So much information. It’s full of stars. Woah. I’ve just taken the Red Pill. Wow. Thankfully, I am not alone.
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Off to Seattle tomorrow. Maybe I can purchase a new memory implant from the US. Sleep on plan good.
For those waiting for the next episode, download WPF/E CTP and play with some XML.
So, I reached 7 months before my feet started itching. Or was it that my brain was itching? Either way, I started looking seriously at contributing to the corporate world again.
After resigning from my previous job, it was clear that I was not going to do the exact same role. There were a couple of head-hunter calls, and some projects related to channel sales where I purposely said a firm no. Doing exactly the same type of thing would have probably been the easiest route to boot loads of cash, but the shortest road to insanity. Just putting the new cover pages on TPS reports was not a part of the original game plan.
Working for yourself, building a business and looking for projects to keep some income rolling in, is a tough task. Whilst self employment has it many benefits; professional companionship and intellectual stimulation are not included when self means self. No doubt, there are many things to keep your mind working: new customers, new projects, new languages, new environments, new products – however your power to influence any of these is very limited. Working with other smart people is just too darn attractive.
Knowing that I wanted to return to a technical, customer-facing, software related job filtered number of qualifying jobs diminish dramatically. Staying in Sydney, having a good manager, working for a name-brand company starts to filter down the choice even more.
So when this Microsoft Enthusiast Evangelist role appeared, I was over the moon and as keen as mustard. An excellent, well respected manager. Check. Loads of customers, buckets of technology and a strong desire to connect the two: Tick. Being a conduit; taking feedback, showing and listening in that order. Perfect.
Today, I signed on to Microsoft. Start on Thursday. Let the journey begin. WooT!
Getting up at anytime in the morning, reading lots of books, having the time to be able to research a completely new IT subject and watching TV. Chilling out and doing very little has certainly cleaned out the cobwebs.
You read me like a book. No seriously, check him out. I did my reference checks, too!
Yes, Microsoft is a huge organisation with many people and lots of tools and technologies. Their products touch virtually everyone in the digital world, somewhere. Being a small part of this bigness is coolness.
As promised, none. I did however water the garden under the draconian rules of Sydney Water during this period.
I seriously doubt that. Microsoft creates Mac software, and Photoshop/InDesign is ingrained into my system. The world is a much more complex place than “A vs. B”.
A major change in the fabrication process, changing a 40+ year old process to make transitors that are 45 nano-meters large/small. At this level, atoms become significant.
Scoble has released a new video detailing the new 45nm process at Intel. What does this mean? Two things: Moore’s Law still applies, and there are going to be more speed using way less power in your PC sometime in 2008. Oh, and they’re already onto development work of the next 32nm process.
On a similar topic, Andrew sent me a link from some crazy Italians who have overclocked a Pentium to 8Ghz.
OK, so we’ve got the hardware processing for the next couple of years sorted. What are we going to do with this power? Intel is not just making processors and shipping across the river to Google (although I am sure Google will be pleased they don’t have to make a Fusion Reactor to power their singularity).
There are two emerging rules of the last 30+ years: don’t bet against Moore’s Law, or against the Internet.
Do we really just need faster HTML rendering and video? Herein lies the fun – software. There’s a myriad of unsolved software problems – time to get back onto the horse.
Time on Earth is the name of the fifth studio album from a reformed Crowded House.
Time for musicians, and capturing a zeitgeist is something that is embodied in their work. The songs represent at time in their personal lives, and the journeys they have been on.
Yes, I will buy the album and listen.
My favourite Australian poem, “Said Hanrahan“, by John O’Brian (aka Patrick Hartigan)
"...We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan, "Before the year is out."
This whole poem seems to epitomise the current weather conditions, farmers and a fleeting glimpse of an old Australia, slowly disappearing.
Not quite sure how I feel about this: Door opens for Crowded House.
Would I go to a concert? Yes. Would I buy any new material recorded and released? Yes. Would I think that this is the old Crowdies? Probably not. You could probably call me a Crowded House fundamentalist, in a way. Anyway, it’s early days and I can be converted.
After further thought and consideration, it’s about the music. Life goes on, and history will never repeat.
Mac Geeks vs. Apple Accountants. Fight!
According to The Inquirer, Apple is “blaming” an Enron-inspired US Federal Law Sarbannes-Oxley (SOX) for the need to charge US$2.00 for the 802.11n update to MacOS X 10.4. Following the link at the bottom of the page, there is a slightly longer article on iLounge.
SOX? Probably more important than the Auditing (and that lovely open ended section 404 about ‘Management on Internal Controls‘, which I’ve read) section, its the FASB Revenue Recognition rules. All companies that provide a contract (let’s say a End User License Agreement) have strict controls and rules related to how the revenue from that contract must be accounted for. There are whole teams of lawyers and accountants that know these rules blind, and apply them to company revenue-related activities.
Companies that mis-state revenue, let’s say as it has offered an material update to technology in a following quarter and not correctly accounted for it, and if offered “free” later would have to re-state revenue for previous quarters. Now, if Apple had “pre-announced” their 802.11n plans, and been a more open company, I think there would be no charge. Apple has chosen it’s own destiny.
Yes, accounting can be weird. The world of contract law is weirder. But these are the cornerstone of the capitalist world we find ourselves in, and stable for nearly 500 years. Until Enron bent the rules, too far.
So, now US$2.00 seems like a minuscule amount to pay compared to engaging teams of Apple professionals to this Sisyphean Task. However, the cost to Apple is more chipping away at the information control fortress.
ps: I am neither a rev-rec, nor sox expert!
Update: 21st January 2007: Apple to Charge for Faster WiFi from CNet. Also amended prices above from US$5 to US$2.
Dr. Temple Gradin The Woman Who Thinks like a Cow. Just being shown on Australia’s SBS: but also on Google Video.
Reading this story from The Guardian this morning reminded me of an incident.
In 2000 through 2001, I travelled to India as a part of my job. I love India: the food, the experience and mostly the people. Adobe’s sales team in India were the most gracious of hosts, and ensured that I sailed through an enjoyed a great business trip.
However, and this is the big however, I have vowed never to travel through International via Chennai. Here is why.
First error I made was accepting to bring in 200 custom pressed CDs from Australia in a brown box. These Adobe CDs were free handouts for the seminars that I was presenting, and due to time constraints could not be freight forwarded in the weeks prior to my presentations. I think they were InDesign Printing CDs with trial software. Cannot quite remember.
The rules for a business traveller landing in India is to get your travel agent to arrange a “hotel car” to collect you from the airport. Supply your Flight arrival details, and once through customs and immigration: there is a friendly face holding your hotel’s logo on a sign, and your name “Mr Nick” or “Mr Hodge” – and you are safely escorted to an air-conditioned car which will navigate the streets to your hotel. The cost is added to your hotel bill; tip the driver a R100-R200 or so, and life is good. A hotel car was arranged for this trip.
Let me be blunt: traveling outside your own country does have a significant risk of bringing on culture shock. In my first trip to the US in 1989, 21 years of American TV immersion from Sesame Street to LA Law could not insulate me from severe culture shock for a few days. Same for my first trip to Tiajuana. This particular trip to India was my third (and a fourth followed) – so I knew what was coming.
India, for all its IT brilliance, English-speaking and modernity still has poverty, smells and sights that are unfamiliar in Australia. This is initially a shock, but eventually you absorb what you see and respect the country for what it is – large, with a deep culture and history.
So, Landing at Chennai International Airport at around 10:00pm on a flight connection via Singapore. Immigration OK’d my Visa – purchased from great expense from the local consulate, collected my bag and brown box and started to walk through customs to the hotel car that was waiting. That was the plan. The Customs inspector took a deep interest in that box.
Importing the box of CDs from Australia was my error. There is a significant duty for importing pre-recorded CDs. Blank CDs at that time had no duty; but pre-recorded CDs could have been duty-able items.
At various times whilst talking to the Customs agents, I was told the duty on the items was something around US$1 per CD. On 200 CDs, that equates to US$200. The cost of the CDs and duplication was way less than this, and I didn’t have US$200 in cash on me. I told the Customs agent that they were just promotional CDs, and not worth US$200. More arguments, both ways. Eventually, I was jack of the arguing – and knew that the hotel car was not going to hang around – and would leave without me. The prospect of traveling through Chennai late at night was not a good thing.
Eventually, I was handed off to a more senior customs agent. I told him he could keep the CDs (or confiscate them) and I would do without them. This caused more consternation. Eventually, I was escorted under armed guard to an “ATM” to withdraw money to pay for the duty. Thankfully, my card did not work. Attempting to explain this as an expenses claim to my manager was going to tke days, many emails and the risk of being “stiffed” as I was paying a bribe.
As I found out later, based on the words and methods used, the duty asked was a pure bribe. No paperwork or entry to any log was made to this point, and the transaction could only be cash. At one point a senior customs agent asked “what would you pay to fix this issue.” We were negotiating the “customs duty” amount on the 200 CDs. I had already decided that I didn’t need the CDs that badly, and could do without them.
As per the Guardian article, small-level bribery is something that is common in countries where officials are not paid much money. It greases the wheels. US corporations have very strict laws against bribery, and employees – even nationals of other countries and jurisdictions – must abide by these laws. Australians, and Europeans and Asians have to respect both their local laws and the laws of their parent company.
I am a pretty straight-up fellow, and follow the rules. I was paying no bribe. I was the last person in the customs hall at this point, and as far as I could tell, the last westerner in the building at Chennai International Airport at midnight.
The customs officers had given up on the Australian by this point. I may have left sooner if I had said I had shared a hotel with the cricketing god Dennis Keith Lillee the last time I was in Chennai.
So, paperwork as drafted. I signed the document, and all I could remember was that I had to appear before some local court in a week’s time. My CDs remained in the custody of the customs agents (although I am sure they were “confiscated”)So, you are the last non-Indian at Chennai airport at midnight. Your hotel car has left. What do you do? I couldn’t call my Indian colleagues as they were not flying in until the next day from New Delhi. Thankfully, I had learnt some rules from my previous trips. Never accept taxi rides from touts. I had read how westerners were found dead and robbed near airports as they have accepted rides with unscrupulous taxi drivers, never reaching their destinations. I did have visions of my family hearing about me from the Australian consulate: so I was a little scared.
At airports in India, there is usually a “State Taxi Booth”. Here, you can register, and get a taxi that is registered, with a licensed driver. I gave my name, some money, to the tired booth agent – was walked to the taxi rank; gave the name of my hotel in the city. Jumped in the back, sans 200 CDs, and crossed my fingers.
Chennai is not like other Indian cities. Firstly, signs are written in Tamil, not Hindi script. And the railway stations have names like the “Joseph Stalin Railway Station”. There are not as many people out after dark as compared to Bangalore or Mumbai, but it is a pretty city. At about 12:30am, I arrived at the hotel. I tipped the taxi driver R200. This is a massive tip for a taxi, but I was highly thankful. They had been concerned that I had not arrived, nor was collected by the hotel car.
I never told my wife about this experience, as I felt that the fear was unwarranted. And traveling to India was a part of the job; and all these edgy stories add to your ability to deal with stressful situations. I am probably a felon in Chennai as I failed to attend to the court paperwork and pay for fines – although I am not sure. Understand the customs rules when you travel overseas? Paying bribes eases your way through?
The lesson here is, well, there is no lesson. Just a great story.