You don't bury survivors - transcript of an interview (2007) | Hacker News Reader

You don't bury survivors - transcript of an interview (2007)

codeslate.com

I interviewed for a QA position at (Deleted to protect the guilty) where I had to answer a bunch of brain teasers like this. I always prepare thoroughly and even enjoy solving these sorts of puzzles, so I knew most of the standard ones by heart and did fine. I would say that about half of the people who interviewed me did not appear to have the mental acuity to answer such questions themselves. I did learn some new and interesting puzzles though!

Two months later I was hired for what turned out to be an excellent software development position at a completely different organization.

When I interview technical candidates, I ask a pair of related questions that encompass data structures, sorting, and time complexity. It is a very simple-sounding problem. The good candidates get the questions almost before I finish asking, and the mediocre candidates struggle.

Ah, but the double trick answer to burying survivors is that you ultimately do, but mabye after 10 or 40 years.

The triple trick answer is that you don't - they're cremated.

You bury the ashes

Or you keep them on the mantelpiece, but that could be the quadruple trick answer...

The idea behind the questions aren't bad. The point of the questions is to see how someone works through a problem. Even if they can't figure out the answer, the way they try to work it out is what is important.

However, a few of these questions have been used so much they have become cliche. Rather than test how someone works through a problem, they merely tell the employer if the candidate has heard it already. Any employer who asks any of these questions is lazy, plain and simple.

That being said, here are the questions (from a later post): http://www.codeslate.com/2007/02/survivor-answers.html

The problem is that most of the type of questions are "tricks", they require you to come up with a specific insight (or maybe do a little algebra in your head).

Asking someone to do this on demand in an interview is iffy; in some jobs I'm sure that sort of puzzle solving is needed, but for most I find it a lot more apropos to ask them to do something related to the job. E.g. to attack a design problem, where I will indeed be looking at how they work through it.

Especially so, I think, for the title question- where do you bury the survivors? I can't say for all the questions, but that one deliberately misleads and misdirects the listener. That's why it works as a joke.

Could be useful to see if they can be distracted or misled, but it sure doesn't check for intelligence/insight.

The only "answer" that is hard to match to a standard brainteaser question was "they are seven and a half degrees apart."

I believe the question is, "what's the angle formed by the hour-hand and the minute-hand of a clock when it is 3:15?"

Am I understanding correctly that this is satire to Microsoft style interview questions? Pointing out they this style of question is less important that the ones he gave examples of?

I feel like there's beauty to this post that goes beyond parody.

These answer seem strain to go beyond the realm of brain teasers towards a statement about the human condition...

... perhaps something _why_ would have written...

I agree. I think it would have been even better had comments not be allowed, so the piece could stand on its own as a whole. It sort of reminds me of the tech industry's version of Dadaist poetry.

Reminds me of this:

http://www.thesurrealist.co.uk/lateral

Ironically, it quotes incorrect answer to the "why manholes are round?"

Really? What is the correct answer?

(The reason why manhole covers are round is obvious - because manholes are round (which also happens to have additional benefit of not allowing cover to fall into manhole). So the question is why manholes are round?)

Manholes are round because of the same reason most wells with brick walls are round - less material is required to support pressure trying to collapse the shaft. I.e. given that manhole needs to reach the same depth, it will be cheaper to have round shaft than, lets say, square, because round shaft walls can be thinner, but still support required pressure.

Surely if it makes sense to have manhole shafts be round, and it also makes sense to have manhole covers be, say, square (for whatever reason), then manhole covers would be square, no?

Well it'd be a trade-off between (whatever reason) and cost of the extra material.

Sure, but in practice in most cases it seems designers chose to make cover of the same shape as the manhole it covers.

aha, see I was wondering why it wouldn't be triangular, not only would the covers not fall in they also couldn't roll away.

Joke is that in the UK some manhole covers (bt?) are more or less triangular.

Are you assuming having covers that can't roll is a good thing? Being able to roll them might be an advantage in mobility.

In modern US cities there are a lot of different manholes, mostly round and rectangular - some shafts don't go deep, so there is no need to make shaft round.

I wonder what kind of shaft is under triangular cover, why would someone build triangular shaft? :)

A cover in the shape of a reuleaux triangle still wouldn't fall into the shaft, but also wouldn't roll away--it would have constant width, but its center of mass would move up and down while rolling. Apparently the UK has superior civil engineers.

http://hebig.org/blog/003029.php

Nice detailed write-up.

Couple additional details worthy of discussion:

1) Covers also can have hinges, so training of personal may be not even required.

2) It's unclear that round cross-section is the most convenient for humans to climb, after all humans in horizontal cross-section are like elongated ovals, so rectangular shape could be better. :)

Because men are round (roughly speaking)?

Spherical, even, if you're a physicist... ;-)

To quote a MIT professor teaching quantum: "Let's solve Schrodinger's equation for a cow. First assume a spherical cow..." ^_^.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com