Lessons from interviewing

As part of my job, I perform technical phone interviews (“phone screens”) for our group and a couple others. The basic phone screen is more about breadth then depth, touching on C, Unix, object-oriented programming and some data structures and algorithms over 30 to 45 minutes. During this process, I’ve learned a few things, including: …

Kelley Blue Book used car pricing

When you use the Kelley Blue Book to price your used car, you go through a series of steps: Year, Make, Model, Value Type (Trade-In, Private Party, Retail), Trim and Condition. It’s pretty straightfoward, but there’s one usability blunder that bugged me: This screen is a waste. If there’s only one possible trim, well, just …

Carbon dioxide worst in 800,000 years

Researchers in Antarctica have analyzed ice cores going back 800,000 years, 150,000 years further than before. The news isn’t good: “Ice cores reveal the Earth’s natural climate rhythm over the last 800,000 years. When carbon dioxide changed there was always an accompanying climate change. Over the last 200 years human activity has increased carbon dioxide …