than the
>average bear to drum up sales for Microsoft, and it's a classic example of
>where good marketing can easily overcome technical flaws in a system.
If "worked far harder" == "far more crooked", perhaps. But you have Ballmer
nailed.
k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz
wrote:
Ah, that would be the right answer for Microsoft; fake it. ;-)
Androcles
<k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote in message
news:jtp486ppvru8aindh...@4ax.com...
| On Fri, 3 Sep 2010 10:01:05 -0700, "Joel Koltner"
| <zapwireD...@yahoo.com> wrote:
|
| >"m II" <c...@in.the.hat> wrote in message news:4c81...@news.x-privat.org...
| >> How does a company get so far with such horrible products? If a car
| >> company's products had even a small percentage of Microsoft's flaws,
| >> they would have been bankrupt or sued out of existence YEARS ago.
| >
| >They're not really "horrible," though -- I've certainly had cars that
broke
| >down more often than Windows does these days. :-)
|
| Odd. I certainly wouldn't have a car that crashed as often as Windows
does.
Weird. I certainly wouldn't have a computer that crashed as often as your
driving does. Perhaps if you didn't fit Ford, Toyota, GM and Zil parts
together in your car you wouldn't crash so often.
k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz
Your brain is on Windows.
Androcles
<k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote in message
news:771586hcn7fsm6mob...@4ax.com...
parked for the other 23 hours, do you? Maybe two hours tops? That's
wreckophobia (fear of fender-bender).
I leave my computer running 24/7. I certainly wouldn't have a computer
that wrecked as often as your driving does.
k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz
<Headm...@Hogwarts.physics_aa> wrote:
IKWYABWAI, is about all you can manage, I know.
>Drive your car for one hour a day, leave it
>parked for the other 23 hours, do you?
My car doesn't crash once a month, or once a year, or once a decade (or
three).
>Maybe two hours tops? That's wreckophobia (fear of fender-bender).
>I leave my computer running 24/7. I certainly wouldn't have a computer
>that wrecked as often as your driving does.
You're an idiot, too. No surprises today.
Androcles
<k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote in message
news:v045869pak6rboeph...@4ax.com...
Well, if you drove it at 50 mph for 100,000 miles it would be worn out
in 2,000 hours. At 24 hours at day that's 83 days, a little short of 3
months. Maybe you'll get 200,000 miles out of it driving for 6 months
or no miles out of it in 20 years by not driving it. Look after it, do you?
Polish it? Change the oil every 100 running hours (5,000 miles)? I don't
change the oil in my computer every 4 days, but I do blow the dust out
every 6 months.
Don't get much use out of your car, do you?
Expensive status symbol, is it?
What did you pay for it? $20,000?
My computer cost £500.
| >Maybe two hours tops? That's wreckophobia (fear of fender-bender).
| >I leave my computer running 24/7. I certainly wouldn't have a computer
| >that wrecked as often as your driving does.
|
| You're an idiot, too. No surprises today.
|
You are a babbling, whining cretin but I'm not complaining.
I certainly wouldn't have a $500 computer that wore out in three months
as your $20,000 car does.
Fuck off, moron.
RichD
> "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgro...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >how did Microsoft become so big when there were
> >technically superior products available?
> >The answer there is basically Steve Ballmer. The guy
> >has always worked far harder than the average bear
> > to drum up sales for Microsoft, and it's a classic example
> >of where good marketing can easily overcome technical
> >flaws in a system.
>
> If "worked far harder" == "far more crooked", perhaps.
> But you have Ballmer nailed.
Money talks, bullshit walks, losers.
--
RIch
Androcles
"RichD" <r_dela...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:926f7575-fcb4-4d02...@i4g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
============================
You have that right, Richard. What we are seeing from Koltner
and "k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz" (a clear shithead with that name)
is plain old jealousy and miserable bitching.
Joel Koltner
<k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote in message
news:jtp486ppvru8aindh...@4ax.com...
> Applications should *never* be able to bring down an OS. If that happens it
> is the OS's fault anyway. OSs aren't applications and have to be held to a
> higher standard, as should their programmers.
Agreed, I'm just saying that many people jump to "Windows sucks" when their
applications crash (...but the OS itself is holding up just fine...) -- many
people just don't have a very clear distinction between the OS an apps.
There's some You Tube video where someone went around asking people on the
street what a "web browser" was, and not surprisingly very few people gave
reasonably correct responses. (I think the motivation was that, to get people
to switch from Internet Explorer to FireFox or similar, and the point was that
FireFox is never going to largely display IE because most people wouldn't even
know the option to switch existed or why they'd want to...)
> If "worked far harder" == "far more crooked", perhaps. But you have Ballmer
> nailed.
:-) Yeah, his ethics may be rather questionable at times -- same as with
Gates & Jobs --, but he is a very hard-working man -- also like Gates & Jobs.
---Joel
mpm
Just because people jump to that conclusion, doesn't mean it's wrong.
Androcles
| Hi Keith,
|
| <k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote in message
| news:jtp486ppvru8aindh...@4ax.com...
| > Applications should *never* be able to bring down an OS. If that
happens it
| > is the OS's fault anyway. OSs aren't applications and have to be held
to a
| > higher standard, as should their programmers.
|
| Agreed, I'm just saying that many people jump to "Windows sucks" when
their
| applications crash (...but the OS itself is holding up just fine...) --
many
| people just don't have a very clear distinction between the OS an apps.
Yep.
Pull up Google Earth, display a streetview photograph, exit the photograph
and exit Google Earth. No problem, system normal.
Pull up Google Earth, display a streetview photograph, exit Google Earth
without exiting the photograph.
"Google Earth has encountered a problem and needs to close. Please tell
Microsoft about this problem."
Why? I'd rather tell Google about it, and anyway it's not even a problem,
Google Earth has already closed. WAHHHH! Windows SUCKS! but
of course it is minor and inconsequential glitch not worth screaming over.
Sylvia Else
> Sylvia Else wrote:
>
>>> During job interviews, Microsoft used to present brain
>>> twisters to candidates (maybe still do), looking for
>>> ingenuity, resourcefulness, etc.
>>
>> subsequently.
>
>
> Perhaps if they did software engineering instead of imaginary mountain
> moving..
>
Well, I'd say they do do software engineering. But that's all they do,
and it's pretty ordinary. In areas where some special ability is called
for (for example, defining interfaces) that ability seems noticeably absent.
All the important innovations (windowing sytems, Internet, WWW, etc.)
have come from elsewhere with Microsoft playing catchup.
Sylvia.
Lie Ryan
> On 09/02/2010 07:20 PM, m II wrote:
>>
>> m II wrote:
>>
>>> http://ixquick.com/eng/power-search.html
>>>
>>>
>>> and, as a bonus, they promise not to spy on you.
>>
>>
>> It just keeps getting better and better....
>>
>>
>> http://ixquick.com/eng/advanced-search.html
>
> When I was doing research for my junior thesis I got to use a library
> indexing system that would let you use boolean expressions:
>
> (control AND loop AND adaptive) NOT (steam OR PID OR sewage)
>
> I'm still waiting for that to come to web searches.
actually google allows you to do that, the "Advanced search" is
basically a GUI for composing these operators, but if you know the
syntax, you can do really complex queries.
+word : search for exact word (disables synonym searches)
-word : excludes pages containing the word
~word : also searches for synonyms
A OR B : matches one of A or B
A AND B : matches both A and B (default behavior when no OR)
"..." : searches for phrase in quote (instead of their words)
foo * bar: wildcard search
and there are operators like:
site: www.mysite.com : site-specific search
inurl: : search for the word in URLs
intitle: search for words in <title></title>
filetype: (e.g. pdf, doc)
related: search for pages related to another page
define: search for definitions (dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc)
the advanced search exposes many more, such as searching for page
updated between a certain time range; or distributed under specific
license; or pages from certain area; or for numbers between a certain range.
More techniques:
http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=136861
http://lifehacker.com/339474/top-10-obscure-google-search-tricks
However, frequent Googlers would notice that these advanced operators
are really rarely needed, because Google is very good at mind reading
(and sometimes it's so good, it could freak you out). For example, when
I search for "python", it directs me to python programming language
website, not to snake-taming website, while a zoo keeper usually would
get the reverse result.
Paul Hovnanian P.E.
>
[snip]
>
> I don't even know where mount Fugi is.
Not where it used to be, thanks to all those Microsoft job candidates.
--
Paul Hovnanian mailto:Pa...@Hovnanian.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
I had a dog that would chase anyone riding a bicycle.
In the end I had to take his bicycle away.
Paul Hovnanian P.E.
>
> "PeterD" <pet...@hipson.net> wrote in message
> news:43r1869lhpfsrlm50...@4ax.com...
> | On Thu, 2 Sep 2010 11:42:25 -0700 (PDT), RichD
> |
> | >On Sep 2, Joe Snod <joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> | >> How many railroad cars of gravel would it take to fill the lower 9th
> | >> ward to sea level?
> | >
> | >twisters to candidates (maybe still do), looking for
> | >ingenuity, resourcefulness, etc.
> | >
> | >
> | >You are an interviewee. How do you answer?
> |
> |
> | "Why would I want to move it again?"
> |
> | This answer demonstrates that the applicant has a positive attitude
> | about his/her abilities and feels they can do anything.
>
> This answer demonstrates that the psychotic egomaniac has a
> positive attitude about his/her abilities and feels they can do
> the impossible.
>
> Engineering is teamwork, no one person can design a plane, a car
> or a cruise liner. A primadonna like that would be disruptive and
> upset the other team members.
That's the answer*: Delegate the task to my team.
*That was the answer when I was at Boeing. Everyone is a manager
wanna-be, looking for the one poor slob who actually does some work.
--
Paul Hovnanian mailto:Pa...@Hovnanian.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
Why are so many towns named after water towers?
m II
> However, frequent Googlers would notice that these advanced operators
> are really rarely needed, because Google is very good at mind reading
> (and sometimes it's so good, it could freak you out). For example, when
> I search for "python", it directs me to python programming language
> website, not to snake-taming website, while a zoo keeper usually would
> get the reverse result.
I am a zookeeper who would LIKE to learn Python programming language,
but all I ever get on the Google results are stupid snake sites.
How can I disable the 'Mind Reading' feature on Google? Did Homeland
Security make them install it or was the communist Chinese politburo?
Will they track me even more after asking for privacy?
mike
Sylvia Else
> On Sep 2, Joe Snod<joe.s...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> How many railroad cars of gravel would it take to fill the lower 9th
>> ward to sea level?
>
> During job interviews, Microsoft used to present brain
> twisters to candidates (maybe still do), looking for
> ingenuity, resourcefulness, etc.
>
> One item: "How would you move Mt. Fuji?"
>
> You are an interviewee. How do you answer?
>
> Rich
I'd tell it a very sad story.
Sylvia.
Ian Collins
A chain takes the strain in series, a team spreads the load!
--
Ian Collins
Bill Bowden
At first I thought it would be an impossible thing to do to, but from
a google search, I found this that describes the details of moving Mt.
Fuji to Mojave, California.
http://w-uh.com/articles/030917b-really_moving_Mou.html
"Okay, we want to move Mount Fuji... So we have to make some
assumptions. First, we have to define what "moving" means. So let's
say we are going to move the entire mountain to Mojave, California.
Hey, it's desert, there's a lot of room out there.
First let's consider the overall technique. We need a bunch of
dynamite to blow up the rock. Then we need bulldozers to pick up the
rock and put it into trucks. We use the trucks to carry all the rock
to the nearest airport, where we have a fleet of 747 cargo jets
waiting (and loading equipment). From there we fly the rock to
Mojave, unload it from the planes, transfer it back into trucks, move
it into the desert, and dump it. And we'll need bulldozers to push
the rock back into shape.
There is a philosophical question as to whether, having moved all the
rock and reshaped it, we still have Mount Fuji. We certainly have the
parts to Mount Fuji, but is the mountain still the mountain after it
has been moved in this way? I'll leave the philosophy alone (for
once!) and just say we stipulate up front that moving the parts is
equivalent to moving the mountain.
Next we have to figure out how big the mountain is... Well, I Googled
and figured out it is 3,776 meters high (about 13,000 ft.). I might
have guessed about 12,000 ft. without Google because that's about the
height of Mt. Whitney (the tallest peak in the California Sierra
Nevada range). The shape of this mountain is nearly a perfect cone,
with the width of the base about three times the height. As you know,
the volume of a cone is given by:
(base area * height) / 3 = (πr2 * height) / 3
So this means the volume of Mount Fuji is approximately:
(π * 18,000 * 18,000 * 12,000) / 3 ≈ 12 x 1012 ft3
That's a lot of rock. Next let's figure out how much this might
weigh. Imagine a rock the size of a cubic foot. Could you pick it
up? I'd say barely. It probably would weigh about 100 lbs. So that
means we have a lot of heavy rock to move:
12 x 1012 x 100 lbs = 12 x 1014 lbs = 6 x 109 tons
Cool. Okay, so how many 747s would we need? A 747 can carry about
500 people with all their luggage. The people weigh about 150 lbs on
average, and their luggage probably weighs about the same, so we're
talking 500 x 300 = 150,000 lbs, or about 75 tons. Let's say for
cargo purposes we could carry 100 tons. Would that be the limiting
factor, or would volume? Well, if each ton is about 20 cubic feet,
then we're talking about 2,000 cubic feet. That's 10 ft x 10 ft x 20
ft, so clearly the size of the rock would not matter. (Actually since
the rock would be broken up it would take more space, but not that
much more.) We would therefore need 6 x 107 = 60M plane flights. If
we had a fleet of 1,000 planes flying in parallel, and each plane made
two flights per day, it would take 30,000 days or around 100 years.
That's a long time, but this is a big project. Many of the great
European cathedrals took over 100 years to build, as did the Great
Wall in China and the Great Pyramid in Egypt...
What about trucks? Well, I'd guess a really big dump truck could haul
25 tons. (That would be about 5,000 cubic feet, or 10 ft x 10 ft x 50
ft, roughly speaking.) So we'd need four times as many trucks as
planes. I don't know how close the nearest airport is to Mount Fuji,
but let's assume we could make two trips from the mountain to the
airport each day (same as plane flights), so we'd need 4,000 trucks.
No problem. Oh yeah and we'd need about the same number of trucks on
the other end, too.
Now, about those bulldozers. Well, let's say it takes one bulldozer
to load one truck. We assumed the trucks make two trips per day, so
now let's assume a trip is really four hours of loading, four hours of
driving, and four hours of unloading. That would give a bulldozer
four hours to do the loading, and that seems reasonable. So pencil in
4,000 bulldozers. I'm sure there would be some traffic problems with
that many bulldozers roaming around the mountain, but we could deal
with that. No worse than the Ventura Freeway at rush hour :) And as
with the trucks we'd need the same number of bulldozers to rebuild the
mountain in Mojave.
So, that's how I'd move Mount Fuji into the Mojave desert. Give me
8,000 bulldozers, 8,000 dump trucks, 1,000 cargo jets, and (of course)
the people to man them, and it would take me about 100 years. No
problem. "
-Bill
k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz
wrote:
> (base area * height) / 3 = (?r2 * height) / 3
>
>So this means the volume of Mount Fuji is approximately:
>
> (? * 18,000 * 18,000 * 12,000) / 3 ? 12 x 1012 ft3
>
>That's a lot of rock. Next let's figure out how much this might
>weigh. Imagine a rock the size of a cubic foot. Could you pick it
>up? I'd say barely. It probably would weigh about 100 lbs. So that
>means we have a lot of heavy rock to move:
>
> 12 x 1012 x 100 lbs = 12 x 1014 lbs = 6 x 109 tons
>
>Cool. Okay, so how many 747s would we need? A 747 can carry about
>500 people with all their luggage. The people weigh about 150 lbs on
>average, and their luggage probably weighs about the same, so we're
>talking 500 x 300 = 150,000 lbs, or about 75 tons. Let's say for
>cargo purposes we could carry 100 tons. Would that be the limiting
>factor, or would volume? Well, if each ton is about 20 cubic feet,
>then we're talking about 2,000 cubic feet. That's 10 ft x 10 ft x 20
>ft, so clearly the size of the rock would not matter. (Actually since
>the rock would be broken up it would take more space, but not that
>much more.) We would therefore need 6 x 107 = 60M plane flights. If
>we had a fleet of 1,000 planes flying in parallel, and each plane made
>two flights per day, it would take 30,000 days or around 100 years.
747s can lift upwards of 250Klbs with a gross weight of 1.2M. You're close.
> That's a long time, but this is a big project. Many of the great
>European cathedrals took over 100 years to build, as did the Great
>Wall in China and the Great Pyramid in Egypt...
IT's certainly not known with 100% certainty but it is believed that the Great
Pyramid was built in about 10 years. The entire plain at Giza was on the
order of 100 years.
>What about trucks? Well, I'd guess a really big dump truck could haul
>25 tons. (That would be about 5,000 cubic feet, or 10 ft x 10 ft x 50
>ft, roughly speaking.) So we'd need four times as many trucks as
>planes. I don't know how close the nearest airport is to Mount Fuji,
>but let's assume we could make two trips from the mountain to the
>airport each day (same as plane flights), so we'd need 4,000 trucks.
>No problem. Oh yeah and we'd need about the same number of trucks on
>the other end, too.
>
>Now, about those bulldozers. Well, let's say it takes one bulldozer
>to load one truck. We assumed the trucks make two trips per day, so
>now let's assume a trip is really four hours of loading, four hours of
>driving, and four hours of unloading. That would give a bulldozer
>four hours to do the loading, and that seems reasonable. So pencil in
>4,000 bulldozers. I'm sure there would be some traffic problems with
>that many bulldozers roaming around the mountain, but we could deal
>with that. No worse than the Ventura Freeway at rush hour :) And as
>with the trucks we'd need the same number of bulldozers to rebuild the
>mountain in Mojave.
>
>So, that's how I'd move Mount Fuji into the Mojave desert. Give me
>8,000 bulldozers, 8,000 dump trucks, 1,000 cargo jets, and (of course)
>the people to man them, and it would take me about 100 years. No
>problem. "
Nice numbers, but you left out the most difficult and time-consuming part of
the entire project; government red tape.
Virgil
<5f616a54-57ea-4c60...@a19g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>,
Bill Bowden <wronga...@att.net> wrote:
Mount Fuji, being volcanic, might express some active resistance to
being disturbed, even though it has been quiet for the last 3 centuries.
James
news:Virgil-37DF7B....@bignews.usenetmonster.com...
> In article
> <5f616a54-57ea-4c60...@a19g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>,
[...]
> Mount Fuji, being volcanic, might express some active resistance to
> being disturbed, even though it has been quiet for the last 3 centuries.
you win.