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A comment on Ask HN: What is your go to idiot-filter question in interviews?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What is your go to idiot-filter question in inter... by jackblemming on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @05:16PM (#33901113)
You might want to phrase it as the square root of negative one in the future.
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Re:Ask HN: What is your go to idiot-filter question in inter... by osrec on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @05:20PM (#33901164)
Why?
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Re:Ask HN: What is your go to idiot-filter question in inter... by RhysU on Thursday December 08, 2022 @08:20AM (#33907579)
Because "minus" is the boolean subtraction operator not the unary negation operator despite a lot of colloquial misuse by native speakers.

The distinction is useful when reading aloud expressions like 3-(-2) as "three minus negative two".

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Re:Ask HN: What is your go to idiot-filter question in inter... by osrec on Thursday December 08, 2022 @08:31AM (#33907671)
Perhaps, but "negative one" would sound a little odd to lot of people from certain countries, including the UK, where "minus one" is the standard way of referring to a negative number. We would be perfectly okay with hearing "three minus minus two" in mathematical context.
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Re:Ask HN: What is your go to idiot-filter question in inter... by RhysU on Thursday December 08, 2022 @10:44AM (#33909084)
Americans would be OK hearing that too. It's just a more complicated grammar to parse.

Curiosity: How do you call the terminals on a battery?

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Re:Ask HN: What is your go to idiot-filter question in inter... by osrec on Friday December 09, 2022 @01:52PM (#33925059)
Positive and negative for battery terminals.

But "minus five degrees" for temperature ;)

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