1/10    I haven't done technical interviews in a really long time and
        now they make me nervous. I already screwed up one, not because
        I didn't know how to answer the questions but because I was so
        nervous. Is there any way to "prepare" for a technical interview?
        any advice?
              \_ Don't get nervous. Do more interviews, do more practice.
                 Plenty of jobs out there. Relax, think positive, it'll
                 \_ plenty of jobs?  apparently you are employed.
                 happen when the time is right. Don't focus on yourself.
        \_ bring a breath mint, wear some deoderant, and calm down.
           \_ it wasn't a matter of hygiene, but thanks for the advice i guess.
              \_ Don't get nervous. Do more interviews, do more practice.
                 Plenty of jobs out there. Relax, think positive, it'll
                 happen when the time is right.
                 \_ plenty of jobs?  apparently you are employed.
                 happen when the time is right. Don't focus on yourself.
        \_ Did you forget things you learned in school?  Did you lack
           enthusiasm for the job or were unable to feign it?
           \_ yes, part of it is i've forgotten some stuff from school, which
              is why i'm so much more nervous now than i was when i
              interviewed right out of school. plus the market was hot
              then. is it really starting to heat up again? -original poster
           \- i did a bunch of interviews recently including interviewing
           some pretty nervous people. all i can say is "if you dont know,
           dont ramble. say i dont know and move on." --psb
                \_ what kinds of questions do you usually ask people?
                   \- it depends whether it is a sysadmin job or a programming
                   job. usually i dont ask about general programming questions
                   like basic familiarity with hashes and linked lists but
                   more conceptual stuff about networking and reasonably
                   deep familarity with things like signals, processes groups,
                   streams, maybe some stuff on memory, tcp state diag. of
                   course if it is for a junior sys admin maybe a question
                   on regexps, icmp, dns. i also dont ask logic puzzles,
                   although i am tempted to ask one like "you are in a canoe
                   with a bowling ball on a lake. you throw it into the
                   water. does the level of the lake go up or down". --psb
                   \_ I think the level of the lake goes down, assuming the
                      bowling ball sinks.  Correct?
                      \_ it does go down, but only because the splash from
                         the ball will increase the surface area, increasing
                         the evaporation rate.
                         \_ My reflex is to say that it would go down because
                            the bowling ball's weight causes the canoe to
                            displace more water than the bowling ball's volume,
                            but I haven't really thought about it.  I'd be
                            interested in hearing the answer.
        \_ read up on something technical that your interviewers likely
           forgot about, and then say "that question is analogous to..."
           subject x. then they'll feel too embarrassed to admit
           you know something they don't!
           \_ Whenever I hit situations like this while conducting interviews,
              I simple say "I don't know that" and ask the candidate to
              explain it to me.  So he has no way out.
        \_ The last time I interviewed, I worked up a set of questions
           for the position and had someone interview me with them.
           It really helped keep me comfortable when many of the
           same questions came up in the interview.  -tom

1/10    I got an offer from a company in China. Should I take it?
        \_ are you a person of honesty and integrity?  then no.
                \_ no, and no.
        \_ where is it based? --aaron
                \_ Shanghai.
                   \_ You can get a lot of stuff in Shanghai.
                   \_ I'm looking for work there -- email me, I can
                      answer questions if you haven't visited Shanghai
                      before, and/or we can meet up next time I'm there.
                       --aaron
                        \_ are you the same guy who went to Taiwan back in
                           the mid 90s to look for blowjob? How are the
                           hos in Shanghai? Hotter and cheaper?
                        \_ uh, what are the best hohouse in 'hai?

1/10    I am slowly converting to Dvorak keyboard. My finger/wrist pain
        have gone away, but it might be because I'm typing 15 WPM instead of
        my usual 75 WPM. What do you have to say about that nweaver?
        \_ It took me 2-3 days to get from 0-40WPM on dvorak. I'm about 80WPM
           normal. I stopped using dvorak.
           \_ what? u used dvorak then stopped? what's ur point?
           \_ you read the rules?!? You must follow the rules!
              \_ This sounds awefully similar to "You want the truth!?  You
                 can't handle the truth."  Syllable to syllable. :-)  -- yuen
        \_ Patience, grasshopper.  Soon, the quick brown fox shall jump
           over the lazy dog at 80 wpm.

1/10    Why do commands in my .joverc work when I just run "jove" but when
        I run "jove filename" they don't apply to the filename's buffer?
        \_ We've secretly replaced your jove with Folger's crystals.  It looks
           like you noticed.

1/10    Funniest OS Shootout I've seen:
        http://www.screamingbanana.com/AUwhichplatform.shtml
        \_ This is not funny.  At all.
           \_ Fuck off, asshole. If you don't have anything useful to say,
              \_ Try not to lose your temper. - not original poster
        \_ "Windows: Famous for stranding billion-dollar battleships at sea."
           Is this real?  Any URL for news articles?  Thx.

1/11    Enron == Teapot Dome!

1/11    What is the Right Way to check if a program is in the user's path
        from a perl script?  I want to use ci and co in the path otherwise
        use /usr/local/bin/ci,co.  I know klugy ways to do this but was
        wondering what the recommeneded way was.  Thanks!
        \_ $ENV{PATH} .= ":/usr/local/bin";
        \_ `which ci`[motd indent god was here]
            \_ which is horrible. use type as god and steve intended.
        \_ system("ci $flags || /usr/local/bin/ci $flags");
           is the "kludgey" way (oh no, you're using the shell!)
           system('ci', @flags);
           system('/usr/local/bin/ci', @flags) if $? >> 8;
           is slightly more efficient
        \_ Just write yourself a type/which sub in perl:
           sub type {
                   local($dir,@files,$file);
                   return "" unless (defined $_[0] && $_[0] ne "");
                   foreach $dir (split(/:/,$ENV{'PATH'})) {
                              opendir(DH,"$dir") || next;
                              @files = grep(!/^\.\.?$/,readdir(DH));
                              closedir(DH);
                              foreach $file (@files) {
                                 return "$dir/$file" if ($file eq $_[0] &&
                                                         -f "$dir/$file" &&
                                                         -x "$dir/$file");
                                }
                        }
                        return "";
                }
                \_ are you sure there is no perl module that does this already?
                   \_ http://www.cpan.org  Go look and let us know.  Thanks!
                   \_ yeah, let me download yet another totally bizarre
                      perl module from http://cpan.org that was written by a
                      recently civilized shepard in outer mongolia on
                      his linux box and then let me download the 86
                      other modules his module depends on rather than
                      write a few lines of code.

1/11    In floating point representation, does "bias-8" mean the same thing as
        "excess-8", where the range for 4 digits of exponent is -8 to 7?

1/11    A "new hope" for all you star wars fans (n*sync's been cut):
        http://www.theforce.net/episode2/index.html
        \_ thank god

1/11    mutt: I am wondering what specific capabilities people like about
        it. I have read a number of web pages and haven't come up with
        much other than slander for other programs.