Greetings from Massachusetts,
Right now, I am watching The Great Gatsby on A&E. (The text hasn't fallen out of copyright yet, so you'll have to go to the library to read the book.) So far, from casual observation I have determined that, even though the story is set in the 1920's, Gatsby was not a Capone-like gangster. (A previous misconception of mine.) FYI, Gatsby is a Long Island millionaire, not a gangster. He wears cuff links and had an affair with Mira Sorvino.
I saw "What Women Want" the other day. It was funny, but the story didn't make sense towards the end. I think that they tried to put too many storylines in the movie. Someone in the audience remarked that they thought that the writer must have been a man. Also in the movie was the actress who played Fern Mayo in "Jawbreaker". I paid $7.50 to see this in a General Cinema theater. Some teenage kids three rows down kept talking through the movie. I'm trying to decide whether kids today are ruder than they were in my day or whether people in the Northeast are just ruder than those in other parts of the country. In some magazine about Boston, I read an article that expounded the idea that Boston was the rudest place in the country. But, maybe it's just that things are worse in general now, and I just happen to be here to witness it.
According to the December 17, 2000 Boston Globe, there will be a 23.4% increase in college hiring, per survey of employer hiring intentions. Also, "one-fifth of 2001 job offers will be to new college graduates."
Once again, some of the more notable and/or amusing advertisements from previous weeks' Boston Sunday Globe's "Boston Works" section.
"RSA Security as seen in the new movie AntiTRUST... When technology had to be right in the upcoming movie, AntiTRUST, MGM relied on RSA expertise and products to bring authenticity to the set!" (www.rsasecurity.com)
Cereon Genomics (www.cereon.com) has a full-page ad. They do genetic engineering on agricultural crops and seem to have some computational scientist and other software jobs. Scary stuff.
Hey, it's a Sun ad. "You've arrived, baby. Sun always knew that the computer was destined for bigger things. No wonder we're a natural for just about any role thrown our way- including award-winning performances with SPARC, Solaris, Java, and Jini. In fact, there are few things in this networked world that consistently leave a longer-lasting impression than Sun products and services. Each one open, compatible and eager to share. All netting us extraordinary growth for the last several years- not to mention one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry. And year after year, Sun's incredible entrepreneurial spirit and appeal only gets stronger. Have we arrived? Heck, we've always been at the top. Shouldn't you be there with us? We have many exciting opportunities available right here in Massachusetts." Hmmm. I did not write that copy. (www.sunboston.com)
Mellon (the bank) was giving away $25 gift certificates to Bertucci's (a Pizza Uno type chain) at their open house.
"We're no dot-bomb. Pegasus Communications is the nation's leading independent distributor of DirecTV... Our employees enjoy a fantastic, new facility; a professional, upbeat work environment; and a terrific benefits and incentive package including... Casual Fridays." Only Fridays? I give them one year. (Although, I must admit that suits look pretty good on Gatsby.) (www.pegsattv.com)
"We're not hiring any individuals right now. We thrive on teamwork, not individualism. At Foliage, some of the smartest, most experienced professionals in the business challenge and motivate each other to do great work." Another interesting ad from Foliage Software Systems. Who writes their copy? (www.foliage.com)
Aren't there a lot of Natural Language Processing and Computational Linguistics people at Buffalo? SRA International says that they are listed as one of Fortune magazine's 100 Best Companies to work for in America, and one of Business Week's top 20 private information technology companies. They are looking for Mid-Senior level Computational Linguists and NLP Specialists. (www.sra.com).
Here's all the mail I've received from the past few months:
Adam writes: http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html and also Re. Toy Allowance: After giving the PlayStation 2 an extended test run, I can conclude I'd rather have a Dreamcast (now) and an XBox and Nintendo Game Cube (later). Despite any Sony FUD (It's strange applying this term to anything outside of Linux vs Microsoft), you should be able to pick up a system by the end of the year. At 100K new systems arriving in stores each week, you shouldn't have to look too far ...
+++ The link is to a web site that will dynamically create dot.com company advertisements. The Friday before Xmas, I was in Toys'R'Us waiting for a haircut appointment ($11.95, Supercuts) when a shipment of Playstation 2's arrived. I actually had one in my hands, contemplating whether to buy it. I eventually decided against it, mostly because there aren't any games that that system that I wanted to play. However, I just found out about a Nintendo 64 game, Harvest Moon 64. It appears to be a farm simulation game. From the box, "Hard work is rewarded as you struggle to bring prosperity back to a neglected farm. Work the land, pick up odd jobs, and get to know the neighbors." The funniest part is that "One of the town's five eligible women may prove to be the love of your life." There's a joke about computer science in there somewhere.
Misty writes: I was wondering where you found some of your information about iMac flaws, because I am close to buying an iBook and before I do, I would like to know if I can expect similar problems. That's alot of money and I don't want to just give it to Apple for nothing:)
+++ The best place I found for information on Macs (and Mac problems) is (www.macfixit.com). Their Reports list most of the useful Subscriptions information about various products. The Forums give more recent information and user-provided info as well. Another good resource is Apple's Tech Info Library for official info (til.info.apple.com).
Tina writes: I am 3 job offers this semester, one from X, in Buffalo, ... one is Y in Burlington, Vermont, ... one is Z in Long Island New Your. .... Many people told me that X has better reputation, I really had a tough time to decide what job should I take, until I read your message today... Hopeful after 3 years, I can make $375k per year, it will drive me crazy to think of this.
+++ I hope that you realize that the $375K web developer is a joke. Nobody makes that much money. ... you probably shouldn't look too close at the salaries-- there are probably more important things you should think about when choosing a job. All three companies have a good reputation. I would visit each city to see if it is a place you want to live. Burlington is, I believe, a smaller city than Buffalo with probably fewer things to do. Long Island is nearer to New York City, which has a lot of things to do. Also, I would consider what each job involves-- is it something that you want to do for the rest of your life? Is it something that will help you achieve your future career goals?
Tina writes: Thank you very much for your adviser! I went to Burlington for an on-site interview last month, and I hated to live in Burlington. It is a small town, as you said that is not many thing I can do in there.
+++ Again, quality of life should be one of the most important criteria in your geographic job search.
Catherine writes: I'm sorry to hear that you were let down by your iMac -- I bought my (rev. A, original, 'Bondi blue') iMac in the fall of 1998, and it's still doing great. Despite the fact that it has been endlessly mocked by nearly all of my CS friends, so if it could be jinxed, it would be somewhere in a landfill by now. Which is why I can post this without too much fear of being teased -- anyone who wanted to make fun of my computer has already done so, at length.
So, it *is* possible to have a positive experience with Apple/Macs/iMacs. The whole product line shouldn't be /completely/ discredited because of one bad experience, although a brand new computer that didn't power up would definitely make me lean towards another brand, too. :)
+++ I owned a Mac Classic from 1991 to 2000. It never let me down. (4MB RAM, 40MB hard drive) That's probably why I was so disappointed with my defective iMac-- I was counting on buying a computer that I could easily use, without having to do much work, without having to worry about it.
Catherine writes: Thanks for the 'women in CS' links earlier this summer -- and also thanks for the 'letter from massachusetts' series. SInce you still seem concerned about the state of affairs at UB, I was wondering if you had any general tips on 'how to encourage active involvement from CS students' and 'how to make sure this club will exist after I leave'. Or on anything else that relates, for that matter. ... [some stuff about the Association of Women in Computing student chapter at UB (www.cse.buffalo.edu/awc/)] ... But I'd really like to hear from 'the voice of experience' at this point, on where we go from here, and I figured you'd be the one to ask.
+++ I'm not sure about how to get CS students to be involved in anything. One suggestion I have is to focus on communication. A web page that rev's every 2 weeks during the semester will make it look like your organization is doing a lot. The same with postering. The same with posting on the newsgroup. If you fall into the ocean, start wildly flailing your arms and legs. You may not get anywhere, but you'll make a big splash (and possibly attract sharks). Another suggestion I have is to recruit School of Management students to your organization. Business students love getting involved, running organizations, and padding their resumes. And, there aren't enough leadership positions to go around. It may seem wrong to have Management students run a CS organization-- just think of them as seven magnificent business students who have come to save the village. (As an aside, if any of you happen to drink a lot and feel that your drinking may prevent you from successfully graduating in CS, consider switching to a career in Sales. The field of Sales is all about drinking alcohol and socializing. Get paid to drink!) Unfortunately, in any organization, some people do a lot while others are content to just show up and eat free food.
In a previous Letter I wrote, "Now that I am employed, I suddenly have lots of discretionary income to spend on frivolous items." In response, Ken writes: I'm *really* good at helping people who have this problem. Just ask anyone around here. Give me a dollar amount and I'm sure I can help you blow the whole thing. A couple of examples you ask? Well, 36Gb disks run a bit under $1k these days. Two of those and I could raise quotas on armstrong to 100Mb. We still have some X-terminals in Bell 338, currently we can get Ultra-5's for about $1.5k (special deal). For about $12k I could stop using our SUN fileservers as network gateways as well (more compute power to do fileservice). A compute server for the UG Lab to do long-running batch jobs would be in the $20k-$30k range. If you want to spend more I'm sure I can help you but it would require a little more thought - I usually don't bother investing any thought in that range...
+++ An idea is forming in my mind. It comes from seeing the UMass Lowell Computer Science Department's CS Endowment Fund (www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.cs.uml.edu/~canning/csendowment.htm), CS Alumni Founders Club (www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.cs.uml.edu/~canning/csfounders.htm), and Corporate Scholarship (www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.cs.uml.edu/~canning/corporatescholarship.htm) programs. (That particular directory seems to have its permissions not set, hence the Google cache.) Do any of these seem like good ideas?
Tim writes: fyi, it appears that slightly over 600 UB students voted on campus this year. South Campus residents are not in any of UB's districts, so shuttles were provided to the school where they should vote, and about 15 people took advantage of that. Interestingly, although the tone of the Spectrum article was definitely negative, the title was to the effect of "NYSSA Catapults UB's Voting" because in 1996 the number of voters was around 300.
I guess alot of people think they can vote anywhere. Election officials for UB simply said that most people are too naive to realize that you can't vote where you're not registered.
+++ From the Associated Press, 11/07/00, here are the results of the Massachusetts ballot questions. (I decided to wait until the election controversy was over before posting these. Massachusetts had a "chad" problem with one election a few years ago, resulting in the initial loser of the election eventually winning. Now paper fill-in-the-oval ballots are used.)
Tom writes: W.V. Quine died last weekend. Is he the co-author of the Quine_McKlusky Tabular Minimization Method described to us by our CSE 241 teacher, Kris D. Schindler (Q.M. used in minimizing number of circuits needed to produce a desired effect)?
+++ Yes, Willard van Orman Quine is the Quine of the Quine-McCluskey method. Apparently, he was more famous as a philosopher than as a mathematician. You can read more about Quine at his home page (members.aol.com/drquine/wv-quine.html).
Finally, I received this letter from Malcolm, a recruiter.
I'm the recruiter at this pre-IPO web/telecom startup in Billerica called WebDialogs. I was searching Yahoo for resumes and came across a letter you had written to some students in Buffalo telling them about the job market here in Boston and urging them to pursue on campus interviews. That was very helpful of you - it was informative and well written. I'm writing you for two reasons - we're growing and if you live just south of the NH border as the letter stated then you could commute here, so if you do software development or test yourself we may have something here for you if you were looking - even if you're not keep it in mind for the future because we have a good story to tell here.
Secondly, if there are sharp students in Buffalo who want to talk to startups in Boston we'd be interested in talking with them. As of now we do NOT have any entry level openings, we need a senior DB developer and a software call control developer but that could change in 2001.
Briefly, we are 48 people large, up from 33 when I started here in June, we've gotten $15 M in investment this year, $8 M of which we still have in the bank. And our Board Chairman is Desh Deshpande, the man who created Cascade Communications and Sycamore Networks.
We make a product here called WebInteract - it solves the need for live assistance on the web. A visitor to a website using it wh has a question clicks on a Call Us button, the call goes out over IP to a VoIP gateway to our servers which then bridge the call to the e-business' call center, hooking online shopper and call center agent in conversation. We also download some software to the home shopper's machine which lets the agent control that browser, enabling collaboration, ie - talking and co-browsing of the website.
Its very cool, please check it out at www.webdialogs.com. If its of interest I could tell you more.
+++ I don't know much about this company.
+++ If you have any questions about academics, job hunting, or the Boston area, please email me at (bfan2 "at symbol" yahoo "dot symbol" com) and I'll try to answer them.
Until next time,
Ben