I have been playing with Google Trends, which will be happy to generate a pretty graph of keyword frequency over time. A rough gauge to the relative popularity of various things. This evening, I was riffing off a post from the Royal Pingdom, regarding the relative popularity of Ubuntu and Vista, among other things.
We’re basically looking at LinkedIn (they even import your LinkedIn profile) except that you can set a price at which you would be willing to interview with a prospective employer. The idea being, maybe you are happy where you are but you’d be happy to talk about being somewhere else, though your time is valuable. (Employers, of course, already know that recruiting is an expensive undertaking . . . it is not hard to see them pony up . . .)
Apparently this is from “Peerflix refugees” so I’d peg it as “an interesting innovation that rips off an existing proven idea that is probably ahead of their ability to execute.”
I accepted the invite, to check it out but mainly so I could invite a friend who is job hunting. I figured if Powerset and Yahoo giving it a go . . .
First Impressions:
Very rough: when I declined to invite everyone I know on LinkedIn the site closed its own window.
Lame: the “invite-only preview” site is protected by a shared HTTP authentication username and password . . . then you log in.
Also Lame: you can’t view any of their web site (like “About Us”) without the HTTP authentication credentials. Amateurs!
Steals your LinkedIn profile very nicely, but requires your password. Wonder how soon LinkedIn will block them.
I don’t see why LinkedIn couldn’t just add the “set price to interview” as a feature within about two months.
Feels very much like a LinkedIn rip-off.
Snickering towards Doom: Their own “Jobs” page reads, in total: “VP of Business Development”
Doomed: The site is very slow, even as a limited preview. Methinks their engineers aren’t so great.
Actually, now I feel dirty. I’m changing my LinkedIn password . . .
“If you just want equipment you’re not ready,†Mr. Egami said in an interview. But, he added, James Freeman, the owner of the cafe, is different: “He’s invested time. He’s invested interest. He is ready.â€
“Siphon coffee is very delicate,†[James Freeman] said. “It’s sweeter and juicier, and the flavors change as the temperature changes. Sometimes it has a texture so light it’s almost moussey.â€
I have long preferred brewed coffee to espresso. That is a combination of my proletarian roots and my experience as a barista: I have a strong sense of what I want from a dry cappuccino or dry cafe-au-lait, but this sense is not easily found in a cafe, and I lack the technology to do it myself, so let us keep it simple, right?
(In Japan, siphon coffee masters carve their own paddles to fit the shape of their palms.)
I have been using Vim for years, and have any number of times (say, when dealing with DNS configuration) had to edit many lines, changing integers by a constant value, and it was always a hassle to repeatedly switch modes and type in a new number. “There must be some macro or other special mojo,” I thought, “and sometime, I will figure this out.”
Well, there is special mojo, and the figuring it out is so dead simple I kick myself for not knowing this years ago:
So, in the unlikely event that you are reading this, and trying to score a job at Tellme, I stumbled upon a little tip while trying to debug something else: check out their HTTP headers, particularly the X-Great-Jobs: header.
I got hired there back when it was in stealth mode, and they left a “secret” message as an HTML comment on the front page of the web site. It is nice to see an old tradition is still around. It is also weird to see that their present “cover image” is an intersection on the same street my grammar school was on, back in Chicago.
This is just a note which I contributed to a thread on sage-members, to get something off my chest, as to where people should maintain their crontab entries. I sincerely doubt that reading what I have to say will bring you any great illumination.
I’d say, any reasonable SysAdmin should default to /etc/crontab because every other reasonable SysAdmin already knows where it is. If anything is used in addition to /etc/crontab, leave a note in /etc/crontab advising the new guy who just got paged at 3:45am where else to look for crons.
For production systems, I strongly object to the use of per-user crontabs. I’m glad to hear I’m not alone. One thing I have to do in a new environment tends to be to write a script that will sniff out all the cron entries.
And then there was the shop that used /etc/crontab, user crons, and fcron to keep crons from running over each other. This frustrated me enough that I did a poor job of explaining that job concurrency could easily be ensured by executing a command through (something like) the lockf utility, instead of adding a new layer of system complexity.
Some months back, I was visited by a well-meaning relative, who cheerfully informed me that “Ron Paul is the only candidate who wants to abolish the IRS!” I gritted my teeth, and declined to take the bait. Arguing with Libertarians is kind of like bragging about that awesome dump you took: it is just way too easy and you really aren’t going to impress anybody. That, and it is impolite to shit all over family.
I got some positive feedback, though, for my brief contribution to a “Ron Paul” thread:
Libertarians are no different from anyone else who figures the government ought to address only their needs, and neglect all others. The generic term for this is “asshole.”
Just like Religious people who want their point-of-view enforced to the exclusion of others. “Gays can’t marry! That violates my beliefs!” Or, for that matter, uhhh, Liberals, who are somehow oppressing people in ways I can not presently fathom.
I have been Googling for numbers from New Hampshire. I favor Obama, and I’m curious what the GOP is up to. I finally found actual numbers, for the Democrats and and the Hephalumps:
With 96% of precincts reporting, Clinton beat Obama, 39%-36% — followed by Edwards at 17%, Richardson at 5%, and Kucinich at 1%.
With 96% of precincts reporting, McCain got 37% of the vote, Romney 32%, Huckabee 11%, Giuliani 9%, and Paul 8%.
So, my man Obama, arguably the underdog, is still giving Clinton a run for her money. And even if he doesn’t make it, I am content to vote for Clinton.
(I’d just like, after two decades, to put the Clinton-Bush dynasty behind us.)
And, I admire John McCain. If there’s going to be a Republican in the White House . . . my Googling turned up this gem from Tom DeLay:
“There’s nothing redeeming about John McCain.”
As I recall, Tom DeLay is a massive sleazeball. If a massive sleazeball finds nothing redeeming in you, that means that either you are a more massive sleazeball, or, perhaps a decent human being.
I was startled by this YouTube video, where we discover that Bill Gates can make fun of himself. Or, at least, his people can assemble a video where Bill Gates makes fun of himself. Good for Bill! I was then reassured at the consistency of the universe, when it was revealed that Bill really can’t make fun of himself without at least a dozen star cameos to reassure us that it is not so much that he is poking fun at himself, but that he is “acting”.
It is telling that Al Gore has the funniest line.
I hope Bill’s foundation does much good in the world. I almost feel sorry for Microsoft that after all the effort, Vista has proven to be a cold turkey. For what its worth, from a UI and performance perspective, I prefer Windows XP to Mac OS X. Though I’m not sure that this is praise for Microsoft as much as it is an aversion to the Smug Cult of Apple.
(Yes, I am a contrarian. People hate contrarians. Especially Mac people, who think they have the contrarian cred: the last thing a contrarian wants to encounter is a contradicting contrarian!)
But the UX, the name of Untergunther’s parent organisation, is a finely tuned organisation. It has around 150 members and is divided into separate groups, which specialise in different activities ranging from getting into buildings after dark to setting up cultural events. Untergunther is the restoration cell of the network.
The idea of a secret network with a “restoration cell” just makes me grin. In a way, very French . . .
I remember reading a description of Paris as a “Museum City” and then an explanation that that is not necessarily praise: if the culture of Paris is stuck in the past and not dynamic, that implies that the city is not vibrant. It is good to see that there is some vibrancy to the “Museum” culture.
Friday afternoon. Sick two days this week, but got important stuff done today in preparation for a little work on Saturday. Drinking a beer. At work. Before heading home. It’s Friday!
And then this comes across the work IRC channel:
Awesome!
For the record, I am these days working at a once-startup that has already sold out to a larger company. Decent hours, good pay, and an awesome team. No complaints here!
