squeakynick

Years ago, when recruiting for a tech support position, I had an agency send a bunch of 'pre-screened and qualified' candidates through. Most were fine, and we could start straight away with conversations about debugging AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS (this probably dates the time period!) One candidate, however, looked like a deer-in-headlights, and was clearly out of his depth. In the end, I asked "There is a computer in this room, can you point to it?", and he sheepishly pointed to the fridge!

I felt really bad for the poor guy; it was not his fault. We finished the interview early, had a friendly chat, and I sent him on his way with some bus fares.

I then got on the phone and tore the agency a new one. They had wasted his time, and my time, by 'doctoring' the qualifications. I never used them again.

I'll plug my own -- http://datagenetics.com/blog.html and one I enjoy -- https://www.redblobgames.com/

Author of article here. Thanks for kinds comments.

Yes, it's possible to stabilize bottle rockets with fins (to adjust the CP), but as the article hints, the stick is multipurpose in helping with launch, as well as stability (plus being easy to manufacture with low precision).

I just published a follow-up article talking about bigger rockets. http://datagenetics.com/blog/july22020/index.html

Aeronautics is a complex science and my articles are intended to pique interest, not oversimplify or belittle. It's a hard balance to explain things in a few hundred words. I hope you enjoy them and, if there is interest, they become the catalyst for you to learn more. It's a fascininating subject.

Nerdy articles about math, coding, and data science, in a style as homage to Martin Gardner.

http://datagenetics.com/blog.html

I write the blog: http://DataGenetics.com

1. Process: I keep a task list (using google tools) with a list of topic ideas. When I think of something I want to write about, or find interesting links, I place them there. There's typically about two dozen ideas at any time incubating.

2. Start: I started the blog about a dozen years ago as a way to add depth to my website that was the front-end for my consulting business. I stopped consulting shortly after starting, and am now retired, but I keep the blog up on that site; I've built a following. It was easy to start. Ideas are easy; the hard part is finding the free time to write!

3. Motivation. I love doing it. I get pleasure from writing. When I was a kid, I loved reading the works of Martin Gardner. I hope my blog could be seen some way as an homage to his works.

4. No real struggles, but I made a conscious choice to not enable comments on my site. Comments will get you down. Everyone is a critic. Jerks will say "that's not special, I could have don that" (hmmm, but you didn't). My email address is not hard to find on the site if you want to get in contact with me. Don't fret too much about publishing; do what is right for you. There is a whole spectrum of 'advice' from people saying regular rapid cadence (even if you have nothing to say), through to only publish gems. I typically average about one post a week. Some of my posts are lightweight, others are heavyweights.

Writing simple multiplayer games using just Notepad++ as my dev environment. Two games so far:

Multi-Armed-Bandit http://datagenetics.com/blog/may12020/index.html

Space Miner http://datagenetics.com/blog/april12020/index.html

I write about math, coding, and general geekery in a style similar to Martin Gardner. http://www.datagenetics.com/blog.html

Half of these designs are simply scaled up drones which, according to simple physics and engineering, is the wrong direction.

Details: http://datagenetics.com/blog/february62019/index.html

How can organisations this large get it so wrong? When is someone going to tell them that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes?

If we are allowed to self promote, then I'll put forward my blog http://datagenetics.com/blog.html

There's currently about 360 articles about math, science, programming, data-mining, geekery ... in style similar to a hero of mine, the late Martin Gardner.

I make about $50-$70/month from Adsense on my blog. I use a single Auto ad unit in the middle of each article. It would be nice if it were more. They payout every couple of months when the balance gets over $100. When they payout I get a 'report' that tells me they reduced my payout because of 'invalid traffic' (with no details about what/how/when). This deduction varies from about 5-20% of the payout.

It depends on how you intend to 'score' the estimate.

Are you looking for the answer that is the 'most likely', or one that has the 'lowest least squared error', or maybe one that is 'unbiased' (mean error)?

http://datagenetics.com/blog/march22014/index.html