>>> How to properly use google?<scnr>
>>
>> You laugh, but this is actually non-trivial.
>
> Not in my experience.

The double-negatives make this ambiguous.

> But then again, when I was in high school selling
> software and computer books, I was often amazed when people would grab a
> book of the shelf and just flip through it to find what they were looking
> for, rather than looking in the index or TOC first.

To be fair, depending on what you're looking for, the TOC may not be 
that helpful. The index usually works though. It depends how badly put 
together the book is.

>> I live in a city with a population of 200,000 people, and an
>> unemployment rate well below the national average. /Clearly/ there are
>> jobs here. I just need to find them.
>
> You've also stated (in the past, maybe it's changed) that you hate living
> there except that it's logically laid out and you can find stuff easily.

I don't hate living here, it's my favourite place. I hate living WITH MY 
MUM, that's for sure. ;-)

> But yeah, there are probably jobs there, just perhaps not in the fields
> you're interested in.

Perhaps. I very much doubt anyone here wants computer programmers. But 
the guy who looks after the computers? Surely any company that has a lot 
of computers will want one of those. (Doesn't mean they need a new one 
though...)

> When you start filtering by too many criteria, you end up with no
> options.  The logical thing to do when that happens is to relax some of
> the criteria, such as where you're willing to look or what you're willing
> to take as a job.

Sure. And if a job was in, say, Northampton, that would be fine. 
Anything that's within a reasonable commuting distance of where I live.

>>> or your unwillingness to believe that anyone on the planet who works a
>>> "normal" job makes enough to live on.
>>
>> Uh, when did I say that?
>
> It's been a couple of years probably, when you and I were talking about
> it being good for you to move out of your mum's place.  You asserted that
> it simply isn't possible for anyone to make enough money to buy a house
> or rent a flat, regardless of all evidence to the contrary.

Interesting...

>> It's good to be righteous. It's not so good when you're actually wrong.
>> :-/
>
> It's good practice.  The stakes ultimately are pretty low here, so it's a
> largely safe environment to try stuff out and see what works and what
> doesn't.
>
> "Practice makes perfect" and all that.

Try "practice makes permanent" and you'll be nearer the mark. ;-)

And hey, I've actually /met/ a tiny few of the people on here, so... 
(Damn, if only I could remember their names!)

>> Yeah, I'm really not seeing how Facebook is still in business. It must
>> cost /millions/ to run all those servers. And yet, their idea of
>> "targeted adverts" is about as precise as a blunderbuss. It just seems
>> like some day somebody is going to figure out the emperor's magical
>> invisible suite is actually non-existent...
>
> It may well - I understand they use SSD storage exclusively (local
> company here in Utah called Fusion-IO provides the hardware,
> apparently).  It's all about advertising, apparently.  Dunno how they
> manage it with ad blockers and things like the fb purity, but I figure
> that's not my problem.  If it goes away, I likely won't miss it.

It seems to be classic Internet bubble type stuff. Everybody is really 
excited about how much money Facebook is going to start making ANY DAY 
NOW... and yet, where's the money?

>> My profile is still live on the system. It looks like I'm still a
>> Linked-In user. And yet, I haven't used it in 3 years. So don't use /my/
>> presence as an indicator of usefulness.
>
> Well, you also only have 7 connections, IIRC.  One of the useful things
> to do, though, is to have someone you know introduce you to someone they
> know.  That's how I ended up with an interview in Portland - a colleague
> of mine in Florida knows the HR person at the company I applied to, and
> he introduced me.  Within 2 weeks, I had an in-person interview.

The idea that somebody actually knows the guy who does the hiring just 
seems... really, really far-out. I mean, I suppose there must *be* a guy 
who does the hiring, and *somebody* must know that guy. But the chances 
of actually connecting with that guy seem vanishingly small. It would be 
like winning the lottery or something.

Actually, you know what? What /really/ sounds far-fetched to me is that 
somebody would know somebody who needs to make a hire, and that person 
would think that *I* am even worth mentioning. I have no skills useful 
in a workplace. I find it hard to imagine anybody wanting to hire me...

> the latter, I fault them for, because corporate enthusiasm is
> something that can be taught, and to reject a candidate because they
> weren't bouncing off the walls about your product/service even though
> they're highly qualified in the field is just silly.

Yeah, about that...

So in the interview, they always seem to ask you something along the 
lines of "what excites you about our company?" or "why did you choose 
us?" or something similar.

The desired response, apparently, is some eulogy about how this company 
is unparalleled in the industry and how the company's vision will 
transform my career or something like that.

Why did I pick this company? The honest truth is obviously "this is all 
I could find". I know that. The person interviewing me must, surely, 
know that too. (Unless they're a total moron.) And yet, if you say that, 
you're instantly removed from consideration. WTF?

I mean, if you were applying to work for *Google* or somebody, yes, you 
could legitimately claim to be actually *excited* about the prospect. 
But for any other company? It's a job. I need the money. End of story. 
It seems silly to have to pretend otherwise...

>> How many of the other profiles are ghosts? I guess that's the opportune
>> question...
>>
>> Regarding Facebook: How many of those profiles are for somebody's cat?
>> ;-)
>
> Far, far too many.  I've got a friend on Facebook who has a page for her
> African Grey parrot and for her dog.  I think her cat also has one, now I
> think about it.

I read an article somewhere about how investors hear that there are X 
million accounts on Facebook and they think "wow, if I could just be on 
Facebook, I could have X million customers!" Yet these same investors 
don't really understand what "be on Facebook" actually means. And most 
of those millions of profile are for people's cat, fictional TV 
characters, people's children who can't read or write yet, etc. (E.g., 
Jamie's son has a profile. He's 4 weeks old. His mum posts all the 
actual stuff...)

Post a reply to this message