[impendia]

> a lot of fun for the profs to conduct these interviews

They can be. But it can get boring if your colleague wants to see the details of some boring computation. And, more seriously, it can be painful if the candidate is doing poorly. Fortunately I have not yet had to fail anyone.

> why was your post not repliable when I first saw it?

I believe there is a delay, the length of which is a function of how deeply nested your comment is, to encourage more top-level comments. (In particular, it tends to defuse arguments if you have to wait a long time to reply...)