You have a point.

That's a good point actually. I would venture to say that if a candidate has taken the trouble to prepare so thoroughly that they have developed a logic way to tackle most unstructured problems, they're still probably better than a candidate who failed miserably at even attempting the problem. There's a stronger chance that such a candidate would pick up a new technology or a new subject area much more quickly quickly than another candidate who has demonstrated no such initiative in the past.

But all said and done, you are right. A clever candidate can always "game" the interview process and say what the interviewer wants to hear. This is where interviewing becomes an inexact science.

If you repeat the question to yourself again, you'll see that the question is about why you are applying to that *particular* company, not why you need a job. Are you truly interested in what the company does and what practice area it is involved in, or as you say, are you applying only because "you need the fucking job". This helps the company determine if you are just going to be a pencil pusher clocking your time and going to be a sourpuss about it, or if you are going to kick some ass in your job.

I would imagine that just about *any* company would be interested in you want to do with your career and how the position will fit not just your current needs (bring food on the table as per your statement) but also your future needs as a person AND as a professional. Are you seriously tell me that you are an automaton - you just want to clock in your 8 hrs at work so you get your paycheck and aspire absolutely nothing else from your career??

Why would you react so strongly to an interviewer who is trying to understand your career aspirations? Its not like they are asking you how you lead your life or how you floss your teeth, the question is only about your career goals. Sooner or later, you will end up discussing this with your manager anyway.

I completely disagree, or at least, your statement is so broad it is untrue.

Brain teasers are just like any other interviewing tool - what matters is how you use the tool.
As an interviewer, if you use brain teasers to determine *how* the candidate is attempting to solve the problem, you are probably doing it right.
If you are using the brain teaser to tick a box in your checklist based on the answer, you're probably doing it wrong.

The really neat thing about brain teasers or puzzles or the bizarre questions you sometimes encounter like "How many pigeons are there is Manhattan" is that they are a very good way to judge someone's unstructured problem solving ability. How someone approaches this kind of a problem is a good proxy for their ability to debug hard technical issues or their problem solving ability in general.

Making a statement like "hire a programmer based on their programming ability" is also an obvious statement to make, apart from being a bit grandiose (look at us , we are cool because we are contrarians and we swim against the tide). The reason why many interviewers resort to other techniques is two fold - one, lack of time or other constraints that prevent the interviewer from directly testing a programmer's programming ability, and secondly, judge the non-programming aspects of the candidate like how they react to an ill-defined problem or a fuzzy situation, how well they will get along with others, how much of a self-starter they are etc.

Or, if I put it another way, if you are not hiring a programmer on the, to quote, "code they have written", what are you doing, hiring candidates on their baking skills? I get what 37signals is saying and all this got messed up to begin with when HR took over the interviewing process from programmers (especially in large companies). However, the other statements that are flying around about how *any* non-programming related question is stupid is also frankly, over the top.

They didn't enter the market because they rested on their laurels like they often do, and also got completely blindsided by how quickly smartphones and tablet computing took over the world. Intel is a great company in many respects, but too often relies on a kick in the pants to get moving. Traditionally, AMD has done the kicking like they did with x64 and Athlon, which is why Intel got blindsided when the whipping came from ARM. They responded eventually to AMD with Centrino, Merom/Conroe/Woodcrest, and eventually with Quickpath and Nehalem, and AMD is still recovering.

They are finding it harder to do the same with ARM because both companies are moving in different directions - ARM has an extremely low power and low performance architecture while Intel's x86 is extremely high power and high performance. Plus, Intel has to deal legacy support in every subsequently new "tock" which is why x86 improvement will always remain evolutionary in nature. ARM also found it much easier to scale up its performance at a similar power envelope while Intel has found it much harder to scale down its power consumption while maintaining adequate performance.

Atom was probably the first x86 redesign that targeted power consumption first and only then performance. Even with this design goal, it only managed to scale down to single digit wattage while ARM operates in the sub-watt to milliwatt range. This is still a crucial difference - it is the difference between the weight and size of a netbook sized laptop and a handheld device. On top of this, ARM has been steadily integrating more and more peripheral chips back into the chip while keeping the same power envelope, which makes it even simpler and more attractive to device manufacturers.

Anyway, rambling aside, I suspect that Intel gave up the race for a brief period of time and instead waited for its manufacturing process to shrink to a level (22nm) where it could finally combine its process node lead with the Atom architecture to reach the sub-watt power level. It still hasn't got there, but it will - by 2013. Don't count them out, and I say this mainly because Intel is still the only surviving company that still designs AND manufactures its own chips. The advantages of this kind of vertical integration is huge. Companies love to talk about outsourcing everything but there are significant advantages to being vertically integrated as well. To digress slightly, look at how mainframes continue to survive and thrive in this age of commodity computing.

It is also interesting to reflect that this fortuitously coincides with Microsoft's Win 8 release and MSFT's own struggle to compete in tablet and handheld computing. Again, their true credible answer will be Windows 9 if not Windows 8. I suspect that at least in the tablet playing field, Win 8 will be a very credible competitor, and Win 9 will probably merge back almost fully with x86 architecture. The allure of x86 and its backward compatibility should not be underestimated. Legacy app support is extremely attractive for enterprise IT even if it is not so much so for normal consumers.

I find it deliciously ironic that you worship PASSION in all caps as the secret to high cooking, but you are scornful of the passion that your roommates and I show about Indian food. Think about this - if Indian tribes and subcultures are not passionate about their food, why the heck would they stubbornly stick to their age old recipes and food habits, some of which date back hundreds if not thousands of years? Perhaps it is your roommates that have more passion than skill, I don't know. Perhaps, Indian food IS overcooked and overoiled, I don't know.

However, I also get the sense that you are a bit (not a lot, mind you) of a close minded bigot. Any flavor, smell, or taste outside of the palate you are used to or that your mother used to cook seems to be intolerable to you. Never mind, there are millions like you. Fortunately, there are millions others who have an open mind about food and cultures and trying out different and sometimes even repulsive things. The sad part is that it is the close minded bigots of the world who seem to be procreating much more, and i fear of a future that is only filled with people intolerant to anything different.

You actually make a good point, and you are correct if we stick to generalization. I mentioned this in another reply, but your statement is also not true for large classes of "Indians". India is simply too heterogenous. Please take a look at the number of Indian tribes for example.

For the record, I consider myself a world citizen. I happen to know more about India than other countries which is why I spoke up. If I had known more about Mexican food (and I intend to do so), I would have spoken up about it as well.

I posted this in an earlier reply, but I will say this again. India's diversity in food habits comes from its tribes. Here's a list of Indian tribes. See for yourself.

I apologize if I came across as lecturing or standing up on a pedestal. The only reason why I brought up the Mexican comparison was because the GP chose to do so. I shouldn't have made generic statements about a culture I know little of. From a naiive perspective however, I would still argue that Mexico is a smaller country with a smaller population and landmass compared to the Indian subcontinent. Having said this, I should have researched better - I actually thought Mexico was a lot smaller than it actually is. In this sense, I am guilty of ironically painting with the same wide brush that I took objection to. Again, the only reason I bring this up is to make sure that comparisons should be meaningful.

Another thing: India has quite a few drastically different food cultures mainly because of the numerous number of tribes that still passionately stick to their traditional food habits. There are hundreds of such tribes in India and not too many people even in India are aware of how diverse and omnipresent they are. It is these tribes that provide the diversity I am talking about, not the masses living in urban centers. Food cooked in North-east India for example is polar opposite of food cooked a few hundred miles away in Calcutta. A friend of mine cooks amazing Naga food, and I can tell you for sure that it is nothing like what you think of "Indian" food. Naga food usually consists of smoked or fermented vegetables, meats (pork, dog, etc.) and fish, and very often organ meat. The spices too are mostly fresh and not dried or powdered. There are several tribes among the Nagas themselves but it gets too complex and I too don't know enough about this subject.

If you think I am again reverting to hyperbole, please refer to this list of tribes in India. I dare say, not too many countries have this level of diversity.

Indians don't brag about the heat levels of their food as well. I would like to dispel some myths about Indian food here:

- Firstly, there is nothing called Indian food. India is an agglomeration of about 50-100 or so cultures, a bit like Europe. Each culture has its own history, language or dialect, culture, and most importantly, food. While culture has changed or diluted over time, food habits have not changed much. Anyone who talks about "Indian curry" is as incorrect as someone who talks about "European soup".

- Indian food by and large is not super-spicy to begin with. Home cooked food in India is usually mild and often a bit overcooked. Yes, certain cuisines such as Kolhapuri or Sahuji is known for being hotter. Even then, this is usually hype promoted by restaurants as a publicity stunt. While restaurants often label their dish "kolhapuri chicken" by adding 5 extra red chiles, authentic Kolhapuri food is not cooked this way

- Indian food, unlike many other cuisines, is very flavorful and aromatic and a typical dish will consist of numerous spices and herbs. Perhaps, this is because India is the birthplace of most herbs and spices (maybe not most, South America kicks ass too). Indian flavor is usually multi-dimensional and layered - heat is just one component. A really well made Indian dish (such as a "curry") will usually be hot, sour, salty, and a bit sweet at the same time. Mostly not bitter, but sometimes bitter too, especially in dishes such as bitter gourd curry. Bottom-line - spicy does not mean hot, it means full of spice, and each spice has a different flavor and aroma. This is the whole point of mixing multiple spices, or using pre-mixed spices ("garam masala", "panch phoran", etc.)

- Chile is also often an extra condiment in Indian cuisine as well - a typical Indian dish will consist of plain rice or wheat bread with a somewhat mild curry, a slightly spicier dry vegetable or meat, salad ("kachumbar") or yogurt based sauce to provide relief for the spice ("raita"). It is also usually accompanied by one or more chutneys that can range from fiery hot to minty cool, and by one or more pickles again ranging from fiery hot to sweet and tangy. The chutneys and pickles are meant to provide additional heat for people who like more heat in their food. There are several dozens, even hundreds, of pickles and chutneys. Note that Indian pickles are much more complex and flavourful compared to pickle popular in many other parts which is usually made with vegetables preserved in vinegar and salt. Indian pickles are usually pickled in a variety of oils.

- This whole thing of eating really hot food is really just a sport, the need for some people to turn anything into a competitive sport. Then, there are hotels like this one cashing in on this whole thing to get more publicity.

- With all due respect, Mexican food is delicious and very fresh and complex, but you cannot compare it with a country where you have hundreds of parallel food cultures all running back several thousands of years. You can probably compare Mexico to a specific Indian state, but that's about it. Comparing India to South America would be more accurate.

Before this becomes a flame war, please note: I'm not trying to put down down Mexico or say that India is better or worse. Just saying that the complexity of Mexican culture and food is comparable to the complexity of the culture and food of an Indian state - in terms of population, size, history, and complexity. Another side note: Most Indian states have a different language AND a different script with their own grammar, literature, history, etc. They're THAT diverse. As an Indian, I'm as much of a stranger living in another Indian state as a Mexican or a Frenchman.

Chuck Norris once punched a drunk in Rensselaer so hard, he spun around and became a knurd.

Hits him on the head with a Foo bar?

The problem is that 1% of the users need feature X, while a different 1% badly need feature Y, while yet another 1% find feature Z indispensable.
Many people who use your logic don't realize that this seemingly insignificant 1% adds up very quickly. Plus, these 1percenters are usually the ones who are vociferous and evangelical.

I actually tried to encourage my wife to use Open Office about a year ago. She needed to do a fair bit of document editing and rewriting work, and I gave her a (fairly powerful business-grade) laptop with only Open Office installed and told her about all the virtues of open software, and how Open Office is as good as MS Office, and after a short learning curve, she will not even miss MS Office.

Mind you, she was using Open Office mainly for straight-forward document work - document editing, proof-reading, rewriting, reformatting, etc. No macros, no formulaes, no fancy stuff.

Never worked. For a brief initial period, she was fine, and even pleasantly surprised by Open Office. Then, she started finding small issues with layouts, small features that were not present, etc. Then, she started facing deadlines and small issues with her clients.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I ended up installing Office 2007 for her, and so far, so good.

As a neutral observer, I find -this- kind of anecdotal evidence compelling, and the reason why so many Open Office proponents are simply missing the point. In a business context where everyone else is using MS Office, Open Office had better support MS Office documents to a perfect degree, and offer the same toolset that MS Office provides.

Otherwise, the only potential market will be markets (mainly government organizations) where everyone uses or is forced to use Open Office.

I totally agree. Only a human being faces the possibility of being badgered in both life and in death.

All this violence for what? Just to take a byte?