However, I saw a post (via LifeHacker) on Shiyan Koh’s blog: 5 Questions to Ask before Taking a Job, and it covers some pretty good and salient points, many of which I would echo. And there are some things I would add to it.

The main points in Shiyan Koh’s post are to meet the people one will be working with/for, knowing whether or not one can learn from those people, are they invested in one’s own growth and opportunities, does one feel good about working with them and trust them, and how focused are they on value creation?

The latter point is more nuanced, and the post goes on in detail about that (head over there to read it, don’t just glance through my minimal summary), and all the points are relevant and good things to think about and get answers to, though there are some additional things I would add.

Are you Excited about this Job?

Doing a job, just plugging away at a keyboard, is surviving, not excelling. Times are hard, yes, and maybe that is what is required at a certain point in time, but optimally any job seeker (and any employee I would look for) needs to be excited and passionate about what they would be doing there. And its not just a matter of working on a platform or language that one passionate and excited about, and neither is it just about working on a product, brand, or at a company one is excited and passionate about. It’s both of those things, and more.

Realistically, there’s nothing technically wrong with doing a job just because one can. However, it’s like looking at pictures of Paris instead of going to Paris, experiencing it, feeling it, being a part of it. In my experience, the best people to hire are the ones who are excited and passionate about what they would be hired to do, and the place where they will do it. They will provide feedback, push ideas and concepts forward, bring fresh perspectives, bring energy to the group, etc. Working at a specific job just because one can do that job isn’t all that bad in and of itself, but it cuts out so much more of the capabilities, and ultimately (in my estimation) ins’t a good way to spend one’s days. After all, people tend to spend more time at their jobs working on those things than they do with their own family and loved ones…it might as well be something that one has a passion about, and likes to do.

Is the Company Focused on Work/Life Balance?

This point is huge for me, and many others I know and work with. I come from a background of startups and the dotcom, then onto corporate behemoth Fortune 100 and 500 companies. None of those environments are typically good at keeping work/life balance as a priority, and many of them will pay it lip service on the one hand while forcing it on the other. I’ve worked 80 hour weeks for the past 7 years (I’m scared to see the average prior to those 7 years). There were 1-2 years in there, combined, where it was more like 100 hour weeks (one week I even hit over 118 hours). Why? Because I was excited and passionate about what I was doing, and I was extremely good at it. It was a self-reinforcing addiction. And I did not have leadership or environments that cared how much I was working, just that I was getting a hell of a lot done.

Working those kinds of hours is so negatively impactful on virtually every level. One loses touch with family, one is tired all the time, one’s brain is always in work mode, it becomes a habit that is hard to break, one doesn’t have time for a life, little things make one more cranky, etc. etc. Not to mention all the opportunities that are lost to the organization in this work mode (new innovations, methodologies, processes, etc.). It, quite literally, affects everything, not just one’s mental or physical health. And it makes time pass by so quickly, so deceptively quickly, that years later one may realize just what has changed in one’s life while one was busy. And it may be too late in some cases.

Besides, working more hours doesn’t directly equate into getting more done, and there’s plenty of evidence that says working more hours leads to more negative health impacts and inefficiencies (See: Why Crunch Mode Doesn’t Work – It’s the Single Most Expensive Way there is to Get work Done, and Overtime Doesn’t Always Pay, to name only a few).

So when I moved into management I was determined to not promote the same kinds of tendencies or expectations. I made it a point that the people who reported to me worked to live, and didn’t live to work. Especially since I look for people who are passionate and dedicated, which are traits that can easily lead to excessive work hours, and are thus easily abused by those who don’t have work/life balance as a priority.

Of course, there will always be times when more work is required, a launch or deadline is looming, etc. But these should be the exception, not the rule. These times should be balanced. And those who go above and beyond in those circumstances should be recognized and rewarded for it, as if they are not this is a very subtle cue that working insane hours is the expectation (though a manager should also be careful to not go too far with the recognition of working crazy hours, as that in and of itself can become the impetus for that manager’s reports to work even more hours to try and gain similar recognition). As with this overall point, things need to be balanced.

Any job-seeker should make sure to understand what the regular work hours are, what its like when a launch or deadline is looming, and how often do the hours go beyond normal work hours.

Is the Team Diverse?

Diversity is absolutely crucial to a strong team. I don’t just mean ethnicity or cultural backgrounds, I mean skillsets, technical backgrounds, and capabilities. In my experience, interviewing for a team where every person is virtually cookie cutter, all doing the same thing, is usually not a good sign. There are times when it works or is logical based on the work being done, but more often than not it tends to mean there is no other expertise to leverage, there is no drive for pushing the capabilities and knowledge of those on the team forward, and that they are doing the same tasks over and over. In the worst case scenarios, I’ve seen it equate into dictatorial middle management, rife with micro-managers who view the people who report to them as people they can lord over and be smarter than. In those extreme cases, it couldn’t be more wrong.

So the diversity of the team is crucial, and just as crucial is the diversity present in that team’s manager and their approaches (and, ultimately, executive leadership). If the manager’s background is not in something related to what the team is working on, that’s a pretty strong warning sign. If the manager tends to say things that reinforce the idea of there being only one way to do things and no divergence, that’s a pretty strong warning sign. Conversely, if the manager says things that tend towards welcoming new ideas, pushing new processes and methodologies, asking for critical feedback, being open to brainstorming and collaboration, etc. those tend to be groups that are managed much better, much more diverse, nimble, capable, and a place where one can grow their skillsets, both technical and non-technical.

Can you Grow at this Job/Company?

This is similar to Shiyan Koh’s point about a company being invested in the growth of the individual, and is such a crucial area that it bears repeating and more detail.

Improving one’s abilities is great, becoming better as a tech lead, or knowing the ins and outs of SDLC or OOP, learning Design Patterns, those are all great. Yet those are all, ultimately, more narrowly focused, often to the role at hand. Realistically, however, they are only one part of the equation. To truly grow, one has to be exposed to different things, concepts that are new or unfamiliar, tools and platforms that question one’s preconceptions, new types of projects or roles. There is an adage that any company is going to want its employees to learn and improve on things that help that company’s bottom line, and unfortunately that definition tends to be interpreted of the more narrow variety as opposed to growth that is diverse and not in a narrowed interpretation of a specific job’s duties.

Everyone has latent abilities and interests. I’ve had software engineers, flash engineers, and web developers who were interested in more middleware engineering, or how project management works, or any number of things that were not directly related to what that team or individual worked on day to day. However, I recognized that my employees learning these additional things increased their own skillsets, lets them flex different muscles, exposed them to new paradigms and thought processes, but also increased the knowledge, diversity and potential opinions and feedback that can be garnered from those employees. In short, while it wasn’t always directly applicable at first blush, the increased knowledge of any one individual was directly applicable in the collective knowledge of a team, its capabilities, understanding the “big picture,” and the happiness of a company’s employees.

Granted, that is my management style, and every person is different, but at the very least one should be able to know if a job will allow for additional training or knowledge, the room to expand and grow in different directions. And, much more to the point, one should know if the position is meant to do that one task or set of tasks and nothing else. If one is expected to simply do what one can already do, if there isn’t a focus or even possibility of growing in different directions that arise naturally and organically through one’s career, if the people who lead that team do not see the benefit of the people on that team understanding the bigger picture and being exposed to different things, then it could be argued that the position in question is far more limiting than others still out there, and has a much sooner expiration date than other positions would naturally have.

As a job-seeker, don’t accept jobs where one gets the sense or hint of stagnation or repetition. Those jobs will quickly tire, and quickly drain an employee of their energy and drive.

Never Make Assumptions

I really can’t stress this one enough, it is absolutely vital to a good interview and being able to make an informed decision as a job-seeker. Every company has their own quirks, their own definitions, their own ideas…many of them even have their own language or ways of describing things that are not common or industry standard at all. Not all of those will be the same as one’s own past employment experience. A Web Development team at one company may not be even remotely close to a Web Development team at another company. They could be doing more creative work, more design-focused, they may not have any focus on Front End Engineering. And, if the similarities are assumed, a Web Development team that hires Front End Engineers is the same as a Web Development team that hires designers, when they are quite clearly not the same. Assumptions would make them appear the same in this example.

Besides the potential pitfalls of those more extreme examples of how making assumptions in the interview process can be fatal, assumptions also sidestep key questions and answers in that a job-seeker may not ask any number of questions because they assumed commonalities, similarities, or that things were the same as a past job because it was referred to in the same way during an interview. Things like “Our process lets us do this kind of work more easily.” One may assume what that process is, for any number of reasons. Instead of making the assumption, ask what the process is. Understand it.

This also has the added benefit of coming off as a stronger candidate in the interview, who was more interactive and asked more questions. Never making assumptions and asking questions is always a better way to go about an interview (and countless other interactions in life). So don’t assume. Ask and understand.

In summary, there are countless other points one has to consider before deciding a job is right for them, and some things are only quantifiable or measurable for that individual (how far of a drive is it, benefits, perks, pay rate, culture, etc.), while others are more objective in commonalities, such as those listed above.

Overall, always know what you are getting into, think about things that have been pain points for you in your past experience, and ask questions to help you see if any place you are interviewing at has those tendencies. And I can’t stress this enough: never make assumptions in interviews, even down to the point of assuming one company’s definition of a development or tech team is what you think it is…they aren’t always the same. Know what you are getting into.

Remember what G.I. Joe said: “Beach Head, I wanna talk to you about your deodorant.” (And you thought it would be about knowing being half the battle.)

Related posts:

1. Eight Reasons Why Most Technical Interviews Suck

For the sake of full disclosure, I have a rather lengthy background in Flash and virtually all of Adobe’s product offerings. I no longer develop in it professionally, but have managed and ran extremely large Flash-based projects and products. I don’t hate Flash. Flash irritates me at some points, but most of those irritations are due to Adobe or the way some people write half-assed non-abstracted and poorly constructed code. But that doesn’t make me hate Flash.

What seems to make other people hate Flash, in my experience, is the use of Flash. Annoyingly in-your-face ads, being a resource constraint, significant browser bugs and crashes associated to poor implementations, to name only a few. There are plenty of reasons people say they hate Flash, but I have yet to hear of a single reason that is actually due to Flash. Every reason I have heard thus far is actually due to the underlying ways and reasons why that particular flash element was created or used (its buggy, its not optimized, it doesn’t use proper loading techniques to ensure speedy delivery and performance, etc.), or bad browser support. It’s just far easier to say “I hate Flash” than “The guy who wrote this AS code is a jerk, does he even know OOP? And why is this thing loading in 17mb of data on page load? And why isn’t the browser keeping its process cleaner than this? WTF?”

Nope, way easier to say “I hate Flash.”

But those who hate Flash, do they also hate JavaScript? Or HTML? How about cookies, do they hates them? After all, each of these things are used for bad reasons and written horribly, and are far more prevalent to browsing the internet (and I don’t mean that in the sense of Flash penetration, but rather that JavaScript and the like are far more often used for nefarious or malicious purposes, either willfully or accidentally, and their improper use leads to far more performance and stability issues than Flash, generally speaking).

I also wonder if many of the people who say they hate Flash even know what JavaScript or cookies are, or even realize the browser can (and often does) cause most of these perceived issues. I know some people in the tech world who say they hate Flash, people I wouldn’t go so far as calling technologists, but reasonably smart people who should be more informed of the nuances of the environment this Flash thing they hate is running in. None of the reasons they had (so far) are valid, either.

What one has to realize is that “Flash” is now a media term, its a popular term in the common lexicon easily used by people who know almost nothing about computers, browsers, or the internet. Its the same with “OS” and “iOS,” they are just a minor sampling of what have become popular terms that the masses are exposed to, so now some guy who lives in his mom’s basement and still has to use a 40-year old 50lb. rotary phone from Ma Bell because he can’t figure out buttons can talk about Operating Systems.

So Flash is easier to single out, it’s more visible to people and can be pointed to more easily, I get that. But it is blaming the entire technology and platform based on marginal evidence and only sporadic issues, combined with perceived issues that are often due to having mass spyware on a machine, or bad JS/front-end code going on, or memory leaks, or just not really understanding what they are talking about.

Child (popup) windows are annoying, popup and popunder ads piss me off. But I don’t go around saying I hate JavaScript. The blink tag was often used in the most annoying ways, but I didn’t go around saying I hated HTML. Wallpapers and backgrounds, especially back in the geocities-infused “I’m a l337 webmaster!” early days, with lens flares and all the other beginner effects in Photoshop, slow down sites and add huge images to load…didn’t go around saying I hated Photoshop. Tracking cookies can be used for bad stuff, and I hate analytics cookies laying around in a browser (though there is something rewarding in killing them off and blocking them from future setting) without my explicit permission…but I don’t go around saying I hate browsers or the concept of cookies.

What I do hate are things that are used without thought or diligence, bad code, memory leaks, inefficient and lazy code that cause sites to run slow or throw errors or generally kill my browsing experience. Flash doesn’t do that all on its own. Flash is no more guilty of that than any of the other elements or languages used in the browser or the browser itself. Otherwise, Flash doesn’t cause these issues for me until I hit a Flash element that seems to run and trace and profile/load like it was written by a monkey…or someone who works at an ad agency (the two are the same, really, monkeys and people who work at ad agencies… What?).

So what about people on Macs? Isn’t Flash unusable on Macs and causing everything to hang and lag and spawn little teeny tiny demon dwarven mages to wreak havoc upon one’s entire life, running all over the house and peeing in the mayonnaise and kicking the family furry pet right in the gonads just because one looked at a site that uses Flash on a Mac? Nope. Unless that person has no idea how that computer they’re using works or cannot differentiate between what they think Flash is doing that they hate versus what they don’t know that is doing what they hate. Or they’ve been cursed by a witch of some sort. In my experience, teeny tiny demon dwarven mages don’t do that to mayonnaise or pets unless they’ve been ordered to do so by magical incantations (don’t ask how I know that).

I’ve used Macs for years, worked on, built, lead, and maintained Flash heavy sites and platforms, I’ve met with and argued with Adobe multiple times about various uses and plans for Flash, Flex, ActionScript, and more, browsed and used Flash heavy sites (like most of the people on the web), etc. etc. The only problems I’ve had with Flash are related to some pretty annoying slip ups by Adobe, or horrible browser integration (I’m talking about you, Firefox, though IE and Safari have had more than a few moments), or (and this is far more common) Flash elements that are too slow, doing too much, and/or insanely badly written and thus badly performing. The technology, Flash itself, isn’t really to blame there, it’s the people who created and abused that technology by not applying solid design and engineering principles to its creation.

Then there’s the Steve Jobs factor. Some people just want to repeat whatever Steve Jobs says and he doesn’t like Flash all that much because it will completely ruin his slavery day App Store for the “iOS” devices, I get it. It’s easier than thinking on their own, for some people. I guess thinking can be hard, being informed about what one accuses is tough. One would have to actually understand what they are saying, and that’s not very American, that doesn’t taste like freedom. Plus Steve is bandied about in the media constantly, and looked up to by quite a few, so some people seem to think if they have the same opinions he does (or merely repeat what he says) then they are, by association and feigned like-mindedness, at Stevie’s level and made of smart. He’s popular these days, his mom thinks he’s special too, and he likes thinking for other people, so why not, right?

But for those who say they hate Flash, just make sure they are informed enough to even know what they are talking about before these accusations or generalizations are leveled, especially those neophytes out there who say they hate Flash. Being opinionated (especially negative opinions, in this country specifically), contrary to popular opinion, does not immediately make one an educated or informed person.

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The film was still a somewhat rough cut, the sound was not final in some scenes, but it was still a great documentary to watch, especially if you have in any way a fascination with animation or Disney. It was co-directed by Don Hahn, who worked on those movies I mention above, as well as being the author of various artistic books. Don gave us a brief intro and then mostly let the film do the story telling. Which it did quite well. Having a long history going back to my childhood with Disney (like many of you, I imagine), I was fairly excited to see the stories of Animation. I have family who have worked for Disney, my first movie was a Disney movie, my first ride was a Disney ride, my career has its associations to Disney, etc. etc…so there was a fair amount I already knew, and a natural tendency to be interested in this subject matter. And it just so happens there was some footage showing a Castmember Party at Disneyland where Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner served hotdogs. And as a kid I just so happened to be one of the people that got served a hot dog by Michael Eisner. And no, I am not on camera. But it was personally amusing and nostalgic to be reminded of that moment.

The great thing about Waking Sleeping Beauty was that it was as if you were in a room full of these icons of Disney Animation and animation at large and just listening to them tell stories. I think this was certainly helped by one of the guiding rules of the documentary, as explained by Don, being that only archival footage would be used for the film. Seeing the people, in their element and in the prime of this story’s timeline, certainly helped that feeling of being in the same room with them. And additionally, having read Disney War, there were many things I could relate to and slot together like puzzle pieces from that book to this documentary.

However, I have to say what made this experience more surreal and unique for me was what happened a few days after seeing it. This early screening was invite only, and I and one of the guys on my team were invited. He couldn’t make it due to being on vacation to visit his family, but I know how much he likes Disney. So I sent Don an email (since he was kind enough to provide his email before the screening, if any of us had feedback) asking if there were any additional screenings, and in the process of writing him that simple email I began to realize that I was talking to someone who helped create so many memories of my childhood, and thus helped shaped my childhood. It then became this very surreal moment of being able to thank one of those people for what they did, for the memories they gave me, the enjoyment of seeing all those Disney masterpieces. And that, in and of itself, was quite humbling to me.

So once again I say, even though I know it wasn’t an individual effort: Don, thank you for making this great documentary, and thank you for your work on all those movies that to this day hold special memories for me and so many countless others.

For the rest of you, you should go see this documentary.

Originally written August, 2009. Posted June, 2010.

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For background, t-shirt sized estimates seem to follow the rule of asking for a small, medium, large, or extra-large estimate against an effort. And, more often than not, the reason why people ask for this type of estimate is because the required information to make good, well-thought out estimates is not available at the time. So, in what passes for a natural response to these people who couldn’t estimate the number of crayons in a box, t-shirt sized estimates were born and make sense…to them. But they make zero sense.

Because they are lies.

Any estimate that is based on the entire premise of “not enough information” isn’t an estimate. It’s guesswork, it’s a swag. But, more specifically, t-shirt sized estimates are just flat out lies. Of course, in reality, “educated guesses” and “swags” are lies too, but because we’ve come up with descriptive terms and uses for them, they get accepted as some semblance of the truth, and that semblance is one too many people far too often forget is based on guessing, and not estimation. T-shirt sized estimates are even worse, in that their entire premise and reason for use is predicated on a lack of information. In other words, their entire existence is owed to flaws and lack of information. Its like trying to take The Nothing from The Neverending Story and turn it into something…but with no Luck Dragon. So what can you extrapolate from nothing? Lies. Sure, you as the estimator don’t mean to say them as lies, but what other choice do you have based on what you are presented in these situations? And yes, we’ll all refer to them as educated guesses, but lets stop offending educated guesses by lumping them in with uneducated backwater attempts at creative problem solving.

But what becomes worse than the lies that are asked for in t-shirt sized estimates, are the lies this process completely and utterly guarantees.

Think about it. A client or Producer/Project Manager comes to you, without a PRD or spec doc, gives you a vague and (in reality and most likely) completely incorrect overview, then asks you how long it would take to design, build, test, and deploy. Uhhhh…Extra Large? WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN! Nothing. Given that scenario, any engineer will think of all the edge cases, the projects that they’ve been burned on in the past (even those that aren’t related or similar to the task at hand, because how would they know otherwise given no information?), all the unknowns, then realize there are unknowns they don’t know, then sprinkle in all the organizational problems in process and requirements gathering, and how could they not end up with an XL or XXL t-shirt sized estimate? No one who has been in the game long enough will want to underestimate in that scenario, nor would they want to over-promise. All that ends up meaning the only logical conclusion is to explode the estimate based on the lack of information. Or they’ll just pick an answer from the available options. Which means the estimate means complete and utter nothing.

Now let’s add in the other part of why this estimation process is the domain of inept kings in middle-management: this is poison in an organization. Any engineering organization needs good estimates to forecast work and availability, to plan, to assign resources, to balance work load, to reduce insanity, and instill trust and confidence in themselves and other parts of the organization, as well as the ability to improve estimation processes and identify efficiencies over time by having historical data and records to evaluate. Additionally, all engineers need to be able to understand the ramifications, ripple impacts, and inputs they need in order to do their work, not only for their own sanity, but for the overall project, as well as their career growth into senior positions and leadership roles that can teach others the nuances of these types of processes, which leads to overall improvements in the organization. Not to mention the fact that bad estimation, missed dates, are cancerous and an extremely slippery slope. Once others, who rely on the estimates provided by engineers and technology, see enough of those dates slipped, they stop believing any estimate that comes out of that group or team. But, more to the point, over time this erodes their belief in anything this team tells them. It introduces doubt at all levels of interaction. Then, add the timeline of projects to that and eventually the Producers or Project Managers will predict failures (since they stopped believing you) and be right. They added 4 weeks to a plan because they’ve been burned before, or they held off the start of another project because they knew this project would eat resources longer than expected, etc. And then it happened. Now they’ve validated their lack of faith and trust, all while having evidence they can use to justify this lack of trust, to themselves and to others in positions of power, and now they’re off and running. They are justified in not believing you at this point, they’ve saved projects because of not believing you, and now this tendency is going to very easily become part of their culture and one that they are rewarded for (either directly or indirectly), and a cultural facet that will take months, if not years, to chip away at in an effort to prove the best practices of any technology organization. I’ve seen it over and over again in engineering organizations who don’t enforce and teach good estimation processes.

Now, this isn’t all to say that if an organization isn’t doing t-shirt estimates then their estimation process is fine, or that these other issues I touch on can’t happen either way. That’s completely untrue. Good software estimation needs to be a pervasive force in the culture of a high-performance engineering team, and if it isn’t and whether or not it uses t-shirt sized estimates, the very subtle and very poisonous things which t-shirt sized estimates and generally bad software estimation lead to can and will still happen given a long enough timeline (especially in fast-moving shops, or shops with multiple concurrent projects, or shops with shared tech resources, etc.).

Estimation needs to be based on facts, truth, and documented guarantees when those are not present (and I would only say the latter when working with people I’ve come to know and trust over the years and dozens of projects). Lack of information is not an opportunity to pretend the information is there and make things up, but this is exactly why the people who tend to offer up this type of estimation think (incorrectly) that they are coming up with a creative solution to a problem that lets the team keep moving ahead. They are wrong, and so woefully shortsighted that they should never be in a position to force this kind of estimation.

Lack of information is a lack in process… fix the reasons why an estimate is asked for when the required information for the estimate is missing (and make sure you, as a member or leader of an engineering organization, have documented and explained what you or your team need in order to make good estimates), and then estimate properly, with all the rigor and due diligence that goes along with it.

If you just want to make shit up and ensure failure…well, I can think of a few companies where you’d fit right in.

Otherwise, if you’re going to play the game, play to win. There are a multitude of things that lead to and support good estimation, as well as a multitude of things that good estimation lead to and ensure. Everything is connected. Recognize that, think of how things play out and causality, and don’t accept faux attempts at intelligence or problem solving. Instead, push and help grow whatever group or team you are in to be better. And if you aren’t at that level where you can weigh in on good or bad process…get there. Play to win. Or find a different game.

Related posts:

1. Things You Need To Know in Technical Interviews
2. Eight Reasons Why Most Technical Interviews Suck

Download the HD or larger format videos from program-glitch-esc.

December 17, 2010 can’t come soon enough.

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Unfortunately, they are all sold out right now (rightfully so, with this level of badassery), so I can only hope that more get into inventory soon, since I’ll order a few of these in a heartbeat if I can (and trust me, getting just one vinyl you want is suicide: unless you’ve put one on before, you’ll horribly screw up the first attempt…if not more).

See more at skinat’s Etsy page for this decal.

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Related posts:

1. The iPad Sucks

This is a single-task linear device that is a locked down black box which an owner has no control over. Apple has perfected Orwell’s 1984, but for devices. The App Store is a mortal sin, and it is censorship, control, and limitation at its core, disguised as stability and safety. From the wide ranging lies and double-dealing with VoiP apps to the debacle with Google Voice, the issues go on and on. The App Store is even one of the reasons why Apple won’t let Flash onto the iPhone, because it completely undermines the entire walled garden of the app store. And the App Store is the main reason I’ve shelved building the 3 iPhone apps I was working on (2 smaller ones, and 1 pretty big one that has a lot of potential…maybe one day…maybe non iPhone-OS platforms).

But here’s my reasons about why I won’t be picking up an iPad, despite my former hopes that an Apple tablet would be amazing and an instant buy for me.

1. Still tied to AT&T. Screw. That.
2. No multi-tasking. Seriously? That is a fatal flaw. On the iPad, IMing: “Wait, hold on, I have to log off so I can send an email, brb.” No listening to music while browsing or writing or using iWork. No being able to even see a doc or website you need to comment on in an email (you know, what some people call multi-tasking)…good luck. Major letdown.
3. The iPad requires an adapter to even use USB? Seriously?
4. All that nice “HD” video you can get on the iPad? Forget trying to output it to your TV or another device. There’s no HDMI/HD video out. Oh, wait…maybe they’ll start selling a $99 adapter for that.
5. $900 for 64gb. Wow. Amazingly overpriced for not nearly enough memory. This should have been a minimum 250gb drive for that price point.
6. Micro SIM. Welcome to even more sneaky ways for Apple and AT&T to control you and your use of a device. Because there are going to be zero other providers supporting Micro SIM for a good while to come. So forget about swapping your SIM or unlocking to get on a network that isn’t dedicated to suck.
7. Still no Flash. The iPad is supposed to be much closer to a netbook or laptop than something like an iPhone. Using the web is a highlighted feature. Yet there is no Flash support. Go figure, despite Flash being a prevalent technology for immersive and interactive websites. Oh, not to mention putting Flash on the iPad or iPhone would completely break the app store monopoly, but that has nothing to do with it, most definitely not. It’s because Flash is too heavy and Flash Lite is too light…sure, Steve.
8. Where’s the camera? Oh, right, there isn’t one. This isn’t necessarily a fatal flaw, but this sure seems to be a missed step from Apple. And that point speaks to the iPad in general: this does not seem nearly as well thought out or designed as their other devices. They merely took their existing hardware and OS (even removing a few things the iPhone already has), and enhugenated it. Nothing more.
9. And last, but certainly not least: It is still tied to the bullshit App Store regulation and control. Good luck making your device do what you want it to do or installing 3rd party apps (or real software), unless Apple has come down from their lofty clouds to take the time to approve some app that almost does what you want it to do, with Apple’s permission…unless they don’t like it or it conflicts or competes with whatever they choose to blame it on that day. You are buying into monopoly and control, and Apple is pushing this model far beyond just the iPhone and iPad. Don’t let them control your options so blatantly.

On a related, yet minor note, what the hell is with the bezel on the iPad? That thing is huge. All that screen real estate wasted for the bezel. Again, seems not nearly as well designed or polished as other Apple introductions.

Generally, though, the iPad seems to miss what we have all come to expect from Apple’s designs. It isn’t nearly as polished or feature-rich as what one would have, prior to this, expected from Apple. It’s a minor upgrade in only size, and a downgrade in some other areas (such as no camera). This is a misstep, and my only hope is that v2 of the iPad makes some significant improvements, as this first gen is just not what it should have, or could have, been.

I know people who are still going to get them, though, as I’m sure many people will. I hope those people like it, I honestly do. But for me, personally, I’m not buying an iPad at all, because it sucks.

On the other hand, as a friend of mine overheard an Apple Store employee say: at least it will be easy to jailbreak.

Update, 01.29.10: A friend of mine, cruftbox (whom you may have heard of) has put up his own thoughts on the iPad after actually getting a hands-on (he was lucky enough to be at the announce event), and offers some contrasting good points and perspective. Check it out.

Related posts:

1. Hitler is not Pleased about the iPad

My own management and interview style is, so I’ve been told (and so all my comparisons and fact-finding tells me), drastically different, and I have been able to avoid the suckfest of these interviews for a while now, having staffed amazingly talented teams while avoiding problems, by seeing all the problems related to this issue, and actively trying new ways to address them, so why not share some of the things I realized about those problems? And those problems are not just about the interview process, or the questions asked therein, itself.

Hiring Managers Don’t Know What They Want

Lots of hiring managers are just trying to fill empty seats. And for some teams that works, like an Agency world–they just need doers, its not always about team fit or culture. For most teams it does not work, and it doesn’t work because one has to know what one needs before one can find it. For example, what level of SWE is needed? Are Leads needed more than “doers”? What about Architects or DBAs? Or, worse, people try and find everything in one person. They want an engineer who can write Java, C#, C++, ActionScript 3, PERL, PHP, CGI, FORTRAN (just in case), COBOL (it just sounds cool!), and they better know how to use punchcards. Why? Because they need to cover a lot of bases and they don’t see the focus they need in priority (or they are trying to make one position do far too much work). Knowing that one needs to hire a Senior level before anything else, or knowing one needs a guy who is solid at customer-interaction or troubleshooting or live-site support, etc. is extremely helpful to the Hiring Manager. If each position of the team is planned out and prioritized in that fashion, it aligns priorities and needs. Conversely, if each person on the team is meant to be a cookie-cutter carbon copy of everyone else on the team…well, two things: a) Managers – this means you’re probably doing it wrong, I’m pretty sure you will be causing yourself massive headaches doing this (with exceptions, of course), and b) interviewees: Warning – if the place you are interviewing at wants you to be like everyone else, is that really a place you want to be? There’s more to a paycheck than just a paycheck. You can only advance in your career so far by looking into a mirror, and that’s what cookie cutter tech shops are.

Hiring Managers Don’t Have a Vision for their Team

Continuing from the point above, establishing a vision of what the team is supposed to be doing and how it does that helps clearly identify and define the needs of that team. And, much more specifically, the type of people needed on that team. When I built my last (current) team (which is a team filled with great people who are all 10x engineers) I knew that I was building a team to be very high-powered, highly-functioning, capable, adaptable, and fast. That meant I needed people who would push the limits, who could think abstractly, who were strong proponents of standards, code review, SDLC processes, etc. That, in turn, meant I needed to tailor the specific requests and Job Descriptions of the people I was looking for, but it also meant I needed to figure out what roles I needed to staff earlier than others. I knew I needed a certain type of work done early before other projects hit, so I could prioritize those roles. I also knew I needed architecture skills early on, and that if I delayed that it would hurt the future health (and reputation) of the team, so I staffed that early too. The point is: I thought about it and planned it out, I didn’t just think “I need n guys to do some type of work.” The Hiring Manager needs to truly understand what they and their team are tasked with, so they can properly staff, motivate, train, and lead that team, and thus staff that team in a prioritized order.

Job Descriptions are Boilerplate, Recycled, and Misleading

Most Job Descriptions used, especially with larger shops and corporations, are all the same Job Descriptions used over and over again, even for different positions (at most a few key words or phrases are changed). Some I have seen were literally years old. For you people looking for jobs, this is also another warning sign for you: see if there are other job postings from the same company, and if they all look the same then make sure to ask a lot of questions in your interview, because the JD isn’t going to answer nearly as much as it should.

Writing a solid JD is not a difficult process, but its one that so many Hiring Managers overlook. Many of the Hiring Managers I have known completely ignore this step and just ended up using what was there before, or grabbed a copy from one of their peers, and the fatal flaw in this is that the Job Description is their chance to truly pitch, sell, and entice the types of candidates they are looking for, while also weeding out the types of candidates they are not looking for. This directly impacts the entire interview process as most candidates come in having been lied to by a false Job Description that doesn’t accurately describe the work, position, or team other than at the most vague, homogeneous levels. So now you have a hiring manager who doesn’t know what they need, doesn’t know what their team needs, and now a candidate who has been told a completely different story. Things add up fast.

Most People have no Success or Fail Criteria Defined

This is something I picked up from Johanna Rothman way back, either from her book or her Hiring Technical People blog, I can’t remember which, but it has been very helpful. This applies to both interviewer and interviewee, and is often just not thought of. The basic premise is that there are certain key things, both positive and negative, that are indicators that need attention. Specific things that if a candidate doesn’t have would result in an instant pass, or that if an employer didn’t offer would mean moving on. Similarly there are key things one specifically wants from a job or from an employer. These things should be identified. For example, if you are hiring a Flash Engineer and they have no idea how the Flash event model or bubbling/capture phases work, you probably want to pass on them. Similarly if you were to interview at a company who ensured working 80-hour weeks, that might be a pass too. On the flip side you need to also balance that against your Success criteria, since thinking of the negative is always easier to most of us in a technical world: PM experience, worked with geographical distant teams, workplace offers flexible work schedules, etc. Of all these points this one may not directly relate to the interview process itself, but it is worth noting as these things should be defined before a candidate ever gets in a room with an interviewer. Realistically they should be defined along with the Job Description, to my mind.

In short, take the time to figure out 3 or so key points that are both “Fail Criteria” and “Success Criteria.” This also helps one judge a candidate (or employer) more objectively, and can often end up making interview feedback such as “Meh, I don’t know, seemed ok at this, but not so good at that” into “The candidate couldn’t do x or y, those are both critical problems, I say pass.”

Most People are Just not Good at Interviewing

And this applies to both sides, interviewer and interviewee. For those conducting the interview, grilling other people is not natural for many people. And, more specifically, asking the types of questions that are consistently revealing and good indicators of success criteria, while being efficient with the amount of time available in an interview, is just not a natural thing. Individuals will naturally ask questions that are related to their world view, experiences, and day to day job responsibilities. These are typically not the same as the position being interviewed for, and may not be applicable to the candidate at all. Additionally, many people asked to interview are not properly informed of what they are interviewing for (the duties and responsibilities of the position) and this is crucial information for them to know in order to ask good questions and provide good and relevant feedback.

Again, a lot of this comes down to the Hiring Manager not knowing what they want and not knowing the best ways to go about that. If you are a Hiring Manager and the individuals on your team are involved in the interview process (and they better be, if not, stop reading this and go quit your job until you figure out how to do it better), and yet you haven’t told them the details of what they are interviewing for, then you are doing nothing more than ensuring a bad interview and that any feedback you get back from the interview panels will be so much errata. The more information and context you can give those people on your interview panel(s), the more your job as a Hiring Manager becomes simpler, and the more direct feedback that is relevant and insightful you can receive.

There is nothing wrong with setting up mock interviews with your team to practice. We practice at everything else, why not interviews? Change the paradigm, pick one person to be the candidate and have them intentionally lie or misdirect and see if your team picks up on it. Coach them through improvement after reviewing how the practice session went, ways to craft questions to answer multiple things, ways to work an interview into a more conversational tone (getting the candidate out of actor/interview mode and into just being a real person), etc. In other words, you’re a Hiring Manager, spend some time mentoring people to advance in their careers, and give them the tools to be successful at what you are asking them to do (in this case, interviewing). Presumably you mentor in other areas…why not interviewing?

However, on the side of the interviewee, many people don’t realize that the interview isn’t just about them, its just as much about the people who are interviewing you: work practices, focus, management style, culture, team fit, processes and methodologies used, etc. You need to know what you are getting into, and I (as a Hiring Manager) never see it as a good sign if there aren’t any questions to me from the person I am interviewing. It’s not necessarily a fatal flaw if a candidate doesn’t ask questions, but more directly its unremarkable, or only remarkable in a negative way. As a candidate trying to get a job, you don’t want to leave that impression. But, from my own personal perspective, don’t ask those oft-recited filler questions so prevalent in recruiter handbooks and job advice sites. Tailor the questions to what you have been getting exposed to in the interview process, research the company, research the people on your interview panel (if you know their names, that is), show that you are taking an active interest in wanting this job. And if you can’t do that, if you don’t feel motivated to do that…then really think about why you are even interviewing for that position.

The Wrong Questions Are Asked

Most technical interviews will, obviously, relate to very technical topics. However, this is a painfully deceptive trap. For me it is relatively easy to tell, and very quickly, if a candidate has the technical chops. That is because I come from a heavy engineering background and know the skill-set (many hiring managers do not have that background or have forgotten it all if they do, which is unfortunate just for the sake of career advancement), and I have grown and adapted my questions over time (in fact, I have one question I always ask that answers me dozens of things simultaneously as I lead the candidate down the path of the question, I’m notorious for this question), but also because I realized long ago that there are so many other key areas that affect and influence the validity of a candidate: team fit, culture, work ethic, approach, collaboration, stress indicators, and the most important one (for me): thought process. Knowing someone can write code a certain way, that adheres to standards and works, is fairly objective. That’s simpler to quantify in comparison. What is more subjective is how a person approaches a problem, how they think around a problem, their views on quality and standards/best practices, if they get stuck on linear paths or analysis paralysis, if they can’t even debug or troubleshoot (and if they can’t do that, they shouldn’t be in tech, its fundamental), if they don’t deal well with stress or live-site issues at 4AM, etc.

Now I’m not saying to create psychological interviews and brain teasers, as is so popular today (they suck even more at giving real-world insight into capabilities of a candidate, but do really good at letting you know they can do crosswords or move a mountain), those types of interviews are all glam and no substance, they are buzzword ideas. Fake. What I am saying is the questions need to be tailored to the position, and to the expectations of that position, and taking into account the people this position has to work with. If the same exact questions are asked of all SWEs, whether they are senior, junior, or senior staff, is a clear sign something is wrong. There are differences between positions, realize them and recognize them, then adapt interviews so that the interview itself can address and focus on those specific needs that are specific to the position. Otherwise you may as well just print out all the résumés you get and post them on a board and start throwing darts to pick your next hire.

Interviews are not about Ego and Showing Off

I’ve seen this so many times. Especially on the interviewer side, as the interviewee needs to show off during an interview, that’s the whole point. But as an interviewer no one should be in there trying to sound smarter, better, or faster than anyone else. That is completely unrelated to the point of an interview. This also taints, massively, any feedback to the interview process. There can be a bit of nuance to this, such as if you are hiring for a Sr. Web Dev, other Sr. Web Devs conducting the interview have likely more directly applicable and comparable mindsets, and that can be used advantageously. However, if a Sr. Web Dev is conducting an interview for a junior position and their questions are related to just finding out what they don’t know, and then their feedback is mostly about how much the candidate doesn’t know, something is wrong. But, again, there is a nuance there in that this is also valid feedback so long as it is balanced with (in this example) what the candidate does know…which is why ego and showing off need to be avoided. Balance must be maintained, objectivity is preferred over subjectivity, but still recognizing that subjectivity has its place.

This also goes to team management, an issue the Hiring Manager needs to address. For an extreme example, but one that is easy to visualize, your employees on the interview panel should never feel as if they are defending their own jobs when they are interviewing others, you’re just guaranteeing team morale and cohesion issues, as well as ensuring completely tainted feedback. In my experience the best mindset your interview panel can be in is one of ownership: each of them are helping shape and craft the future of the team they are part of. They are each helping ensure successful candidates are brought in, who will help them in their own tasks, be able to take extra burden off their shoulders, and someone they can either learn from or mentor, or (in the best situations) both. Ownership and that kind of accountability will help any interview so much in that each person interviewing is invested in a good outcomes and avoiding bad hires. But what’s even better about this is that this attitude and mentality can be extended across almost everything else the team does, and it works magic at team cohesion, accountability, investment, and passion. Use it to your advantage.

Most Interviews Ensure Invalid Feedback and Responses

Whether the interview style is grilling attacks, or problem solving, or diagraming or the like, interviews tend to keep a candidate in “interview” mode. Meaning prepared answers, prepared concepts, practiced points and responses. In other words, fake. This is not the information a hiring manager or team needs to make a good and well-informed decision. This is the information that makes people say Yes to a candidate and then 6 months after hiring them there are all kinds of problems because none of that was true in any real way.

The entire interview process needs to be about open conversation and dialog, getting people (on both sides) out of that prepared “acting” mode. Do that by asking questions that are not scripted, that are unique to the needs of the position and company, and questions that aren’t in every single interview book/blog out there (the only valid response to “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” is “Celebrating the 5th anniversary of you asking me this question.”) The questioning that allows this mood to fill an interview is the questioning that is standard, common, and completely useless. People ask these questions because that’s the way they have seen it done, because those are the questions they were asked.

Instead, think about the questions you ask, or have been asked, in an interview. Are any of them real? What’s your favorite language? Useless (Make the question about the language you need the candidate to know, and ask them what they think about that langauge). What IDE do you use? Useless (try “When working with X langauge, describe your optimal work setup for me”). How do you prevent SQL Injection attacks? Useless (try a question that is less leading and allows for more insightful responses that answer multiple things: “How do you ensure entered data is valid and safe in a system?” This question allows the candidate to show thought process, design, planning, troubleshooting. The original question only would answer 1 thing, make them answer 20 things with 1 answer). Instead ask questions that don’t lead the answer, that allow the room to answer multiple things without the candidate even realizing it, and that allow that open communication and actual conversation. That’s when you see the real candidate, and see the real information.

If you think about it, it wouldn’t surprise me if most of the questions asked in your interviews are either directly leading, only answer one specific thing at a time, or both. Craft questions to be more open while still specific enough as to get the point across (while keeping in mind some candidates will not understand such questions even with specificity, and that can be a valuable insight as well…assuming you aren’t making the questions so open as to be completely non-specific and utterly confusing). Use questions that answer multiple things (“How would you design a reservation system for a restaurant?” Everyone knows restaurants, and this answers DB, architecture, UI, requirements gathering, thought process, etc.), or questions that can lead down a path of multiple insights or topics (walking a candidate through a project process: requirements/spec gathering, estimation & design, unexpected shortened timelines, development, scope creep, slipping the date and figuring out how to get back on track, documentation, etc.).

Summation

Interviewing well is a vital requirement for successfully building a team, as a bad hire will hurt your team/company much more than a good hire will help it. And interviewing well is something that requires an investment to do well, and it is a wise investment. Many issues I see in jobs, especially larger corporations, are all related to bad leadership or bad hiring. And much of the time the bad leadership is due to bad hiring in the first place. Interviews are a basic fundamental thing that has impacts that will eventually ripple into nearly every facet of the company, especially if done poorly. Respect that notion, and work to always improve it. It doesn’t take too much effort, and it will pay off in both sanity, improved teams, and a fundamentally improved staff in your workplace.

What I lay out above is certainly not the full breadth and width of the ways interviews can be improved, and there are definitely more nuanced things to list if I wanted to list every single detail about why tech interviews suck. But hopefully what I’ve pointed out above will, at the very least, spark a different point of view or a rethinking of an approach, even if it isn’t directly what works for me or what I proposed an alternative to, the biggest outcome if you’ve taken the time to read this is simply to actively re-think your interviewing process and identify areas to improve it (as well as areas that already work and capitalizing on them). Always keep moving ahead, and sometimes its hard to tell if you are stuck unless someone points it out to you.

Related posts:

1. Things You Need To Know in Technical Interviews
2. T-Shirt Sized Estimates are Moronic

Over 2008 I got much more into breakbeat and nuskool breaks, and over the last year I got back into Goa Trance quite a bit and went through a big period of reacquiring the hip-hop/rap I remember loving when I was going through school (Jr. High, High School, College, etc.) so the charts changed more than I thought they would, compared to last year. In fact I have a whole new Backspin playlist for that stuff that is awesome.

Top 10 Artists of 2009

1. The Crystal Method (#1 last year): Not much of a shock here, I still love TCM, though nothing they’ve done since has compared to the Vegas album (that album is perfect). The latest album got back to their roots a bit, but even then wasn’t nearly as good, except for Drown in the Now and Double Down Under. This album defined the west coast sound of breakbeat, and made TCM a name (and a common sound in countless commercials and movies).
2. Hybrid (#4 last year): Again, not much of a shock. After getting into Hybrid last year and really loving their style, I still love a lot of Hybrid’s tracks, especially from the I Choose Noise album. Hybrid does an amazing job of weaving so many disparate sounds: soundtrack, ambient, chill, breakbeat, techno, acid, rock, etc.
3. UNKLE (#5 last year): This one surprised me a bit, as I haven’t really added all that many new UNKLE tracks, but I’ve been listening more to the ones I have, specifically the Self Defence album. However, that album is all remixes, and not really indicative of UNKLE being #3. It’s more like Dylan Rhymes, Evil Nine, Roots Manuva, Ian Brown, etc.
4. Eminem (new to top 10 this year): Another one that wasn’t expected. I’ve only added 1 or 2 new Eminem tracks, but I have been listening to more hip-hop/rap this year.
5. Dr. Dre (#7 last year): Another change, this one less surprising due to getting back into hip-hop/rap. Keep Their Heads Ringing and Forgot About Dre came back into my headphones big in 2009.
6. 2pac (#2 last year): This one never surprises me, as I have a lot of songs from pac, so it always trends high (just like TCM above).
7. Frenessy (new this year): This was one of the big new albums for me this year, and was a clear sign I was starting to enjoy Goa Trance way more once again. Frenessy has some pretty solid sounds, really layered tracks and deep basslines.
8. Massive Attack (new to top 10 this year): I didn’t see Massive coming back up individually, but they did. I’ve always liked this group and really wish there were churning out more stuff.
9. Vaishiyas (new this year): Again, Goa Trance comes back up, and this was another new artist I never had before. More trancey than something like Frenessy, but still solid beats and basslines.
10. Leftfield (#9 last year): Much like Massive Attack, I’ve always liked and had Leftfield in my collection, but no new additions in a long time (both Massive and Leftfield need to come back heavy), but I’ve been re-experiencing their tracks and enjoying them. Solid electronic and dance, but with a distinct sound and vibe (much like Massive Attack), and not really able to be said is one genre over another, but definitely trending towards electronic.

Who dropped from the top 10 last year? DJ Krush, The Prodigy, and Voodoo & Serano.

Top 10 Albums of 2009

1. UNKLE – Self Defence (Never Never Land Reconstructed and Bonus Beats) (#3 last year): Great remixes of UNKLE’s stuff, and really not so much about UNKLE as about all the various artists doing the remixes. I’ve had this album for a while, but apparently started listening to it more over the last year. Album ranges from downtempo chill stuff to a few heavy riffs with solid beats. Good variety.
2. Hybrid – I Choose Noise (#1 last year): This album is still great, not every single song, but the vast majority. Hybrid has a really complex and creative sound, and contains both the sweeping and emotional feelings of classical, but also tracks and beats worthy of a dance floor or rave.
3. Frenessy – Lost Sound Digital (new this year): New Goa, great sound. Most of this album is pretty solid. If you like Goa, Acid, or Trance, Frenessy is worth checking out.
4. The Crystal Method – Vegas (#7 last year): No shock, I love every track on this album, and I usually only like 1 or 2 tracks on any given album, if that. If you don’t know about this album, go listen to the samples, it’s worth it.
5. Mimosa – Hostilis (new this year): As well as getting into Goa more the past year, I also got more into glitch, but way more than just the “regular” glitchmob or edIT stuff that has become somewhat meh. Mimosa does some great glitch, that isn’t cookie cutter like most other glitch.
6. Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard – The Dark Knight Collectors Edition (new this year): Okay, this one is probably the most surprising. While I do like soundtracks and instrumentals, and did like The Dark Knight’s soundtrack, there are only 3 songs from this 2-disc, 28 song album that I have listened to…the 3 remixes. The first 2 are Gunpowder and Gasoline (Mel Wesson Remix) and Rory’s First Kiss (Ryeland Allison Remix), both of which are solid, but only 3 stars to me. The one I really like, and the one I played enough to get into the top 10, apparently, is Why So Serious? (The Crystal Method Remix). Which is, in a word, awesome. Great remix that perfectly blends the original sound from the soundtrack, and all that entails, with a fully desired TCM driving beat, with synths, pulses, and all the things that make breakbeat so good and so infamous.
7. Vaishiyas – Action Flaxion (new this year): Again, Goa. And it works. The album is pretty solid overall, with 2 tracks standing out: Who You Are and Sub Oscs. If you like Goa or Trance, you should check this out.
8. Massive Attack – Mezzanine (#8 last year): More good stuff continually resurrected from the music collection I already had. Great album. And an album that truly makes me wish Massive Attack were still laying tracks down.
9. Tha Dogg Pound – Dogg Food (new to top 10 this year): Ah, High School. This album is up here as pure reminiscing and backspin-type of of stuff. Not anything compared to classics like Nuthin’ But a G’ Thang, Murder Was the Case, They Reminisce Over You, Uptown Anthem, Take You There, etc., but still definitely solid and worth having in the collection.
10. Various Artists – FabricLive 16: Adam Freeland (new to top 10 this year): Oh Adam Freeland. How I hate the little whiny no-talent bitch that makes shitty shitfest music these days that you have become. However, like UNKLE, this album is not about that idiot Freeland and instead about some really good other artists on the album.

And who dropped from the Top Albums for 2009? Rob Dougan – Furious Angels, Dr. Dre – 2001, Daft Punk – Alive 2007, The Prodigy – The Fat of the Land, Shadowstorm – Genesis, and DJ Krush – Stepping Stones: The Self-Remixed Best.

Top 10 Songs of 2009

1. Public Enemy VS. Benny Benassi – Bring the Noise (Pump-kin Remix) (new this year): I hate Benny Benassi for the most part. It’s crap cotton candy bullshit for trippers and tourists. BUT. This song is probably the absolute best remix of a classic rap song in history. The lyrics from Chuck D flow perfectly with this powerful driving new beat and comebacks laid down by Benassi. Amazing song.
2. Rhymefest – Run That (new this year): This song (also known as Welcome to the Jungle) is extremely hard to find, and was on the soundtrack for The Rundown (which is a pretty funny movie in and of itself), but not released as part of the official soundtrack. Too bad, it’s a great song, and uses the riff from Black in Black by AC/DC really well.
3. Souls of Mischief – 93 ‘TIL INFINITY (LP Version) (new this year): This is a song I picked up from by backspin school-days re-collecting of songs. I had completely forgotten about it until I stumbled onto it on YouTube looking for something else and instantly remembered some stuff I had forgotten about from back in the day. Really smooth hip-hop beat.
4. Above the Law – Black Superman (new to top 10 this year): I’ve had this song for a while, and remember it from High School as well, but it jumped up my personal charts due to the whole backspin cataloging thing. Best song by Above the Law, to my mind, and a really solid beat and sound. I think the CD is discontinued and it doesn’t seem readily available on MP3.
5. Ils – Cherish (Adam Freeland Mix) (new to top 10 this year): I got into Ils a while ago, and the original version of this track is pretty good, but Freeland plussed it up. As much as I loathe Freeland, he does have a knack for remixing a good electronic track and adding some nice nubreakz hotness to it. Otherwise he blows.
6. Dr. Dre – Forgot About Dre (#9 last year): Still a classic, still stands on its own.
7. UNKLE – Eye For An Eye (Dylan Rhymes vs Force Mass Motion Mix) (#6 last year): Excellent electronic track, still has a great break and comeback in the middle. Definitely worth checking out.
8. Evil Nine – Crooked (new to top 10 this year): When Evil Nine is on point, they bring it. Unfortunately the hits seem to be getting fewer and further between (especially after that zombie/Halloween They Live! crap they dropped in 2008).
9. N2Deep – Back To The Hotel (new this year): Again, new acquisition this year based on building my collection up of the songs I remember from school. And this song was awesome back in the day, and still flows and beats really good now. N2Deep did almost nothing else worth mentioning (though they got pretty big up in the Bay Area), but this song has all kinds of hip-hop nostalgia related to it for me.
10. Evil Nine Featuring Toastie Taylor – Restless (new to top 10 this year): Probably (I think) the only other Evil Nine track that I find a 4 or 5 star. Vocal electronic, you’ve probably heard it in movies like Tokyo Drift, good song worth checking out.

What songs dropped and no longer make the cut? Hybrid – Last Man Standing (wow, surprising, as much as I listen to them), Massive Attack (feat. Mos Def) – I Against I (another surprise, I love this song), RZA – Fatal, Evil Nine – for lovers, not fighters, The Chemical Brothers – Loops of Fury, Paul Van Dyk – Make It (not surprising), Hybrid – Choke (surprised again), and Brainbug – Nightmare (Sinister Strings mix). Overall my top 10 songs changed much more significantly than the top albums and artists, compared to the previous year, and based how I shifted my music buying/downloading and listening (it started to slant more towards hip-hop/rap due to the backspin thing) that makes sense, but my renewed enjoyment of Goa didn’t really break into the top 10. Which also makes sense, hip-hop/rap is more consistent to me, and I’m much more finicky about good solid electronic music I like, although there is plenty of utter crap hip-hop/rap, especially most things getting released these days.

So that’s it. Interesting for me to see the changes, maybe for you as well (though I doubt it), but maybe you’ll discover some songs, artists, or albums you like from all this.

Related posts:

1. My Top 10 Music Artists, Albums and Songs from 2008