March 3, 2017 at 4:07 am
ChrisM@Work - Friday, March 3, 2017 2:26 AMHere's a description of O-level Maths teaching in the Scottish Highlands in the 1970's.Walk into the classroom, sit down, peer at scribbles on the blackboard which bear no relation to the textbook.
Teacher spends the ENTIRE LESSON slouched at her desk reading Mills & Boon.
Some time after I left this school, the kids rebelled against her novel teaching style and she was encouraged or forced to leave, I don't know which. I know she was locked into the class store cupboard on one occasion because I know who did it, and I later heard she'd had a breakdown, attributed to the rebellion. Sympathy? I can hardly contain my indifference. Education is no place for shirkers like this. I'm still crap at Maths (I'm sure my classmates are too) but I can roll a half decent query.
Reminds me of a French teacher I had, who regularly spent much of the lesson time fretting over the state of the begonia that was growing in a pot on the corner of his desk...
...and then there was the university lecturer on formal methods whose lectures were her reading slides that were wholesale copies of the text book (that someone else had written)...
...and the database lecturer whose lectures were him reading the book of notes that he had written and distributed to all students at the start of term. bleah.
Thomas Rushton
blog: https://thelonedba.wordpress.com
March 3, 2017 at 4:57 am
Lynn Pettis - Thursday, March 2, 2017 11:04 AMZZartin - Thursday, March 2, 2017 10:29 AMBrandie Tarvin - Thursday, March 2, 2017 9:51 AMZZartin - Thursday, March 2, 2017 9:41 AMAt my last job the first thing we gave techy applicants was a basic math quiz, like grade school level basic, train leaves a station going X miles per hour train b leaves a station going Y miles per hour they're Z distance apart how long until there's a fiery wreck kind of basic.And that would be the question I would fail at. I had a couple of horrible math teachers in school who made me struggle when I had questions rather than helping me understand. So if I got that as a question at a tech interview, I'd have to decide how badly I really wanted the job or if I should just walk out of the interview.
It is, I think, an unfair question. Asking people about order of operator precedence would make sense to me in this kind of a job. Not so much asking about story problems ripped straight out of a high-school math book that have nothing to do with what the job is about.
Well one demonstrates knowledge, the other demonstrates an ability to apply knowledge. They're both important qualities.
The customer is buying 13.03 in goods, they give you 20.03, how much do you give in change? True event, the cashier rang it up as full payment, no change. Didn't know how much change to give, had to get coworker to figure it out, and she needed a calculator. Sad state of affairs for recent high school graduate.
Having done retail for almost 20 years, I don't need to think about that one. It is very very sad though that most people can't actually do that math. What's worse is, it's not even really math, so much as counting. Count up from 13 to 20 (dropping the .03 cents) is fairly easy.
But then again, my mom spent her life as a cashier and taught us kids how to do exactly this. Plus I learned it in grade school, which I'm sure they don't teach anymore.
March 3, 2017 at 5:02 am
Luis Cazares - Thursday, March 2, 2017 11:15 AMSean Lange - Thursday, March 2, 2017 10:46 AMBrandie Tarvin - Thursday, March 2, 2017 9:51 AMZZartin - Thursday, March 2, 2017 9:41 AMAt my last job the first thing we gave techy applicants was a basic math quiz, like grade school level basic, train leaves a station going X miles per hour train b leaves a station going Y miles per hour they're Z distance apart how long until there's a fiery wreck kind of basic.And that would be the question I would fail at. I had a couple of horrible math teachers in school who made me struggle when I had questions rather than helping me understand. So if I got that as a question at a tech interview, I'd have to decide how badly I really wanted the job or if I should just walk out of the interview.
It is, I think, an unfair question. Asking people about order of operator precedence would make sense to me in this kind of a job. Not so much asking about story problems ripped straight out of a high-school math book that have nothing to do with what the job is about.
I would fail this one too. I vaguely remember there is a formula for this but I don't remember what it is because high school was a LONG time ago and I don't use this type of calculation. In t-sql terms I would have to solve using a cursor instead of a set based approach. I would take the faster one calculate the time it took to go half the distance, then determine how far the slower one went. Then calculate the distance between them at that point and start again. I would get the right answer but my path would agonizingly slow (like a cursor) with multiple calculations when one would have been sufficient.
What if I told you that it's very easy to get with percentages or fractions? You just need 3 basic arithmetic operations to solve the problem.
The problem is I literally have bad memories associated with this story problem and others of its ilk. So, no. that information wouldn't help me. I'd just be staring at the problem knowing I was going to fail because I never was able to get it in the first place due to being taught by a teacher who didn't want to teach, just throw things at everyone and watch them flounder (unless they were her favorite pupils, that is).
EDIT: I should note that I've developed the opinion that math (or maths, if you prefer) is intuitive to me. I can do it if I'm not thinking about it. I can do it if you don't give me the train problem as a train problem but as a business problem. When people tell me they need to know what the percentage of certain insurance premiums and admin costs are, or to code triangles for actuarial purposes (which is a major PITA), I can do it without issue because it's all 3D in my head. But if someone says "Math," I literally give myself a migraine trying to figure out what the heck is going on and how everything fits together. I know people don't think math is intuitive, but that's how it works for me.
March 3, 2017 at 5:23 am
Brandie Tarvin - Friday, March 3, 2017 4:57 AMLynn Pettis - Thursday, March 2, 2017 11:04 AMZZartin - Thursday, March 2, 2017 10:29 AMBrandie Tarvin - Thursday, March 2, 2017 9:51 AMZZartin - Thursday, March 2, 2017 9:41 AMAt my last job the first thing we gave techy applicants was a basic math quiz, like grade school level basic, train leaves a station going X miles per hour train b leaves a station going Y miles per hour they're Z distance apart how long until there's a fiery wreck kind of basic.And that would be the question I would fail at. I had a couple of horrible math teachers in school who made me struggle when I had questions rather than helping me understand. So if I got that as a question at a tech interview, I'd have to decide how badly I really wanted the job or if I should just walk out of the interview.
It is, I think, an unfair question. Asking people about order of operator precedence would make sense to me in this kind of a job. Not so much asking about story problems ripped straight out of a high-school math book that have nothing to do with what the job is about.
Well one demonstrates knowledge, the other demonstrates an ability to apply knowledge. They're both important qualities.
The customer is buying 13.03 in goods, they give you 20.03, how much do you give in change? True event, the cashier rang it up as full payment, no change. Didn't know how much change to give, had to get coworker to figure it out, and she needed a calculator. Sad state of affairs for recent high school graduate.
Having done retail for almost 20 years, I don't need to think about that one. It is very very sad though that most people can't actually do that math. What's worse is, it's not even really math, so much as counting. Count up from 13 to 20 (dropping the .03 cents) is fairly easy.
But then again, my mom spent her life as a cashier and taught us kids how to do exactly this. Plus I learned it in grade school, which I'm sure they don't teach anymore.
A mean little trick, that may not work Stateside, is to ask for 21 McNuggets. The mental gymnastics necessary to work out how to do this when McNuggets come in boxes of 6, 9 or 20 can almost cause smoke to rise from the head of many staff.
There was also the incident when I was told by a Tesco employee that they only had postage stamps in sixes when I asked them for twelve. I responded with 'I suppose that will work'.
How to post a question to get the most help http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537
March 3, 2017 at 8:38 am
It appears that the AWS outage was caused by a typo[/url].
How to post a question to get the most help http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537
March 3, 2017 at 8:53 am
March 3, 2017 at 8:54 am
On a related note with the AWS outage, this made me think of Jeff Moden (and this thread).
In the comments from : https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/03/03/158209/amazon-outage-cost-sp-500-companies-150m
"Most IT "engineers" I've met should be driving an Uber not working on systems."
March 3, 2017 at 9:30 am
Neil Burton - Friday, March 3, 2017 5:23 AMA mean little trick, that may not work Stateside, is to ask for 21 McNuggets. The mental gymnastics necessary to work out how to do this when McNuggets come in boxes of 6, 9 or 20 can almost cause smoke to rise from the head of many staff.There was also the incident when I was told by a Tesco employee that they only had postage stamps in sixes when I asked them for twelve. I responded with 'I suppose that will work'.
That's easy. I ask for one box of 20 and one of 6. Then I eat 5 before someone notices.😀
March 3, 2017 at 10:27 am
I run into similar when I say, "One Dozen" as opposed to two 6's.
The other one, which is normal to get confused, is asking for a couple. A couple in my mind is two. Others think it means a few.
March 3, 2017 at 10:30 am
xsevensinzx - Friday, March 3, 2017 10:27 AMI run into similar when I say, "One Dozen" as opposed to two 6's.The other one, which is normal to get confused, is asking for a couple. A couple in my mind is two. Others think it means a few.
I hear the "couple" one far too often. A couple is two.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
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March 3, 2017 at 10:39 am
SQLRNNR - Friday, March 3, 2017 10:30 AMxsevensinzx - Friday, March 3, 2017 10:27 AMI run into similar when I say, "One Dozen" as opposed to two 6's.The other one, which is normal to get confused, is asking for a couple. A couple in my mind is two. Others think it means a few.
I hear the "couple" one far too often. A couple is two.
Unless the couple is a menage a trois. :w00t: I never really understand it when people say a couple and think it is anything other than two.
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March 3, 2017 at 11:14 am
Sean Lange - Friday, March 3, 2017 10:39 AMSQLRNNR - Friday, March 3, 2017 10:30 AMxsevensinzx - Friday, March 3, 2017 10:27 AMI run into similar when I say, "One Dozen" as opposed to two 6's.The other one, which is normal to get confused, is asking for a couple. A couple in my mind is two. Others think it means a few.
I hear the "couple" one far too often. A couple is two.
Unless the couple is a menage a trois. :w00t: I never really understand it when people say a couple and think it is anything other than two.
Y'all are forgetting the Candy Jar Rule, where "a couple" is as many as you can fit into your hands and pockets.
March 3, 2017 at 5:17 pm
Steve Jones - SSC Editor - Friday, March 3, 2017 8:54 AMOn a related note with the AWS outage, this made me think of Jeff Moden (and this thread).In the comments from : https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/03/03/158209/amazon-outage-cost-sp-500-companies-150m
"Most IT "engineers" I've met should be driving an Uber not working on systems."
Heh... gosh no. I wouldn't let them drive the Uber, either. 😉
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
March 3, 2017 at 5:20 pm
Sean Lange - Friday, March 3, 2017 10:39 AMSQLRNNR - Friday, March 3, 2017 10:30 AMxsevensinzx - Friday, March 3, 2017 10:27 AMI run into similar when I say, "One Dozen" as opposed to two 6's.The other one, which is normal to get confused, is asking for a couple. A couple in my mind is two. Others think it means a few.
I hear the "couple" one far too often. A couple is two.
Unless the couple is a menage a trois. :w00t: I never really understand it when people say a couple and think it is anything other than two.
Unfortunately for me, I've gotten old enough where a "ménage a trois" means, "Me, myself, and I". :pinch:
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
March 3, 2017 at 7:00 pm
I hear the "couple" one far too often. A couple is two.
Actually, "a couple" is not the same as "two".
A couple means two bound together by some property, situation, or something else.
"A couple of dollars" is a wrong expression, but the expression "a couple of headlight" meaning "a set two complementary headlights" would be right use of the word.
"A couple of people" can be used for a pair, say, spouses, but should not be used for strangers on a bus stop.
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