Twisted # 1

A Danish newspaper publishes a cartoon which, among other things, portrays Muhammed with a bomb in his turban, hinting that Muslims are prone to violence.
Muslims duly set fire to / threaten / bomb the newspaper’s headquarters as well as any other Danish building that they happen to be close to.


Twisted # 2

Danish newspaper exercises its right to free speech by publishing cartoons.
Muslims in Denmark and other European countries excercise their right to free speech by protesting against the newspaper’s right to free speech.


Twisted # 3

Muslims immigrate to Europe, presumably because they choose to do so, presumably because they expect a better here.
They then protest against the very foundations that make this society better than what they left.


Do these people think at all?
And what I really wonder is, how many of them know that they are protesting against cartoons – how many are out there just because their neighbour is? And how many have actually seen the thing they are protesting against?
(The cartoons are available here.)

Sighs of relief, the intense career thinking is over (and consequently also my silence here).
I’ve signed the contract. They don’t know it yet, but I have.

It was either a long-term wise decision, or just plain foolish… and I won’t really know which it was until several years from now.

I accepted a job with the Technology department of the company I’m currently with. I’m going in as a lateral hire, but will nevertheless join their graduate training programme, together with new graduates. That’s eight weeks of full-time training this summer and frequent continuing training throughout the first year.

And I’ve turned down a perfectly good job from another firm, which also offered lots of training, and exciting products, and the people seemed nice as well. Plus the pay would have been about 50% higher.

The other job was one I would immediately be quite good at, because to a large extent it uses technologies I already know, and advancement from there. The one I chose doesn’t expect me to be particularly productive at all during the first year or so, but spend the time learning instead – and it will certainly be needed, because all the technologies used here will be new to me (Java above all).

In the end, I think both jobs would have turned out well and be broadly comparable. Apart from the fact that one offered 50% more money, but the other is with a firm that I know and trust, with people I know and like.

So I guess this is how much I value my relationship with the firm.