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The DINI Group Newsletter
Jan 3, 2008
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- “Weird Al” Yankovic – White and Nerdy
- On the ‘getting freaky’ with Bubble wrap thing ...
- Randy’s Last Lecture
- Miss Teen USA South Carolina responds to a question ...
- DN9000k10 – ‘Bride of Monster’ now shipping
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“Weird Al” Yankovic – White and Nerdy
This is old, but if you haven't seen this video satire from Weird Al it
is worth your time:
White and Nerdy
(sound required, but probably safe for work). The original,
called “Ridin’
Dirty” (sound also required, and maybe safe for work), by
Chamillionaire and Krayzie Bone is an excellent rap song although I'm not
certain I understand the situational context that makes these guys so
angry. Weird Al changes “Ridin’ Dirty” to “White and Nerdy”
and the result is very, very funny. Kudos to Chamillionaire for
allowing Weird Al to parody his song. It cannot be fun to have your
art mocked in this manner.
I was once an engineer (now sales and marketing, unfortunately) and I can
relate to many of the nerd stereotypes that Weird Al mocks. In
truth, nerds are cool these days, so we don't have to
hide. More nerd info here if you are interested:
White &
Nerdy, Wiki. Incidentally, if you do not know whether you
are a Nerd, Dork, or a Geek, this 60-question test can help:
Nerd, Dork, Geek. ‘Dweeb’ is a different issue. If you
are not aware of the differences, the test has a complete description at
the end. I'm proud to say I tested as a ‘Cool Nerd’.
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On the ‘getting freaky’ with Bubble wrap thing ...
As I sit here in my office writing this, one of my engineers is popping
bubble wrap, making concentration difficult. I will assume you have
seen Weird Al’s video above. Pop quiz for you MBA-types --
The proper management response to this type of office behavior
is:
1 -- Tell him to cut it out. Inform him that this is
unacceptable and annoying office behavior that will NOT be
tolerated. Make a note of it in his personnel file. Have him
sign the warning for legal cover. Consider termination if behavior
continues.
2 -- He'll run out of bubbles in a few minutes. What’s
the problem? If this is the most annoying thing he is doing you’re
probably lucky. Last week he was showing off his new tattoo, which
could be charitably described as a disemboweled walrus with acne.
The text description underneath the tattoo is an APL program that when
executed, prints a description of an unnatural act one would do with a
tray of ice.
3 -- Walk over, engage him in conversation. Attempt to get him to
do something else by diverting his attention. Suggestions: “You
need to comb your hair, dude.” OR “Nice socks. Aren't they supposed
to match?”
4 -- Ignore it. This is the type of thing good engineers
do. It’s late and there aren't that many people still around.
After (if) he finishes, make sure that there isn't any more bubble wrap
around for him to abuse.
5 -- Shout from office: “HEY! CUT THAT OUT!!!!!” That
should fix the problem.
6 -- Bubble wrap should be recycled to help the environment.
Popping the bubbles makes the wrap useless. Take the stuff
away from him and tell him about the baby birds he has just viciously
MURDERED with his willful environmental ignorance. THIS IS A GREEN
COMPANY AND NO WASTE IS TOLERATED!
7 – Get him one of these:
Mugen Puti Puti.
The correct answer is ‘4’ or ‘2’ and possibly ‘3’. Action ‘5’ would
serve no purpose and ‘6’ is silly. ‘7’ might work. If you
answered ‘1’, do not EVER try to manage a group of smart, creative
individuals in the engineering field. You will fail and they will
have fun watching you fail.
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Randy’s Last Lecture
You are a professor and you are asked the following question:
"If this were your last time to address a group of students, what
would you say to them?" This seems macabre to me, but
popular professors are being asked to present their ‘Last Lecture’ as a
form of campus entertainment. And the professors giving these
‘final lectures’ are filling stadiums with the presentations. Meet
Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Professor
Randy Pausch.
Professor Randy was asked this question and he responded. The ticket to
the presentation was hard to get. The twist here is that this may,
in fact, be Randy’s last lecture. He is suffering from terminal
pancreatic cancer. Randy’s life philosophy seems to be “When you
encounter an obstacle, overcome it.” Pay attention to the Disney
rejection letter part of the talk – it is pervasively motivating.
Much more so than this phony:
Tony
Robbins. Randy’s influence is broad – if you have played
a video game in the last 10 years, you have used some of his
technology: ALICE
News report about his last lecture here:
CMU
professor gives his last lesson on life
Randy’s last lecture on google.video here:
Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
Regarding Randy,
ari_b
(1159899)
makes the following comment in slashdot: “… Nowadays, one of
my most valuable tools for any major decision (and even some of the small
ones) is to ask myself, "Would I be embarrassed to tell Randy about
this?"
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Miss Teen USA South Carolina responds to a question ……
On a (much) lighter note, let me introduce you to Miss Teen USA South
Carolina,
Caitlin Upton (safe for work).
More
Caitlin here. During the Miss Teen USA 2007 contest, Caitlin is
asked “Why can't 1/5th of Americans locate America on a map?”
Click here for her answer with helpful subtitles:
Caitlin’s Answer
(WARNING – possibly cringe inducing but very funny. Audio is
required.) Now I'm going to surprise you. Rather
than mock her, make a slew of dumb blond jokes, complain about the state
of our educational system, and go on to the next subject, I'm going to
defend her. Although my modeling career is long behind me, I
spend a lot of time in front of audiences for MUCH lower stakes. I
have long lost the primal fear of public speaking. At the awkward
age of 17, however, I cannot imagine how frightened I would have been to
be forced, on a nationally televised event, to answer a random PC
philosophical question that I could not, in advance, prepare. I’m
sure I would have frozen completely. My YouTube video would have
been of me gagging, mumbling, and choking. I have seen the most
seasoned of speakers freeze in high pressure environments. When on
the podium, usually you can't hear the question. I argue that
Caitlin should be cut a great deal of slack. In similar
circumstances I would have done worse. And I'm sure ‘worse’ is
possible.
She appears to be taking her celebrity in stride:
Miss South Carolina Teen
USA explains herself. With her looks, she'll have WAY more than
these 15 minutes of fame. You go girl!
PS – During job interviews, HP (et al.) is known to put a new grad in a
conference room with several senior engineers. The new grad is
forced to stand at a white board with a marker in his hand while the
engineers in the audience hurl impossible or tricky technical questions
as if shooting for a bull’s eye. The interviewee is expected to
answer the questions and answer them correctly. Somehow, the
argument goes, a job applicant’s ability to excel in this artificially
created, high pressure situation is predictive of that individual’s
ability to do complicated, highly technical tasks. I'm more than
skeptical. This is analogous to what was done to Caitlin at this
beauty competition. I have long argued this interviewing technique
accomplishes nothing beyond creating abject terror in a young
engineer. It certainly isn't predictive of a new grads’ ability to
perform difficult technical tasks in a work environment. While this
can be entertaining if you aren't the target, the emotional damage from a
poor showing can be lasting and severe.
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DN9000k10 – ‘Bride of Monster’ now shipping
We have started shipping the
DN9000k10
– ‘Bride of Monster’. This product contains 16 Xilinx LX330 FPGA’s on
a single circuit board. This is the world’s most aggressive use of
Xilinx’s largest Virtex-5 FPGA. The single board approach
eliminates the performance, reliability, and clock distribution problems
so rampant in the
toy-like
‘stacked’ solutions. This product has 3.32 million flip-flops/LUTs,
and can comfortably prototype 32 million gates of ASIC logic. The cost is
less than 0.3 cents per gate.
Auspy partitioning models are
provided. Lead-time is 2-3 weeks.
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Mike Dini
The Dini Group
1010 Pearl Street Suite #6
La Jolla, CA 92037-5165
Phone: (858) 454-3419
Fax: (858) 454-1728
www.dinigroup.com
mailto:mdini@dinigroup.com