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ysabetwordsmith
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Basically, the fight proceeded to a best of five against scion-boy, which is to say, three rounds. At that point, some pedestrians had started watching. Then Glaive-lass asked for a fight, to which Max suggested they come at her two on one. That’s when the betting pools started. Now it’s up to 4 on 1, and there’s a lot of quatloos about to change hands, one way or another. Yes, Sydney wagered on Max. But only after she bought the equivalent of a boba tea, so she only had 5 `loos left. I imagine the dollar-sign symbol for quatloo is a Q with a line running top to bottom, ending in the tail. Or if you’re fancy, a double line with double tails. Hmm. Maybe the double line version would have the tails facing different directions, which… might make it look like a capital Omega. Lower-case omega looks like a butt.
ω
It’s a good thing upper-case omega looks cool. You don’t see a lot of superheroes going around with a lower-case omega symbol on their chests. Except Power Girl, am I right?
So… anyway. Yeah, Maxima’s pants have the same “force field” effect that her gloves do. Is any above-the-elbow glove an opera glove? Or an evening glove I guess? Well, not the rubber kind you put on before you give a horse a rectal exam, obviously. And not to totally switch topics here, but suddenly I have the image of a horse’s rectal thermometer being the size of a yard-long summer sausage. I mean, there’s no reason a normal-sized one wouldn’t work. I suppose you might have to hold it in place. I just mean the physics of the expanding mercury. But still, my mind went straight to an image of a thermometer the size of a grown man’s arm.
Right, gloves. Well, a quick googling seems to confirm that the majority of above-the-elbow gloves are just called evening or opera gloves. I suppose if they’re made of leather or are fingerless or have a bunch of unnecessary zippers or studs sewn into them, then someone might have cause to give it a different name, but I guess there’s not enough styles like that to formalize a word for it.
Oh, by the way, the background guy in the gasmask isn’t a pop-culture cameo, so don’t strain yourself trying to place him. Maybe it’s not fair to mix and match like that, but sometimes I just need a wide guy in a cloak to take up space.
Ooh, look! A new vote incentive! And it’s updated with color!
Well, in progress, obviously. I have another one that’s actually a bit further along, but everyone was all, “Sydney Kobold vote incentive!” So I switched to this one. Plus the other one was a multi-character picture so it will actually take me longer to finish. I hope to have an update for this one each week, so stay tuned. There is a slightly higher res version on Patreon.
By the way, this gunmetal blue-ish background and teal pencils are how I draw the comic. I set it up this way so I don’t have to spend all day staring into a bright white blank page.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
the_daily_wtf_feedUsually, when we have a "Tales from the Interview" we're focused on bad interviewing practices. Today, we're mixing up a "Tales" with a CodeSOD.
Today's Anonymous submitter does tech screens at their company. Like most companies do, they give the candidate a simple toy problem, and ask them to solve it. The goal here is not to get the greatest code, but as our submitter puts it, "weed out the jokers".
Now our submitter didn't tell us what the problem was, but I don't have to know what the problem was to understand that this is wrong:
int temp1=i, temp2=j;
while(temp1<n&&temp2<n&&board[temp1][temp2]==board[i][j]){
if(temp1+1>=n||temp1+2>=n)
break;
if(board[temp1][temp2]==board[temp1][temp2+1]==board[temp1][temp2+2])
points++;
ele
break;
temp2++;
}
As what is, in essence, a whiteboard coding exercise, I'm not going to mark off for the typo on ele (instead of else). But there's still plenty "what were you thinking" here.
From what I can get just from reading the code, I think they're trying to play tic-tac-toe. I'm guessing, but that they check three values in a column makes me think it's tic-tac-toe. Maybe some abstracted version, where the board is larger than 3x3 but you can score based on any run of length 3?
So we start by setting temp1 and temp2 equal to i and j. Then our while loop checks: are temp1 and temp2 still on the board, and does the square pointed at by them equal the square pointed at by i and j.
At the start of our loop, we have a second check, which is testing for a read-ahead; ensuring that our next check doesn't fall off the boundaries of the array. Notably, the temp1 part of the check isn't really used- they never finished handling the diagonals, and instead are only checking the vertical column on the next. Similarly, temp2 is the only thing incremented in the loop, never temp1.
All in all, it's a mess, and no, the candidate did not receive an offer. What we're left with is some perplexing and odd code.
I know this is verging into soapbox territory, but I want to have a talk about how to make tech screens better for everyone. These are things to keep in mind if you are administering one, or suffering through one.
The purpose of a tech screen is to inspire conversation. As a candidate, you need to talk through your thought process. Yes, this is a difficult skill that isn't directly related to your day-to-day work, but it's still a useful skill to have. For the screener, get them talking. Ask questions, pause them, try and take their temperature. You're in this together, talk about it.
The screen should also be an opportunity to make mistakes and go down the wrong path. As the candidate's understanding of the problem develops, they'll likely need to go backwards and retrace some steps. That's good! As a candidate, you want to do that. Be gracious and comfortable with your mistakes, and write code that's easy to fix because you'll need to. As a screener, you should similarly be gracious about their mistakes. This is not a place for gotchas or traps.
Finally, don't treat the screen as an "opportunity to weed out jokers". It's so tempting, and yes, we've all had screens with obviously unqualified candidates. It sucks for everybody. But if you're in the position to do a screen, I want to tell you one mindset hack that will make you a better interviewer: you are not trying to filter out candidates, you are gathering evidence to make the best case for this candidate.
Your goal, in administering a technical screen, is to gather enough evidence that you can advocate for this candidate. Your company clearly needs the staffing, and they've gotten this far in the interview process, so let's assume it's not a waste of everyone's time.
Many candidates will not be able to provide that evidence. I'm not suggesting you override your judgment and try and say "this (obviously terrible) candidate is great, because (reasons I stretch to make up)." But you want to give them every opportunity to convince you they're a good fit for the position, you want to dig for evidence that they'll work out. Target your questions towards that, target your screening exercises towards that.
Try your best to walk out of the screen with the ability to say, "They're a good fit because…" And if you fail to walk out with that, well- it's not really a statement about the candidate. It just doesn't work out. Nothing personal.
But if the code they do write during the screen is uniquely terrible, feel free to send it to us anyway. We love bad code.
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crafty, everykindofcraft, get_knitted, and justcreate. fayanoradaily_illuminator_feedysabetwordsmithallbingo. The fest runs from October 1-31. (See all my 2025 bingo cards.) | Wizards | Autumn | "I wasn’t afraid of you." | Alone in the Woods | Mystery |
| Black / Orange | Herbs | Werewolves | Transformation | Talking Dog |
| Magic | Dark Side | WILD CARD | Moon Bathing | Someone Touched the Thing |
| Witches | Candles | Cats | Destroy It with Fire | "That felt weird." |
| Unstable | Broken | "What are you?" | Books the Best Weapon in the World | "Do you trust me?" |
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I'm sure they TALKED about it beforehand, but... neither of them really THOUGHT about it...
Here's the original post, and the chaser post!
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In the character sketch, Powree drew Bhaal a bit too sexy for my taste, so I asked her to reduce the amount of visible skin. But I was really fond of the general design of Bhaal’s dress.