Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Rolan7]

I guess the trick is supposed to be that you can't split a square into 200 equally-sized squares...
So either you go 15x15 for 225 pieces and let people have seconds if they want...  Or if everyone has to get the exact same amount of cake, make some appropriately sized rectangles.  Like slicing 9 times one direction and 19 times the other, for pieces that are twice as long as they're wide.

Or lay the cake on its edge and sliver off 200 wafer-thin 20in x 20in sheets.  Management gets the frosting.

[smjjames]

Yeah, it really seems more like the kind of question where they aren't neccesarily looking at your answer, but how you say it. Basically, what do the intervewers want to hear.

Still, from what Truean said, it sounded like the questions weren't even in the context of the job they were trying to apply for. Exponentially dividing algae (that one reads exactly like a question you'd find in a math book), something about ping-pong balls, and dividing up a cake and all that.

[Truean]

It was for a financial analyst position, which had nothing to do with either cake or algae, believe it or not. And, yeah the pond thing was a logarithmic question, but meh.

It was a log math question on the algae. The cake one was a division one, or at worst a weighted averages question, but a terribly bad one. If it was a weighted average question, then they were going for something like some people want 3 pieces, more people want 2, and the majority will want 1, with some wanting none. The problem is that it's an asinine example with no relational bearing to the real world.

You'd have something like this:

3 pieces : W
2 pieces : X
1 piece  : Y
0 pieces : Z

Even then that sucks, because there's no way to know any kind of weight. What do you do? Assume most people want 1 piece, or is it a tasty cake with more people wanting 2? How do you figure in how many want 0?

It's just a bad question. It's a coin flip if I get this job or not if that test is any indication.

[NJW2000]

There's something I do for unspecific questions where what is required is not entirely clear, when I have extra time on a paper (Nasty imperfect sciences we hates them):

WRITE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE ABOUT ANYTHING OF RELATION.

While that may not work for you, what with the post involving financial analysis not spin doctoring, would you have had time to write what you just wrote? I know little about financial analysis positions, but a reasoned attitude to how one might approach a the problem if one had any data at all might go down well.

[smirk]

Lessee...
the algae is money
the ping-pong ball is money in offshore accounts
the cake is gov't bailout money after the next crash
Bam. Finance, baby.

/shitpost
Sounds like they were mostly interested in your ability to bullshit off the top of your head? I don't know much about financial analysis, so I don't know how much of that goes on.

That's an abbreviation of emoticon.

Why do I know so much about this?

What no, people using it that way are wrong.  An emote is like *shakes head* or *shouts at cloud*.  Often by using /emote or /me.

'Emote' is an actual American English verb. It means "to show emotion, often in an expressive or overly exaggerated manner." Actors on stage emote, etc.

[BlackFlyme]

If the cake is 400 squinches and you have 200 people, then everyone gets 1.9900497512437810945273631840796 squinches of cake, because with you added that is 201 people.

In a similar line of questioning, if you have a train going southbound at 182 degrees Fahrenheit, with a turtle on top walking backwards and a snail on top of the turtle going forwards, how long until Hati devours the moon, signaling the beginning of Ragnarok?

[Teneb]

In a similar line of questioning, if you have a train going southbound at 182 degrees Fahrenheit, with a turtle on top walking backwards and a snail on top of the turtle going forwards, how long until Hati devours the moon, signaling the beginning of Ragnarok?

Yes.

[TheBiggerFish]

In a similar line of questioning, if you have a train going southbound at 182 degrees Fahrenheit, with a turtle on top walking backwards and a snail on top of the turtle going forwards, how long until Hati devours the moon, signaling the beginning of Ragnarok?

Yes.

Pie.

[TheBiggerFish]

Search using that image itself, unless that's what you're doing.

[NJW2000]

Screenshot it?

[redwallzyl]

...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[pisskop]

Y?

[Flying Dice]

Presumably because GO didn't copy-paste the image into a separate file and then use that for the reverse image search. Or drag-n-drop it to imgur or some other, similar site for the upload, then use the hosted image with TinEye.

[Orange Wizard]

Y?

Best way to stop people from getting shot is to give them guns

[flabort]

Y?

Best way to stop people from getting shot is to give them guns

HOW?! I'd rather give them armor.