Month: December 2023

December 13, 2023 – Design With the End In Mind

December 13, 2023 /

It has been a long time since I have talked about project methodology. In fact, some of my earliest writings were about subjects like this. The problem as I see it is that this skill is very difficult to do because it is hard to see the endpoint. Too many service providers don’t do enough guiding the process with inexperienced clients. This leads to the ‘what do you want’ and ‘what can I get’ conversation.

I have never experienced this myself, but I hear that when people build a house and they start to see how the rooms are laid out, that is where the changes start. They start to see what could not be visualized in the design phase (the phase where changes are virtually free). I do have lots of experience in project execution when people see software and then the changes start happening. This is a different medium but the same psychology.

Breaking out the old DVD player to play Christmas movies that we own got me thinking that we actually own another DVD player and a VCR to boot. They are relegated to taking up space in a cabinet that I could use the space for other things and they definitely fit the definition of techno junk. I might as well plumb them in my office where all old technology goes to die. Where else am I going to watch nine seasons of Dukes of Hazzard?

I took the Keyboard Video Monitor (KVM) switch out that I had the X-box hooked up to thinking that I would plug it directly into a TV when I get one. But now that I finally have my table built and all of my stereo equipment installed, the video games and video equipment can all fit in that space which means I need to make some network cables. That was the point of the previous two paragraphs.

I have a switch in my office. It is just a cheap, ten port, unmanaged switch. So, no big deal to plug some extra cables in. But, had I really had my design figured out from the get go, I would have run network drops to the back wall when I built my office. From there I could have run everything to my main switch and had a cleaner and simpler installation. Simpler is always more robust and better design anyway.

Design is only one component in the project lifecycle. Many people do not understand what it actually means. They confuse design or how things are going to be done with requirements or what needs to be done. I am not going to spend much time in requirements except to use a simple example.

Requirement – my office must have wired internet. Design could be one drop and a switch or a drop for every device that is going to be plugged in and what wall with how many ports per location. For good design to be possible, how the space is to be used plus what is going in the space and how it will be laid out is critical. This is hard work to figure out all of these variables.

Going back to houses again, they suffer from poor design. One of the reasons we have square footage bloat is because houses suffer from poor design. I am not sure when this changed but look at houses from the 1920s with built in book shelves and china cabinets and linen drawers. These things make a huge difference in making small homes more livable. Homes without these amenities use free standing furniture to accomplish these goals and subsequently cut into the livable floorspace. It is my contention that if I could custom build a house, I could easily live with a much smaller space, if well designed.

One last anecdote. I have often said that software should be created by what data the reports need to display. Too often, when you start from requirements by the time you get to the end we are left with how to collect data points needed to generate report data. If we started with the data we needed, the requirements would handle themselves and the design would be bridging the gaps.

End Your Programming Routine: Even though I didn’t get thoroughly into it, learn the difference between requirements and design. Also, learn the different job aspects between who does what. If you knew those things, then you would know who is supposed to be doing what as well as hopefully making changes at the time when they are cheap. I am not going to go run new data lines into my office because it is too time consuming. But, had I known what I wanted when I did it, I sure would have done it.

December 12, 2023 – Using Our Gifts

December 12, 2023 /

If you listened to my podcast on Wednesday last week then you would know that there has been tragedy in the extended family. I still don’t know many details and if or when I do, I am not sure that I am going to reveal them here. Today is not about that but because of that.

Now, a quick timeline of events for context. November 28th (Monday) I finished work and had a doctor’s appointment. I went up to remind my wife and she asked me to pick up our niece from elementary school. Her daycare was closing early because of an accident to her child. The next day, I only worked a few hours because it was my grandmother’s funeral. My wife stayed back with her family. I called in late afternoon to check-in, I was going to go out to eat with my family after all of the services. My wife said ‘It is bad… really bad. He didn’t make it, in fact it wasn’t an accident but he was shot to death.’

By the time I came home from dinner, my wife was drinking with her cousin. This one event spun her into an emotional free for all. I would say that she was paralyzed by sadness and empathy for the remainder of the week. I don’t know why God made her the way that he did. I also don’t know why God made me the way that I did. I felt dull and detached but I couldn’t empathize with paralyzing grief,

I am no good in these situations. I could be the one delivering the news in a non-emotional manner, not the one comforting people that are nearly out of their minds. I don’t know what to say. Is it appropriate to touch? Should I converse or stay aloof? What if I say the wrong thing? I have no problem with small talk, but I feel like this is not the place or situation for such things. I just don’t know, you might say that I am paralyzed by human interaction.

I do know that God gave me the gift of action though. I took action on building a roadside cross. It is now painted white and waiting until we are informed of the actual site (that information is being withheld as part of the investigation). I wanted a wood that would last as close as forever so I had a cedar railing post that I have held onto for 15 years.

I did all the joinery and built it with care. I don’t want anyone thinking that I didn’t put my full talent and energy into my form of contribution. I filled the gaps and sanded it smooth. I wanted the cross to be as perfect as I could make it. Finally, I spray painted and painted and painted some more until the surface was glossy smooth.

End Your Programming Routine: God made us different so that we could be the best at whatever gift he gave us. I am not the worlds best woodworker but I also could focus on building this piece of peace without the emotional torment that others had. And I suppose that if we were all the comforting type, who would be there to build the cross? So, I will end where I started. I don’t know why I am the way I am but I hope that the way I am can bring it’s own comfort.

December 11, 2023 – Christmas List 2023

December 11, 2023 /

If you haven’t started your Christmas shopping yet, you are in big trouble. If you don’t know what you are planning to do, you are in bigger trouble. This is the second time I have done this list, talking about ideas and things that I want, hopefully that will help you.

December 8, 2023 – Slaughterhouse – Five, Chapters 1-3

December 8, 2023 /

I am making decent progress on this book. To me, it seems like a change of pace that is an easy read. That is probably because I am missing all of the significance enjoying this story.

Kurt Vonnegut was an author of the ‘Greatest Generation’. He served in the heart of the World War II years and was part of some of the infamous battles is Europe like D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge. It is no wonder that war has a strong pull to his work. This is my first exposure to Vonnegut and the way things are going I will be back for more.

The story’s main character is a man named Billy Pilgrim. He seems to be an enigma of a person surrounded by luck. So, for instance he marries into money and becomes a highly successful business owner with investments in the medical field as well as franchises such as hotels. Meanwhile, it seems like he can barely function in a day to day capacity.

I don’t know this for a fact, but the story seems to be written as a PTSD description or possibly mental illness. I haven’t read this book of the same genre but Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolf and trying to describe what taking LSD feels like seems like how this book is structured. There are many horrific events that are described as time flashes forward and backward each event triggering a new anecdote of the story.

I can see why Vonnegut is labeled a humorist of satirist. So far, there is a lot of death in the book. Each time a death is written about, he uses the phrase ‘so it goes’. But, to make it more comical, he even uses the phrase out of context. As an example, when he is describing dead (flat) water, so it goes. A lot of serious and absurd situations are delivered deadpan and matter of fact.

As of yet, I haven’t determined anything in line with my typical concepts in these three chapters. I was reading a quote by Vonnegut and he said about this book the book is nonsensical because there is nothing valuable to learn about mass extermination. This is why people have labelled Vonnegut as a strong antiwar voice.

I could add one more thing this week. The supposed subject of this book is the firebombing of Dresden Germany. As of yet, Vonnegut has not really written about it. Billy is trying to write a book about the event but has a hard time getting his war buddy’s to talk about it. So let’s focus on that.

The firebombing of Dresden has two opinions. The first is that this was a campaign to eliminate resources the Nazis were using to continue fighting the war. The other side contends that this was a punitive attack. It is true that these were valuable, soft targets but it is also true that most of the damage was not military but civilian. I know that it is a very thin line between military and civilian when they are building war material. The opposition side contends that it was unnecessary because it was only a matter of time before Germany gave up.

I suspect that this anti-bombing opinion has gotten ahold of Vonnegut. Later in the book he starts to reveal more, including his own opinions as a result of the observation of the campaign. You will have to wait until next week for more of that stuff. Just like I talked about Wednesday, it just isn’t fair and when something unfair happens, you want vengeance.

End Your Programming Routine: Don’t think for a minute that you cannot substitute Japan for Germany. We were going to do whatever we had to to ensure that we were going to make them pay as well. The difference between our story and theirs is that it is very rarely brought up that a neutral country (USA) had cut off Japan from raw materials and built weapons and munitions for the Allies. There is no way I can condone the actions of our opponents but don’t think they didn’t have some shoving to get there.

December 7, 2023 – Networking and Power Over Ethernet

December 7, 2023 /

One of the projects I got completed over the Thanksgiving weekend was installing outside, wireless mesh router. If you might recall, adding this unit was an attempt to add internet to our Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) also known as ‘the apartment’. The theory was that part of our mesh included the ADU and so I needed to have a strong signal between the two buildings.

The lowest box you see on the wall I actually put in in 2017. I have stub outs for conduit so that I could trench to the ADU. I was waiting for better weather (and time, money and desire). Believe it or not, everything is terminated in the box already as well.

Part of my testing included placement and power of the wireless router. I started it much closer to the ADU but then I realized that I have this unused hole in the wall. It would be nice if I could utilize it for part of it’s purpose. Plugging the router into this box put it quite a ways away from electrical source outside. I read that this particular router could be powered using Power over Ethernet (PoE). The DC power runs from the switch over the ethernet cable to the device. That is pretty cool.

I thought that I would also pass this on. I run cable every time I have the option to do so. The majority of my network is Category 5e. Since Category 6 has become the predominant standard, I have switched to running Category 6 wiring when I do new runs. I was under the belief that that Cat 5e was only rated for 100Mb speed but that is actually not true. Cat 5e supports gigabit speed up to 45m runs.

I don’t know if I will ever go back to Category 5e, but it is good information to know. I don’t like putting out temporary or obsolete effort. But, I still find Cat 5e cable significantly cheaper and easier to find. Also, I find Category 3 cable almost impossible to find. You can use either 3, 5 or 6 if you are terminating phone extensions but why pay the premium? And sometimes, I use what I have on hand.

I used to have a big contractor box of Category 5e. I would pull two runs whenever I had to pull one. That gave me the flexibility to have two drops or a even backup capability. I probably won’t ever do that now that those boxes of Category 6 are $250. But, believe you me if I ever do pull wire to the ADU, it will be two Category 6 cable because I want it to be the only time I do it.

Before I leave this topic today, I want to go back to PoE. You need to look at your devices power requirements before selecting a switch. My mesh router requires 17W. The switch I picked provides 65W power. But, you have to divide the total output by the port number. The switch specs say that each port can provide up to 18W of power with a 65W maximum. This means that the switch I picked worked with the specs required.

I did make one mistake. I was looking at price so the switch I purchased is only a 10/100 switch. I cant take advantage of that Cat 6 wire that I ran. This brings me to the last fact in today’s story. At least with my mesh router system, the devices communicate wirelessly (this is what works for me in the first place). They do have ethernet ports on them and the purpose of those ports is for backhaul.

What this means is that those devices are not on an island. They still need to see signal of the master router and the stronger the better. But, if you have a strong connection, you can increase your wireless experience by having a wired backhaul. Users are not limited to hopping router to router for internet but can go straight to the source via the cable. This means that the range isn’t extended but the reliability and bandwidth is.

End Your Programming Routine: I have had this one banked for a while now. As life kept pushing us around, I kept pushing this back because I knew it was something I could do without a lot of effort. It was kind of like my testing of this outdoor unit. I just needed to plug things in and check the signal but other, more important things came up. The testing took about a month to complete, not because it was hard or time consuming, I just needed to make it a priority.

December 5, 2023 – Real, Real Disappointment

December 5, 2023 /

I wrote and recorded yesterday’s podcast over a week ago. Since that time, more saga has developed. It was enough with enough to say that I didn’t want to go another week or have two weeks in a row of college football as the primary discussion point. So, you get two podcasts this week.

December 4, 2023 – Real Disappointment

December 4, 2023 /

Sports fans like to fanaticize that there are so many life lessons in participation. Sure, I agree on the surface level that those can be the case. But, sports fans also like to fanaticize that their support of a team does something as well. Don’t get caught up in that trap, this is almost where I went too. Belief is a powerful thing when it comes to fighting cancer or making your way in the world but it can sometimes lead to nowhere fast as well.

December 1, 2023 – Anthem, Conclusion

December 1, 2023 /

I probably could have written this conclusion last week. I kept moving ideas and sentences into this post because I thought that they were too broad for just analyzing the last three chapters. But, I wasn’t totally ready to move on so here we are.

It should be clear that I am a fan of Rand’s work and the Objectivist movement. This books is a short and concise version of the very same message in Atlas Shrugged. Even some of the same phrasing was used. I felt like I was reading an abridged version or even a chapter of Atlas Shrugged, some of those were pretty long.

What to say about this book? I think that I will use a series of comparisons to do that. I would say that if you have never read or don’t know Rand, read this book first. If it turns out that you like the message, then move on to Atlas Shrugged. I kind of feel like I invested so much time into Atlas Shrugged that this was just a re-run of that story and message.

If I look at Anthem versus We, both had their idiosyncrasies. I think that the Anthem story was easier to follow minus the third person, plural language. I know that was done deliberately but I definitely found myself having to re-read things multiple times because I got sucked into this ‘who else is in this conversation?’ mode. By contrast, We often had gaps in the story line that left me guessing at what is actually happening.

I suppose that the reader needs to employ suspended animation for any of these dystopian stories. For me, it is not the flying cars or talking animals but the little things. For instance the source of the energy for the lightbulb in this book or the perfectly furnished home that exists in the middle of the forest that the character stumbles on for happily ever after that bothers me. My mind can take a leap to the non-existent but I have a hard time with the unbelievable.

Ultimately, I have to rank this below Atlas Shrugged. But I suspect that if circumstances would have been different, it would have been the other way. If you recall that review, I felt that book was way too long. It is not the length of the book per se that I mark it down, just the fact that it is the same story and the little nuances that didn’t seem to be in Atlas Shrugged. Maybe Fountainhead will be just right?

End Your Programming Routine: Let me bottom line this. If you have read Atlas Shrugged, skip this book. If you had read nothing from Rand, definitely read this book for the Objectivist point of view. Looking ahead to next week the book is going to be “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut. I have tentatively planned to cover two chapters a week. So get reading…