PAC-MAN redux

I wrote about PAC-MAN about two years ago and since then its popularity has increased multifold if anything. Last week Google launched a 30 anniversary PAC-MAN doodle. Google has a tradition of putting up special logos (doodles) on its webpage for various occasions.

Google blog says PAC-MAN is a natural fit for the Google homepage as they are both "deceptively" straightforward, hiding their complexity under the hood. Now, Google has made the game permanently available here. Wow my search engine can play games too! :)

So go ahead and play. I just did!

The Enigma of Pakistan Cricket

Pakistan Cricket is not stranger to controversies - from Woolmer's mysterious death to the terrorist attack on Lankan team bus, from ball tampering to drug tests, from Afridi's ball eating adventure to the fiasco on Australian tour - its a never ending story for the talented yet ill-disciplined team.

Now former Pakistan cricket coach Intikhab Alam has called the national players 'mentally retarded'. An inquiry comittee was set up by PCB to investigate the reasons behind the disastrous tour of Australia where they failed to win even a single match. Intikhab was the coach of the Pakistan team on that tour. While Younis and Yousuf were banned for life, others like Shoaib Malik and Naved-Ul-Hasan were banned for a year. These bans, according to Wasim Akram had made a laughing stock of Pakistan (as if it wasn't already).


Intikhab was quoted as saying,"I felt that they are mentally retarded people....There is a mental problem with our players. They don't know how to wear their clothes and how to talk in a civilized manner."

He revealed that six to seven players had taken an oath on the Quran that they will remain united against their captain Younis Khan.

Shoaib Malik, meanwhile has been practicing at the Gymkhana ground,Hyderabad with his Indian wife since he is not being allowed to do so at Pakistan. While not fetching tennis balls for his Indian tennis player wife, he along with Rana Naved have also been busy belting gully-cricket bowlers at Bangladesh.

Image Credits: Wikipedia

Go(ld) Australia

Australia is a beautiful place. The Great Barrier Reef, the Uluru Rock formations, the Gold Coast never fail to lure tourists from all over the world (only if it was not so far!). Visiting Australia has become a financially lucrative option now with the news filtering out about the gold riches in Victoria.

GeoScience Victoria, a government agency that maps the geology of the region has reported "gold deposits still waiting to be discovered". An estimated 500 tonnes of gold, worth 20 billion USD lies in the north part of the state. During the Victorian Gold Rush of 1850-60,the population of the state experienced a seven fold increase. Victoria became the world leader in gold output. This event reshaped the society and politics of Victoria and led to emergence of Melbourne as one of the greatest cities of the world.



This event has also raised concerns about the environmental impact of increased mining activity. However all said and done, Australia is sitting on the precipice of another Gold Rush. Travelling to Australia was never more rewarding!


Image Credits: Wikipedia

Made in Bangladesh

With the onset of summer, I realised that I needed a new baseball cap after having left the last one on a bus. So three weeks ago I walked into the Reebok showroom at Jubilee Hills. Now this showroom was quite swanky and glitzy. In fact it happened to be the world's biggest retail outlet, spread over 15,000 square feet.



As usual, a sales guy followed me around the entire 15,000 sq ft of pricey real estate. I zeroed upon a nice and dainty sky-blue cap. After relieving myself of 800 bucks I walked out smugly.

Period.

Yesterday I was fiddling away with the cap, biding my time. I turned it under and found a black strap underneath. It had something written on it. I looked at closely, unconsciously hoping to find the washing instructions. Here is what I found:

Made in Bangladesh.

China is common these days, but Bangladesh? Would I have bought it if I saw it at the showroom? Would you?

Talent hiring

I am a big fan of Eric Lippert and his blog. If you don't know about him already, you could go to his About me page. Although he usually writes about stuff that I barely know about (VBScript, JScript, C# among others), I have a deep interest in his writings. Even his non-technical write-ups make up for interesting reading.

He recently wrote about attracting talent into an organisation. I am going to discuss about it a bit here in next few paragraphs. Essentially he wrote about things that make a job posting unattractive/attractive to a prospective job-seeker.

Things that make a job posting un-attractive:

1. Technology vomit/alphabet soup
EIGRP, SOA, HSRP, OMG, BBQ, WTF....Vinay Khosla from Fashion would cringe "Spare me the horror!". I can't recall the number of times where I have been annoyed at the spit of these alphabets!

2. Over-emphasis on specific existing knowledge Vs. ability to learn new
"Imagination is more important than intelligence", said Einstein and with good reason. Ability to grasp things quickly and effectively is more important than cramming it up. Intellect minus experience catches up with experience minus intellect pretty fast.

3. Full of jargon / too few specifics
"A worldwide leader, A premier IT service provider, Fortune 500 company seeks ...." oh gimme a break. I would like to see, clearly, what are we talking about here and not in cryptographs please.

4. Asking for things that ought to be assumed
I recently came across an advertisement by a 'leading provider of IT services' for a Developer/ Lead. It stated that "the candidate must be able to do coding". How's that!

5. No indication of work environment
Do they have fresh beans or stale powder? As a rule most of the job postings don't give any insight about the work culture of a company.


Things that make a job posting attractive

1. Challenging work
Work is challenging, requires innovation. A ex-colleague mentioned that the most challenging work he did during the whole day was to "sort out which bus he had to take back home". Needless to say how much he abhorred office. Also, being involved in design process is a huge encouragement.

2. Work life balance
Many of us, including me, wouldn't like to spend their weekends at office - not for any dole of $s. I have already turned down job offers that required me to work in shifts. The job should allow opportunities to pursue their own interests. If you are real good, stretching after office hours won't be necessary (unless you're cleaning up someone else's mess)

3. Chance to work with industry leaders
When you work with the best in business, some of it rubs off onto you. Working with leaders is a big incentive. I, for one, would forgo couple percentage of hike for a prospect of working with a leader in the technology.

Having said that, the above factors are not really important in Indian job market. Indian IT industry is relatively raw and inexperienced. There is a huge amount of young engineers being churned out every year. There is no dearth of software developers around. However, I believe that over a period of time, as the current crop matures into 10-15+ years things are bound to change. Till then, IT companies can get away with their shitty ads :)