thane April 10th, 2008
When I was interviewing at Apple, people would often ask me what I would do when I started. What would I fix or make better. My answer was something along the line of “The first thing I would probably do is make sure all the sample code worked. Did you know that the HID Explorer sample project doesn’t even compile?” Thus, it should be little surprise that the HID Explorer has been updated! What the hell am I going to do now?
thane April 4th, 2008
My world has changed. It will never go back to the way it was before. As a means of explanation, I need to give you some background.
Half a year ago or so, Wacom was experiencing some growing pains. This took the form of planning a new building where everyone involved in the planning was getting very irritated with the totally opaque and nonsensical process. Multiple people in Engineering were talking about leaving (almost half the department) at various times, and others were talking about collective bargaining. I got fed up and started putting out feelers and digging around for a new job. On 12/4/2007 I got a bite from a friend at Apple, asking if I was still looking. I sent him my resume, along with that of a friend, noting that neither of us was interested in moving. On 1/18 his old boss called me and decided I was a good candidate for the job. 2/1 I had two phone interviews with engineers. 2/18 I took a trip to Cupertino where I interviewed with nine different people in half a day. 3/7 was another day trip to California where I interviewed with five more people. At this point I have talked with almost everyone I could talk to in ‘my’ management chain, and with surrounding groups that I would have to interface with.
On 3/25, 113 days in and 17 interviewers later, they offered me a job working from my own home. As of 4/21, I will be an Apple employe, an I/O Kit Kernel Engineer. I will have to spend a lot of the next 6 months in California, trying to develop the network that will allow me to succeed at the job. Even doing that, my success is not guaranteed. This is going to be the hardest and most challenging job I have ever taken, from a professional standpoint, from a personal standpoint, and from a family standpoint. It is also one of the most exciting, most thrilling jobs I can imagine having. When I started looking, low those many months ago, I came up with a list of things the perfect job would have. This has all of them. It is even more perfect than the job I had imagined. It is like a dream.
People, if this is a dream, don’t wake me. I will kick your ass.
thane March 28th, 2008
Thanks to Senator Clinton, we now know that, not only was Senator Obama a professor, he was offered a tenure track position multiple times.
From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School’s Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.
Thank you, Ms. Clinton, for clarifying that.
thane February 7th, 2008
Apologies to everyone about not posting. I have had some stuff going on that I don’t want to blog about which is pretty much occupying my entire brain.
thane February 2nd, 2008
Much like apenwarr, I had heard about git and effectively ignored it. As he, I watched Linus’ video and was skeptical. He, however, took the time to analyze it and came to an interesting conclusion.
Git was originally not a version control system; it was designed to be the infrastructure so that someone else could build one on top. And they did; nowadays there are more than 100 git-* commands installed along with git. It’s scary and confusing and weird, but what that means is git is a platform. It’s a new set of nouns and verbs that we never had before. Having new nouns and verbs means we can invent entirely new things that we previously couldn’t do.
He then produces a litany of difficult projects that he has worked on which git makes trivial. He points out that git moves files faster than cp, and does it checksummed. That git can be used for backups, or for a distributed file system, or for package distribution, or installers, or or or. If it had been written by anyone but Linus Torvald, I would continue to be skeptical. However, he has a track record of writing quickly things that change the face of software. I am going to have to take a closer look at git.
thane January 9th, 2008
from Noodlesoft
It can be annoying to get an alert about a new version when you are working. A new version is not a “drop everything and deal with this now” type of alert. With this patch, when a new update is found, it will check the user’s idle time and hold off showing the panel until a certain amount of time has elapsed. This minimizes the chance of the user being in the middle of something when the alert comes up.
This is someone who gets it. What a wonderful idea for notifying the user. Nod to Daring Fireball for the link.
thane December 29th, 2007
I saw this cartoon about christians, and it shows the problem with taking the bible too literally. It also gave me an idea. Anyone who wants to pass legislation founded on their reading of the Bible should have to pass the tests of Mark 16:17-18.
Passage Mark 16:17-18 (New International Version)
“17And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”
I am willing to forgo most of these tests, however, you must drink a glass of the following:
After you have finished the glass, if you can read the text of your bill, I will vote for it.
P.S. It should be noted that I hold no grudge against legislation inspired by the Bible (or any book). However, if you cannot back up your arguments with something stronger than “because it says so”, then I think that this rule should apply.
thane December 21st, 2007
If you are still trying to make up your mind in the Republican primary election, these might help.
thane December 13th, 2007
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