Girl found with amnesia

Here is an interesting news. A girl found in New York who don't know who she is.

Ok, elderly folks suffering from Parkinson's diseases may actually forgot who they are and how to get home. But for a teenage girl? This is news to me.

Perhaps she is hiding something? How about let's put her in hypnosis, then ask her?

I tend to think a much more fun idea: this girl is from the future or outer space, warping here from somewhere. Waita minute, even if that's the case she should know who she is. Hmm, perhaps she is illegal immigrant? Oh well, this news item will drop off "Top Stories" lists very soon, replaced by one of the following categories

1) Endless political fights 2) tough situation in Afghan/Iraq 3) Reckless killers leaving behind bodies 3) helpless against H1N1. 4) jobless claims numbers go up or down beyond clueless estimators' numbers from thin air.

Sun cuts jobs

Here is news about job cuts in Sun. Oh is Oracle buying Sun? Yes it is. Ok, I must have lived under a rock.

Sorry, Sun. I used java since its debut in 1995. I didn't pay you a dime. I did pay you $150 x 2 for each of that certification tests, that's about it.

But yikes, I paid your arch rival Microsoft many times in authentic copies of Windows when it came with my machines...

The Strange Job Market

Something is fundamentally wrong with the way people place job ads and search jobs.

First of all, people don't put the company name out.
In a sensible world, you would see "HELP WANTED - waiter" poster at the window of a restaurant, or a classified ad that says "HELP WANTED - Planet Pizza - waiter". Potential waiters knows exactly which restaurant to work with and apply if interested.

However, what I see is third party recruiters that says "My pizza restaurant client is looking for waiters, if interested, call Pizza Waiters" ads. Why is Planet Pizza so shy to put their own ads out? Why pay the middle man?

Another strange happening is there can be more than 1 pizza waiter recruiters putting out the same ad for Pizza Planet. Though wording may not exactly the same.
So if you see 5 ads, they may all point back to just 1 ad.

More strange happening is that Planet Pizza will post ad, along with third party recruiters posting for the same job too. My theory is this, the pizza recruiter would call Planet Pizza that says "hey, i got a pizza waiter" and try to sell the body to Planet Pizza. I prefer contacting Planet Pizza directly.

This is non-sense. Why can't just Planet Pizza place their own ads? Potential waiters would then know exactly which restaurant to work for. Planet Pizza also does not need to pay the third party recruiters. Win-Win.

Remove the middleman. Direct is better.

Open Source vs Microsoft

If you are doing programming for a living, chances are: you are using Java or using .NET.

Java is really about open source (and free) things. You can download the SDK, download IDE (Eclipse most likely), and you download everything else, including database (such as MySQL, HSQL), even your servers (Tomcat, JBOSS, etc). You didn't pay anyone.

But wait, there's more. You can download all sorts of frameworks, and all sorts of libraries from Apache. That impressive list of stuff keeps changing. I am sure everyone has hard time to keep up.

Waita minute folks, if it is open source, do you MUST know it? do you MUST use it?
Ok, ANT helps you make builds (pretty much with a batch file written in XML), something else came up: Maven, do you must use it? See, you will forever be SLAVE to open source.

One time I was denied a job interview, reason being "this guy do not have a lot of experience with open source things". Now that is an outrageous reason. Open source things can be downloaded and studied, but I am fortunately unlike you who is a slave to that. What one should look for is programming skills, not obsession.

If it is popular, does it make sense? Are you really sure using some wacky open source query language and crank out objects per table && XML description tables is actually better than the tried-and-true SQL? Oh well, go ahead get obsessed, your clueless company is willing to pay you $ to play with it.

My 2 cents about open source: experiment with those things, see if it fits your need. If so then use it, the goal is to make things help you. i.e. make it your slave. Not being a slave to it. Java is great for those who want freedom from the giant Microsoft.

Microsoft of course is the arch rival of everyone else making less $. Its one .NET platform, many languages is really redundant. VB has to be upgraded very significantly to work with .NET. Its difference with C# is really syntactical superficial. I am sure someone can write a code translator and convert between C# and VB.NET verbatim easily. The Visual Studio IDE makes it so easy to connect to DB and one can crank out a web application so fast. But I don't like the way it does AJAX. AJAX is really easy. Write an asynchronous call and wait for it to come back and then you do something with it. That's it!. Microsoft wraps it with so many layers. Visual Studio is so powerful, but it does come with hefty price tag but you can download trial version.

Java and Microsoft play catch ups. Java got portlets? Microsoft got Web Parts. Java got MVC frameworks? Microsoft now plays with its own MVC.

Which is better? You decide. But a programmer should not be bounded to a particular tool.

I have a dream, that one day programmers are not judged by mere experience with a particular (perhaps obscure) tool, but by programming skills and ethics. I have a dream, that interviewers don't ask obscure questions, but rather judge someone on their ability to learn.

Nobel Suprise

Mr. Charles Kao won 1/2 of the nobel prize on Physics on his work on fiber optics.
See here or any Chinese newspaper for details. I have watched some TV documentary about him some years ago, as far as I know, fiber optics is making super thin fiber from glass so light can go through through reflection (and transmit data). Technology today owe a lot to his work. Waita minute, he worked on this how many years ago? MANY. Unfortunately he has Alzheimer's disease now, can't remember any of that stuff. This award comes so late? Only now he gets recognized (and only half of the prize).

In contrast, Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize, he was surprised himself. Sure, he has done some beginning work in trying to maintain peace, but we are not there yet (a long way to go). Even if there is peace, to be consistent with Mr. Kao, should Obama be in 70s to get that prize? Some say this award for Obama has weakened the meaning of the Nobel Peace prize, and I agree.

All in One Printer

I have lived without a printer for many years, how often do you need to print anything?

Most people prefer reading on a screen anyway. But there are times that you do need to print, such as a coupon, or just some personal things.

I bought a printer, an HP Photosmart. The catches for modern printers are 1) inks are expensive, won't be cheaper than 29 cents per copy unless you print a lot 2) no cables provided. Well, you don't need cable if you have a wireless network. The big wide printer cables are things in the past, nowadays it is USB, both are expensive(!)

It is hard to find a regular printer now. Modern printers are all-in-one; they can copy and scan too.

The catch is: copy means scan it and then print it on a inkjet, not quite as fast and crisp like a xerox machine.

Modern printers can print photos without a computer. I like that.
I like this HP because interface are intuitive. Some printers give me wheels to spin and very few buttons like a phone with soft keys.