aubreyturner.org

I had a bit of a relapse of the Avian-SARS-Monkey-Flu (or whatever it was) and I’m just now getting out from under it.  I tried to keep working this past week, though, although I wasn’t too productive. 

So now I’m a bit behind from all the sick time and I’m trying to scramble to catch up.  Unfortunately, while I’m most productive in the mornings, I’ve got meetings all morning (until noon).  Worse, my presence on most of these calls is really only needed for about five minutes on each, except for monitoring (which is what breaks my concentration).

Of course, the monitoring is important, too.  The problem is that it’s hard to predict when you’re needed.  The reason I bring up monitoring is that it’s imperative to get ahead of any misconceptions or wrong information that people try to disseminate about your projects.  I’ve seen projects burn up many hours trying to fight misconceptions after the fact, so you have to stay in meetings and pay at least passing attention so as to immediately nip it in the bud (just nip it, nip it in the bud    ).

A couple of examples of the types of things that you have to be alert for:
The deflector:  This person, seeking to justify their own project’s shortcomings, will attempt to use your project as the reason.  They’ll say something like, “Project X (their project) is behind schedule because Project Y (your project) has not yet provided Item Z.”  This requires a quick response (provided, of course, that you haven’t been derelict in providing “Z”) along the lines of, “Project Y is working to the agreed-to schedule and Item Z was provided on Date A to Person B on your team.”  I especially love giving this sort of answer because it quickly deflates the deflector.

The upset techie:  This person (often on your own team!) either has a disagreement with a design decision or is an adherent of some pet technology or methodology that isn’t being followed.  This person is so convinced that he or she is right that they’ll announce to the world that your project is doomed to failure, inefficient, inflexible, and riddled with bugs.  Fortunately, I haven’t had to deal with that too often.  But I do recall one case where I got dragged into it as an outside auditor.  One disgruntled programmer had told a director-level executive that the project’s code was sloppy, unorganized, and riddled with bugs.  I had to examine the code and report on its correctness.  Ultimately, I didn’t find very much wrong with it, but I had to spend a lot of time getting to that point (the project was composed of thousands of source files, as anyone who has ever had to review a large Java project will understand).

Interestingly, unless I’m doing a lot of research and writing something complicated, this blog stuff doesn’t require nearly the amount of concentration as real work.  Those of you who have done programming work may understand when I reference the trance.  I’ve found that design work requires the same kind of concentration levels (or at least it does for me).  Constant interruptions or being in meetings isn’t conducive to reaching the trance.  I’ve tried writing design docs while on conference calls in the past and found that I had to significantly rework those sections afterwards.  When I was still working in the office, and doing programming work, I used to reserve mornings for coding and I’d put a stuffed penguin on my cubicle wall as an indicator to people that I wasn’t to be bothered.  Usually around noon the penguin would come down and I’d spend the afternoon dealing with email and support issues.

The only problem with this is that there are people out there who just don’t get it when it comes to the trance and think that it’s just a silly anti-social geek/programmer thing.  Usually, these are not people who have done coding work (of, if they have, they weren’t any good at it).  But even if they don’t truly understand, I’ve always wondered why someone would hire a person to do a particular job and then not give the person time to do it.  That’s effectively what they’re doing if they’re constantly interrupting their programmers.

It seems that I’ve been tagged.  The “meme” seems to be to disclose five things people don’t know about me.  Hmm… but if I write about them then someone will know and they won’t be things people don’t know about me…

1.  I used to play drums and percussion instruments (tympani, marimba, etc).  I played from fifth grade all the way through college.  I also did a little bit of drum set and Latin percussion work, but I always preferred marching band (despite the backaches and the heat).  I’ve played in front of audiences up to 50,000 as part of a large group (ETSU marching band at a Thanksgiving Cowboys game) and up to 1,000 solo or lead in an ensemble. 

I still find myself in a strangely restless mood in late August, and especially hearing the click-track from over at Keller High’s practice grid.  All that experience also gave me a pretty good internal metronome, so I can tell time fairly well, even without a watch.  I also have the ability to judge good percussion work from bad, although I rarely comment on it so as not to offend anyone involved.

I sometimes get the urge to take it up again, but a) I don’t have room for a drum set in the house and b) I’m sure the neighbors are glad I don’t have room for a drum set.

2.  I’ve never quite understood people who flatly deny that “paranormal” events are possible or that think everyone who experiences them is having some sort of mass delusion.  Of course, they’d probably think I was delusional, but I’ve experienced things that many would consider paranormal.  My belief is these things are all natural phenomena, but that our science isn’t advanced enough to explain them yet. 

I hope to live long enough to see some of these secrets revealed by science.

3.  Many might judge my choice of clothing as sloppy (although I prefer the term comfortable).  I especially hate tucking in shirts.  But despite that, I’m very fastidious about personal hygiene.  I wash my hands frequently, and I can’t abide someone who stinks.  I especially don’t want to be that person, so I make sure to shower every day or more often (I once showered three times in one day, after a couple of separate outside work sessions on a particularly hot day). 

4.  I very rarely drink alcohol, and when I do I usually confine it to one beer or a single drink.  I long ago recognized that drinking more than one or two drinks can quickly cause things to get out of control.  Somewhere between number 3 and number 4 all hell breaks loose and the next thing I know it’s 4:30am and I’m banging on a hotel room door wondering why I can’t get in (even though it has my number on it, dammit!) until I realize I’m in the hotel next door.  Yes, that really happened.  It was an incident involving most of a fifth of Jack black and a chunk of missing time.  The wrong door incident is the first thing I remember after about 2:00am.  Fortunately no one was in that room, though.  Some other time you’ll have to remind me to tell you about the time I got lost in a bathroom and couldn’t find my way out.

It’s much simpler to be the designated driver these days.  It keeps me out of trouble and provides opportunities for future blackmail. 

5.  Whenever I go to events or travel to a new location I almost always end up buying a hat or cap of some kind.  It’s funny in a way, in that I’ve got 20 or 30 caps on a special hanger in a closet but I have to scramble to find a cap to wear when walking the dog because I don’t want to get any of the “special” hats dirty.

I came down with the Avian-SARS-Monkey-flu or something last week and haven’t been useful for much other than taking up space and expelling CO₂(*).

Normal operations will resume shortly.

(*) Possibly thought by the State of Kalifornia to contribute to potential global climate change.  Your mileage may vary.  Not valid in jusridictions where real science is still used.

I recently received a package containing a fragile item that had been carefully ensconced in bubble wrap.  After freeing the item from its plastic tomb, I did what every normal human would do.  I set about popping the bubble wrap.

But this was no normal bubble wrap.  It was some kind of fiendish facsimile where the bubbles were interconnected somehow, equalizing the pressure and preventing any one of them from popping.

What evil bastard thought this up?  Is there someone out there who thought it’d be a good idea to make unpoppable bubble wrap?  Must be a frustrated sadist or something.

I hate shaving, and if I could get away with it, I wouldn’t bother.  But since the wild-man Grizzly Adams look tends to put people off (No, ma’am, I’m not a thug/psycho killer/robber/rapist, so you can relax the hand on your purse and put away the pepper spray.), I put up with the irritation and annoyance.

I forget exactly where I saw or heard about it, but someone recommended Aveeno Therapeutic Shave Gel for those who have trouble with nicks, cuts, and razor bumps.  It sounded like it’d be worth a try, so I bought some and found that it worked fairly well.  When the can ran out I went to the store and saw their Positively Smooth Shave Gel sitting next to it and its claims to let you shave less often and to reduce irritation caught my eye.  So I bought some of it.

So far, it works great.  It claims to be “lightly fragranced,” and it isn’t too strong.

But something about the scent kept bothering me.  I’d smelled it before, but it was bugging me that I couldn’t place it.  Then it hit me.  It smells like Play-Doh!

I’m guessing that Aveeno didn’t set out to make it smell like Play-Doh.  But, interestingly enough, there is such a thing as Play-Doh Cologne.  The mind boggles.

I just now got around to reading today’s Keller Citizen, and couldn’t help but notice the ad on page 14A.  It was too big for my scanner so I took the picture you see over to the left (click for monster size).

It appears that “Jeffrey” took out a full page ad to ask “Michele” to marry him.  The ad consists mainly of a poem, followed by the proposal (the poem begins “Like a delightful train wreck you careened into my life,” which was the impetus for the title of this item).

I hope, for Jeffrey’s sake, that A) Michele reads the Keller Citizen, and B) that she says yes.  He’s putting her on the spot in a hugely public way (although not nearly as bad as those guys who propose at sporting events). 

I also hope the Keller Citizen at least gives us a short blurb next week as to the outcome.  My curiosity has been piqued.

I was glad to see in this article from today’s Star-Telegram that some of the electric providers are now offering plans that tie electric costs more closely to the cost of natural gas.  I’ve been increasingly annoyed at TXU’s high prices, which are based on unusually high post-Katrina gas costs.  Despite gas having gone down since then, TXU has continued to charge high rates.

In late December I did some research to see what kinds of competing plans were available.  There were some that had better rates ($0.11/kWh vs the standard rate of about $0.15/kWh that TXU charged).  Unfortunately, all of those plans required a long-term committment and an agreement to let them draft your checking account for payment.  I don’t like either of those requirements, but the direct-draft thing is a deal-killer for me.  I generally don’t let a company do direct billing unless it’s something that has a fixed cost and where I trust them enough not to suddenly send me a $10,000 bill and try to debit my account for it.  I certainly don’t trust TXU enough for that.

The good news is that these new plans don’t appear to require any long-term committment.  I’m going to have to do some more research to see if they still have direct-billing requirements, though.  But I like the idea of one that is more tied to the price of gas.  Not that I particularly like to have my bill increase, but at least I could understand it if the price of gas changes.  I just want a plan that also tracks the decreases.

The Star-Telegram article above the one in my last post was about a teenager who has a bullet in his head that was fired by the owner of a business he was attempting to rob.  The DA’s office had been trying to get it removed for ballistic comparisons to prove that he was present at the robbery.  After lots of legal wrangling they’ve given up and decided they have enough other evidence to try him. 

Anyhow, for some reason the headline they used amused me:

Teen suspect can keep bullet in head

Here ya’ go kid.  Don’t say I never gave you anything.

Yes, I have a morbid sense of humor.  Why do you ask?

The issue of dealing with someone armed with a knife comes up from time to time.  It was fresh on my mind because of this recent post at Kim du Toit’s site, which is why I noticed this short piece in this morning’s Ft. Worth Star Telegram.

PLAINVIEW—Two police officers fatally shot a resident of an apartment complex for mentally and physically disabled people Thursday after the woman threatened an officer with a 14-inch knife, authorities said. It was the second officer-involved shooting in this West Texas town since September. Officers repeatedly asked the woman to drop the knife, then one officer fired two rounds from a beanbag shotgun at her, Plainview police Capt. Michael Carroll said. The officer was backing up when “he tripped on something and the other two officers then fired as she was still coming,” Carroll said.

Of course we always get the obligatory quote about how the deceased was such a nice person:

The woman had lived in the 20-unit complex for 20 years, assistant manager Gayle Walker said. “She was a dear, sweet lady,” Walker said.

Lest anyone be mistaken, using (or even brandishing, depending on distance) a knife constitutes deadly force.  Worse, someone with a knife is actually MORE dangerous than someone with a gun at 21-ft (the typical distance demonstrated for the Tueller drill).  People need to understand that unless someone has years of specialized training, attempting to disarm someone with a knife is a dangerous and likely losing proposition.  The idea that we should play ninja with the bad guy because “he only had a knife” is dangerous and stupid.

In this instance (provided that it was correctly reported), it seems as if the police went above and beyond by attempting to use non-lethals before being forced to shoot.  A 14-inch knife is a deadly weapon and isn’t something to be trifled with.

My last post about the NSLU2 was prompted by the fact that I’d started looking into an alternative method for handling all of my data storage needs.  I presently have a “media server” in my office that I use for storing all my important files as well as my music collection.  It’s got a RAID5 array, but that’s only good for a single drive failure.  After having several (fortunately consecutive, not parallel) drive failures, I set up a second system to use to backup the primary.  The second system has two 300GB IDE drives in a RAID1 configuration.

However, all of these systems are loud, produce a lot of heat, and take up a lot of space.  The media server has 8 fans and sounds like someone parked a 737 in my office.  The other system is better, but only slightly (it only has 4 or 5 fans).  But it’s inhabiting a corner of my living room, which makes it more annoying.  So I’ve decided to take a more simple approach. 

First, if I’m going to have a second system to backup the first, why use RAID on any of them?  It just seems to add more complexity and more components to fail (a design point that Boeing took for the 777 as their rationale for two big engines instead of four medium engines).  So I’ve decided to scale things down and replace the primary server with one that uses a single 500GB drive (the current 750GB array only has about 200GB used, so 500 should be more than sufficient).

I’m also going to move to a microATX form-factor and an all-in-one motherboard.  The new case (I’m thinking of naming the new system Minilith) will be about 2/3 of the size of the current server and should be a lot quieter, use less power, and generate less heat.  Interestingly, the cost of all the necessary components is 1/3 of the cost of the original server (which was mainly driven by the cost of all the hard drives; those drives were more expensive than the entire system I’m now building).

That leaves the backup system.  That second system is working fine, but I’d like to cut down on the noise and space usage there.  For storage backups, I’ve decided to use the NSLU2 and a 300GB USB drive that I’ve got laying around (put together from some parts that were on sale on Black Friday at Fry’s/Outpost.com).  The only problem is that since I had the system, it was simple to add the scanner and modem to it when I was playing around earlier, so it’s doing more than just backing things up.

I’m sorely tempted to install Debian/NSLU2 on the slug to see if I can get it to perform all the functions of the current system.  It looks fairly promising, since I could connect a USB hub, then connect two USB-Serial converters and a USB audio device.  Icecast and ices are available in the Debian build, so all that remains to be seen is how well the the USB hardware would work with the Slug.

Just curious, but would this now be a RAIS (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Systems)?