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five essential phone screen questions – steveyegge2

Administrator — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:41:01 +0000

Been doing a lot of interviews lately, and I haven’t been happy with my phone screening. So, I did some looking up. This post is long, but quite thorough.

There’s also this from Coding Horror, which is mostly a rehash of Yegge’s post, but adds a little commentary. And this from Joel Spolsky.

10 Myths About Introverts || CarlKingCreative.com || Los Angeles, CA

robl — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 18:07:42 +0000

I don’t know how accurate the science is that’s paraphrased from the book, but I agree pretty completely with the myths.

Especially this line:

… Introverts are people who are over-sensitive to Dopamine, so too much external stimulation overdoses and exhausts them

I love parties, but they do exhaust me. I often find I’m in the middle of more than one conversation, because I have trouble concentrating on just one. Part of that is because I have trouble filtering out all the sounds going on around me. The good side of this is that I can concentrate pretty well on work in loud areas, because I find it easier for me to shut out all that noise (conversely, I hate working in libraries because they are too quiet).

The Case Against Queues

robl — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 19:10:17 +0000

Couldn’t agree more. I have yet to find a case for using queues, and have actively rejected them twice.

Drive-by-wireless: why the future of cars is P2P mesh, 4G cellular, and the cloud

robl — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 19:08:19 +0000

There’s no way that this guy’s time frames are likely to come true – no drivers by 2020? I think it’ll take more than nine years just to convince people that it’s a good thing to let the car do the driving. But, I love his enthusiasm, and I can’t wait. This won’t happen quickly enough for me.

Might makes right | johnaugust.com

robl — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 19:03:56 +0000

Thoughtful post about Google, but what really interests me is the idea that as something (be it company, country, etc.) gets bigger and more powerful, it can do things that, when seen from the inside, are “in our best interest”, but, when seen from the outside, are “evil”. And that this can happen without necessarily any malice, or forethought, or, really, any recognition within.

On Why Open Source Developers Run Mac OS X « Steven Harms

robl — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 18:52:55 +0000

This is why I left Linux for OS X seven years ago and haven’t looked back. When I want to spend my day effing with the OS, I’ll move back to Linux. But, currently, I’m happy to get some real work done.

(Via .)

What’s wrong with OpenID? – Quora

robl — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 23:07:45 +0000

I’m glad someone else wrote this. I haven’t been able to figure out the need for OpenID, but figured that it might be my issue since the people behind it are so passionate. I use a variation of the second item on his list of how people deal with registering at a site: I use 1password to remember my login info – it works with the major browsers and (using dropbox) I can keep in sync on other computers (and there’s an iphone app). Anyway, I understand what’s going on with OpenID, yet I still can’t fathom what’s happening when I go to a site that supports it. I can’t imagine a lay-person (non-geek) even wanting to figure it out, let alone trying. It’s not easy (either setting up your OpenID account, or logging into a site using it), it’s not seemless. It makes logging into a site more difficult (to do and understand), not less. So, just from that point of view, it’s a failure. As Yishan Wong mentions, the only real solution is for sites to come up with ways for you not to have to register (though my solution works pretty nicely for me, thanks 1password!

The 3 Basic Tools of Systems Engineering

robl — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 21:22:23 +0000

Great post on steps to take (and their particular order) on solving a technical issue in a small company (though it’d work for a large company as well). I’m not sure I completely agree – always worth overlooking code to make sure it’s written as efficiently as possible – but it’s interesting and I especially love (and agree totally) with his comments on NoSQL and using a queue (I’ve twice successfully refused to use queueing products for new features – I just can’t see their value).

Smarter Than You Think – Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic – NYTimes.com

robl — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 22:43:07 +0000

The day cars can drive themselves will not come soon enough for me. But, maybe it’s sooner than I thought.

nvie.com – How I boosted my Vim

robl — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:45:53 +0000

Won’t be needing all of these, and I don’t know about the plugins, but interesting to know about, and some of the general settings are definitely useful.