Friday, December 28. 2007
I've been busy moving all of my pictures out of Facebook and into Flickr, which has a far superior photo management app. I finally came across pictures of my cube at Yahoo which I've been meaning to put up, but hadn't had time.
So without further adieu, here's they are:
Mmmm ..... 24" LCD monitor.
And yes yes, the fashion police has already arrested me for having a really boring looking cube. If you have any suggestions on how to pimp it out, please inform me via comments. Wired Magazine has already given me a few ideas on how to pimp my cube.
Monday, December 24. 2007
I landed back in Canada last Friday for the holidays, and I've had a few days to settle down at home, and meet with friends and family. It's an interesting feeling to be back home, as it seems like I never left. It's as if my move down to America has been just a dream, and I've just awaken. The only physical evidence that I have been living in California are these Yahoo t-shirts in my suitcase, otherwise, the dream could be believable.
A number of people that I've met with have remarked that things are just like normal, as if I had never left. Maybe it's an indication that I haven't changed much since I left. Either that, or I can just pick back up the relationships I've had, and continue where we had left off. On the other hand, perhaps things just don't change much back home. Perhaps it's because I've only been gone for only 4 months, even though it feels like a lot longer.
Anyway, the daily pace of things back here are coming back to me quite naturally. It's like a reflex I guess since I've lived here so long.
It's nice to be able to sit back on a couch and actually watch TV. It's nice to be able to drive around in car. It's nice to enjoy a home cooked meal. It's nice to be able to sit down and have a talk with friends. You never really realize what a luxury these seemingly simple things are until they're gone.
It's good to be back.
Saturday, December 22. 2007
What's better to get you in the Christmas mood than viewing old communist propaganda. I saw this article about old Soviet Christmas cards, and they're quite interesting to browse through.
The attitudes reflected in the cards seem most interesting to me though. It must have been during a time when they were doing well in space, and there was no limit to their capabilities. Their space program must have been a source of great pride in the nation.
I think one bit of irony though is how they used Santa. If there was one icon I would associate with the most veracious, materialistic, capitalistic part of Christmas, it would have to be Santa.
Merry Christmas Comrades!
Thursday, December 20. 2007
One of this Christmas season's most sought after videogames is Rock Band which is a competitor to Guitar Hero. It's a four player game where you can choose to play guitar, bass guitar, drums, and vocals. It has been described as the ultimate party game. In either case, demand has been off the charts because of all the hype surrounding this game.
The game was released in the US on November 20th, and there's a chronic shortage of the game. Even worse, the Canadian release of the game was delayed until today, and shortages are expected to be worse in Canada. The CBC covers this in an article entitled, " Rock Band shortages sure to anger gamers."
There are going to be a good number of disappointed and angry rock-star wannabes on Thursday as video game retailers are expecting massive shortages of the year's most hotly awaited — and possibly most bungled — release, Rock Band.
On the eve of the game's full Canadian release, retailers still weren't sure how many copies they could expect, or if the shipments would even show up. [...]
Tracie Snitker, a spokesperson for Harmonix, the game's producer, said the shortages are because of massive, unexpected demand. The game's distributor Electronic Arts ensured there was enough supply in the U.S, but the game kept selling out.
The problem is in the manufacturing of the instruments that accompany the game.
"It's even worse than other peripheral-based products," she said.
Gamers haven't bought that excuse, given that Rock Band has been a heavily hyped title since it was showed off at the E3 Media and Games Summit in May, and have said distributors rushed the game in order to hit the key holiday buying season.
My friend Adam wanted this game, but knew that the release in Canada was going to be delayed until December 20th. So how could he somehow get a copy earlier than that? It would have to come from someone who was living in the US.... hmmm.... who would fit that criteria?
Monday, December 17. 2007
Last month I had a blog post entitled, " Declaring War on Facebook." I had a long rant about how bad their beacon ad system was because it violated user privacy. The system would broadcast to your friends what you had purchased from other websites. What's even worse is, even if you're logged out of Facebook, they're able to track you.
In either case, users can celebrate victory over Facebook as their CEO has apologized about their program, and they're going to scale back on it. Wired has an article entitled, " Facebook CEO Apologizes, Lets Users Turn Off Beacon."
Just one month after Facebook launched Beacon, a controversial advertising platform, the company has scaled back its plans and humbly apologized for stomping on its users' privacy.
"I'm not proud of the way we've handled this situation and I know we can do better," wrote Mark Zuckerberg, the 24-year-old founder and CEO of Facebook, in a blog post.
It's been an extremely challenging month for the high-flying social networking site. Beacon, which was meant to revolutionize advertising by allowing users to broadcast purchases they made on outside sites to their Facebook friends, turned out to be many users' ultimate nightmare. Facebook apparently never considered that sometimes people want to keep their shopping habits to themselves.
The crux of the problem was that when users bought things on Beacon-affiliated sites (such as Fandango or Overstock.com), their friends were automatically notified of the purchase. This notification happened before the purchaser had a chance to approve it.
Immediately after Beacon's rollout, privacy lobbyists, left-leaning political groups and thousands of individuals spoke out. MoveOn launched a campaign and complained that Facebook was ruining Christmas; regulators questioned whether Beacon ads were legal in the state of New York, and Facebook users banded together to oppose Beacon.
Friday, December 14. 2007
I deeply apologize for not posting updates to the blog this week. It has been insanely busy at work as everyone's trying to finish projects before the year ends. I've been leading a large project that involves coordinating teams from around the world. Needless to say, its been interesting trying to communicate with everyone in so many different time zones. I regularly keep US office hours and Australian office hours these days. It's like working 1.5 shifts per day. Sometimes you just have to stay up in order to be able to talk to someone half way around the world.
This was my first instance of leading a global project, and it has been an interesting learning experience. Early on, I learned an important lesson from my division manager. He said, "to be a good manager, you have to put other people's needs ahead of your own." That means, helping other people with their programming problems before you solve your own, even if your deadline is looming. There have been days where I'm in meetings all morning, and then the entire afternoon is spent responding to people's questions and e-mails. That meant I didn't get around to programming until 5:30pm.
In the big picture, it does make sense solving everyone else's problems before your own (within reason). If I have three engineers stuck on a problem, I could spend maybe an hour or two to help them, and they can continue working. So for every hour of time I spend helping them, they can generate maybe four hours of work. That's a pretty good force multiplier right there. It's far better than them idling, or stumbling and wasting hours trying to figure out a solution.
Continue reading "Leading The Charge"
Sunday, December 9. 2007
I've just finished viewing Battlestar Galactica Razor, which provides a back story of the Pegasus from season 2. I'm pumped up over the next season of Galactica which will air in March 2008. Unfortunately, they haven't finished filming the next season because of the writer's strike, so season 4 might be aired through 2008 and 2009. Oh the wait!
In either case, here's some new trailers that they've put up. I really like the visuals of the first one. It's so dark and depressing 
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