Interesting Links for 18-08-2018

[andrewducker]

The Next Ten Billion Years

(tags: thefuture short_story scifi )

Job interviews are worse than useless (and so are academic ones)

(tags: interviews fail research psychology work academia viaSwampers )

Austerity doesn’t work. Here's a very simple explanation for why.

I agree with all of this other than the last couple of seconds
(tags: austerity economics video labour )

A list of things that are older than students starting uni in September...

(tags: age history funny )

HoverGlide – The World’s First Floating Backpack

(tags: viaSwampers design )

What fraction of Pennsylvania Catholic priests were child molesters?

(tags: Child_abuse catholicism usa )

Israel bars Gaza mother from accompanying 3-year-old son to chemotherapy

(tags: Israel children cancer OhForFucksSake )

Damon Lindelof on the new Watchmen TV series and what he wants to achieve with it

(tags: tv watchmen comics )

Mostly saving this for next time some idiot claims the American Civil War wasn't about slavery

(tags: slavery usa history )

Home Office keeps some asylum seekers waiting over 20 years

(tags: UK asylum OhForFucksSake )

Lot of stuff on the news about the impact of No Deal on UK road haulers and drivers. FYI the EU has published 68 documents that explain in detail the law that will apply to the UK, as a 'third country'. It is, of course, terrifying.

(tags: law UK Europe regulation doom )

Newton's first law as illustrated with a dog

(tags: dog video funny )

Comments

Job interviews are worse than useless (and so are academic ones)

[jack]

I admit, as evidence mounts up how useless interviewing people is, I still find it hard to let go of the idea that I want to judge people in person somehow.

But also, "job interviews are useless" seems too broad if you include any kind of talking event. Like, what I'd expect from a job interview is, some testing specific technical knowledge (typically from a list of question, not so much marked right/wrong as, even if they need some prodding, does the candidate seem to 'get it' or not), and some testing, what has the candidate achieved in the past, and when you ask them for details, do they seem to know what they're talking about, or does every suggest come down to "someone else suggested it and they just went along with it". I think we could improve a lot from there, but I'm leery of throwing that out in favour of... I don't know what the alternative is? Solely by references? By standardised tests? Those also suck as mehtods.

Re: Job interviews are worse than useless (and so are academic ones)

[dewline]

I've never been entirely comfortable with the concept of the interview, let alone the actual event, in pursuit of employment.

I suppose that it is dangerous to admit that anywhere that people can read it. But there it is.

HoverGlide – The World’s First Floating Backpack

[jack]

Huh. OK, that was a lot more persuasuve than I expected, I need to see how well that really works.

[agoodwinsmith]

That dog! :)

[cybik]

My friend was interviewed for a permanent job which she had been doing as a non-permanent member of staff for about four years. There were three people interviewed and two positions. They only filled one, not with her. She remained a non-permanent member of staff, still doing the work successfully and to everyone's satisfaction, for another couple of years before being interviewed for the same role *again*, this time by a different supervisor, who said something along the lines of "I'm not counting this as an interview, the fact you've been doing it for a long time is the real interview."

[ironyoxide]

>A list of things that are older than students starting uni in September...

The entire 20th century?

[birguslatro]

Shit. Yes!

Job interviews

[agoodwinsmith]

I don't want to defend job interviews because argh. However, they do give a prospective employee a chance to meet the company and people they might work for. I've never been in the position of having the luxury to turn offers down, but if the employer's people were really creepy/huckstery, one could still escape. I mean: if the dynamic amongst the interview team members is crap, one should run away.

[danieldwilliam]

The South had been running a guerilla war in support of expanding slave-holding and kicking down doors in the North looking for slaves for a decade before the North got fed-up enough with them and worried enough about slavery and the associated economics to make them chose between restricting slavery to the South or having restrictions placed on the South's foreign policy. The South chose to leave the Union instead, not just for slavery but in order to expand slavery. The reason they were keen on expanding slavery was that the price of the agricultural commodities that the slaves were growing was not increasing but the price of slaves, sold in to new areas of plantation, was increasing. The old South was basically in the business of producing slaves.