O.C. Heaton's Blog, page 2

How Smart/Dumb are you?

Yesterday I posed five questions that technology and other leading companies pose their candidates in job interviews.

As promised here are the answers:

Question One

The interviewer writes six numbers on the room’s whiteboard: 10, 9, 60, 90, 70, 66. The question is, what number comes next in the series?

This is not a maths question. Spell out the numbers in plain English, which gives you the following: ten nine sixty ninety seventy sixty-six. The numbers are in order of how many letters are in...

Are You Feeling Smart?

When’s the last time you interviewed for a job? It’s been many years for me and after reading a recent article in the Guardian about the interviewing approach at Google and other tech companies I’m quite relieved because I suspect there would be no job at the end of it for me.

They tend to favour the older tradition of using logic puzzles to test job candidates.So how smart are you feeling?

Here are five questions for you:

The interviewer writes six numbers on the room’s whiteboard: 10, 9, 6...

Data Decay and the Chauvet Cave Paintings

For all our advances in technology, particularly on the computing front, it was with some surprise that I read about one element of this recent revolution that actually seems to be going backwards. That is, data stored electronically decays!

It’s become so bad that many floppy discs from the early digital age are already unreadable. One article I read reported that NASA has lost data from some of its earliest missions because the readers that were built to run the tapes are no longer made...

What do Fracking and Iceland have in common?

I have to say it’s been interesting to see UK energy policy taking shape over the last six months with forays into areas that ten years ago would have seemed preposterous.

But a lot has changed during the intervening decade particularly the declining reserves of both North Sea Oil and Gas along with the commensurate price rise in both fuels on the wholesale market. Add into the mix coal fired power stations that will close due to being unable to meet the clean air requirements of theEurope...

Energy free speakers.

Now here’s a neat piece of technology – a bamboo speaker for your i-phone from designer Anatoliy Omelchenko ofTriangle Tree. It consists of a single piece of bamboo — one of the world’s greenest natural materials — with a slot cut into it where the iPhone is placed. The natural shape of the speaker amplifies the tunes, producing a pseudo-stereo effect that requires no electricity. Neat isn’t it.

I’ve seen few of these energy free speakers on the market but this has a number of distinct adv...

Nights of Villjamur

Its been a little quiet here on a Rush of Green but that’s because I was on a well earned break over Easter.

One thing I was able to do was catch up on my reading and one novel I read moved me to write a review which is unusual for me. Nights of Villjamur is an unusual book. I discovered the author Mark Charan Newton through Social Media. Who says it doesn’t work! He has a great blog. If you like all things green and drenched in whisky then it’s for you! He also writes fantasy novels. I ha...

It’s no longer about Climate Change

I love podcasts and use them all the time – what busy person wouldn’t in today’s world and I’m no different although one downside is that yesterdays or last week’s news tend to be your current affairs.

One recent interview caught my ear – you may have heard it and if you didn’t I would highly recommend having a listen. It was on the Daily Bacon podcast where Richard Bacon was interviewing James Delingpole who I’m not a great fan of – when someone describes himself on their Twitter feed as...

It's no longer about Climate Change

I love podcasts and use them all the time – what busy person wouldn't in today's world and I'm no different although one downside is that yesterdays or last week's news tend to be your current affairs.

One recent interview caught my ear – you may have heard it and if you didn't I would highly recommend having a listen. It was on the Daily Bacon podcast where Richard Bacon was interviewing James Delingpole who I'm not a great fan of – when someone describes himself on their

PrintaPets

I read this in The Economist and couldn't resist. It's brilliant.

It will soon be possible to design and build household animals to order. 

ONE of the most interesting technological trends of the past few years has been the rise of additive manufacturing. This technique, which uses three-dimensional printing to make objects ranging from violins to pilotless aircraft, allows the construction of individual objects at the whim of the designer. Now, a small Californian company, the ...

Iceland is one big movie set

 

I watched a promo clip for Ridley Scott's Prometheus the other day and immediately suspected some of it must have been shot in Iceland. A few clicks later my suspicions were confirmed. Apparently he filmed about 12-15 minutes of his Alien prequel on location near the "Hekla" volcano on the south coast of Iceland. The scenes involve the 'creation of the world' that his intrepid crew visit, which for visitors to this wild and beautiful island will come as no great surprise...