This Atlantic article by James Fallows describes what he learned about Microsoft culture during a six month stint helping to design Word. Summary points: The people are nice, the pace is slow, the culture is meeting-centric, the planning process is radically “bottom-up” and surprisingly nonpolitical, people do talk about money (as in having lots of it), it is like the military (in a good way), and they understand exactly who their most important customers are. It’s a fascinating look inside the enclave. And it’s definitely an outsider non-geek viewpoint — I mean, I don’t see anything strange about rigging up a camera so you can see what your cats are doing while you’re at work! (thank you Landon)

In response to my entry about the $1 coin, Passerby (bonjour!) wrote a nice description of how the $1 and $2 coins in Canada led to generous tipping. Read the January 31 entry.

From the “no duh!” department: my favorite Super Bowl ad was, of course, EDS’ cat herding narrative. I often use the extreme phrasing of “herding white cats through a snowstorm”, but I suppose that would’ve been more difficult to film!

I’m sure this article about Colorado College replacing college entrance exams with a Lego building test is being linked to from everywhere. It made me remember thoughts I’ve had in the past about how to measure creativity. The Lego test isn’t designed for that, but perhaps it could be. Ingenuity is such an important facet of intelligence and the ability to solve new problems. And creativity is art. Multiple choice tests could never measure these qualities. More interactive tests have probably been produced to try to measure creativity, but it doesn’t seem to be something that colleges and companies directly look for. I try to gauge it when interviewing engineers by asking how they would handle certain situations I don’t think they have been in. Once in a while I can tell immediately that someone is a creative thinker, often I’m just not sure. It’s always been my favorite programmer trait, and I keep an eye out for it. I’m not sure it is something that can really be taught, though you can learn it by experience.

I have little brain left for original musings; had a very challenging meeting today at work. So instead I will let someone else do the thinking. William H. Calvin, a favorite thinker of mine about things having to do with, uh, thinking, has the entire contents of his book “The Throwing Madonna:
Essays on the Brain” online. He intersperses his books with wonderful quotes. I especially recommend the essays “The Lovable Cat: Mimicry Strikes Again” wherein he examines the similarities between cats and babies, and “Did Throwing Stones Lead to Bigger Brains“.