Saturday, October 19, 2013

For humanity's sake, let us stop using RFC 822 format dates for time stamps

Human readable dates have no place in internet protocols. Even more so when you have a date which is hard to parse and can have invalid values (e.g. A string which says "Thu" for a date which can not possibly be a Thursday). The only timestamp you need is seconds[.milliseconds] from an epoch (bikeshed about the epoch all you want) in GMT. Optionally, you might want to know the offset from GMT of the entity that caused the event.

What Humanity Aspires to - In One Frame

http://www.theimaginaryworld.com/comic062804.jpg

There is a man (well, a bread) who is totally at peace with himself. When all you can ask for is ice cream and a balloon you are experiencing life correctly.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

How Not to Apply For a Job

I own a domain similar to that of a mid-size Canadian medical group.  I frequently receive to them that is misaddressed. This one caught my eye.
aaaaa mehtar 



to hrtoronto@....medicalgroup.com
Hi Mr or Miss :

I enclose my resume and cover letter to apply for Medical Office Administrator with your company , if your requirement match my work experience and skills please feel free to contact me. I look froward to hear from u.

thank you

sincerely

aaaaa variava


Really?

  • "to hear from u"?  I would throw this away without opening the attachments.
  • Signature should match your email name.
  • "requirement" is in a different font.
  • Oh, that should be "requirements".
I could go on, but it would be more cruel than illustrative.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Why LinkedIn is now no better than spam.

LinkedIn used to be a great idea. In the efforts to monetize, it has been reduced to little more than a spam sender. Today I got a friendly but precise solicitation from a headhunter in London. But there are two show-stopper problems.

  • At the bottom of it, there was a link to see his profile. The link does show a limited profile, but unless I upgrade to a paying service, I don't get to see any useful information, like the guy's full name. This asymmetry is unprofessional. When someone solicits me with an offer, I should be able to learn about them.
  • If I click the "Not Interested" button, I get a page which offers me a choice or reasons why. That's all well and good, but there is a pre-selected check box which says "Accept the sender’s request and share my contact information". Really? The default is a unilateral "Put me in this guy's tickler list and don't tell me anything about them." I think not.
The whole balance has tipped towards headhunters trying to build a portfolio of people and away from people actually maintaining a high quality network of colleagues.

Friday, February 1, 2013

TSA PreCheck at SFO rocks!

I don't want to get into a debate about security theatre and my right to transport with or without ID. I just want to say that I had my best security check in ever today at SFO. It saved me 30 minutes in line and allowed me to catch an earlier flight than I had planned.