71–80 of 363 posts
I'm an SE now, but I got my degree in Northwest Semitic Literature and Linguistics: Here's a couple: Are Semitic languages VSO or SVO? What does it mean that Semitic words are triliteral?
SVO?
Classical Arabic and other semitic languages are VSO, but spoken Arabic is mostly SVO.
Write your own Fourier Transform. [If your FizzBuzz questions involve actually writing/coding the FizzBuzz, I'd not request actually writing it...]
The first is the easiest, and the second one isn't bad. The 3rd and 4th trip up most people though.
My Math "FizzBuzz" question is: prove Fermat's Little Theorem and Wilson's Theorem. Even those with very rudimentary understanding of modular arithmetic (coming from non-math backgrounds) can prove both with some pointers (obviously the process is interactive)
Interesting. I think the proof of Wilson's theorem is easy enough to be accessible for a non-mathematician - for non-prime n you can find a pair of numbers in the product (n-1)! that are congruent to 0 (mod n), and if n is prime then you pair up numbers in the product with their inverses until you are left with ±1. But I can't think of a similarly low-level proof of Fermat's Little Theorem. Is there an obvious one I'…
But the product is also a^(p-1).(p-1)! by commutativity. So a^(p-1)=1 (mod p).
There's a clever idea in there, to consider prod(ka) for fixed a and k=1..(p-1). Not finding the clever idea means you won't prove it. Finding the clever idea is tricky. Once you know the clever idea the proof is trivial.
R1 (N) R2
[VDD]-^^^^--*--^^^^----|
This works surprisingly well as a negative hiring filter. It's not intended to be a trick question at all: it can be solved with Ohm's Law:
I = VDD / (R1 + R2)
Vn = VDD - R1 * I
Vn = VDD * R2 / (R1 + R2).
I have been unable to think of one for Linux system administrators. :-(
"You need shell access to a remote system using ssh. What file would email to the admin to grant you access using ssh?" You'd be surprised of how many supposed Linux admins have no idea how to setup ssh logins, which says a lot about the depth of their experience.
I'm a mathematician, and sometimes I need to assess the level at which I'll pitch an explanation. Although I don't do this in a setting where it's possible to set a test, as such, I do ask this question: An equivalence relation is reflexive, symmetric, and transitive. If E is an equivalence relation, and we know E(x,y) but we know !E(y,z), what do we know about E(x,z), and why? It seems a great filter for people who…
I'm not a mathematician, but it looks to me like we know E(x,z) is false. The transitive property gives us E(x,y) & E(y,z) => E(x,z) but since we know !E(y,z), we can infer !E(x,z). (I'm not a logician, either, so I hope you'll excuse what may be imprecise phrasing on my part.)
Once an item has more than 40 comments, if the number of comments is more than the number of points, there is a ranking penalty applied. This is because it's a good proxy fr an item being a flame-war.
So if you're interested in seeing more answers to this question, or carrying on the discussion, it's worth making sure you up-vote the item to try to avoid tripping the flame-war detector.
Of course, it may already be too late ...
I do grant writing for nonprofit and public agencies. [1] I usually ask for a couple of major commas rules. Sometimes for semi-colon rules or for a description of passive voice. Chances are good that anyone who is zero for three isn't very good. A lot of writers and would-be writers also have blogs; it only takes one to three paragraphs to figure out who can sling a coherent sentence and who can't. Like FizzBuzz, bei…
How well does the ability to write well correlate with the ability to articulate rules for writing well? I'd have thought there are a lot of people who can write any quantity of text with impeccably placed commas (and semicolons, when the required tone permits them), but would freeze and stutter and gabble if asked for "a couple of major comma rules". I'd put myself among their number, if only because it's not clear…
The short answer is "pretty well." Usually I ask specifically for major comma rules, which I'd tend to define as:
* Connecting independent clauses with a conjunction * As part of a list * To offset a word or phase at the start of a sentence. * Like parentheses (or, in the lingo, an appositive phrase).
If they say, "I have no idea," that's a very bad sign; if they ask questions like yours, that's a good sign.
A fun, short book called Write Right! by Jan Venolia is worth reading if you're interested.