u l t r a m o o k i e

Update Here.
Now that it is official; and my team knows; and managers are talking…I can post publicly about my upcoming move!
I’m leaving the Ad Systems team and moving over to the Yahoo! Developer Network team!  The move will happen in early October as I’m just about to go on paternity leave for six weeks.
It was [...]

Update Here.

Now that it is official; and my team knows; and managers are talking…I can post publicly about my upcoming move!

I’m leaving the Ad Systems team and moving over to the Yahoo! Developer Network team!  The move will happen in early October as I’m just about to go on paternity leave for six weeks.

It was about four weeks ago when JR left Yahoo! for Netflix.  But, before he did, he pinged me and asked me if I wanted to work in YDN (without first telling me that he was leaving).  Of course! YDN has always been the one group that I wanted to join.  Soon after that, JR told me that he was leaving and that I would be taking his position.  Whoa.

A year ago, when JR joined YDN, I told him that one day I would work there with him — and if I couldn’t find a way in, I would steal his job.  I guess I kept my word.  During the interview with the YDN team, I kept getting asked how I knew JR.  And for some reason, I didn’t know.  But, I think I know…

So, the story goes like this.  When I was interviewing with Yahoo! some three years ago, one of the first blogs I read was JR Conlin’s.  A day or two before I got called by Yahoo!, JR had outed himself as a Yahoo — so, by the time I went looking for information about what life was like in Yahoo!, I was able to grep through JR’s blog for information.  When I joined, JR invited me to eat candy from his bowl — which I did and we kept in touch since then.

Since I’m not out of Ad Systems yet, I am not going to say “bye” to the team.  But, I am so excited about my move over the YDN.  I can’t wait to start there.

As for the title of this post:  The informal title for the position, when I was asked to interview at YDN was…”JR’s Replacement”.  I can’t replace JR, but I can definitely bring my own version flavor brand of hell to the group.

Yup!  It’s that time again!  Time for a Camp Yahoo! summer picnic.  It was great to see everyone at the picnic — even Jerry and David.  See pictures here.

Yup!  It’s that time again!  Time for a Camp Yahoo! summer picnic.  It was great to see everyone at the picnic — even Jerry and David.  See pictures here.

Things just fell into place today and I got $170 back into my pocket!  The family was eating dinner at the local Chinese restaurant (China Delight II).  The restaurant had today’s San Jose Mercury, so I just had to have a peek.  And that’s when I spotted the ad above!  What?  Fry’s was having a [...]

Things just fell into place today and I got $170 back into my pocket!  The family was eating dinner at the local Chinese restaurant (China Delight II).  The restaurant had today’s San Jose Mercury, so I just had to have a peek.  And that’s when I spotted the ad above!  What?  Fry’s was having a sale and they were selling my HP dv2910us notebook from Fourth of July for $170 off! One Day Only!

So, I drove over to Circuit City and talked to Customer Service.  The woman behind the counter looked in disbelief at the ad.  She called Fry’s to valid that the price was correct and that the notebook was in stock.  The price was right and they had them in stock.  Win!

She called her manager over, a tall lanky young guy, and told him about the refund she was going to give.

“Did you call?”

“Yes.”

“They had it in stock?”

“Yup.”

“Ouch.”

While the woman did the refund, the manager ran through what seems to be SOP for Circuit City:

“I don’t know if you know, but you can still get a free wireless gee networking and a free printer with this purchase.”

Ugh.  I smiled and told him “no”.  Circuit City is quite relentless with their “free*” (*after mail-in rebate) stuff.

Anyways, win for me as I got the $170 back from Circuit City!

I had started a lengthy review of The Dark Knight, but it was getting too long.  So, I figured short and sweet:
Go see it!
The Dark Knight is one of the best movies of this summer, if not the year.  It certainly tops Iron Man as the best comic book based movie.  And The Dark Knight [...]

I had started a lengthy review of The Dark Knight, but it was getting too long.  So, I figured short and sweet:

Go see it!

The Dark Knight is one of the best movies of this summer, if not the year.  It certainly tops Iron Man as the best comic book based movie.  And The Dark Knight is like The Empire Strikes Back — in that the sequel tops the original.

• Yes, Heath Ledger is excellent as The Joker — he is much better than Nicolson’s Joker.  This Joker is not about doing evil just for the sake of doing it.  This Joker does evil to test people.  He tests each and everyone’s morality and he has fun doing it.  This Joke understands the dicotomy between himself and Batman.  Whether Ledger should get the Oscar, I think he’s earned it with this performance.
• Christian Bale continues to show what a great actor he is.  His Wayne/Batman is a lot better than Keaton’s in that Bale fits the role better.  Keaton was certainly good as Bruce Wayne, but he did not have the physique to make Batman a menace to the bad guys.  Bale is awesome as Wayne and has the physique to make us believe that he can kick the living crap out of anyone.
• Freeman and Caine are also great in the film.
• I like the replacement of Katie Holmes with the stronger actress Maggie Gyllenhaal.  Gyllenhaal brings more to the character of Dawes than Holmes could ever dream of.
• I am on the fence about Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent.  The Dent story is the main storyline of the film and Dent is a key character.  While Eckhart is good, I don’t think he was as great as the part calls for him to be.  On the other hand, I can’t think of anyone else that could play Dent better.
• The Dark Knight has a very dense plot structure and really warrants multiple viewings.  I am glad that Nolan and his brother did not dumb down the script just because this is a “summer blockbuster”.
• If you thought that Batman Begins was lacking in action, Nolan makes up for it here in The Dark Knight.  The Dark Knight is crammed with action and it is all realistic — the use of CGI is held to a minimum and stunts are done real-on-reel.  This way of shooting stunts with a minimum of CGI adds a grittiness, excitement and depth to the stunt sequences.  Kudos to Nolan for going this route.
• The bank heist that opens the film is one of the best shot on film.  Ever.  It rivals that of the bank sequence in Heat.  It was exciting and tense.  And the sequence highlights the way that The Joker thinks and schemes.
• The score is again done by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard.  It is pretty easy to hear which composer did which parts — Zimmer the drum-heavy action stuff, Howard the quiet stuff to drive emotions.  It works, but it is not up to par with what is still the best score for a Batman movie:  Danny Elfman’s original score.

So, there you have it.  I loved The Dark Knight.  It is the best Batman film made, it tops Batman Begins and makes Burton’s two Batman films look rather cheery.  (I overlook the Joel Schumacher Batman films because of their suckage.)

I want to find out if I can downgrade my iPhone for the time being.  Is it possible?
The iPhone 2.0 software, while it has all sorts off cool features, is a bloody buggy mess.  The whole thing is slow (keyboard and Contacts are a good example).  The API support, from what I read, is what [...]

I want to find out if I can downgrade my iPhone for the time being.  Is it possible?

The iPhone 2.0 software, while it has all sorts off cool features, is a bloody buggy mess.  The whole thing is slow (keyboard and Contacts are a good example).  The API support, from what I read, is what is really causing third party apps to crash — not the apps themselves.

I think Apple really rushed this whole iPhone 2.0 and MobileMe stuff out the door.  And this is very disappointing for a company like Apple.  Using the iPhone 2.0 software is a constant test of my patience.  Launching some apps will, at random times, reboot my phone.  That is not fun.  Though I haven’t experienced this, I know my wife and friends have, typing on the keyboard is very slow.  Oh, and the battery life with the new software sucks ass.  It is terrible.  I barely use my iPhone and the battery is down a quarter of the way.  What is going on?  Upgrading to the official software helped, but it is still buggy as hell.

I hope Apple fixes these issues quickly.  As it stands, the iPhone 2.0 software is pure beta software and, for any other company, would not be considered production ready.  It is a decent show of what can be, but it is not a good show of what should be.

Shame on you Apple for putting out crappy seemingly untested software.

So, I had been sworn to secrecy about this product for a few weeks now as Mr. Wonko worked diligently on it.  But, now it’s been officially released: iPhone style search!  Point your iPhone’s Safari over to http://ysearch.com to experience how search should be on the iPhone.  The interface is in iPhone style, it is [...]

So, I had been sworn to secrecy about this product for a few weeks now as Mr. Wonko worked diligently on it.  But, now it’s been officially released: iPhone style search!  Point your iPhone’s Safari over to http://ysearch.com to experience how search should be on the iPhone.  The interface is in iPhone style, it is fast and elegant.  The Search Assist function saves you typing on the virtual keyboard and actually works really well.  Thanks Ryan (Mr. Wonko) for an awesome product for the iPhone platform!

Are you really serious President Bush?  Are you really?  You want to lift the ban on off-shore drilling, but you will say…
“I readily concede it won’t produce a barrel of oil tomorrow, but it will reverse the psychology,” Bush told a White House news conference.
Hey, how about this sir:  Just tell the American public that [...]

Are you really serious President Bush?  Are you really?  You want to lift the ban on off-shore drilling, but you will say…

“I readily concede it won’t produce a barrel of oil tomorrow, but it will reverse the psychology,” Bush told a White House news conference.

Hey, how about this sir:  Just tell the American public that you’ll be spinning up the printing presses at the US Federal Reserve and that you will be handing out millions of dollars to each American citizen.

That money won’t really get out to the American public; but,  you know, “it will reverse the psychology” and help Americans spend more during this economic downturn.

That would be a better way about going at it than opening up for off-shore drilling, which will not help anyone.  And could potentially destroy our environment.  Stop trying to help your oil drilling buddies President, try helping the environment instead.

I don’t know what this says about what President Bush this about the American public.  Does he think that the American public is dumb enough to buy into this “off-shore drilling will lower the price at the pump” deal?  Or is the American public really dumb enough to believe that bunch of shit?

Sheesh.