Author: Chris Barrus

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What goes into marketing a new teen queen/rock star/whatever

Why bother with American Idol, when the real thing is even funnier?

Celebrity journalist Lynn Hirschberg profiles former Backstreet girlfriend and would-be-edgy-rock-star Amanda Latona and portrays the breakthrough artist as a malleable, fame-chasing airhead and her handlers as just as cynical and corrupt as any caricature of record execs ever created. (I’m shocked, shocked to find egocentric morons in the music industry)

And if girl empowerment is what people are buying, Latona will gladly sing the part.

Of course, should her album tank, the music industry would never blame themselves or the focus groups that went into the production and marketing – it’s those damn net pirates.

[via MetaFilter]

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Eugene Jarvis, video game Jedi

Cool interview with Eugene Jarvis, creator of Defender, Robotron, and Smash TV.

“Some of the most interesting and deadly aspects of the enemies were bugs caused by improperly terminated boundary conditions in the algorithms. Often these bugs produced behavior far more interesting and psychotic then anything I conceived of.”

[via MetaFilter]

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It is nice to arrive home to new gear

It is nice to arrive home to new gear waiting for me. Specifically a new PowerBook (a G4/800) and Xserve #2 (our new web server). Took better part of a day to move everything over to the new PowerBook and get Fink, et. al. installed.

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Compendium of tech-interview riddles

I’ve never had the misfortune of getting these types of questions in a job interview. Resorting to riddles always struck me as a sign of an unprepared interviewer that wants to make the geek squirm and take them down a notch. Crikey, they’re nervous anyway so what’s the point them feel worse if the only thing standing between them and making the month’s rent is the “manhole problem.”

Anyway, there were some great links buried in the Slashdot comments. TechInterview.org also compiles tech interview questions, and the Sells Brothers compiles stories just about Microsoft interviews.

[via Slashdot]