मनोज अग्रवाल: Others

Interview Puzzles

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:29:46 GMT

1. How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?

2. You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?

3. How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?

4. How would you find out if a machine’s stack grows up or down in memory?

5. Explain a database in three sentences to your eight-year-old nephew.

6. How many times a day does a clock’s hands overlap?

7. You have to get from point A to point B. You don’t know if you can get there. What would you do?

8. Imagine you have a closet full of shirts. It’s very hard to find a shirt. So what can you do to organize your shirts for easy retrieval?

9. Every man in a village of 100 married couples has cheated on his wife. Every wife in the village instantly knows when a man other than her husband has cheated, but does not know when her own husband has. The village has a law that does not allow for adultery. Any wife who can prove that her husband is unfaithful must kill him that very day. The women of the village would never disobey this law. One day, the queen of the village visits and announces that at least one husband has been unfaithful. What happens?

10. In a country in which people only want boys, every family continues to have children until they have a boy. if they have a girl, they have another child. if they have a boy, they stop. what is the proportion of boys to girls in the country?

11. If the probability of observing a car in 30 minutes on a highway is 0.95, what is the probability of observing a car in 10 minutes (assuming constant default probability)?

12. If you look at a clock and the time is 3:15, what is the angle between the hour and the minute hands? (The answer to this is not zero!)

13. Four people need to cross a rickety rope bridge to get back to their camp at night. Unfortunately, they only have one flashlight and it only has enough light left for seventeen minutes. The bridge is too dangerous to cross without a flashlight, and it’s only strong enough to support two people at any given time. Each of the campers walks at a different speed. One can cross the bridge in 1 minute, another in 2 minutes, the third in 5 minutes, and the slow poke takes 10 minutes to cross. How do the campers make it across in 17 minutes?

14. You are at a party with a friend and 10 people are present including you and the friend. your friend makes you a wager that for every person you find that has the same birthday as you, you get $1; for every person he finds that does not have the same birthday as you, he gets $2. would you accept the wager?

15. How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?

16. You have eight balls all of the same size. 7 of them weigh the same, and one of them weighs slightly more. How can you find the ball that is heavier by using a balance and only two weighings?

17. You have five pirates, ranked from 5 to 1 in descending order. The top pirate has the right to propose how 100 gold coins should be divided among them. But the others get to vote on his plan, and if fewer than half agree with him, he gets killed. How should he allocate the gold in order to maximize his share but live to enjoy it? (Hint: One pirate ends up with 98 percent of the gold.)

(via Tihomir Nakov)

कोशिश करने वालो की हार नही होती

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:41:30 GMT

An inspirational poem in Hindi written by Harivansh Ray Bachhan.

लहरो से डरकर नौका पार नही होती
कोशिश करने वालो की हार नही होती

नन्ही चीन्टी जब दाना लेकर चलती है
चढती दीवारो पर, सौ बार फिसलती है
मन का विशवास रगो मे साहस भरता है
चढकर गिरना, गिरकर चढना अखरता है
आखिर उसकी मेहनत बेकार नही होती
कोशिश करने वालो की हार नही होती

डुबकिया सिन्धु मे गोतखोर लगाता है
जा जा कर खाली हाथ लौटकर आता है
मिलते नही सहज ही मोती गहरे पानी मे
बढता दुगना उत्साह इसी हैरानी मे
मुठ्ठी उसकी खाली हर बार नही होती
कोशिश करने वालो की हार नही होती

असफलता एक चुनौती है, इसे स्वीकार करो
क्या कमी रह गयी, देखो और सुधार करो

जब तक ना सफल हो, नीन्द चैन को त्यागो तुम
सन्घर्ष का मैदान छोडकर मत भागो तुम
कुछ किये बिना ही जय जयकार नही होती
कोशिश करने वालो की हार नही होती

- हरिवन्श राय बच्चन

Akshardham Complex, New Delhi

Fri, 11 Nov 2005 07:58:26 GMT

After 5 years of non-stop, round-the-clock construction, the massive and awesome Akshardham Temple Monument to World Peace was inaugurated yesterday. The Akshardham Temple in New Delhi, India, constructed by the BAPS foundation -- the builders of the various Swaminaryan Temples across the world, is truely a modern day Wonder of the World.

It is one of the biggest and most intricate religious places of worship ever constructed. Combining several completely different and contrasting architectural styles of Hindu temple architecture of northern India -- Rajasthani, Orrisan, Gujarati, Mughal and Jain -- the Akshardham Monument is entirely constructed of marble and the red-sandstone that Delhi is famous for, and that so many of her monuments are constructed of. It was completed in only 5 years a world record of sorts

So after years of waiting, the Temple was opened last week to the public -- and to photographers. Below is the New Delhi Akshardham Complex as seen through the eyes of a BAPS photographer. The pictures are a great many and will take a long time to load, but totally, totally worth the wait!

At its inaguration, it is widely being heralded as one of the greatest monuments India has ever produced. I hope you enjoy viewing this architectual marvel as much as I did.

Monument of Akshardham

The Akshardham monument, built without steel, is entirely composed of sandstone and marble. It consists of 234 ornately carved pillars, 9 ornate domes, 20 quadrangled shikhars, a spectacular Gajendra Pith (plinth of stone elephants) and 20,000 murtis and statues of India's great sadhus, devotees, acharyas and divine personalities.

The monument is a fusion of several architectural styles of pink stone and pure white marble. Pink stone symbolizes bhakti (devotion) in eternal bloom and white marble of absolute purity and eternal peace. The monument was built after over 300 million man hours of services rendered by 11,000 volunteers, sadhus and artisans.

It is the one of the wonders of the modern world, and the wonders of modern India.

Seven Deadly Sins of Interviewing

Mon, 19 Sep 2005 22:57:51 GMT

The Ladders has posted the Seven Deadly Sins of Interviewing and a forum where you can share your own experiences.

An excessive love of self

You have years of experience, you've earned respect and accolades in your field, but any arrogrance will come back to bite you. Treat each person at the company with respect and kindness, or they might find a way to sabotage your interview.

Laziness, idleness and wastefulness
Don't wing it! Make sure to prepare informed questions. Be able to show knowledge of your potential employer, awareness of the industry, and the company's business strategy. The level of detail in your questions should match your experience.

An excessive quest for money and power
Remember, first you have to get the offer. Then, you can negotiate the terms. Never ask about salary and perks in the initial interview. Set aside those questions for later... much later.

The desire to consume more than you need
The interviewer is trying to learn about your skills, talents, experiences, and your ability to succeed in the job - not your whole life story. Taking 45 minutes to answer a single question will get you nowhere.

Feelings of hatred, revenge or denial
The person sitting across from you – who may be your next boss – identifies more with your past bosses than she does with you. Badmouthing old colleagues will leave a terrible taste in your potential employer's mouth.

The desire to do what you want, not do what you should
Don't dress for your comfort, dress for the situation. Always wear a suit to an interview, even if the dress code is business casual. You might stick out like a sore thumb while you're in the lobby, but you'll never lose points for being dressed professionally.

The desire for what you don't have now
Your "dream job" should the one you're interviewing for right now. If it's clear you really want to do something else, it's tough for an interviewer to believe that you'll bring all your capabilities and focus to the demands of this job.

Have you got ICE in your mobile?

Mon, 11 Jul 2005 21:41:30 GMT

East Anglian Ambulance Service have launched a national "In case of Emergency ( ICE )" campaign with the support of Falklands war hero Simon Weston and in association with Vodafone's annual life savers award. The idea is that you store the word " I C E " in your mobile phone address book, and against it enter the number of the person you would want to be contacted "In Case of Emergency". In an emergency situation ambulance and hospital staff will then be able to quickly find out who your next of kin are and be able to contact them. It's so simple that everyone can do it. Please do. Please will you also forward this to everybody in your address book, it won't take too many 'forwards' before everybody will know about this. It really could save your life. For more than one contact name ICE1, ICE2, ICE3 etc

Some drawbacks to the proposed scheme come to mind:

The cell phone has to remain with the victim (or otherwise be indentifiable as his) in order to be of use. While most wallets and purses will contain some items bearing photographs that can be matched to their owners (such as driver's licenses), a cell phone doesn't necessarily provide any direct means of identifying its owner. And while any form of ID can become separated from the person bearing it, a cell phone is an object frequently carried in hand, greatly increasing the chances of its loss in an accident.
A cell phone can be damaged to the point that information stored in (or through) it is no longer retrievable. This is also true of other forms of identification (a piece of paper or a card can be rendered unreadable by fire or water damage), but non-electronic devices will generally survive falls or impacts that might otherwise render cell phones non-functional.
Cell phones come in many different brands and varieties, and how to retrieve stored information may not be immediately apparent to someone trying to work with an unfamiliar type of phone.

Still, whatever the drawbacks might be to any particular scheme, carrying some type of ICE information is better than none, so if this cell phone-based campaign prompts some people who aren't already doing so to start, it's a worthwhile effort.