The Sound of Brilliance

July 25, 2008
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There are countless descriptions out there about what it means to be a software engineer. These cover the expectations of the job, the general atmosphere, and often give enough information to help fledgling software engineers decide whether this is the career for them or not. Yet they are all missing one very, very important detail:

What does being a software engineer sound like?

Yesterday, through a mishap of GTalk, we were lucky enough to trap the sounds of a software engineer in his native environment. This elusive creature has, to date, never been recorded (by me).

A deep dive into the actual focus of the recorded work shows that this particular sound byte is of the debugging nature, a virtual mating call in the software world. The recorded engineer describes the situation as, “I think I was wondering wtf was going on with my gmail window and then [working towards] making it stop doing it.” Stunning.

Check out what some established software engineers and software managers are saying about it:

Trampas Kirk calls it “Riveting!”

Paul Weil describes the recording as “[It] just sounds like scratching to me.”

Jason McDonald calls the performance “entirely realistic and plausible.”

Mark Turansky says, “Huh?”

Without further ado, I present to you, “The Sound of Brilliance” :

[audio:http://mcdonaldland.info/audio/1122892093.mp3]
You may need to turn the volume up a bit…

Book Review: How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less

July 24, 2008
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How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less, by Milo Frank

Ironically, this book is 128 pages long.  While it probably could have been shorter, there are a number of stories and anecdotes that help to illustrate the points Frank is putting forward.

If you have taken any courses, gone to any seminars, or read any books about public speaking there will be parts of this that are not new to you. If you have a broadcasting or journalism background you will likely find nothing new to you. However, if you don’t fall into one of these categories you will find yourself learning the essential parts of any communication and how to effectively hook your audience in order to deliver the rest of your message. The 30 second message isn’t meant to convey all the information at once – only enough to make your audience want more, which you will then happily deliver.

All in all, this book was worth the time it took to read. The concepts within are simple, yet effective. Buy it.

June 2008 CPI Data Out

July 22, 2008
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The June Consumer Price Index (CPI) data is out and the results are as equally startling as in May 2008. Let’s go through the same exercise as last month, only with less explanation. If you want more explanation of how I arrive at these numbers visit the May 2008 post.

One note that I did get questions about though: I am including December 2007 in these calculations otherwise we would not see the change during January 2008. If we were to start with the January 2008 we would only see the change from the end of January 2008 until now. By including the December 2007 figure we are able to account for the change since January 1, 2008.

The inflation so far for 2008:

Southeast = [ ( 212.324 – 203.457 ) / 203.457 ] * 100 = 4.36%
National = [ ( 218.815 – 210.036) / 210.036 ] * 100 = 4.18%

Average month to month change in 2008:

National CPI Southeast CPI National ? Southeast ?
12/2007 210.036 203.457    
01/2008 211.080 204.510 1.044 1.053
02/2008 211.693 205.060 0.613 0.550
03/2008 213.528 206.676 1.835 1.616
04/2008 214.823 208.085 1.295 1.409
05/2008 216.632 210.006 1.809 1.921
06/2008 218.815 212.324 2.183 2.318
Average 1.463 1.478

Estimated CPI when average change is applied to the rest of the year:

Est. Southeast CPI = 212.324 + ( 6 * 1.478 ) = 221.192
Est. National CPI = 218.815 + ( 6 * 1.463 ) = 227.593

Estimated inflation for 2008:

Southeast = [ ( 221.192 – 203.457 ) / 203.457 ] * 100 = 8.72%
National = [ ( 227.593 – 210.036 ) / 210.036 ] * 100 = 8.36%

And you thought last month was scary.