In Reply to: not so well ;-) posted by gnat on July 26, 2000 at 00:24:12:
Great! This is your second award in just few days.And of course this is the right way of approaching it if you need a precise answer - and I would not be able to do it this fast (although I believe you would certainly enjoy some time with Leon and listen to his Kolyma stories. His family history is one from Shalamov...).
My presumption was, however, that the original question was more in line of the typical American multiple choices question, where you don't have time to go through equations but need to evaluate few alternatives quickly. So you would look perhaps at three cases: =, <, and >. And yes, I did consider that 2^3 vs. 3^2 as well (that one naturally crosses one's mind, I think). I however decided that the deiviation from the center point where a=b so a^b=b^a was still small and the function monotonous. That was enough for me to feel very secure about that decision in just few seconds. Not certain, but secure.
BTW, there is a whole big school that teaches quick decision making under stress. I took numerous classes while still at HP and while I found them mostly boring, they had some interesting things in them. It is about making decisions without having enough information available. Of course you can only evaluate such approaches statistically and not on case-by-case basis.
Leon is also a man of crystal-clear thinking and bear-trap intuition. I had always enjoyed watching him to tackle a completely new task - something he had no slightest idea about. Knowing a lot of fundamental things he would always quickly arrive at the first approximation answer just standing by the coffee machine. In majority of those cases he was right on the money. I will certainly never be able to approach his speed and vision, but I know what my fifteen years of working with him had done for me. Mentors like that don't come along too often.
PS. Got in touch with folks at Souvenir - Russian music store, and again feel that I could do without it. Hope to get some CD's soon, will let you know.
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Follow Ups
- Got a closet big enough? - Victor Khomenko 05:57:57 07/26/00 (6)
- I'll use my dacha :) - gnat 00:37:21 07/27/00 (5)
- Your papa member of tse-ka? - Victor Khomenko 06:23:52 07/27/00 (4)
- nope, he's from tsa-gi :) - gnat 23:51:29 07/27/00 (3)
- I don't think this is the soln. you're looking for but it works... - Shane 13:46:28 07/28/00 (1)
- minor correction - Shane 13:51:09 07/28/00 (0)
- Right kind of dad - Victor Khomenko 06:39:12 07/28/00 (0)