Matthew Baldwin is a foxy grandma
The geek in question: Matthew Baldwin
The job title: Programmer/Writer on the protocol documentation team.
So, what are you working on right now?
We have been creating technical specifications for the protocols used by Microsoft applications to communicate … okay, this is the moment where the eyes of the person who asked that question typically glaze over, so I’ve never actually come up with an ending for this sentence.
Is it awesome?
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Bruce Dawson shows that he can go just as far, or farther, on one wheel. He commutes 15 miles a day to work and recently finished a 500-mile team unicycle relay race across Nova Scotia.
By Jennifer Warnick
July 3, 2008
A lot about Bruce Dawson’s life can be explained with numbers, starting with the number 1. That’s how many wheels Dawson, a software design engineer in the Games group, uses to commute almost eight miles each way to work on an Avondale Road bike path in Redmond.
He averages 12 to 14 miles per hour (19 to 23 kilometers per hour) on his unicycle. On a recent training ride in Fremont, he achieved speeds of 16 to 17 mph (26 to 27 km/h). When pedaling to work or on the Sammamish and Burke Gilman bike trails, he routinely passes bicycles. “Anybody out for a casual ride is likely to be passed,” Dawson said. “It’s kind of a cruel pleasure I allow myself.”
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(spouse)x(spouse)+foocamp=D2R2?
The Geeks in Question: Jennifer Chayes & Christian Borgs
The job titles: Managing Director and Deputy Managing Director of Microsoft Research, respectively. Also: spouses.
You guys are heading to Foo Camp later today, right? I hear that all attendees had to answer a few questions for their bios, including “Which Star Wars character are you?”
Jennifer: I said Luke Skywalker, because I’m always seeking.
Christian: And I said, “I’m D2R2!”
Jennifer: …It’s R2D2! Forgive him, he’s European.
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Earning a seat at the final table of a World Poker Tour tournament took more than winning cards for Jeff DeWitt. It included a philosophy on gaming and the support of the Microsoft poker community.
By Joshua Isaac
July 21, 2008
Jeff DeWitt held two pair with aces over fours. Odds favored his cards, and some calculated betting on his part made this a big pot. Already eight hours into this four-day tournament, he played most of it short stacked, or at a low chip-level disadvantage, and could finally start playing from a position of power. But when someone went all in on the final card—in Texas hold ‘em, it’s called the river card—DeWitt got an uneasy feeling.
If he calls and wins, he’s up big. But if he loses, his tournament is done. He chose another option and folded. Sometimes, winning in poker requires cutting your losses. “I later learned the guy who went all in had two more fours, or four of a kind,” said DeWitt.
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Here, hold these brackets and pretend to be a line of code!
I spent the last two days at Microsoft’s product fair, an employee-only event where all the different product groups got to show off their various stuffs. My team (Staffing Marketing, our unofficial motto being: It’s cool to work at The Soft!) was there giving away shwag and and talking to folks about all our various projects like View<myWorld> and Jobsblog and Microspotting.
I took a few photos of people pretending to be the code by standing in a pair of brackets. If you spot yourself in any of these pictures, get in touch! I’ll get you a Microspotting tee. :)
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Reed rocks
The geek in question: Reed Sturtevant
The job title: Managing Director of Microsoft Startup Labs
What are you working on right now?
Hiring in Boston! Our group is in start-up mode. The first of us got hired last fall, and now there are 12 of us. We’ve got seven people who’ve accepted who haven’t started yet.
What kinds of stuff will you be working on?
The idea is to create an internal, Boston-based development group that can build products and launch them to market the same way that start-ups do. We want to do a whole bunch of products at the same time, put them together from scratch. We’ll take ideas and concepts from within the company and figure out how to move these products through the early stages of creating a new business. Evaluate them. Work on prototypes. We’re focused on the early stage, but with permission to ship.
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