I'm hanging out at the O’Reilly’s Open Source Convention today (downtown Portland) and I'm planning on bringing as many fun out of town open source geeks as I can to the Portland Nerd Dinner tonight. I make no guarantees, but if I find Linus, he's getting an invite. : )

Crappy Carl is giving away a crappy top-of-the-line Tablet PC to anyone that crappy fills in his crappy survey (and they don’t even have to listen to his crappy show to crappy win!).

BTW, Microsoft and SellsBrothers.com employees are not allowed to enter. Isn’t that crappy?!? : (

: )

I'll be bringing "the letter" to Wednesday’s PND (assuming I can remember this time).

Brad Smith writes:

“I just found your site. I love it!!! It is now a regular read for me.

“I read ‘The Human Side of Microsoft’ post on your site and had an idea… What about getting a bunch of people to list what car they drive (or what they used for transport if it is not a car). Aussies tend to be a bit car crazy and you can tell a lot about a person by how they get around!! :-)

“Just an idea…. Take it easy mate.

“Brad Smith
”Canberra, Australia”

Brad, I drive a 1998 Volkswagen Cabrio covertible. It’s kinda funny looking and it’s a semi-girly color (white), but I fit in it with the top up (I have a long torso, so that’s a problem in most convertibles), it’s got a good service record, it gets good gas mileage and the Sells brothers still fit in the back (although not for much longer).

Can the other 55,999 Microsoft employees post what kind of car they drive from Brad? Thanks.

Microsoft stunned investors yesterday with the announcement that they were distributing 75 billion in cash because they had run out of things to buy. According to Microsoft CFO John Connors “With the acquisition of Lookout, we’ve crossed every single item off our shopping list. Frankly, there’s just nothing left to buy.”

(more)

Ah, the bittersweet memories:

“Maybe you have heard some of the stories about the [DevelopMentor] Brains? Brian Randell delivered a VSLive conference talk in a bath robe. Don Box delivered a conference talk in Amsterdam naked from the waist down. Chris Sells, not to be outdone, agreed to pose completely nude for an advertisement in a technical magazine whose readership is 95% male.”

It wasn’t an ad, actually. It was an official photo shoot for an article. Most of the pictures were normal, but they had to pick the naked one (although they did airbrush out the nipples and go another way for the cover : ).

Barry Kouda, Barracuda.NET’s most recent hire, lists some of the other DevelopMentor alumni in a loving “where are they now” kind of way.

A friend of mine sent along a whole set of questions he was asked for an SDE/T (Software Design Engineer in Test) position at Microsoft. I love the one where you implement MAKE.

I got a sneak preview of this last week and absolutely loved the Channel9 tour of the Microsoft Research hardware and social software labs. The bit with the inventor of the laser printer, who works for MS now, is especially fun. Enjoy.