Author Archive: Cesar Ramirez

Elon Musk’s Important Favorite Job Seeker Interview Questions

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Even if you’re not interested in working for Tesla or SpaceX, CEO Elon Musk’s favorite interview questions are also important questions to consider. If you find a good answer, it can help you find your next performance in your next workplace.

Back in 2017, Musk asked all the candidates at the World Government Summit:

“Tell me some of the most difficult questions. Musk interviewed many engineers from Tesla and SpaceX, so this question is significant: I wanted to gradually understand how they solved difficult problems. ”

“At that time, the people who actually solved the problem according to the latest Inc. column, Musk’s question has solid scientific reasoning: those who really know what they’re talking about tend to give detailed presentations (sometimes detailed details), and those who have to rely on BS tend to cover up,  better (they don’t know).

No matter where you are in the interview, no matter what type of job you are involved in, one thing should be clear: providing as much detailed information as possible will only help you, whether you are dealing with recruiters in the early stage or in at the end hiring managers in one round.

Most importantly, you’ll want to use all of these details to show how you can add value to your old business, overcome incredible challenges, and / or ultimately make a project better than what you find.

At the same time, you should also explain (in detail) how to use all your experience and knowledge to help your potential employer achieve their goals. This requires researching the company, the position, and the skills they are looking for. Remember, one of the most important ways technicians can mislead interviews is by failing to understand the hiring manager’s needs and pain points.

Before starting the interview, be sure to review some relevant stories from your professional experience. If you can, ask a trusted friend or colleague to listen; they can tell you if you want to omit the necessary details. If you know ahead of time that the interview will include a whiteboard or keyboard test, go through some sample coding questions to get the right mindset.

Returning to Musk for a moment:  This is not the only question he conspicuously asks potential employees. As early as 2015, tech journalist Ashlee Vance’s CEO’s excellent resume indicated that he once posed a particularly confusing puzzle to would-be SpaceX engineers “knew exactly how to solve the problem and they knew a few small details,” he added at the time.

“You are standing on the surface of the earth. You walked a mile south, a mile west, a mile north. Eventually you will start from where you started. The answer is simple: the North Pole. As you can see in the comments when posting the question, there are many creative answers (“Still on Earth”, “Where the compass is broken”, etc.).

It’s unclear if Musk still asks candidates this question, but finding a job at SpaceX requires a series of interviews to test his skills and knowledge. After all, you are helping to build, launch a rocket and return it to Earth, so you really have to know your stuff.

Wake Up

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I wrote this for a friend. Understand my mission is to speak truth as I’ve come to know it. Both by biblical and tradition through the last 2000 years. Many of you have been lead to Fundamentalism (By bible and faith ALONE you’re saved).

Unfortunately, “The man – Martin Luther’ who created this false thinking deceived you. 7 books were removed from the Bible to support this notion of thinking. Don’t be that person that’s been lied to. Wake up and keep digging.

If you don’t like what I write, keep digging for truth and let’s educate each other:

“The Catholic Church isn’t for the perfect. It is perfect because it’s Jesus’s Bride and gift to us through Peter, our 1st Pope (Matthew 16:18).

It’s the Hospital for the Spiritually ill (all of us). At the end we know by our Lady of Fatima that it is fully perfect and Jesus wins and the Sinful acts of all humans alive will either be repented or sent to Hell. That’s the promise we were given.”

God Speed,

Senior Knight Cesar Ramirez (Heresy Slayer)

Building your own Network Attached Storage at home

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Not my server, for illustrations purposes only.

Friend — For the longest time I’ve been a geek of audio and video. Many of you know I’ve been a DJ and a video editor because I love media that much. It’s a fun pass time hobby to make these edits. Especially during this Covid 19 downtime, I’ve worked on some pretty cool stuff.

As I sit here next to my fireplace on this chill winter Thanksgiving day with a bit of overcast, I’m happy to write to you that it’s been a cool project to build your own media server at home. What exactly is a media server? Think of Netflix + Your cellphone data + your computer data all in one and you can access that content from anywhere.

I’ve collected digital content for years (since the 90s) as a method of backing up my physical copies. Many DJs that are vinyl junkies even eventually moved to Serato as a mixing system because of the ease and ability to be able to drop a song on the fly for guests. They all laughed at me in the beginning but I saw the trend coming and guess what, most professional DJs these days use just that – Digital media to mix. Don’t get me wrong, original vinyl sounds are much better because of that fullness sound wave but not practical to flip through a crate when your guests want their song to be played next.

With that in mind, I’ve collected every single top forty song from the 40s until today. It sits in the corner somewhere in my server room. I’ve collected every single picture from my young adult life as a photographer to now from people I came in contact with during these years. I’ve collected my favorite movie and tv shows that you’ll not be able to find in many places because they’ve been dumped as old media. Over 30 years of content!

There is no better place to run all this content than through using Plex as a media server. I originally bought the Plex server to use on Windows platform and it has grown far and beyond what it use to be. The latest updates of Plex have allowed for the use of streaming live TV and recording those streams in a DVR format. I haven’t come across any other server platform that can do this smoothly and efficiently. And I was a fan of Kodi for many years.

Kodi – before there was Kodi there was XBMC (Xbox media center). I say this with a heart of love for this community — I was at the early stages of tweaking and learning this with the first xbox that came out. I give a big shoutout of love to all the developers who kept this platform open source. It still is to this day and freeware. Unfortunately, these ideas got robbed and put for sale when the XBOX360 came out as a media center. Now most game consoles have a media center after this discovery.

 

Back to Plex, I’ve been a big fan of Plex for years for the simple fact that I can use it anywhere I go from my Tesla, mobile devices, to my Smart TVs. I highly recommend you look into it for yourself. You can visit them at Plex.tv for more information. I started my first server with a basic Windows 10 workstation. Although this method is ok, it can be a bit heavy on resources. So then I started to study other platforms and along came…

 

FreeNAS – FreeNAS is exactly what is in its name. It’s a FREE Network Attached Storage (NAS) platform running under the FreeBSD platform. It utilizes ZFS. What is ZFS? Best described from the FreeNAS site: “ZFS is an enterprise-ready open source file system, RAID controller, and volume manager with unprecedented flexibility and an uncompromising commitment to data integrity. It eliminates most, if not all of the shortcomings found in legacy file systems and hardware RAID devices. Once you go ZFS, you will never want to go back.”

FreeNAS also has many plugins that allow for the install of “apps”. These plugins get created in the form of a jail. A jail is an instance of your FreeNAS OS through a “port” or a “virtual IP”. For example to be able to see what jails are currently installed, you will have to have SSH enabled if you’re a command line geek, you can type in jls. After you see your list of jails and you pick that number, you’ll have to “jail in” to that jail using the command “jexec # csh”. Frankly, I’m not sure what the different shells (csh, tcsh, etc) do but maybe you as a reader can share the insight on that. I just get in there and make some edits to the scripts and file permissions (ie. chown and chmod).

For those that are wondering how I’m running IPTV with the ability to record (DVR) inside my Plex system you can review xTeVe. It took a bit to understand how to install and pull the IPTV content with EPG but once it’s setup it’s pretty rad. Not all the logos get imported in so you may have to tweak your own and add the thumbnails. Here’s a screenshot of my xTeVe.

My current server setup is maxed out almost. I’m at 84% utilization. I have 5 * 10TB drives. All RAID which means I can lose up 2 drives and the system will still function. I will have to most likely buy more drives and my External hard drive enclosure can take up to 8 total drives.

One of your plugins that you may be interested in adding is NextCloud. It’s like running your own Dropbox and you can move files to that “jail” from your cellphone or any computer. It’s nice when you have Terabytes available to you on a box and it’s not costing you a monthly fee. Actually that goes true for most of these services / plugins because they’re open source.

Feel free to message me with any questions regarding this topic. I’m very passionate about YOU housing your own data.

Credits and shoutouts: To all those developers out there that believe in the open-source world. Additionally, my great friend Liam who I’ve known and geeked out with since 6th grade for assisting me with the understanding of the BSD / Linux Platform a bit more. I’ve been rusty but now use it daily.

Enjoy a movie on me,

Cesar Ramirez

 

The 2020 Challenge For All

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Hello Fam,

It’s been a minute since I’ve shared my life on my blog. What brings me back here as always is that social media isn’t a place you own. More so now in 2020 where major sites like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. have been filtering out your posts with “Fact Checkers.” So much for freedom of speech right? I did a recent post that says “He who owns the data, can bypass the law??”.

New years 2020 was like any other New Years for many until you actually entered into it. For all, we have had many challenges. For some it’s financial reasons. For others it may be separation of family and friends not being able to come together. For many others, there are mental challenges of feeling alone and leading into depression. In my opinion, and this is only my opinion, it’s better to live your life doing what you love without limits, than living under a rock arriving at your grave safely.

Point example, I lost two sales mentors to a plane crash. They were out hustling and doing their thing living their lives doing what they love. If you do what you love it doesn’t become a shore / work. I’ve been in different sides of the candle and like one would say its hard to burn both sides of the candle to be able to work in your favor. It’s quite surreal to say the least..

As an entrepreneur and Computer Engineer, I’ve been blessed with some amazing mentors and business and also some amazing co-workers in a Corporate setting. As always, the mindset of a sales person has to be in high energy because drama / negative energy can take them down to not have a productive day. You’ve heard it said before, “you are the five people you surround yourself with.”

A lot has change in my entrepreneurship journey. In the last 5 years I have publicly stated my love for Jesus through his Catholic church he started with Peter (Matthew 16:18). My life has changed in a more positive way ever since I’ve been allowing Jesus to Uber me around. I’m the dude in the back of the car asking my Heavenly Father for requests and He delivers! I use to be the guy that didn’t want to offend anyone by keeping Religion and Politics in the closet, but frankly it doesn’t serve the lost souls that are looking for something greater than themselves.

You see, when I started to not make my life about me or my family but rather include everyone in the human race and how I can support them to improve their lives financially, that was cool. It was paying me spiritually back because I was helping families. At the same time, I knew there was a greater purpose why I was put on this earth. It wasn’t to look for handouts but rather to provide hand-ups to those in need. If you spend enough time improving on yourself, you’ll realize that very few people around you bother you anymore. You’ve outgrown that drama. Life is good. Really good.

Don’t stop the faith and keep growing.

Cheers,

Cesar Ramirez

My Biggest Regret

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My biggest regret:
 
This post is to inspire other men and woman to support those men and woman to deny the decision of ANY FORM of contraception…
 
8 years ago I got a vasectomy due to some peer pressure from close friends and you can say it is what society teaches if you hang out with folks that don’t move you where truth lives.
 
I knew in my heart at the time that it wasn’t right but for secular reasons I proceeded with the procedure. I made up things in my mind about I only have 3 seats in the back of my car so I couldn’t possibly have a family of 6+… And I was too cool for a van…etc. Especially in California, where the focus is on the wrong things like money, titles, success, etc. You really want to know what truly makes your soul happy? Read on…
 
I grew up with 10 aunts and uncles from my dad’s side and I truly remember the happy Sunday gatherings at Grandma and Grandpa’s Ranch house. So being around big families was a beautiful thing for me.
 
4 years ago I was challenged by a Non-Denominational Christian of why I’m a Catholic. He attacked me hard and I didn’t know how to defend myself. Honestly, I didn’t know the fullness of my faith. I was on a hunt for seeking truth and not just checking off a box on Sundays. I joined RCIA, listened to Immaculate Heart Radio, Lived my Cursillo (De Colores!), became a Knight of Columbus and my heart was hungry for more. I learned that missing Mass on Sundays is a ‘Mortal Sin’… Additionally, practicing ANY FORM of contraception is a ‘Mortal Sin’.
 
For those that don’t know what a Mortal Sin is: “A mortal sin, in Catholic theology, is a gravely sinful act, which leads to damnation if a person does not repent of the sin before death. A sin is considered to be “mortal” when its quality is such that it leads to a separation of that person from God’s saving grace.” Even though I confessed this deepest regret, I made a promise to God that I will reverse it since I made that decision when I thought I was in control and playing Him – God..
 
About a year and a half ago, a new Parish opened up in town that practices “The Traditional Mass.” Which means that anything after the 1960s (Vatican 2) isn’t practice. The music, the people, the Eucharist is all practiced as it should, in reverence. Therefore, about 5 months ago we transferred completely to Holy Martyrs Catholic Church after making a decision as a Father that this will be the Parish that my boys get a solid foundation of their Catholic Faith from. As a former expert lukewarm Catholic – There’s a major difference. For those parents that “let their children choose thie faith life” I’m praying for you. Your children are a gift from God and not raising them under the best foundation is just wrong.
 
As I sat in The Holy Mass one day at Holy Martyrs, I saw several large families. The Holy Spirit literally tugged at my heart and said to me, “it is time”. Imagine an emotional feeling of love and compassion smack you upside the head. Tears of love came soon after…
 
I reached out to several Catholic brothers about reversing my vasectomy but very few knew anyone that’s gone through it..
 
Until I spoke to my friend Wes, who led me to a doctor in California who is Catholic. The doctor stated that even if he wanted to charge me $500, the clinic fees alone are $5000. Therefore, I reached out to Wes again asking if he knew someone else a bit more affordable, and he said yes. There is a gentleman by the name of Greg Alexander who actually went through the same situation. He lives in Texas and he will be able to help. So Greg listened to my story and we spoke for about an hour. He pointed me to the Catholic Doctor that did the reversal for him. Greg has a ministry with his wife called The Alexander House that covers this topic and more about marriage life. Greg, my brother – I love you sir, keep fighting the good fight.
 
I booked the appointment on July 1st, 2019 in Texas and just had my surgery 19 days ago from writing this post. What helped me through the procedure was doing a Rosary and I was completely relaxed. I would like to give a big shoutout to Dr. Roeder Loddie F Jr MD from Microsurgical Vasectomy Reversal, 189 E. Austin Street, Ste. 101, New Braunfels, Tx 78130 – 830-629-0180 – His heart is in the right place. They prayed with me before the surgery and I knew I was in the right place.
 
I am very open about this private topic because I believe that more men and woman have to hear it from someone who was chasing the wrong “things” in life. I see big families as a completeness of God’s divine LOVE if he wills it. I’m not sure where we got off on hating big families but my only guess can be the attack on the woman’s body in the 1960s (Margret Sanger, Planned Parent Hood, The rise of Liberal Feminism, etc.) and the idea to destroy Masculinity in Men. We can never be equal when it comes to God’s divine creation because each woman and man have a special trait that cannot be duplicated. I know for a fact my wife has more patience than I do when it comes to being the nurturer of the family. I cannot be that person but I am definitely the Man of the family and put my foot down to lift my boys up (and hopefully future children) to become the best they can be under God.
 
Through this journey, I have been called to be Pro-Life. It’s difficult to be Pro-Life if you’re not open to life… Make sense?
 
Even if God doesn’t will us new life, I have committed myself to him to be put back together the way he created me. Bucketlist checked Lord.
 
Since the procedure, my relationship with my wife has become much more stronger and loving. I’ve been less “Pissed Off.” Working together in peace. Financially, God has opened up new doors for us. As it turns out, doing the right thing does work out. We encourage all of you to follow the path that is right under God and not follow society’s pressure.
 
May this story inspire you and change your heart as it did mine. God Love You. In the name of the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit… Amen.
 
Feel free to reach out to me in private. I’m open ears.
 
Share this Post if You Know Anyone that has struggled through the same emotions.
 
My Heart is Complete.
 
#MakeLotsOfBabies