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95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

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Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#171

Post by shorts_theory »

zubspace wrote: post #79

It's funny, because I started to play Spelunky again after a long absence, which is arguably one of the hardest games to master on your own. I'm not particularly good, played for about 28 hours and have not yet finished the game. (I rarely reach the ice caves...) The thing with this game is: It needs a lot of awareness, patience and you need to know all different kinds of game mechanics. It's not terribly complicated…

Spelunky is an absolutely terrific and soul-crushing game. Though I'm not sure if it's a good example here because most of the mechanics (apart from the absolutely ridiculously arcane series of things you need to do to go Hell) are designed around being amenable to self-discovery. The shortcuts system for each world is very useful for learning all the weird situations which can result in death.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#172

Post by autokad »

gauravjain13 wrote: post #160
cdoxsey wrote: post #12

On the flip side. Sometimes you're just not that good at stuff despite your best efforts. In college I really struggled with math. Which was a challenge because computer science has you take a lot of math classes. In my calculus class I studied so hard for the final. Did every problem in the book. And I still just got a B in the class. At the same time my programming classes were really easy. I didn't study at all an…

Amadeus is a movie that really resonated for the reasons you mention. However, another movie that really resonated, and offers a counterpoint to you’re-either-born-with-it-or-not fatalism is Gattaca. (Of course, one could argue that Amadeus is a “true story”, whereas Gattaca is science fiction.)

I think the OP's 'problem' is that they do not sit down and have focused practice properly. They are not good at coding interviews, they were not good at math, and freely admits they "didn't study at all". You get really good at things by practicing them a lot, especially math and leetcode. It's not a criticism, as I am terrible at coding interviews and I can never muster the discipline to sit down and study it. However, its not because I am just innately bad at it, its because I don't practice it.

Amadeus was probably more fiction than it was a true story. Mozart practiced a lot.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#173

Post by juped »

You can become a 95th percentile commenter on this post by reading the article for comprehension. (A link to the article is provided near the top of this page; clicking it yourself is a helpful deliberate practice activity, so I won't reproduce it here.)

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#174

Post by [deleted] »

scottLobster wrote: post #120
SkyBelow wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Based on my interviewing history I'm not in the 95th percentile of programmers - I'm routinely outright rejected and don't even land the on-site interview. And this is basically my best skill for which I've invested an enormous amount of time and energy. This means you aren't high in the 'programming interview' skill set. While related, I consider it distinctly different than the 'programming' skill set. I think it…

Why lie? Ultimately an interview is about convincing the interviewer that you can solve their problems (and extracting information to determine whether you want to solve them in the first place). Assuming you have the ability to solve their problems, it's a pure exercise in communication. Take the "Why are you looking for a job?" question. The meme response is "because I need money duh!", but if you look at in a less…

[deleted]

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#175

Post by disease »

pixelperfect wrote: post #112

It's not that difficult to get to the 95th percentile in Overwatch or Bridge because no one at the 95th percentile receives much compensation, monetary or otherwise. When significant compensation is awarded to the 95th percentile of some field, attaining the 95th percentile is much more difficult.

In the case of Overwatch no awards are given to the 95th percentile. The 99.9999th percentile though at least have an opportunity to get paid for playing the game.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#176

Post by bonoboTP »

krick wrote: post #57

Yeah, no, that's just about lousy definitions. The premise suggests that it's easy to become 95%-ile in anything, say, deadlifting among men who deadlift and not just entire population of the planet Earth. Before I can suggest author to try, he hastily corrects himself, that it doesn't mean "95%-ile among people who practice regularly", so "men who deadlift" is invalid domain after all. Rather, it should be... "peopl…

> Rather, it should be... "people who lifted a thing from the ground at any point of their lives"? Not that impressive. And, sure, just converting yourself from "people who lifted a thing" to "people [of the same sex] who actually go to the gym regularly and deadlift" will get you into 95%-ile of the first, broader domain within a couple of years, because people who regularly deadlift would already be less than 5% of the population.

I deeply disagree. Taking the whole population is the only sensible interpretation. Answering like "duh, you actually go to the gym, of course you're better than 95% of guys on Earth, that's so unimpressive, anyone could do it if they did it." entirely misses the point. The point is precisely that you actually did it, while 95% did NOT do it and now you are ahead of 95% of people in this thing.

If you always had to be 95th percentile in your current peer group (general couch potatoes, high school championship participants, world championship participants, Olympians, Olympic medalists, Olympic champions, Olympic champions twice in a row), then the 95 just doesn't mean anything. Then you just have to be the single very best according to your logic.

The point is not about "impressive" or not. It's about 95th percentile or not.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#177

Post by mtmalla »

cdoxsey wrote: post #12

On the flip side. Sometimes you're just not that good at stuff despite your best efforts. In college I really struggled with math. Which was a challenge because computer science has you take a lot of math classes. In my calculus class I studied so hard for the final. Did every problem in the book. And I still just got a B in the class. At the same time my programming classes were really easy. I didn't study at all an…

The one thing that I've learned by being surrounded by incredibly talented people is that you can't compare yourself to others in a singularly dimensional way. If you do, the odds are against you that you are the best in the world (1 in billions, in fact). This is the quickest path to defeat and nihilism.

What I've chosen to do instead is compare myself across all dimensions that I have interest and passion for. The beauty of this is that the combinatorics of genetics normalized for individual circumstance leads to only one meaningful comparison, yourself. Internalizing this just leads to a more fun game.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#178

Post by rconti »

merrywhether wrote: post #82
k__ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing you to some geniuses in the field isn't gonna help. Sure Mozart was better that Salieri, but there is just one Mozart. Companies are always talking about how they just take the best, but in the end they have to settle with what the market gives them.

This reminds me of a time when a hiring manager said something along the lines of “We’re trying to find Michael Jordan, not Scottie Pippen.” My colleague and I were pretty shocked by this, since Pippen was also a great Hall of Fame basketball player, just not one of the top 3 players of all time.

"Who coached the majority of Michael Jordan's championship winning teams?"

(the name is actually on the tip of my tongue, surprisingly)

- whether or not the hiring manager knows the answer:

"You're not him"

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#179

Post by rconti »

juped wrote: post #173

You can become a 95th percentile commenter on this post by reading the article for comprehension. (A link to the article is provided near the top of this page; clicking it yourself is a helpful deliberate practice activity, so I won't reproduce it here.)

It doesn't help that he seems to mix up practice, participate, and try. I got lost trying to re-read it for comprehension, then just closed the window when he went off about video games.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#180

Post by yibg »

SkyBelow wrote: post #161
yibg wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve actually mostly answered honestly, but also follow up with what I’m doing to try to improve on this weakness. For example I know one of my weaknesses is I get impatient and cut people off half way, believing I already know where they are going. Besides being rude I’m also wrong some times. It’s a legitimate short coming, but the key is I’m aware of it and am activity doing something about it. Some interviewers a…

But is that your biggest weakness? Or is that a smaller weakness that, while still being a definite weakness, is socially acceptable and something you can show improvement on? If they asked what is one of your weaknesses and how are you working to overcome it, then that is a perfectly legitimate answer. Perhaps too many interviewers ask for the biggest weakness when they actually mean to ask a question more like that…

But how do you define biggest? To me this is a big weakness that not only applies to work but also other aspects of life. We don’t have a clear ranking system for levels of weakness, so I can only pick one that’s important to me. I don’t think that’s dishonest.
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