IT: Microsoft Recruiting in Australia

Aussies working at Microsoft must be doing a pretty decent job because some recruiters from Microsoft will soon be heading over to conduct interviews in Australia, primarily in Sydney. They're looking for:

Software Design Engineer (SDE) with:

• Fluency in C/C++/C# and a passion for writing quality code using computer science fundamentals
• Ability to derive creative and innovative solutions by thinking "outside the box"
• Ability to solve complex problems, sometimes by testing and debugging code
• Expertise in feature definition, design, and feasibility

Software Design Engineer in Test (SDET) with:

• Fluency in C/C++/C#/VB.NET and experience designing and developing tool architecture
• Ability to solve complex problems and write automation systems and device drivers
• Ability to author test plans and cases, conduct security and stress tests, and debug at source level after identifying and prioritizing bugs
• Demonstrated skills in negotiation and conflict management
• Demonstrated interest in customer advocacy derived from a holistic understanding of the product from the code level to delivery

If you're interested let me know. The jobs would be located in Redmond, Washington.

Health: Elbow 1, Cheek 0.

Tonight I'm not at the Bonza Bash because on Wednesday night my cheek bone was broken by a flying elbow in a game of soccer. You can see the relevant part of the X-Ray in the image on the right. The bone that is pointing in like a V shape should actually be curved a little outwards.

I've been told that I've got a zygomatic arch fracture and will need to have surgery on it sometime next week (and this will probably be something like the scary picture in section 9). In the meantime my face looks a little flat and I'm struggling to eat and talk a bit. The bone is pushing into the muscles that help chewing/smiling/laughing etc. Strangely other than when I try to eat it actually isn't as painful as you might think. I still think that a dislocated shoulder is much worse than this broken bone.

In any case, I've used some of the US health system services and so far I've been impressed. I went to the nearest ER at about 11 pm and was admitted promptly. A nurse made sure I wasn't an urgent case and then a doctor saw me within an hour. I was given a CD with my X-Rays and a diagnosis within 2 hours.

The following day I met with a specialist and had CT scans and did not have to wait more than 1/2 an hour for either. Parking was free (unlike back home in Canberra!) and I didn't have to pay any money upfront. I'm still waiting to see what kind of bill I get from the health insurance company and how the surgery goes, but all up the service so far has been top notch.

As for Bonza Bash, well George still went along so no doubt you'll hear more about that on her blog.

Seattle: Traffic

In a previous post I mentioned that Seattle traffic is something that everyone talks about, but I provided a traffic map from late at night with everything green. The map below from 5:15 pm on a Thursday is more representative of what traffic is really like, with lots of black (stop start) and red (slow going) on the freeways.

This is why alternative forms of commuting are getting much more attention here, including catching the bus, car pooling and van pooling where the city actually gives you a van to pick up work colleagues with and reduce the total number of cars.

Seattle: Random Things

I've noticed a few strange things hidden right next to some of the Seattle icons so I thought I'd share a few of them:

This is in the Seattle Center, which is just next to the Space Needle and Key Arena. There are twin foot massagers that are shaped like hands. Why? I'd hate to see what the back massager looks like.

In Pike's Place Markets, just near where they throw the Salmon, is a sign for a Gentle Dentist, which is a tooth that looks like it has been forcefully (or gently) extracted from someone's mouth. I'm steering well clear of this guy.

Seattle: Bonza Bash

On Saturday we're going to go along to Bonza Bash, which is an event started by a couple of Aussies working at Microsoft as a way to get together with other Aussies, New Zealanders and the odd American (and meet girls that were nicely dressed up, according to rumours).

This is the third year of the event and it is getting bigger and bigger. The first year it was held in someone's house, the second year it was in a classy photo studio in Seattle and now they have managed to hire out the Space Needle (shown left, which is one of the major icons in Seattle.

The event is a little pricey, but given the location and the chance to meet a few more Aussies I couldn't pass it up.

Canberra: Canberra Day

Today (the third Monday in March) is Canberra Day! Enjoy the public holiday if you're back in Canberra. It just reminds you how young Canberra is, with its official founding on 12 March 1913.

Movie: 300

Last week I went to see the movie 300 at the Cinerama in Seattle, which is an adaptation of the novel by Frank Miller, who also wrote Sin City. 300 is a very different movie to Sin City, with basically the only thing in common being the amount of ultra violence.

Here's the blurb:

"In the midst of the Persian-Greco war, Spartan King Leonidas leads his army of 300 soldiers into battle against the invading Persian army during the Battle of Thermopylae. According to legend, their valor and sacrifice inspired all of Greece to unite against the Persian foe, leading to the origins of democracy"

The Spartans are super-fit fighters who are taught to be tough from an early age. In fact, when a Spartan is born, if they look weak or sickly they are immediately put to death. If they are one of the fittest, they survive and undergo further ordeals including being sent out into the wilderness when they are seven either to die or return a real Spartan.

You can see that this sets the scene for some pretty ugly fighting. You have this small bunch of incredibly tough and muscle-bound fighters (yep, there are more 6 packs in this movie than in any I've seen, and I'm not talking about beer) going up against a massive but less aggressive army. The fighting scenes are impressive - there are legs being hacked off, probably more impalements than any other movie and of course the obligatory decapitations.

I went to see the movie with a bunch of guys from work (G definitely wouldn't like this one) and it was pretty enjoyable, but really the plot was rather limited. I still prefer Sin City.

Overall: 6.5/10

IT: Early Daylight Savings Time (mini Y2K?)

Today is the first day of Daylight Savings Time in Washington state and some other areas around the west coast of the USA. This is several weeks earlier than the usual start of daylight savings time, which since 1986 has started on the first Sunday in April. The idea was to have more daylight hours when people are up and about so that they don't need to use as much electricity for lighting and heating, thereby reducing the amount of energy used.

This does seem like a good idea, although some studies including one about Australia undertaken when the Sydney Olympics were on and NSW extended its daylight savings, suggests it may not be as effective as first thought.

However, after the hysteria surrounding the Y2K bug, it shouldn't surprise me that there are a number of news stations here that have been doing stories about how many different things could go wrong as a result of the time change. Some of them are also listed in the LA Times, including heating in buildings not working correctly, accounting systems going haywire, etc etc.

Of course today has come and almost gone and it doesn't seem like much has gone wrong at all. That said, developers really do have to start to take a little more responsibility for the coding of their systems, especially when coding in magic numbers of rules of thumb for computing date and timezone changes. A lot of the more minor issues are said to involve mobile devices which would have been built after Y2K and therefore developers should have known better.

USA: Girl Scout Cookies

A lot of American movies show people going to great lengths to avoid persistent girl scouts selling cookies. Well today I was cornered as I exited the QFC (supermarket) by some young girls and their minder parents. Sure, I could have said 'no thanks' and left them standing in the rain trying to sell their cookies, but I caved in and said yes.

Unable to choose between all the flavours (like samosas, peanut butter, various types of chocolately goodness) I asked them for their favourite type of cookie and I ended up with Thin Mints, which are pretty much the same as 'Mint slice' back home except they are a bit thinner.


They taste pretty good, but a single serve (and there are 9 in the box above) takes up 23% of your recommended daily intake of saturated fat according to the handy guide provided on the pack.

Seattle: Traffic

Aside from the weather in Seattle there is one thing a lot of people here seem to obsess about and that is the traffic. People talk about it a lot, they try to avoid it and some even alter their working hours because they just can't face it.


In some areas if you were to travel at 10:00am instead of 8:00am you could change a 45 minute commute into a 20 minute commute.

With all this interest in traffic, it isn't surprising that the Washington State Department of Transport has put together a website with detailed traffic information including live flow maps, video and alert warnings. This is even better than Google's maps with traffic flow and will prove useful when we move to a more traffic sensitive area.

Money: Currency Fluctuations and Banks

Recently I've had several issues trying to transfer money from back home to the states. Firstly, I've had to take a bit of a gamble on whether the currency is going to go up or down or stay the same. I had to make a call to transfer some money early this week so I did and I've since read that my timing was very poor because my transfer pretty much coincided with a 16 week low in the AUD -> USD conversion rate. If I had waited until the end of the week I would now have almost 1% extra cash in my account, which is significant.

The other problem I've had involves transferring money in the first place. Before I left home I went to my bank to authorize Overseas Telegraphic Transfers via Internet banking. This is an extra form that you need to fill out and if you don't do it, you probably can't transfer any money OS. Anyway, despite doing this at a branch, they somehow lost the form and so I had to fill it in over here and pay about $6 (US) to fax it back to them.

Another bank is causing me even more grief because they require a heap of extra info before they'll even let me transfer money between my accounts back home in Australia. If I were to do this again I'd suggest closing any accounts you don't need and making sure that the rest can be accessed and manipulated while OS.

IT: George's new blog!

George has a new blog. Her old blog went a little stale and she forgot the password, but now she has some pretty cool photos of Seattle. She explains the name in a post but basically she had a Mazda 121 that was kind of bubble shaped so she affectionately called it 'the bubble'.

In a rare (for George) nerdy moment, she noticed the odometer was going to tick over to a binary number (100,000 or something like that) and she was very taken with the name 'Binary Bubble'. With the move to the states she had to tearfully sell her bubble so now it lives on in her blog. The photo of George in her nice shiny bubble in the first entry to her blog is one of my favourites because she is so happy. So go take a look. The site also has photos and stuff...

USA: Social Security Number

Today I got my Social Security Number (SSN), just under 3 weeks after I arrived in the country. That is pretty good compared to some Aussies I know who had to wait for more than 2 months. The SSN is so important here and this is made very clear when you sign up for one. You are only entitled to a maximum of 3 replacement SSN cards in a year, and 10 in your life, which means that you need to take good care of it, since you need the number for pretty much anything to do with money, working or government services.

USA: Driver's licenses

One thing I didn't note earlier about driver's licenses here is that they include:

• Height (ft)
• Weight (lbs)
• Eye Colour

This is of course in addition to your photo, your address details and your birth date. So if somebody shows you their license you might find out a few things they didn't really want you to know. Or even worse, if you happen to lose your license whoever finds it would know some things about you that even close friends might not know.