In my day job, I am occasionally involved in hiring, and rarely even of those fresh out of school. Here are a few bits of advice that may improve your prospects with someone like I.

• If you’re passionate about the technology area you’re trying to work in, show some indication that you have gone beyond school work. It can be some job, or (even better) some personal project of some magnitude.

• A resume is not suitable for showing samples of your work, but it can certainly list URLs where such may be found. Someone who wants a programming job ought to have some code of hers out in the wild, someplace where an interviewer can look at it. It can be code, it can be papers, email, blog articles, design diagrams, whatever. Be googlable.

• When listing coursework assignments, as relevant as they may be, keep in mind that every classmate of yours applying to the same job will describe that very same assignment too. So if you want to stand out, identify something unique about your experience with it: something extra you did; some extra difficulty you overcame; whether you compared your assignment to existing code in the wild.

• Avoid acronyms that only specialists in your ex-job would likely understand. Even expanding the acronym may not be helpful, so instead or in addition, place the technology in context. Is it software or hardware or along the boundary? How high up the software stack is it?

• An extra helping of charisma is not necessary, though humour is nice to see. There is no need to list personal trivia like sports played or honor societies/clubs.

• If there’s some reason that a productive telephone interview is unlikely, please advise about alternative means such as IRC or email.

• If the software that the proposed position is to focus on is already in the public, prepare for the interview by trying it out. Figure out where it fits in the technology spectrum, find out what other people think about it, think of some good questions for us about it.

• Relax! It’s just a job interview, one of dozens or hundreds you’re likely to go through. If something went wrong during the interview, chances are that you can make amends afterward by contacting your interviewers to clarify or correct something. An interview need not (in my view) be just a one-time meeting, but simply the opening salvo for a conversation. That’s true even if you don’t get hired this time.

This morning, our 1.3-year-old brat assembled the word “M” “I” “L” “K” from big foam letters in his bedroom, then expressed a desire to go downstairs and drink some.

I hardly know anything at all on the topic of the very lovely and talented Aliza Shvarts. She’s undoubtedly headed for great heights of fame and accomplishment — at least amongst her social clique.

One bit is less of a mystery though. If this picture is indeed hers, it helps explain why her disgusting stunt supposedly required artificial insemination.

The current crisis in the OLPC project is painful to watch. Here are some of the complications, as I see them.

The XO computer’s hardware is widely lauded as revolutionary. Indeed, its particular combination of features (small size, robust construction, relatively cheap, built-in accessories, hybrid screen) is unusual and attractive. But:

• Initial power management plans (tens of hours of use time) is many times off reality (2-4). Suspend/resume takes seconds, so can’t be as aggressive as necessary.

• The proprietary network hardware (separate processor doing mesh networking) is turning out to be less useful than imagined, considering the nature of the software (heavily mDNS based, requiring an always-on OS to avoid having nodes disappear).

• There are silly glitches like a keyboard stuck keys, flimsy buttons, battery charging hardware/software problems.

The XO software is also a mixed bag. It has some interesting code, but:

• The web browser is a hobbled subset of mozilla. Its support for real flash is notoriously poor – no youtube, no kid flash games.

• The “sugar” gui is bogglingly slow, and does not readily allow preexisting linux applications to run.

• The software stack, down the OS, seemed to start with a full desktop distribution, being very gradually whittled down to eliminate whatever the gui & the few apps won’t need. It probably would have been better to start with the smallest possible linux package from 10 years ago, and adding the bare essentials. (Big desktop hardware of that era was roughly as powerful as the XO is today.)

• The XO software/build system is mostly open, but it is still difficult for someone to rebuild and install the whole OS. The XO is not self-hosting (too small/slow), so that end-users cannot even start such a rebuild.

The current crisis seems to be about the possible severing of the XO software into two bits, with the bottom (the bulk of the OS) being deemed expendable and replaceable with Windows; the top (“sugar’) being deemed worth keeping. So what is a fan of the XO do now?

• Those awestruck by the hardware have had to face the reality that the current batch is in many ways “beta quality”. Other hardware vendors — big companies — are coming in that are nearly as good, and can run linux (and thus most of the XO software).

• Those awestruck by the “sugar” shell have had to face the reality that this part of the software, such as it is, can probably be ported to whatever underlying OS is required — even windows. Several other novel ideas like the “bitfrost” security system may never get fully built — and, perhaps, just as well.

That seems to mean that most novel parts of the OLPC XO project are individually replaceable. And yet, to this curmudgeonly admirer of OLPC, it still somehow seems worthwhile to press ahead. Maybe it’s all up to outside admirers/developers whose assistance appears to be essential — but need to remain un-dis-illusioned.

A mildly tearjerking moment occurred between our 3.4 and 1.3 year old brats. It took both of them quite some effort.

Eric: “Stuart, can I have some raisins please?”
Stuart: … thinks about it, hands one over
Eric: “Thank you.”

Later, the little rascal tricked the big one:

Eric: “Stuart, can I have some more raisins please?”
Stuart: … thinks about it, hands one over, pulls it back at the last moment, and eats it with a grin.
Eric: … not impressed