a pink shirt

kristin says that every guy should own at least one pink shirt. while shopping yesterday for some new shorts at the one store that wasn't closed on easter sunday (both costco & the rogue run store were the other stores we were hoping to get some shopping done at) kristin insisted that i purchase my first pink shirt. while not totally objecting to the purchase of a pink shit i am a bit leery to say the least. rather than going "all in" i'm starting off with a cheap cotton pink t-shirt prior to spending the big bucks on a nice pink dress shirt. i'll take my chances & wear this bad boy into the office today just to see how much grief i get from the guys. i'm not really sure that fashion statements coming from software engineers is a really good test though... what do you girls & guys think about the pink shirt?

shave & suit

in november/december of last year i was sporting a mountain man beard. while i’m not a fan of the beard today it was fun at the time & i enjoyed not having to shave for those 5 – 6 weeks. given that i had to shave daily & get hair-cuts weekly while serving as a US marine i haven’t been a fan of either activity ever sense. after the mountain man experience i began using the shortest guard on the beard trimmer & i’d usually only shave twice a week.

my “no shaving” style for 2008 all ended this tuesday, march 11th, when i shaved with a real razor. i was meeting with nokia folks at their office in white plains, NY & i felt the need to “clean-up.” not only did i shave; i was sporting a suit for this meeting. while fun to dress up everyone now & then i really prefer jeans & a nice shirt.

to my surprise my shave & suit were not necessary. i was expecting a room full of suits & what i got was a bunch of 30-some dudes (minus the accounting guy) wearing jeans, nice shoes, & those pin-striped shirts that are currently so popular. worse off, 2 of the 7 guys had that short shave look that i’d been sporting. oh, & then there was the most senior of all the guys sporting sunglasses on his head.

boy did i feel like a bone-head. i have to remind myself of the industry that i am in & that in tech almost any thing is allowed – even from folks that are with a big organization like nokia.

the R8 in town

i assume there aren’t too many audi R8s zooming around town so i feel comfortable referring to the one i saw this morning as “the R8” in town. zia, a good buddy of mine, e-mailed me pics of this dream machine many months ago. i thought for sure the R8 would be one of those cars you only see in high dollar action & sci-fi movies & only once in a blue moon on the actual road.

low & behold i ran past one this morning just 10 blocks from our house. where was it? the R8 was parked on the street right outside austin’s very own & the original kerbey lane cafe. if you are from austin then you know the original kerbey lane restaurant is just a fun loving looking cozy cottage just off 35th street on kerbey lane. the contrast of the R8 with it’s jet black paint & futuristic design in front of the live & loud paint colors used on the cozy cottage was something to see. i wish i would have taken my iPhone with me on my run i could have captured this contrast in design & color with a picture.

austin is such a cool place. isn’t it great that someone who will pay between $109,000 - $118,000 for an automobile like the R8 is still down to earth enough to get his or her breakfast at a place like kerbey lane? heck, for $6 bucks you can get a bottom less cup of fair trade coffee & short stack of kerbey’s famous buttermilk pancakes for less than $6 bucks! i bet this masked person is a graduate of UT’s CS department & is now a game developer who works long hours, makes good money, & can’t get enough of kerbey lane’s pancakes :)

iPhone release 1.1.3

never before have i been excited to update software… in fact, every time my PC tells me it is time to update i fight with it for days before i’ll let it force me into a reboot. today, for the first time i rushed to download release 1.1.3 for the iPhone. what’s so special about this release?

all i really cared about was being able to text message the same text to multiple people without having to type out the same exact message over & over & then send it individually to each person. if you were wondering why you didn’t get a “happy new year” text from me it was because i would have had to type “happy new year” 20 times to send it to the 20 people i would have wished a happy new year to. i cursed the iPhone immediately when i realized this so called “feature” didn’t exist a day after i got the phone. i was amazed that apple of all companies missed this very simple use-case.

other than the multi-person text “feature”, release 1.1.3 allows you to arrange your icon view, find yourself on the map, the map interface is a bit more intuitive, you can now download 3rd party apps to your iPhone, & you can rent movies from iTunes.

the other so called “feature” that i’m waiting on is the ability to be on the phone & use the internet at the same time. say i’m on the phone & the person i’m talking to asks me the hours to a store, if i put the person on hold or just jump to safari the edge/wi-fi network is disabled. i have to hang up with the person i’m talking to, use safari to find the store’s hours & then call the person back to tell them the store hours.

apple will eventually get it right – i’m sure of it.

extreme outsourcing

every time google does something it's BIG news. i suppose that is what happens when your company name becomes a verb that everyone uses & your stock price closes at $660.55 (it was as high as $742 last week) a share. what has google done this time? it's what i call extreme outsourcing...

extreme outsourcing involves outsourcing work with zero liability, overhead, & possibly zero costs? you don't have to involve any HR, contracts, SOWs, management overhead, etc.

how is this possible?

a company, such as google, creates a contest that results in people doing & turning in work. in return for that work, the person/group is hoping their work will win them the contest which usually results in a large monetary payout. of course, if the company decides they don't like your work, they get to keep your work & don't have to pay you anything. they owe you nothing.

google just created a contest with various payouts totalling $10 million for new innovative applications for their new phone that they are hoping to release in Q1/Q2 of next year. for more info about the google (android) challenge: http://googland.blogspot.com/2007/11/g-calling-all-developers-10m-android.html

another big name practicing this notion of extreme outsourcing is netflix. they've had a contest going for some months now for which they'll award $1 million dollars to the team (person or group) that can make their movie recommendation system 10% more accurate than their existing system. ya know, when you check the "star rating" of a movie you either like or dislike? behind all those stars that you are checking is a very smart application that is calculating the probability of what movies you would like based on what movies you do & don't like. as a result, every time you add a new movie to your queue, netflix is constantly popping up movie recommendations for you. they want to make their recommendation application even smarter that it currently is so that you'll keep adding movies to your queue that they've recommended & as a result you remain a loyal & more importantly paying subscribing to netflix. netflix has actually paid out $50K of the $1 million they are offering. for more info about the netflix challenge go to http://www.netflixprize.com/index. click on "leaderboard" to see the teams that are winning. a lot of smart dudes at various universities across the world are in the top 10 ranking.

now how do i come up with a challenge that would result in someone taking care of our lawn, washing our cars, & cleaning our house for free :) if you've got any ideas please share.

BK