Random Traffic Through Nick's Brain

I know, I know, it’s because I’ve been playing around with Windows for too long. I’m used to it’s warts and work-arounds, while Linux’s (Ubuntu’s) are new and stumpifying. It’s hard to research a problem for 2 hours to find the right answer for your configuration, and then spend 1 hour editing arcane files, all while trying to entertain a 10-month old.

• I can’t get my Treo to sync with Evolution. It does a partial synchronization and then fails. Based on the fact that sync-ing works with Windows, I’m betting the fault isn’t with the Treo.
• I can’t figure out how to delete the partial set / duplicate set of records that the failed sync leaves behind in Evolution. Ugh.
• Even if I figure out those last two problems, I still can’t figure out how to sync via BlueTooth. The HowTo’s on the web don’t seem to apply to my setup for some reason.
• Though it got better with Fiesty Fawn, volume control in fubar. The master volume somehow doesn’t control the MP3 playback volume or sound effects that emanate from gaim.
• The mouse sensitivity settings only affect the ’stick’ mouse (between the g/h/b keys on my keyboard), not the ‘pad’. Since I predominantly use said pad, I’m frustrated that it takes 6 swipes to move the cursor completely across the screen.
• Stupid things like mapping Lock Workstation to Win-L doesn’t work reliably.
• Global keyboard shortcuts don’t work when the gnome menu is open.
• I can’t figure out how to get a keyboard shortcut for the shutdown dialog. Yeah, yeah, yeah, never need to reboot Linux. But since there are some things I can’t do in Linux yet (Treo Sync, Quicken-file compatible expense tracking, accessing my password safe) I frequently need to reboot into Windows.
• I have to get a VM running Windows up and running. But I’m not sure if I can use my existing windows install.
• Eye candy would be nice, but somehow, I get weird errors when I try to enable said eye candy (the stuff Ubuntu comes with, not even at the point of trying to install Beryl or Compiz on my own yet).
• The interface seems so stodgy. It’s boring enough that it makes specific commands (tool bar buttons) hard to locate. Though I’ve sync’d my firefox configuration files across Windows/Linux the fonts it uses in Linux ar stodgier / harder to read.
• At least both OSes can read the other’s file system. That helps.

Nice to have a place I interviewed featured in the DailyWTF. This is the place that, despite dealing with large data sets, had an interviewer that didn’t understand the concept of locality. He wanted a specific answer to an interview question and wasn’t interested in examining the trade-offs involved in that specific solution.

• Yesterday was a good day. I went for a long walk for the first time in a long time. I feel like I’m badly out of my / Alex’s flow because of interviewing. Hopefully that’ll come to an end soon.
• It bothers me when companies don’t have the decency to explicitly tell me that they’re passing on my candidacy. Three companies have earned this dubious distinction. One was a friend of a friend that I actually see socially a few times a year, so I feel that was the height of rudeness. Another was referred to me by a friend. Though word did get back through said friend that they were passing, direct contact would’ve been nice. Last, the super-secretive company that refuses tell candidates what they do until the candidate is hired (despite making them sign an NDA) are so super-secretive they don’t want to tell me if I got the job or not.
• A combination of weather (can’t run with Alex when it’s too cold / wet) and sickness means that I’m 7 weeks behind on my 12-week ½ marathon training program. Ugh. On the good side, I ran 5M today.

Since we bought a Wii and it plays all our old GameCube games, we no longer need said GameCube. Basically, we want to sell the console itself, power cable, and AV cord. No controllers. No games. Possibly a memory card if we can find the old one. Before we list it on CraigsList, anyone want it? Make us an offer.

Yes, yes, yes, we got sucked in at some point. Anyway… we were thinking that it’s fun to watch (or snark at) American Idol in a group of people. Who here watches Idol and would be willing to watch it either Wednesday or Thursday (TiVo’d) with us? Comments preferred, but email works.

I use LinkedIn as an online social (well, professional) networking tool.
It works quite well for me.
I’ve come across a lot of interesting opportunities through it.

People who’ve worked at the same company as I have, during the same time period I worked there, try to link with me.
This is great when I’ve actually interacted with them.
Sometimes, people I’ve never heard of try to contact me… when you work at a company with 70,000 employees, there’s a slight chance that you haven’t heard of most of them.
The first couple of times this happened, I accepted the invitations, only to break the links later.
The next few times, I send a polite question back along the lines of, “My recollection of my time at BigCo is a bit hazy, can you remind me what project we worked on together.” No one ever answered back, until today. The reply was, that we’d never worked on a project together, but that he’d be a good contact.

What should I do with these invitations? Explicitly decline them? Let them expire? I generally feel that I shouldn’t accept them. My baseline criteria for sending or accepting an invitation is, “Would I be comfortable telling this person about a job opportunity if I bumped into them face-to-face.” Since I’m an introvert, I generally wouldn’t feel comfortable going up to a stranger and talking to them. I’d also feel somewhat uncomfortable if a stranger came up and talked to me.

Power washed the lanai yesterday. I soooo want one.

Actually, what I really want is a kitchen and a bathroom that can be washed with one. Dina’ll never agree.

src="http://www.varacalli.com/pictures/misc/Boston-Public-Library-Window-2005-09-17_small.jpg"
class="alignright"
style="margin: 0 0 2px 7px; display: inline; border: 2px solid black; float: right; width : 100px; height : 150px;"
alt="Photograph: Boston Public Library: Window, Boston, 2005-09-17, © Nick Varacalli."
title="Boston Public Library: Window, Boston, 2005-09-17, © Nick Varacalli."
/>Earlier I mentioned that I had 4 separate interviews in one day and that I should write a logic puzzle based on that. Well… here it is. I’ve learned that I either need more practice at this (I’m not really happy with the distribution of clues), or that I simply enjoy solving them more than I enjoy writing them. Note to anyone from any of the companies that interviewed me that day… the logic puzzle is only tenuously based on reality. Please don’t infer anything about my actual feelings towards you / your company based on this. Leave your answer in the comments. Even if someone answered the same thing before you, I at least want to know how many actually attempted to solve it. Anyway… onto the actual puzzle.

Too Much Interviewing

After being a stay-at-home dad for close to a year, I’ve decided it’s time to get back into the workforce. My interview schedule, combined with taking care of my son Alex, is tiring me out. The most taxing day was when I had 4 separate interviews. I was interviewed by 4 people (including someone with the same name as my son, what are the chances?) who each work for a different type of company (including a Consulting Firm). I snagged the interviews through unique means, and was grilled on different topics at each (they even asked me about one of my favourite topics, Polymorphism). The interviews obviously happened at different times of the day. The first two interviews (at 9:00 and 10:00) were phone screens, the third (at 11:00) was in person at the company’s offices, and the last (at 19:00) was a dinner interview at a restaurant. Now that they’re all done, I have different feelings about each interview.

1. Dave, who does not work for a Web 2.0 company, grilled me on User Interface Design over the phone.
2. After the interview, I felt ‘Enh’ about the company that I found through the prestigious Job Board. It’s a shame I’ll never get to be interviewed by the company in person… I hear they have swank offices.
3. The company that Claire works for and the company I feel ‘Wow’ about found me through my Online Résumé and a Recruiter, in some order.
4. The company that quizzed me on Inheritance interviewed me before the Social Networking horde.
5. I really enjoyed the view of Boston Harbor from the Financial Giant’s 32nd floor offices. In fact, Claire spent a good five minutes pointing out all the cool sights and landmarks. I should’ve brought my camera with me.
6. The Web 2.0 company interviewed me at some point before the company I feel ‘OK’ about and at some point after Dave’s company.
7. My Friend pointed me to a company’s blog entry which noted that they were hiring. I felt ‘Hmmm’, intrigued, by their technology as described to me by Bob.
8. I guess it’s no coincidence that the company that found my Online Résumé asked me a lot of questions on User Interface Design.
9. I feel ‘Enh’ about the company that quizzed me on SQL. Part of it was the fact that they made me speak a really long and complicated query into the phone. I would’ve much rather written it on a whiteboard or a napkin.

Edit 2007-05-16: Answers as well as some variations in the clues in the comments.