Monday morning random rambling...

Now that caffeine is taking effect: I attended the Heroes Happen Here event in Toronto last week. The event was fun in general, lots of marketing going on so the developers get really biased, towards Microsoft technologies, of course...
Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, as long as you keep your mind open to what's going on on other development niches and keep the constructive criticism.
I enjoyed the developer tracks in the morning but most of all I enjoyed two architecture presentations, they were light and fun, not too deep in content though, but very refreshing. Here are the blogs of the conference authors:
No Spin Architecture
Joel's blog on architecture

Both blogs have tons of resources for aspiring architects.

There was a third presenter that raffle 4 architecture books, the raffle consisted on answering a question at light speed, doh! I'm planning on getting the books at amazon...

Overall, I got good software to try, saw that VS2008 has the split markup/code feature for web development that Macromedia had when I started doing web in 2000 and I should get a copy of Vista on my mail in the next few weeks. I'm excited about the JavaScript debugger and IntelliSense in VS2008. Hyper-V promises to be more secure than VMWare, SQL Server 2008 has the FileName type I wish I have now for my image archiving project...
I can't wait to get my hands on Virtual Earth web service and bundle it with the new maps capabilities in SQL Server 2008, if time permits, there's only 24 hours in a day and deadlines cannot be stretched :-p

Cheers!

Dad put together a quick gallery with his comics

Way to go! Yay!
I particularly like this one about silicone implants :-))

Visit the original gallery here.

Now going nerdy on how fast is to set up this gallery, what's even more interesting is the way to publish images in a batch using Windows XP Explorer. I do have to reverse eng the process, one modification in the registry and the windows explorer can publish any folder with images in three clicks...Publishing from Mac is as fast.

If you have minimum computer skills, you can set up your own image gallery with this script. Honest, stop sharing your family pictures in Flickr, Ringo or any other public website and have your own space. You can even have your grandma upload the images for the family :-p

If you need hosting and domain registration for your gallery, Chihost is the best to go with.

Those cool google gadgets...

A set of cool gadgets every girl should have on her home page :-p

One of dad's comics :-p

My aunt sometimes pays me a visit and every time she ends up putting things in order... According to my dad, she ended up saying "A Moroccan soko no, a moroccan soko no, soko no"... Soko is a market, a very messy one.

Don't get me wrong, I love Math, but this is hilarious :-p

Taken from a real exam...

I knew I had read this somewhere....why manhole covers are round?

A couple of days ago our team gathered for lunch and a quick meeting, we discussed job interview techniques and our personal experiences going to job interviews. One of the brain teaser questions that came up was the shape of the manhole covers. I couldn't remeber where I had read this before. Enjoy, it is hilarious...

(Original post taken from here)

If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft

Interviewer: Now comes the part of the interview where we ask a question to test your creative thinking ability. Don’t think too hard about it, just apply everyday common sense, and describe your reasoning process.

Here’s the question: Why are manhole covers round?

Feynman: They’re not. Some manhole covers are square. It’s true that there are SOME round ones, but I’ve seen square ones, and rectangular ones.

Interviewer: But just considering the round ones, why are they round?

Feynman: If we are just considering the round ones, then they are round by definition. That statement is a tautology.

Interviewer: I mean, why are there round ones at all? Is there some particular value to having round ones?

Feynman: Yes. Round covers are used when the hole they are covering up is also round. It’s simplest to cover a round hole with a round cover.

Interviewer: Can you think of a property of round covers that gives them an advantage over square ones?

Feynman: We have to look at what is under the cover to answer that question. The hole below the cover is round because a cylinder is the strongest shape against the compression of the earth around it. Also, the term “manhole” implies a passage big enough for a man, and a human being climbing down a ladder is roughly circular in cross-section. So a cylindrical pipe is the natural shape for manholes. The covers are simply the shape needed to cover up a cylinder.

Interviewer: Do you believe there is a safety issue? I mean, couldn’t square covers fall into the hole and hurt someone?

Feynman: Not likely. Square covers are sometimes used on prefabricated vaults where the access passage is also square. The cover is larger than the passage, and sits on a ledge that supports it along the entire perimeter. The covers are usually made of solid metal and are very heavy. Let’s assume a two-foot square opening and a ledge width of 1-1/2 inches. In order to get it to fall in, you would have to lift one side of the cover, then rotate it 30 degrees so that the cover would clear the ledge, and then tilt the cover up nearly 45 degrees from horizontal before the center of gravity would shift enough for it to fall in. Yes, it’s possible, but very unlikely. The people authorized to open manhole covers could easily be trained to do it safely. Applying common engineering sense, the shape of a manhole cover is entirely determined by the shape of the opening it is intended to cover.

Interviewer (troubled): Excuse me a moment; I have to discuss something with my management team. (Leaves room.)

(Interviewer returns after 10 minutes)

Interviewer: We are going to recommend you for immediate hiring into the marketing department.