ToDo: Invent Brilliant Title

Posted by: ilanasmith | May 23, 2006

Me and the people I work with

My latest post over at my team’s blog is our v3.0 ship photo. (The accompanying comments, about kibble and fire engines, are true too.)

Even though the photo was only taken in November last year, post-shipping exodus means that many of the people aren’t on the team anymore, so it’s nice to look over all the faces and miss them.

We were supposed to have the photo taken outside, but Seattle came through on the weather front and so we ended up wedged into a corner of our cafeteria. I wanted to make sure that I’d be able to find myself amongst the hoard, so I wore a bright blue shirt. As it turns out, ending up smack in the middle had the same effect.

I think Ship Day has an overly positive effect on demeanor – the smiles on some faces are a bit scary in their enthusiasm. Still, the company seems to think that we’re representative of happy Microsofties: portions of this photo were the slide backgrounds for the recent company-wide Town Hall Meeting.

UPDATE: Link fixed

Leave a Comment

Posted in Computers and Internet

Posted by: ilanasmith | May 21, 2006

Eurovision, let me count the ways

How much do I love the Eurovision song contest? This is the cheesy pop-y song contest that all of Europe gets to take entirely too seriously. This is the song contest that brought us ABBA. This is the over-the-top spectacle that can only be improved by British commentator Terry Wogan taking the piss completely out of it.

Until now. Finland won this year, setting a new scoring record. And they won the contest, a contest previously won by such genre-breakers as Celine Dion, with a little ditty called "Hard Rock Hallelujah". A song performed by a group called Lordi who seem to be something like the bastard children of Rammstein and Kiss by way of a fright flick.

It’s glorious.

Leave a Comment

Posted in Television

Posted by: ilanasmith | March 24, 2006

Vista vistas

When you gather up thirty thousand people for the sole purpose of making software, a select few bring other skills along with them. We benefit from this in the Theater Troupe – Geeks on Stage doesn’t sound very appetising, but the talent makes it palatable.

It’s pretty common for product groups to call on the vast hoardes when specific skills are required. Someone is bound to be capable. Like Stacey, who provides the voice for a number of characters in Dungeon Siege 2; one is even called "Daci". Or all our photography enthusiasts, who were asked to submit photos for the chance to create a Vista wallpaper.

I looked through a bunch of the 1.3K photos submitted (max of two per person), and was astounded at the quality. Just about every photo was Windows-Wallpaper-gorgeous. I don’t know how the judges narrowed it down.

Four photos by employees will ship with Vista. One is of a school of Brazillian fish. One is a black & white of some mountain in Yosemite. One is a close-up of some West Seattle grass. And the winner, by dev lead Steve Fu, is an amazing photo taken of sunrise at Enchantment Lakes; in the background is a mountain range that gleams gold.

I’d include the pic here, but I don’t know if I’m allowed. So instead, here’s a link to an album of another talented (though now ex-)’Softie – Mark.

Leave a Comment

Posted in Computers and Internet

Posted by: ilanasmith | March 21, 2006

Cyclone takes on sister

Cyclone Larry hit Innisfail on Monday. At Category 5, it is one of the worst storms to ever hit Australia. (For comparison, Katrina was just a Cat 3 when it hit landfall.) Property and crop damage is immense. Yet no-one died. The only injuries reported were minor cuts and abrasions from flying debris. Innisfail doesn’t have levees.

Larry was Category 4 by the time it passed over my sister’s house. She complained that she lost her power, TV and radio before it even really started raining. (Actually, she phrased it far more colourfully, but that’s to be expected from Tam.) They have trees down all over their land and won’t be able to get out of their driveway for a few days. The boys were so delighted with their two hours of hiding out in the bathroom that they didn’t want to leave.

I remember travelling up to Cairns to do some engineering work ahead of some cyclone a few years ago. It was a typically grey, rainy, windy pre-cyclone day. Everyone was taking things in stride. They weren’t rushing out to stock up on bread and water, or taping their windows, or evacuating. But the line at the bottle shop stretched most of the way down the block.

1 Comment

Posted in News and politics

Posted by: ilanasmith | March 2, 2006

The Japanese Art of Paper-Folding

There is much speculative discussion going on at the moment about the "Origami Project". The cryptic web-site and the "leaked" advertising video indicate that next week at CeBit, Microsoft will be announcing a new kind of device. Sized between a PocketPC and a TabletPC at about the size of a notebook (as in a pad of paper…I can’t believe I’m geeky enough to clarify that), it’s apparently going to run a full version of Windows.

At this point, I’m intrigued and definitely interested. I was initially disappointed with the size as I was expecting more of an iPod competitor, but I’m really beginning to see the usefulness of the form factor. The PocketPC is really too small to be used as a quasi-primary device, and TabletPCs can be too large and clunky, with limited battery. (Yes, I’ll admit, I’m most attracted by the Origami device’s rumoured eight hour battery life – as anyone who has ever called my mobile phone will know, I have a mental block when it comes to charging things.)

Without much in the way of firm details, some of the press coverage is intriguing. My absolute favourite so far is PC World’s coverage: one analyst indicated that he (I’m guessing) believes that the device "will be a niche product, appealing to women rather than a large audience". (Maybe because we have handbags in which to shove the thing. Dude obviously hasn’t seen Alex’s man-bag, chockful of gadgets.)

52% of the population now constitutes a niche. This reminds me of standing grinning in Larry’s because I’d discovered all the Australian-made products in the "Ethnic" section.

Leave a Comment

Posted in Computers and Internet

Posted by: ilanasmith | February 28, 2006

Good-bye, Octavia

Octavia Butler died on Friday.

I feel a real sense of loss. I had only just discovered Butler as an author; I recently read her latest, Fledgling. I enjoyed her work immensely. I feel robbed of the anticipation of her new work.

I still have her other 13 books ahead of me, but I loved the foundation she built in Fledgling and wanted to read more. It was unusual and thought-provoking. And entertaining.

I’m distantly sad at the idea that such a talent died at only 58. But I’m personally, deeply, disappointed that her writing is complete.

Leave a Comment

Posted in Books

Posted by: ilanasmith | February 25, 2006

One? No, how about four?

Five years ago, when I moved to the US, I did not expect to be surprised by much. Twenty years of American TV, movies and literature had led me to the arrogant belief that I knew what I was getting myself into. I may not have been exactly correct.

The sheer scale of opportunity here is astounding. Someone once asked me where in Australia I was from, and then asked me what famous companies were there. (Some people will do anything to find something to relate to.) I drew a blank. Sure, Brissie has a few big companies, but they’re mostly regional, or branch offices. Off the top of my head, I can’t even think of any world-famous companies in Sydney.

Compare this to Seattle. The area has a population of 3.5M, about the same size as Melbourne (not that much smaller than Sydney’s 4.2M though a bit bigger than Brisbane’s 1.8M). And yet Seattle has produced Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, Real and Starbucks. It feels like if you have a great product or service to sell, there are enough people and dollars in the US to make you a success.

The other big surprise was the weight of the right-wing. I’m Little Miss Lefty Leftington but I’m constantly surprised by how conservative things can be. I really had no idea that evolution was still up for debate. I had no idea that a gun could be considered a right. I’m shocked that unemployment benefits aren’t funded by the state and have a term limit.

The spirited debate that goes on about some of these big issues is really quite fascinating. It has led me to reassess (though not actually change) many of my own beliefs. I had a little bit of crisis of faith in myself when considering the almost paradoxical combination of my strong support for the availability of abortion and my strong opposition to the death penalty. (I dealt with it by applauding my own ability to appreciate complexities.)

I’ve discovered too, rather inconveniently, that if you take a hard line on an issue for a really good reason, that really good reason doesn’t always cooperate and restrict itself to the issue.

Take Marriage Equality. (Apparently, we’re not supposed to call it "gay marriage" anymore.) The opposers have the lamest set of arguments you’ve ever seen. It’s almost pitiful. Most contentious issues have a least some decent weight on either side, but not this one. But on the pro side, it’s all about supporting loving stable households and not legislating specific belief systems. Oh, and "what harm does it have?".

Of course, as I was thinking today when reading a terribly colourful news story about a judge in Utah, you can make exactly the same arguments about polygamy.

UPDATE March 23: Ha! Slate just published an article sub-titled "The Difference between Gay Marriage and Polygamy".

3 Comments

Posted in News and politics

Posted by: ilanasmith | February 16, 2006

Laughter Spoils a Person’s Aim

There’s a great early episode of The West Wing where the president’s doctor is killed by some terrorists, and in retribution, he wants to blow the crap out of some country. After Leo and the Joint Chiefs formulate such a plan and explain the destruction and death, Bartlet comes back around to a more balanced retaliation, a "proportional response". There’s a lot of weighty stuff about it being the responsibility of a super-power to not act like the neighbourhood bully etc which I won’t go into because it will send me off on a long, divergent, depressing tangent.

I was reminded of the concept of proportional response when I read that an Iranian newspaper is running a competition for the best Holocaust cartoons. Offensive, yes. But proportional. Setting fire to Danish embassies? Not so much.

Of course, the story becomes particularly amusing with the news out of Israel – a bunch of cartoonists are setting out to create anti-Semitic cartoons that are better than the Iranian ones. The ringleader says “We’ll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published! No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!”

Leave a Comment

Posted in News and politics

Posted by: ilanasmith | February 14, 2006

Mother of Wolves

Here’s what I learned on the weekend: It’s very hard to stalk someone if you don’t know what they look like.

On Australia Day last month, I did what I always do on Australia Day: I listened to Triple J’s Hottest 100. Of course, streaming over the web while working is much less fun than on the radio while drinking, barbequing and enjoying summer, but the music was still cool.

As they always do, the Jay announcers asked each of the callers-in who they thought would get the top song, and everyone kept mentioning this band that I’d never heard of: Wolfmother. Well, Wolfmother didn’t get the top song, but they set a new Hottest 100 record by having six songs show up in the hundred, and they got two in the top ten.

Suitably curious, I asked Alex to get hold of their album. I got home and he had it; his summary: "These boys rock".

Two weeks later, while we’re still raving to our friends, out of the blue I get a mail mentioning a little Australian band who are playing at Chop Suey on the weekend. As weird as when I saw Powderfinger at the Showbox and it was half empty, they’re on a bill with a couple of other bands…and it’s free.

We arrive at the gig a bit early, and wander around the corner to the Elysian for food and booze. We’re working our way down the cocktail menu when we notice that the large group at the table next to us has a bunch of Wolfmother posters. We eventually get around to the hypothesis that they might actually be Wolfmother.

It turns out that listening rather obsessively to a CD for a fortnight straight and casually visiting a MySpace page ’cause you want to put a link in a mail doesn’t exactly equip you for making a great identification.

Grampy looks them up on his Smartphone but it doesn’t help. We chicken out of the direct approach. So we surreptiously spy on them and mutter to each other until they leave. And then we ask the waitress. It was them.

So then we went to see the Wolfmother concert. And those boys rocked.

Leave a Comment

Posted in Entertainment

Posted by: ilanasmith | January 21, 2006

What Noise Does a Shark Make?

I have theory that my sister had kids for her own personal amusement. I suspected it when she took the first possible opportunity (i.e. the first time my brother-in-law left the house) to dress up her new-born baby boy in all the girl’s clothes she’d been given…and took photos. I had it confirmed when I learned that my nephew Riley had a toy snake that his parents had helped him name: Trouser.

Alex and I headed home for a few weeks over Christmas. The whole fam gathered at Mum’s place for a Chrimbo blow-out (there were 25 of us at one point). One of the best parts was getting to spend a week with the nephews – at 18 months and 4 years, they’re a bunch of fun. Riley’s a big chatterbox with an uncanny ability to put together all sorts of disparate information. Finn’s enormous eyes haven’t gotten any smaller, and he wanders around with his hands clasped in the small of his back, peering at things. He knows all sorts of words, but the little bugger categorically refuses to say my name. Of course, he said "Alex".

In addition to being the cutest kids ever born, they’re also possibly the smartest kids ever – Riley taught himself to write his own and his brother’s names, and Finn has decided to toilet train himself. Finn plays the "what noise does a <variable> make?" game – he does a mean owl (and not a boring television Hoo-Hoo owl, but a really good, honestly Australian Ooo-Hoo owl). They’re obviously the children of two zoologists (I’m pretty sure they can identify more Australian fauna than I can) but my sister’s sense of humour does intrude at times: if you’re wondering what noise a shark makes, it’s the cello chords from "Jaws".

After Christmas in Mackay (and a brief mum-visiting trip for Alex), we spent a week in Brissie with Choppy. After New Year, we all headed up to Mooloolaba, and did two dives on the newly-sunk-for-diving-purposes HMAS Brisbane. It was very very cool (though the visibility sucked a bit), especially pushing all the buttons in missile control. It turns out that the Brisbane was Dad’s last ship, so I got to swim around where he would have hung out (at least I think so: phrases like "aft turret" mean "big gun at the back", right?).

Not quite dived out, we then did the coolest. thing. ever. We went for a dip in the Shark Tank at Underwater World. I thought it would be scary, but it was so professional and straight-forward that even when a 12 foot shark swam right past me, my brain didn’t scream incoherantly in panic, it went "SO COOL. Gee, I wish I could poke it. SO COOL!!!".

It was lovely to spend some time at home and see the fam, and stuff. But seriously. SHARKS!