God Almighty. For years I’ve listened to Mac people make snide remarks about the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). I have to say that the BSOD positively pales beside the image above.

I’m working away on the Mac when all of a sudden the screen dims and that multilingual box takes over. I assumed that it was a pop-up ad for some kind of noxious spyware.

No, it turns out that the is Apple’s intuitive and user friendly way of letting you know that there has been a kernel panic. Would have been nice if the big scary message actually told you that it was from Apple, or what it was for.

Regular readers will recall that I think of Daylight Savings Time (and whatever you call it when you change the clocks the other way) is a load of utter hogwash.

It turns out that two Ph.D. students at the University of California at Berkeley say that Daylight Saving Shift will not do any good or create any energy savings.

Hurrah!! Sanity and Reason prevail!

My certainty that DST was true nonsense was shaken though when I read the following post over at Slashdot:

I live in Indiana (a midwestern US state). Up until last year, we’d never done DST before at all ….

Before we had DST, it was HELL. All year, it got dark at like 2:00pm. There was no Little League Baseball, no football (american or otherwise) for the kids. Most of our youth joined gangs, who roamed the incessant darkness in large, heavily fortified bad-mpg SUVs, kicking puppies and beating up old ladies just for fun. There was no Christmas and no birthdays, and if we saw the Easter bunny we ATE HIM.

Though many people had the misconception that we were “America’s Breadbasket”, in fact the darkness prevented us from raising any sort of sustenance crops and most of us resorted to cannibalism to survive. Most Hoosiers (that’s what we’re called, it means “land of eternal darkness” in a Native American tongue) eventually starved to death, which was viewed as a welcome respite from the hellish, unstoppable night. Dogs and cats, living together, you get the picture.

The writer cooley (261024) continues:

With the introduction of DST … our lives were changed forever. Now, it’s light outside pretty much (24/7). Our kids are all on at least six sports teams and never shoot each other anymore. They call you “sir” or “ma’am” (these words were not used before, as it was difficult to discern gender in the darkness), shine your shoes for you, and present you with ice-cold lemonade from stands with amusingly misspelled signs. We discovered oil everywhere, we grow more crops than the world could ever possibly use (which has ended hunger globally) and we’re all filthy, stinking RICH.

Well, I guess there’s no arguing with anecdotal evidence like that!

Ah yes, who could turn down an unpaid gig described as “Idealistic for marketing, journalism or publicity co-op students at a College level.”

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Seldom does a motion picture leave one speechless and filled with awe. Most film today seems to be intended for the video store, and then television, and consequently aims at the lowest common denominator.

La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc is not that sort of film.

Created in 1928 by Carl Theodor Dreyer it is a work of power and elegance, one which quite deliberately ignores questions of period cotsume and decor, and instead portays a character that I doubt could be mastered by any of the current generation of Hollywood actresses.

From IMDB:

“Maria Falconetti is unforgettable as Joan, perfectly distilling the pain, terror, and saintliness required by what is probably one of the most demanding roles an actor could attempt.”

The performance by Maria Falconetti is nothing short of beautiful. I can’t think of an actress that has moved me to the degree that she has in this film. Was Jeanne d’Arc in a state of rapture? Madness? Both? It is never clear or easy to tell.

Really at this moment I am near speechless.

This is a film that you should seek out.

(the version that I screened was a Criterion release restored from an original director’s cut discovered lost in a Danish mental hospital until its discovery in 1981. For this DVD it was paired with a new score by composer Richard Einhorn.)

Today I’ve been working through a stack of resumes from people seeking a senior job with a national non-profit organization.

Doing so has prompted me to jot down a list of pointers for job hunters.

Cover Letter - Yes, you need one. It gives you a chance to present yourself in the best light possible. A resume is a list of dates and activities. It’s by nature dull and dry. The cover letter is where you can sell yourself, or describe exactly how your background fits the needs of the employer.

My E-mail is my Cover Letter – No it’s not. The e-mail containing your resume is like the envelope that you would use to mail it. Would you scribble your cover letter on the outside of the envelope? Putting your cover letter text in the e-mail is exactly the same.

Printed e-mails look lousy and don’t present you in the best light. Take ten minutes and write a real cover letter and include it with your resume.

Extra special advice: an e-mail with no attached Word or PDF files, just links to pages on your web site, is NOT a good thing. No one will ever bother to follow the links. Especially after the e-mail has been printed.

Salutation – If the job posting lists a specific name, address your cover letter to that person. If it doesn’t include a name, go look on the employer’s website for a likely name, like the Chair of the Board of Directors. If that doesn’t work, address it to “Dear Search Committee.”

Do not address your cover letter to “Dear Person.”

Relevance – your resume needs to include work that is at least somewhat relevant to the job being advertised. Seriously. If it doesn’t, or if you can’t make a really convincing argument in your cover letter, you’re wasting everyone’s time.

Even better, give me a cover letter and resume that show that you have actually looked at our web site, know what we do, and that you’ve tweaked your materials to reflect that.

Don’t tell me about your history as: cashier, waiter, camp counsellor, dental assistant, massage therapist, forklift driver, hairdresser, or barrista. Believe it or not, everyone has some of those in their past, but they have nothing to do with the management position you’ve applied for.

(OK, in fact they DO have value, and I look for that kind of thing, but not in your resume. Drop it into conversation during the interview.)

Hint: if applying for a job with a small non-profit group, don’t bother telling us how you handled the IPO for a $100 million company. In fact, don’t tell us anything unless you’re making a large cash donation.

SPELL CHECK!!! SPELL CHECK!!! SPELL CHECK!!! - You’re asking us to give you tens of thousands of dollars. Isn’t that enough money that you can take fifteen minutes to proof read? Or have someone else do it if you can’t? Yes, grammar counts too.

Type size, font, margins – Look, as we age our eyes get weaker. Keep font sizes to 12 or 10 pt, no smaller. And use something common like Arial or Times New Roman. Don’t use Courier. No-one uses typewriters any more, and your letter and resume shouldn’t look like you did.

Funny as it may sound, make sure that you use the same font and size throughout your text. It looks odd when text suddenly gets bigger or smaller.

Black, make the text black. Really, do I need to say this??? OK, A little colour and a nicely designed header can be a good thing to make your package stand out, but the operative word is a little.

One inch margins, maybe 3/4 inch at the least. Have mercy and don’t try to squeeze more text in by using 1/4″ margins. Hell, some printers will even cut off the end of your sentences if you use margins that narrow.

How long? These days you’re sending your package by e-mail as a word or PDF document. If you really need an extra page to make your resume look right, just do it. I don’t want ten pages of resume, letter, and extra goodies, but I’d rather you gave me a little more information than not enough.

Added at 7:30 pm: Cute and Clever – Ok, if your resume is really strong a little bit of cute stuff and humour can work for you. But if you’re using cute to pad out a thin resume you’ll just annoy people.

Added March 13: Software: Don’t bother telling me that you know how to use Microsoft Word or Internet Explorer.  It’s assumed that you can use common computer programs, just as it’s assumed that you can use a telephone. Now, if you can use Quark or Photoshop at a professional level, that’s worth noting.

If you’re applying to work at Burger King most of this won’t really matter. If you’re applying for a senior administrative position it all does.

Usually there are fifty other people lined up for any decent job, so detail counts.

New on TVO is The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard, a BBC series about a Prime Minister of the same name who’s intelligent, thoughtful, and nicely left wing. Right now as I watch she’s dealing with a terrorist threat and family problems.

Jane Horrocks is very convincing as the PM. Or at least she was until I suddenly realized where I had seen her last.

Yes, the near stately Prime Minister has graced my DVD player in the role of Bubble, the stunningly airheaded receptionist on the vicious and funny fashion sit-com Absolutely Fabulous.

Really this wouldn’t have been a problem, except that her accent and speech patterns remain much the same, and I can believe Horrick’s character sitting in the front row of the House of Commons only until she speaks, when I suddenly flash back to classic Bubble lines like:

Until the special thing broke. The thing that’s attached to the typewriter. little animal with a ball. little animal small, creeps about. Not a rat.
The mouse that’s got a telly with VD

Anyhow, both The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard and AbFab are highly recommended.

Scott Adam’s Dilbert blog addresses this question. More to the point, he questions whether Grade Fives are learning the things that they really need in life.

From a marketing perspective, there’s a brilliant new game show on TV called Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? The host, Jeff Foxworthy, asks adults questions from topics covered in grade school. The adult can rely on a 5th grader for help up to three times.

For example, Foxworthy asked what constellation the Big Dipper is in (Ursa Major). Another question asked which bone in the human body is the largest (the femur). All of the 5th graders allegedly knew the answers.

Clearly, our kids are being taught a lot of useless crap.

Worth reading.