Interviewing With Arrogance

When you go to an interview you typically want to hear a little bit about the job you're applying for and you expect some personal questions about your experience and ambitions and such. However, Microsoft has decided to interview with more rigor and brainteasers. Can you imagine facing nine different interviewers? One dude with a doctorate from UCLA was disgusted when he discovered that they'd be quizzing him and no longer desired a job there ever. I knew about this already because a problem on our first CS 315 test was actually a question in a Microsoft interview, and I'm surprised that they're pulling that on experienced candidates. Some college graduates aren't as smart as you may think and even Google will do that stuff with them, but on doctors? Any having so many people interview you would be quite intimidating, but they think everyone would love to work there. Modesty is always the best policy. I know that they take good care of their employees, but a quote from someone who works there in the article suggests that they don't encourage innovation and take the teamwork concept a bit far. Just something for fellow computer scientists to think about.

If you're more interested in creativity then there's some good tech news for you today. Our friends at Google have made a toolbar for Firefox and pointed out in the process something I didn't know: Firefox is coded in XUL (an application of XML). I never realized what a novel idea that is. Joel finally made a new post on his blog about Project Aardvark, the fruits of labor of a team of interns at his company. The program they developed basically allows someone to interact with somebody else's computer live, which is useful mostly for tech support. This has probably been done before but I think that's endlessly cool considering how many computer illiterates I deal with day-to-day. Morgan Freeman has been pushing a way to deliver movies to customers before they hit DVD and now Intel has invested in the service. No word yet on when "Clickstar" will be available, but I'll be sure to tell you when it is. I think they want the kind of digital growth the music industry is getting, especially with the spread of music to cellphones.



That's just one step closer to a master personal device, and you can get rid of your old phone easily before you invest in one of these new media-enabled phones. iTunes is also shaking the music world with the announcement of a new promotion to give a new iPod Mini and a $50 gift card to every customer who makes the purchase of the 100,000th song until they hit the 500 million mark. I wonder what your odds are with that contest?

I'm going to start ou the movie news with some trailers. Horror junkies should look into the Exorcism of Emily Rose, which looks rather interesting. Of course I'm looking more forward to Corpse Bride, which looks even better than before in the new trailer. I was really caught off guard though by a trailer for Big Momma's House 2, which I didn't know was in production and I can't believe they're making. I'd be shocked if this movie actually turned out well. It's not quite as bad as the announcement of I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer. I wonder if these people have actually lost their minds and forgot what the plot of the original movie was. Pirates of the Caribbean is getting two sequels, but at least they'll make sense and the third movie will actually feature Chow Yun-Fat as a notorious pirate. Following suit, X3 also has some interesting casting news: Nick Stahl may play the role of Angel. He was the yellow dude in Sin City and a Texan! The best casting news though is that Gary Oldman (of Batman Begins and True Romance fame) will be in David Fincher's Zodiac as an attorney. Lastly, chalk up yet another positive review for The 40-year-old Virgin. I'm getting to the point of having to see this film.

Today's memes aren't all that appealing so I decided to go with a Question of the Day:

If you could appear as a guest star on any tv show, which show would you choose?
Either Family Guy or The Daily Show. Both shows are witty and fun, but the latter is more intelligent of course. I don't know how Jon Stewart can always think of the funniest things to say, and I don't know how Seth MacFarlane keeps coming up with that stuff! It's so random!