Facets of BrettW

I have a job interview next week. The head hunter says they are going to quiz me on C++ basics. He says that I should study up because it is all likely stuff that I've forgotten the names of or never used and would only know if I just graduated from some school that teaches C++.

I find it hard to get my head around this. I cannot imagine being stymied by C++ basics. But, lest I rest on imagined laurels, I'll browse through some books. And...

I challenge you to stump me.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/half-lifetime.html

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/for-those-who-read-this-blog-for.html

Amanda, Ian Ford (in the pale top, also a gift from my publishers) and.. my publishers, SF World -- who will be publishing the mainland Chinese edition of The Graveyard Book very soon, and are very excited.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/final-reminder-for-bookshops.html

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/note-to-self-nights-are-for-sleeping.html

Correspondent Serena Altschul visits author Neil Gaiman -- the tender-hearted master of the macabre -- whose books, including Coraline and The Graveyard Book have topped best-seller lists for 25 years.

I am becoming hooked on http://curiousexpeditions.org.

I was extremely disappointed by the news on the current status of Argleton in Lancashier, especially so since I was hoping to buy a house there. I was going to move to Chako Paul City in Sweden instead, but appear to be the wrong gender and orientation. So probably I'll stay home.

(Hmm. You know, posting that French book-cover reminds me that there are some really beautiful new covers out there right now, especially from Poland and Russia. I know for I have signed them for people. I'll try and get some nice clean examples to put up here.)

And finally, a link to Joanne Leow's blog. It was lovely to see her again, four years on, when I went to Singapore - it was a great interview, and you can watch us chatting about writing, what I'm currently up to, signings, and why I don't write the same sorts of things twice in a row, at the Primetime Morning site: here's part 1 and part 2.

...

Dear Mr. Gaiman,
I was wondering if you would be so kind as to mention an upcoming art auction on your blog. The art auction is “art for hearts”. It is an auction of artwork donated by children’s illustrators such as Korky Paul, Lynne Chapman and An Vrombaut. Most of the artwork is original although there are also some signed digital prints and screen prints too.
All proceeds from the auction will be donated to help fund research by the transplant team at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Transplanted organs do not have the same life expectancy as non-transplanted organs and the transplant team is looking at finding ways to combat this.
Full details of the auction are available to view at http://art-for-hearts.blogspot.com

It will run on Ebay for a week starting on the 2nd of November. To locate the items people will need to type "art for heart" into the search area and choose "Art" or "books" for items.

Many thanks,

Kristine Stacey

Maybe I'm just a sucky parent, but the days that Isaac has off of school always come as a complete surprise to me. He started telling me yesterday that eyelid and I were going to be going with him to his school a week from tomorrow. Trying to figure out what he was talking about, I consulted the school's online calendar. In doing so, I accidentally discovered that there is no school tomorrow.

So as to be ready next time, I have subscribed to the ICS publication of their calendar. When I did so, I discovered that the entry that says there is no class tomorrow says there is no class from 4:20pm through til 4:20pm on Monday. I thought this suspect since it would be much clearer to say no school from 7:30am to 4:20pm Friday and say it again on Monday. I called the school to verify. There is no school tomorrow (or Saturday or Sunday), but there is school on Monday.

Whee! So much for my master plan of staying informed.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/11/05.html

Do you like your job?

Do you enjoy the people you work with?

Would you want to have lunch with them? Every day? Alex Papadimoulis thinks that Fog
Tyler Griffin Hicks-Wright Creek’s free lunches are “cultish,” but everyone at Fog Creek loves them. Maybe it’s the mandatory brain implant we install in each new worker, but I like to think that we just enjoy eating together because we genuinely like each other and like spending time together. If you can’t imagine eating lunch every day with your coworkers, I hate to break it to you: you might not like them. Is it OK to spend most of your waking hours with people you don’t like?

Do you actually enjoy doing your job? If you wake up an hour early in the morning, do you think, “Yay! I can go in early and get another hour of work in!” Or does that sound ridiculous to you?

Are you learning? When was the last time you had to learn a new skill? Is this year kind of like last year, or are you doing something new, stretching yourself, challenging yourself to be better?

At one of the recent DevDays events, I asked the audience (almost 100% programmers) how many of them were incredibly satisfied with their job, found it fulfilling, and were treated well by their employers. Only about 25% of the hands went up. I asked how many people either hated their job and couldn’t wait to find something better, or were actually actively on the job market. Again, about 25%. The rest were somewhere in the middle: maybe they can tolerate their job, but they’re keeping an eye open for something better.

Who is this DevDays audience? They’re the elite of the elite of the best programmers out there. They’re the people who participate in Stack Overflow, the people who read, the people who are constantly trying to learn more about programming and software development. More than half of them paid their own money to attend a one day conference. They’re the most desirable software developers on the planet. And 75% of them are not delighted with their job.

That’s unacceptable. I’ve been saying for ten years that the top developers have a choice of where to work, and the top employers need to work harder to attract them, because the top developers get ten times as much work done as the average developers.

And yet, I still keep meeting ridiculously productive developers working in shitholes.

We’re going to fix this, right now. Thus, Stack Overflow Careers.

We’re going to completely turn the job market upside down, for the best software developers and the best companies.

This is a talent market. Developers are not even remotely interchangeable. Therefore, recruiting should work like Hollywood, not like union hiring halls of the last century.

In a union hiring hall, downtrodden workers line up like cogs, hoping to make it to the front of the line in time to get a few bucks for dinner.

In Hollywood, studios who need talent browse through portfolios, find two or three possible candidates, and make them great offers. And then they all try to outdo each other providing plush work environments and great benefits.

Here’s how Stack Overflow Careers will work. Instead of job seekers browsing through job listings, the employers will browse through the CVs of experienced developers.

Instead of deciding you hate your job and going out to find a better one, you’ll just keep your CV on file at Stack Overflow and you’ll get contacted by employers.

Instead of submitting a resume, you’ll fill out a CV, which links back to your Stack Overflow account, so that you can demonstrate your reputation in the community and show us all how smart you really are. To a hiring manager, the fact that you took the time to help a fellow programmer with a detailed answer in some obscure corner of programming knowledge, and demonstrated mastery, is a lot more relevant than the Latin Club you joined in school.

Employers can see how good you are at communicating, how well you explain things, how well you understand the tools that you’re using, and generally, if you’re a great developer or not. And they can see your peer reputation, so all that hard work you’ve been putting into helping people on Stack Overflow can karmically come back and help you upgrade your job to the latest, state-of-the-art, great place to work.

Stack Overflow has grown incredibly fast. After a year in business, it gets over a million page views most weekdays and currently stands as the 817th largest site on the Internet, according to Quantcast. It reaches 5.2 million people a month. But Stack Overflow Careers doesn’t have to be massive. It’s not for the 5.2 million people who visit Stack Overflow; it’s for the top 25,000 developers who participate actively. It’s not for every employer; it’s for the few that treat developers well and offer a place to work that’s genuinely fulfilling.

Read the FAQ, then go file your CV now, and upgrade your career.

Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn't drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/author-comes-home-and-displays-many.html

While I was there my camera started misbehaving: I hadn't even realised it had a motor in it, but the motor started vibrating gently, producing some very beautiful shots that weren't really what I wanted...

Like this shot of a lady in Yarkand market selling peppers and tomatoes that seem to have turned into jewels.

After a great deal of reflection I decided not to buy a camel in the market in Kashgar. Here are two camels I didn't buy.

In the Russian market in Urumqi I bought a new camera I don't like anywhere nearly as much as my old, sporadically-vibrating one.

Then I went to Chengdu. I don't have photos on my camera of the Galaxy Award ceremony, or the speech I gave at Sechuan University, or the visit to the Earthquake Zone and the talk I gave to the kids there. (Science Fiction World and I are starting a library for them.) (If I can get some photos I'll put them up.)

And I was not able to take photos of the encounter with the fourth holiest Buddhist in China, because he is not to be photographed.

So instead here's a photo of Amanda Palmer, who joined me for my last few days in China, on the side of a mountain having been recognised by some happy Chinese tourists...

(And you can, of course, click to embiggen the pictures.)
...

And finally, people sometimes write in and point out that, when I return home, I post pictures of my dog, rapturously dashing somewhere or dancing or stick-wielding to welcome me home. "Why do you not ever post pictures of cats?" they ask.

Good point. Here is Coconut welcoming me rapturously home:

Here is Princess, doing her version of a rapturous welcome, glad that I have not forgotten the trick that she taught me to do, during my time away. The trick involves turning on the tap in the guest bathroom and letting her alternately drink and attack the water with her sharp teeth, until she gets bored:

I'm sad to say that while I was away, Hermione died. She was the surviving member of the two mad cat sisters who live in the basement library and Do Not Mingle, and she was almost eighteen. You can see her in this Photosynth of my library downstairs (needs Silverlight). It feels strangely unbalanced to be in a house without Pod and Hermione in it.

There. Goodnight.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/11/03.html

My new Inc. column is up. “For a guy who wrote a book on how to hire great programmers, it’s mortifying how incompetent I’ve been at enlarging the sales team, which, right now, consists of one terrific account executive and a dog. (I’m just kidding. There’s no dog.)”

Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn't drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.