Is Linkedin useful?

Is Linkedin very useful to people out there? I’ve been waiting for the API to be released so I can play with some ideas

If don’t appear on a search engine’s results, do you exist?

http://techdirt.com/articles/20080207/142142203.shtml

maybe not in China

“Face of South Carolina” retires

http://www.charlotte.com/breaking_news/story/483960.html

Only thing interesting about this is I stopped at a welcome center coming into North Carolina a week ago, and the guy manning the post there must have bored out of his mind. He wanted to talk about something, anything I guess. Must have been a slow day. Anyhow, I guess we should owe some appreciation for the people who hand out maps all day, make hotel reservations and answer questions all day.

The Silicon Forest

http://www.pdx.edu/ims/siliconforest.html

From research for a PhD dissertation in urban studies, the visualization shows the growth of tech startups in Portland by using a “universe” metaphor. Intel and Tektronics were incubators (according to the research “surrogate universities” that took the place of say a Stanford or MIT) from which the startups grew.

Portland’s lack of a major research university is a handicap of the region. I guess Reed College doesn’t qualify as a major university.

Java could use this from C#

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms173224.aspx

Duty to die

http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/O/OBESITY_COST?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-02-05-02-58-08

I’m sure there are some economists who would love this.

On average, healthy people lived 84 years. Smokers lived about 77 years, and obese people lived about 80 years. Smokers and obese people tended to have more heart disease than the healthy people.

So healthy people who spend hours at the gym, watch their cholesterol intake and drink fresh squeezed vegetable juices only live 4 years longer than couch potatoes who eat multiple desserts (as long as they don’t smoke). Actually statistically it seems worse than that, healthy people only live 5% longer than the obese.

Especially in the case of the EU and Japan, the population keeps getting older and older with fewer workers to support the habits of the retired. And obesity is rapidly increasing in Europe, as I can tell just from personal observation on trips there every year to other year. Europe could solve its looming social welfare and health care costs by encouraging the obesity trend?

I should learn this now?

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/02/05/groovy-10_1.html

It does seem that Ruby on Rails is old now, so 2006 or 2007.

Source Control postings

http://www.ericsink.com/scm/source_control.html

Easy to read (is written by a vendor, but that’s OK)

Before you look for the programmer with 5 yrs of A, 7 yrs of B, etc etc

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001054.html

This posting makes a good point about phone screens, but important is the point about sheer years of experience that most hiring managers are looking for in skills A, B, C and Z. And it is much worse in a recession, since managers figure they can fine tune the person they want to hire with an increased supply.