Dan Q

Kind: Reposts

One of my favourite hosting companies is recruiting using anonymous online interviews, in an effort to combat industry sexism

This link was originally posted to /r/girlsgonewired. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

The original link was: https://blog.bytemark.co.uk/2015/05/20/bytemark-is-hiring-by-anonymous-interview

…

So, in May 2015, we made the huge decision to start an anonymous recruitment process. The biggest change compared to tradition recuiting is this – your first two interviews are truly anonymous. We conduct them over instant messaging and run our skills tests remotely too.

You won’t even have to give your real name or a CV in the initial stages. We don’t know anything about you that you don’t choose to present in the interview.

That makes us work hard for explicit goals. We want to know about your:

Most valuable skills
Ability to learn
Ability to work effectively in a team

We make decisions based on those factors. Avoiding the “X factor” of cultural fit, which we’ve seen as an excuse for all kinds of implicit and explicit bias across industries.

We also want to be respectful of your time, your enthusiasm and your interests – we’ll test not just what you know but what you can learn. Our focus is on letting you put your abilities to the fore, without fear that you’ll be judged on irrelevant things. We define the job, we define the skills, and we want to test those without bias.

Our culture comes from you, the best person for the job at the end of the process. Of course we still need to meet you, we want to meet you. But we will start our interviews on the solid foundation of anonymity. Only at the final stages will you be asked to come in for a face-to-face interview.

…

Repost posted at UTC on .

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Is it possible to ‘blow’ a whistle or other wind/brass instrument underwater? How?

This self-post was originally posted to /r/askscience. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

Wind and brass instruments (which I’ve just learned are collectively ‘aerophones’) work because since characteristic of their shape causes the air that is pushed or drawn through them to vibrate at particular frequencies. They work in air whether you’re down a mine or at the top of a mountain, so there’s clearly some tolerance to pressure variation. I presume, therefore, that you could play them using other gases too (e.g. by connecting a whistle to a pump in a nitrogen atmosphere, for example), albeit presumably with a change in pitch (we have whistles driven by an air/steam mixture on steam locomotives, for example).

But I wonder: can such an instrument be used with other fluids? How about a liquid, like water? Can I pump water through an underwater whistle in order to make a whistle-like noise? What are the physical constraints on doing so (e.g do I need a higher pressure difference in water)?

If it’s not possible, why not? What could be done, hypothetically, to construct an aerophone-style (“hydrophone”?) instrument that would work underwater?

tl;dr: Could I pump water through an underwater whistle to ‘blow’ it? If not, how can I ‘fix’ that?

Repost posted at UTC on .

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Guess where I woke up this morning, MegaMasons?

This link was originally posted to /r/MegaMasonsLounge. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

The original link was: http://i.imgur.com/vUxVG6Z.jpg

Dan in hospital

So yeah: that’s not entirely pleasant. A couple of days ago I was diagnosed with what was supposed to be a minor bladder infection and given antibiotics. Then yesterday I became feverish and collapsed. And now I’m in hospital.

But on the upside, they’ve spent all night pumping me full of some kind of intravaenous antibiotic that must be made from like unicorn spunk and leprechaun tears or something because it’s frankly magical: feeling so much better today than yesterday.

Just wanted to say hi. Hi, all!

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[x-post /r/MegaMegaMegaLounge] [Graph] Tracking ‘engagement’ across the MegaLounges. Why are some Megas more-active than others? (interpretation in comments)

This link was originally posted to /r/MegaMegaMonitor. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

The original link was: https://i.imgur.com/3aXKsxq.png

Engagement level by MegaLounge

In /u/10_9_‘s recent thread about gilding trends, /u/razerxs made an interesting observation: that the huge ‘drop offs’ in membership of MegaLounges after /r/MegaMegaMegaLounge does not correlate with their expectations, based upon the level of activity in /r/MegaLoungeV. /u/razerxs

observed that e.g. /r/MegaLoungeV is a highly-active sub, which isn’t necessarily what you’d expect if the activity level was based entirely upon the number of people permitted to have access.

I started wondering if there might be a better predictor of engagement levels. I experimented by looking at the ratio of how many people ‘subscribe’ to each MegaLounge to how many people are permitted into there. This isn’t a perfect measure of engagement, of course, but my thinking was that of the people who are invited into a MegaLounge, only some of those will add it to their front page… but that those who add it to their front page are more-likely to actively participate.

The graph shows three things. From the left axis, the blue and red lines show the number of people who are allowed into each MegaLounge and the number of people who are subscribed to each MegaLounge. As you might expect, there’s a gap between the two and the gap narrows in higher lounges, where there are fewer people.

But what I was interested in is whether and where this gap changes proportionally: is the “subscription rate” among eligible people higher in particular lounges, and can this been seen as a predictor of activity levels and engagement rates in each lounge? That’s what the green bars show (against the right-hand axis: note that it doesn’t start at zero). In general, across the MegaLounges up to and including /r/MegaLoungeSol, there does seem to be a slight upward trend: i.e. the higher a lounge you’re in, the more-likely that eligible people are to add that lounge to their front page. Beyond /r/MegaLoungeSol the bars jump around all over the place, probably because of the small number of people ‘up there’, and I suggest that we ignore them: accuracy of this as a predictor would be expected to be better where there were more subscribers: say, up to about /r/MegaLoungeDiamond.

What this would predict would be a “lull” at /r/MegaLoungeVIII. I don’t know if that’s your experience or not. And, interestingly, the ‘subscription ratio’ at /r/MegaLoungeV and /r/MegaLoungeX are also unusually low, bucking the overall trend. What does this mean? I don’t know. But if /r/MegaLoungeV really is to be considered one of the more “active” MegaLounges, then I think that we can safely say that my hypothesis – that we might be able to predict activity hotspots by looking at the subscription rate – is not backed up by the data.

Still: interesting stuff.

Repost posted at UTC on .

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Welcome to the planets, new astronauts!

This self-post was originally posted to /r/MegaLoungeNeptune. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

I just wanted to give a wave to our three new astronauts, freshly arrived here in the planets just over the course of this last week. They are:

Happy space exploration!

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Off into surgery: wish me luck!

This self-post was originally posted to /r/MegaMasonsLounge. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

Apparently when I had wisdom teeth removed, ooh, a little over 25 years ago, the dentist who did so fucked up and managed to leave fragments of tooth embedded in my gum, which might have been harmless except that they’ve lately become infected with something and are may ultimately threaten my jawbone.

So, yeah. In about 15 minutes I’m off into surgery. Local anaesthetic (though I’m wondering if I should have opted for general… gulp!), then some digging around in my gums to pull out some pieces of tooth shrapnel: nice, eh?

Wish me luck, Masons!

Update: Went swimmingly! Minimal pain/discomfort, lovely surgery staff. A++ would thingy again. Which is for the best, because I’ve got a slightly more-complex (related) procedure on the other side of my mouth in five weeks or so!

Repost posted at UTC on .

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People who should REALLY be using MegaMegaMonitor

This self-post was originally posted to /r/MegaMegaMegaMonitor. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

You know how I love to play with statistics and data mining. Well, I’ve been doing so, and I thought I’d share with you uber-elites some fun-but-pointless data I’ve been extracting: the names of the Redditors who’d probably most-benefit from MegaMegaMonitor, but who aren’t using it (based on how many tracked private subs they’re part of – note that some subs are tracked but don’t [yet] have icons…):

  1. /u/madazzahatter
  2. /u/outroversion
  3. /u/k_princess
  4. /u/prepetual_change, /u/mike_pants, and /u/rachycarebear
  5. /u/The1RGood, /u/AdrianBlake, /u/TheBlazingPhoenix, /u/troll9025, /u/dystopika, /u/vanityprojects, /u/DaveLambert, /u/preggit, and /u/Eat_The_Muffin
  6. /u/SkinBintin, /u/KnashDavis, /u/wil, /u/mrkleen340, /u/IpMedia, /u/nottychz, /u/drocks27, /u/thebobstu, /u/Karma_4_Free, /u/Mrs_Holman_7, /u/krixo, /u/S_Jeru, /u/Motha_Effin_Kitty_Yo, /u/carmabound, /u/InvaderT, and /u/AndyWarwheels

I wonder if I should have some kind of referrals scheme, whereby people can claim credit for getting other people ‘hooked’ on MegaMegaMonitor. Or maybe just have a scoreboard of “who suggested it to whom”.

Or maybe I’m overthinking it all again.

Anyway: just wanted to share with you. I’m thinking of doing some statistics cross-referencing “highest MegaLounge” against “number of (tracked) private sub memberships”, because I’ll bet there’s a correlation there… and if there is, I’d be interested to see who the outliers are! /u/k_princess would probably be one, as she’s in lots of private subs but is only up to /r/MegaLoungeSaturn, somehow. /u/outroversion even more so, with a highest MegaLounge of /r/MegaLoungeRuby. But there’s always a lot we can learn from the outliers. And there must be outliers at the other extreme, too: people who are way up in the MegaLounges but aren’t in many other private subs: I wonder who they are?

This has been your insight into my mind, for today. Have a great week!

Repost posted at UTC on .

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MegaMegaMonitor now supports the noble Ninjas! (and the filthy pirates, I suppose)

This self-post was originally posted to /r/NinjaLounge. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

As of MegaMegaMonitor v120, the browser plugin now supports /r/NinjaLounge! What does this mean – well, if you install MegaMegaMonitor into your browser:

  • You’ll be able to see your ninja brethren everywhere on Reddit: they’ll have a “ninja” icon after their name, so you can’t miss them!
  • You’ll be able to write secret messages that only other ninjas (who use MegaMegaMonitor) will be able to decode. A great way to “out” suspected pirates when you meet them elsewhere in Reddit and to coordinate attacks.
  • If you choose, you can go into your MegaMegaMonitor settings and take off your ninja disguise! If you do this, even pirates (who use MegaMegaMonitor) will be able to see that you’re a ninja by the icon next to your name, so it’s only an option for ninjas who prefer an aggressive stance rather than a stealthy one. It’s up to you!

The pirates are about to make this same discovery, too, but (on account of me being a ninja!) you’re hearing about it first. To arms!

 

Repost posted at UTC on .

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