On 16/02/2015 08:09, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> On 15-2-2015 16:38, Stephen wrote:
>> On 15/02/2015 15:22, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>>> Oh dear, no! Nor drop all your overhead sheets on the ground as I saw
>>> happen :-)
>>>
>>
>> You are giving your age away, now. ;-)
>> Those sheets seemed to have no friction between them at all.
>> Or so someone told me. :-)
>>
>
> I know. Overhead sheets are only found in museums nowadays.
>
> No friction? well yes but often to the contrary. The damn things often
> stuck together like hell with static electricity! But as you could put
> them in individual holders they became a manageable pile.
>

Now we are getting back to the binary nature of life and Sods Law.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 16/02/2015 08:03, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> On 15-2-2015 22:16, Stephen wrote:

>>
> ROTFL
>

The old ones are the best ones. :-)

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 16-2-2015 9:52, Stephen wrote:
> On 16/02/2015 08:09, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>> On 15-2-2015 16:38, Stephen wrote:
>>> On 15/02/2015 15:22, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>>>> Oh dear, no! Nor drop all your overhead sheets on the ground as I saw
>>>> happen :-)
>>>>
>>>
>>> You are giving your age away, now. ;-)
>>> Those sheets seemed to have no friction between them at all.
>>> Or so someone told me. :-)
>>>
>>
>> I know. Overhead sheets are only found in museums nowadays.
>>
>> No friction? well yes but often to the contrary. The damn things often
>> stuck together like hell with static electricity! But as you could put
>> them in individual holders they became a manageable pile.
>>
>
> Now we are getting back to the binary nature of life and Sods Law.
>

Beware of the /binary/ nature though. I must have told this story many 
times, maybe even here...

Settings: Split, in then still existing Yugoslavia; a lecture hall 
during a conference with a huge stage in front of the audience.

Characters: (1) Somebody high up in party hierarchy going to give a 
presentation on mineral resources; (2) his secretary.

Scene 1: The session's president introduces the next presentation 
(applause); the presenter comes up on stage with his secretary; 
presenter takes place behind the lectern; the secretary sits down 
besides the overhead projector, facing us, a little nervously, the 
audience; a few murmurs in the audience.

Scene 2: Presentation begins; English a bit difficult to follow; 
presenter signals to secretary to put up the first overhead, which she 
does; for about a couple of minutes all goes well.

Scene 3: Presenter asks for next overhead; image comes on screen; 
/wrong/ overhead; presenter starts to become irritated; secretary starts 
to become (more) nervous; overheads are successively put up and put down 
again without success; nervousness increases; presenter tries to go on 
from overhead then visible; secretary start to put up another overhead 
before being told to do so; presenter turns red; secretary panics and 
drops all the sheets on the stage;

Meanwhile, the audience: slow grins appearing on faces; bodies settling 
down more comfortably in chairs; hands fold on bellies.

Scene 4: panic extending on stage; presenter, secretary, and session 
president reassemble the sheets but no logical order can be found any 
more; presentation ends in chaos. (applause)


-- 
Thomas

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> You see a job advert for an English / French translator. The advert says
> there will be a test during the interview. You don't know a single word
> of French, but you think to yourself "bah, nobody will notice. I'll just
> Google search of the words when I need to. It'll be fine."
>
> WHAT. THE. HELL.
>
> I'm sorry, IN WHICH UNIVERSE IS NOBODY GOING TO NOTICE?! What the HELL
> are you smoking?!!
>
> Nobody thinks this will work. Nobody ever tries this. Because nobody is
> that stupid. But replace being able to write French with being able to
> write C#, and suddenly everybody thinks that somehow "nobody will
> notice". Wuh?!

I assure you the sames happens for French and everything else. My gf 
works for a company that sells stuff mostly outside the UK, so they are 
always recruiting people for customer service that are fluent in German, 
French, Italian etc. People *do* apply for jobs that blatantly state 
"German speaker" that cannot speak more than the 3 words of German that 
everyone knows. Their reasoning is often along the lines of "well I can 
speak a bit of French and I thought you wouldn't notice, and if you did 
you would anyway see how uber cool I was and see I could learn German in 
a few weeks and hire me anyway". Err no, go away!

The same happened to me in Engineering in my last job too. A guy applied 
quoting 20 years experience in analogue electronic circuit design and 
test. We got a bit concerned when he couldn't even say what a simple 
2-component RC circuit was meant to do, let alone how to calculate any 
response. After a bit of drilling down we got to the question of "have 
you ever actually used an oscilloscope?". His answer was No. I mean come on!

> We started doing phone screenings rather than waste our time with
> hopeless people. We find a website where you can watch the other person
> type, in real-time, as they type it. Almost everybody who reaches this
> stage doesn't get to have a face-to-face interview. A few people got
> creative though:
>
> * While talking to one guy, we could *clearly* hear somebody else
> sitting next to him telling him what to type. Er, REJECT!
>
> * Another guy, we asked him to write some code. We can hear typey typey
> typey. Er, can you type into the window please? Typey, typey, typey,
> BAM! Suddenly a huge block of text appears all at once. In other
> words... you just Googled the answer and copy-pasted it, didn't you?
> REJECT!

LOL

> Seriously, how the **** do people think we're not gonna notice this
> stuff? Let us suppose, for argument's sake, that you somehow trick us
> into interviewing you... Do you REALLY THINK it won't instantly become
> EXTREMELY OBVIOUS that you're bluffing? How do you actually see this
> playing out? Are you mental?!

The scary thing is these people will probably be able to get a job 
somewhere and somehow blag there way along. If they're lucky they may 
even get to interview people at some point :-)

> I wonder... Does anybody have this much trouble hiring a carpenter?

Have you ever seen shows like "cowboy builders" or "rogue traders"...

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> But not as disturbing as me getting paid to do C++ when I know nothing
> about it! o_O

Because of your desire to learn though, I'm pretty sure you're going to 
be better at C++ than them already, and if not you will be soon. And 
undoubtedly you've got a wider area of expertise than someone who has 
just spent their entire career coding C++ and nothign else.

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On 16/02/2015 09:26, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> Beware of the /binary/ nature though. I must have told this story many
> times, maybe even here...

Not to my knowledge. I have seen the same, a few times with slide 
projectors. When the carousel has been loaded in the wrong order and the 
ensuing panic ends up with the slides on the floor.
Ah! Well. It was the best that we had at the time.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 16/02/2015 09:34, scott wrote:
> The scary thing is these people will probably be able to get a job
> somewhere and somehow blag there way along.

Oi! That's me your talking about. Have a care.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 16-2-2015 9:40, scott wrote:
>>> In short, I haven't come across a lesson where people are there because
>>> they actually *want* to learn something. Most of them are just seem to
>>> want the bit of paper that makes employers think they're awesome.
>>>
>>
>>
>> You are too pessimistic I believe (or the world has changed too much).
>> Except for the last point (the Microsoft course) with which I agree, at
>> all other levels I have been with people who genuinely wanted to /know/
>> and to /learn/. Not all of them of course but a substantial part, yes.
>
> I have to agree with Andy here, my experience of school (compulsory up
> to age 16) and sixth form college (optional up to age 18) is that most
> people didn't want to learn. Obviously there were some who did, but the
> majority you felt were there because someone else had told them to be
> there but they didn't want to be. It was a place to meet people and hang
> out, having to go to lessons and do homework was an inconvenience.
>
> It was only when I got to University that it was suddenly full of people
> who actually wanted to be there and wanted to learn. But I think there
> are likely only a few Universities like that with that atmosphere,
> speaking to friends elsewhere it sounded like other Universities were
> just like school and college where people would spend more effort trying
> to avoid doing any work that actually learning anything.
>
My school experience was quite the opposite; there was even a fair 
competition between pupils to get the highest scores. Good teachers were 
venerated; the bad treated with contempt. It was hard work too, from 
8:00 till 18:00 on average, six days a week, with only the thursday 
afternoon free. I don't know. Time (50s and 60s) and place (Paris) may 
play a role here...

-- 
Thomas

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On 16-2-2015 11:07, Stephen wrote:
> On 16/02/2015 09:26, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>> Beware of the /binary/ nature though. I must have told this story many
>> times, maybe even here...
>
> Not to my knowledge. I have seen the same, a few times with slide
> projectors. When the carousel has been loaded in the wrong order and the
> ensuing panic ends up with the slides on the floor.
> Ah! Well. It was the best that we had at the time.
>
A man is entitled to his laugh, ain't he?

-- 
Thomas

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On 16/02/15 10:07, Stephen wrote:
> On 16/02/2015 09:26, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>> Beware of the /binary/ nature though. I must have told this story many
>> times, maybe even here...
> 
> Not to my knowledge. I have seen the same, a few times with slide
> projectors. When the carousel has been loaded in the wrong order and the
> ensuing panic ends up with the slides on the floor.
> Ah! Well. It was the best that we had at the time.
> 

Guilty!
Been there, done that. All I need is the t-shirt.

John
-- 
Protect the Earth
It was not given to you by your parents
You hold it in trust for your children

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