Daily Scribble

Interviews

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I have been doing lots of interviews recently.  My project is half way and it is very behind in the schedule.  How do we get into this mess in the first place?  As usual it is bad management decision.  Somehow we underestimate the complexity of the chip and largely overestimate the productivity of Indian contractors.  The only way to stop the project from slipping further is adding more resource.  When we first move our operation to Indian, one of the promised advantage is we will be able to get as many engineers as we need.  Never believe any sales pitch, especially the sales pitch of Indian contracting firms.  Wipro basically runs out of qualified engineers that meets our requirement.  Indian contractors is the casue of the mess, it would be repeating the same mistake to hire more of them.  This time we are hiring N. America contractors.

The project is in pretty bad shape, so we are approved to hire 10 engineers.  To fill those positions, we have to do lots of interviews.  I guess my boss is too busy to interview all of them, so I am helping him to interview the candidates.  I did mostly phone interviews since most of the candidates are from the East Coast.  I even have an interview with someone from Israel.  I kinda act like the first line of defense, screening the qualification of the interviewees before pasting them to my boss for 2nd round interview.  My role is to preform technical interview, trying to determine whether the guy knows enough to be productive.  Since I am doing phone interview, I can’t ask very detail technical question because it may require some writing and drawing.  I found asking what challenges the candidate had in his previous project is very effectively in judging his level of expertise.  The more experience the person has, the challenge is usually more complicate.  Sitting in the other side of the table gives me new insights.  The questions asked by the Interviewer always have a certain purpose.  A successful interviewee should look beyond the factual question and try to give answer in a way that satisfies what the interviewer is looking for.

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Bangalore bombing

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Last Friday, 9 bombs set off in Bangalore, killed two people and wounded over twenty people.  I never feel so close to terrorist attack.  I worked in Bangalore for two months.  My colleagues took over my tasks are still working in Bangalore.  According to the news, one of the bomb went off just outside the Forum Mall, which is right next to where I live.  When you have been to places so close to bombing, it seems quite scary.  Everyone I know in Bangalore is safe.  The unlucky souls drafted to serve the Bangalore tour of duty is now getting cold feet.  I guess they have every right to concern about their own safety.

According to the news, the bombing is carried out by a Islamic terrorist group called Indian Mujahideen.  It is a small outfit of the worldwide Muslim jihad terrorist.  It seems no one knows the political agenda of this little known terrorist group.  They are not making any request according to the news.  I don’t see any reason Indian Mujahideen to fight.  India has freedom of religion, Muslim are allow to practice their faith freely.  The Indian government is not oppressing Muslim in any mean.  On the other hand the Muslim are oppressing those who live next to their Mosque by their 5a.m. morning prayer with loudspeaker.

When Indian independent from the British Empire, the Muslim had their own country in Pakistan.  If the Indian Muslim don’t like living among the Hindu majority, they can simply move to Pakistan.  They have no right to ask for more than they deserved by threatening others who don’t share their religion.  If the Indian Muslims think they are oppressed because they are poor.  They are fighting for the wrong cause.  Believing in Muslim is probably why they are poor in the first place.  Think about how much productivity is lost in time wasted for daily prayers.  If they want to leave poverty behind, maybe they should stop reading Koran and start learning marketable skills.

Daily Scribble

Biofuel

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Fossil fuel will eventually runs out, one of the solutions to the environment problem is switch to biofuel.  Biofuel is produced by convernting plants into ethonal.  Plants is 100% renewable energy.  As long as there is land, water and sunlight, plants will grow every year.  Although biofuel is a clean energy, there are controversials about biofuel will disrupt food production.  I believed in this myth in the past and have doubt about the use of biofuel.  It turns out that is only true for 1st generation biofuel made from grains or corns.  The 2nd generation biofuel made from cellulor plants like grass or algae will have a 100 fold increase in efficiency.  We can produce enough biofuel to fill up all our gas tanks without affecting food production.  According to a news report, the effect of biofuel on food production is less than 1%.  Developed countries already waste more than 1% of food, so making biofuel should have virtually no impact on the food price.

I quoted the news in an online discussion about renewal energy and environmental problem. My view point is the Earth have more than enough energy for our consumption, only that we don’t have the technology to harvest the energy.  It contradicts with the view point of most environment people that we should simply use less energy.  I think the best way to solve the energy problem is through technology.  You can never solve the problem by conservation, it can only buy you some more time until the technology is ready.  Some people challenge the 1% number and accuse me posting misleading information.  I don’t know how the number is arrived, so I decide to work out the math myself to prove I am right.  After some research, here is the math:

US has 938 million acres of farmland (from US Dept of Agriculture website)
US use 138 billion gallon gas per year (from US Energy Statistic)
The highest efficiency of biofuel production is 15000 gallon per acre (from Wiki entry on Biofuel )
938m * 1 % * 15000 = 140.7B > 138B

Therefore, if we can produce biofuel with the most efficiency future technology, we will only need 1% of US farmland to produce enough gas for all the cars in US.  With the best technology today, we can only produce 1000 gallon per acre.  (BTW, grains, corn or soybean’s efficient is less than 200 gallon per acre.)  Biofuel is a pretty new technology, there are lots of room for improvement.  If it can follow the pattern of the Moore’s Law, 15 fold increase in a few decades is totaly feasible, at least according to the theory.

電影

Speed Racer 極速賽車手

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Mach 5 還記得小時候放學回家﹐其中一套最愛看的卡通是《賽車小英雄》。看著那架可以上天下海法寶多多﹐白色車身紅色M字標記的麥克五號﹐就會幻想那是自己的坐駕﹐在賽車道上打倒敵人。想不到差不多二十年後,憑Martix成名的Wachowski兄弟﹐竟然把這套經典卡通搬上大銀幕開拍真人版。可能主角不再是小孩子﹐片名不能叫小英雄﹐名字順帶改為《標速賽車手》。

真人版在戲院上映時﹐影評己經是劣評如潮﹐不論是故事還是畫面﹐被人批評至一文不值。很不幸我真的同意那些影評的看法﹐這齣電影是名乎其實的垃圾電腦特技電影﹐若不是靠Wachowski兄弟和麥克五號的金漆招牌﹐觀眾才不會入場觀看。我已經很寬容地放過這電影的大部份缺點﹐反正的卡通改篇對劇情就不會有嚴格要求。情節白痴是因為受制於原著劇本﹐在角色和設計定上其實頗為忠於原著。主角毫無演技可言﹐大部份時間影著他拉屎般的表情﹐不過真正主角是麥克五號。可惜這齣電影的最大敗筆﹐就是竟然最重要的賽車場面超級爛。電腦特技太多太花巧鏡頭飛來飛去﹐又加插無厘頭茄厘啡的大特寫﹐背景太過眼花潦亂干擾視線﹐完全看不清楚賽車道上發生什麼事。賽車不停地彈來彈去轉來轉去﹐我連架賽車是什麼樣子也看不清楚。觀眾入場的最主要原因就是看賽車﹐難道有人會認真地欣賞演員的藍幕演技﹐被夾硬堆切的父子情兄弟愛的故事感動號﹖

我承認會看這套電影﹐完全是因為小時候的情意結。 諷刺的是看電影的製作花絮﹐竟然電影本身還好看。電影公司為宣傳﹐不惜工本造了台麥克五號出來。這台車子不單能跑﹐還很神奇地製置電影中的法寶﹐有防彈玻璃電鋸伸縮跳槓。看這台麥克五號真車在公路上飛馳﹐比在電影中的賽道漂移還好看。這齣電影另外還有一個驚喜﹐原來飾演女主角Trixie的Chrisitina Ricci﹐就是以前愛登士家庭的小女孩﹐怪不得她樣子這樣面善。據說Wachowski兄弟是日本動畫迷﹐所以才會重拍這套經典動畫。不知道他們近年還有沒有看日本動畫﹐有沒有看電腦賽車場面出名的《頭文字D》。或許他們應該向《頭文字D》學習﹐明白什麼才叫做緊張刺激有迫力的賽車場面。說起來港產片 《頭文字D》的賽車場面﹐比《標速賽車手》的賽車場面還好看。

Daily Scribble

Plane Crazy

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Recently, I am addicted to this silly facebook application, which is quite not myself.  In general I keep my distance from uselss facebook applications.  I naturally ignore most of the application request and actually spent time delete all the useless applications from my profile.  Somehow this application had a click on me and turn me into a patient of compulsive disoder.  I log on facebook loyally and play this little application every day.

The idea of plane crazy is pretty simply.  You got a photograph of an airplane on your profile.  You start off with crappy hang glider and work you way up to A380 or Air Force One.  Each day, you have a quota of 10 races with other players.  If you win, you get points.  You can use the points to upgrade your airplane.  I like airplanes since I was a little kid, so I spent my 2 minutes with this silly application, then wait for my turns until the next day.  I am working my way up slowly.  I just got to the level of business jet.  My goal is to get reach some decent fighters, like a F-14 or F-22.

I wonder why I am so addicted to this silly game.  I guess it probably the same reason why people are addicted to fluff friends.  It is just a mystery.