Great Post by David on Hiring...

This is a solid post from Google/O'Reilly Open Source Award winner David Heinemeier Hansson: Reduce the risk, hire from open source. While I don't think that a person must have open source experience, it sure does make hiring easier.

Tee Hee.

Funny Ipod Nano Commercial Spoof Ipod Spoof The ipod nano is pretty nead, mind you. I already have little scuffs on the plastic....I need a cover for my preciouss...

That said, my pal has one of the little samsung gig super thingys which is also very cute...if a bit more cubular.

What a week...

Every year, Google runs a contest called Code Jam and I get a huge kick out of it. All these students competing against each other on a number of computer science problems. It's like a lead in for the Summer of Code in a lot of ways. Anyhow, it happens about this time each year, and I hung out at the last one. This time I volunteered to walk around with the students, eat with them and such, because, you know, students are the future :-)

Seriously though, what a neat contest. I wish I had done something like this when I was in school. Other than that, it's been a banner week at Google. We had Jim Gettys over talking about X windows and Snap, Terry Pratchett talking about Thud! and Ray Kurzweil out talking about his new book, which is fantastic. His talk was pretty amazing too. It focuses on the advancing rate of technological change and what that might mean for us. In some ways the title, The Singularity is Near is deceptive, as the book is about so much more than that, and you can learn so much from it that you'd be crazy not to get it, read it and use it as a guide for the future. Thanks for coming and talking with us Ray!

I actually don't really like talking about this kind of thing, as it kind of sound slike bragging, but this week was really exciting. I love working here.

This is very important...

Google Blog: Google Print and the Authors Guild

Well, its important to me, that is :-)

Imagine the size of the kid that dropped that!

I know you've heard it before: AArtists erect giant pink bunny on mountain Here's another picture.

iPod Nano Hotness

The Nano Is so very sexy. I'm really enjoying it. 4gb is absolutely the right size for me. If anything, it is too much space. Really a beautiful little machine. I love getting gifts :-)

Good sound too, I think it uses the same sound chip as the shuffle, which I've commented on my blog about before. I did miss having a display on the shuffle, so this is just about perfect, and it fits in the strap of my backpack, like the shuffle did, so all is well in biking to work while listening to stuff land.

I gotta pee Condi!

This is just wrong, somehow

Update: My wife suggests we mail the white house a key to the bathroom chained to a globe, like in grade school.

Biking to Work Bonus...

So it turns out that biking to work has a side bonus...completely cool pictures. I was biking along the stvens creek trail this morning when I looked up and thought that a helicopter was not just hovering that close to high tension lines ,was it? It was. The copter first dropped off a guy and two ladders (with hooks on the tops to affix to the top of the tower) then came back and dropped off another dude. It was way cool. Did I have a camera on me? Oh yes... (also on flickr)

Yeah, I think its a little weird too.

But, you know, whatever. My wife and I (we use ebay a fair amount) talked about this a few weeks ago. I guess to connect up sellers and bidders? Who knows.

It had to happen...

Going Ballmy!

Welcome Vint!

Neat news at work: Google Blog: Cerf's up at Google!

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

Insurgency. Yes, now we have an 'insurgency' in New Orleans. For the record: You, Joseph R. Chennelly, are a complete asshole.

Music Streaming in GAIM, An SOC Project...

Check it out. So cool....

Developers, I say, Developers, Developers.

I was reading the article on Slashdot bout Balmer's Vows and I remembered something that I've been wanting to write about for a while.

When watching the Developers video, don't look simply at the guy on stage, look at the audience. There is where the interesting stuff is going on. Thousands upon thousands, an entire concert hall filled with em. Keep in mind that these are just the developers who were at the company's 25th anniversary celebration, likely only employees. Microsoft enjoys a larger developer network than any company has ever seen.

So, when you see Ballmer screaming his chant to the assembled audience, consider this: open source has managed, with largely a self assembled collection of disparate developers, many only workng part time, to utterly defeat microsoft in the server room. How?

Developers. Developers. Developers.

Really damn good ones. I'd say that Ballmer has a good reason to sweat.

Amazing post from Miguel about SOC.

If you check out this post on Miguel's blog, you'll see some of the projects that the students in the Summer of Code worked on for Mono. Remarkable work, really. In case you don't know the SOC pencils down date was the 1st, so we're starting to get feedback in from students and mentors, and some of the work is so good it truly exceeded my (and Google's) expectations. Remarkable stuff, really.

Loose Lips...

Who has been talking to the press? I thought this was still under wraps: Google Announces Plan To Destroy All Information It Can't Index. Yes, everyone has seen this, but I think its funny anyway. But I gotta ask, who talked?

/me goes back to work on the orbiting space laser platforms.