You Can’t Bash Script Real Life
I had an epiphany this weekend. I was on my way to see a movie with some friends and had a 30 minutes so my brain began processing the week. My thoughts quickly went to one of my friends. We had some hard conversations that week and I was thinking about the next time we’d see each other. I thought through what I wanted to say and anticipated their reactions. I worked through various scenarios and looked at the probable outcomes.
Then it hit me. I was trying to script my life the way I script my work. With my job, I have to think through all the possible outcomes of a function based on the input given. If I get malformed data I’m not anticipating, then the script fails. Other times, the script may not fail, it just doesn’t give the results I was looking for. Read more
Dragon Slayers
I was having dinner with a friend about six months ago. We worked together several years ago. We discussed our work situations and where we saw ourselves going in the future. I shared some of my frustrations at work and he made an interesting observation. He said that we were both dragon slayers. We see a problem, we solve it and then we move on to the next dragon.
So that idea has been percolating in my mind since then. I settled on the idea of a medieval dragon slayer stuck in the cubicle, corporate structure of today’s marketplace. Read more
Positive & Negative Perception
I ran a new route this morning. Most of it runs parallel to a set of railroad tracks. On my return trip, a train was coming at me from the opposite direction. My brain made the assessment that I was running at roughly 5mph and the train was moving at probably 30mph. Intellectually, my brain understood this. Then it began recomputing my perception of this speeding train. My first thought was, “I’m going slower.” I knew I wasn’t and I didn’t actually feel like I was. I just knew that I could perceive the situation that way. And if I thought about it long enough, I might actually start to slow down. As I focused on not slowing down, I realized there was an equally valid perception. I could have thought I was going faster. I began to wonder why my mind would jump to the negative perception almost instinctively.
I don’t have any words of wisdom right now. I’d like to see what kind of conversation can be started from this.
Discipline as a Routine
I can’t put my finger on it, but through a confluence of events, I’ve found more discipline to write lately. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a lazy streak, but I’m getting better. I started dissecting what happened but I couldn’t settle on any concrete reasons. Then I came across two posts this morning. One was by Chris Brogan titled Discipline and the other was by Mindy Holahan over at the Accidental Creative entitled Cultivating Deliberate Focus. These posts summarize what has been transpiring in my life. But first, let’s look at what has helped get me to this point.
One thing I started doing recently was listening to the Back to Work podcast by Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin. Merlin is all over the map during their talks but he comes up with some nuggets of truth. Sometimes he turns into the Merlin that yells at people, nicknamed “Mean Merlin.” That’s the Merlin that resonates with me most often. “Mean Merlin” will often tell you to shut up and do the thing you’re scared of. Don’t think about all the ways things might go wrong. Shut off the TV and Facebook. Stop with all the productivity hacks. Stop complaining about how you wish you had time to do the thing you want to do. Shut up and do something. Another great Merlin quote is “No one’s going to eat you.” We can think of so many things that could go wrong. All these doomsday scenarios keep us from doing what we want to do. What’s the worst that could happen. I’m not going to die if I try and write a book. I just need to shut up and do something. Read more
The Lengths I Go to Organize My Books
A few years ago I installed OpenBiblio on one of my websites to keep tab of all my books. I wrote a Perl script that uses a book’s ISBN number to retrieve the bibliographic information from Amazon and then enter the book into my library. I can now search all my books as well my DVDs and I have a complete list for insurance purposes. Also, now if someone wants to borrow a book, I can check it out and know who borrowed what and when.
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Winter, Snowfall & Memories
I woke up this morning and it was snowing. I walked around while at work today and it was snowing. I just came inside from playing in the snow. And it was still snowing. It looks like there is at least a half a foot of snow on the ground. I drove to and from work and I wasn’t worried or complaining about being out in this. I was actually enjoying it. I guess it reminds me of my childhood. Also seeing your everyday landscape instantly transformed by a blanket of snow just affects your perspective. Read more
Recycled Tech Turned Furniture
I was cleaning my apartment the other day and was moving the old computers I have laying around. I also noticed that I had run out of shelf space and had just crammed books in various places.
Then the thought occurred to me to re-purpose the old computer cases. From the front it looks like an old computer that has passed its prime.
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Insomnia and the Sound of Rain
So my laptop says it is 3:44am. I really don’t know why I am still awake. I have been having frequent bouts with insomnia but I don’t think it is stress-related. The projects I have at work are moving along nicely and there aren’t any inter-personal conflicts. I’m not in class this semester so I’m not stressed over a paper. So I’m at a loss for why I’m sitting here wide awake.
One bonus to still being awake is I got to listen to the rain. There is something about storms and hearing the rain fall that brings back memories. I think back to when I was a kid and we would go out and play in the rain. Feeling the wet grass under my feet. Hearing the thunder roll in the distance. Or to just sit inside and watch the rain fall and see how things changed. Those hot summer afternoons that were interrupted by a much needed shower. Maybe I’m weird but there is something therapeutic about rain.
I remember one day in particular. I was spending the summer in Mexico as a summer missionary. It was a Saturday and the family I was staying with had left for the day. I woke up late and could smell the rain in the air. The house was quiet except for the sound of the rain outside. I had been having a hard time adjusting to culture shock. That morning helped me slow down and not worry about the problems I was having.
Spherical Geometry and other things that I learned in school or should have
A few weeks ago I was working on a project that included a store locator. It required the user to input his/her zip code. Then the site would return a list of stores in order of their proximity to the user’s zip code.
I have to admit that I’ve seen this functionality on a variety of sites but I was never sure how the distances were calculated. As I began reading the source code, I learned that the previous programmer was using spherical geometry. That is after reading a few of the comments he included and then making a trek to Wikipedia. I came across an article on Great Circle Distance. Because of the curve of the earth you can’t just use linear geometry.
To say I was stymied was an understatement. I took geometry in high school and trigonometry in college but this beyond what I had ever attempted. After a few minutes of confusion, I got a clearer picture. I understood that I was taking various angles and distances and running a multitude of calculations. My biggest problem at first was that I wanted to actually figure out the cosine or tangent of each angle. I finally reached the point where I understood that to make this work I didn’t have to understand the inner workings I just needed to plug in the right pieces in the right places. Once I began breaking down the equation by its orders of operation it made more sense. I coded the whole equation and it calculated the same distance as Google on the first try.
Granted, I didn’t learn spherical geometry in high school but it is similar to the type of things I would have lamented over, “I’ll never use this in the real world.” This got me to thinking. What other things that I learned in school have I used in “real life.”
- Spanish – I didn’t learn Spanish until college but I’ll include it. I’ve been to Mexico several times and it was a definite advantage. I also used it from time to tome while working at Pizza Hut. There were times when I had to converse with customers in Spanish. I would also eavesdrop on my hispanic coworkers who forgot that I could speak Spanish.
- French – Not so much. I wish I had remembered more for the time I went to Paris and Benin.
- American Civics – I understand how our government is supposed to work. As I have grown older, the current state of our political system just depresses me.
- Free Enterprise – I used the subject matter of this class during my brief entrepreneurial period. There was not enough demand for my supply, hence I went out of business.
- Keyboarding – We used actual typewriters in this class. I am so thankful for that class. I spend most of my day in front of a computer, so I revel in the fact that I don’t have to hunt and peck.
- Chemistry – I love watching the chemical reaction of Mentos reacting with Diet Coke. If we could have done that experiment in high school, then chemistry would have been a great deal more enjoyable.
- History – “A person who fails to understand history is destined to repeat it.” I didn’t learn that in my history classes. I think I heard it in a movie somewhere. Most of the time, I use my knowledge in history to point out people’s historical inaccuracies. It’s a bad habit, I know.
- Consumer Math – This is the class where you learned to balance a check book and calculate interest on a mortgage. That was an easy A.
- English Literature – “From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remember’d; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”
Who hasn’t wanted to quote those lines from Henry V in a conversation to embolden their troops. Sadly, the opportunity has evaded me to this point. - Physics – I didn’t take Physics in high school or college. However, after watching Mythbusters, I would really like to learn. Who doesn’t want to know how much kinetic energy is released when a car collides with the ground after being thrown by a trebuchet. Thanks to UC Berkeley, I can now take the equivalent of Physics for Dummies.
Well, it’s not an exhaustive list, but I think my high school years were well spent. But as the old saying goes, “You’re never done learning.”
You Have to Love, Big Dumb Corporations – Part II
I just finished reading the updated story on Ars Technica about AT&T and the update to their Terms of Service. The terms now read as follows:
5.1 Suspension/Termination. AT&T respects freedom of expression and believes it is a foundation of our free society to express differing points of view. AT&T will not terminate, disconnect or suspend service because of the views you or we express on public policy matters, political issues or political campaigns.
So AT&T wised up after all the press they received.
However, they still have a problem when it comes to customer service. My first bill was due on October 1st. There were charges on there for the month that I didn’t have service. I wanted to contact customer service and get those charges taken off before I paid the bill. Printed right next to the due date was a second due date, October 3rd. At which time, I would be assessed a $5 surcharge. So on the 1st, I attempted to call customer service and got tired of sitting on hold. On the 2nd, I decided I would go ahead and pay the bill and dispute the charges later. So one day after the bill was due and a day before it was really due, I paid the bill in full.
On Saturday, I opened my mailbox to find an envelope from AT&T. I figured it was another bill for the next month. Not quite. It was a Disconnection Notice printed on October 2nd. I was told that I had until October 13th or my service would be disconnected. The closing paragraph of the notice shows the irony of the situation.
Thank you for choosing AT&T Texas. We value you as a customer and understand that sometimes circumstances may cause a delayed payment.
That’s great and all. Too bad I already sent them their money. They just wasted all that time and money printing up this pretty notice harassing me for the money I had already paid them. I just don’t understand big corporations some times.
