Google has no work for me / Our claim on eternity / Change of plans / List of books in…

Google has no work for me

I applied for a job in Google. They asked me to send my transcripts. It took them about 3 weeks to come up with the following:

"We received your resume and would like to thank you for your interest in Google. After carefully reviewing your experience and qualifications, we have determined that we do not have a position available which is a strong match at this time."
"Thanks again for considering Google. We wish you well in your endeavors and hope you might consider us again in the future."

And they could not even address it to me. Just copy-paste from somewhere. Is that how much I am worth? Or any applicant, for that matter.
Job search continues. It seems to be hard if I cannot even get through the first step and get into a interview. Let's see. I think I really have to get into a PhD-program. It may well turn out that I am an outcast, not really good for any corporate positions. Hmm..., I think it is time to have a toast to Google.
Then again, maybe I should write more elaborate resume, maybe I should mention smaller things like working as a kind of quality manager, defining SW and architecting processes, taking Wiki-based communication systems in use, working on product strategy, elaborating my international experience more, working as a change agent, and whatnot. It seems, that in USA one must mention and boast of all achievement, no matter how small they are. Ok, this is one thing to do during the break. And maybe I should take some "fashionable" courses, boast about Jave, Cnet, and all other trivial issues. Maybe that is the name of the game. Any ideas and opions are very much appreciated by me, the job seeker. Just click on the comment-link below. Come on, make my day!
Suomeksi sanoisin, että yllättävän paljon vituttaa moinen kohtelu. Peskeles, täytyy vaan truivaasta. Kyllä se siitä!

Our claim on eternity

George Monbiot has written a very wise column in the Guardian. I find his writing very true and aligned with my view of the world:

[...}I find this oddly comforting. I like the idea of literal reincarnation: that the molecules of which I am composed will, once I have rotted, be incorporated into other organisms. Bits of me will be pushing through the growing tips of trees, will creep over them as caterpillars, will hunt those caterpillars as birds. When I die, I'd like to be buried in a fashion which ensures that no part of me is wasted. Then I can claim to have been of some use after all.
"Happy the hare at morning," WH Auden wrote, "for she cannot read/ The Hunter's waking thoughts. Lucky the leaf/ Unable to predict the fall ... But what shall man do, who can whistle tunes by heart,/ Know to the bar when death shall cut him short, like the cry of the shearwater?"
It seems to me that we are the happy ones. We, alone among organisms, who perceive eternity, and know that the world will carry on without us.

You definitely should read the article, if you wonder what legacy you are going to leave in the world. Or maybe you should read it even without wondering eternal issues.

Change of plans

I have changed my plans a bit, as I realized that I will get only huge stress if I try to work on my thesis before traveling to Finland. Most likely I do not get anything done. I am mentally tired, I need to get away from MIT for a little while, I need to read some of the books I have bought this year, but not read. Maybe I could write my long overdue "Guide to lean studying - how to do two degrees in one year and still have a life". It will be an instant bestseller in bookstores of TOP-25 universities of the world. And I will have enough money to pay my tuition. And writing it will be fun.
So, from now one, until the 7th of September: sleeping a lot, cycling, walking, reading, meeting friends and relatives, partying. Should be enough.

List of books in a nice format

After about an hour of furious hacking, I managed to convert my list of books to a nice, web-friendly, format. Check it at the list of books. It even has helpful links to Amazon in case you want to buy some of my books. I am not selling.
If I ever become unemployed, I will input all my books. Then I will need to arrange them a bit. A single list would be rather long. I have some 40-50-meters of books in Helsinki. Of course, part of them belong to S but anyway, many books in out house..

Time to start writing thesis

Well, enough cycling, drinking, and sleeping as the only things I do daily. Today I will start working on my Master's thesis on complexity measures of system architecture models. It is a fascinating topic and one which is not that well known yet. One must always work on novel topics. So, what is it going to be about. It is going to be about the KISS-heuristic. How can we keep it simple, if we do not have formal (or semi-formal) methods for estimating the complexity of a model? How can we choose among several models, if only we can rely on is our intuition. Each of us has different intuition, thus we get a nice discussion. Therefore, developing some complexity measures would be at least slightly important for the profession. Another note: de Weck's isoperformance-idea also relies on some intuitive notion of complexit. He proposes choosing among different alternatives, which all have similar performance. I think one criterion he subconsciously uses is complexity. And then there is Occam's razor to keep in mind. Oh, this is going be great fun, almost awesome, yay, yummy, and all other teen words popular here in USA.

An article on exurbia

New York Times has an interesting article on the growth of suburbia. It is quite much in line with Peter Elk's observations. And even though it is worst here in USA, the same development is going on in Finland, too. When I was kid, my grandparents lived in the countryside some 30 km away from Tampere. Neither they nor any of their neighbors commuted to Tampere daily. It was just too far. A few years back, when my grandmother died, we sold the remaining fields for developers, who build them full of house. Everyone commutes to Tampere. Not even high prices of gasoline prevent them (it is now 1.3 euros per litre!) from commuting. Interesting.
If you can read Finnish, please read another article by Peter Elk. He writes really well, much better than I do, of similar topics, which I care for.

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs from July to September 2005".