Thread: Youngest Microsoft systems engineer in the world

  1. #16
    C++ Witch laserlight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MK27
    But if you are a kid that plays alone with lego a lot or something, you will probably do better on an IQ test than some kid who lives in one room with a family of five on a commune where social/inter-personal activity would take up most of your time. Does that mean kid A is truly smarter than kid B? Obviously not. Does it mean kid A's intelligence has been developed, environmentally, better than kid B? I don't believe that either.
    Heheh, but in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond does argue that:
    Besides this genetic reason, there is also a second reason why New Guineans may have come to be smarter than Westerners. Modern European and American children spend much of their time being passively entertained by television, radio, and movies. In the average American household, the TV set is on for seven hours per day. In contrast, traditional New Guinea children have virtually no such opportunities for passive entertainment and instead spend almost all of their waking hours actively doing something, such as talking or playing with other children or adults. Almost all studies of child development emphasize the role of childhood stimulation and activity in promoting mental development, and stress the irreversible mental stunting associated with reduced childhood stimulation. This effect surely contributes a non-genetic component to the superior average mental function displayed by New Guineans.
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    I get maybe two dozen requests for help with some sort of programming or design problem every day. Most have more sense than to send me hundreds of lines of code. If they do, I ask them to find the smallest example that exhibits the problem and send me that. Mostly, they then find the error themselves. "Finding the smallest program that demonstrates the error" is a powerful debugging tool.
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  2. #17
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Sure, but if the New Guineans selected some children to be raised in a special cave together where they were not exposed to the other children or society at large, and instead played highly structured competitive puzzle solving games, applying the same philosophy WRT to the importance of continuous activity/simulation, I bet those kids would have an even higher IQ than the normal (still quite smart) New Guineans, but they would make poor leaders and probably not understand a lot of things that went on around them.

    Quote Originally Posted by laserlight View Post
    Guns, Germs, and Steel
    I notice there is a three hour pbs doc about this book on youtube, looks interesting. Lots of exotic locales.
    Last edited by MK27; 05-21-2010 at 11:46 AM.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
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    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  3. #18
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    I'm not convinced that intelligence can be taught. So, at first glance I would tend to dismiss your argument, Mk.

    Quote Originally Posted by whiteflags View Post
    I think my problem is not so much avoiding intelligence the word, but figuring out what smart means. When I give that compliment, I am not looking into your IQ score.
    Indeed. And not always exactly a compliment.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  4. #19
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post
    I'm not convinced that intelligence can be taught.
    I agree. I think it is a purely innate, natural quality that is produced by human genetics. You can teach a goldfish as carefully as you like, it will never posses human intelligence.

    That's also why I think:

    1) there is not nearly as much variation amongst normal human adults as is usually presumed (and implied by inexact measurements such as IQ). IQ is probably a decent concept, but it is completely abstracted from biological/neurological issues and relies on some culture bound evaluations.

    2) because of #1, using the term relatively (more and less intelligent) is deceptive and usually inaccurate. You are now talking about something else, such as the skills an individual acquired, and also probably ignoring a huge range of contextual factors.
    Last edited by MK27; 05-21-2010 at 12:38 PM.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  5. #20
    In my head happyclown's Avatar
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    Since this kid is a M$ systems engineer, does anyone know if it's actually legal for a company to employ a 9 year old?

    Is he really an employable systems engineer, or it really just pieces of paper until he can legally work to earn a salary?

    EDIT: Actually, I remember seeing an episode of Oprah about 15 years ago, and they had child geniuses on the show. And there was a 14 year old who was legally working as a doctor. Can't remember what the others worked at, but they were in their teens.
    OS: Linux Mint 13(Maya) LTS 64 bit.

  6. #21
    Woof, woof! zacs7's Avatar
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    I guess that give the saying "Looks like a 9 year old made Windows" meaning

    Good thing for us, experience and system engineers go hand-in-hand with regards to making a good system engineer. Writing a 300 odd page book, tell me there isn't someone behind the scenes pushing him?

    Yet another arrogant Ph.D on the way

  7. #22
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by zacs7 View Post
    Writing a 300 odd page book, tell me there isn't someone behind the scenes pushing him?
    I think that was an end user manual for Windows 7. A 300 page end-user manual for Windows 7 most likely has < 50 pages of actual text in it. Also, the kid speaks three languages, and presuming the book was not written in English, a lot of it was probably more or less translation/regurgitation.

    Not to put that down -- probably the book is useful for some group of people somewhere. I remember reading "Foundations of GTK+ Development" and being a little shocked that the author, Andrew Krause, does not appear to be an adult in his photo Then somewhere inside it says Andrew will be using the proceeds to start paying his way thru College next year.

    I'm sure that Mr. Krause is a better programmer than I am and there's nothing wrong with the book, although almost anyone could have written it. It did make me wonder a little about the economics of the publishing industry. They churn out quite a number of fat programming oriented books that probably have near guaranteed sales on a certain level, if, as in the case of the GTK book, if they fill a niche, but the amount of such sales is going to also have guaranteed limits -- you will not find such things breaking onto the NY Times best seller list or something. So the cost of producing them must be kept pretty low.

    Hmm...I wonder what under-documented API's there are out there that I could whip a few hundred pages up on...
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  8. #23

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    We need to just accept people for whatever pace they develop at. I am 24 and I still eat glue sticks and stomp my feet when I don't get my way. And I like ice cream.
    I'm not immature, I'm refined in the opposite direction.

  9. #24
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BobMcGee123 View Post
    We need to just accept people for whatever pace they develop at. I am 24 and I still eat glue sticks and stomp my feet when I don't get my way. And I like ice cream.
    Geez, the military did wonders for you, Bob.
    Sent from my iPadŽ

  10. #25
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom View Post
    Geez, the military did wonders for you, Bob.
    ROFL!
    You two made my day.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  11. #26
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    Hehe. Welcome back, Bob. Not sure where you went but good to have you back.

  12. #27
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    Things that are wrong with him:
    1) obsessed with Microsoft. It's too bad his indoctrination is already well entrenched.
    2) ponytail
    3) how exactly did he come to be a Microsoft systems engineer already? Resume much?

  13. #28
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by nonoob View Post
    Things that are wrong with him:
    1) obsessed with Microsoft. It's too bad his indoctrination is already well entrenched.
    The segment seemed to be spun that way. There really is no telling whether or not he spoke about other operating systems as the network could simply edit the interview to suit their plan.

    Quote Originally Posted by nonoob View Post
    2) ponytail
    Does any 9 year old actually pick their own hair style?

    Quote Originally Posted by nonoob View Post
    3) how exactly did he come to be a Microsoft systems engineer already? Resume much?
    It's a certification (they said he had three) which does not have an age restriction to get. Jealous much?
    Sent from my iPadŽ

  14. #29
    Woof, woof! zacs7's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom View Post
    It's a certification (they said he had three) which does not have an age restriction to get. Jealous much?
    A worthless one at that, if you're going for non-Microsoft based jobs :-).

    1. It's not overly hard to get Microsoft Certified, they really just want your money.
    2. My dog could "do it", it can be done online.

    Propaganda much? Personally, I'd rather a childhood than a few certifications at 9. Too bad he doesn't have any life experience to make him any useful as an employee.

  15. #30
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Oh, C'mon! They are fabricating news now? I don't think we reached that low. Neither it seems possible for mother and child to have faked this.

    Just leave the kid alone. He's smart and intelligent. More than any of us at his age. Deal with it.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

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