12 years old in 1979 on an Atari 400, if you can believe that. Not even a 5.25-inch diskette - It was a BASIC cartridge! A few years ago I tracked down an old Atari 400 on eBay that I now display proudly in my office... Isn't it funny how most of us started programming around puberty? Explains so much about my love life!! :laugh:

Ask them how they would go about making M&M's. There is no correct answer, of course; the point is to confuse and fluster them. Don't accept their first or second or third answer. Keep berating them about it. This should comprise the bulk of the interview. (Is anyone besides me old enough to remember this one? Still irks me!!)

Of course. I agree with that. Fortunately, though, I've had enough options over the years that I haven't needed to brainstorm the process for making melt-in-your-mouth-not-in-your-hands candy pieces in order to remain gainfully employed... In case I do get desperate and have to come up with a clever answer, any suggestions? I've actually Googled this, and, apparently, Mars (the company that makes M&M's) isn't very forthright about their manufacturing procedure... They must have something against programmers...

Am I the only one here who's ever gotten the "How would you manufacture M&M candies?" question? Honest to God. It was an interview for a .NET position. I've been a full-time coder for longer than one of the interviewers has even been alive, and the kid asked me this. And he was apparently serious. I guess this was where I was supposed to show how innovative and spontaneous I can be. My answer: "I don't know. Isn't this a programming position?" Not going to play these wasteful little games...

You guys are making me feel old! Actually, the Vic 20 and Commodore 64 were definitely my generation, but I was in the enemy camp: Atari 400! After that, an Atari 800. I actually learned to program on the 400. In addition to all my game cartridges, I had a BASIC cartridge that I found to be the most fun of all. Still reaping the benefits of that... Incidentally, I'm 41 now. I couldn't afford a new sports car for my mid-life crisis, so tracked down an Atari 400 on eBay instead. It's now displayed proudly in my office, along with "Centipede", "Dig Dug", "Star Raiders" (great one), and, of course "BASIC". How cool is that! :cool:

I must be the oldest one here!! I missed my old Atari 400 that I recently bought one off of eBay... Centipede. Pac-Man. Asteroids. Dig Dug. Slightly more obscure: Star Raiders. And my all-time favorite: Adventure!

I totally agree with the comments about the music channels... Not impressive at all. Personally, I like 70's and 80's music (some 90's), and these channels used to be really good. When I heard that XM (which I had had previously) was merging with Sirius (which I switched to a couple of years ago), I assumed the worst and e-mailed Sirius asking them to PLEASE not let the XM people wreck their programming. Well, sure enough, it appears the XM nitwits came in and took over... Now, instead of playing songs that were popular DURING the 70's and 80's, they just play horrible, bubble-gum crap that's FROM the 70's and 80's but popular (???) now... (Anyone with any sense of music at all will understand this distinction.) That said, I do like the talk radio lineup. It's great to get a decent variety of talk radio anytime, anywhere and with a decent signal. If you listen to a lot of talk, satellite may be worth it just for this. In sum, I just returned from a week long vacation to the Bay Area (from Lake Havasu City, AZ) without my satellite radio, and those long drives were rough without it. Trying to listen to talk on AM is torture by comparison... On the other hand, I personally was fine with the music on FM...

I'll throw my hat in the ring as well... 15 years full-time experience as an independent consultant, first in ASP and now in .NET. I have several "odd job" projects going at any given time. PM me if you'd like my contact info... :)

Well, glad to hear you're not a Scientologist at least. I like you better already! LOL... My next guess (admittedly, less cynical than the first) is Buddhist. Whatever the case, I'm not sure that either of us is trying to convince the other of anything, as we're both probably smart enough to know that's not likely, and certainly not in the context of a discussion forum on a Web site that's supposed to be about coding. So, what are we doing? Killing time? Exercising our apologetics? My guess is that we're starting to annoy the other members here, if any of them are even bothering to follow along in our "conversation"... So, I'm with you: Probably about time to end this. But first (and, sorry, not trying to get the last word or anything), I have to respond to your final (?) "proof" that the Bible is errant. You make reference to "the two different genealogies of Jesus", which I assume is your way of showing that the authors of the Gospels somehow forgot to compare notes and therefore created an obvious contradiction. But here again I encourage you to go and actually study this out: In Matthew, (Matthew 1:1-17), the writer begins with Abraham (the first "legal" head of the Hebrews; God having established His covenant with him in Genesis 15) and works his way down through Joseph's bloodline to Jesus. Joseph was not Jesus' "biological" father (recall the virgin birth), but he was his "legal" father here on earth. Matthew's purpose here is to trace Jesus' bloodline through his "stepfather" back to King David in order to show Jesus' LEGAL right to the throne of Israel. In Luke, conversely, (Luke 3:23-38), the writer traces Jesus' bloodline backwards from His mother, Mary, (both very non-traditional, if not completely unheard of, ways of presenting a genealogy in Jewish culture), and he goes all the way back to Adam. Luke's purpose is to demonstrate Jesus' SPIRITUAL claim to the throne of Israel. (Mary's bloodline also includes King David.) The two genealogies taken together give us the most complete picture of Jesus' bloodline, both physical and legal, and rightly establishes Him as King of the Jews (including all those who are "grafted in"; i.e., Christians). Your views about "The Supreme Intelligence" and Jesus being just another teacher of some kind are interesting, but, again, IMO, completely baseless. Seriously, what is your source for this "special knowledge" you have about the "truth" of it all? Where did your revelations come from? Have you just given all of this an awful lot of thoug

I absolutely believe that Psalm 2 is describing not King David but Jesus, centuries before His birth. What you call a "twisting of both time and logic" is referred to in Christianity and Judaism (and also Islam) as "prophecy"; that is, the foretelling of future events. Every book of the Bible contains prophecy, in some form or another (from very direct to very indirect/parabolic). Dude, instead of addressing even one of the quotes from the Bible that I offered you yesterday, you've gone off into Buddhism, maybe a little animism, and just plain old New Age gobbledy-gook. I'm usually pretty good at figuring out where someone is coming from, but I honestly can't tell if you're Buddhist, Muslim, Zoroastrian, or who-knows-what. My best guess now is that you're hanging out with Tom Cruise. That's fine, but if you deny that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, then we have nowhere left to go in our discussion. I believe 100% that the Bible is the inerrant, perfect Word of God. I know this point alone can stir up all sorts of debate, but as a Christian this must be my position. Also, after many decades of studying this and many other religions and religious texts, I've found the Bible to be the only source that is completely consistent with itself and with history, archaeology, biology, cosmology, etc., etc. That's where I'm at... Regarding your position, if you don't believe that the Bible is true (referring to your last paragraph), then why do you quote it at all (even in your last paragraph)? Talk about inconsistent!! Also, why do you invoke Jesus at all if you don't believe the only historical account that we have of Him (besides some brief mentions of Him in semi-contemporary works such as Josephus)? Where does all your "special knowledge" about Jesus come from? That said, I'm definitely going with Scientologist. (If I'm mistaken, please accept my apologies.) In any event, whatever your belief system, I recommend that you really ask yourself: Can what I believe about Jesus really be true if it directly contradicts everything that He said about Himself?

Good job... I can see you've got quite a well-developed theology going regarding the divinity (or lack thereof) of Jesus. But my assertion that you don't have an adequate knowledge of the Bible still stands. And since I'm a Christian, no theology is going to hold any relevance for me personally that does not line up 100% with the Bible (Old and New Testaments combined). This does not mean that I'm not completely open (and, in fact, study quite a bit) other sources, but if something is not in line with the Word of God, it simply does not hold validity for me... That said, I'll respond to each of your points: A. True. In fact, Jesus many times made statements that seemed to distinguish Him from God, rendering them two separate entities. At the same time, He made many other statements that seemed to indicate that they were one and the same. For example: John 14:5-11: Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. So, how can Jesus and God be One, and yet at the same time be separate and distinct? This is the mystery of the Trinity (i.e., Tri-Unity; that is, three and one simultaneously; the third being the person of the Holy Spirit). Admittedly, we can't comprehend this, as our brains are limited to this four-dimensional realm that we live in. God, on the other hand, in order to be able to create a four-dimensional Universe, must exist in a realm with additional dimensions (both space and time), so perhaps in His realm the concept of the Trinity is not so difficult to comprehend. Christianity is unique among the world's religions in that it (hypothetically) does not require a concept to be fully graspable by us in order to be considered true. Call us nutty, but reality just might not

Seems you haven't studied the Bible any more than Mohammad did (even though he claimed to base Islam on the foundations of Judaism and Christianity). Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the light, and no one comes to the Father except by me." John 3:16 tells us that Jesus is the "only begotten son of God" (that is, Jesus is half-human and half-God [or, more accurately, all-human and all-God]; hence, the virgin birth), and the Bible (Old and New Testaments) is rife with the concept of the Trinity, which establishes the deity of Jesus. And yet the Muslims revere Jesus only as a "great teacher" or as a prophet. How can Jesus be a prophet and a liar?? Either He was who He said He was (the Son of God, and the only means of salvation) or He wasn't... Not much middle ground there...

Even worse (IMO): 15 years progressive, full-time experience developing Web applications across a broad range of industries, and I recently had a recruiter (who sounded like he was about half my age) ask me the "M&M's" question... You know, "If the assignment was to manufacture M&M candies, how would you go about doing this?" WAS HE JOKING??? I remember being warned about this question way back in grad school (I also have an MBA), but that was so long ago I couldn't remember any of the fun "trick" answers, of course... Like a complete idiot, I actually tried to come up with some kind of an answer for this kid, but he kept going with follow-up questions on this topic for about 15 minutes until I'd finally had enough. I passed on the job (which was for .NET development, not making candy... go figure)...

I knew someone would respond with an intelligent comment like this! News flash: Not every Christian has the Medieval, anti-science mindset that you're describing (though, sadly, too many do!)... On the contrary, some of us actually have enough smarts to understand that if God created the Universe then the Universe must reflect this fact. And if the Bible really is the inspired Word of God, then science and the Bible must line up. The anti-Big Bang and 7-day-creation theology comes from a gross misinterpretation of the creation account in Genesis. The word for "day" there is "yom" (as in Yom Kippur, etc.), and, while sometimes indicating a 24-hour period, can also mean "eon" or "era". We have this usage of "day" in the English language as well, as in "back in my day" or "the day of the dinosaur"... So, yes, the Big Bang did occur, and many billions of years ago. For something to be created, it has to have a beginning (as in the Big Bang), and this in turn indicates a cause. The Bible tells us that God said, "Let there be light", and the light has been penetrating the darkness ever since. Amazing that Moses (who penned Genesis) could know about the Big Bang and the continuing expansion of the Universe so many thousands of years before the science of cosmology began! The reference I cited is from an organization called "Reasons to Believe" that believes in the 100% validity of the Bible and the 100% validity of science. You should check them out: http://www.reasons.org/[^] P.S. To paraphrase Sagan: Think of how many scientists attempt to validate themselves with only science that they can personally comprehend. Sagan was great at marveling over the graspable Universe around him, but didn't try too much to ponder what's beyond this. The Big Bang proves that there is a transcendent realm (doesn't it?). Einstein, in his later years, brought embarrassment to his scientific career, the most distinguished in history, by rejecting quantum physics, essentially because he couldn't personally grasp it... Love both these guys, and how human of us all to need to define all of reality according to our own tiny little contexts...

Interesting article I just stumbled across today on this subject: http://www.reasons.org/tnrtb/2008/06/11/better-clocks-constants-still-constant/[^]