Uh, yah

Agile: Organizational Balance

2010-06-28T12:47:00.004-05:00

In my previous post Agile: Specialist vs Generalist, I recast the specialist vs generalist debate into broader understandings, considering that specialists and generalists naturally arise out of monolithic (waterfall-like) and startup-like (agile) organizations. One could say these are the default states, but these defaults do not preclude the other. The question that arose for me is this: What is the best balance between purely self-organizing (agile) and purely leader-based (waterfall) in larger organizations?

When I consider the experiences I've had with Agile, I found a very strong personal association with the Agile team and easily identify with roles, responsibilities and activities within an Agile team. I think it is an excellent way to organize a small group of 5-9 people. However that experience was embedded within an organization that had many groups of 5-9 people, all with varying ideas of what a team was responsible for and they should operate. I can't say that this is necessarily a problem, however I do not know what the best strategy the "layer above" could use to enable success for the entire group. Hence my question above - should the organization been structured as a recursive or self-similar entity where each of the "teams" were considered members of a meta-team, each group behaving as an individual developer in a simple "agile team"? Or should there be set of managers that treat the agile teams as members of their group and assign them tasks and mete out punishments?

Perhaps "punishment" is incorrect - consequences is probably better, but it is still something missing in the reading I've done on Agile. How does one handle a poorly performing team? How does one measure that output? From a team perspective, the team measures itself, but the team could be deluded or mistaken in its assumptions. I think I can see the comment postings now: "guide the team back to the right path by assigning a mentor or leader that can steer the team in the right direction." So maybe my initial recollections are not correct with respect to Agile and consequences, but it leads back to the idea leadership/management of many Agile teams: How does one make sure the projects stay on track?

One of the key items of Agile is communication between people. Probably the most critical communication junction is that between the implementors and the consumers. In a purely top-down model, the managers fill the role of "consumer" - the implementors talk to the people above themselves in the hierarchy and that's it. That abstraction can hurt the final product, but that abstraction (like any abstraction) provides flexibility: the manager can make absolute decisions and keep the project on track. I believe there must be a way to bring that flexibility into a large Agile organization without the loss of communication.

A hierarchical organization provides benefits - each layer can be thought of a leader with several "subordinates" that fulfill requests. This hierarchy does not preclude Agile - after all the best teams anticipate problems and act independently as much as possible. So I believe there must be a way to fit aspects of the hierarchy with Agile teams.

Why even bring this up? Consider a purely Agile environment with several (>= 10) teams. How would they organize the work? Each team would have to act as an individual member of a larger team. This larger team would define the overall backlog and each team member would take on work for the next iteration. Another way would be to designate one team to define the backlog and the rest to pull from the master backlog. What happens when disagreements occur? Disagreements can be resolved via communication between the effected teams, but what happens if one team is obstinate? More meetings and communication. The point is, to work in a consensus manner takes time, time which may not be available. Having a someone to that holds a "buck-stops-here" authority cuts down on this time. A decision has to be made and the quicker it is made, the better. Not everyone is going to agree with it, so just move on.

In fact, the Agile methodology is eminently suited for this quick-decision management - the organization must be able to take a new decision later if an old one proved incorrect. The benefit of this flexibility is lost if the initial decisions take too long. Have a single decision maker will speed the initial decision making process.

So what is the appropriate balance? My initial idea is that it requires someone who has authority within the company (as in the teams must heed the decisions and requests from this person), but who is not member of any team. This person would not define what needs to be done but would instead be responsible for the output of several teams. They could act on behalf of the teams in some instances, but would have to listen to the teams in others.

Yes very sketchy, but that is how many Agile things were described to me initially. The balance between authority and flexibility needs to be discovered within an organization. I believe this is a vital piece - one that was missing from the organization where I was first exposed to Agile. Moving to Agile, especially within a larger non-Agile organization, is a very tricky business. I'm just hoping to provoke some thought and comment.

Agile: Specialist vs Generalist

2010-06-28T11:56:00.005-05:00

In his recent blog post, Peter Scheyen began a multi-part response to this comment. The blog post contrasted developer specialization and developer generalization in an agile context. The comment suggested that "... Agile robs us of specialization", and Peter's response described how specialization operates within an Agile team. I think the comment and the response come from different perspectives - one where Agile is not suitable (comment) and one where Agile is suitable (response). So allow me to step a little bit.

I wish to recast "specialist vs. generalist" to "Cog-in-the-machine vs. Member-of-Startup". Many large organizations have a decidedly non-Agile project management approach, and for many it works well. I think that specialization in a non-Agile environment is a side-effect of longevity or survival. If I were hired to be part of a large development organization, I would start off as a faceless cog - something that is interchangeable with any of the other cogs. The longer I stay in the organization, the specialized I will become, whether by accident (I worked on system X since day 1!) or design (I became the go-to guy for System X). Cast in pure evolutionary terms, this is a survival tactic, so the mere fact that I am still there (with the corresponding higher costs and "slowness") is because of something that makes me stand out from the faceless cogs. Specialization becomes inevitable.

The other extreme occurs if I were to be hired to a startup. In a startup, I may have some special skills, but everyone must work to pick up any work that needs to be done. In the startup, there is a chronic lack of staffing because the organization is short on resources. If things get left behind, the whole organization fails, so a weak team member is harder to accommodate. Generalization becomes inevitable.

This brings me back to the post: the ideal Agile team described is closer to a startup than anything else. The ideal team works like a startup, identifying and filling any gaps, regardless of specialty, but still leverages the team members with the greatest knowledge in any area.

I wrote a comment to summarize the above and it got me thinking about Agile organizations and more traditional organizations. The Agile team described in Peter Scheyen's post is ideal - the team has no distinct leader, just a set of developers with various skills and specialties that are engaged as needed. This works fantastically well when the entire development organization is "small" and the developers buy into the model. In the more traditional environments, there were team leaders, managers (at several levels), directors, etcetera, that had two roles: assignment of tasks and responsibility for the project. This is a very top-down model - the "top" decides to do something and the requests filter down to the ultimate workers who make it happen. If something goes wrong, there is a chain of responsibility up to the top that can easily be identified. Contrast this with the Agile team described - it is bottom up, so the team as a whole is responsible for getting a request done, but it has always been a bit murky to me on how a large Agile organization with many teams assigns tasks.

I don't want to make this post too long, so I will save this for my next post(Agile: Organizational Balance): How does an organization find the balance between purely distributed (self-organizing Agile teams) and purely leadership (top-down, waterfall) of large projects?

Excellent!

2010-05-06T13:00:00.001-05:00

This posting was so good, I had to copy it here.

Scooping the Loop Snooper

an elementary proof of the undecidability of the halting problem

Geoffrey K. Pullum, University of Edinburgh

No program can say what another will do.
Now, I won’t just assert that, I’ll prove it to you:
I will prove that although you might work til you drop,
you can’t predict whether a program will stop.

Imagine we have a procedure called P
that will snoop in the source code of programs to see
there aren’t infinite loops that go round and around;
and P prints the word “Fine!” if no looping is found.

You feed in your code, and the input it needs,
and then P takes them both and it studies and reads
and computes whether things will all end as they should
(as opposed to going loopy the way that they could).

Well, the truth is that P cannot possibly be,
because if you wrote it and gave it to me,
I could use it to set up a logical bind
that would shatter your reason and scramble your mind.

Here’s the trick I would use – and it’s simple to do.
I’d define a procedure – we’ll name the thing Q -
that would take any program and call P (of course!)
to tell if it looped, by reading the source;

And if so, Q would simply print “Loop!” and then stop;
but if no, Q would go right back to the top,
and start off again, looping endlessly back,
til the universe dies and is frozen and black.

And this program called Q wouldn’t stay on the shelf;
I would run it, and (fiendishly) feed it itself.
What behaviour results when I do this with Q?
When it reads its own source, just what will it do?

If P warns of loops, Q will print “Loop!” and quit;
yet P is supposed to speak truly of it.
So if Q’s going to quit, then P should say, “Fine!” -
which will make Q go back to its very first line!

No matter what P would have done, Q will scoop it:
Q uses P’s output to make P look stupid.
If P gets things right then it lies in its tooth;
and if it speaks falsely, it’s telling the truth!

I’ve created a paradox, neat as can be -
and simply by using your putative P.
When you assumed P you stepped into a snare;
Your assumptions have led you right into my lair.

So, how to escape from this logical mess?
I don’t have to tell you; I’m sure you can guess.
By reductio, there cannot possibly be
a procedure that acts like the mythical P.

You can never discover mechanical means
for predicting the acts of computing machines.
It’s something that cannot be done. So we users
must find our own bugs; our computers are losers!

It's been...

2010-05-01T23:01:00.002-05:00

... a wide spectrum of experiences. I didn't want to just say "fun" because it hasn't always been fun. But then again, it is work, so fun is an added bonus. The company I have been with for the last 8 years (plus a few more as a co-op student) is closing down. I've been trying to think of some words of wisdom, summaries, histories etc. but I don't think the time is right for that just yet. Instead, I found something in this article that nicely illustrated what I enjoyed about "the old days" at work.

The article is an ACM Queue interview with one of the original designers of the ARM chip, Steve Furber. During a description about why the original ARM chip was so small, power efficient and cheap, Mr. Furber commented that:

This is good management retrospective: by depriving us of resources of any sort, they forced us to make decisions in favor of simplicity. -- Steve Furber

There were many parallels to BBC Micro and my old company - both were small, had limited resources and was an outside player in a potentially large market. In those earlier days, trying to do the impossible seemed like the only way to survive, so we went for it. They were exciting times and it worked - for a while. The later down hill slide is where my old organization and BBC Micro differed. I believe the small size and lack of resources resulted in steps forward that could not be duplicated by the company we became.

Untitled

2010-01-04T21:42:00.002-05:00

Wow - I was reflecting on the day trying to come up with something interesting, and I really don't have much that is worth discussing. Even vastly one-sided discussion generated entirely by me. I had to start writing though, so I tried to focus on this, but I'm tired. I'm really glad I didn't try and start playing on the PS3 'cause that would have been a giant time-suck.

I really thought I'd be able to get some stuff done on the wired home network, but no dice. I enjoyed hanging out too much. Then I was tired. And here I am. Guess this means I should pack things up and go to sleep, so I will.

Weird...

2010-01-03T21:43:00.003-05:00

I'm really wondering what I'm doing in an "online" sense now. I have a blog, a twitter account, email, web and *nix powers, but what I have I done with them. More importantly what should I do with them? Rhetorical for the blog of course because here I am...

The most prolific blogger I know (in real life) tends to write about what he was doing in a day, things he's done or will do, thoughts on this or that. Same with most Twitter postings I've bothered to look at. First I'll admit that I haven't tried to read many tweets, but I use Slashdot like Twitter in a sense. But what I am doing? Other than practicing my rhetorical questions? When I try and start a rhythm going with daily posts I tend to write about meta issues, a sort of Sienfeld of blog posts, a blog about thoughts about blogs, endless self referential loops that eventually just peter out. Kind of like modern culture. Huh - talked myself into the mainstream. I'm the everyman, talking about talking about nothing, endless repeats and references. Yes I do get the irony that I am the one seemingly decrying pop culture references. I am the one with a Simpson's or Futurama quote at the ready. I'm not applying morality to the our-culture-is-a-self-referencing-house-of-mirrors, but I can't see it as being entirely wholesome either.

This is the sort of thing that will cause people to rise up and cast of the shackles of their oppressive machines, machines made in their own image, in a kind of Butlerian Jihad... And yet I can't keep from referencing something somewhere. It must be a crutch, a bad habit that I've developed over the years, that if I can't tie something I say to something that's come before it can't be good. That kind of ideology doesn't stand up - it doesn't make logical sense. I would hope that I could one day make something that isn't embedded in what came before - a wholly new thing, a creation I can point to and say "I thought of that. I was the first one and I can prove it." Yes it's wishful thinking, but apparently that helps you live longer. Not sure about stream-of-consciousness writing though. Not many studies there. Don't know too many people that do it, although my sister's boyfriend really does an excellent job with the ol' Facebook status updates. I'm more of a "open the faucet and let's see what comes out" rather than a couple of words slapped together, held only by a tenuous 'now' association... Even my gibberish is getting sloppy now - better move on.

Let's pretend that last paragraph didn't happen (if you didn't skip to here, I can't really take back that last paragraph. You've read it, you can't unread it... And don't bother trying it's too messy). Many have predicted "have and have-nots" future, with some sort of technology separating the two groups. Money used to be the easiest and most visible, but communication and computers has been a popular sci-fi theme in the past. It really seems like it is approaching, although there may be some different ways to classify people. Right now, the vast interconnectedness - searchable interconnectedness - provides tremendous benefits. The "always-on" society isn't really a burden, it's an analogy for humans that can communicate in parallel with what they're doing. Think of Twitter - you shout to the ether every time you start a task. Almost like you're a lawyer making notes in your log book for billing purposes. The act of communicating isn't really an act or effort - it's a side effect. But there are tremendous potential problems. The biggest is with power.

Electricity is the one thing I've been worried about being without for any length of time. It's the fungible energy and it makes all the fun things work. For me those things don't have to be connected to other people but whatever. People (and their homes) are starting to get to the point where they don't work right if there is no power. The techno-haves can't really operate without electricity. Many are helpless when the machines don't work. The article I read about trivia games and the internet become more clear - people don't have to remember things so they won't. If they can look it up online, it's good enough. I know I've said similar things in the past, but the problem is how to evaluate the information. It makes the most sense to put this in a social context.

Let's pretend that you weren't using a computer to find out the answer to a question, you could only talk to people. People who weren't using computers... *sigh* Anyway, you ask the same question, possibly in slightly different ways, and then you gather the responses and come up with an answer. If you are wise, you solicit several answers, hopefully from people you trust, and look for the common answers. The value of the response is based on your trust of the source and your knowledge about them. You can also evaluate the response to the particular question by watching and listening carefully to the answers given. Similarly, if you don't have an internal knowledge core, how can you possibly evaluate answers discovered on the Internet. Simply looking for the most common answer is a perversion of the "wisdom of crowds" idea. Playing games with internet search engine results started shortly after money was mentioned in the context of the internet. The "wisdom of crowds" idea works, much like free market capitalism, in a largely bias free environment.

So? Well, you've read this far (I'm impressed - I only read this far because I'm writing it. I didn't really edit it), so I should tie these threads together. The bias toward technology and always-on-communication can go to far, creating an insulated self-referential world that becomes your entire culture. This would be a "bad thing". Learn to operate without. That is a sentence and I believe it, rotund technoman that I am. Balance is elusive be one should seek it. Balance between operating with and without, connected and not, electricity or no.

Maybe tomorrow the diatribe will be better. Coherent. Brief. Illuminating. Less self-referential (doubtful).

Contractual obligation?

2010-01-02T23:51:00.003-05:00

I guess this is like a contractual obligation post - if I'm going to write every day, I've got to do it before midnight :) Ah well - I guess that's just how the holidays go; I don't really find myself with any kind of schedule. Once the major holiday gatherings are done, then it's chores and errands that don't normally get done. Plus lots of gaming. Got the ol' skates sharpened - 5 pairs this time. New record. My sister and nephew went skating with us before Christmas and I'm shocked she could even stand up properly. There was a huge bit of corrosion or something smack dab in the middle of the blade. Plus I can't imagine they were very sharp. So those are done.

Managed to get something else done I've been thinking about for awhile, which is to get some old stuff off of floppies and on to a CD or something. Specifically my old Turbo Pascal 6 kit. It's held up well so far and I was able to pull everything off the floppies. I'm not exactly sure how I'd install it, but I thought qemu or dosbox or something like that would work, if nothing else. Maybe wine on Linux? The next step would be to find some of the old source code... That may still be around somewhere as well... At any rate, maybe one of my boys will be interested in learning pascal, although my older son has used and enjoyed Scratch a fair bit. Getting the algorithmic mindset in place is more important than the specific language.

2010: The next... thing

2010-01-01T22:08:00.002-05:00

Creating a blog post for Jan 1 has to be one of those common activities that everyone does these days, akin to the crush at the gym for the month of January. Naturally I have to add to the rush, the useless torrent of nonsensical jabbering simply to add another notch to the old, um, blogpost. Tis no matter - not a huge thing, but it is a thing. Some kind of vague philosophical commentary that. If I was really going with the flow and not merely being dragged under by it I'd have created a todo list of sorts on Dec 31st and attempted to follow through with it. Well I forgot so I'm going to do it now, now being the "now that I remembered" now.

One thing I attempted last year and I desperately need to do this year is to keep that regular physical activity scale going. That or cut down on the ice cream consumption, but I'm not sure I can do two things. Well three because the other thing I attempted last year was to keep a regular writing pace. I mean this space has the capacity to contain my limitless dribblings and I think it's easier when no one is really paying attention to me. The opposite of many people I suspect. I mean if someone reads something I have written and gets a chuckle or provokes a thought or bridges a synapse, I'll be satisfied. Myself I've found this sort of writing closer to that of the classroom note taking exercise. I always enjoyed attending class and taking notes, but I rarely read them later. The act of writing was the path to deeper understanding and my penmanship was most horrifying. My mother always thought I'd be a doctor after seeing my scrawl. And I think that is what I have here.

My aunt lent me the memoirs of Albert Speer, one of the top ranking officials in the Third Reich government. He was initially Hitler's architect, but later an important minister. He was one of the few who admitted guilt at Nuremburg and served 20 years for it. He spent his time reflecting on what happened and why and produced a book. My aunt's comment was that it is slanted to show him in a good light, but that's to be expected to some extent. You can't be purely objective about things personally done or participated in. However that first hand account is always interesting. This is the another reason for writing, in a somewhat personal way, on a regular basis - to reveal one self to yourself. Sounds facile, but is a difficult thing to do. Those who are best at it are probably the people that lead the most peaceful existence.

So, perhaps I'll be able to write a little every day. Maybe this time I'll look for different times of the day to do it. Maybe I'll even factor in some pen-and-paper time. Don't want to lose the old skills just yet.

Opinions on Programming

2009-11-29T00:43:00.002-05:00

Saw an interesting article on Slashdot (here's the full article). Of course I saw it's a great article because it lines up with some opinions I've held for several years. Guess it's more of a personal philosophy, probably shaped by learning how to program in text: you've got to know how things work if want to understand what is going on. It applies to so many different aspects of life too - it's shocking at times the trivial things that people don't know. Like how to change a tire - to understand what to do, you have to have an idea of how the tire is attached to the vehicle. Programming with pictures is all well and good, but there comes a point at which you have to reach deeper understanding of what goes on behind the pictures to ensure that things are operating as you wish.

I've had this discussion with one particular person and they pointed out, quite correctly, that there is a good reason why UML programming never took off. That's because the graphical development environments were always the encoding the wrong thing - the requirements. The "what" rather than the "how". The "what" parts are often contradictory, which is why I have a job. A software development professional is there to turn the "what" into the "how" correctly. Break the paradoxes and force the machine to do what is implied in the requirements, not do them literally.

So as one of the developers quoted in the article, graphical environments are good for learning. Small projects that show how things fit together. That first frustrating few experiences when the larger project is attempted and hours are spent to make two things mesh that won't work together. Then showing the text-based programming languages - the "how" behind it all. From what I've heard, any attempts at doing UML programming actually had two steps: First, design in the graphical environment and then second, tune the generated C source code to make things actually work. Very indicative of things to come.

I also appreciated what Herb Sutter had to say - that bare-metal programming and optimization will come back into vogue in the next 10 years. Waste is waste and graphical environments and elaborate abstractions are waste. And this waste can be translated into environmentally-relevant impacts. Smaller, efficient code will use less power, less space and be better all around. I still hope for the day when every chip-based interface responds instantaneously to my input. Even if it has to tell me that what I just requested will take a long time, that initial response shapes my interaction.

Back again

2009-07-11T21:06:00.003-05:00

Kinda funny to stay that I'm "back" when I haven't really gone anywhere, just haven't been writing much lately. Here anyway. Kinda like when I started going back to the gym on a more regular basis - I said something about nice to be going to the gym again, and he said that he hardly noticed. "I thought your shift changed", he said. Nope - just didn't get out there. Same with this - just haven't been writing much of anything. The main reason of course being that I haven't been spending my nights in front of the computer. More like in front of the TV - been kinda worn out and just wanting to sleep more than use the computer. If I started at the computer, I'd end up staying up closer to 1am then 11pm. Plus if I "watch tv" I usually nod off for a bit.

The other annoying thing was the getting stuff moved over to the "new" hard drive - something I bought a year ago almost. The old XP partition was full all the time and I think it was causing issues. Now it has 300+ GB to play with and I don't have to worry about stuff for awhile. At least space-wise.

This posting is coming to you live from the Ubuntu partion however. I had 8.10 installed and upgraded a little while ago to 9.04. Just noticed today that I was running the old kernel, not a great thing. That should be nice and fixed now - need to keep on top of that. Love the little graphical goodies that are available now that my NVidia drivers are up and running as well - woobly windows and such. It's all very pretty and I appreciate it. Anyway, I need to post more because I haven't been vocal about some of the dumb things our government is doing, but that's for another post. Let's just see if I can keep a more consistent schedule going.

Blood donation fun

2009-05-27T16:29:00.001-05:00

At the donation site giving blood and typing with one thumb. All done nose and I can use two thumbs. Makes the whole process quicker. I've been giving blood on the same day as I play hockey and I still consider it a bit of an experiment. I think it's better than going the day before because I get so dehydrated playing. Giving blood forces me to drink more so I think this the best choice. Plus I always have my car on days I play hockey, so it works out that way as well.

We're lucky in London that we have permanent clinic. Makes the donation process more of a habit than a travelling clinics can. I heartily encourage everyone in the vast reaches of this blog to donate blood. It grows back quickly and alcohol is more effective after donation - more bang-for-your so to speak.

Anyway, still looking for time to blog and this was as good a time as any. I'll have to try and be more consistent.

At the computer - surprise!

2009-05-19T20:56:00.003-05:00

I am, somewhat surprisingly, sitting at my home computer whilst typing away at this. Certainly improves the throughput quite a bit. The inline editing I'm used to doing works better when one can erase and re-type a word without even thinking about it. The little mobile keyboard works, but I definitely don't have enough practice under my belt to have the same facility as a full keyboard. Or kybard as Dilbert once noted.

I have barely been at my computer for weeks now. I'm still not sure why, but I'm going with it. I suppose some of the people I used to play online games are wondering what the heck is up, but they'll figure out a way. What I have to do is figure out a way to stop spending so much! You can tell when I pay the bills, 'cause that's when I think about money. I have to do a better job of managing what I have instead of managing what I want. Maybe that's the trick. Whatever it is, I have a job and that's good. I have to stop digging at stuff and pay down debt instead of racking it up. Easier said then done, given my past history in this matter. And I know that I'm the biggest culprit in this manner in my household. Ah well - I shall have to be more careful!

Anyway, I also need to make sure I get out the door on time tomorrow - hockey ahoy! Plus I have to be at work for 9am, so I have to be careful with my time budgeting as well. Maybe I'll get someone else to pick up the pucks for me... But the Wings and the Blackhawks are on, so I'd best go investigate that...

Meeting post!

2009-05-14T13:11:00.001-05:00

This new app is so handy I can post while waiting for meetings to begin. Has not started well - we're threatening to jump off the bridge if people don't show up. Not much of a threat really because it is a phone bridge and no one likes meetings anyway. So, I can tap away at this.

Not much else to say for today - the novelty is enough for today.

More couch musings...

2009-05-13T21:45:00.001-05:00

Not that there is a lot to see here, but I'm here on the couch. Saw part of the Pittsburgh Washington game. The Pens were ahead 4-0 in the 2nd. But I'm happy that the Pens pulled through.

Only had one goalie today. Kinda surprising - this guy is often late, but does not usually miss a game. We did get 10 skaters out which is also a good thing. A few more would be perfect but our goalkeeper issues are raising the ire of several people. One person suggested some changes to how we handle goalies not showing up. Use money to help people remember, but without forcing everyone to commit large sums up front.

I think I need to finish here before I simply pass out

That was an okay post

2009-05-12T21:25:00.001-05:00

That went well enough that I'm going to give it another try. Too bad things didn't work out for Vancouver - those last two goals were real heartbreakers. Kane's last goal was pretty special though. I think that last crash into Loungo really threw him off.

Today I'm looking forward to Detroit looking good again. I think the last time I saw them was game two and the wings did not look good at all - maybe a little lost. But evidently they got it together for the last few.

I don't know why I just haven't been motivated to use the computer here at home. I am going to pin this on the playoffs, but who knows.

Not a great year for parents of my son's class. One little guy's mom passed away last night. I believe she had brain cancer and this was the third occurance and there was nothing left to do. Over Christmas another guy's father died suddenly. Poor guys. Way too much education about endings.

So far the game looks good, so I'm going to wrap things up. Like now. Really.

Another mobile post

2009-05-11T22:15:00.001-05:00

Trying out a new post tool and we'll see if I can post more easily from the ole mobile computing platform. It's been tough to keep up with posting every day during playoffs. And all the different events that need attending. Not really too many of those, but it could happen.

Watching Vancouver play a spirited game -a lot of back and forth action. Vancouver is currently ahead 4-3, but we'll see what happens. Definitely more difficult to use this tiny keyboard, but if I don't want to get off the couch, what choice so I have?

Chicago just tied the game.

Chicago penalty. Hard to type and watch. Better finish up!

Got the boys out of the house on Mother's Day and bowling. They've been wanting to go again for some time, but this was the first time it was just three if us. Pretty busy weekend, but it worked out.

Vancouver penalty. 4v4 for 39 seconds.

Anyway, I'll see how this post works tomorrow.

Brother...

2009-05-07T22:18:00.003-05:00

... I guess I changed to "every two or three days" for posting. I don't know why, but I've been so very tired for the last few weeks. I guess it's the going to work, getting stuff done. Getting up and playing hockey a few mornings a week - plus watching hockey late... I suppose that would explain things a bit.

I've got to get a plan straight for this Saturday - Sunday is Mother's Day and I have yet to do my shopping. I really, really need to do that and bring the kids along. I'll have to think of something. Privately - I know who reads this space! But suggestions will be entertained ;)

I really hope Jim Balsillie gets his team. I really, really dislike Bettman. Especially his ideas of what needs to be done for the NHL. I don't think that the league should keep trying to cram hockey down the throats of people that don't normally see snow on the ground. I mean some places think it's great, but others - not so much. If a team makes money, that is good. If a team has been given a chance and still doesn't make money... I guess I can't say how long is long enough, but I suppose the best way is to count owners. Changes owners more often than the coach, probably won't be making money any time soon. Anyway, it is disappointing that the shenanigans have to be deployed to try and get another team in Southern Ontario. This area could easily support another NHL team and there would be a fan base and people willing to pay to watch hockey. Not like some places. Maybe Balsillie will outlast Bettman and then all will be well. Let's hope so.

Long day...

2009-05-04T20:58:00.002-05:00

I went a bunch of days without posting again! What kind of sad commitment is that? At least I was blogging at work - took quite a while as well. I posted something on Friday, but it was only "part 1". The part 2 ended up being pretty big, so I probably should have made parts 2-5 and part 6 later, but the issue is current so I felt I had to get done.

The topic of how to manage releases comes up every now and again and it shouldn't. We should have a system that provides benefits for all the user instead of just some and then we won't have to ask the same things over and over. Hopefully my postings at work will help illuminate some of the choices and get more people thinking about them. One can only hope...

Whoa

2009-05-01T22:15:00.004-05:00

Guess I should use my computer at home more. Or at least some kind of better mobile blogging software 'cause I haven't written anything for 5 days! That's pretty horrible given how I was doing before... I just haven't been up to using the computer for the past few days. At home at least. It's been pretty busy at work, what with meetings and just so much stuff to do. That is a good thing, but sometimes it leaves one tired and out-blogged.

One of the things I've been involved in is around our branching/release strategy. It's funny because we've had this conversation too often as far as I'm concerned. In the meeting we had to discuss it, we talked about the same old set of arguments about the basic different ideas. It took a few days, but I think I hit why that was. We were not establishing the correct base questions - we didn't know what all the root issues were, so we argued over the proposed solutions. Also the arguments also revolved around the benefits of the proposals, not the drawbacks. I wrote up my ideas, but the analysis of the problem hasn't been done yet. That's probably something for tomorrow, but I think it is absolutely necessary. Otherwise we'll end up with the camps of "this is newer/better - let's do this" and the "this works, why mess with it?" Of course neither camp is that extreme, but hey analogies aren't fun if you don't push them a bit.

Anyway, I'm going to construct an analysis of the proposed solutions and identify if they can each meet the requirements and then see which one does the least harm. Maybe show which provides the best benefits with the least effort - both good criteria. I've been saying for a while now that the best way to evaluate a process - because that's what these solutions will be - is to pick the one that makes it hardest to wrong thing and easiest to do the right thing.

That is kind of tricky in the software business because you can change so many parts at once. For software processes, it's important to pick the process/tools that make it hard to do the wrong thing and then make your process fit the process implied by the tools.

You may have noticed something controversial a few paragraphs back as well - that we were picking a process. It doesn't seem like it because the choices revolve around different tools, but each tool implies a different process. Picking a process implies picking the tool to use.

Wow - I'm writing this in a very abstract way. I hope it's clear to other people what I'm trying to say... It's all that math training over the years - I tend to remove the parts that are irrelevant to an argument and replace them with variables or generics (when writing). The more involved the process or tools the more abstract the references become so we end up with this gobbledy-gook. Whatever - I wrote up something interesting to me and that's why I'm doing this. You can read for your own reasons. Individuality springs up everywhere.

Silly

2009-04-26T21:18:00.004-05:00

I came to this page yesterday - even thought about a topic. Didn't write though. Probably a good thing - I had an idea, but not a fully formed one. Writing then would have made a mess of things. Not like now - what I'm doing in a typical entry is more like a conversation. Start typing, see what shows up and take it from there. It works, although it does not make sense sometimes. The next time I sat back down there was no chance of an entry because I was beat.

It was a nice day yesterday - too bad I let my younger son dress himself. He spent most of the day outside and quite enjoyed it. Only catch was he had a long-sleeve shirt and long pants on. I think he got a little heat stroke by the end of the day, but he recovered before bed time. And he had a good day today. Today we went down to the local storm-sewer pond, where a large collection of frogs has been serenading us. The same son and a friend from the street followed a bunch of (slightly) older kids down there, where they proceeded to catch some frogs. After the first 20 it wasn't as fun, but I convinced my son that they probably would enjoy the pond better than a bucket at home. The other kids took about 20 to join the 14 or so they had collected earlier. I hope they take them back, but I'm not optimistic. Still it was good to see so many amphibians out there. Spotted some tadpoles as well, so things just keep progressing.

I managed to go for a glide in my new inline skates today as well. Bought them a few weekends back and never made it out until today. Most enjoyable. I think I could get quite the pace going, and might even be fairly safe if I learn to turn a bit better.

Finally, tried out the new butcher/deli in town. They advertise they only carry local grain-fed beef. Bought some strip loins and fired up the grill for supper tonight and the meat was good. Prices weren't horrible either. Not quite as good as the grass-fed beef I could get when we lived in BC, but still excellent. I will have to see if the quality changes over time.

Un-postal

2009-04-24T22:24:00.003-05:00

Not really keeping up with this whole blogging thing recently, have I? I was doing quite well for a long time, but then it kinda slipped away from me here. Oh well - not that tremendous a loss and frankly I can still keep doing this. Lots of neat stuff happening in non-computer ways so I can't complain.

Hockey today was excellent - benches were 3 deep and the game was fast. I feel good about the game because I got a goal (from the point no less) and we had the strong-defense team. So we peppered the other goalie and you know what that means. More goals, in case you didn't know what it means. Anyway it was a good thing.

Work has been interesting as well, but I should probably leave some of those thoughts for another post - one where I have my thoughts arranged in a coherent fashion. Not this night time jumble. Meetings all over, process and tool changes. Interesting times one might say. Lots of changes to accommodate I'd say. I guess it's one of those philosophy things - the tool is less important than using it. That's why I learned to use edlin, notepad, vi, emacs, edt, visual studio, eclipse and other editor/development environments. They all can edit source code, but each has an appropriate time and place for their use.

So tired...

2009-04-22T22:44:00.003-05:00

Don't seem to be posting every day like I want to. I blame the tired. Or maybe The Tired. Ness. The Tiredness. Whatever it is, I have it again tonight. That and the playoffs - they result in me watching more hockey (good) and not posting (not as good). But I did watch Vancouver advance in 4 straight after the overtime goal in St. Louis. Tonight, however, Calgary got my hopes up and Chicago brought them back down again. Calgary went on a tear with 3 straight goals. Then Chicago did the same. And now it's almost time for the third period. I'll have to watch that - at least part of it, until I canna watch no morrrrre. You know - sleep.

Short and...?

2009-04-20T22:14:00.002-05:00

Not gonna spend much time tonight writing, but I should get something down. I've been watching the Calgary-Chicago game and it is good. Western conference teams are just so durn fast - fun to watch. End of the second and Calgary is ahead - let's hope they can continue with the lead through the third. I've got to get to bed relatively soon as I have to be in to work early tomorrow - before 8am. I have been invited to a meeting with some of the more senior leaders. Don't worry - I'm nothing special. They've been having these meetings every week (maybe) and inviting all employees to this. Gives a chance to talk to people in charge more directly than normal. I've been trying to figure out what I should ask I think I know - I'm curious about the plans to bring in new tools. I feel we should have more process defined, and maybe more clear statements from the top as to where things are headed. We'll see what will be said about that.

A few days away

2009-04-19T20:25:00.002-05:00

I simply stayed away from the computer most of the weekend, so no update yesterday. No update Friday because, well the same reason, but slightly different. In both cases I was busy and by the time the end of the day rolled around, I was so entirely beat I simply had to fall into bed.

Friday I played pool with a friend after work. That was nice, but a little too expensive to do very often. I think maybe once a month with a little less food would probably fit the budget okay. Have not played pool in a long time, but I still managed to "not lose" using my patented 'clog-the-table' strategy. By allowing my opponent ample opportunities to scratch on the 8-ball, I would avoid losing. I was beaten twice however - but I can't not-lose every time. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to try this again relatively soon and improve my skills. My fine-touch shots were much better than I recall.

Yesterday was a long day, which involved my lawn mostly. I mentioned to my dad that I wanted to top dress my lawn, and he said that April was a good month to do that. He called me early and said he was heading out to get some top soil, was I ready? I said sure because if I didn't do it then, it probably wouldn't get done. Or I would have to order some soil, which would mean the cost of the dirt (~ $30/cubic yard) plus delivery charges ($50-$100 I'm guessing). In other words, delivery is at least as much as the soil itself, and seeing as I need only a few yards, the delivery would be the majority cost. I believe that most places will waive the delivery fee if you order enough, but "enough" is usually "a truckload" and that's > 10 cubic yards. That would be enough to choke my entire lawn and create flower beds around the whole house and represents a lot of work to haul. Considering topsoil weighs about 2400 lbs (1.2 tons) per cubic yard, I don't think I'd have the energy to move that much dirty. In one day anyway.

Anyway, my dad was able to fit about 2.5 cubic yards in his pickup and we spread that over the front lawn and made some piles in the back. Then it was lunch - a fine steak lunch - and then resting, followed by spreading the dirt in the back yard, mixing fertilizer and grass seed, spreading that over the front and back lawns, followed by racking everything with a metal fan-rake. That was enough for one day, but I think that I did what I needed to. We'll see how everything turns out in a few weeks. I'm pretty sure my lawn is in good shape, as it looks a bit better than most of my neighbour's lawns. I don't like to water my lawn, mainly because I'm I think that I shouldn't really have to do that, plus it's a bit of a waste of water. Several neighbours have sprinklers built into their lawns, and one adjacent neighbour waters consistently all summer. I think that after 3 years of non-watering, my lawn has developed a deeper root system and that is why it looks better now. Their lawns will remain very good during the summer while they water them, but I'm hopeful that my lawn will remain thick and non-dead even if I don't water it much. I'd rather have a lawn suited to the climate (read: I don't have to water) . My dad has mentioned that all the grasses he's seen growing native near his house (out in fields and such) are much more robust and remain green and full all summer, no matter how wet or dry it becomes.

Anyway, enough lawn talk - that was a long day's work. I tried to catch up with my playoff watching, but I simply could not. That combined with the scheduled power-outage meant that I had to go to bed before I passed out, although that nearly happened three or four times... I didn't really need to unplug anything, although I turned off one power bar - it was more to turn off my UPSs. I have one on my main computer and one on my cordless phone. The cordless phone one is most annoying - it has no buttons except on/off and it beeps every few minutes when the power is off to indicate it is using battery power. I cannot think of anything more annoying that sitting in the dark with a UPS beeping at me. It's not like I don't know the power is out - I understand the battery is being used. In fact, that's why I bought it! Can't it just do it's job quietly??? Even if it had a blinky light to show it was on battery, that would be okay because you can't see it if you're asleep or in a different room. But anyway, that's the way it is. Everything seems to be okay today, so I don't think anything went "kablamo".

Today it was simple chores around the house and Rock Band. The perennial favorite. I tried to arrange a session with my almost-brother-in-law, but I just wasn't persistent enough. He was interested, but I didn't get him on the phone until late in the day. Oh well - a couple of weeks and we'll be good to go. I have to make sure I have some beer and vittles so we can arrange things. It will be good.

Another work day

2009-04-16T22:11:00.002-05:00

Busy day today - workin' away at stuff that wasn't scheduled, but necessary. Gotta get that stuff done so that the new work can be done. Made it to the gym. Again. Twice this week - that's pretty good for me, at least lately. Hopefully I can keep it up 'cause I really needed it. Before I went on Tuesday I had a weird ache in my elbow and an arm workout cleared that up. Guess I needed some good arm stretching to work things out. Got hockey tomorrow so we'll see how things hold up. Maybe I won't be quite so winded, but I suppose that also means I need to get the heck to bed.

My eldest son seems to be enjoying Rock Band quite a bit. He appears to be getting better at the guitar at a rapid pace. Not surprising really, given his age. After a week of regular play he is vastly improved. He tried moving up a difficulty level and had some moderate success, so hopefully he will try some more. He probably doesn't see that if he spends three or four days working at the harder level he'll achieve the same success he has now at the easy level. That remains to be seen. Anyhoo, I must go and sleep now so I will be ready for hockey tomorrow.

Tax cut interestingness

2009-04-15T20:20:00.002-05:00

Saw this report on the cbc.ca website today and I was intrigued. I'm kinda torn between both aspects of this report. The first point is the origin of the report - "The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives". It's a left-leaning institute, which gives with the summary of the report. The summary being that cutting taxes hurts more people than it helps because of all the government programs that get cut along with the taxes.

I'm torn because I understand the conclusion of the report, but I'm not sure that I agree with what it represents. I think that more people lose benefits when taxes are cut, but I'm not sure that is such a bad thing in the first place. The whole left-vs-right internal division causes me political stomach cramps. Wow, that's an awkward analogy, but let's move on. I believe that we, as a country, need to have programs that we collectively pay for to benefit society as a whole. One of those is health care, and another is education. Collecting money from everyone's pay to help people that have lost their job is a good thing as well. Plus there are some situations where money needs to be given out so that people can survive. Then there is infrastructure, the military and policing. After that... I'm not so sure. I'd like to see less bureaucracy and less reliance on the government for day-to-day survival. However that's what the report talks about - cutting taxes reduces programs that people rely on every day.

I think the "every day" part gets to me. I have no problem paying taxes so that we (as a country) can do bigger things than me, my town or county etc could do alone. Cutting the GST was always a bad idea - taxing things as they're consumed is pretty fair. You have a bigger car, you pay more taxes on gas and upkeep. You like to eat at fancy restaurants, you pay more tax. It's pretty fair. Cutting that tax was a bad idea. It looks even worse now that we hit an economic downturn - people spend less so the GST collected will be less than ever.

In conclusion, I've complained and I don't know what my point was. I guess I need to go find more chocolate eggs to fuel a potential response... But I'm not really going to do that now.

Here we are yet again

2009-04-14T21:42:00.002-05:00

Tuesday night, before the game. We've got two goalies, although one is a fill-in. Borrowing equipment so that we have two live bodies. I'll have to ask someone at work if we can borrow his equipment somehow. I know there are at least 2 people that are willing to play net as needed, although only one has actually done it before. I'm hopeful that at least 4 more people show up tomorrow so that we can have 4v4 or 5v5. 3v3 is kinda, well, tiring. But that is for tomorrow.

Today is Lemon Jell-o Appreciation Day, although I sadly did not appreciate it enough as I did not make any. Still, I thought about lemon Jell-o and appreciated it. Greatly.

Got a chance to play some more Rock Band this evening and I'm pretty happy with the new pedal. I think that I was doing pretty good - with more regular practice I seem to be improving pretty well. I'd like to see if I can beat the drums on hard, but some of the tour sessions require more time than I can string together (normally). Seven song sets are all well and good, but it's like watching the extended Lord of the Rings - I like watching them all together, but when do I have the time for it? Maybe I'll get lucky and meet up with someone on the weekend for some good ole Rock Band action. That's pretty far away though.

Whoopsie-doodle

2009-04-13T20:24:00.003-05:00

I totally forgot about writing blog posts for a couple of days there... I'm actually kinda surprised - but not that much really. First off, Saturday was a big day in that we went out shopping. The whole family. Does not happen much, so it stood out. My wife needed to get another Wii Balance Board because our original one stopped work. I think it may have died of loneliness, but that's just a suspicion. It was weird because it hadn't been used for some time and then it ceased to work. So we had to get that, and I had to get some drum pad silencers for my Rock Band drums after Friday's Rock Band at my sister's. Next we went to Best Buy and I got Rock Band 2, after convincing myself that it would work with the Rock Band instruments. Then the whole family got inline skates.

I'd had a look at some inline skates a few weekends back, as my wife has a growing interest in skating. I thought would be nice for everyone to get them so we could go out all together. Plus I never owned any and it looks like fun. Apparently I shouldn't go out when it is even a little damp as that gums up the bearings. So far, that isn't an issue as I haven't even attempted to go about yet. I got some hockey inline skates, ending up with Nike Bauer's because the toe box for the Mission's are way too narrow. The Bauer's have a huge square thing, matching my need for a small skate but with adult toes. Or something to that effect.

Anyway, we headed home and I had to try out Rock Band 2 to see if I'd wasted my money or what. Turns out that no, I had not. I proceed to play for the next 4 hours or so, with my oldest son joining me on guitar. It was an excellent time. The Rock Band 2 port for the Wii brings it more in line with what is done on the Xbox 360 and PS3 with customizable characters, online play and downloadable content. Needless to say, I was quite pleased. And then there was Sunday morning...

Sunday morning dawned and we had some time where we could play Rock Band until it was time to go for the family lunch at my aunt's. We went for lunch and got back around 5:30pm. My eldest son and I sat down, picked a set of 3 songs to do and off we went. I broke the bass pedal on the third note. Because I'd been given one of the older Rock Band original pedals, this one didn't crack or weaken - it snapped cleanly in the exact spot my original weakened. It was pretty tough, but I played for a couple more hours. The pedal worked if you weren't too energetic and held your foot in the right place.

This brings us to today. I needed to get a better replacement for the pedal, so I started calling around to some of the gaming stores. I found what I wanted at one and got them to hold it for me. Seems the Rock Band 2 pedal has a metal reinforcing plate and otherwise is the same. Well, that's what I wanted, give the way the first two pedals were damaged. And only $25 to boot! I picked that up and a second guitar so that we could get a full four-person band going. Rushed home and I was able to put the new pedal to the test. It worked really well for me - the metal plate made things really solid and movement easier. It makes less noise because it is more solid - the spring doesn't bend funny when you move it faster. The other neat thing is that this pedal came with a double-bass aggregator, which allows you to plug two pedals into the drum kit. Don't really need that yet, but the possibility is now there for me.

Good Friday

2009-04-10T22:37:00.002-05:00

Today is Friday and it was good. Played hockey this morning with 5 subs on each bench - pretty nice. Teams were a smidge lopsided (all the good puckhandlers were on one side) but it was a good skate. I think I got a goal even! But it dribbled in strangely, so it's hard to say. Spent the rest of the day at my sister's house having lunch and the playing Rock Band. Definitely a good time - haven't done the online part of Rock Band before and that was pretty fun. I'm sorely tempted to get a PS/3 so I have an excuse to buy Rock Band 2 and then I'll be able to play online. A good day.

Hey - it is the end of the week!

2009-04-09T20:31:00.002-05:00

It was a long time getting here, but now it is. And here we are! Regular slate of meetings and what-not at work, followed by a trip to Wonder Sushi. I tried to remain calm and not go nuts with the selected delights I normally gorge on. This turned out to be a good thing because I ended up eating my share and then my share again in crispy spicy rolls. They were extra spicy today and that means extra good, at least in my book. Kinda scuppered the rest of the day though, as it takes a while to produce 120 pieces of crispy spicy tuna.

Not much else to talk about, except this Slashdot article on CFL bulbs. Turns out that there is a gap between "real power" and "apparent power" used by these lights, something called the "power factor." Basically it means that the utility (the grid) has to have more power available than is used by the bulbs to make them work properly. I only went through some of the comments, but they make many interesting points about LEDs and CFLs and other options. I have always disliked the bans of incandescent bulbs - they are very useful and well understood. They have their uses, especially in the cold. The heat factor has been brought up recently - some people think that a house full of incandescents would provide extra heating in the winter. I personally don't think it makes a huge difference, but whatever. Incandescents produce a very nice quality of light. We got all CFLs for our house when we moved in 3 year ago, and I've had to replace several recently. The suspicion is that these are older, cheaper and less reliable than the bulbs we can buy today, but I haven't seen a 7 year life, or even a 5 year life. We'll wait and see.

Another Wednesday?

2009-04-08T21:23:00.002-05:00

Just staring blankly at the empty, uh, text box, trying to determine a topic. I seem to recall saying I should write about how the "grapefruit punch" has no vitamin C, even though it supposedly has grapefruit juice in it... It also 150 calories in 300 mL, making it more calorie dense than Barq's (160 calories in 355 mL). That's interesting, but in a very limited way - much like this entire enterprise. Oh well. I did win 3 games in a row at foosball - that never happens. Doesn't qualify as terribly interesting either. Tomorrow is the last day in this week and we'll be heading out to Wonder Sushi for lunch. One of those traditional jaunts, on very specific occasions. The specifics is that one of my co-workers has a spouse (only one spouse, I just couldn't think of a better way to write this) who is extremely allergic to shellfish. That means he can't go for sushi if he's going to be in the same building as his wife. Ergo (Latin is cool) we all go for sushi when this guy's wife goes somewhere without him. Lucky for us because it's all you can eat and we usually do. Actually we treat more like the Futurama episode on the cruise ship: "All you can eat. Plus a whole chicken." Except with fish. And less exploding. Still good though.

Tuesday already?

2009-04-07T20:02:00.002-05:00

I keep forgetting that it's a short week. Well, it's not the forgetting that makes such an impression but rather the remembering. Kinda like that found-the-keys-in-the-last-place-I-looked way. Anyway, I keep forgetting (then remembering) that Friday is a holiday, so there is much more urgency around everything. Not sure why, but there you are. I guess it doesn't help that "Idol" ran long and Fringe had to start late. That certainly adds to my urgency. I liked the episode, at least what I saw of it, and the story continues nicely. Next week's installment looks most exciting. Yes, yes - I look forward most verily. Like most things related to Fox, it would be nicer if they would just run the shows on a consistent weekly basis. You know - a schedule or season. Not this 4 episodes followed by hiatus, followed by 4 episodes and a break, the a re-tooling, a pause and a cancellation. You'd think they were parliament or something!

Speaking of parliament, I actually heard some rumblings from our (Canadian federal) government today. They decided to do something that the US did weeks ago - guarantee the new car warranties for GM and Chrysler. Good news because it looks like GM is gearing for bankruptcy Oh well - looking for the upswing in the economy, but that won't be in Canada for a while. We definitely lag behind the US in the effects of the economic downturn. The US has been suffering economically for more than a year, so we are probably a year behind. Typical in previous downturns, and I don't expect anything to change. Each downturn has a ripple effect within different sectors of the economy and the trickle-down is pretty clear. Hopefully we'll be back to vigorous sales soon.

Whether the weather?

2009-04-06T21:04:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was a nice day out of doors - intense sun, but not too hot. Today was not like that, not at all. I heard the inevitable "this is so unusual" comments, but I disagree. I went to the Canadian Weather Office and looked up this day in the historical data. I wasn't sure where to start so I picked a random year: 1982. That year's been in the news a lot, where the interest, inflation and unemployment numbers were compared against. Apparently, those values are doing better now than 1982 and so is the weather. I'm starting to wonder if the climate is related to the economic downturn... I'll have my auguries perform some haruspicy and try to establish a correlation. Anyway, here's the historical data for April 1982.

There are many interesting things to note there. The first is that we've had some pretty windy, gusty days, but no where near the > 100 km/h gusts recorded on April 3, 1982. April 5 and April 6 were both cold, with April 6 not getting above -7 C. The temperatures for April 6, 2009 show a maximum temperature of 4 C and minimum of -5. The day isn't done, so it may fall a few degrees, but this illustrates the difference. April 5, 1982 saw 5 cm of snow fall, with 3 cm on the ground, 10 cm on the ground by April 6, 1982. So even though the weather isn't great today, it's been much worse "in living memory". Although I wouldn't be able to remember that specific day, the inter-weeb helped by being my external brain pack.

Nicer than expected

2009-04-05T20:14:00.002-05:00

That certainly turned into a much nicer day than the morning suggested. The sun was intense - especially in the car. After 3pm, the wind died down and I went out without a jacket. One of my neighbours went for a walk with his shorts on, but apparently he wears shorts during the winter too so he isn't a really good gauge. I did manage to get to major chores done, which I'm pretty happy about. Got all the Christmas lights down, which I didn't expect because of the powerful, gusty wind and rain Friday and Saturday. A few weeks back it was really nice and calm - good for being up on a ladder - but the ground was too soft. This turned out to be a good day for it and I managed to get it done. Taking them down definitely takes less time than going up. The other chore was finally cleaning that reusable furnace filter. Did it every need attention! I pulled it out during the week because it was feeling stuffy in the house. I was pretty surprised at the fine dust that fell off when I did that. The filter itself is pretty coarse so fine dust is counter-intuitive. Anyway, got those major things done and that makes this a good weekend for house-chores.

Puttering around the house

2009-04-04T21:57:00.002-05:00

Went to bed late (well, early today) so didn't do much this morning. Can't exactly stay in bed, but wasn't awake enough to be useful, so I'm not sure where that leaves me. Kinda dazed, but not in an important situation. Not like I was driving or anything. The house seemed to survive that tremendous wind, which carried on through most of the day. I finally made it outside after 5pm and the wind had died down quite a bit and the sun was even out for awhile there. It was quiet chilly though. Managed a little bit of cleaning, typical stuff. The big cleaning came in the laundry room, which is also where we keep the cat's litter box. Thing is, when the cat gets annoyed about her litter box she doesn't send us a note or start barking, she apparently would pee on the carpets near the litter box. But not always on them, sometimes beside and ultimately under them. I finally checked what was going on under all these rugs, which have nice solid rubber bottoms, and I didn't like what I saw. And so there was a very thorough cleaning job done there. Hopefully I won't have to do that again any time soon. Maybe I can teach the cat to write those notes...

I did manage to get caught up with a series I've been watching on tv - Life. I really like Damian Lewis and especially his character, Det. Crews. I was able to use the "Rogers On Demand" (heh heh - ROD - heh heh) to see the missing episodes. Even though you can't do trickplay, being able to catch the most current 3 episodes for a series is great. Especially a show like Life where the (now typical) two-level story takes place. Level one is the episode - you can watch one episode for the mystery presented. Level two is the story involving the characters and drawn out over a long period of time. This series does the multi-level thing quite well. I can't really think of a series before the X-Files that used this pattern effectively, but I'm also pretty sure that I don't know enough tv to state that with any certainty. Anyway, Life is good and hopefully it'll continue. Hopefully we'll see what's going to happen to Reese.

Here we are again...

2009-04-03T21:59:00.003-05:00

Friday. Again. At least Dollhouse was on and I caught it. I liked the structure and I liked the ideas presented - nice to work through some thorny social issues with some good sci-fi structure. Not that Joss Whedon is presenting novel ideas - erasing memory to avoid painful ones, dealing with psychological issues, etc etc. It's just that Dollhouse is a good way of presenting the ideas.

Yesterday it was really nice outside. Today, not so much. Rained steadily all morning through to I went out for my lunch. Wasn't raining as much when I was headed home, but it was windy! I haven't seen persistent wind like this in a very long time. I hope my basketball net survives... So we spent the evening indoors. Not that you'd notice either way, just if the weather is nice we try and force the kids out of doors for a while.

Hockey was pretty good, although I couldn't seem to do anything right for awhile. Then I was doing a bit better, but then not so well. But it was a good skate and I did have fun even if I wasn't playing as well as I could.

Nice day outside, but I gotta get better at this meeting thing...

2009-04-02T20:37:00.003-05:00

It was a very fine day out there, beyond the computer room and the car window. Positively warm at times! Got one son outside running around for a bit anyway - lots of the kids on the street congregating and running around. A good thing.

Work was weird today - two of our six team members left for another team. Personnel changes always make things different, although it isn't a problem, just different. It will be weirder when the four of us move in with the three others to form a larger team. What I really learned today at work was that I have to plan out meetings much better than I have been.

I organized a meeting earlier in the week because we have three different teams collaborating on a set of features. We have had meetings on and off over the last couple of months, just to get things off the ground. We still have 2 deliverables between now and the project this collaboration is for. One of the participating teams has been able to spare a person to work ahead, which is a great way to take advantage of these weird times between projects. I wanted to have a meeting to go over our coding standards and talk about some patterns I'd seen in code reviews. I booked an hour and said the meeting was about coding standards, but I knew that we probably wouldn't fill the time with just coding standard talk. We spent the first half talking about coding standards and then the rest talking about the work being done and what we should keep a look out for. I left pleased that we were able to discuss all the concerns I had going in, plus we were able to talk about planning future work as well. What I found out today was that some, but not all, the other attendees disagreed. One person in particular left feeling like something unspecified was imposed and that work that was entirely premature was being demanded.

This happened because of a break down in meeting structure. A good meeting would start with an agenda established ahead of time, a facilitator keeping everyone to the agenda and time reserved at the end to make sure everyone is agreeing to the same things. Specifically, the meeting had a single item on the agenda and it was vague. Deep and unrelated topics were raised during the meeting. No summary was proposed at the end. To resolve this issue, I talked individually with a few participants to find out what they took away and to tell them what I took away. This worked well - we all wanted the same things, so it was easy to get agreement with a little clarification. I also learned some important information that completed changed my opinions about planning for the project - pieces of information that were known before the meeting by half the attendees.

Next time, I will create a more specific agenda, save time at the end to tell everyone what happened, and make sure to ask everyone about any project news at the beginning. That should save at least a half-hour for each person and keep things moving smoothly.

Related?

2009-04-01T21:21:00.002-05:00

Apparently, I'm distantly related to Barak Obama. Like so many others on Facebook. Guess I should look into that...

An interesting day work, in that two long-standing members of our team are moving on. To another team within the company, but things will not be the same. Plans were to merge our team of 4 with 3 others in a nicer part of the office, but so far we haven't been able to schedule the move. So far our new team wouldn't be that different as we would be working on distinct pieces of work, but that will change - hopefully. At the very least, we'll all sit together and that will help our manager.

Found out my kids had fun at school, what with all the pranks being pulled! My youngest (in JK) found his teacher's chair was stolen! By the other kindergarten class. My oldest (in grade 3) discovered all the kids chairs removed from their room with the culprit leaving a message in mirror-writing on the blackboard. More fun than I remember having on April Fool's day! I think they enjoyed it.

The ends of March

2009-03-31T22:31:00.003-05:00

Should I beware the ends of March? The ides of march are long past, so the end of March is more relevant. Should have started writing a bit earlier, but I'm all tired to begin with and I'm having trouble focusing - especially on what I need to do right at this very moment here. I did manage to rustle up another goalie for hockey tomorrow, but it's a Puckstoppers rental so it's gonna cost us. I was hoping that we'd have one regular and one other, but our regular has not been regular as of late. Should have a good turnout tomorrow, which helps to keep the costs down. I expect we should have some good weeks in the near future too as the leagues are wrapping up. I talked with one person today who's league night is tonight (Tuesday night), which is why he can't make it during the season. His league begins playoffs now, so it could be 5 weeks before he can make it out. That's a while. I would just be happy with two goalies and 8 skaters every week, but you can't have everything.

I skimmed over something regarding GM, along the lines of public officials voicing that doing the "Volt" was a bad choice. They also want GM to move with the times and offer what the public wants and be green. Seems to me that GM was offering what the public wanted - big, comfy SUVs that used lots of gas and produced lots of pollution - and that's in direct conflict with "more efficient. I hope they don't bugger things up too much with their helpful recommendations.

Another Monday

2009-03-30T20:47:00.002-05:00

It's Monday again - the beginning of another week. We're going through "goal setting" at work and I'm strangely invigorated. Probably because I actually have some decent ideas and I've been repeatedly assured that this time (no, really - this time) our personal goals are going to be tied to our performance bonus. We've had a bonus of the past few years and it's supposed to be a performance bonus, but it hasn't really reflected my performance. Or the performance of my co-workers, or our office. It's reflected the performance of the company as a whole, which has been good, but that's not really point. If it's supposed to help motivate me to do better, somehow it needs to be tied to my performance. Anyway, after many years of change we're getting to a more standardized process that will measure performance. Better performance will result in bigger bonus, as it should be. Unlike the financial companies where the guys who did worse than anyone every did still got money for doing so poorly. I suspect if you add the losses of everyone that has ever lost money in the financial industry and compare it to this one year, this year's would be bigger. And yet they got paid lots of money for it. I've heard it said that the public doesn't understand that it is common industry practice to pay a modest "stipend" known as salary, with most compensation arriving in the form of a bonus. It sounds good, but I haven't seen how much they are paid, but I bet they make 5 to 10 times the salary I do - plus bonuses. The massive losses should have been setup so they have to pay back money to the company instead of receive.

Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Moving on to better economic news, President Obama finally moved decisively to deal with the automakers by asking GM CEO Rick Wagoner to step down. I heard an analyst draw a parallel to a professional sports team saying that Wagoner didn't cause the problems, but when you "lose" as often as GM has recently, coaching changes need to be made. At worst, Wagoner didn't move fast enough or decisively enough to turn around the giant boat known as GM. At best, he was doing the things that GM needed to do become a great automaker again. Regardless, the big deal is the costs of retired employees. I think that may be too trite - GM promised a pension of a certain size and I believe that they are in trouble now because they can't keep up with the pension payments. I think that's because they would "borrow" against the pension by deferring some of the payments. Defer long enough and soon you're where we are now. The pension and health costs are a huge chunk of every car sold by GM. I hope that GM can stay afloat as I'm encouraged by some of their upcoming products like the Volt.

The point of that rambling was that it is good to see the government stepping up and doing something at this point. Hopefully they will start doing that in the financial areas where they hold more shares or gave more money. Frankly this would be a good time to make some corporate governance changes all over - maybe regulatory changes is a better phrase. There is a problem with publicly traded companies: they have to maximize profit. The way things go, companies are obligated to produce the maximum short-term gains to satisfy the market. If the regulations were altered to allow for companies to keep investing in themselves - to be able to legally make choices of long-term growth over short-term profits - I think we'd see a better economy. The emphasis on constant growth - always bigger, with bigger returns obligating larger following returns - leads us down this rat-hole of boom then bust. This is just a vague idea at this point, no really suggestions or plans. I'll try and revisit this idea later.

Contemplative Sunday

2009-03-29T20:34:00.002-05:00

Today was a relatively big day in our household, what with the skating carnival. Today is the last day of ice in the local arena and the skating club held it's carnival. They had all the kids taking lessons of various types put on a show. My youngest son has been taking lessons - most likely on the "pre-hockey" track, but it's too early for that - and his group got dress in costumes and skate around. It was pretty fun to watch, plus there were some pretty good figure skaters and a couple of synchro teams. Pretty nice event, so I suspect I'll be going to this event a few more times. That will turn into a certainty if my wife gets into skating a little bit more. Maybe they won't make here skate with the 6-year-olds that are in her class though.

Yesterday was Earth Hour and I completely forgot about it. I try, though not too hard, to reduce my resource impact. Mainly because it is good for everyone - me, my kids, my wallet - everyone. Not being wasteful is just good in general, so I question the steps that so many took to reduce usage. Maybe if we, as a society, enacted a few changes, we'd use less energy. Biggest thing would be this stupid daylight savings time switch. A related idea would be go to bed when the sun goes down and get up when the sun rises. That would eliminate the need for many lights around the home and stop the stupid clock moving for no good reason. Next, if most people go to bed near sunset, we wouldn't need so many outdoor lights at night. I have felt that streetlights and so on are light pollution. If we wanted to live closer with nature, we need to respect natural rhythms, like "day" and "night". One final thing about "Earth Hour" - the building managers at my office were going to turn off the lights for the hour. Why can't they do that all the time? There are many light fixtures on each floor so turning them off at night with the option of switching them on when necessary, would go a long way to reducing usage.

The last thing I've been thinking about is US Banking regulations. I remember hearing recommendations over the past few months for changes to make financial institutions in the US more stable - more like Canada. Here in Canada, our strong regulations were scoffed for many years, until all hell broke loose and we're now hailed as the wisest one on the block. The Current had an interesting set of guests who pointed out that Regan proposed, G. H. Bush and Clinton implemented, the removal of similar regulations during the late 1980s and 1990s. The regulations in the US that separated certain financial roles, set minimum liquidity requirements, and who could receive mortgages. These regulations were established after 1929 but were pushed aside in "near total" deregulation proposed during the Regan administration. Funny "coincidence" - Alan Greenspan was someone brought in by Regan. Looks like we can pin a bunch of stuff to Regan, but I think the removal of the regulations was something that should not have happened. No need to blame someone - just realize that the government had to work to change those rules and it was the wrong choice.

Interesting posting number

2009-03-28T20:12:00.002-05:00

This posting will tie the total number of posts I've ever done in a year. Yes I realize that it is very sad that I write about writing a thing that no one will read. The absurdism is not lost on me. Nor the delicious ironing. But it feels somewhat significant to me, as the main reader of this blog it is therefore an important milestone. Deciding to write a little every day definitely effected this - it was simply a matter of time.

Anyway, meta-self-reference aside, it was an interesting day. I went out to get my skates sharpened, but found out the guy who normally does them is away until April 10. No matter - I headed in to another sports store to try their sharpening process and have a look at some inline skates. My wife has indicated that she would like to try doing that now, and I think it sounds like a good family activity. So I went to the store to do some hands-on research. I found out that my youngest son is a Jr. 10 or 11 and my older son is a 13 or 1. Basically it translates into their two smallest skates - but they are adjustable through multiple sizes. I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to get those skates and they will have inline skates. For myself, I tried on a pair of size 5 boots, but they were a little constricting, so I'll probably just move into the smallest Senior size and that should be good. All told, it'll be about $500, plus tax, the way I'm figuring it. I could be wrong, depending on sales and such. But I'll way until my hockey buddy, the store manager, is working to see what he recommends. He appears to be very knowledgeable and has been very helpful in non-skate related ways.

Two more things though. I went looking for a stick while I was there because they advertised an end-of-season sale. I found one of the type I like, but it didn't appear to be on sale, so I left it. I still have two reasonably good sticks, so no need to spend money at regular prices. The second thing is the skate sharpening. Now I understand they have an excellent sharpening system, but I have never used it. Apparently they have the equipment to create a pro-style groove on the blade, but I didn't want to get that. I just wanted to keep my current radius of groove and see how things went. Well, the burrs and schmutz on the blade and then in my finger built a whole new respect for the guy who normally sharpens my skates. He carefully wipes down the blade, goes over with a finishing stone, wipes, measures, wipes and is done. After the sharpening steps. This was apparently missing here - and I think I know why this normally wouldn't be a problem. Most skates use the same blades, (Nuuk brand I believe), where as I've noticed my new Graf skates use a much harder steel. That increased hardness probably allows the burrs to form. The guy who normally does my skates also does repairs and he will install his own custom-made blades that are harder and stiffer than the average blades. So he probably knows how to handle the harder blades.

Friday - it's not my fault.

2009-03-27T21:15:00.002-05:00

Just a little joke from today - a new theme song for our group at work I guess. Re-did the lyrics to "Friday I'm In Love" by the Cure to show how a bug is not because of our team. The things you have to do to stay sane... But it is the end of the week again and that's a good thing. Did a lot of typing today at work which is why I can type this on autopilot tonight. Nice and smooth flowing output - don't think, just move those crazy fingers. So very tired. Pretty productive at work, what with all the typing and all. Just to be clear, typing means I wasn't doing software development. Software is not written with much typing - everything is autocompleted or copied or referenced or whatever. You spend more time staring at the screen then creating code. At least if you're careful you do. I've seen some people that code as fast I type these blog posts and the reason they are so fast is because the end up doing the same thing many times. They tend to throw out and redo whenever there is a bug.

Hockey was pretty good today - I think I got a goal, but I don't remember. I do remember making some nice passes that ended up as goals and that is probably more important. One of the benefits of shooting all the time is that defenders assume you'll always shoot. Problem for me is that I spend so much time lulling them into a false sense of security that I don't get enough practice passing through traffic.

There's been some talk around the house about getting some inline skates, especially since my wife is liking her figure skating lessons. I think she's going to continue her lessons over the summer, but inline skates would be something we could get the whole family doing together and that is a rare and special thing. Getting outside is important and we definitely don't do that very well as a family. I think it will be a good investment.

Week end approacheth

2009-03-26T21:04:00.002-05:00

The end of the week is rapidly approaching. "Rapid" is more a perspective thing, but whatever - I think it's headed this way quick - so there! It's not moving at breakneck speed yet, but whatever. I did read on Slashdot that Mythbusters is trying to test the phrase "knocked his socks off" by using a dummy, socks and 500 lbs of ammonium nitrate. Let's say the townspeople didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition, er, window-shattering kaboom. No word on the state of the socks, but maybe they'll do "breakneck speed" next.

Got pulled into a call with lots of far-flung people at work today. I think the call was pretty productive, considering the diverse group - offices from all over North America, representing parts of the product with potential conflicting requirements. I felt like I was able to productively contribute a few times - clarifying instead of fogging issues. It's nice to leave a meeting and have the feeling that everyone shares the same perspective on things. Never lasts long, but it's nice and it is productive. I'm optimistic about the upcoming project this meeting was related too - the different parts of the company will be united with a common set of tools and, hopefully, common procedures for using those tools. Breaking the isolation of each part of the final product will lead to a better result and I think everyone believes that. Well, the people at the higher levels do and that's good enough for now.

After I got home I took my son over to his friend's house to play after dinner. He's visited this friend more frequently since the boy's father passed away. I really can't imagine how they are doing, but they seem okay at this point. I have a feeling they'll be playing together more often. Plus they had a good time - pointless running followed by Super Smash Brothers Brawl - very nice.

A Wednesday

2009-03-25T21:33:00.002-05:00

Another Wednesday has pretty much passed on by. Got out for hockey today and it was pretty good, except that we only had one goalie. Our pool of potential goalies is much wider than year ago, but we haven't been having tremendous luck. The regular goalie, my co-worker, has been off for some time. Recently he was on vacation (last week) and got ill after the vacation (this week). Before that, he was off for awhile with a hockey-related skin infection. The thing is, before this year he rarely missed a game, and never more than one. So it seems like things on the goalie front are worse, but not really. He's had a string of bad luck and hopefully things will get better when the regular season for hockey finishes at the end of the month. We should get more skaters and more goalie availability. Hopefully.

Tonight, my younger son went to his first Beavers meeting. My wife went with him and I think he had a good time. She thought he wasn't sure about going at first but promised to go with him. He got over any issues early on I think. I guess he'll be ready for next year as they don't have many meetings left - 5 weeks and then nothing until the fall. Oh well - lots of time for him to get really ready.

And that's pretty much it. A Wednesday.

Another work day

2009-03-24T21:16:00.003-05:00

Back to work after a Monday off. Kinda weird today - working from home even! It's weird because I don't have my work laptop, just email access. But that's enough to be able to get some kinds of work done. Gotta get to bed relatively early tonight as I'm off to hockey tomorrow. Although that's been pretty weird for the last little while as well. We have a larger pool of potential goalies, but a hard time getting any two to show up. We had 3 one time, but mostly between one and two. I didn't think that there'd be a problem this week, but our regular goalie wasn't around. He may still be on vacation, neglecting his puck-stopping duties. Oh well - there are still enough people coming out who will play, even if there aren't goalies, so there ya go. The other problem is that we'd have to cancel by Monday night if we didn't want to pay for the ice time.

The other thing I wanted to mention briefly is the comments made on the Fox News program Red Eye. I say briefly because the kind of puerile drivel that oozes out from Fox News is not worth listening to. But apparently The Voice on the Current was able to stomach enough of it to come up with this:

It's Tuesday, March 24th.
Fox News host Greg Gutfield says he did not intend to disrespect the brave men, women and families of the Canadian military when he suggested all Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan want to do is yoga, paint landscapes, and run on the beach. His comments came just before four Canadian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.

Currently, Canadians say that just because Fox News is full of venomous right-wing ideologues with an infantile sense of humour, in no way does that mean we think any less of its high-quality journalism.
This is the Current.

I do believe that The Voice hits the nail on the, er, head there. Pretty sharply too.

Are you a man?

2009-03-23T20:09:00.002-05:00

Are you a man afraid of injury? Especially... down there? Is a tight bundle of fear preventing you from getting that vasectomy and filling your mailbox with endless paternity suits? We can help. Here at the Hurts-A-Guy Institute, we can remove that fear.

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So call us today at the Hurts-A-Guy Institute. We give you the tools and training to be a real man - a man who can overcome man-sized man pain. Our highly trained and bonded sadists will skillfully strike the right balance to bring out your inner masochist. Call the Hurts-A-Guy Institute at 1-800-1-NOFEAR for a location near you!

Posting the first

2009-03-23T18:54:00.002-05:00

Well, I noted that I'm going to make two postings today, so I think I have a topic for the second one. It will be some fiction I was considering today while sweeping out the garage. Much more interesting than my day off. I picked up some wheel covers (the Saturn dealer misplaced them last week, but found them the next day), went to the passport office (twice) and got some good old Pad Thai (422a) and a Vietnamese Coffee Avocado Smoothie (26) at Pho Ben Thanh. Bought some cat food - apparently the hard plastic jugs are being phased out for paper bags. I suspect that plastic is expensive.

I tried to slip it by you, the reader, but you probably recognized that I shouldn't have needed to go to the passport office more than once. Well, if you don't have proof of citizenship you do. I thought I checked everything carefully to make sure I had all the ID I needed, but the summaries never mention the proof of citizenship part. Kind of obvious I suppose, but not something I remembered until I saw everyone else in line fingering their certificates. Oh well - didn't take very long either time, so I cannot complain in the slightest. They have a good system - a triage first to make sure you have the right forms and correct supporting documents. Evidently I used the system more completely than most.

Anyway, I'll post up something else soon - it needs to be written yet. That's not saying much - I find I'm more effective creatively when I just sit down and start writing.

Day missed... oh well

2009-03-22T20:38:00.002-05:00

Missed posting yesterday. I kinda planned to post twice today, but haven't yet. I suppose I could post twice tomorrow, as I took the day off! Kinda nice to have a rich bank of vacation hours, allows me to take the occasional day off without touching a nice reserve. By nice reserve, I mean more than two weeks. Probably going to need a couple of weeks some time in this calendar year, but not for a particular vacation. I should also start banking/planning/reserving some time in June as my wife's ten year wedding anniversary is coming. Ten years married to me. No snickering in the back. Of course, since she reads this, I can't really discuss what it is I'm thinking about. But the you, the enlightened reader, will know that there is a rich tapestry of ideas bouncing around inside the ole noggin.

Tomorrow I've got to head out and pickup the hubcaps for our Saturn. Got the "summer" tires out of storage last Thursday, but they didn't have the wheel covers. Found them Friday so I said I'd get them tomorrow. Then I'll be heading to the passport office and renewing the documentation. Let my old passport expire when I wasn't doing much travelling of any sort, so it's time to renew. This is the year that Canadians will be required to show their passport when crossing into the US. The month isn't important, although it isn't this month. There's also some talk of a grace period, new provincial driver's licenses and such but I'm going with the passport. Apparently some decent majority of Canadians hold a passport so it is less of an issue than with Americans. Looks like those attacks in New York 8 years ago did their job - made things harder for everyone here. Spend lots of money on things that don't have a huge impact.

Such things aren't good to end on, so I'll mention that I had a wonderful time at my aunt's today - saw my cousin and his kids. Haven't seen them for awhile and it was a nice time. Even got outside and kicked a ball around. That's a good thing.

The end of the week.

2009-03-20T21:13:00.003-05:00

Made it to another Friday. Pretty nice and relaxed by Friday night and that's a good thing. Missed most of Dollhouse, although this looked like a pivotal episode. You know, the kind that takes the subtle layers of the story that they're gentle revealing and pushes them aside to reveal further layers. In a different direction. But I really can't say because I didn't catch the whole thing! Good tv though. I missed that stuff because of my youngest son was playing with his friend down the street and didn't get back until after 9pm. Pretty late for that little guy - he was asleep before I finished the second page of his story. Nice to be able to just climb into bed and then bam - sleep.

The bailout maelstrom continues. The CBC tried to link a retention bonus plan approved for Nortel to the AIG bonuses. Not really a strong correlation since Nortel is in bankruptcy and is supervised by its creditors and the courts, whereas AIG just 80% owned by the government... I appreciate the point that the retention bonuses were only for Nortel execs ("key employees") at the expense of severance for all the laid off employees. The logic for the retention plan makes sense, a bit, in that the company and creditors want to make sure the people that know what's going on at Nortel stay long enough to keep it going and make money again. I would be bitter, though, if I didn't get any severance because I was laid off during the restructuring. Let's see though - if they gave $10,000.00 to each of the 5000 employees, that's 50 million dollars. That's about what the pool of retention bonus money is. I would like 10 grand if I were laid off.

Playing with compensation numbers is why this xkcd comic is so funny, although definitely 18a for the punchline. TV and radio coverage of the AIG bonus situation shows the bailout numbers (180 billion) and bonus numbers (165 million) together, making it appear that most of the money given by the gov't went to bonuses. Not true - the values are vastly different - but I think this still misses the point. The amount of money paid as salary to some of these people is mind-boggling.

The average income in Canada, in 2006, for families with 2 earners was $81,700.00 (values taken from the first line of this Statistics Canada table). That's 2 or more related people living in the same house, pooling their money. From the same table, a two parent family with children under 18, one earner: $66,300.00. That's before taxes. Now the AIG bonuses range from $1000.00 to $6.5 million, so let's pick a nice value of $2 million. If you took $2 million dollars and just gave the money to families, you'd keep 24 families going for one year. Plus you'd get to collect tax from them! You'd keep 33 average families with 2 parents, some kids under 18 and one wage-earner going. With the total AIG bonus pool of $165 million, you'd keep 2019 average families going for a year.

Now let's compare $165 million to the $180 billion bailout. The last GIC I renewed, I counted myself lucky to get a return of 4% per annum. If I had invested the $180 billion in one 4% GIC, I'd make $7.2 billion in one year, or $600 million in one month. Which is why the AIG bonus money looks ridiculous compared to the bailout itself. With the interest from the bailout, we could keep 88, 127 families going for a year. That's 352, 508 people, assuming 4 people per family. That's the interest at 4% on $180 billion. If we used the $180 billion, that's 8.8 million people (assuming 4 people per family).

Anyway, you can see why people are so upset. The average family with one earner makes about $64,500.00/year before taxes. It would take 31 years to earn $2 million dollars. This is the kind of magnitude that gets people upset when they hear about the AIG bonuses. I hope those that say "I didn't think we could break those contracts" think about that because when people get made, more than contracts get broken. Not to mention that if people get mad enough, laws change.

More money - gone!

2009-03-19T21:02:00.002-05:00

Why money gone? More like maintenance costs go up - our second car required new tires, so I had the dealer put them on after the oil change. Greatly increased the cost of the service, but whatever. This was the first year we put winter tires on that car so I don't mind spending money on new "summer" tires. I'm hoping they will last for some time given that they won't be driven on in the winter months. Also known as "road divot season". One small problem - as they handed the key back, I was asked "So you kept the hubcaps at home then?" Which was funny because I didn't. I paid the dealer to store my rims, tires and hubcaps while I drove around on my winter tires and winter rims. Apparently there is only one guy per room, or one guy in a room or many rooms each with a guy, that carefully watch or observe the tires. The guy from my tire's room had gone home for the night, so the hubcaps couldn't be found. They will be discovered eventually, I suppose. They offered to drive out and put them on, but I may swing by and simply pick them up.

In other news, I'm considering founding a business to dismantle bank signs, as they are doing very well. In the states. On 30 Rock. It's a good show and I'd like to annoy Tracy Jordan somehow. Good show.

Free Markets

2009-03-18T21:24:00.002-05:00

I haven't heard many people tell this to me directly, but I do know some people that believe a free market is the best system there is. Best in that it will find the optimal way of doing things by providing the best service for the best price. It also occurred to me that this whole AIG bonus whoo-haw is an example of the free market isn't always the answer.

Listening to the current CEO of AIG, we discover that he doesn't feel he can break the contracts that allow people to get bonuses even though the company did so poorly it nearly ended civilization as we know it. Well, the fiscal part of civilization anyway. These people had contracts that would reward them huge sums if the company did well - which it did for many years. Those same contracts also paid out smaller sums if the company did not do so well, a sort of floor function that guaranteed a minimum return. Applying free market principals to this situation, these bonuses should be mind-boggling if the company does well, but when the company does poorly... well I had people suggest to me today that they should pay the company. That does sound very free-market. But that isn't what happened.

The problem was in that the market and financial traders and so forth are not really free markets. There are rules and protections - necessary things to keep us greedy buggers from screwing everyone else over. But this situation shows the lack of accountability that permeates work culture. My dad would say that the American "system" would hire people and pay them large sums of money if they did their job. If not, they could be let go at the drop of a hat. There are some companies that behave like that - reward productive employees and trim the others - but I don't think that's typical anymore. I think that employees expect good compensation when things are going "well", but also guarantees when things don't go well. Hence the idiotic concept of a "bonus" that is delivered every year. That's where these AIG people are. That's what the GM CAW members gave up - a yearly bonus. It doesn't even fit with the idea of a bonus if you get it every year - it's simply a chunk of money that's given at a particular time all at once so you get taxed at several tax brackets above your average one.

Let's see if we can change things. Start slow - give out a bonus if the company does well. The better the company does, the bigger the bonus. If company misses targets or whatever, no bonus. Then we can move on to bigger things, like how to lend money and get back the result plus interest...

Hockey?

2009-03-17T20:20:00.002-05:00

Made it back to the gym, completing my regular three-workout-variation cycle. It only took two weeks this time! Yea! Unfortunately, I can't head back until Friday, which should be a hockey day but isn't. Tomorrow will be a hockey day, but it is turning into a strange one. I didn't get things together Monday so I couldn't cancel with enough time. So we are heading into hockey without goalies. Well, until a few minutes ago when someone volunteered to take the net - which is awesome! Still, we only have one body for the net. I don't think it's a great idea to spend $40 on a second goalie at this point. Ah well. It's St. Patrick's Day, or the day that everyone likes Irish stuff stuff. Or green stuff and beer. Or green beer. Or just beer and it's an excuse to go over the top mid-week. Guess those people don't rejoice when St Paddy's day is on a weekend.

Anyhoo, off to get a hint of Irish whiskey and celebrate the day.

Weird topic

2009-03-16T20:01:00.003-05:00

As a Canadian, I feel that it is a waste of time to save America for a Korean car. I mean there's already a Canadian on the job, Keifer Sutherland, and seeing as he hasn't been jersey'd or given a penalty, I feel he can handle it. At least that's my response to those ads that tell me I can win a Kia Soul if I save America in some game. My wife's response was "How many Canadians does it take to save America?" Several of the actors on "24" are Canadian, so it is a fair question. Our infiltration of the United States continues unabated, and given the readership of this blog, undetected. Canadians have long perfected the art of not being noticed in plain sight - also known as "the Canadian movie industry" or "Canadian celebrities." These are highly trained individuals who do tremendous jobs for pennies a day and still are able to walk without fear among us. After rigorous training in such far-flung reaches as CBC Iqaluit and CBC Toronto, mental toughness and resourcefulness is proven. Then they may move to the United States and continue the work of making cookies saleable, hair growth plausible and hemorrhoids bearable. Soon they're out there helping the less fortunate to roll up their rims, even without that little roll-up tool (available only at Lee Valley). Once Timmy's has marched across the continent, we will have the perfect platform to launch our polite form of banking regulations and save the fiscal world! Yes! No more will there be stock options and cash bonuses for the AIGs of the world - no, just TimCards and free donuts for the executives. They'll have they're gooey balls of dough and be happy - happier than racing around in their BMW 7-series cars looking for places to hide their giant ball of cash. Failing that, we'll have introduced hockey to all - then, at the stockholders vs executives fun-game during the annual general meeting, we can introduce the finer points of how fighting helps everyone to learn how to play fair. After a few encounters with George Laraque, I think those AIG execs will understand how upset we all were at the dirty tricks they played with our money. Also, it would be pretty funny to watch boomers who don't know a puck from a hole-in-the-ground try and stand up on skates.

By the way, my wife informs me that she will be forsaking her Irish heritage (whatever fraction Irish she is) by wearing magenta tomorrow - aka the opposite of green. Which reminds me, I should find something green to wear tomorrow...

Ahh, Sunday...

2009-03-15T20:50:00.002-05:00

Beautiful day outside today - actually saw some people without jackets hanging around outside. On of my neighbours out on their driveway, sitting, watching the kids play. Very much a summer/warmer-weather thing. Can't really sit outside when it is windy and cold. Or raining. Oddly enough, we went skating today - something my wife is really getting into. My oldest son didn't want to skate, but we didn't force him 'cause he was at a Cub camp for the last few days. Likely pretty tired as it was, so no need to push him. Getting near the end of the ice season and it was such a nice day that the pad was pretty barren. Took more energy than I thought because I pretty much passed out on the couch afterwards. Naps are good too. And, well, here we are. Tomorrow's gearing up to be interesting at work because of the lockup issues we are pursuing and it's March break, so there yah go.

Finally - Watchmen!

2009-03-14T20:03:00.002-05:00

Well, last weekend was a bust for Watchmen, but this weekend met with more success. The only hiccup being that the concession didn't have the frozen yogurt I enjoy - the machine was broken. The movie, however, was pretty darn good. I read "Watchmen" for the first time a few months ago - late 2008 - and I purchased a copy for myself last week. I've been re-reading it on and off for several days and I'm not through it again, but I'm pretty familiar with the source material at this point. Maybe not all the nuances and subtleties, but the surface story anyway. Given that, I think the movie did pretty well, telling a big story pretty well. There were minor deviations for the original material, but those were not large and I would guess make more sense to the movie crowd. The idea to keep it set in 1986 was a good one, and it works because of its "alternate reality." The movie succeeds in keeping with the source material, rather than creating a story with the same characters (see the Ang Lee "Hulk" for a counter-example). I also think the story succeeds as a movie in a visual and pacing sense.

As I left the theater, my friend opined that perhaps the movie was too long. I think I agree with that assessment, in the sense that if you know the source material, it is not too long. If you are coming to the story cold, it may be a little much. That being said, I have no idea what I would trim. I think it's good that there are some flaws - especially this kind. The only disagreement may be with the length, but the pacing was good and the visual, acting etc was excellent.

Conclusion: go see it. Don't take your kids, unless they could get in on their own. Excellent movie.

Code and stuff

2009-03-13T19:42:00.002-05:00

This is post 191 - a nice 3-digit prime. Don't really have enough posts to stretch the checking necessary - 191^(1/2) == 13.82... That means I'll have to wait until post 289 until the next prime past 13 needs to be checked. Anyway, I spent the day working with code - something that hasn't happened in a while. Always seems like a shock, but there you go. People still don't believe me when I say that more time is spent debugging and testing than writing code. Or designing code. Or whatever with code. Some stuff to look at though - something applicable even outside the small domain of our business - a thread pool. I didn't find the bug, I didn't come up with the fix, I just applied the fix to the correct branch and added some comments.

Frankly, I'd like to be able to add some more tests before going forward, but I definitely didn't have the time now. I know this sounds like an excuse - we are approaching a release - but there has to be balance between what should be done and what I'm being paid to get done. In this case, the situation called for a targeted fix, so I relied on existing unit tests to verify the change. Ideally, I'd like to spend more time checking the unit tests to make sure that items weren't missed, but that wasn't practical. Next week is a different story however...

What's worse is that this issue is related to a low-frequency, high-impact bug that our team hasn't isolated yet. I think that next week I'll try looking for it by writing more unit tests. I have a feeling that may be the most reliable reproduce scenario - one that I create out of thin air.

Discovered something else near the end of the day, related to something I've seen often - improper shutdown/exit of software leads to problems. This is an issue in embedded development, where restarting a problem subsystem is a good uptime strategy. The Qnx operating system uses this philosophy, where the microkernel never goes down, but the real work is done by processes that can be restarted as appropriate. Since everything, including device drivers, are "processes", a device driver upgrade consists of putting the software in the right place and "restarting" the driver. Being able to shutdown and restart a small piece of functionality is akin to modular programming. Unfortunately this modular, restartable philosophy was not something hammered home at the beginning of this project, so this issue keeps recurring. I also think that being able to stop and restart a module without side effects demonstrates good modularization qualities - particularly isolation. It means that the writer and designer of the piece of software has considered its interactions and resource requirements and they are well identified within the code. Losing sight of these things means that module can be shutdown, but not restarted.

Well, I guess that is something I'm going to have to talk-up at work.

A big day

2009-03-12T21:05:00.002-05:00

Today is skating day in our household. Skating for my youngest son and, lately, my wife. She decided a few weeks back that she should take lessons to improve her skating skills. Over the past few years she slowly got into skating - something that was difficult as an awkward child. Concern was expressed that staying upright would be difficult, but wrist guards and knee pads paved the way to confidence. Now, wait for it, Stage 2 is upon her! One of the benefits of taking the lessons with the kids (children under 10 for the most part) is the badges. Success breeds success, so she is enjoying the whole experience. I think it's great as she really isn't a sports person. Myself, I enjoy hockey. I play it all the time and it is an expensive hobby, but well worth it. Having something to do on the ice as a family will be great! I'm really looking forward to next winter and being able to all go to the arena and have a good time. I may try and rent the ice during the summer for the family to come out and have fun for an hour, but that may be pushing it.

I didn't listen too closely to the news today, so Stephen Harper didn't bug me. Didn't really run into anything too contrary at work, so I guess it was a good day. I'm not certain because I don't really have any stand-out recollections. Going by the maxim "no news is good news" the day must have been good. Friday-ward ho!

Finally!

2009-03-11T20:19:00.002-05:00

Today I was rewarded for reading Slashdot - I found this article. It explained, using better examples and more tv-business-savvy, what I've been saying for years: Fox is messing with me.

Okay, maybe not just me - lots of other people too. Ever since Firefly and Futurama debuted and then were run off the air, I was convinced there was a secret Fox plot to produce shows I couldn't help but be obsessed with and then yank them away. Turns out, as is often the case, I was right. Right enough that other people noticed. When Futurama was first on the air, it was an awesome show and I loved it. Fox had the NFL contract for Sunday night football and Futurama would be preempted at the drop of a flag. So it would take patient weeks to finally catch a new episode. With Firefly, the show seemed pretty good, but it randomly was on or not, episodes in some order, but not the right one. No wonder people stopped watching - it was too difficult!

The same pattern is being repeated with the 3 excellent sci-fi shows on Fox: Fringe, Dollhouse and The Sarah Conner Chronicles. Two of these shows are parked firmly in the secret tv-series burial ground, Friday night. Back to back, for extra mourning. The third, Fringe, which has started to garner solid ratings, is on hiatus for 2 months. For some reason. Reality tv I believe it is known as. I've said it before - I don't particularly like reality tv because I believe in entertainment where the writers are paid well. And they write the show ahead of time, not five minutes into class like so many grade 6 English assignments.

The author of the above article, Ron Hogan, offers one item that makes some sense. Fox doesn't seem to know a good show from a bad one, but at least the good content creators (JJ Abrams, Joss Whedon, Summer Glau) can't produce good shows anywhere else. I know Summer Glau is not a writer, producer or director, but she's good content all on her own. See this xkcd comic for further proof. So basically Fox is holding all the good stuff hostage, but isn't issuing any demands. They taunt us with the occasional glimpses, but you have to keep your eyes peeled because it may show up at any time...

So summary: Fox has good content but refuses to let anyone else see it. Even if they want to give good money for it. Maybe blog posts can change things. The power of bits - it's in you!

Stupid federal budget

2009-03-10T20:11:00.002-05:00

I heard Stephen Harper gave a press conference today, chiding the opposition to hurry along and approve the budget if they really cared about delivering stimulus to the Canadian people. There are two things wrong with that:

If approved today, the budget doesn't come into effect until Mar 27, so whatever.
The budget bill includes environment regulation changes and other modifications, resulting in a 500 page document.

I agreed with the sentiment I heard from a senator - if the Conservatives are so concerned with getting a budget going, why did they prorogue parliament? Also, it smacks of dirty tricks to bundle lots of non-budget changes in with the budget and then publicly berate people for considering it carefully. This is a similar trick to the political party financing changes Mr. Harper tried to make late last year and caused the opposition parties to unite. I'm starting to agree with Jack Layton - his opinions only - that Mr. Harper isn't to be trusted. He was cowed, censured (privately) by his own party for the mistakes leading up to prorogation. And still he continues with the style that caused the upheaval.

It really bothers me when Mr. Harper grandstands like this in the media. In his first term as prime minister, he refused to talk to reporters, except on his own terms. Even now he only speaks when it serves his purposes. His communique plays on the ignorance of the public - that people only listen to his version of events. If Mr. Harper was concerned about speed and effectiveness, he would try harder to cooperate with the opposition parties and he would have made a budget that only contained budget items! My own ignorance as to the contents of this budget bill also bothers me - I can recall some suggestion of the complexities of the budget bill, but that was glossed over in the warm glow of Liberal-Conservative non-fighting.

Post 187

2009-03-09T20:24:00.002-05:00

Well, number 187 is not prime - I'll say it out right. The square root is > 14, so 13 is the largest prime to test. Turns out 11*17 = 187, so there you go. But it is our little primality test to kick things off. On a brighter and more personal note, I made it to the gym today, after many abortive attempts. Hopefully I will make it tomorrow and things will be good. Not going is easy, but after going I always feel so much better and I wonder why I don't go. It is very weird. Must be kind of like smoking - many people say they know that smoking isn't good for them, but they keep doing it. When they finally quite for a few weeks, they see how much better they feel and wonder why they didn't quit before. The reason is a little more obvious for smoking - there is a physical addiction component. I'd think that the gym-attendance would be more along the physical addiction track but laziness is obviously the stronger factor. It's like we say at my house - greed and laziness are the mothers of invention.

Always confused me that "necessity is the mother of invention" because it is so obviously wrong. When people are in real need, they grab whatever they find at hand and adapt it to the need, kind of like using a hammer to drive screws through the plywood to seal your house before the hurricane. Innovation requires persistence, like when a better version of an existing tool is created. If you needed that better tool to operate, you couldn't have started! Instead, you use what you have and the irritation at the fact whatever you're doing could be easier grows until you create the thing that will make your life easier - the invention! Think of Thomas Edison, who worked his lab mercilessly and used the media to crush his opponents - that's greed. He wouldn't go to that trouble just because he could make new things - those new things were sold for money that he could use!

Well, there's the mid-post rant - here's the political one. President Obama announced that the US government will now sponsor embryonic stem-cell research. I think it is a good thing to pursue research. What Bush specified was very limiting, not allowing for much variance at all. I heard some comments from people opposed to this research, all talking about the dangerous moral and ethical grounds. I think such research needs ethical guidelines, but some of the reasoning didn't sit well with me. For example, the claim that such research could result in more abortions. Linking the embryonic stem cell research with abortion is attempt to create moral outrage where simple guidelines would suffice. I wonder if the same people that are opposed to abortion are opposed to all other fertility protocols, because they have more abortions and ethics to worry about in that area. Anyway, I think that this current path is better than what came before.

Another Sunday

2009-03-08T20:17:00.002-05:00

I forgot about the switch to daylight savings - thanks again for a stupid time change Mr. Bush - until I woke up this morning. I thought about it Friday, I thought about it Saturday, I went to bed early Saturday night and forgot to adjust the time on my watch, alarm clock and so on. But it's alright now - the time moves early on a Sunday for good reason. Other than that gaffe, I had a pretty good day. Spent the early part finishing off V for Vendetta, but haven't made it through the background material yet. Got some good drum practise with Rock Band in. Made it to the grocery store for one of my trademark "big" runs. I came out of it pretty good. Helped my parents access things online. But now it is the end of the day and I must do some gaming - something neglected for most of this week. Monday awaits...

Moore Day

2009-03-07T21:35:00.002-05:00

Pretty slow day today - nice to relax and read for most of the day. After my disappointing Watchmen attempt, I decided to start reading "V for Vendetta" today. I'm about 220 pages in and it's pretty darn good. I'm enjoying it highly. Also watched the latest Futurama movie - the last in the series of 4 - The Wild Green Yonder. First impressions are that it's definitely better than the 2nd and 3rd movies, and possibly the best in the series. Can't really make that call until I watch it more carefully - I was busy doing chores while it played. Also watch Madagascar 2 - and I approve highly of that. Really good - love the penguins. Anyhoo, that's about it for tonight - I'm bushed. I'll have to make sure I get things done on the ole compu-trolla tomorrow.

Late posting....

2009-03-06T23:59:00.002-05:00

Little bit late - using the ole blogger trickery to make this post for Friday. No big whoop. Anyhoo, I had lots of stuff planned for today - getting my wheel fixed, going to buy "Watchmen", going to see "Watchmen". I hoped to be giving my impressions of the movie "Watchmen", but sadly all showings were sold out by 8:45pm. Which is pretty impressive - so I'm not sure when I'll be able to see it! So instead, saw the movie "Taken" with Liam Neeson. I liked it - good action film. Nothing too deep, other than listen to your father. The CIA operative, not the rich step-dad.

As for my car, my rim was not dented as badly as I feared and required a few blows with the hammer to straighten. Got that done, balance checked, wash for $22. A very small service - I'm used to spending no less than $120 every time I take my car in, so this is a welcome anomaly. I still have to get a new wheel cover, but I'll wait a bit before I get that. I should explain that my car uses synthetic oil, so even an oil change runs $80, although I only have to do it every 10 or 12 thousand km. For me that's about 6 months, so it's cheaper than $29.99 every 2 months.

Fortunately I was able to make it to the bookstore and got a copy of the "Watchmen" graphic novel, along with "V for Vendetta". I've been curious to read more of Allan Moore's work, and I'll have to find "From Hell" eventually too. I've seen the movie versions of "V for Vendetta" and "From Hell", but heard that the graphic novels were much better. I borrowed a "Watchmen" 6 months ago and it was good, but it needs multiple readings. Which is why I acquired my own copy. So off to peruse those and then to bed.

Amusing Anecdote

2009-03-05T21:50:00.002-05:00

Today , as I am feeling much more coherent than the last few nights, I will present a more coherent entry. During my normal, waking life I often pilot my own vehicular transport, terrestrial transport module, or car. This is a tale of transporticus interruptus, car troubles of a chilling nature. Maybe a chilling-warming-chilling nature - you decide!

Two days ago I was heading home from work. I was in the left-hand lane a comfortable distance behind the next car. As I approached an intersection, the car in front took an odd line through it. I realized that it was avoid a pothole. This road defect didn't look too bad and I didn't want to swerve because I wasn't sure if there was a car beside me. I thought I probably would miss it, but I was wrong - full on with the front wheel. For a moment, I wasn't sure if the wheel was still attached - perhaps the car was just holding itself up on that side out of habit. Later I was convinced that I had four wheels still.

The next day after work, I decided to travel the same path, but with the knowledge of the hole, and see if I my wheel cover was there. I discovered that morning that it was missing. I caught sight of it, but I wasn't positive. Looking ahead, I discovered that the two cars in front were not moving, so I slammed on my brakes. The person loading the trunk (at the bus stop) looked kind of surprised - much like I was. You don't expect people park and load cars on a road that doesn't have parking or stopping. Much less to do it at a bus stop. But I guess that's just me.

This morning, I decided to take a closer look at my wheel - maybe I just couldn't see the cover. Further inspection indicated that the cover was indeed gone and the the tire was flatter than the others. Perhaps this was from the dent in the rim - nearly 3 cm deep. The wheel cover would best be retrieved in the morning, I surmised, after then events of the previous evening. I parked and walked over to where I saw the cover the night before. It was not my wheel cover. I looked around and spotted another - it was not mine. I gazed more carefully and found the wheel cover in the bushes, but sadly it was not mine either. It was no where I could find it.

Tomorrow I shall try and make a trip by the spot and take some pictures of the covers and the pothole, if it's still there. Maybe some municipal workers, or helpful squirrels, filled the pothole with asphalt today. One can only hope....

Maven thoughts, then patterns thoughts

2009-03-04T22:46:00.002-05:00

I'm still plodding away at Maven at work. There was some discussion as to naming patterns, conventions, directory structure etc. Most of these things weren't ground-breaking, just items that require agreement. Without agreement, some benefits are lost. The only point I wanted to see was that modules and Java packages corresponded. Everyone in my group agreed with that idea, so I went to voice my concern with one of the main drivers behind the Maven efforts. He said essentially the same thing, but pointed out an exception. Imagine an interface is described in module I, with two concrete implementations in module A and module B. If module I uses a factory, it must have special access to module A and module B. Specifically, module A and module B should be non-public, package protected perhaps. This leads to having the interface, factory and implementations in one Java package even though logically they three separate pieces. I wasn't 100% comfortable with the example, but I couldn't identify any flaws in the reasoning. Then I hit on why I didn't like it - I don't think I like factory classes.

I've used factory classes a few times in the recent past, but they aren't something I agree with as much. They are hard to test and the classes that use factory are also hard to test. I think I would prefer each of the modules be a separate Java package with a single public entry point in module A and module B. The user would be able to determine which implementation to use, instead of putting all that logic in the factory class. However, either implementation would work and are equally correct. It also illustrated the point that the name conventions and layouts are guidelines, not rules. The exceptions occur frequently enough that slavish adherence to particular rules will cause more problems than necessary. Rather the rules are there to help remind people to really consider why they are using complex constructs.

This brings me to some thoughts on patterns. The Abstract Factory pattern was mentioned above and my desire to avoid using it comes from a certain unease with ideas of software patterns. I've previously had discussions with a co-worker who expressed the idea that there is something wrong with patterns, but he couldn't put his finger on it. I suggested that it was because the patterns don't solve all problems (otherwise software development could have been fully automated by now) and the pattern requires adjustment all the time. It seems like the problems are fit to the patterns, rather than using patterns to solve problems. I think that patterns have been used by those that want to turn software development into more of an engineering discipline with common issues that simply need to be recognized and well-known (well-described?) solutions applied. I agreed that these were my ideas on the topic, but didn't do the unease any justice. My co-worker has been reading Christopher Alexander's book on pattern language, as Alexander is the source of the ideas adapted to software development.

I suppose the real issues come from those who apply the software design patterns too easily, without first considering the problem. As time has gone on, I've been adding criteria and considerations to things I need to design. Things like ease of understanding the result, simplicity of implementation, testability, current requirements. Also, with the various patterns I've been involved in, they've been customized and adjusted in ways that suggest one of two things (or both): 1) pattern didn't fit and the problem is being adjusted to suit the pattern and 2) so many adjustments are made so that the pattern is only partially there.

Anyway, this is not a well-reasoned argument - it's barely written down at all! Hopefully I will be able to devote some more thought and then more time to describing some of these things more coherently. Not tonight though.

Blank silence

2009-03-03T22:27:00.002-05:00

Confronted with the silence of the blank page. That, and the silence. Makes for a quiet emptiness or something. Whatever it is, I guess it didn't last forever because I can hear typing. I really need to head of to bed - I've been staying up way to late for no good reason. Plus tomorrow is hockey and I had to pay for a goalie. I'm hopeful that we'll get more than 6 or 7 skaters 'cause that's not enough to spread the costs nicely. I also need to look into getting a new stick or something - the two I have now are still in one piece, but the toe is looking rather misshapen on both. I just don't know when the sales will start - soon I guess. Some places get the ice out before the end of March, which means most leagues will be done by then. Not me - I like the fact the two games I play are every week. Or almost every week. Keeps things interesting all year long.

Took a small break to look at Kimota94's page and found his reference to 6 word stories. I put some there as comments, but here are some more (because I'm really tired and it makes things like this more amusing):

Don't go! She cried. So lonely...
This sentence is short but complete.
Don't decry what you haven't written.
Contractions make writing small stories easier.
Marshmallows are mellifluous; muffins less so.
From the Simpson's: "Brevity is... wit"
March madness revealed in small sentences.
This sentence is not about itself.
"Long enough, it is" quoth Yoda.
Curb the garbage, keep wife happy.
Deep hole jarred vehicle - potholes suck.

Watching...

2009-03-02T21:38:00.003-05:00

Don't have much insight today into anything in particular. Not that I expect to have many things to say every day in every way, getting better and better. I suppose I just hoped that I'd be able to yank a topic out of somewhere with a bit more easy. I don't know why I kid myself so - find the topic is always the hardest part! Well for me anyway. I do remember the creative writing assignments I had in grade school. I could come up with several riffs on whatever the theme was. One I always enjoyed was the guy with shirt covered in stains from his chicken flambe. He could be counted on to do unusual things, that's for sure.

The Watchmen movie is going to be out this Friday and a friend suggested in a Facebook update that the midnight Thursday showing should be attended. There's going to be two showings in London (Ontario, Canada for those arriving via search engine), one at the Silver City and the other at the Wellington 8. Very interesting. Anyway, I promised my friend we'd see it Friday, so I'll have to see if he's willing to change the time. I've only read the graphic novel once - a sad condition which I hope to correct through a purchase this week. I've come to realize how much I like Alan Moore's writing, so I need to acquire some more of his work and that's a really good place to start. That and Neil Gaiman. I've seen the trailer once and parts of the commercials. I know the story, so I'm hopeful that the visuals will live up to the story. All will be revealed soon.

On another completely topic, get a load of that Martin Brodeur. I read this article on the CBCsports.ca site, completely ignorant of his comeback. Wow! I agree with the assessment that Brodeur's time off served to improve his game, not hurt it. Very impressive. Mr. Brodeur is now within striking distance of Terry Sawchuck's all-time shutout mark and Patrick Roy's career win mark. With this pace, he may break both at once! The Hockey Hall of Fame is probably preparing space for him right now...

Build tools

2009-03-01T18:51:00.002-05:00

I referred to the Maven change at my work the other day, but I didn't take the time to describe some of the basic principals that I was using. These principals generate questions rather than exclude or include things. As I mentioned in this post, any build tool can be configured to support your environment. Using that logic, why would anyone move beyond shell scripts and batch files? That's the first item in the philosophy:

1. Can this project use the build tool in the way it was designed?

For make, this means try to use only the implicit rules and organize your pieces so that all the interdependent files are within the same directory. For maven, this means organizing your project in a modular fashion where each of the configuration files describe only the dependencies between the modules. When you move out of the comfort zone for the tool, you increase the likelihood of mistakes, or design cul-de-sacs. Every design has certain features that shape it, and those features exclude other items or make them difficult to achieve. Using Maven to build a project developed entirely in C raises a flag.

2. Can the build tool handle the corner case you know about now?

Pretty simple thing to remember - if the tool can't handle all your current requirements, how will you deal with the unexpected?

3. Can the tool be setup to run correctly from a sandbox?

By sandbox I mean can the tool be useful without referring to non-local items. I understand that one of the features of Maven is that it can keep various libraries up-to-date by retrieving the latest version. By "retrieve" it means connect via HTTP, I believe. I've been informed that this behaviour can be disabled, which would be a plus in my view. When building a particular project, it is preferable to be able to identify, before the build, the files that will be included. That doesn't really provide any more or less protection from error, but it makes the process more repeatable and leads to the next point.

4. Can the tool be setup to run correctly from a source control?

Imagine you have a project in a source control system and you connect with a new machine. Can you do a single check, run the build tool and generate the proper output? This is something that I value highly. It speaks to repeatability and how fast you can get new project members up to speed. It also means that as long as you have project source, you can build it. Someone I knew at university was doing his PhD, but he said that he could no longer print or display his Master's thesis. He wrote it in PostScript or LaTeX dialect and could no longer find the pieces the render the source as it appeared in the hard copy. Many companies and individuals rely on open source tools. If they do not keep the tools along with the project, they risk not being able to build the project from source in the future.

5. Can developers operate effectively without modifying the configuration files?

One of the problems I've seen in various workplaces is build configuration differences. If the build configuration files have to be checked out of source control and modified to build correctly, that is a large potential problem. Ideally, build configurations would not need to be altered unless files are added or removed - even some tolerance of those changes would be good. If these files have to be checked out, different groups produce slightly different builds, which leads to errors arising from these small changes. These errors are very hard to track down and can be avoided with proper tool selection.

To summarize - the idea is that doing the right thing is easy and the wrong thing (unexpected things) is hard. It should be easy to identify where everything came from and how something was built. These things may take a large amount of configuration - a ramp up time learning how to use a tool properly. As for Maven, so far I think it's right for what we are doing at work - but there are caveats. The main one being the potential for cross-module changes, of which I know of one current example at work. Items that touch many modules can be refactored by adding more indirection (or abstraction), but this has it's own cost. Oh well - such complexity is what makes things difficult and what keeps me employed. I just want to make sure that I don't forget the potential problem areas in the future.

Lots of swimming - just not me.

2009-02-28T22:32:00.002-05:00

Saturday is the day the kids go swimming and today was an important day in the lesson cycle - report day. My older son passed the current level after one go - something he hasn't done before. He went through several lesson cycles pretty much acclimatizing to the whole "water" thing. I was worried at first, until I was informed how much time I spent at the early badge levels. Now he seems to be picking up on some of the important pieces and so is making more rapid progress.

Talking with my older son today before his lesson, I found out he went swimming on Friday with his class from school. I forgot about it, but I thought it was an excellent idea to give a few lessons to all children of a certain age. Some quick exposure and a few basic concepts should do wonders to help kids that run into water-related troubles. There always seemed to be a clear division between swimmers and non-swimmers when I was a kid, largely economic. Some families had pools, so those kids swam. Some families thought it was important that children swim (like my parents) so they had lessons.

What made today be "lots of swimming" rather than a "Saturday amount" of swimming was the party my oldest son attended in the afternoon. Turns out a pool in Ingersoll (the Victoria Community Centre) has the facilities and staff to run events in and around the pool. The kids had an hour in the pool and then adjourned to a room for pizza and cake. It certainly looked like a good time.

A Friday at work

2009-02-27T22:43:00.002-05:00

Post 177 - not prime, but at least the product of two primes: 59 and 3. Had a pretty good at work, especially at lunch hour. The last Friday of every month some people bring in their Rock Band and have at it over lunch - but must be done by 1pm. Anyway, it's a pretty good time - there are quite a few people that are really good with the various instruments, especially a couple of incredible drummers. Always impressive.

More interesting was the initial reports of some investigations into using Maven. Maven is a development tool, used to compile/package and generally create a piece of software. Other similar tools are "make" and "ant", with ant being more closely related. Currently we use ant to manage our builds, but there will be a move to maven for the next release. Given some of the problems encountered testing it out, I wanted to find out what has been motivating the move. Especially when I found out how easy it was to retrieve libraries from Internet sources. For an open source project, this is a tremendous feature, but for a proprietary embedded system, I'd be more comfortable with a rigidly contained system. By that I mean one that will not attempt to search for data beyond a specified file system area. So I went to talk to the person who has been working on this initiative for the longest and he had all the "goods", so to speak.

The reason for the move had two main motivations - the first being the default mode that Maven operates in. Maven expects projects to be structured as a series of modules. This encourages projects which have lots of pieces with well defined boundaries. This is something that our company wants to promote internally, so Maven promotes it by making it the simplest choice. Maven's strength comes in the way it describes dependencies between modules, with the simplest configurations being when most configuration files only contain the dependencies. The second motivator was that modules can describe a dependency on an old version, so development could continue in place without breaking other modules.

After my conversation, I was pretty happy with the discussion. The tool doesn't eliminate problems, but steps will be taken to minimize the likelihood of certain problems. I wanted to convince myself that we won't be walking into a new set of pitfalls without enough forethought. I believe if certain configurations are used, the future project will have fewer potential problems.

Ah well, I guess that's a first cut at that discussion. My brain is tired and trying to get me to sleep, so it won't let me continue heavy thinking. Tomorrow then...

Scout bowling

2009-02-26T22:22:00.002-05:00

The cubs got invited by the scouts to go bowling tonight. Worked out pretty well - we took over a nice 5-pin alley, the Fairmont Lanes. The kids seemed to have a good time - they were definitely loud enough to seem like they were having fun. My elder son, who is currently in cubs, bowled without the bumpers and used his unorthodox style to reach 96 for the first game. He went into the 10th frame with 94 and I thought he'd be able to break 100. It's pretty good considering the best game he had a few weeks back was 103 with the bumpers. And he'd like to go back, but I suspect it's the "claw" machine that's more interesting. He really wanted to play so I gave him some money. He managed to win a monkey on his 4th try. A stuffed monkey, which I'm calling Curly. Because of the Three Stooges. It's a bowling themed name. Whatever.

I'm trying to be a little more proactive at work, although its a detestable word. I have to use a different phrase, or generate some clever euphemism... Self-starter isn't better. Self-motivated is as bad as self-starter, while auto-motivated just sounds wrong. Maybe I could say "I'll eat it like a duck" because ducks don't chew their food... Nah - "on like stink on a dog"? Too negative - implies I keep forgetting my deodorant. Hmm - "on it like killer bees on everyone?" Nope. "Like bankers on a bailout?" Bingo! I'll be more banker-on-bailout at work - seizing the cash, er, opportunities that present themselves.

Communication

2009-02-25T22:49:00.002-05:00

It's review time at work. That usually means it's time to try and figure out what happened in the past year and how to phrase it just - communicate what makes yourself stand out. Hopefully you stand above. Now review time means all the rehashing and debating is done and the explaining begins. I sense that most of the managers dread this time of year, but I don't think they should be too worried. I think they're worried about all the questions that arise from the reviews, but it's pretty much what it is and I don't think there will be too many questions about how - more about what comes next. One of the things mentioned by my manager was that I have to improve my communication.

It's interesting that I decided to do some writing every day to improve my communication skills and that it's something to work on. I think the idea was that I'm not a bad communicator now, but I could be so much better. Potential and all that rot. So I endeavor to be a more nuanced communicator.

Which brings me to this post over at Kimota94's Place. I find it petty that someone would expunge all comments by a particular person. I suppose in the blog system the comment removal would be hidden from the wider audience, so once the decision is made to decline comments from a particular source, it can be accomplished in secret. The thing is, if someone disagrees or displeases you that much, it shows more character to leave the comments there. It's one thing if someone is being belligerent, but in general the comments speak for themselves. If the comment is that contrary or disagreeable, it should be evident to everyone. Then such irritation reflects back on the poster rather than the blogger.

Sentences make sense not. Sleep must obtain. Cease communication.

No hockey!?!

2009-02-24T22:10:00.003-05:00

Just found out that hockey for tomorrow is cancelled due to rink troubles. Both pads are having trouble with the chillers apparently. Which sucks because we had enough people committed to have a few people sitting on each bench! Wow! That hasn't happened for some time. I hope people get the email before the head out tomorrow. Maybe I ought to get to the gym instead then - my paunch is getting unruly. I need to drop a bunch of weight and I haven't been controlling my eating the way I should. Which is to act like some kind of adult and demonstrate some restraint. Crazy I know, but there it is. Actually doing physical activity helps out, but whatever.

Did a little research into RMI and IxC at work today. Don't really get a chance to explore new stuff there, but this important for our upcoming projects. RMI is "Remote Method Invocation", a system to run code in a "remote" Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Depending on the environment, the word "remote" can mean different things. It could represent a distant machine on the Internet or an app running in a logically separate sandbox (or context). IxC is "InterXlet Communication", and is part of some of the mobile Java profiles (J2ME, PBP, CLDC and lots of other acronyms). You can look at JSR-217, which is Personal Basis Profile (PBP) 1.1, looking for the package javax.microedition.xlet.ixc. What I've discovered so far is that IxC removes the generic portion of RMI by eliminating the registry and replacing with the IxcRegistry. Not really very much, but we spent a bunch of time trying to work out if it was possible to replace RMI registry with something of our own devising. So far, we have to say "no" if the objects to be exported were written to use IxC.

Before you get all huffy and add comments to illuminate my idiocy, the code in question has two parts - simple calls and callback registration. The first part can be done without much difficulty, but callbacks are tricky. The callbacks originate in the object to be exported. Let's say there are two app contexts, A and B. Class Foo is registered in context A and sometime later app Woogle in context B uses RMI to get a reference to Foo. Class Foo was written to be used over RMI, so it can marshal data and so forth. All we need to do is create the registry and setup the communication path between context A and context B. Now let's say Foo.addListener(Remote listener) is used by Woogle to pass an instance of MyListener. So when class Foo wants to invoke the listener, the instance resides in context B. The only way to make the invocation is to use RMI from context A to invoke a method in an object in context B.

Such is my work. Maybe I'll have more interesting (read: concrete) details in the next few days. That way I can accomplish the task of learning something new at work.

Mmm... Blizzard cake...

2009-02-23T22:11:00.002-05:00

Monday again. On the way to work, I had that little light go off. Not the shining beacon of creativity, but the ominous amber glow of potential problem. My wife and I went to a birthday bash on Saturday for some friends who have birthdays around the same time we do, and she made the off-hand comment about where her cake was. At the time, it was a playful jest, directed at not-me, so who would remember such a trifle. On the way to work I put somethings together and realized I failed in my ice-cream-cake-retrieval duties as a husband. Please, don't let it happen to you - buy three or four and store them in your secret chest freezers to have ready-to-serve on a moments notice. You will be surprised when such dates spring out from the corners at you! Prepare the cakes with "Happy 21st Birthday" or keep a fresh tube of icing in the cupboard if you can trust your sugar-messaging abilities. Remember - keep that tube of icing fresh! Check it every few weeks by consuming the 2cm of sweet, sweet frosting nearest the cap. It is the only way to ensure that the icing has gone stale! Also, it's fun to eat sugar. So at least you'll be happy until your Islets of Langerhans pack it in - but the icing will be fresh! Small price for edible writing.

As for me, I was able to procure a Blizzard-cake to complement the fine meal to be had this evening. I think it was appreciated and unexpected - a good sign! Plus the fact I survived the weekend meant that I didn't miss too badly in the first place. The ice-cream cake was pretty good and I think I will get one again. I also think that it will serve more than 8-10 people. Maybe 12-16, but then again, that's what I see based on how much we've had tonight.

Ah, Sunday

2009-02-22T19:48:00.002-05:00

It's the day after curling day in London. Not to be confused with Hockey Day in Canada, which happened to be the same day. Coincidence. Seriously. Curling is fun, it turns out, and I am eager to engage in it again. My technique sucks, but that's what practice is for. There was talk of making this event annual or semi-annual and I expressed my eagerness for such an undertaking. I don't believe my brief post from yesterday indicated how I was the only person to put rocks in play on the very first end - one actually in the house! After that, I was too heavy, too left or way too light. So all over the map. An hour of practice by myself would be nice, but that's for another time. I'll have to contact someone I work with who curls - maybe I can arrange for more ice time. Might be difficult if I can't convince my wife though...

Today was also the end of a cub camp for my eldest son - I think he had a pretty good time. He actually managed to pack most of his stuff the way it arrived. Even more impressive if you saw how the various sacks were bulging dangerously on the way in. Camps can be pretty chaotic, but they also provide time to play with fire. Campfire, out in the snow, with sticks and no accelerants. So the good kind of playing. All his clothes smell like smoke, so either the camp burned down, or he enjoyed the campfires. The buildings were all there when I picked him up, so there you go. Pretty good setup for winter camping - they had modestly heated buildings to camp in. I've been winter camping - once - and it was okay as a scout. As a cub, not so much. You have to keep your coat on inside your sleeping bag and basically figure out how to stay snug without fire. Inside your sleeping bag - no flaming tents or the like.

Bar blog!

2009-02-21T21:50:00.002-05:00

Well, I'm at the Black Shire, enjoying a post curling brew. It's my friends Kim and Sinclair. Like my wife and I, they have birthdays in Feb and March. Of course I'm enjoying a post-curling-appropriate Labatt 50 and listening to stories about Chuck Norris. The curling went well I threw the winning stone in the first end. All subsequent rocks went out of play, but our team managed to win 2 of 4 ends. We played a new pair of teams for everyend to keep things moving. Anyhoo, time to get more 50.

Dollhouse, Episode 2

2009-02-20T22:26:00.002-05:00

I don't know how rabid a fan of this show is, so I'd like to warn the reader that I may leak some spoilers below, so read at own risk. It's my speculation however.

I admit it - I am a fan of Joss Whedon. Not forever, not of everything he does, but definitely since Firefly. Just finished watching Episode 2 of Dollhouse, which revealed more back story, particularly about Alpha. They are still setting up the parameters of the show, so it is hardly time to make judgements about how good it will be overall. The surface stuff is all good - action, character interactions, the layering. However it struck me what the central idea of the series is, and it seems to me that it comes from the Dune series by Frank Herbert.

Not to be petulant, but only from the Frank Herbert stretch - particularly the volumes after God Emperor of Dune. What has been revealed about Alpha is that he was somehow able to access multiple imprints and escaped the Dollhouse. A central theme in the later Dune novels was that it was possible to awaken a clone's memory to give it access to every copy of itself that existed in the past. Don't worry about time travel and so on, but the suggestion was that there is something that binds the mind to something that persists longer than the living body. One could use the label "soul" for this - the soul is eternal and persists beyond one lifetime and represents everything that a particular body/mind set learned. In Dune it was an important step to be able to access these old mind/body pairings, suddenly acquiring memories and skills that the current mind/body pair haven't directly experienced.

Sounds vaguely like the Dollhouse premise of "imprinting". On one side, there is the operators of the Dollhouse that are using science and technology to wipe clean the dolls. On the other side is Alpha who was able, eventually, to access the wiped information. This ability seems to be rare, so Alpha has achieved it and it also appears that Echo is close to achieving this.

The other thing is that Echo appears to be able to learn across imprints and almost instantaneously. Watch episode two carefully to pick up on this evidence.

So far, excellent TV. At least for me.

Friday? Day Off??

2009-02-20T22:08:00.004-05:00

Feels weird tonight - taking a Friday off work makes it seem like Saturday, so tomorrow will be some wonderful end to the weekend, with another day off coming! Went into a Futureshop and a Best Buy, dangerous propositions for me, but I'm approaching my birthday so I decided I could splurge a bit. And by splurge I mean by some DVDs! I tried to get bundles to increase my number of DVDs-per-dollar. I bought a box of Bruce Lee movies for $15, a set I've wanted for awhile called "Zatoichi" - The Blind Swordsman. That was 4 movies for $35. Picked up "Shuan of the Dead" for $7. The only non-deal was "The Dark Knight", but it's worth it. I really liked the Dark Knight and I thought it followed "Batman Begins" well - consistent and better.

One other reason for heading to these places was to pick more rechargeable batteries. I invested in some nice Panasonic NiMH a few years back, but don't have too many because they are pretty expensive. I bought some Energizer rechargeable for my eldest son for some of his toys and things. He got a new RC car for Christmas, but it needs 4 AAs. I simply couldn't find more Energizer AAs - lots of AAAs and AAs in a kit with a charger, but what for? Ah well - I guess I have to check again another time. He really can't use the car inside so no rush to get that going yet.

I just watched the second episode of "Dollhouse" and I was going to write about my thoughts here, but I think it makes more sense to create a separate post for it. When I described my ideas to my wife, she wondered who would be put to sleep by my ramblings. I replied that I since I'm so good at that, I should figure out how to profit from this amazing ability. So please let me know how I can turn rambling, Abe Simpson-like rants that remove the ability for the listener to focus into a money-making business.

Ahh, Thursday!

2009-02-19T21:02:00.002-05:00

End of the week for me, although there's the whole unpleasant lingering chest cold putting a damper on things for me.

I thought I'd take the time to respond to a comment from mikem. Life insurance is something that you don't really think about until you have kids. The advice I follow with life insurance is from The Wealthy Barber. David Chilton recommends to purchase term life insurance and advises to look ahead when picking the size of the benefit. Avoid insurance with a savings or investment component - term life will give the most bang-for-the-buck. I too purchased life insurance just before my first son was born, right from a bank. When my second son was on his way, I talked to an insurance broker to explore some options and boy was I happy I did that! I got a 10-year term-life policy with a higher benefit than before and for less money each year. That was my first encounter with bank furnished insurance and the more I learned the more I disliked it.

The term life policy from the bank was done online and completed instantly. My current policy required a visit from a registered nurse, but it was well worth the cost decrease. This difference was something that struck me as odd - I thought that any institution that provides insurance would have to follow similar procedures and this was validated by news articles a few years back - 2005 or 2006 I believe. At that time, several Canadian news organizations published articles about the insurance provided by banks on mortgages and lines of credit. Let's use a line of credit as an example - for x cents per hundred dollars every month, the bank will insure that you never miss a payment. Sounds like a safe thing to do. The aforementioned articles told the story of some mortgage holders that got sick and were not able to make payments, but weren't worried because they had the insurance from the bank for this situation. You know where I'm going - the bank wouldn't cover the payments and they lost their house. Turns out that banks have different rules governing them, so they don't have check if purchaser of the insurance qualifies until they make a claim against the insurance. The money payed out every month for the insurance was not refunded. Insurance companies have to check if you are qualified before they give you the policy, so a standard insurance company wouldn't have this problem. The one that bugs me is the line of credit insurance - the more money you have borrowed, the more you pay in "insurance". Some versions cover loss-of-job problems, but I think it is most typically there in the event the holder dies. This is where a good term-life insurance comes in - it can cover all your debt costs in the event you pass away. Once you hold the policy, you are covered and you can drop all those little insurance "options" offered by banks.

Post 167

2009-02-18T22:50:00.002-05:00

Well, 167 is odd, so not a multiple of 2. And it's not a multiple of 3, 5, 7 or 11. Looking to 13, we can see that 13*13 is 169, so we are done. Another primal posting. At least writing some little thing every night has been something I can stick to. I wrote a couple of days ago about going to the gym - didn't happen. Wrote several times about the Canada Writes contest held by the CBC, but again nothing. It's not so much the curse of the blank page but the shear lack of enthusiasm I suppose. Self improvement is something that is best done in small doses then? I wonder.

My son came home yesterday with the news that a classmate of his had his father pass away suddenly over the long weekend. Freaked out my wife a bit, although the first thing she thought of was "I hope he had good insurance." I hadn't met him, but she had taken our son over to his friend's house over the Christmas holidays and met the person who passed away. It was a family with two young kids - I hope they will be able to continue. I hope they pull though and know there are people willing to help them out.

Tuesday's grey

2009-02-17T22:11:00.003-05:00

No prize for who ever can place today's title quote. I was going to reveal yesterday's reference here, but I'll add a comment on the post instead. Not much happened today - I didn't make it to the gym but my throat is scratchy, so it kinda... Well I thought I'd pay down some bills today and maybe some debt, but didn't. The debt didn't increase or decrease so it's an "unlose" situation, double-plus unlose in fact, according to my wife. Not me though - I think it's pretty good.

The annoying thing related to paying bills were the polite letter I got for my line of credit. Interest is charged to this line of credit by taking the bank prime rate plus some amount. In recent months, the Bank of Canada overnight rate, the rate that banks are charged when they borrow money, has been falling. As of this writing, this rate is at the historic low of 1%, while the bank prime rates are at 3%. Well, according to this letter, the part that is added to the prime rate to determine the interest charged, is increasing. I guess the banks really need to get a particular rate of return for their investments, so they can just nudge the rates up in such a way that the total interest that I'm charged remains constant. So much for falling interest rates. I probably shouldn't complain - if this was 1989 they'd probably be calling in the entire line instead of bumping the rates up a bit. But still, it 'tis annoying.

An interesting article that I finally got some time to read was over at Geek In A Suit, the blog by Christian Gruber. I talked with Christian a few times in his role as Agile consultant at my place of work. The entry about testability and Object-Oriented development really hit some good points. Especially how we, as developers, forgot all our O-O design education when we started working. I remember one of the early classes (early in the morning, early in my university career, etc) on the software life cycle where the prof went out of his way to show that maintenance was by far the largest part of the cycle. That initial development was small and that testing and what followed would dominate. And that was the waterfall model. So, over the past few years, my company has been exploring Agile methods and it's given me time to consider how we develop software and what I should be doing to create the best software. It has shown me that testing, writing testable code, documentation, automation, KISS design are all very important. One thing my feature team has discovered is that writing tests should take at least as much time as writing the code, especially given that there are two or three types of testing that have to be done. Also, we cannot consider test code to be throw-away, second class or ignored. We have one coding standard, which includes guidelines for design and documentation, and it applies to all code created. Code reviews are done for all code. Since tests are code, they are part of this process.

Something else that Christian touches on is the role of design in an agile process. It's touched on a little bit, but not enough. The emphasis in Agile is on iterative design, on incremental things, on people over process and I think people follow the buzzwords instead of doing "what's right". Design is an important consideration, as I think many jump into the work because that seems like the right thing to do. I believe what Agile is trying to impart is that design should be as simple and minimal as possible - that's the only way to have robust, flexible code. The design should be map of what to do in a project. It should be the five lines on a napkin map, not the satellite photo map.

A lazy, dog-dangling afternoon.

2009-02-16T21:20:00.002-05:00

A quick search will show that I am not the first person to quote a certain show or "...commit certain deeds." The reference is so obvious I don't think I can even grant a no-prize to whoever identifies it. Or the name of Homer's new best friend. Or the wattage of the bulb highlighted. Anyway, it was a pretty lazy day, given that pretty much every store was closed on account of Family Day. Apparently, going out with the family to spend money isn't a family-enough activity. The idea was okay - another statutory holiday - but the legislation drafted has some flaws. First, it's supposed to be a new holiday for all, but if you already get a certain number of paid days off in a year, you can't take this one. Police fall into this category I believe. Next, no stores are open, kind of a difficult thing, given that Alberta, which had Family Day on the books long ago, lets stores open. I guess I'm just complaining because I kinda wanted to go to the store. Plus we have very little food here, and I was all ready to go out and stock up. Lucky for me, the local Chinese restaurant was open for dinner tonight and I did my part to support the local economy. Plus you can really tell that people expected things to be open when the variety store at the gas station only had 2 bags of homogenized milk left. There was clearly room for 4 bags of skim, 1% and 2% plus 1 and 2 litre cartons. Just barren shelves with bags of homogenized or cartons of half and half.

Ah well, back to work tomorrow. I am going to try and start back at another habit tomorrow - going to the gym. My middle really requires a workout and I think it will be good all around. Weak joke, but still I need to go to the gym more.

Nice Sunday

2009-02-15T21:14:00.002-05:00

Pretty nice day all around. Relaxed pace, a long nap, lunch with family - very good. Had lunch with my parents and brother-in-law again - second time since Friday we've shared a meal. Managed to use my iPhone to show him Rowan Atkinson's sketch "Welcome to Hell". That and a bunch of Arrogant Worms tunes he didn't know, so a very hilarious lunch with lots of Canadian content. Well, Canadian musical content anyway.

Well, I wanted to rant, er discuss, er.. well rant was right I guess. Kimota94 has a post about non-interviews that I really relate to. Many times there are pseudo-articles, elaborate advertisements, that try to focus the reader on particular aspects of a product, but miss the point entirely. I have to remind myself to be wary of such things and try to apply some basic reason, but I can almost forgive them because it is their job to sell things. Another more serious version of the same issue is when a complex technical issue is being addressed and the emphasis is placed on the wrong aspect of the item. For example, the idea of fully online applications, ones that reside entirely on the Internet. When mentioned, what is stressed is that all you need is a browser and an Internet connect and you can have 24-7 access, implicit upgrades, no hassle, etc etc. It leaves out things like who is maintaining the infrastructure? Where does the work take place, locally or on a server? Who has access to the server? How can I be sure that my private information isn't processed through several servers in different places? What happens if that company disappears? What happens if the servers have a problem - where is my data? These are items that I'd be worried about, because I'd want control over my data, not just access.

The same sort of pattern happens around programming languages, where some esoteric feature in one language is hailed as the new "right way", ignoring the fact that many paradigms have come before and more will come. That just means that one solution doesn't fit all problem, one paradigm doesn't describe the perfect framework. Anyway, enough ranting for this evening - I'd like to increase my internal relaxation level and decrease the rant level. For now.

Long day

2009-02-14T22:27:00.002-05:00

It has been a long day today - a rich day, full of cajoling, taking away, threats and chocolate. I spent the early part of the day at the local Shopper's Drug Mart standing in front of a wall of Valentine's Day cards with 8 other men. Each took their turn examining the 5 different card types that were left, with one particularly sappy one spread across 27 different slots. Each came away satisfied that they have done something to avoid... whatever unpleasantness greeted the realization that Valentine's Day dawned without a card. I also bought some nice Lindt Mint Chocolates for my wife. Then another box for good measure. Later, I made another special trip to buy my own box because they just looked so darn good. Plus they were on sale. Win-win!

The afternoon grew towards my nap, er, our trip to the bowling alley. My nephew, sons, mom, dad, and I went 5-pin bowling at a location that I know I've been to before, but have not set foot in for years. My mom was chatting with the proprietor on the way out and mentioned that she used to bowl there - in the 1960's, so it's been a while. Plus she was a better bowler then. No kidding - it's been quite the layoff. The boys did really well with bumpers, although I suspect that they started to throw for the rails to get banked shots near the end. I started to get some more accuracy after the second game, but I really need to practice some more and I think I could improve greatly. I bowled more often as a kid, especially 5 pin, but never seriously. My cousin bowled in a league for a few years and he was pretty good, but I don't think his back would stand for that kind of shenanigans now. By the time the kids had their McDonald's and we were home, everyone was pretty much done for the day.

Nine o'clock pm had me watching Space and Fringe. I really love how Space is showing some current series with a 1/2 week delay - Fringe being one and Chuck the other. Chuck hasn't been showing new episodes for so long now, I can't remember if Space still carries it. Anyway, I was able to watch the most recent Fringe episode tonight and I'm really glad I did. They decided to reveal the huge left-turn in the series, namely the multiverse aspect, with Walter and Olivia being particularly important players. I'm sure Peter will be revealed as a linchpin later. I like the characters, Walter and Peter, enough to keep watching. I like the actress Anna Torv, but her character seems too predictable or perhaps lead at times. Maybe we are travel with her in this story, so they don't want her too opaque or too smart. Lots of character archetypes appear in the show - pure villans, mysterious powerbroker (Nina Sharp), heels (Olivia's boss's boss), unrequited love interest (Peter), font of knowledge (Walter), and so on. Production values are good so hopefully the story will remain interesting for some time. So far, I like.

Birthday!

2009-02-13T22:05:00.002-05:00

Well, today is my youngest son's birthday - he was born on a Friday. We had Spongebob Squarepants cake and it was good. I saw my brother-in-law and my nephew, my aunt and uncle, and had a good meal. We discussed insurance, the kids played with Darth Vader. A pleasant evening all round. I watched most of the first episode of Dollhouse, but I missed the first few minutes of it. So far, I like the setup - the world building that is going on. I hope that Fox doesn't bugger it up like the last show I liked on their network (Firefly). Joss Whedon is excellent at blending an interesting setting with human characters, or in this case, parts of human characters.

I don't really have much more for this evening - I'm just gonna kick back and relax with some online gaming. After all, according to Reading Digest: "Brevity is... wit."

Careful...

2009-02-12T21:42:00.002-05:00

Got to be careful not to go into deep-rant mode tonight. Don't really want to spend a long time going on and on about some topic, probably because it could take all night and there is more than one thing to rant on about. We're getting closer to that time at work where we discuss money and goals and the coming year. Since many things have happened between evaluation time and epic monetary meltdown, er, now, this will be an interesting set of discussions. It also has me thinking about my current financial state and getting my income tax done. One of those yearly chores that needs to get done, but I simply haven't got to yet. I'm hoping that I get a bit of a refund this year - I usually do get a little something. The question of what to do with it weighs though. The simple answer is always "pay down debts", which I cultivate through a line of credit. Whenever I think of money like this, I realize I could do better and I should really get to where I can save by default instead of reduce debt by default. I'm still pining for a nice big TV, but it doesn't make sense right now. Anyway, money is a never-ending rant, so I'm going to move on.

Today was mail day on The Current, so I listened to people rant on about the things they heard this week. Some mail was about a piece on fertility, centered around the 60-year-old woman who recently gave birth to twins. Some of the letters line up with my personal opinions - people over a certain age will find it difficult to raise young children because they don't have energy for it. One letter in particular noted that they were considered strange by other parents when they had a child in their 40's, but now it is far more common. I think it's not a great idea, personally. If having children is that important, why can't you sacrifice a little when you can handle things best. Put another way, you should have kids before you're old enough to realize how much work it is. The older the parents are when the process begins, the more likely they will have a single child that is coddled/treasured/bubbled. If it took until you were in your 50s before you could have a child, that represents a huge effort and you'd like to protect that effort. How will you ever be able to let go? How will you be able to give the child the distance to let them grown on their own? When you're younger, I think it is easier. Bill Cosby would say that when he got in trouble, his father would say "I brought you into this world, I can take you out. And don't think I won't because I make another just like you." Good detachment, little be too heavy on the discipline, but you get the idea.

That is only the warm-up rant on the assisted fertility topic however. The letter that got to me was from someone who pointed out that fertility treatments are a for-pay enterprise that costs a good deal of money. A single course of IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization) treatment costs about $10,000.00. The author of the letter thought that the government health plans should cover it, comparing this to knee replacement surgery. The comparison was "If someone can get a knee replaced so they can go running, I should be able to get IVF." That's paraphrased - I'm working from memory here. First of all, the analogy is very, very poor - it implies that a person selfishly gets knee replacement surgery to continue doing something that will damage their knee and IVF is less selfish and less burdensome on the healthcare system. Each successful IVF treatement brings additional load on the healthcare system - a new person. There are no guarantees that the treatment will work, so often several treatments are necessary to achieve a successful birth, another large load. The knee surgery person is hurting only themself. The next part of my argument is a not as fully worked out, so I apologize for any incoherency. Maybe there is a system reason why a particular couple can't conceive - systemic in the natural system sense. Maybe there is something about those two people, the time, the place etc that makes it impossible for them to conceive in the regular (fun?) fashion. Considering how important new life is to species, that says something. I don't mean that IVF technologies are inherently wrong and I don't believe that it is "fate". What I mean is that we do not know very much of how our bodies operate on the whole, so the living whole may be sensitive to things we don't currently understand or recognize now. What bothered me the most about this letter was not the suggestion that fertility issues should be covered by our Canadian public health care system, but the insistent tone of entitlement. The author implied their right to proper life were violated because the gov't won't pay for them to special treatments to conceive. Why do they need to have the same life as all their friends? Does their best friend having a child mean they need a child to complete them?

Now I'm getting petulant, so I'll move on. I can't know what motivates their need for a child, so I'll continue on and say that I think it would be a good idea for the public health care system to support fertility treatments in some way. An expert came on to help talk about the issues in the letter and he indicated that some treatments are covered by the system now, but IVF is not covered. He mentioned that some countries in Europe will cover IVF for the implantation of 1 embryo, and will not do it for women past a certain age. This tied back to the 60 year old woman who had IVF treatment and birthed twins - she had the treatment done in India. I think IVF should be covered, but it should be provided in a system like the organ doaner system - patients are triaged and served in the order of some list. Devising the rules for ranking of that list would be difficult. I would use age as a factor, but there is obviously more parameters to consider. However I don't think that the private option should be removed - if you have the money to pay for the treatments, have as many kids as you like. Obviously you have money to support all these treatments. Free-market thinking has huge holes, as octo-mom in California proved (my wife's term). The woman who recently gave birth to octuplets in California is single, no job, has several kids already but somehow afforded the treatments that resulted in the octuplets. Anyway, I suspect we'll find in the future that the natural methods are the best - most robust, safest, most reliable. We shall have to wait and see.

Random thoughts for a Wednesday

2009-02-11T22:21:00.002-05:00

Seems to be the season for illness - two people were out at work today from my group. The talk was all about who would be next, although I don't think that anyone wants to be that one. We're also hoping it isn't exponential growth - 1, 2, 4, 8, ... However, now that I think about it, it could be Fibonacci growth - 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, ... Oh well. Made it to Wink's for lunch - they have a special on this month. Anyone from our company gets 25% off lunches. An excellent idea on their part - I think it will keep people there all month.

Listening to the CBC this morning, there was a bit on the Current that suggested that general health improved during the Great Depression. I talked to my dad about this point and he said that he has noticed that people seem happier during a recession. He couldn't figure out why, but I thought it made sense to me. Actually, he said two things - people were more productive and were happier. Increased productivity could originate from fear, or from happiness. Fear is a simple motivator to identify during tough economic times. I think people would also be more happy in general because they can focus on fewer things (like doing their job) and can be happy with what they have. When times are good, people search for happiness in material goods, social status - a myriad of ways. When times are bad, just having a job is a weight off your shoulders and you forget about superficial diversions. Simply doing your job well is all you can do, but getting paid validates that you are doing something right. It's a zen argument - cast off the distractions and focus on the now. Quiet the competing thoughts and focus on silent truth.

Now that you can see my carefully raked white pebbles, let me talk about stupid flat-panel tv mounting systems. I don't have a flat-panel TV, but I'd like to get one when I can afford it. To figure out when the time is right for that, I've been exploring the various technologies, prices and so on. One critical piece of the puzzle is a wall-mount system that allows the panel to be swivelled. I have not seen a suitable mounting system for less than $400. I paid ~$250 for a portable basketball net that I guarantee has more metal and supports more weight than those stupid brackets. It is ridiculous to have to pay so much for a stupid piece of steel (or aluminum) that probably costs $30 to manufacture. For instance, one retailer is offering a 52" TV, with a tilt-swivel wall-mount, including installation for $1899. The TV by itself costs $1899, so the entire cost of the wall mount and the cost of the installation is discounted. I don't know where the profit margin hides in this equation, but I suspect that it is a combination of the TV being overpriced and the tremendous margin on the wall mount. What I really want to do is talk to the guys I know in the tool-and-die business and get them to create a mount for me. I would pay them the same - or more - just for the satisfaction of having specified it myself. I don't think my wife would wait for me get that made after having bought such a TV. Oh well - it's still a fun thought.

Piku - The Chemical Brothers

2009-02-10T22:03:00.002-05:00

That's just what I'm listening to right now. The Chemical Brothers were the first electronic group that I listened to and really got me hooked on the genre. What has kept my interest wasn't the high bpm or the "dancibility" - it was the layering of sound, the variability of the rhythms and the fact that everything is part of the part of the rhythm. Lyrics, tone, melody aren't important - all the sounds are about percussion. That's what separates the best electronic from ten minutes with a drum machine and a sample deck. It's complexity, layers and rhythm.

I wanted to start with something about prime numbers and the posts, but I realize that I've screwed up the last few postings. At least the number of the post - the last post was 159, not 158 like I noted. 159 has a nice prime factorization, like 158, it's the product of a small prime (3) and a larger one (53). This post, however, is actually post 160. That's 2^4 * 10 or 2^5 * 5. It's always nice to be able to express values as powers of 2. Guess I have to be more careful about counting blog posts. No biggie there.

We got our piano tuned today - well, my wife's piano. I found out that it's been in her family for sometime. Her maternal great-grandmother bought it new in 1890 and apparently my father-in-law still has the original bill of sale. My wife is trying to get me to use the word "provenance", but I don't wanna. I shouldn't be resistant to new words, but whatever. The tuning is done now, but more work is necessary. The key and hammer actions need to be tightened and it was suggested that the bass strings be replaced to give the lower notes a more modern sound. Maybe we shouldn't, considering the piano was made in the 19th century. I'm sure people in Europe or China are laughing at 119 years being "old", but this is still a relatively young country and that's pretty good.

The piano tuner also offers digital pianos for sale and my wife is really taken with the idea of being able to practice silently. More specifically, the kids practicing silently. This particular store offers Kurzwiel pianos, which look really nice. They seemed to be reasonably priced, but I'm still looking for a good comparison. I finally found the Yamaha site for the Clavinova line, a pretty reputable brand as well. I'm looking at the CLP-320, which has some great specs, but no prices. Seems that no one is allowed to publish the MSRP for these items which is frustrating. Whatever - I still don't want to invest in an instrument like this unless I get a chance to use some different examples personally. Hopefully I can make it out to a few stores this week - the guy who tuned our piano has offices near my work, so I'll have to check it out.

Another Monday

2009-02-09T21:12:00.002-05:00

Oh well - I messed up a tiny bit with the whole prime number thing. It was pointed out in a comment that 1 is not a prime number. I'm struggling to remember where I heard the definition that included 1, but after looking around at a few references it is simpler to leave 1 out. This is post 158 - obviously not prime, but it is the product of two primes - 2 and 79. Pretty nice. Prime factorizations are interesting too. I found it very interesting that people still insisted on bringing calculators with them to class or exams at Waterloo, particularly the Math faculty. I think most people who made it past second year simply lost their calculators - they were pointless to the curriculum. Much more interesting to work out things in an abstract way and supply concrete values later.

That reminds me of something that I have to introduce at work - the idea of doing complexity analysis on our code. Complexity in the form of big-O notation. Since we create software that runs on a variety of hardware and operating systems, we need to ensure that it is as efficient as possible. Every time the topic of performance comes up, everything is described in wall-clock terms - methods evaluated and user-visible tasks timed. Such things are specific to a particular instance - a particular lab environment, a particular device, a particular firmware version etc. If we could prove the quality of our code through big-O (and related) analysis, we could prove that we are running well. I created an internal blog posting about the use of local variables to store the results of system calls. I think there would be more agreement with this idea if I had included a big-O analysis of both cases.

On the home front, we are getting our piano tuned soon - tomorrow I think. It is horribly out of tune and it is in need of some repairs. My wife suggested we consider an electronic piano, partly because the repairs might be expensive and partly because an electronic piano can be used with headphones for quiet practicing. So I had a look online at what is available. I'm sure that the current state-of-the-art has improved from when I last tried them, and back then it wasn't horrible. I've read there are electronic pianos that have hammer-action keys. This adds some of the mechanics of a real piano into the electronic version so that it feels more authentic. That would be worthwhile, as I can tell the difference between a decent piano and a good piano. Maybe not anymore, but at one time I could. Anyway, it's something I'm curious about now - the electronic part is intriguing because of the silent play. Plus there are lots of directions to move in with MIDI and so on. I think I really need to get into a store and see the difference between the different brands and judge for myself what is good.

Prime post alert!

2009-02-08T21:32:00.003-05:00

Well, this is post 157 - another prime posting! Prime numbered that is. Not that it's terribly exciting for most people, but it's pretty fun. A little tip - you only have to check the primes less than or equal to the square root of the number being checked. So for 157, the square root is +/-12.52... (I'm not writing out all those values). Or, for all those without a calculator handy, 10^2 == 100, 11^2 == 121, 12^2 == 144, 13^2 == 169 so between 12^2 and 13^2. Discrete math is fun! So, let's review the prime numbers, excluding 1:

2: 157 is not even, so not a divisor
3: 157/3 == 52, remainder 1 so no good.
5: 157 doesn't end in 0 or 5, so not a divisor
7: 157/7 == 22, remainder 3
11: 157/11 == 14, remainder 3

So, there you have it - 157 is prime. Next time, I may have to run through the proof of why we only have to look at the primes <= square root of the value - although "simple symmetry" is a good hand-wavy version of the proof.

Today wasn't all prime numbers and other values - the real interesting bits were in the people interactions. One was my parents, back from vacation. My dad's comment, and I'm sure I'm going to hear it again after every trip, is his shock at the size of the other people he saw there. Not the locals, but other vacationers. I guess the people that can best afford such a vacation show their wealth in many ways - how well fed they are being one of them. I know there have been stories and documentaries that show how developed countries have increasing incidents of obesity and this is how I'd expect it to demonstrate itself. Also, they got me a t-shirt as a souvenir and it is size "L", but I think I could camp under it. I mean, it is really wide - like "Large Tent", not "Large shirt". And I am not slim. I have never, ever, been accused of being slim, so this is puzzling and scary. Maybe I can look forward to fitting into "small" because they'll base it on height not girth. Whatever - they had a good time.

The other human interaction thing is my oldest son. He had some kind of day today - couldn't seem to get requests to change his behaviour through. It was immensely frustrating and I tried to deal with it in a calm fashion, but sometimes it is very difficult. I think I'll have to try a completely new approach, which is to remove him from stimulus until he understands why my wife and I aren't happy. He'd get louder and louder (as he got more into whatever he was doing) and it would become unbearable. I kept trying to point out what was happening, but that wasn't enough. Just being told that he was escalating was not registering with him. I also think it would be good to have a time where I could shove him out the door and say "be as loud as you want out there, just don't come back in for an hour." That ain't gonna happen 'cause he needs more assistance to figure out what to do outside. Plus there's that whole parental-paranoia that can't let well enough alone, er, let kids out without exact coordinates. Ah well - I'll figure out. Probably when he's off to university, but hopefully I'll still take comfort in the pure knowledge, rather than be sad that the time for the knowledge has past.

A good day's work

2009-02-07T21:03:00.002-05:00

I was supposed to call a service to clean the end of parent's driveway - they arrive home today after travelling to warmer climes - but I forgot yesterday. I also kinda missed shovelling snow over the past few weeks - just a little, and the end of a drive seemed like the perfect amount. Enough to feel like something was accomplished, but not so much that you give up in sweaty heap with half to go. I was able to wake up early enough to get there and shovel snow, buy some salt and kitty litter (not related with snow shovelling), buy some food and get the kids to swimming without killing myself. Or anyone else. Always a plus. Later in the day I discovered that a sign that described hours lied to me. I thought the guy who sharpens my skates was open until 5pm on Saturdays. So when I went by at 3:30, I figured I was getting there in good time. The place was empty, no note on the door. So I decided to give him a call and I find out that he changed his hours to close at 3pm. The sign had the correct hours on one side but not the other - he figured someone wiped off the adjustment on one side. Very annoying. With all this stuff going on, I think it will be a pleasant sleep tonight however.

I've been invited, via Facebook, to an event in a few weeks - a curling event! I've thrown a couple of rocks before and I'm eager to throw more. My wife isn't too keen on the curling part, but I think the camaraderie and fellowship and space heaters will be more her style. Anyway, I didn't realize there was still a curling club in my area, but this event will be at the London Curling Club. And this club is the old east downtown area - something I never would have suspected! I have been near this building many times, but never knew it was there. Oh well. So hopefully I'll be able to do some curling and have a few drinks - hopefully at the same time. I understand that out west the bar is right at the end of the sheets, so no need to wander far to get that calming finger of rye before letting fly with the hammer.

Struggling on

2009-02-06T22:40:00.004-05:00

The struggle continues - the struggle to stay awake long enough to post that is. I had a pretty good day - played hockey, scored a nice goal, put in a decent day's work, but now I'm beat. I thought I was a bit tired at 8 o'clock and that I'd have no problem writing this later, but I was wrong. Sat down with my wife to watch the Office special from the Superbowl but I wasn't awake for that either. I stayed up then and saw the intro; or at least the fire drill before the opening credits. That rocked. It was some of the funniest TV I've seen in a while. And I fell asleep right after it tonight. And then come to think of it. Maybe it's so funny, it left me physically exhausted. Maybe not. But it was pretty darn good. Maybe I'm so tired because of the post office. Yes - that must be it. They must also be to blame for why watching a show over VOD causes regular TV to have no sound. Which is how I managed to escape long enough to write this. I wrote "read" the first time, but that would imply that I planned far enough ahead in my own mind to simple transcribe a finished work. That's not the way it is for me. Except being tired - that is very real. I'm going to go collapse on the couch, or in bed or something.

Postal woes continued

2009-02-05T19:43:00.003-05:00

Got another bill today - I know, I know, you're all shocked. It's hard to believe that I still get bills, but there you are. Anyway, this was for the 407 toll road - something I use maybe once a year. I did use it in 2008 - twice in fact. Travelled the whole length, first one way then another. For a wedding. At the end of August. This is the first bill I have received. I have not contacted the 407etr corporation nor changed my address. This bill was for February. The previous billing period was Jan 1, 2009 to Jan 31, 2009. So I believe I have not received 4 months worth of bills. And so the toll road may come and collect their $37.69. All because THE POST OFFICE CAN'T DELIVER MY BILLS!

It is very frustrating to discover that a government agency is destroy my credit rating, at the exact time the economy is imploding. It boggles the mind how accurately they predicted the downturn so they could "forget" to deliver key pieces of may for several months. Such timing - I wish I could achieve a similar finesse in any activity.

Thankfully, I was able to watch "The Office" and "30 Rock" before continuing, so I don't feel so angry. It turns out that I am the Generalissimo and that Lehman Brothers is reopening under the direction of Tracy Jordan. Actually, maybe Liz Lemon has been getting our mail - I'll have to ask Canada Post if there is a PO Box in New York they've been secretly forwarding it to. It never hurts to ask.

Not yet happy feet

2009-02-04T23:09:00.002-05:00

Got back to Pete's Sports today, finally, to see if they could help me with my one boot. I have been trying to adjust how I tie my one skate so I don't hurt my foot, but I really don't have much leeway. Went through another oven-cycle and I'm hopeful that will make a difference. If not, I'll have to talk to a guy I play hockey with who works at a different sports store. He said he has the equipment to do a proper stretch of the boot. I think that's what will ultimately be needed.

Hockey was pretty good this morning - only slight hiccups. We had two goalies, eventually, and they both got going within about 10 minutes of the regular start time. Everyone left right at the end though. Usually we can play for a bit longer because there is no one before or after us, but if people start to leave, the game peters out. We did get 5 on 5 plus a sub, two goalies, so that's the main thing. I think I did okay, but I didn't get that many chances on net and I did let some weak plays past me. But I also halted my share of rushes, so it's all good.

I guess I must be more tired than I thought because I just can't put anything together here today. Well, other than simple stuff. The only interesting thing was the confirmation of some rumours I heard at work. One of the companies we partner with had some layoffs, which explains why we are seeing different reactions from them lately. There could have been a number of reasons for the differences, such as increased pressure from our parent company, but this makes more sense to me. I believe they have seen this coming for a few months and that's not a pressure that is easy to live with. I hope things work out for them. Opposite news for Nintendo though - they've been selling millions of things - things that cost tens or hundreds of dollars each. I think they are one of the few bright spots in the gaming/entertainment industry.

That's aaaallll evverybody!

2009-02-03T22:05:00.002-05:00

Guess today is the 50th anniversary of the death of Buddy Holly, so the title's a decidedly weak play on a Simpson's joke (the gravestone of the Big Bopper). Just a random item - not something I'm commemorating or celebrating in any particular fashion. What I did just do was watch Scrubs, and it's still going strong. I like its simple formula - consistent, straight-forward comedy with an ongoing story to tie everything together. I have a real hankering for some gium and tonic though... Don't really want the gium-legs though. I haven't seen all the episodes for this season, but the ones I have seen I've really liked.

Got a new Spectrum today and I was surprised to find an article that strikes a chord with where I'd like to head at work. It gives some handy points on how to make the jump from being a heads-down techie to someone that can talk with management and be helpful. Fortunately for me, I do some of the items naturally - speaking with candor (is there any other way?), real-time ideas (again - is there any other way?). The other items - "what-next ideas" and "management mind-set" are things I have to approach. The "what-next ideas" is looking forward to next steps - something that developers/engineers/techies don't really get a chance to do because they're too busy making things work now. The "management mind-set" is the hardest of all because it includes items like:

4. Can you learn to tolerate the fact that some decisions are based on politics? Can you accept that the technically right solution isn’t always the right organizational solution?

I'd judge this to be one of the most difficult for the engineer/developer/techie/{label} to adapt to because part of their job is to make the right thing happen, where "right" is measurable in an objective manner. I've heard this described as "picking your battles". The purpose is clear - you can't oppose every item, can't fight every little thing because nothing would get done. This was something that I started on the road to since about grade 7. I was doing a special project with a partner - group projects weren't really done in grade school. I had an idea of what I wanted, and I just kept sticking to them until they were all that was left. It took a few years to realize all the levels of wrong that was - ignoring the opinions of my partner, letting my opinions spill all over their ideas until it was clear to my partner it they shouldn't try. Not my finest moment, but that's what we all need - mistakes to show a better way. If I was truly enlightened, I'd be able to predict mistakes and correct them ahead of time, but I don't think that happens much.

What I realized much later was that it was best to gather everyone together and try to verbalize ideas. At least, that's what helps me the most. What I have been refining is how to guide such a discussion without leading it. I've come across as trying to lead (or herd?) and that isn't a collaborative method, shutting down disagreement and taking things in one direction. What I am really doing is working through all the ideas by approaching them from different angles. So I have to be more finessed (subtle) with this technique, so I can keep people participating and collaborating while I still get value out of it. Very complicated, but whatever - it's a new skill and it's good to develop new skills. Much like writing and blogging. Blogging helps me to express myself quickly in print (in bits?). Probably should do some review and editing to get any real benefit out of these efforts, but whatever. I'm typing onwards, no backwards! Upwards not forwards! And always whirling, whirling, twirling towards freedom!

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a good hockey day and this cold will get a little better before then. Hopefully both goalies show up. It's a time for hope and I have to keep hoping I guess.

Cold-ward ho!

2009-02-02T22:30:00.003-05:00

Nothing like a good cold to knock you down in the middle of winter. I have been much sicker than this before, but it's always a bother. At least it's getting better - last night I had to take some Tylenol to get to sleep, but tonight probably not. And the day at work went just fine - unlike Sunday where I had trouble concentrating all day. So it was good that I didn't really get much done on Sunday. Now I'm just trying to get to bed reasonably early and fight this cold in a decent fashion.

Listened to some mayors this morning on The Current. They were discussing this last budget and I think they bring up some interesting points. They were carefully grateful for any monies in the budget, but were critical of how the money had to be obtained. Seems there aren't many details yet, but they would like to see less red-tape involved with the infrastructure-related issues. They would prefer something structured like the gasoline tax that the federal government gives directly to municipalities. In these times of "stimulus" and "fast action", I'd have to agree. Various ministers went around the country asking about "shovel-ready" projects, and it seems the cities can apply if they are ready to go. But applications take months and require several levels of approval. I can see why they wish to go the gas-tax route. I just hope that all the money that is being spent actually ends up in infrastructure projects quickly, while the workers are still available. Otherwise the construction workers may look else where as the companies close up, leaving no one available when the budget is approved. Also, the idea of "matching funds" isn't really help the average taxpayer - we'll have a huge federal debt and then our municipal taxes rise to "match funds"? Doesn't sound like stimulus - sounds like passing the buck.

Anyway, enough ranting for today - I must get off to sleep. Those sinus don't drain on their own...

A new month

2009-02-01T13:51:00.002-05:00

Well, it's post 32 for the year (2^8) and post 150 for the entire blog. Not really impressive, but still pretty fine, as far as I'm concerned. And since I'm the only one who likely reads this, I'm the only one who needs to be impressed.

Not a fantastic day so far - real up and down, but in the makes-good-small-talk way, not the never-be-the-same way. My cold is in full force, so I'm using some fun medication to get rid of the sinus pressure. Other than that, it's fine. I actually made it outside this morning, as my neighbours were busy with their snowblowers, but not in their own lanes. I haven't had to do any serious shovelling for weeks - my neighbours have gotten out and applied snowblower to my driveway before I can react. Usually when I'm at work. Anyhoo, my western neighbour complained about phonebook delivery. I agreed along with her - even the part about wanting to jump them in a back alley somewhere and go all Russel Peter's dad on them. Seems the deliveries happened while it was snowing, so these delivery-people decided they didn't have to get out of their vehicle. Which meant the phone book was left somewhere in the last 2' of the driveway. And then it snowed 6". So when my neighbour pulled our her trusty snowblower... She said it took hours with a small knife to cut the pieces out of the blower. Which is why I found mine on the porch - she moved it there! Both the neighbour to the east and the west were busy plowing lanes, I was able to finally deliver the small tokens of my appreciation - cookies and chocolates. They both tried to politely turn me down, but I wouldn't have it! They deserve a small token of appreciation and since neither of them drinks, delectables it is!

So that's one down and one up - here's another down. I was organizing my mail, and found a Union gas bill I hadn't opened from a few days back. I was pretty surprised at the bill - more than twice what I expected. I was shocked when it said I was going to be disconnected! After combing my records, I didn't find any trace of my gas bill for the previous month. My wife and I agreed that the mail delivery quality has gone down since the retirement of the old one a while back. I can't even recall how far back that was, but I've been getting a magazine for the same number, but a different street. The street names are not close - don't have the same pattern, starting letter, etc. I suspect that my bill got misplaced. I think I finally have a reason why I should move to electronic billing - maybe I won't miss anything that way. I also realize that I've become too reliant on simply paying the bills that show up. I need to create a list of the bills I should be paying and their schedule. Kinda like the garbage pickup schedule.

These are the things that are making my head hurt today. That or the cold - whichever: the end result is still headache.

Day 31 - Bleh

2009-01-31T21:42:00.002-05:00

I figured out why I felt so beat playing hockey yesterday - I definitely have a cold. It's either arriving or is here. Staying up late last night didn't help anything, but that's no big deal. Managed to get haircuts for me and the boys and it was a pretty good day. A nice nap in the middle of the day helped too.

Caught the latest episode of Fringe tonight on Space. Not a bad show - I really like how Space is able to show new episodes of current shows within a week of their first airing. It was most enjoyable - plus it helps with the network schedule fights, so that two of the current shows I care to watch overlap. This provides a decent option of being able to see it on a night where I have more time. Really I should probably get a DVR, but I'm not prepared to spend that money. Because I'd likely get a TiVo and that has a monthly cost.

Fringe is doing pretty well in my mind - the "science" and "tech" is reasonably plausible, enough to keep the show fresh and interesting without to many deja-vu-from-left-field experiences. Walter is definitely my favorite character, but I think that's the design. My wife thinks Olivia has a weird head, but I think it's just fine. I like Olivia's boss (who I can't remember the name of) . It's developing and I'm willing to play along for now anyway. I'm entertained and that's what's required.

Wrapping up the last day in January with a relatively short post, but I need sleep and tv and not in that order. Plus I have to see if Hockey Night has got the sound back for the Vancouver game. It's really neat to watch the show with no commentary, just the rink noise though.

Day 30 - The end of January

2009-01-30T21:48:00.002-05:00

Pretty good day - we had a successful demo, though all I did was bring Timbits. Something that our company adopted and I feel is an excellent part of the software lifecycle, is the demonstration of the completed feature. This probably doesn't happen often enough, but whenever it does occur, I think it helps bridge the gap between the line-items that managers and higher-ups have spent so long talking about and what the ultimate user will see.

Something Agile-related that I heard this week, but less positive than demos, were questions from a status meeting. The question centered around whether we (as a company) should mark a particular feature done or "at risk". The reason for the question is the trouble - a defect in third-party software. To make the issue more accessible, let me pose a question: Alice and Bob are writing software that must be combined to form a final product. Alice's portion requires Bob's to work. Is Alice done only when the final product works?

I'll let you think about that. That was probably long enough, or you're impatient and don't want to think about it. Either way, if Alice isn't finished until the final, combined product is working properly, then Alice is responsible for Bob's piece as well. Not directly of course, but if Bill wants to buy the final product from Alice, then Alice is responsible for the whole product working correctly. If Bill combines the piece from Alice and the piece from Bob, but Alice says her part isn't finished until the combination works, Alice is assuming responsibility for ensuring Bob's piece works, even if Alice has no influence over Bob.

That explanation isn't really any better than the original description, but what I'm trying to say is that the questions in my workplace tell me that there are some people that feel that our company can't be finished until the end product works. I have a big problem with this because we are in the middle of a software sandwich, with one company building hardware and the first layer of software, us, and then another company builds the portion that sits on top of everything else. If we can't say we're done until everyone else is, we've failed if any of the other two companies has a problem. But our company can't alter the software from the other two or even influence them. We'd be taking responsibility for things we can't change, like being responsible for bad weather. Sure it makes things less nice, but we can't alter the weather - how can we be responsible for it?

After that rambling description of the problem, I'd like to state that I understand the motivation behind the statement. It is motivated by a desire to make the best possible product. However, being part of a compound product means that all we can do is our part as good as possible and help identify areas that need help in the other portions.

Had a pretty nice evening - brought some pizza over to my sister's place where the kids were having a good time, but not in the same room as the adults. Makes life so much better when there is an appropriate amount of distance between the two groups - too close and you drive each other insane, too far and you wonder what's going on (or get lonely - haven't run into that yet).