elephant stone

i didnt end up getting that contract i went for last week. agent gave me some bullshit about how they wanted to hire 2 permies instead of a contractor and that they wanted to split the role because they couldnt find the right mix of skills in one person. that last bit might be true because i do know that they have been looking for a couple of months but i think it makes the company look silly when in the entire pool of talent in london they cant find what they are looking for. there are some cowboys in london but i have come across some very clever people as well.

they also did ask me some strange questions and scenarios. what would happen if the server that was the schema master was lost or stolen, you transferred the schema master role to another server, and then later the original schema master is reintroduced into the network. what would be the sypmtoms you might see from that?.

you have 2 sites and an unlimited budget for equipment storage and networking and you have to design a resliant VMware virtual infrstructure, but you are only allowed 2 physical ESX hosts. draw out how you would do the design of that?.

its a completely ridiculous scenario in my opinion, but i went with it.

i went with replicated storage and an ESX server at each site giving me a fully operational site failover. they didnt like that and said they would prefer to not have DR and would have gone for HA with 2 ESX servers at the same site. errr..ok????, i thought you said it needed to be reslient???.

its like saying you have an unlimited budget to build a house, but you can only have no more than 2 doors or windows. what do you want?. normal people might go for a door and a window so you can get into the house and you also have a window to look outside and get some light. they went with 2 windows and thought it would be ok to climb through them to get in or out.

i suppose i came out of the interview positive because i knew i was right. in hindsight i shouldnt have been as positive. oh well, in the words of jay-z, its on to the next one.

the next one in this case being a short 2 week contract to cover for somebody going on holiday at a firm. i got the offer today and i start next tuesday. am also up for a couple of jobs at banks, so we shall see how that pan out over the next few weeks.

saw a documentary about robert plant the other night. maximum respect to him for not getting back together with led zeppelin and just going on a $100m tour, and instead doing his solo stuff and things that interest him. madonna, u2 and the stones must look at him like he is mad. how can you NOT want the money for a big yacht?

today i have mostly been listening to the stone roses - elephant stone. another band for which there is a clamour to reform, but its being resisted thus far. i really like them. not sure if i would go see them if they did reform. they would be playing huge arenas and it just wouldnt feel authentic. this does. enjoy.