Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot

A gorgeous, moving mashup of Carl Sagan's excerpted reading of his Pale Blue Dot with well selected and edited deep outer space animation. Be sure to watch it in 720p HD in full screen mode. Awe-inspiring.

Earth - The Pale Blue Dot

This short film was just relinked by John Gruber's Daring Fireball. I hadn't seen it before. It's a deep, inquisitive, speculative monologue of Carl Sagan, with compelling Earthly scenery. I've read most of Carl Sagan's books and was riveted as a child with his landmark PBS television series, Cosmos. This film apparently excerpts the audiobook version of Pale Blue Dot, one of his last books, although not his very last.

It's interesting to note the handful of common interests I seem to have with popular tech blogger John Gruber: Apple technology, the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, baseball, and, my most recently realized, Carl Sagan.

Even if you're not a Sagan fan, the film is worth one brief viewing.

Moving a Blog to Quora?

Interesting idea that some people are moving their blogging activity from a dedicated blog system like Tumblr to Quora. I guess I'll think about it for myself, but I don't immediately see the advantage.

Maybe someone can spell it out why.

For one thing, I'm not sure a private domain name can be easily set up to point to a Quora profile page.

Recommendations for starting up with Jobvite

Earlier today, I answered a Quora question and thought I'd also share the answer here.

We're getting ready to use Jobvite at our company, any recommendations for starting up? - Quora
(Question byline:) Want to make sure we're starting out using all best practices

Mason Wong, 4-time customer of Jobvite, lead implementation of Jobvite at 3 employers, furthered configuration of Jobvite at the 4th.

A lot depends on what your starting point is, whether this is your company's first ATS or you're migrating from an existing ATS, as there are both technical and process considerations. Many of the tips that initially come to mind are actually not Jobvite specific, but would pertain to any ATS implementation. Here are some of my recommendations:

* Gain as much executive sponsorship up front as possible. Ideally, your CEO prioritizes the recruiting function and is willing to personally announce the implementation and later encourage hiring managers to use the system and encourage employees to submit referrals through the system.

Xmas Breakfast: Char Kway Teow

Christmas breakfast Singapore style: fantastic char kway teow from a hawker stall at Ghih Moh where the old man cooks just one dish over and over and over, day in, day out, year after year after year. It is sublime.

If you're familiar with chow fun from a U.S. Chinese restaurant, it's kind of like that, but far better and more complex in flavor. Two kinds of noodles are stir fried with a complex sauce of sweet, savory, salty flavors, with various seafood, scrambled egg, bean sprouts, and even little blocks of crispy fried pork lard, with a touch of brightness from a fresh squeezed calamansi lime, and optional hot chili sauce. The textures should be light, the noodles not at all thick or gummy, and the temperature piping hot.

Done right, this signature Singaporean dish is well worth the 30 minutes I had to wait standing in line. When cooked wrong, with flavors either missing or out of balance, you will hear howls of protest from Singaporeans considering it a national disgrace.

Simply delicious.

More Signs of SF Bay Area High Tech Job Market Warming Up

Google and Facebook continue to dominate the news media when it comes to the ever-changing Silicon Valley job market, but most of us know that any kind of warming up of the competitive employment landscape requires the broad participation of smaller companies. I believe the greater San Francisco Bay Area's high tech sector has recently shifted in the past few weeks towards more hiring.

I haven't even been paying close attention to the most obvious indicators like job board posting volume or regional unemployment claims figures, although I do pay attention to them on occasion as part of my professional responsibilities.

The indicators I have are entirely anecdotal and rather similar.

Horrible Stampdede Tragedy in Cambodia

The curse of the deadly human stampeded has struck again, this time in Cambodia, on a massive and terrifying scale.

The Associated Press reports (via The New York Times website) "Hundreds Die in Stampede in Cambodia"

GlobalPost reports "Cambodia: More than 300 die in stampdede"

CNN reports "Stampede in Cambodia kills hundreds, government says"

I get nervous when a very large crowd gets too dense. I always stay aware of evacuation routes.

RIM is DOA

RIM in 2010 is DOA. Their recently released BlackBerry OS 6 is years behind Apple iOS and Google Android. RIM CEO is either delusional or a hipocrite.

The New York Times Bits tech blog posted "RIM Is Not App-Happy" on November 16, 2010.

GigaOm's theAppleBlog posted "Poking Holes in RIM's Anti-Apple Rhetoric" on November 18, 2010.

RIM CEO Jim Balsillie shouldn't be talking smack when he's the former 800 lbs gorilla sinking neck-deep in the quicksand of today's smartphone market.

Taking a Break from Facebook

I've decided to take a brief break from Facebook. Not really for any one reason. It just felt like the right thing to do for now.

Last weekend, I returned from a business trip to India, where I spent a work week with my colleagues in Hyderabad. It was my first visit to the subcontinent and I'm quite pleased with how the trip went. Most of my business objectives were met, the people there were welcoming and supportive, and logistically, I was fairly comfortable with the hotel, the flights there, the food, and so on.

I chose to use Facebook as my unofficial travelogue, making comments about my observations at the India office, and the surrounding community, to a relatively private set of friends, as opposed to here on my public blog or even on my Twitter profile. Getting a small handful of comments from friends was always reassuring, that my short, personal posts had some sort of audience. Other than daily calls with my family, Facebook was my own personal conduit to staying in touch with home.

Still Getting AlertSF Texts

It's been a few years since I last worked in the city of San Francisco and even longer since I lived there. I still get the emails and text messages from the city government's safety alert system.

Some of the alerts are still interesting, such as the tsunami warnings. Others are more mundane, such as street closures and other traffic related ones.

When I was both living and working in the city, I tried to be prepared for emergencies, so the city alert system subscription made a lot of sense. Post 9/11 and around Katrina we all were subjected to disaster awareness. And 2010 has shaped up to be a year full of global disasters.

Now, I am thinking about unsubscribing, at least from the text alerts that go to my cell phone. I think I can still handle the email alerts.

I should look into whether there are similar alert systems for my current cities of residence and workplace.