BEN Southall from the United Kingdom is the winner of Tourism Queensland's World's Best Job competition, according to its official website.
The TQ website congratulated him on the win - half an hour before it was due to be formally announced on Hamilton Island at 3pm.

Congratulations Ben S! After a worldwide search, Tourism Queensland have appointed their new Islands Caretaker, says the official website.

http://reddy2007.blogspot.com

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As Chiranjeevi's campaign truck swings into view the huge crowds lining the road erupt. A boiling, heaving mass of people screams adulation at their hero. The noise is so loud I can't even hear myself speak.

They surge forwards, some literally throwing themselves at the film star's vehicle. Muscled young men in the security team protecting the truck fight to keep the crowds back.

One supporter carrying a giant necklace of flowers tries to climb up to the roof of the vehicle to present it to Chiranjeevi. The guards drag him back down, ripping his shirt from his back, then they thrust his garland into my hand to pass it to the screen idol. The huge string of flowers must weigh an incredible 5kg.

Standing on the roof of the bus, serenely calm amidst all the chaos, Chiranjeevi, clasps his hands in prayer and bows his heads to the crowds. As he does so the noise rises even louder, reaching a crescendo that makes my ears ring.

The 53-year-old who they call Megastar or The Immortal One, is making his political debut in this election, and he's added a new, electrifying dynamic to the vote in Andhra Pradesh, one of India's key battleground states.

'Justice for poor'

We joined him for the last day of campaigning ahead of the second phase of voting in the general election. Across Andhra Pradesh hundreds of thousands have come out to hear Chiranjeevi speak, his biggest rallies have drawn crowds estimated at more than a million.

For too long power in this country has been held by just a few, everyone else has been kept out - it's time that changed

Chiranjeevi
In the temple town of Tirupati he took the microphone and berated the ruling Congress Party for doing nothing for the poor, the crowd roared approval.

He castigated another rival party for caring only about the rich in the cities when it held power and the listening mass shouted even louder.

Chiranjeevi is one of India's highest-paid and highest-profile movie actors. The leading light of Tollywood, the Telugu language film industry, he's made more than 100 movies in a career that has spanned three decades.

In many of his roles he plays the hero battling to protect the little man. Now he's seeking to carry that screen image into the crowded world of Indian politics.

"I want justice for the poor," the moustachioed film idol told me, standing on top of his campaign truck as we sped down the road from one stop to the next.

"For too long power in this country has been held by just a few, everyone else has been kept out, it's time that changed," he said.

He's even called his new political party, the Praja Rajyam Party - meaning People's Rule.

Behind us a line of supporters on motorbikes chased us down the road. The security men, hanging precariously from the outside of their jeeps, tried to wave them back.

Crowds leant out of the windows of buses cheering at the movie star.

"The rich in India have been getting richer, the poor have been getting poorer," Chiranjeevi explained as we ducked to avoid low power lines. "I want to make that difference less, to narrow the gap."

Wealth divide

And in modern India the differences are stark. Not far from Tirupati where he was campaigning is the city of Bangalore. It's been at the heart of India's economic boom in recent years.

On the edge of Bangalore, Infosys Technologies is one India's success stories, providing software services to international clients.

The leader in India's outsourcing revolution, it's grown to employ 100,000 software engineers, 20,000 work on its main campus in Bangalore alone.

The place is an oasis, manicured lawns stretch between glass office blocks, fountains play lazily as young computer programmers stroll between meetings. A glass pyramid stands in the heart of the complex.

Hitesh Sharma, 26 and not long out of university, is one of the young generation who make up the new, confident, rising India.

As we tour the campus in a golf buggy he tells me: "I believe India's future is bright. We are young, imaginative, innovative. We have an economy that has weathered the global storm. I believe India will be an economic superpower."

But it's a different world just a couple of hours drive away. There's nothing high-tech about the village of Panakanahalli. People sit listlessly in the shade to escape the midday heat, buffaloes chew lazily in the shadows, and an ox cart trundles slowly by.

Standing at the village pump, operating it by hand to fill her water pots is 28-year-old Savita. She balances her 18-month-old baby girl Meeta on her hip, while her other daughter, six-year-old Sinchana, helps carry the water back to their tiny hut.

Savita is trying to bring up both girls alone. Last year her husband Nagraj, a farm labourer, drank weedkiller and committed suicide.

Their baby Meeta was just one-month-old at the time. Burdened down by debts of around $2,000 which he could not repay, Nagraj simply gave up and killed himself.

There has been an epidemic of suicides on India's farms in recent years. Crushed by debt and poverty, an estimated 100,000 farmers and labourers have taken their lives in the past decade, many in this belt of southern India.

"This is my destiny, the life of a poor labourer, there is no one who can help me in my situation now," says Savita, sitting on the floor of her empty hut, with a photo of her dead husband looking down from the wall.

Promises

It's exactly this huge gap of living standards and expectations between rich and poor that Chiranjeevi is promising to narrow.

Chiranjeevi makes the outcome in Andhra Pradesh hard to predict
And as we cruise through the streets of Tirupati, his adoring fans can't contain their excitement. Women line balconies along the route and shower his campaign truck with yellow flowers.

It's like rain falling from the sky. Soon the entire vehicle is covered in petals. More and more giant garlands are thrown from the crowd towards the film star. Sitting on the trucks roof I am half buried under the flowers.

Chiranjeevi grins, sweats slightly in the heat, and fixes his eye on individuals, pointing his finger at them, then gives a thumbs up sign. The crowds scream approval again. He raises both arms as if in triumph.

Exactly what impact Chiranjeevi and his party will have on India's election isn't clear. At best his party will win a handful of seats.

But that could still leave him in a strong position to influence the make-up of the government in Andhra Pradesh state, and even be a valuable ally at the national level too.

By splitting the vote between the main parties he is adding a new, unpredictable dynamic to the poll. And above all he is focusing minds on the failure of traditional politicians to do much for many of India's poor.

In this election most candidates are making promises about how they will transform the lives of the worse-off.

Some are promising cash transfers, others free colour televisions, yet more cheap rice, or free education. Poverty and development are becoming central themes of the campaign.

So in many ways Chiranjeevi's promises aren't that much distinct from his rivals. The difference is the poor have a new hero to believe in now, and he's a man they already idolise.

How he fares in the election will become clear when votes are counted on 16 May.

source: bbc

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YSR & Naidu hiding Satyam

It is apparent that YS Jagan and Naidu have benefitted most out of Satyam saga. Apart from mudslinging in the Assembly, neither ruling Congress nor main Opposition TDP wanted concrete follow- up action on the scam. Apparently, both their hands are soaked in the blood of Satyam scam
A joke that made rounds in the Assembly this week is that to get the whole truth about Satyam fraud, one must follow both Eenadu and Sakshi Telugu dailies. Yes, it is not the time to crack jokes about Satyam scam involving Rs 8,000 crore of public money and future of lakh of youngsters and investors.
But, the way the issue has been discussed in the Assembly during the brief vote-on-account session belied the expectations of people that a political resolve would be made to nail the culprits. Instead, it turned out that both Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy and former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu both had a role in plundering of the firm.
Entire nation waited and watched how Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly would handle this biggest financial fraud committed by a man, who not long ago hailed as the icon of India Inc. They thought the government would do some soul searching and take steps to get back the swindled money from Ramalinga Raju and family.
But, nothing of this sort has happened. Angry exchanges, accusations and counter-accusations and the usual spectacle of Assembly marshals forcibly throwing out the opposition members and breaking of window panes on the lobbies - were the outcome of the session.
Good. Finally, third-rate politics triumphed and the truth was buried as neither Congress nor Telugu Desam Party wanted an in-depth debate on Satyam scam. Knowing fully well that this issue would rock the Assembly, both sides have prepared in advance to divert the attention.
If ruling Congress discovered Heritage Foods land deal, TDP dug up into the laundering of money by Jagati Publications, printers of Sakshi newspaper. Going a step further, Congress managers have made former Naidu loyalist PNV Prasad cough up some truth about Naidu-Ramalinga Raju links.
It is not surprising that Naidu extracted his pound of flesh from Raju, for making him sit next to the then US president Bill Clinton. Raju returned the favour by bearing the expenditure of Naidu’s son, Lokesh education in America and donated huge sums to NTR Trust, owned by Naidu and his family.
PNV told Deccan Post that over a period between 1999, after Naidu came to power, and 2004,

Ramalinga Raju must have benefited Naidu to a tune of Rs 2,000 crore, through various deals. During this time, Raju could promote his sons Teja Raju and Rama Raju, who headed Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties.
“Naidu knew how to milk his share from Ramalinga Raju. Naidu awarded irrigation contracts worth of Rs 15,000 crore to Raju’s firms and got a share of Rs 1,000 crore as commission. Naidu awarded construction of Singapore Class Township at Pocharam by AP Housing Board to Maytas and took a commission of Rs 300 crore”.
Naidu took blame for promoting L&T during his time. However, L&T has not directly benefited Naidu in a big way. He made L&T sub-lease major works to Maytas and through Maytas the former chief minister got his share. “It will be difficult to anyone to prove that Naidu was guilty,” Prasad said.
Raju, on his part, utilized this political influence, boosted Satyam stocks value, sold them, and began left and right buying lands. “This is a quid pro quo. If Naidu extended his political patronage to Raju, the latter paid a price to each and every benefit he received,” said a senior officer, who worked in the Chief Minister’s Office till 2004.
After Congress came to power in 2004, it did not take much time for Raju to befriend with YSR. Though initially he threatened to review all major deals entered during TDP time, YSR has approved almost all the deals, albeit with a price tag. YSR has seen through the game plan of Naidu and decided to exploit the same on a much higher scale.
So, YSR has started helping out Maytas firms by awarding projects worth of Rs 18,000 crore in the last four years, if various irrigation works, SEZs and other projects are put together. Sources say at least Rs 3,000 crore have gone back as kickbacks to the powers that be.
There is no wonder that Jagati Publications and Raghuram Cements (Now Bharati Cements) have pushed up their stocks through fictitious deals and netted funds to a tune of Rs 1,000 crore. CID police is learnt to have information that YS Jagan owns around 800 acres lands as benami through Maytas Properties.
“It is strange that Maytas got several contracts like Kakinada SEZ and port works, from the government, though the company has not evinced interest in it. The projects came to Maytas, thanks to the extra interest shown by someone powerful from the Chief Minister’s side,” said an investigating officer.
The value of these 800 acres would be at least Rs 2,000 crore at the present meltdown prices. If Naidu has siphoned off Rs 2,000 crore of Satyam money, YSR has a share of not less than Rs 3,000 crore. Both are equally guilty, explained the officer. This money will surely be coming out during the next elections.

“Economic Factionalism”

Now three Telugu dailies are carrying out the political war. If Sakshi is leading the Congress front, Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy are batting for TDP, said a senior political analyst. “Even British tabloids would be put to shame, when compared to the writings in these papers,” he said.
Another political editor of a leading English daily from Hyderabad said: “This is nothing but economic factionalism. Both YSR and Naidu are targeting each other’s source of funding. They want to bleed the opponent financially. If you see that proceedings of the Assembly in last four years, it will be clear,” he said.
YSR wants to weaken Naidu’s milking cow - Heritage group, and Ramoji Rao’s Margadarsi group. At the same time, Eenadu paper targets CM’s son YS Jagan’s Sakshi paper and his other firms like Raghuram Cements. “As a result, people’s issues have taken a back seat and scams like Satyam got unattended,” he said.

source: deccan post

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Venezuela wins fifth Miss Universe title (AFP)
Miss Venezuela is Miss Universe 2008 (ap)
Miss Venezuela was crowned Miss Universe 2008 on Monday in a contest marked by the spectacle of Miss USA falling down during the evening gown competition for the second year in a row.

For more photos please visit:
http://reddy2007.blogspot.com/2008/07/miss-universe-2008.html

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I've been meaning to write up some tips on interviewing at

Google for a good long time now. I keep putting it off, though,

because it's going to make you mad. Probably. For some

statistical definition of "you", it's very likely to upset you.

Why? Because... well, here, I wrote a little ditty about it:

Hey man, I don't know that stuffStevey's talking abooooooutIf my

boss thinks it's importantI'm gonna get fiiiiiiiiiiredOooh yeah

baaaby baaaay-beeeeee....
I didn't realize this was such a typical reaction back when I

first started writing about interviewing, way back at other

companies. Boy-o-howdy did I find out in a hurry.

See, it goes like this:

Me: blah blah blah, I like asking question X in interviews, blah

blah blah...

You: Question X? Oh man, I haven't heard about X since college!

I've never needed it for my job! He asks that in interviews? But

that means someone out there thinks it's important to know, and,

and... I don't know it! If they detect my ignorance, not only

will I be summarily fired for incompetence without so much as a

thank-you, I will also be unemployable by people who ask

question X! If people listen to Stevey, that will be everyone! I

will become homeless and destitute! For not knowing something

I've never needed before! This is horrible! I would attack X

itself, except that I do not want to pick up a book and figure

enough out about it to discredit it. Clearly I must yell a lot

about how stupid Stevey is so that nobody will listen to him!

Me: So in conclusion, blah blah... huh? Did you say "fired"?

"Destitute?" What are you talking about?

You: Aaaaaaauuuggh!!! *stab* *stab* *stab*

Me: That's it. I'm never talking about interviewing again.

It doesn't matter what X is, either. It's arbitrary. I could

say: "I really enjoy asking the candidate (their name) in

interviews", and people would still freak out, on account of

insecurity about either interviewing in general or their

knowledge of their own name, hopefully the former.

But THEN, time passes, and interview candidates come and go, and

we always wind up saying: "Gosh, we sure wish that obviously

smart person had prepared a little better for his or her

interviews. Is there any way we can help future candidates out

with some tips?"

And then nobody actually does anything, because we're all afraid

of getting stabbed violently by People Who Don't Know X.

I considered giving out a set of tips in which I actually use

variable names like X, rather than real subjects, but decided

that in the resultant vacuum, everyone would get upset.

Otherwise that approach seemed pretty good, as long as I

published under a pseudonym.

In the end, people really need the tips, regardless of how many

feelings get hurt along the way. So rather than skirt around the

issues, I'm going to give you a few mandatory substitutions for

X along with a fair amount of general interview-prep

information.

Caveats and Disclaimers

This blog is not endorsed by Google. Google doesn't know I'm

publishing these tips. It's just between you and me, OK? Don't

tell them I prepped you. Just go kick ass on your interviews and

we'll be square.

I'm only talking about general software engineering positions,

and interviews for those positions.

These tips are actually generic; there's nothing specific to

Google vs. any other software company. I could have been writing

these tips about my first software job 20 years ago. That

implies that these tips are also timeless, at least for the span

of our careers.

These tips obviously won't get you a job on their own. My hope

is that by following them you will perform your very best during

the interviews.

Oh, and um, why Google?

Oho! Why Google, you ask? Well let's just have that dialog right

up front, shall we?

You: Should I work at Google? Is it all they say it is, and

more? Will I be serenely happy there? Should I apply

immediately?

Me: Yes.

You: To which ques... wait, what do you mean by "Yes?" I didn't

even say who I am!

Me: Dude, the answer is Yes. (You may be a woman, but I'm still

calling you Dude.)

You: But... but... I am paralyzed by inertia! And I feel a

certain comfort level at my current company, or at least I have

become relatively inured to the discomfort. I know people here

and nobody at Google! I would have to learn Google's build

system and technology and stuff! I have no credibility, no

reputation there – I would have to start over virtually from

scratch! I waited too long, there's no upside! I'm afraaaaaaid!

Me: DUDE. The answer is Yes already, OK? It's an invariant.

Everyone else who came to Google was in the exact same position

as you are, modulo a handful of famous people with beards that

put Gandalf's to shame, but they're a very tiny minority.

Everyone who applied had the same reasons for not applying as

you do. And everyone here says: "GOSH, I SURE AM HAPPY I CAME

HERE!" So just apply already. But prep first.

You: But what if I get a mistrial? I might be smart and

qualified, but for some random reason I may do poorly in the

interviews and not get an offer! That would be a huge blow to my

ego! I would rather pass up the opportunity altogether than have

a chance of failure!

Me: Yeah, that's at least partly true. Heck, I kinda didn't make

it in on my first attempt, but I begged like a street dog until

they gave me a second round of interviews. I caught them in a

weak moment. And the second time around, I prepared, and did

much better.

The thing is, Google has a well-known false negative rate, which

means we sometimes turn away qualified people, because that's

considered better than sometimes hiring unqualified people. This

is actually an industry-wide thing, but the dial gets turned

differently at different companies. At Google the false-negative

rate is pretty high. I don't know what it is, but I do know a

lot of smart, qualified people who've not made it through our

interviews. It's a ummer.

But the really important takeaway is this: if you don't get an

offer, you may still be qualified to work here. So it needn't be

a blow to your ego at all!

As far as anyone I know can tell, false negatives are completely

random, and are unrelated to your skills or qualifications. They

can happen from a variety of factors, including but not limited

to:

you're having an off day
one or more of your interviewers is having an off day
there were communication issues invisible to you and/or one or

more of the interviewers
you got unlucky and got an Interview Anti-Loop
Oh no, not the Interview Anti-Loop!

Yes, I'm afraid you have to worry about this.

What is it, you ask? Well, back when I was at Amazon, we did

(and they undoubtedly still do) a LOT of soul-searching about

this exact problem. We eventually concluded that every single

employee E at Amazon has at least one "Interview Anti-Loop": a

set of other employees S who would not hire E. The root cause is

important for you to understand when you're going into

interviews, so I'll tell you a little about what I've found over

the years.

First, you can't tell interviewers what's important. Not at any

company. Not unless they're specifically asking you for advice.

You have a very narrow window of perhaps one year after an

engineer graduates from college to inculcate them in the art of

interviewing, after which the window closes and they believe

they are a "good interviewer" and they don't need to change

their questions, their question styles, their interviewing

style, or their feedback style, ever again.

It's a problem. But I've had my hand bitten enough times that I

just don't try anymore.

Second problem: every "experienced" interviewer has a set of pet

subjects and possibly specific questions that he or she feels is

an accurate gauge of a candidate's abilities. The question sets

for any two interviewers can be widely different and even

entirely non-overlapping.

A classic example found everywhere is: Interviewer A always asks

about C++ trivia, filesystems, network protocols and discrete

math. Interviewer B always asks about Java trivia, design

patterns, unit testing, web frameworks, and software project

management. For any given candidate with both A and B on the

interview loop, A and B are likely to give very different votes.

A and B would probably not even hire each other, given a chance,

but they both happened to go through interviewer C, who asked

them both about data structures, unix utilities, and processes

versus threads, and A and B both happened to squeak by.

That's almost always what happens when you get an offer from a

tech company. You just happened to squeak by. Because of the

inherently flawed nature of the interviewing process, it's

highly likely that someone on the loop will be unimpressed with

you, even if you are Alan Turing. Especially if you're Alan

Turing, in fact, since it means you obviously don't know C++.

The bottom line is, if you go to an interview at any software

company, you should plan for the contingency that you might get

genuinely unlucky, and wind up with one or more people from your

Interview Anti-Loop on your interview loop. If this happens, you

will struggle, then be told that you were not a fit at this

time, and then you will feel bad. Just as long as you don't feel

meta-bad, everything is OK. You should feel good that you feel

bad after this happens, because hey, it means you're human.

And then you should wait 6-12 months and re-apply. That's pretty

much the best solution we (or anyone else I know of) could come

up with for the false-negative problem. We wipe the slate clean

and start over again. There are lots of people here who got in

on their second or third attempt, and they're kicking butt.

You can too.

OK, I feel better about potentially not getting hired

Good! So let's get on to those tips, then.

If you've been following along very closely, you'll have

realized that I'm interviewer D. Meaning that my personal set of

pet questions and topics is just my own, and it's no better or

worse than anyone else's. So I can't tell you what it is, no

matter how much I'd like to, because I'll offend interviewers A

through X who have slightly different working sets.

Instead, I want to prep you for some general topics that I

believe are shared by the majority of tech interviewers at

Google-like companies. Roughly speaking, this means the company

builds a lot of their own software and does a lot of distributed

computing. There are other tech-company footprints, the opposite

end of the spectrum being companies that outsource everything to

consultants and try to use as much third-party software as

possible. My tips will be useful only to the extent that the

company resembles Google.

So you might as well make it Google, eh?

First, let's talk about non-technical prep.

The Warm-Up

Nobody goes into a boxing match cold. Lesson: you should bring

your boxing gloves to the interview. No, wait, sorry, I mean:

warm up beforehand!

How do you warm up? Basically there is short-term and long-term

warming up, and you should do both.

Long-term warming up means: study and practice for a week or two

before the interview. You want your mind to be in the general

"mode" of problem solving on whiteboards. If you can do it on a

whiteboard, every other medium (laptop, shared network document,

whatever) is a cakewalk. So plan for the whiteboard.

Short-term warming up means: get lots of rest the night before,

and then do intense, fast-paced warm-ups the morning of the

interview.

The two best long-term warm-ups I know of are:

1) Study a data-structures and algorithms book. Why? Because it

is the most likely to help you beef up on problem

identification. Many interviewers are happy when you understand

the broad class of question they're asking without explanation.

For instance, if they ask you about coloring U.S. states in

different colors, you get major bonus points if you recognize it

as a graph-coloring problem, even if you don't actually remember

exactly how graph-coloring works.

And if you do remember how it works, then you can probably whip

through the answer pretty quickly. So your best bet,

interview-prep wise, is to practice the art of recognizing that

certain problem classes are best solved with certain algorithms

and data structures.

My absolute favorite for this kind of interview preparation is

Steven Skiena's The Algorithm Design Manual. More than any other

book it helped me understand just how astonishingly commonplace

(and important) graph problems are – they should be part of

every working programmer's toolkit. The book also covers basic

data structures and sorting algorithms, which is a nice bonus.

But the gold mine is the second half of the book, which is a

sort of encyclopedia of 1-pagers on zillions of useful problems

and various ways to solve them, without too much detail. Almost

every 1-pager has a simple picture, making it easy to remember.

This is a great way to learn how to identify hundreds of problem

types.

Other interviewers I know recommend Introduction to Algorithms.

It's a true classic and an invaluable resource, but it will

probably take you more than 2 weeks to get through it. But if

you want to come into your interviews prepped, then consider

deferring your application until you've made your way through

that book.

2) Have a friend interview you. The friend should ask you a

random interview question, and you should go write it on the

board. You should keep going until it is complete, no matter how

tired or lazy you feel. Do this as much as you can possibly

tolerate.

I didn't do these two types of preparation before my first

Google interview, and I was absolutely shocked at how bad at

whiteboard coding I had become since I had last interviewed

seven years prior. It's hard! And I also had forgotten a bunch

of algorithms and data structures that I used to know, or at

least had heard of.

Going through these exercises for a week prepped me mightily for

my second round of Google interviews, and I did way, way better.

It made all the difference.

As for short-term preparation, all you can really do is make

sure you are as alert and warmed up as possible. Don't go in

cold. Solve a few problems and read through your study books.

Drink some coffee: it actually helps you think faster, believe

it or not. Make sure you spend at least an hour practicing

immediately before you walk into the interview. Treat it like a

sports game or a music recital, or heck, an exam: if you go in

warmed up you'll give your best performance.

Mental Prep

So! You're a hotshot programmer with a long list of

accomplishments. Time to forget about all that and focus on

interview survival.

You should go in humble, open-minded, and focused.

If you come across as arrogant, then people will question

whether they want to work with you. The best way to appear

arrogant is to question the validity of the interviewer's

question – it really ticks them off, as I pointed out earlier

on. Remember how I said you can't tell an interviewer how to

interview? Well, that's especially true if you're a candidate.

So don't ask: "gosh, are algorithms really all that important?

do you ever need to do that kind of thing in real life? I've

never had to do that kind of stuff." You'll just get rejected,

so don't say that kind of thing. Treat every question as

legitimate, even if you are frustrated that you don't know the

answer.

Feel free to ask for help or hints if you're stuck. Some

interviewers take points off for that, but occasionally it will

get you past some hurdle and give you a good performance on what

would have otherwise been a horrible stony half-hour silence.

Don't say "choo choo choo" when you're "thinking".

Don't try to change the subject and answer a different question.

Don't try to divert the interviewer from asking you a question

by telling war stories. Don't try to bluff your interviewer. You

should focus on each problem they're giving you and make your

best effort to answer it fully.

Some interviewers will not ask you to write code, but they will

expect you to start writing code on the whiteboard at some point

during your answer. They will give you hints but won't

necessarily come right out and say: "I want you to write some

code on the board now." If in doubt, you should ask them if they

would like to see code.

Interviewers have vastly different expectations about code. I

personally don't care about syntax (unless you write something

that could obviously never work in any programming language, at

which point I will dive in and verify that you are not, in fact,

a circus clown and that it was an honest mistake). But some

interviewers are really picky about syntax, and some will even

silently mark you down for missing a semicolon or a curly brace,

without telling you. I think of these interviewers as – well,

it's a technical term that rhymes with "bass soles", but they

think of themselves as brilliant technical evaluators, and

there's no way to tell them otherwise.

So ask. Ask if they care about syntax, and if they do, try to

get it right. Look over your code carefully from different

angles and distances. Pretend it's someone else's code and

you're tasked with finding bugs in it. You'd be amazed at what

you can miss when you're standing 2 feet from a whiteboard with

an interviewer staring at your shoulder blades.

It's OK (and highly encouraged) to ask a few clarifying

questions, and occasionally verify with the interviewer that

you're on the track they want you to be on. Some interviewers

will mark you down if you just jump up and start coding, even if

you get the code right. They'll say you didn't think carefully

first, and you're one of those "let's not do any design" type

cowboys. So even if you think you know the answer to the

problem, ask some questions and talk about the approach you'll

take a little before diving in.

On the flip side, don't take too long before actually solving

the problem, or some interviewers will give you a delay-of-game

penalty. Try to move (and write) quickly, since often

interviewers want to get through more than one question during

the interview, and if you solve the first one too slowly then

they'll be out of time. They'll mark you down because they

couldn't get a full picture of your skills. The benefit of the

doubt is rarely given in interviewing.

One last non-technical tip: bring your own whiteboard dry-erase

markers. They sell pencil-thin ones at office supply stores,

whereas most companies (including Google) tend to stock the fat

kind. The thin ones turn your whiteboard from a 480i

standard-definition tube into a 58-inch 1080p HD plasma screen.

You need all the help you can get, and free whiteboard space is

a real blessing.

You should also practice whiteboard space-management skills,

such as not starting on the right and coding down into the

lower-right corner in Teeny Unreadable Font. Your interviewer

will not be impressed. Amusingly, although it always irks me

when people do this, I did it during my interviews, too. Just be

aware of it!

Oh, and don't let the marker dry out while you're standing there

waving it. I'm tellin' ya: you want minimal distractions during

the interview, and that one is surprisingly common.

OK, that should be good for non-tech tips. On to X, for some

value of X! Don't stab me!

Tech Prep Tips

The best tip is: go get a computer science degree. The more

computer science you have, the better. You don't have to have a

CS degree, but it helps. It doesn't have to be an advanced

degree, but that helps too.

However, you're probably thinking of applying to Google a little

sooner than 2 to 8 years from now, so here are some shorter-term

tips for you.

Algorithm Complexity: you need to know Big-O. It's a must. If

you struggle with basic big-O complexity analysis, then you are

almost guaranteed not to get hired. It's, like, one chapter in

the beginning of one theory of computation book, so just go read

it. You can do it.

Sorting: know how to sort. Don't do bubble-sort. You should know

the details of at least one n*log(n) sorting algorithm,

preferably two (say, quicksort and merge sort). Merge sort can

be highly useful in situations where quicksort is impractical,

so take a look at it.

For God's sake, don't try sorting a linked list during the

interview.

Hashtables: hashtables are arguably the single most important

data structure known to mankind. You absolutely have to know how

they work. Again, it's like one chapter in one data structures

book, so just go read about them. You should be able to

implement one using only arrays in your favorite language, in

about the space of one interview.

Trees: you should know about trees. I'm tellin' ya: this is

basic stuff, and it's embarrassing to bring it up, but some of

you out there don't know basic tree construction, traversal and

manipulation algorithms. You should be familiar with binary

trees, n-ary trees, and trie-trees at the very very least. Trees

are probably the best source of practice problems for your

long-term warmup exercises.

You should be familiar with at least one flavor of balanced

binary tree, whether it's a red/black tree, a splay tree or an

AVL tree. You should actually know how it's implemented.

You should know about tree traversal algorithms: BFS and DFS,

and know the difference between inorder, postorder and preorder.

You might not use trees much day-to-day, but if so, it's because

you're avoiding tree problems. You won't need to do that anymore

once you know how they work. Study up!

Graphs

Graphs are, like, really really important. More than you think.

Even if you already think they're important, it's probably more

than you think.

There are three basic ways to represent a graph in memory

(objects and pointers, matrix, and adjacency list), and you

should familiarize yourself with each representation and its

pros and cons.

You should know the basic graph traversal algorithms:

breadth-first search and depth-first search. You should know

their computational complexity, their tradeoffs, and how to

implement them in real code.

You should try to study up on fancier algorithms, such as

Djikstra and A*, if you get a chance. They're really great for

just about anything, from game programming to distributed

computing to you name it. You should know them.

Whenever someone gives you a problem, think graphs. They are the

most fundamental and flexible way of representing any kind of a

relationship, so it's about a 50-50 shot that any interesting

design problem has a graph involved in it. Make absolutely sure

you can't think of a way to solve it using graphs before moving

on to other solution types. This tip is important!

Other data structures

You should study up on as many other data structures and

algorithms as you can fit in that big noggin of yours. You

should especially know about the most famous classes of

NP-complete problems, such as traveling salesman and the

knapsack problem, and be able to recognize them when an

interviewer asks you them in disguise.

You should find out what NP-complete means.

Basically, hit that data structures book hard, and try to retain

as much of it as you can, and you can't go wrong.

Math

Some interviewers ask basic discrete math questions. This is

more prevalent at Google than at other places I've been, and I

consider it a Good Thing, even though I'm not particularly good

at discrete math. We're surrounded by counting problems,

probability problems, and other Discrete Math 101 situations,

and those innumerate among us blithely hack around them without

knowing what we're doing.

Don't get mad if the interviewer asks math questions. Do your

best. Your best will be a heck of a lot better if you spend some

time before the interview refreshing your memory on (or teaching

yourself) the essentials of combinatorics and probability. You

should be familiar with n-choose-k problems and their ilk – the

more the better.

I know, I know, you're short on time. But this tip can really

help make the difference between a "we're not sure" and a "let's

hire her". And it's actually not all that bad – discrete math

doesn't use much of the high-school math you studied and forgot.

It starts back with elementary-school math and builds up from

there, so you can probably pick up what you need for interviews

in a couple of days of intense study.

Sadly, I don't have a good recommendation for a Discrete Math

book, so if you do, please mention it in the comments. Thanks.

Operating Systems

This is just a plug, from me, for you to know about processes,

threads and concurrency issues. A lot of interviewers ask about

that stuff, and it's pretty fundamental, so you should know it.

Know about locks and mutexes and semaphores and monitors and how

they work. Know about deadlock and livelock and how to avoid

them. Know what resources a processes needs, and a thread needs,

and how context switching works, and how it's initiated by the

operating system and underlying hardware. Know a little about

scheduling. The world is rapidly moving towards multi-core, and

you'll be a dinosaur in a real hurry if you don't understand the

fundamentals of "modern" (which is to say, "kinda broken")

concurrency constructs.

The best, most practical book I've ever personally read on the

subject is Doug Lea's Concurrent Programming in Java. It got me

the most bang per page. There are obviously lots of other books

on concurrency. I'd avoid the academic ones and focus on the

practical stuff, since it's most likely to get asked in

interviews.

Coding

You should know at least one programming language really well,

and it should preferably be C++ or Java. C# is OK too, since

it's pretty similar to Java. You will be expected to write some

code in at least some of your interviews. You will be expected

to know a fair amount of detail about your favorite programming

language.

Other Stuff

Because of the rules I outlined above, it's still possible that

you'll get Interviewer A, and none of the stuff you've studied

from these tips will be directly useful (except being warmed

up.) If so, just do your best. Worst case, you can always come

back in 6-12 months, right? Might seem like a long time, but I

assure you it will go by in a flash.

The stuff I've covered is actually mostly red-flags: stuff that

really worries people if you don't know it. The discrete math is

potentially optional, but somewhat risky if you don't know the

first thing about it. Everything else I've mentioned you should

know cold, and then you'll at least be prepped for the baseline

interview level. It could be a lot harder than that, depending

on the interviewer, or it could be easy.

It just depends on how lucky you are. Are you feeling lucky?

Then give it a try!

Send me your resume

I'll probably batch up any resume submissions people send me and

submit them weekly. In the meantime, study up! You have a lot of

warming up to do. Real-world work makes you rusty.

I hope this was helpful. Let the flames begin, etc. Yawn.

Love: The reality show
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Oomph factor begins
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ideshows/vikram_phadnis/slideshow.php

Game on:

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9 Essential Rails Tips
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Only in Russia
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Humour
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10 Things to do before you die
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Buster Martin, who has already been the oldest employee in Britain, said he has been training in his spare time for the London Marathon on April 13, aiming to become the world's oldest marathon runner.

The former Army physical training instructor has 17 children and returned to work three days a week at the age of 99 after two years of retirement.

He also holds three world title records for the oldest person to run the 5K, 10K and the half marathon after completing a half marathon last weekend in five hours 13 minutes.

The previous record for world's oldest marathon runner is 93-year old.

Martin runs in the name of charity. He is raising money for the Rhys Daniels Trust, which provides a "home from home" for parents of children having treatment for life-threatening illnesses.

"I've said I'll attempt it," he said. "I haven't said I'll complete it. If I do make it, all the better. I hadn't thought of doing it before but someone asked me and the money goes to charity so why not?"

reddy2007.blogspot.com

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reddy2007.blogspot.com

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Acrylamide, the potentially cancer-causing chemical, is created when starch-rich foods are cooked at high temperatures above 120°C, such as frying, baking, grilling or roasting.

The study finds that washing raw chips, soaking them for 30 minutes and soaking them for two hours can reduce the formation of acrylamide by up to 23 percent, 38 percent and 48 percent respectively.

The study is conducted only if the fries were cooked to a light color. It's not clear whether the same reductions could be achieved if French fries are cooked to a deep, dark brown.

"There has been much research done by the food industry looking at reducing acrylamide in products but less so on foods cooked at home, and we wanted to explore ways of reducing the level of acrylamide in home cooking," said lead author Rachel Burch of Leatherhead Food International.

The three-year project recommended eating home-cooked meals, which contain much less acrylamide than processed products.

reddy2007.blogspot.com

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Warren Buffett, the famed U.S. investor who heads Berkshire Hathaway Inc, replaced his friend and Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates as the richest man in the world, Forbes magazine said on Wednesday.

The magazine estimated Buffett's worth at $62 billion in its annual ranking of the world's wealthiest people.

Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim came in second with an estimated worth of $60 billion, pushing Gates to third place after 13 years of holding the No. 1 spot.

The magazine estimated Gates' worth at $58 billion.

Buffett's rise to No. 1 was particularly noteworthy, Forbes said, as it came at a time of great financial turmoil and as Buffett has begun to siphon off part of his fortune to charity.

"Even though he is giving away a piece of his fortune each year, the stock of Berkshire Hathaway, the source of Warren Buffet's wealth, has been rising very rapidly," Chief Executive of Forbes Magazines Steve Forbes said, noting Buffett's fortune climbed $10 billion in the last calendar year.

Buffett in June 2006 announced plans to give 85 percent of his fortune away, granting it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four family charities. Bill Gates serves on the board of directors of Berkshire Hathaway and is a long-time bridge buddy of Buffett's. Gates has also given a substantial amount of his fortune to the foundation.

Buffett, often called the Sage of Omaha, has been lauded among investors for his preference for investing in larger companies with easy-to-understand businesses, large or dominant market shares, consistent earnings, and strong management.

In the early 1960s, Buffett started to invest in Berkshire, then a struggling textile maker, and took it over in 1965. Since then, he has transformed it into a holding company for more than 50 companies, ranging from Benjamin Moore paint and Dairy Queen ice cream to Fruit of the Loom underwear and Ginsu knives.

Gates has held the No. 1 spot since 1995, when he unseated Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, a Japanese real estate tycoon. Tsutsumi fell off the billionaire's list last year after receiving a suspended prison sentence for falsifying financial statements and insider trading in 2005.

Slim, a former stock market trader, is known for buying up struggling, cheap firms and turning them into profitable cash cows. He built his fortune by privatizing former Mexican state telephone monopoly Telmex. America Movil, a Telmex spin-off, is is now Slim's flagship business and Latin America's biggest mobile phone company.

KEEPING UP WITH THE RUSSIANS?

The collective net worth of the world's 1,125 billionaires soared to $4.4 trillion, the magazine said.

The list of billionaires has almost doubled in the past four years, Forbes said. There were 469 U.S. billionaires, worth a combined $1.6 trillion, while the 656 billionaires who live outside the United States are worth $2.8 trillion.

Russia came in second place as home to 87 billionaires and Moscow is now the world's billionaire center, the magazine said. The Russian capital is now home to more billionaires than New York City.

India, China and Turkey also saw large gains in numbers of billionaires.

The world's youngest billionaire is 23-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, founder of social networking Web site Facebook. The magazine estimated his worth at $1.5 billion and said he is the youngest self-made billionaire to ever appear in the Forbes billionaire rankings.

Recent turmoil in the financial markets has taken its toll on the list.

James Cayne, Chairman of investment bank Bear Stearns Cos; William Pulte, who founded U.S. home builder Pulte Homes Inc; and Howard Schultz, founder of coffee chain Starbucks all fell off the billionaire's list amid declines in their companies' stock prices.

The decline in the dollar, a trend that Buffett himself has been betting on since 2002, provided a boost to billionaires outside the United States, particularly because the Forbes list is tabulated in U.S. dollars.

The full list of billionaires is available at (http://www.forbes.com/billionaires

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Finally, the big moment. Denzel Washington announces the nominees without any further delay. And the Oscar goes to No Country For Old Men (rediff)
No Country wins Best Film, Director (rediff)

Ethan (L) and Joel Cohen (C) accept the Oscar for best directing for "No Country...

Actor Javier Bardem poses with his Oscar statuette after winning best supporting actor for his work in "No Country for Old Men" at the 80th annual Academy Awards in Hollywood, February 24, 2008

Austrian director Stefan Ruzowitzky poses with his Oscar statuette after winning Foreign Film of the Year for "The Counterfeiters" backstage at the 80th annual Academy Awards in Hollywood, February 24, 2008

Actor Javier Bardem reacts to Josh Brolan as 'No Country For Old Men' won best picture at the 80th Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2008

Producers Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen, left, and Joel Coen, center rear, accept the Oscar after the film 'No Country for Old Men' won best motion picture of the year at the 80th Academy Awards Sunday, Feb. 24, 2008, in Los Angeles. At back right is presenter Denzel Washington

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However, creating a CV isn't as simple as just using flowery language and pretty fonts. There are certain things that put recruiters off and if you want to make a good impression, make sure you do not commit these mistakes in what is arguably the most valuable document of your job hunt.

While the rules listed are well-founded, they are not carved in stone. At times you will need to break the rules. If you want to add these things knowingly and purposefully to your CV we advise you to do that.

The points mentioned here are not listed in the order of priority; instead they are listed in the sequence in which they usually appear on a CV.

~ Colorful or glossy paper and flashy fonts
Your CV is a formal, official document. Keep it simple.

~ Resume or CV at the top
Many people tend to add headings to their CV. The usual are CV, Curriculum Vitae and Resume. Do not do this.

~ Photographs until asked
Do not add your photo to the CV until you have been asked for it. Photographs are required only for certain types of positions like models, actors etc.

~ Usage of 'I', 'My', 'He', 'She'
Do not use these in your CV. Many candidates write, 'I worked as Team Leader for XYZ Company' or 'He was awarded Best Employee for the year 2007'. Instead use bullet points to list out your qualifications/ experience like: Team leader for XYZ Company from 2006-2007.

~ Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors
Proofread your CV until you are confident that it doesn't have any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. These are big put-offs for the recruiters. Moreover, sometimes these mistakes might land you in an embarrassing situation.

A candidate who submitted his CV without proofreading it committed the mistake of wrongly spelling 'ask' as 'ass'. Now you can imagine the type of embarrassment he must have faced during the interview, when the interviewer pointed it out. These mistakes tend to convey a lazy and careless attitude to the interviewer.

~ Lies about your candidature
Do not lie about your past jobs or qualifications or anything which might have an impact on the job. You may be able to secure a job with these lies today but tomorrow you may lose it as well.

~ Abbreviations or jargon that is difficult to understand
People screening your resume usually belong to the HR department. If they do not understand what the abbreviations and jargon mean, they will simply dump your CV in the trash can. Avoid over-using such terms as far as possible.

~ Reasons for leaving last job
Leave these reasons to be discussed during the personal interview. For example, some candidates write: Reason for leaving the last job: Made redundant. Avoid making such statements in your CV, they add no value. Besides, if you do get an interview call, chances are the interviewer will address the issue.

~ Past failures or health problems
Mentioning these immediately slash your chances of getting an interview call.

For instance, you have a gap in your employment because you started your own business which did not do well. Some candidates might write -- Reason for gap in employment: Started own business which failed. Do not do this type of injustice with your job hunt at this stage of writing the CV.

~ Current or expected salary
Leave it to be discussed while negotiating the salary.

~ Irrelevant details
Leave out the details like marital status, sex, passport number, number of kids, age of kids. These are usually irrelevant for most interviewers but at times could be used as a basis for discrimination.

~ References
Do not include them until asked. In fact, it is not even required to mention the line 'Reference available on request'. If the recruiter requires a reference, he/she will ask you to bring it along for the interview.

Now that you have run through the list, take a fresh look at your CV and prune away unnecessary details and unaffordable blunders that could have cost you your dream job.

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reddy2007.blogspot.com;
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Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., greets supporters at a Super Tuesday presidential primary elections night party in Phoenix.McCain, Clinton lead in early state returns(latimes)
McCain claims front-runner status, Dem race not settled (cnn)

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aol.IN
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China winter chaos sparks railway stampede; 1 dead
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Brazil carnival indulges in safe sex drive

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