Work Culture

Someone asked me why the work culture in Japan is bad, especially for software engineers. Here's a partial list:

# long, mostly wasted hours
# endemically poor communication skills (regardless of fluency)
# retarded skill level at all levels of the company
# non-existent management ability
# lack of engineering, or even rational mind-set
# mind-set locked into meaningless habit
# soul-crushing conformity everywhere
# insane commutes, long and packed
# lack of social connection with co-workers outside of late-night drinking
# lack of connection outside of co-workers

All truism

Karma has long been considered a truism, but there is scientific evidence it's in fact a fundamental operating procedure of human relations.

Ultimately it's why US's social welfare-poor political policies will only a continued drain on national potential; perhaps ultimately leading to it one day becoming a "failed state".

You're SCREWED

Note to self: NEVER sign a contract not written in English. ALWAYS get all promises in writing.

You CANNOT trust people simply because they're Finns, or "friends".

State of the Driver Stack in Linux

Excellent article! Surprising find.

Beautiful C++

It is possible.

I think this is possibly the most elegant code I've written as a professional programmer.

A lot of thought went into making it that small and simple.

Here's hoping it only gets better.

ラナ子 Forever

スミコはどこから
やってきたのでしょう
スミコ、スミコ
welcome、ん～、スミコ
あなたの心の
遠い思い出から
スミコはやってくるのです
スミコはどこかに
帰るのでしょうか
スミコ、スミコ
goodbye、お～、スミコ
あなたの心の
あたたかい場所で
スミコはいつもいっしょです
大人はみんな、こわい顔
それでいてみんな、さみしそう
でもね、忘れないで
笑顔あふれたあのころを
なつかしくて
あたたかで
スミコはとてもかわいい子
スミコ、スミコ
できることなら
いつまでも
スミコ、スミコ
forever、スミコ
スミコは時々
見えなくなります
スミコ、スミコ
come back、お～、スミコ
あなたの心が
汚れたときに
スミコは見なくなるのです
大人になれば
辛いこと
悲しいことが
あるでしょね
でもね、いつでも戻れる
やさしかった、あのころに
なつかしくて
あたたかで
スミコはとてもかわい子
スミコ、スミコ
できることなら
いつまでも
スミコ、スミコ
forever、スミコ

How he hires

While ago I wrote an entry on how I hire.Today I came across this fellow opinion, which is similar to my own.

I agree with the author, and this this is how you should hire too.

The Essence of a Manager

I didn't write this, and I'm not sure it matters who did; only that it's true and bears memorialization.

Managers get to do a lot of knowledge-free decision making, which necessarily drives them insane. Here’s how the manager’s bipolar disorder works.

During maniacal periods, the manager is the only one who can do anything around here. This frequently happens when the manager is under external pressure, and he feels that control is slipping out of his hands. He’s trying to compensate for his lack of knowledge by immense concentration and willpower. (Managers always have ample emergency supplies of both.) “Concentration” translates to an ability to derive general and far-reaching conclusions from insignificant details, then “willpower” translates to aggression.

Then depression follows: “Don’t bother me with details”. This results partly from exhaustion quickly arrived at during the mania (especially if reports were wise enough to not argue with the manager, letting his efforts defeat their own purpose.) The manager has delivered his trademark concentration and willpower, so he no longer feels guilty on that front. However, he’s overwhelmed by information and (rightly) feels that he doesn’t know what’s going on. He decides it is none of his business and concentrates on the Big Picture (does nothing). Usually, the cycle repeats upon a new wave of external pressure.

New Zealand

Much thanks to Mariusz for graciously hosting me in his home, and taking me out to see the sights with his family.

Building Qt4 for Windows using MSVC 2008

1. Make directories C:\Qt\src and C:\Qt\build (the build procedure really doesn't like fancy paths, so do use something this simple)
   
2. Download and unzip Qt Open Source SDK to C:\Qt\src
3. Copy C:\Qt\src\qt\mkspecs C:\Qt\build\
   
4. Open your Visual Studio Command Prompt
5. $ "bin\vcvars32.bat"
6. $ cd C:\Qt\src
7. $ bin\qtenv.bat
8. $ cd qt\
9. $ configure -opensource -platform win32-msvc2008 -prefix C:\Qt\build
10. $ nmake
11. $ nmake install
12. set QTDIR=C:\Qt\build

note: Qt will hard-code the prefix path into it's binaries. It cannot be relocated in the file-system.
note: if you get link errors warning about inability to find MOC-related problems (mine was in WebCore), you may want to delete the mocinclude.tmp file (src/3rdparty/webkit/WebCore/tmp/moc/{debug,release}_shared/mocinclude.tmp).