My princess-savvy girls have discovered Lego Star Wars, the XBox game. They’re too young to watch the Star Wars movies, but they make those Lego parts fly with their light sabers. And, of course, they fight over who gets to be Princess Amadala. Even better is when they’re BOTH the Princess… all sorts of confusion ensues.
Peek at some screenshots here…
A sign that I work in a male-dominated field: the ranking guy at my new office had to send out an e-mail to the guys in the office. He told them that that since their newest hire is female, the gents would no longer be able to commandeer the ladies’ room to use the shower there after their lunchtime bike rides. Sheesh…. I’m used to being in the minority, but this is amusingly out there.
Take a quick look over on Dice’s Rant Room… These folks are competing for a “a maxed-out Alienware Area-51® m9750 Notebook.”, and hopefully not raising the wrath of their HR departments, or their potential employers.
One that amused….
Interesting perks of my job of late:
– seeing us on Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network in banner ads, and part of the SpongeBob Friend or Foe episode sponsorship.
– knowing that we’re in Best Buy (search ‘kajeet’ on BestBuy.com) and LimitedToo (again, search ‘kajeet’ on LimitedToo.com)
– We were in the WashingtonPost: my boss is the guy holding the cellphone
– We were on CBS News (!) tonight. See clips ‘Eye to Eye: Kids Go Mobile‘ and ‘Marketing Cellphones to Kids‘ (note that we’re the good guys at the end of this clip looking at all the bad things that happen in the market of selling cellphones to kids).
All very cool, and nowhere near anything I’ve had at previous jobs. I’ve been there a bit over a year, and seen us grow (sniff, sniff) from an idea / architecture to an operational system. My part in it? Based on some stats run against our code-base, approximately 28% of the code, or some 125,000 lines of code. (Note that I didn’t run the stat tool and count the numbers highly suspicious. That said, I’m holding onto the email that says ‘She is personally responsible for more than 125,000 lines of custom kajeet code, all written while leading a team of engineers, managing collaboration with Marketing and Product Development/Management, and interacting with half a dozen vendors.’ )
The sad part is that I’m leaving kajeet for pastures closer to home. The commute is killing me (running about an hour and a quarter each way for me in Beltway traffic, since I don’t live that close to Bethesda). That said, that leaves a wonderful opportunity for someone to come and fill my shoes. (No pressure here, looking at those stats above.) Cool job: Java technologies, interesting frameworks, agile development, smart team members, and a focus on building stuff that’s really going to get used. There’s no shelf-ware here: something you build today will hit the production system and be used by customers within a matter of weeks. Those Best Buy customers will be using YOUR stuff. Those CBS news viewers will be checking out YOUR stuff.
Check a job posting for a software engineer at kajeet. Multiple positions being hired, on a variety of skill levels. But it’s a good snapshot of the technologies and platforms in use.
Peeking through the local community college’s summer course catalog, a few classes jumped out that would seem to not be quite as useful when taken online.
‘Hypnosis, the Magic of’, whose course description includes “Learn to use hypnotic suggestion on yourself and others”. Look into my blue screen… you are getting sleepy..
‘Get Funny’, whose course description includes “Write one-liners, use physical humor and find ways to target your audience.” Oh, that ctrl-alt-delete combo gets me every time!
And my personal favorite: ‘Goodbye to Shy’: “Become more confident in social, professional and romantic situations. Learn how to interact with and relate easily to others” – so long as all interactions are via the computer. Hey, babe: I find your typing quite sexy. Can I buy you a PayPal credit?