With my napsack and a zero for a halo

[venta]

Is there a name for the psychological effect whereby you think you don't know the answer to a question just because you've been told it's hard

Comments

[feanelwa]

White coat syndrome - people don't like to argue with authority figures.

[venta]

I can see how that's related, but I don't think that explains it in my particular case. Someone whom I cheerfully argue with mentioned in passing that a lot of people get that question wrong, and thus I assumed I would too.

[valkyriekaren]

I thought White Coat Syndrome was fear of authority figures causing e.g. false positives on tests (failed memory, high blood pressure). I have it slightly, which is why they always have to take my blood pressure twice because the first result is invariably higher due to anxiety.

[feanelwa]

I misinterpreted venta's post as saying she was asked the question at an interview and almost gave a false positive for not knowing the answer. D'oh!

[drdoug]

(Techie reply: the smartarse answer to 'express -1 in hex' is to ask whether they mean in two's complement (0xFFFFFFFF), ones' complement (0xFFFFFFFE), pure sign bit (0x80000001), or one of the even more obscure ones I can't remember off the top of my head. Most things are of course two's complement, but ISTR one's complement coming up in some IP-related thing somewhere. Can't think of anything that actually uses a sign bit without a complement but it's the easy-to-understand one.)

[wechsler]

WHS

[venta]

Yes, fair point :) I've never used anything other than two's complement in anger, so feel it'd be a little like checking whether they wanted me to reply to their questions in English or some other language.

[chrisvenus]

The mathematicians answer on the other hand of course is -1. Its only in computers that this answer is relevant and that's more about how you are storing it. :)

Of course that would likely also be pedantic since I suspect in context the answer required is obviosuly the computery one (or one of them).

[venta]

Oh, and the question is technically wrong, -1 in hex is -0x1, since hex is a change of base, not necessarily twos complement.

I agree that's technically true, but I can honestly say I've never seen anyone, in any context, write -0x1 :)

[octalbunny]

Really happy with hair ribbons and a cherry on top.

-0x1 :)

[ewx]

Unique representation is a big advantage over the alternatives, but being able to use the same adder implementation for both signed and unsigned addition is rather convenient too, and at a more abstract level it takes advantage of the mathematically well-understood notion of modular arithmetic.

I'd have said "'-1', but I suspect that's not the answer you're looking for". And not wanted to take the job if they'd not understood the point l-)

[beckyc]

FWIW, I've fallen into the trap, even though I know that it's probably not actually going to be that hard. I think there was just a momentary lack of confidence as I tried to decide whether the obvious really was obvious or not.

[qatsi]

lack of self-confidence

I once suggested "diffidence" as an opposite for "arrogance", but I think it applies better to your requirement.