September 2009

Girl in the Moon - 1923

published by Michael R. Barrick on Wed, 09/23/2009 - 21:40



I just found a real treasure-trove of public domain vintage stereographs to play with :-)

As usual, Facebook readers will have to view the original post to get the animation

Does Your E-Mail Signature Smell Like Spam?

published by Michael R. Barrick on Wed, 09/23/2009 - 14:12

Sometime around five or so years ago, it became du rigueur to have e-mail signatures in a format not unlike this:

Catwoman in the Lake City Art Museum

published by Michael R. Barrick on Sun, 09/20/2009 - 22:01



Created from a picture I took at Sin City last Hallowe'en (model: Rheannon Lena McMullen) and a photograph from when I visited the Art Institute of Chicago in 2004.

Just Heard this on CBC Radio 2

published by Michael R. Barrick on Sat, 09/19/2009 - 10:07

Apparently the federal government has preemptively sent extra body-bags out to remote native communities in anticipation of swine flu making the rounds this winter.

Somewhere in Ottawa, someone thought this was a good idea and the best course of action.

Oringinal post: http://mbarrick.livejournal.com/888327.html

Job Hunting and Whatnot

published by Michael R. Barrick on Fri, 09/18/2009 - 11:40

I've got a job interview out in Burnaby near Production Way station today. It's not the greatest job on Earth and I'm not super excited about it - which pretty much ensures I'll get an offer - but I can't afford to pass up opportunities in this job climate. Tuesday I have what is effectively a second interview (I had to pass an online technical test to apply and I'll be meeting with C-level executives) for a much more interesting job within easy walking distance from home.

"Face Hallucination"

published by Michael R. Barrick on Tue, 09/15/2009 - 23:11

For those that scoff at television crime dramas when they create high-res images from grainy surveillance video:

http://people.csail.mit.edu/celiu/FaceHallucination/fh.html

A Brief Summary of Class-Structure

published by Michael R. Barrick on Mon, 09/14/2009 - 13:22

Upper class: you have other people clean your toilets.

Middle class: you clean your own toilet.

Lower class: you clean other people's toilets.

Oringinal post: http://mbarrick.livejournal.com/887786.html

Pus-in-boots

published by Michael R. Barrick on Thu, 09/10/2009 - 20:07

Oringinal post: http://mbarrick.livejournal.com/887399.html

"8 + 1 = 8": What Passes for an Eight Hour Day in Vancouver

published by Michael R. Barrick on Tue, 09/08/2009 - 11:41

I'm not certain that this is a Vancouver peculiarity or is this a more widespread problem, but I would really like to know what happened to paid lunches and actual eight-hour days. The cliché standard working hours are, of course, 9-to-5, including lunch and coffee-breaks. Yet try and find a 9-to-5 job in Vancouver. What you will find is 8-to-5 more often than not, and despite the span of nine hours this is called "an eight hour day" by "virtue" of an unpaid, one-hour lunch crammed in there somewhere.

Certification and Quantifying Relevant Skills

published by Michael R. Barrick on Thu, 09/03/2009 - 10:00

here is a lot of emphasis put on certifications in the hiring process. To a certain extent I can understand this, after all, Human Resources professionals are not Information Technology professionals and certification provides the only reliable interface they have for a quantifying whether an individual really knows something about the technology they claim to understand.