Howdy!

I split my time between my homes in San Francisco and Moscow, and more than 50% of my time I'm traveling around major cities in Europe and Asia. I seldom use cars in Moscow, London, Paris, Tokyo, or pretty much anywhere else where trains, metro, buses, trolley cars, etc. are available. I never owned a car or motorcycle anywhere in Europe or in Tokyo because I just don't need to. If necessary, I rent a car for a day or two, then it's back to the metro.

Public transportation in San Francisco just *sucks* in comparison to other cities, both in the US and worldwide. My beloved city (SF!) doesn't have the flexibility of underground trains like NYC or DC do. MUNI is a joke -- they have lots of buses that have the most inefficient passenger pickup areas in the world -- never have I seen a bus line with bus stops at almost every flipping corner along the route, like in San Francisco. Taxis? More suckiness. Trains? Forget it. San Francisco without your own wheels becomes a pain in the ass very fast.

"The bus system was great!" - try planning your trip by bus, and being on time without having to leave too early, from any point in San Francisco to your destination within the city. You often have to wait for 20-30 minutes without a bus in sight, then four or five come together, in a bunch, because the MUNI drivers decided to take a smoke or lunch break and end it at the same time. This is a far cry from a place like say, Zurich or Oslo, cities of the same approximate area and with a high automobile density, where the bus schedule is met at exact times (e.g."next bus will be a 10:43" and it shows up at exactly that time).

I love San Francisco more than any place in the world. Hearing someone praise its public transportation, though, is like hearing someone praise my mentally handicapped kid brother's arithmetic ability as if he were solving differential equations.

Cheers!

I agree with the spirit of what you say, perhaps disagree a bit on the details.

When hiring a civil or mechanical engineer I'd certainly put the guy through the paces (I did that when I was in charge of building industrial robots, early 2000s) to ensure that he or she doesn't kill someone by swinging a fingerboard to far, too fast, or too close to where people might be, and so on. Or cause an explosion. Or... you get the idea.

You wouldn't let a civil or mechanical junior engineer design a bridge or industrial tool either. You'd invite her as part of a team, watch them contribute, and build accountability over time in response to their ability to deliver, to learn the details of the job, and to deal with human factors ranging from management to on-site security.

I do find a more cavalier attitude in software development, where computer "science" graduates are thrown to develop mission-critical or business-critical system without much thought IN SOME SHOPS. Throughout my career my teams tried to be responsible about who's building what, to prevent hurting our users, clients, or employers. But then I'm a computer *engineer*, not a computer *scientist* -- different animals. We had a joke back at the university: "Please don't call me 'computer scientist' -- I do know math, physics, and statistics, and didn't go to college just to get credits."

Cheers!

E

Howdy.

I'm a VP of technology for several companies, and have been in a position to hire software, network, and system engineers since at least 1997. In all honesty, neither I, nor any of the people who've reported to me, ever paid much attention about where someone went to school, what their actual degree was, or whether they had earned some honor -- as long as the guy could deliver. From certs to prestigious schools, we never really bothered. Eventually I found out that I had a couple of MIT grads and at least one Stanford kid. I also had a pile of people whose degrees were awarded by foreign universities (including my own) and really... nobody really cares.

If you have the skills and you have the work experience, then you should be fine.

Right now I sit on the tech board for a couple of companies in Europe and the US, and I'm driving the technology at a very large social network with dev operations in the UK and Russia. I do notice that Europeans pay more attention to "schooling" and "degrees" and "titles" than US companies do, but not by much. My former employers and clients include some of the largest companies in Silicon Valley, rest of the US, Europe, Japan, and Mexico. The only occasions when I had to produce some kind of official proof of education were:

* When getting my US labor certification (1991... long time ago...), and when getting my Russian labor certification (last year) -- bureaucrats just love the fsck-ng paperwork
* When applying for a US federal job -- even then, they clarified that all they care about is whether I completed the degree or whether it was accredited, the date, and some accreditation equivalence since my degrees are from foreign institutions

Pro Tip: see if your employer will pitch in for part or whole course. Tech departments have educational budgets ranging from a couple of hundred dollars/year for books per employee, to full scholarships. I've auth'd books, on-line courses, conferences, PIM, and university courses for my peeps many times in the past. Check that out with your supervisor or with HR. A lot of people don't realize the option might be there -- and, if others in your group aren't taking advantage of it, your manager may be amiable to extend your budget a bit more (since money she doesn't spend is money she may have to cut next year).

So -- get your education wherever you can as long as they are legit, kick some butt, take names, and good luck in your career advancement!

Cheers!

Let's say, for sake of argument, that for some reason you want to shield your phone for a period of time. Make it completely opaque. Just put it inside a mid-range to good quality microwave oven. Good shielding prevents the signals from going in or out. This way the phone disappears in a certain location. It reappears at the same location some time later; while it was in the microwave oven, if the shielding is good enough, nothing will come in or out.

Other fun tricks: are you on GSM? Remove the SIM card, and pop a different one from a different provider. Preferably one from out of the country. Don't do it at the same location, though. Remove and leave at home, go a few km away, pop the other SIM card in. Don't pay for the second one with the same credit card as the first one. And so on.

Any other fun tricks out there?

Cheers!

The interview was entertaining and somewhat insightful. I wish the interviewers would've asked more details about Gosling's current doings, what aspects of NoSQL he's working on, details about the languages, etc. Too much space was allocated to Oracle Venting. I wish the interviewers or Gosling would've devoted more time to more technical stuff and future directions.

**** out of 5 - great job, Basement Coders!

pr3d4t0r

Howdy.

While taste in mice and features vary, one thing I would vouch for, if you're right handed and have a full keyboard, is to learn to use your mouse with your left hand. I worked with Gene Korienek in the early 1990s and we discussed how to optimize mouse motion. Since the page navigation, Return key, and numeric pad are all on your right side, using your mouse with your left hand will make you more effective for some activities such as using spreadsheets, Photoshop, web surfing, etc. I went "mouse southpaw" since then -- super-comfortable.

Now... for programming I use MacVim and a number of plug-ins and extensions. When I'm programming, unless it's something that's got a GUI or it's iPhone/Mac specific, I seldom use the mouse. One of the biggest advantages of using a keyboard instead of a mouse is sensory memory. There are actions in Vim (and possibly TextMate, emacs, etc.) that you can execute automatically, without thinking about the exact key press sequence, and without having to lift your hands off the keyboard. Check into any of these editors, add the appropriate plug-ins (e.g. "UNIX is my IDE") and see what works best for you. I went from keyboard-only (TurboPascal, Turbo C, vi/UNIX) to GUI IDE (Smalltalk/V, Symantec Cafe, Visual Studio, IDEA) back to keyboard-only for most programming tasks. Now my coding is split between keyboard-only (scripting, Java, C, assembler) and GUI/mouse for only a few environments that leave you no other option (Xcode/Interface Builder).

Cheers!

E