When jokingly asked by Eric Schmidt, "How would you sort 1 million integers?", Obama actually answered "Well I'd bet that the bubble sort is not the correct approach."
Certainly, knowing the answer to that question, or knowing what a bubble sort even is, doesn't make or break a candidate. But all else being equal, wouldn't you rather a president who took at least one course on computer science?
Sure it is a little thing, but I found myself saying "all other things being equal" a lot about Obama. All those things added up: I voted for him.
Just look at the difference between Obama's and McCain's answer to the question "What would you change in sports" on Monday Night Football this week. Obama answers, a playoff system for college football for the top 8 teams. Do you think that is a coincidence when all of Pennsylvania wants Penn State to go to the BCS bowl and they are #3 right now? John McCain answers "elimate performance enhancing drugs".
COME ON. We all know Obama didn't come up with that answer but his on the ball staffers make him look good. And Just like a CEO has to delegate a lot of work, the president has to delegate nearly everything.
Obama doesn't make a single bit of difference being the president. However, all the people he chooses for his staff makes all the difference. It's like running a store, you might have an amazing manager running the place but if you've got a guy working the till who can't push a button then all the managerial magic is useless.
Obama might be human gold with a soft diamondy center, but unless he actually has people who can do what needs to be done then it's useless. I think it's highly illustrated by the McCain campaign that he didn't have subordinates capable of doing the job right because he looked as warn out and tired as Bush does currently. McCain looked physically flabbergasted by what he was asked, he'd have looked better just holding up the frigging piece of paper his speech writers gave him.
"It's like running a store, you might have an amazing manager running the place but if you've got a guy working the till who can't push a button then all the managerial magic is useless."
But won't the managerial magic prevent the guy that can't push a button from working at the till there or at least fire him quickly?
Obama could easily have come up with that answer himself. Everyone hates the BCS, even a lot of the people who participate in it. I'm not going to say that would necessarily be the most common answer you'd get from sports fans, but it might be high up the list.
I would have been more impressed if he said the MLB instituting a hard salary cap rather than that silly luxury tax.
The administration isn't just one man. The executive branch is a team of people. I didn't know that McCain was asked this same question six months earlier, but I'd still give Obama the point for surrounding himself with well organized campaign staff.
This makes me more impressed with Obama, not less. That's wonderful attention to detail, and reflects well on Obama to have assembled such a talented staff.
Having had my appendix removed last week, I'm really glad I didn't have to rely on any politician to do it.
Unfortunately, making the government responsible for appendix-removal is one of the things which Obama wants to do. Comparing my experiences in US hospitals ("Oh hi, here's a bed and two nurses, your surgeon and his team will be along in ten minutes") to my experiences in Australian hospitals ("Oh hi, here's a wheelchair, please wait here for six hours") I really am not keen to see the US system become more like the Australian one.
Did we expect him to answer like a prospective google hire? A modified quick sort thats guarded not to recurse too many levels deep to avoid any stack overflow errors? I'm impressed that he made an effort to connect at the techie-level.
I think the intent of the tech-savvy staffers who briefed him was like when a comedian makes a reference to the Yankees while performing in NYC
While I'm happy with Obama, that sure seems like a publicity stunt. I've interviewed a lot of people for programming jobs, almost all of them can say "bubble sort is not the correct approach."
