I have been on the hiring side, and the job seeker side many times.

I conclude on the job seeker side, just go with the flow, after you have been at it a bit you see the standard questions and puzzles. This tells the employer nothing, as these questions get around and the solutions are well known and on the net. When presented with these, I solve them for the free lunch, dinner, drinks job offer and trip; and then go, decide not to join, and for good reason.

The management speak troubles me more; after you have passed the puzzles, had the lunch with the engineering team and are now on with management for the afternoon and evening, I cringe at the rerun of catch phrases, that show no thinking whatsoever or original thought by leading mangagement, as to who I am and why I am here:

"Give me your 30 second elevator speech"
"What is your worst failure, and what did you do about it?"
"Describe your skillset, and convince me there is a match"

On the hiring side, I have been most successful to get the candidate to open up, and talk about projects and accomplishments. This lets me get into the past work history in a non confrontational way; ask for a story, let me pry into the technical issues with you and see your thought process for their resolution. This also gives me indications about the personality and style of the candidate.

We are going to work together, this is a marriage, we will probably spend more time together per week that with your wife. I need to know that you and I are compatible, and I have a short time to do it.

The current style does not support this idea, yet is far more important and successful than the puzzle interview.

He also contributed more to bad driving than just about anybody else.

The Ice shelves are not halving, they are calving

I cant wait to ride. I will be headed back to the Orchestra car to listen to Christmas music.

latest OS posted, Asteroid.

Intel is 30% contract labor and looking to Beijing to outsource that also. It is shell of a company that has lost its way, and it is currently managed by a finance guy (Paul Otelini) as opposed to a technology guy (Gordon More, Andy Grove). If Intel had mojo, it would invest in its American workforce, instead of the current practice of using 'green badge' contractors and recycling that flesh on a yearly basis.

Designing a PCB beyond run of the mill, low speed electronics can be reduced to CAD type etch a sketch artwork generation, however, you get beyond a few dozen parts and/or high pin count FPGAs and microprocessors the task of designing such a PCB is very involved and a specialized field. One of the limiting factors is the software used in the design process, the schematic capture, library parts creation, and the layout editor itself and auto route technology. The software for this task can get very expensive quickly as you move up the chain; these can be $100K plus PC based applications, and only two companies do this, Mentor Graphics and Cadence (yes; there are half dozen minor players). With a small market for this stuff, none of it works as advertized and it can take years to learn the systems and where the land mines are. The learning process itself is daunting, there are no books or college courses really, for high end PCB design and the use of the tools. The software itself has its roots back to the '80s with both companies, and it is obvious that much of it has not been dusted off and seen significant development in decades. There is an open source project or two out there, but the real pros are just too busy cranking out designs to participate. If I were a young computer science student, electronics and graphics guru I think this area is one I would look into; the big guys need some heat and we would all love to see a new player and startup in the high end PCB EDA market. As far as PCB design as a career choice, look elsewhere, these jobs are now going offshore, like everything else in electronics in the USA, we are losing our edge.

But those Ruskies on MIR developed technology wayyyy beyond space station. They had a still and vodka. Let us guess what else happened, months in isolation, with a couple of lonely drunk cossacks in zero geee. Another Russian First.

I thought we had this resolved, or coming close to it: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/making-an-exact-difference/2007/06/14/1181414466901.html

My Mercedes ML500 increases the volume every time I drive under HT power lines....

Vinyl beats the pants off a CD. 90+ db dynamic range off a album, with good quality virgin vinyl, or a Classic RCA Red Seal disc. You script kiddies can move along, and listen to your I tunes all you want, MP3 is never a candidate for true music lovers. You cant compress a cymbal crash, there is no entropy to remove...

Those who pray on children are already institutionalized for life. We call em Priests.

Lemme guess, his sign says: Please Help, Will Build Constellation for Food

Its already being done. The black pixel is DED technology, Dark Emitting Diodes.