Siesta…

Our big boss just emailed an opening in our company looking for a developer with math skills. I almost replied: Can I apply? My math is rusty but I’m willing to burn hours to study than  do the same shitty things day after day.

Last month when I visited the CS department, one of my professors asked me if I am using the things that I have learned. My answer was no.

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“So what do you do on the weekends?” I really hate that question. I usually read books and for some weird reason some people can’t understand that reading books is a legitimate activity and not something that you just do if you need to(i.e. school, work etc).

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One of the things I hate about waking up too early in the morning during weekends is that I tend to think about my life and the things that I wanted to do. Most of the time its better not to think at all. Just have a plan and just move forward.

I’ve been busy with real life for the past few weeks. There was a week that I went out for four straight nights because we needed to take our guest out. Burned all my nerd karma that week.

I also tried cable skiing. I only did the kneeboard and yet I was not able to make a whole round. I always fell at the halfway mark. My friends also need to tow me back to shore whenever I fall into the water since I do not know how to swim. Some photos here.

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Recently upgraded my Ubuntu box to Hardy Heron.

Good:

-UOB website seems to work now. Before it would not finish loading. I think it has something to do with Firefox 2’s Javascript engine.

-Bootup seems to be faster.

Bad:

-Got some problems with my wireless. NM-applet cannot co-exists with the older Network manager. Need to remove the the settings(except the loopback) at /etc/network/interfaces and let nm-applet take care of it.

-It stalls a lot. Might be something to do with Firefox 3 being beta. It makes a lot of disk access.

-Citibank’s website is not working. The applet would not simply load. This is a major headache for me. I just hope they bundled the older JRE(1.4). My solution was to install Firefox 2 then edit the post-installation of the java plugin as stated here.

Summing it all up, I think the previous version(Gutsy) is better.

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Since I will soon to be a year older and a friend of mine will be flying to HK I am planning to buy my second len. There are a couple of cheap zooms that I am considering but what I really want is the Pentax 43mm 1.9 Limited. Its beautiful(I like the silver color). What I don’t like about it is that its a bit impractical(and more expensive than the zooms I am considering) since I don’t use my camera that much. I only shoot now if there are events. I still have a week to think about what to buy.

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Been a while since I last posted in this blog. I have been trying to declutter my life(writing have to take a backseat for a while). Lately I have noticed that I have no time to do some serious reading. I have a pile of unread books with bookmarks at the beginning or in the middle. I also haven’t been doing any physical activities lately.

My solution was to cut down on my DOTA sessions, access Google Reader weekly, stop using twitter, and cut back on reading forums. During work I disciplined myself not to read Slashdot. I also deprioritized writing in this blog(hopefully I can do once a month). I still want to write  for my other blog more often.

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Last week I did a non-technical talk on our team’s knowledge sharing session. I talked about branding. I got the idea from Steve Yegge’s talk on OSCON 2007. I was able to read the book he mentioned and discussed it to my teammates. I did discussed the basics in my earlier post. There are other things in branding that are quite interesting and is simple to understand. I would probably write about it next time.

My first day was good. Some of the things that I like in the new company I am working for:

• Better and free coffee
• Uses Spring
• Might be using JDK > 1.4
• Dual monitor
• Nice office

A quote from my farewell letter on my last day:

I believe that memories, more than achievements, is what life made of.
You can only brag about your achievements, but it will be the memories
you will cherish. Ten or twenty years from now when I look back at my
stint here, I will remember the friendships made, the laughter
and the “oh my god!*” that were said.

*favorite expression of our developers in Shanghai

In anime/manga or in comics someone is not dead until you see them dead. There are some exceptions like Superman. Resurrecting the dead happened so many time in fiction that you won’t believe it anymore if a character is really dead.

Personally I hate it when they kill a character just to boost sales. But what happened to Spiderman is the worst of all. If you are not aware of the current comic scene, Spiderman is unmasked. The Marvel universe now knows that Peter Parker IS Spiderman. There was this event in Marvel called Civil War. There was a superhero reality show that turned awry. A whole town was destroyed. The US government now wanted to have superheroes to register. Some was in favor(Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic etc) and some were against(Captain America etc). Spiderman was initially in the pro group. To show his support he unmasked himself in public. Later on he switched sides.

Because everyone knows that Peter Parker is Spiderman, Peter Parker is now an easy target. Aunt May was accidentally(the main target is Peter) sniped and was critically wounded. Peter Parker asked for help but nobody could. Mephisto offered him a deal. (from wikipedia)In exchange for Aunt May’s life he will wipe all memory of Peter’s marriage to MJ from all but one part of their souls, so that he may listen to those parts’ pain for the rest of eternity.

It was a selfish and bad decision but I can live with that. Here is the kicker. MJ offered Mephisto something in exchange for the world not knowing that Peter is Spiderman. WTF?!?

This is the worst. What happened already happened. The world knowing Peter Parker is Spiderman is a big change in direction. I was actually curious on how they will bring the story forward. Doing a retcon this early is like making the whole unmasking event just a big gimmick to boost sales. In the end everyone lost. Aunt May, Peter, MJ and the fans.

I only have two adjectives for 2007. Dreary and monotonous. I never noticed that it passed by. Nothing significant happened.  Not that it bothered me. Its just that there is nothing exciting to write about.

For me, this year was about adjustments and acceptance. I am finally used to living alone. Although my laziness in ironing my clothes and lack of delicious food(masarap ang ulam sa bahay) is a strong reason for me to go back home, its still not enough. I still prefer my independence. The money here is also good. I can buy the books and the gadgets that I want.

Most people consider me a cynic. I am a realist actually. Many times I tried to be an optimist. I tried to have a more positive outlook in life and see the goodness in people. After some books on sociology, economics and marketing, I gave up being one. I think I now have a good understanding of human nature that made it hard for me to think that man is inherently good. Its hard to doublethink*. A realist would always be a realist. I will call it as I see it. I value the truth more than hope.

For something less somber here are some things I want to improve on or want to do in 2008:

• Photography - I can now understand basic exposures but I still clearly lack in the composition department. As much as possible, except for white balance adjustments, exposure compensation and some sharpening, I want to take good photos without that much post-processing.
• Cooking - I can now cook tinola. Unfortunately, thats all I know. I want to be half as good as my mom when it comes to cooking.
• Math - I want to read TAOCP(The Art of Computer Programming). My problem is that I am too weak at discrete math. I doubt if I can go past page one of that book.

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*Doublethink is reconciling two opposite thoughts like thinking black is white and white is black. The word came from the novel 1984.

…naka-siento ako sa Magic Sing kanina!

Hahahaha!

Pasensya na mababaw lang kaligayahan ko.

In probably one of the best interviews I had, I was never asked about my work experience. Of course, they asked what I am doing now but they never had me narrate what was in my resume. They asked me more relevant questions on the position that I am applying for.

Probably I will accept the offer if they made one. I was impressed by the manner they conducted their interview.

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While I was not the type who changed employer more than twice a year, I have gone through different types of interviews and seen different hiring practices.

When I was a student I expected job interviews to be like your thesis defense. Interviewers asking you about algorithms and algorithm complexity. I had a big surprise when I saw those essay-type questions given by a large consulting company and by a manufacturing company.

“What is leadership?” “What is integrity?” It really reminded me of those essays during high school.

It was a bit of a shock for me then. But as time came along I understood that there are some who can be trained to program. So having those high schoolish questions for an IT job is fine. But what I never understood was those same companies also asked those questions for their experienced hire.

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On one of the extreme end is the “name how many design patterns you know” interviews. This gave me an equal amount of WTF moments. Fine, its technical. But I have some problems on people who thinks that the more design patterns you know, the better programmer you are.

Corollary to this type is the “how many programming languages do you know” and “rate yourself from one to ten” type of question. More than once I wanted to put the phone down.

And probably one of the hardest question that was thrown at me was “how many years of experience do you have with <insert PL or technology>?” There was a time when I was working on a Java and on a .Net project. How would I count that?

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One of the few things that greatly irritates people regarding hiring practices is the issue of the importance of grades during hiring. Most of the great programmers I know are not academically good. I am against this practice but later on I understood why.

Getting high grades usually involves hard work and intelligence. Most of the time it is hard work and the ability to do things that you would not normally want to do. There are only a few people I know who enjoy integrating triple integrals or who derives satisfaction from proving theorems.

In the IT industry there are some jobs that will make you ask yourself “Did I spend four years studying Computer Science to do this?” or those jobs that will require you (very)long hours of work. In these type of job, a soldier-like obedience is needed. You need people who have the ability to work for long hours on something they do not want to do. People who would rather do their homework on a Friday instead of going to a party.

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I once got an offer in Makati before. I asked if they could increase the salary a bit more. The hiring manager told me that the offer is quite high for someone without an industry experience. I was irritated. That time I do not have any industry experience because I worked in the university after I graduated. I know that I am as good or even better than some who have worked for the same number of years that i have. Why do they equate skills with industry experience? Why the bias?

The only way you would know how good a person can do a job is when you have seen him/her do the the job. If the time is too limited, how can you select the best candidate(s)? Most would use metrics like working experience, certifications or what company they came from previously. The mentioned metrics are not good as I reasoned out earlier. But what can an employer do?

Imagine yourself in a grocery that is about to close and you need to cook spaghetti. Your usual brand of ketchup is not on stock and you have not tried any of the ketchup that is on the shelf. How will you select the best ketchup? Will you decide by brand? By price(more expensive == better)? Or where it is made from(imported is better)?