Would I Hire Me?

Today, myself and 2 others interviewed a candidate for a position in our group. After the interview, we shared our comments with each other. As each of us pointed out reasons why we shouldn't hire him, I began to wonder if I'm too hard on candidates. He didn't seem overly impressive, but how much better did I perform in my interview? Did I blow them away or did someone just decide to take a chance on me? If I interviewed myself, would I hire me?

How Geeks have Fun

I was skimming through the first Mission Impossible (with Tom Cruise) and reminded of a time when I was Luther. In the movie, Luther is sitting in a train across the ailse from the Bad Woman Max and her accomplice. They are trying to connect to the Internet via their cell phone but Luther is sending a jamming signal. Max and her partner have no idea what is going on and become increasingly frustrated.

In high school I bought a HP 48G graphing calculator. Among its many features was an infrared port. It was also capable of downloading new programs. This was 1994 when the Internet beginning to take off, but I found a very interesting program, which would turn my calculator into a programmable remote control that could control TVs, VCRs, etc. Hmm...what could I do with that?
Well, in physics class, we often watched videos. As exciting as the shows were, my friends saw potential for the remote control. At a convenient moment, we took the remote control for the classroom VCR and stored the signals for "Play" and "Stop" in the calcultor.

(kids, try this at your own risk)
The time came for our class to watch a video. I had my calculator on my desk, and a few minutes into the show, I casually pressed a button on my calculator and there was static on the TV. Heheheh, I said to myself and my friends held back their laughter.

The poor teacher went to the VCR to troubleshoot. I really thought she would try harder to "fix" the problem, but I remember seeing her mumble to herself and then give up. She turned off the TV/VCR and put it away.

I'm not Ethan Hunt or Jack Bauer, but at the time, I thought I was pretty cool. Bad, but cool.

Music Over the Decades

A few days ago I was driving a rental car and listening to the radio. The car was equipped with XM (which is pretty cool by the way), so I had a few hundred channels to choose from. One category which I stayed with was called "Decades." From the 1940s to the 90s, there was a channel devoted to each decade.
I'm not the first one to notice this, but it was very obvious how music has changed over the last 50 to 60 years. In the 40s-60s people like Chuck Berry, Frankie Avalon and the Romantics sang mostly Upbeat, Happy, and Silly songs. Move to the 80s and 90s and I heard singers like Vanilla Ice, Sir Mix-a-Lot, Madonna and Alanis Morisette sing songs which were Edgy, Angry, and Full of Innuendo.
I know there are exceptions, but in listening to the music over the decades, the change is remarkable.