I suppose this is something of the beginning a tradition- I wrote one of these last year with the exact title, save for the year. To paraphrase my previous year-ending blog post: In January, I was a contractor at RR Donnelley; as the year comes to a close, I am an employee.
Stranger still, I got a friend request on Google+ from a friend/employee I haven't seen in years- hi, Mike!
Anyway, this is the year-end blog. I'd been thinking about this for a bit, debating whether a year-in-review would make for a good theme, or something more tech related... one idea I had (which I may still do) was to write a short story with computer languages hidden in it and offer some sort of virtual prize for the reader who found all or most of them.
So, what's new this year? Well, in looking back at the 'State' of 2012, I'm still working on my database. Its come a long way, and still has a long way to go. The big difference is that it is about to make the big jump to 2010/2013 Access. I installed Office 2013 on the laptop with only one small glitch: my Lenovo came with a trial version of Office 2013. So, as the installation was almost complete, it suddenly aborted with a message something like, "You already have Office 2013 installed". Egad. Crash course in Windows 8.1 uninstalling!
So, with the pre-installed version of Office uninstalled, I reinstalled my "real" version of Office and was in for more surprises. As I did not immediately see any new icons... er, tiles, I searched for "Microsoft Office". Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Sometimes the operator needs to be smarter than the machine. I closed the search and scrolled to the right, and there were all of my freshly installed applications. Huzzah! I moved Excel and Access all the way to the left, and I was in business. I opened Excel and registered Office with my product key, then closed Excel and opened Access. I plugged the flash drive in that has the working copy of my database, and got my next surprise. While saving, I learned that the file format for 2013 is the same as the 2007 and 2010 versions of Access. I didn't do a great deal of exploring, so I have no insights to share in comparison with 2007 (and I have yet to look at 2010). The only thing I notice is that the interface appears to be "squarer".
"Squarer" is all I've got for a first impression. As far as data goes, I finally got around to adding a column to the media_title table. I had initially envisioned the column to be no/partial/complete, but went instead for a yes/no check box. I think with this refinement I'm done with design for the present- now its time to get back to the arduous task of data entry.
That's all for now from the Secret Underground Lair. Wishing the best for you and yours in the new year.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Happy Christmas... war is not over
Growing up in the United States during the Sixties, idiosyncrasies and undiagnosed A.D.D. notwhithstanding, I still was a bit odd. I grew up in Chicago. And the music I listened to through my formative years was Country and Western. Now, before any hardcore fans get their feathers ruffled, I understand that there is a difference between Country, and Western. It was best explained in a sort of truism I once heard: "Country" is sung by a group, bragging about stealin' a cowboy's horse and kissin' his girl. "Western" is sung by a guy who had his horse stolen and his girl kissed by a group of singing guys.
So, I came onto the rock and roll scene a bit late, but embraced it. (In some circles, it is suggested that to really reach someone, you must speak in the language of their soul...I sometimes think my soul's native language is music).
Flash forward to the late 70's, and college. I had been listening to all sorts of music at this point, but my best friend Mark was a huge Beatles fan, and we formed a Beatles parody group, "performing" at a college coffeehouse or two and suffering the ultimate ignominy at a Gong Show at Chicago's Tuddi Toots (a fern bar of questionable spelling!)
Amid all of this, I immersed myself in the Beatles, and particularly John Lennon, who for no good reason to think of I identified with. I wasn't particularly crazy about his music (or that of Yoko Ono or the Plastic Ono Band), but I did listen to it from time to time. This all comes about as I've recently heard one or two remakes of "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" from forgettable pop diva(ettes).
And to all who have recorded this song, or wish to: DON'T. You're not John Lennon, you're not a Beatle, and more than likely, your collective body of work is not art- it stinks. So don't drag this song down to your particular level of mediocrity. Next: its an okay song, having very little to do with Christmas.
Which brings me to the final point of this post, and that is Christmas. Our church has had a sermon series about Christmas which has gotten me to do some thinking about Christmas.
For those not familiar with Western traditions, Christmas is a pretty powerful one. As I've matured, I've come to realize that there is a peculiar American secular view of Christmas which, although it does not necessarily have much to do with Jesus Christ, does have some value in our culture. In this secular view, it is a time where we reconnect with family, give gifts, perform acts of charity, and are generally nice.It occurs in winter, and there are all sorts of winter-themed songs about Christmas. Its a huge party.
In reality, though....
Jesus Christ is THE most misunderstood person in history. We, who claim Jesus Christ to be our Lord and Savior, see Christmas as anyone else might see a birthday (as an example)- Dec 25th is the date which we commemorate his birth. It is not an annual rebirth (if you don't get this- check out the last birthday party you went to). It's a birthday party! And even if you don't get Jesus, you're welcome to the party.
No data tonight, no programming updates, just a merry Christmas, from our home to yours. If you're wondering about Christianity or Jesus Christ, here's a neat site I found.
Peace, Love and TQM- as always, I am hochspeyer, blogging database management and analysis so you don't have to.
So, I came onto the rock and roll scene a bit late, but embraced it. (In some circles, it is suggested that to really reach someone, you must speak in the language of their soul...I sometimes think my soul's native language is music).
Flash forward to the late 70's, and college. I had been listening to all sorts of music at this point, but my best friend Mark was a huge Beatles fan, and we formed a Beatles parody group, "performing" at a college coffeehouse or two and suffering the ultimate ignominy at a Gong Show at Chicago's Tuddi Toots (a fern bar of questionable spelling!)
Amid all of this, I immersed myself in the Beatles, and particularly John Lennon, who for no good reason to think of I identified with. I wasn't particularly crazy about his music (or that of Yoko Ono or the Plastic Ono Band), but I did listen to it from time to time. This all comes about as I've recently heard one or two remakes of "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" from forgettable pop diva(ettes).
And to all who have recorded this song, or wish to: DON'T. You're not John Lennon, you're not a Beatle, and more than likely, your collective body of work is not art- it stinks. So don't drag this song down to your particular level of mediocrity. Next: its an okay song, having very little to do with Christmas.
Which brings me to the final point of this post, and that is Christmas. Our church has had a sermon series about Christmas which has gotten me to do some thinking about Christmas.
For those not familiar with Western traditions, Christmas is a pretty powerful one. As I've matured, I've come to realize that there is a peculiar American secular view of Christmas which, although it does not necessarily have much to do with Jesus Christ, does have some value in our culture. In this secular view, it is a time where we reconnect with family, give gifts, perform acts of charity, and are generally nice.It occurs in winter, and there are all sorts of winter-themed songs about Christmas. Its a huge party.
In reality, though....
Jesus Christ is THE most misunderstood person in history. We, who claim Jesus Christ to be our Lord and Savior, see Christmas as anyone else might see a birthday (as an example)- Dec 25th is the date which we commemorate his birth. It is not an annual rebirth (if you don't get this- check out the last birthday party you went to). It's a birthday party! And even if you don't get Jesus, you're welcome to the party.
No data tonight, no programming updates, just a merry Christmas, from our home to yours. If you're wondering about Christianity or Jesus Christ, here's a neat site I found.
Peace, Love and TQM- as always, I am hochspeyer, blogging database management and analysis so you don't have to.
Saturday, December 21, 2013
On programming (#hourofcode continued)
I am a programmer by trade. My training is ongoing, as is appropriate with any craft. What I do on the job, though, is only a part of my craft.
For nearly a year, I've been in search of the "perfect" programming language to learn. My requirements for this language are fairly simple: I need to be able to learn it on my own time, on my own schedule and at minimal cost. Considering the day and age in which we live, these are pretty simple and easily met. The problem I've encountered, though, is that many languages will fit my criteria, and I think I need to have a few under my belt. The huge problem is: where to start?
HTML is a pretty obvious choice, and I've dabbled in it a bit. The problem is that it is pretty much limited (!) to the Web, and I am in need of something a bit more general purpose in nature. With the advent of the Raspberry Pi, Python has become a strong contender for me, and as I have an interest in this device, Python seems to be the way to go. So, where is Python?
In a word: everywhere! I have it installed on nearly every PC I use on a regular basis, and although I'm not much past the very basics of the language (think: print("hello") ), I've made it a priority to at least touch it every day, if not actually learn something.
The past week has been a bit of a wash as far as Python goes. The main reason for this is because I am once again gainfully employed as an employee rather than a contractor or temp.This makes me happy- yay! However, as an employee, I feel the need to increase my value to my employer, and to this end, I will ensure that I do some programming on my own time.
In the wonderful world of data, I came up with one more improvement to one of the tables which should fix a data synchronization issue. More on that after it is implemented.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
For nearly a year, I've been in search of the "perfect" programming language to learn. My requirements for this language are fairly simple: I need to be able to learn it on my own time, on my own schedule and at minimal cost. Considering the day and age in which we live, these are pretty simple and easily met. The problem I've encountered, though, is that many languages will fit my criteria, and I think I need to have a few under my belt. The huge problem is: where to start?
HTML is a pretty obvious choice, and I've dabbled in it a bit. The problem is that it is pretty much limited (!) to the Web, and I am in need of something a bit more general purpose in nature. With the advent of the Raspberry Pi, Python has become a strong contender for me, and as I have an interest in this device, Python seems to be the way to go. So, where is Python?
In a word: everywhere! I have it installed on nearly every PC I use on a regular basis, and although I'm not much past the very basics of the language (think: print("hello") ), I've made it a priority to at least touch it every day, if not actually learn something.
The past week has been a bit of a wash as far as Python goes. The main reason for this is because I am once again gainfully employed as an employee rather than a contractor or temp.This makes me happy- yay! However, as an employee, I feel the need to increase my value to my employer, and to this end, I will ensure that I do some programming on my own time.
In the wonderful world of data, I came up with one more improvement to one of the tables which should fix a data synchronization issue. More on that after it is implemented.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Monday, December 16, 2013
Darth Anna, Defiler of Planets
The HVAC in our office is challenged. That is the most polite thing I can say about it. You're probably wondering how my meek coworker from Russia came to be Darth Anna, Defiler of Planets and Mistress of the Dual Tailed Optical Mouse and Yours Truly became Darth Chris, Consumer of Comets and Sneezer of Asteroid Belts.
HVAC is industry shorthand for Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning. So, in other words, when it should be hot in the office, its cold. And when it should be cold, its hot in our office. Please note: I'm using EXTREMELY polite terms as I prattle on about our HVAC.
The rumor that's been going around for some time is this: when the office was first designed, the air conditioner that was ordered was too large (powerful) for the size of the office. Consequently, a vicious, rapid cycle of heating and cooling is the norm. Adding insult to injury, the thermostat used to be located directly under a vent in the ceiling. I'm not an HVAC expert, so I don't know the purpose of the vent. All I do know is that cold air generally wafted down from it, onto the thermostat, adding more drama to the hot cold cycle. At some point in 2012, the thermostat was moved to a more central part of the office, and even though there is a remarkable improvement, Anna and I still don and remove our hoodies several times each night... and when I say "don our hoodies", I mean deploy the hoods as well. Hence, we look like a pair of dark Jedi acolytes.
So, how did the #hourofcode go? I had hoped to start programming on a Raspberry Pi last week, but the Pi I ordered may not arrive until after Christmas. I finally gave up and installed Python on Jennifer's PC, and took the plunge this morning. I found a very nice tutorial on daniweb which I highly recommend to anyone interested in programming in Python.
Not much news on the database front. I was at the gym yesterday and as I was updating my training log, I got to thinking about 'average' and 'mean' numbers, and how I cannot do averages for walking times, as my phone's stopwatch doesn't really store lap data... my log entries are confined to total laps, total time, fastest and slowest laps. So, I'm pretty sure I understand 'mean', and I think it's how I will quantify things. Here's a site that does a pretty technical job of explaining average vs mean.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
HVAC is industry shorthand for Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning. So, in other words, when it should be hot in the office, its cold. And when it should be cold, its hot in our office. Please note: I'm using EXTREMELY polite terms as I prattle on about our HVAC.
The rumor that's been going around for some time is this: when the office was first designed, the air conditioner that was ordered was too large (powerful) for the size of the office. Consequently, a vicious, rapid cycle of heating and cooling is the norm. Adding insult to injury, the thermostat used to be located directly under a vent in the ceiling. I'm not an HVAC expert, so I don't know the purpose of the vent. All I do know is that cold air generally wafted down from it, onto the thermostat, adding more drama to the hot cold cycle. At some point in 2012, the thermostat was moved to a more central part of the office, and even though there is a remarkable improvement, Anna and I still don and remove our hoodies several times each night... and when I say "don our hoodies", I mean deploy the hoods as well. Hence, we look like a pair of dark Jedi acolytes.
So, how did the #hourofcode go? I had hoped to start programming on a Raspberry Pi last week, but the Pi I ordered may not arrive until after Christmas. I finally gave up and installed Python on Jennifer's PC, and took the plunge this morning. I found a very nice tutorial on daniweb which I highly recommend to anyone interested in programming in Python.
Not much news on the database front. I was at the gym yesterday and as I was updating my training log, I got to thinking about 'average' and 'mean' numbers, and how I cannot do averages for walking times, as my phone's stopwatch doesn't really store lap data... my log entries are confined to total laps, total time, fastest and slowest laps. So, I'm pretty sure I understand 'mean', and I think it's how I will quantify things. Here's a site that does a pretty technical job of explaining average vs mean.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Hows that #hourofcode coming?
Unfortunately for me, not so well.
It all started last Friday for me. I had mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to try my hand at Python. I've been doing some research over the past month, and had decided that the best way to get my Python education going ( after downloading my free copy of Python 3.3.3) would be to put Python on a dedicated platform- not a problem there, as I have a spare PC that can be utilized for the task. However, as Mr. T is still at home and being homeschooled (and has an interest in this sort of thing), I decided to tackle Python and Linux simultaneously, so I went online and ordered a Raspberry Pi for each of us. During my research, I found one author who was a big fan of the Linux Gentoo distro; he said it worked quite well on the Pi. And, as Mr T. waxes long and eloquently about Gentoo but has yet to install it, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to get our son into another programming opportunity.
However, the plan didn't quite come together as I'd hoped. I went to a vendor listed on the Pi website and placed my order for two units. This was my first time using this vendor, though, and I apparently did something incorrectly, for even though I had originally ordered a quantity of two, when my pending purchase order was displayed, there was only one. Not a problem- there was a chat-based customer service representative (CSR) available. It took around forty-five minutes, but the CSR assured me that my order was fixed. My order was fixed, but I found out on Wednesday that my order was now on backorder, and might ship on the 23rd of December. So my plan to have Pi for the #hourofcode has been thwarted. Alas and alack!
In the interim, I'm also planning and plotting about the impending Windows XP EOL. I have three machines that are impacted by this, and I honestly haven't decided what to do about them. One is almost certainly going to become a Win7 box, and the second may become a Linux box. I'm not sure about the remaining one. One option is to keep of them as XP machines, but take them offline and use them for games or things which don't require connectivity to the world.
In other news, both the car and the truck have been to the shop this week for needed repairs, and when all of the hours were added up, there was no time for data! I'm hoping this (data) situation changes soon. I'm getting excited about working with Python- I hear it is contending with and in some areas displacing R for statistical work.
Lastly, a bit of blog news: as 2013 comes to a close, the blog has now been viewed in at least thirty-seven countries- Belarus is the latest!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
It all started last Friday for me. I had mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to try my hand at Python. I've been doing some research over the past month, and had decided that the best way to get my Python education going ( after downloading my free copy of Python 3.3.3) would be to put Python on a dedicated platform- not a problem there, as I have a spare PC that can be utilized for the task. However, as Mr. T is still at home and being homeschooled (and has an interest in this sort of thing), I decided to tackle Python and Linux simultaneously, so I went online and ordered a Raspberry Pi for each of us. During my research, I found one author who was a big fan of the Linux Gentoo distro; he said it worked quite well on the Pi. And, as Mr T. waxes long and eloquently about Gentoo but has yet to install it, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to get our son into another programming opportunity.
In the interim, I'm also planning and plotting about the impending Windows XP EOL. I have three machines that are impacted by this, and I honestly haven't decided what to do about them. One is almost certainly going to become a Win7 box, and the second may become a Linux box. I'm not sure about the remaining one. One option is to keep of them as XP machines, but take them offline and use them for games or things which don't require connectivity to the world.
In other news, both the car and the truck have been to the shop this week for needed repairs, and when all of the hours were added up, there was no time for data! I'm hoping this (data) situation changes soon. I'm getting excited about working with Python- I hear it is contending with and in some areas displacing R for statistical work.
Lastly, a bit of blog news: as 2013 comes to a close, the blog has now been viewed in at least thirty-seven countries- Belarus is the latest!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Let It Snow
I had planned on starting this blog off with some weather comments. Sadly, I was not able to really differentiate between astronomical and meteorological winter, so we're stuck with my definition: it's past October, the wind is blowing and the snow is sticking. And, the salt trucks are out.
As the readership of this blog is quite geographically diverse, I once again need to take a few steps back and explain nearly everything I've written. I live near Chicago- actually, quite close to O'Hare Airport (ORD), and it it pretty much winter here. I know this because the temperature has been in the single digits and low teens on the Fahrenheit scale. As I write this, its Tuesday the 10th of December. Over the past two days we've officially gotten 3" (~7.6cm) of snow, and 2-4" (5-10cm) is predicted to fall today. The lowest overnight low temperature that I saw tonight was -1F (~ -18C). I blame all of this recent temperature recording partly on a coworker who is a native of Arkhhangelsk (Архáнгельск). This coworker has expressed a desire to return home, but is at the same time what we'd call a "freezy-cat": the office is always too cold! So, on one particularly cold day last week I looked up the temperature in Arkhangelsk, and it was actually warmer by a couple of degrees (F). I said, "You can go back to Russia. Its warmer there." The irony here is that Arkhangelsk is more than 1,500 miles (~3300km) to the NORTH of Chicago!
Has anyone tried the #hourofcode yet? This is the week to give programming a chance. It doesn't hurt, and its free! Try W3schools- they offer FREE training in half a dozen web-related languages. All free, and with a nicely designed site that offers instant gratification- this is as close to painless training as it gets!
I've worked a bit on the database since the last post. Nothing stupendous to report, but the data is getting cleaner. That's progress, and I'm calling this a day!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
As the readership of this blog is quite geographically diverse, I once again need to take a few steps back and explain nearly everything I've written. I live near Chicago- actually, quite close to O'Hare Airport (ORD), and it it pretty much winter here. I know this because the temperature has been in the single digits and low teens on the Fahrenheit scale. As I write this, its Tuesday the 10th of December. Over the past two days we've officially gotten 3" (~7.6cm) of snow, and 2-4" (5-10cm) is predicted to fall today. The lowest overnight low temperature that I saw tonight was -1F (~ -18C). I blame all of this recent temperature recording partly on a coworker who is a native of Arkhhangelsk (Архáнгельск). This coworker has expressed a desire to return home, but is at the same time what we'd call a "freezy-cat": the office is always too cold! So, on one particularly cold day last week I looked up the temperature in Arkhangelsk, and it was actually warmer by a couple of degrees (F). I said, "You can go back to Russia. Its warmer there." The irony here is that Arkhangelsk is more than 1,500 miles (~3300km) to the NORTH of Chicago!
Has anyone tried the #hourofcode yet? This is the week to give programming a chance. It doesn't hurt, and its free! Try W3schools- they offer FREE training in half a dozen web-related languages. All free, and with a nicely designed site that offers instant gratification- this is as close to painless training as it gets!
I've worked a bit on the database since the last post. Nothing stupendous to report, but the data is getting cleaner. That's progress, and I'm calling this a day!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
The #hourofcode is coming, and Happy Anniversary!
This is my eightieth blog post, and also marks one year of blogging which- in many ways- amazes me. Firstly, I am amazed that I stuck with this. I don't really remember why I started the blog, but I'm glad I did. Its helped to develop a dimension of discipline that was nascent. Always there. Just waiting for the proper stimulus. Next (and for me this has a certain 'WOW' factor), this post marks the realization of the only goal that I had set for this blog: to have at least one viewer or reader on each continent (excluding Antarctica)... the person that made this happen lives in Trinidad and Tobago! Excluding the United States, I've managed to reach folks in thirty-five countries! And lastly, I've always thought that I possessed some ability at writing- probably not gifted, but possessing the ability to tell a story and turn a phrase.
I therefore extend a heartfelt and humble thanks to all who have taken the time to visit my little corner of the Internet and read my musings.
Okay, time to put the party favors and balloons away. I'd like to switch gears and talk a bit about coding.
Next week, Dec 9-15, is Computer Science Education Week, and a highlight of that week which practically everyone can participate in is The Hour of Code 2013. Of course, those who are not necessarily will cry, "but coding is so [fill in the blank]".
Well, don't fret, because coding isn't [fill in the blank].
For starters, coding IS for everyone. If you can do basic mathematics, you can code. If you don't know what to do or how to get this ball rolling, visit http://csedweek.org/ Its important for this to get out to everyone... coding is not necessarily easy (after all, you actually have to invest some time to learn how to do it), but it is a much in demand skill, and can be quite lucrative. The icing on top of this virtual cake, though, is the cost: many popular languages can be acquired for free, and instruction is also free online for many. Watch the video- chances are you'll recognize someone there (*I'm a geek; I recognized several). will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas had a great programmer plug- "Great programmers are today's rockstars".
So, what's happening @the Secret Underground Lair? Well, we've played a bit with VB, HTML and a few other more obscure environments in the past, but starting next week we'll start looking hard @Python. I'm pretty excited about this; I hope my enthusiasm is contagious!
Lastly, a few links to older blogs- enjoy!
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/hard-drives-bane-of-ones-existence.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/it-old-school.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/normal-is-town-in-illinois.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/is-it-steamy-in-here.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/its-time-for-rant.html
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
I therefore extend a heartfelt and humble thanks to all who have taken the time to visit my little corner of the Internet and read my musings.
Okay, time to put the party favors and balloons away. I'd like to switch gears and talk a bit about coding.
Next week, Dec 9-15, is Computer Science Education Week, and a highlight of that week which practically everyone can participate in is The Hour of Code 2013. Of course, those who are not necessarily will cry, "but coding is so [fill in the blank]".
Well, don't fret, because coding isn't [fill in the blank].
For starters, coding IS for everyone. If you can do basic mathematics, you can code. If you don't know what to do or how to get this ball rolling, visit http://csedweek.org/ Its important for this to get out to everyone... coding is not necessarily easy (after all, you actually have to invest some time to learn how to do it), but it is a much in demand skill, and can be quite lucrative. The icing on top of this virtual cake, though, is the cost: many popular languages can be acquired for free, and instruction is also free online for many. Watch the video- chances are you'll recognize someone there (*I'm a geek; I recognized several). will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas had a great programmer plug- "Great programmers are today's rockstars".
So, what's happening @the Secret Underground Lair? Well, we've played a bit with VB, HTML and a few other more obscure environments in the past, but starting next week we'll start looking hard @Python. I'm pretty excited about this; I hope my enthusiasm is contagious!
Lastly, a few links to older blogs- enjoy!
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/hard-drives-bane-of-ones-existence.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/it-old-school.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/normal-is-town-in-illinois.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/is-it-steamy-in-here.html
http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/its-time-for-rant.html
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Monday, December 2, 2013
Data never sleeps
Hey, hey, my, my. I'm not a fan of Neil Young, but that's a great song. It was Saturday night, and I found myself at one of the Secret Underground Lair's remote sites. It was close to midnight- relatively late for this particular Saturday. I had a serious case of the nods, and my trusty Logitech G105 keyboard was threatening to tattoo QWERTY into my forehead if I didn't shut down soon. Just one more small task, really- I had a few titles to enter into the database, then off to La La Land.
I have at least hinted in the past, I think, that we are strong embracers of the dull edge of technology- the bleeding edge moves too fast, costs too much, and loses its sheen in a hurry. So on Black Friday, Daniel hiked over to our local Gamestop in search of a few games, and to get a 1st Gen Wii, RVL 001. As I have a deep and abiding dislike of lines (queues), I opted to drive out closer to midnight. When I arrived, I was shocked to see a group of about forty people waiting in freezing temperature to get into the store, several later emerging with the just released Xbox One. While waiting I ran into Ryan, my cohort in comedy, and we chatted for some time. Well, up until the point where he started freezing- at that point, he went home, and I continued to wait. After about forty minutes, Daniel emerged with a case of the happys. We walked over to the Target store, and browsed around a bit before going home, and then off to bed.
Which catches me up to where I started. We ended having to go back to Gamestop on Saturday, as the Wii was a later Gen, and did not have... wait for it... Gamecube ports. So, he exchanged it, and because of the model, got some store credit- more games were acquired. I decided to enter all of this into the database and call it a night. I clicked the NEW RECORD arrow, and noticed that I had not alpha sorted the table, so I sorted it and much to my surprise, there was a dupe record! I went into Design View, and much to my shock, this field was not indexed. I'd been duped! I went back into datasheet view, and replaced the dupe with one of the new titles. Then, I went back and changed the field property to Indexed (No Duplicates) and saved.
Well, I tried to save. To make a long story short, there were close to twenty duped records in that table of 900+. It took nearly an hour to find all of them and replace them with new data. I was really upset, because I thought I had this under control... as Buford Tannen said, "Ya thought wrong, Dude". Never assume anything- even about your own data!
Which brings me to today (Monday). As I'm working this evening, I'm going to catch a nap. But before that, just a quick peek at the database. Everything is working properly, but I need a query to generate a simple checklist for digital video media (DVDs and Blurays), so I made a simple one and printed... yeah, it wouldn't print. That was ~45 minutes ago. I've had more than enough fun for one day with this- it is nap-thirty.
On a happy note, this post marks the one year of this blog. I'd like to thank the Academy, etc., and cutting to the chase, "AND WORLD PEACE". Yippie kay yay, folks.
Most significantly, I just recently achieved the only objective I had set for this blog: at least one view on each continent (Antarctica doesn't count).
AS always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
I have at least hinted in the past, I think, that we are strong embracers of the dull edge of technology- the bleeding edge moves too fast, costs too much, and loses its sheen in a hurry. So on Black Friday, Daniel hiked over to our local Gamestop in search of a few games, and to get a 1st Gen Wii, RVL 001. As I have a deep and abiding dislike of lines (queues), I opted to drive out closer to midnight. When I arrived, I was shocked to see a group of about forty people waiting in freezing temperature to get into the store, several later emerging with the just released Xbox One. While waiting I ran into Ryan, my cohort in comedy, and we chatted for some time. Well, up until the point where he started freezing- at that point, he went home, and I continued to wait. After about forty minutes, Daniel emerged with a case of the happys. We walked over to the Target store, and browsed around a bit before going home, and then off to bed.
Which catches me up to where I started. We ended having to go back to Gamestop on Saturday, as the Wii was a later Gen, and did not have... wait for it... Gamecube ports. So, he exchanged it, and because of the model, got some store credit- more games were acquired. I decided to enter all of this into the database and call it a night. I clicked the NEW RECORD arrow, and noticed that I had not alpha sorted the table, so I sorted it and much to my surprise, there was a dupe record! I went into Design View, and much to my shock, this field was not indexed. I'd been duped! I went back into datasheet view, and replaced the dupe with one of the new titles. Then, I went back and changed the field property to Indexed (No Duplicates) and saved.
Well, I tried to save. To make a long story short, there were close to twenty duped records in that table of 900+. It took nearly an hour to find all of them and replace them with new data. I was really upset, because I thought I had this under control... as Buford Tannen said, "Ya thought wrong, Dude". Never assume anything- even about your own data!
Which brings me to today (Monday). As I'm working this evening, I'm going to catch a nap. But before that, just a quick peek at the database. Everything is working properly, but I need a query to generate a simple checklist for digital video media (DVDs and Blurays), so I made a simple one and printed... yeah, it wouldn't print. That was ~45 minutes ago. I've had more than enough fun for one day with this- it is nap-thirty.
On a happy note, this post marks the one year of this blog. I'd like to thank the Academy, etc., and cutting to the chase, "AND WORLD PEACE". Yippie kay yay, folks.
Most significantly, I just recently achieved the only objective I had set for this blog: at least one view on each continent (Antarctica doesn't count).
AS always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Monday, November 25, 2013
It was decaf. I swear it was decaf.
I was sitting here, listening to Pat Benetar while Python 3.3.3 downloaded, and it occurred to me that a cup of tea would be nice. The previous cup was indeed normal black tea, and as the hour was fairly late (2200), I made sure the next one was decaf- most manufacturers seem to go to great lengths to differentiate their packaging when marketing a decaf beverage. Not this manufacturer. In their defense, the box is clearly labeled "decaffeinated", but in all other respects the regular and decaf packages look identical.
So @0153, here I sit.
Actually, though, its not as bad as it sounds. I went in to work at 2330 Saturday night, and did not leave until 1100 on Sunday. Yep, I spent three days pretty much of working at a furious pace just to stay ahead of the presses. And this reminds me of a little I.T. anecdote.
At some time in the fog-shrouded past, we all knew someone like this. In fact, you may know someone like this today. This is the person that you always dread telling, "Whatever you do, please don't touch the red button," because you know that they will not let go of the thought of pushing the red button. It will tug at their sleeves, nip at their heels and gnaw at them until, one day- when no one is looking- they push the button.
And it goes- almost without saying- that you will not be there to yell in dramatic slow motion "STOP". When you find out about it, it will be too late. As Foreigner sang, "The Damage Is Done".
Yes, someone could not resist the equivalent of the red button- they loaded files from a folder named "OLD". And, undoubtedly they pictured themselves as the anti-hero of a Michael Bay blockbuster, hitting the load button and then turning and casually walking away while lighting a cigarette as presses explode one by one in slow motion behind him. Who does that? It's unimportant. I was told about it, and so a dozen files had to be recreated. To ensure this didn't happen again, I put the OLD folder into a folder I named, "These are not the files you are looking for" and then put that package into yet another folder which I named, "OLD DO NOT USE". And so, the problem was fixed.
Almost. The same junior genius that tried to load a bad file also copied it over a good one, which meant that those dozen files had just been created a few days prior had to be discarded and re-recompiled. On the plus side, no time or production was lost, as they were able to skip to the next file.
So its been a busy week, and I'm trying to be diligent and get this published, but between the work schedule, the Thanksgiving holiday and Jennifer (and Mr. T) being out of town, this poor blog has just been sitting here collecting virtual dust. I'm happy to report that it appears my Python download was successful. I've been working a bit on Jennifer's PC, among other things cleaning up her Media Player library. Only a little bit of progress to report on the database, but I should have the opportunity to do more work on that this weekend.
That's all the news from the Secret Underground Lair (remote). Until next time, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
So @0153, here I sit.
Actually, though, its not as bad as it sounds. I went in to work at 2330 Saturday night, and did not leave until 1100 on Sunday. Yep, I spent three days pretty much of working at a furious pace just to stay ahead of the presses. And this reminds me of a little I.T. anecdote.
At some time in the fog-shrouded past, we all knew someone like this. In fact, you may know someone like this today. This is the person that you always dread telling, "Whatever you do, please don't touch the red button," because you know that they will not let go of the thought of pushing the red button. It will tug at their sleeves, nip at their heels and gnaw at them until, one day- when no one is looking- they push the button.
And it goes- almost without saying- that you will not be there to yell in dramatic slow motion "STOP". When you find out about it, it will be too late. As Foreigner sang, "The Damage Is Done".
Yes, someone could not resist the equivalent of the red button- they loaded files from a folder named "OLD". And, undoubtedly they pictured themselves as the anti-hero of a Michael Bay blockbuster, hitting the load button and then turning and casually walking away while lighting a cigarette as presses explode one by one in slow motion behind him. Who does that? It's unimportant. I was told about it, and so a dozen files had to be recreated. To ensure this didn't happen again, I put the OLD folder into a folder I named, "These are not the files you are looking for" and then put that package into yet another folder which I named, "OLD DO NOT USE". And so, the problem was fixed.
Almost. The same junior genius that tried to load a bad file also copied it over a good one, which meant that those dozen files had just been created a few days prior had to be discarded and re-recompiled. On the plus side, no time or production was lost, as they were able to skip to the next file.
So its been a busy week, and I'm trying to be diligent and get this published, but between the work schedule, the Thanksgiving holiday and Jennifer (and Mr. T) being out of town, this poor blog has just been sitting here collecting virtual dust. I'm happy to report that it appears my Python download was successful. I've been working a bit on Jennifer's PC, among other things cleaning up her Media Player library. Only a little bit of progress to report on the database, but I should have the opportunity to do more work on that this weekend.
That's all the news from the Secret Underground Lair (remote). Until next time, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
More thoughts about words- including a bit of geekspeak.
A few days ago I was conversing with Ryan, our resident full-time custodian and occasional comedian. I'm not sure how the topic arose, but at some point the word "scanner" was used. "You know what's funny about 'scanner?'" I said.
"No, what's that?"
"Well, I know about four different ways which that word can be used." And with that, I proceeded to describe the various scanners with which I was acquainted. In no particular order, the first one is the barcode scanner. These devices are ubiquitous- at stores, information kiosks... most smartphones have a QR and/or barcode app that can be utilize the phone's camera as a scanner. Here in the United States, the Post Office uses these scanners to scan the Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMB) which is found on most mail. While barcodes found on merchandise usually has a code that is attached to a single item and doesn't vary from one identical item to the next, IMBs are serialized- that is, within a mailing (say, for example, a monthly advertising piece), each IMB has a unique serial code. Some of these scanners can also read 2D barcodes. The 2D barcodes are the ones which look like square mazes or puzzles; they are capable of carrying all sorts of information. In contrast to an IMB, which has numeric information such as the postal data, a serial number and the ZIP code, a 2D encodes alphanumeric information; the addressee's full name, street address, city, state, ZIP code, and (depending on the size of the 2D), additional information.
Next is another type of optical scanner- the computer scanner (and the closely related photocopier, and fax). They all do pretty much the same thing: take a picture of something and make a paper copy of it. The duties of these machines have blurred quite a bit, with copiers able to fax or copy to file, faxes able to copy, and multifunction printers can even output photographs from file, hardcopy, or even old photonegatives or slides.
Next is the RF, or radio scanner. This is the classic "police radio" that is often talked about in older movies, where the whiz-kids hear a dispatch on their radio and end up nabbing the crooks before the cops can get there, or more recently, when Mr. Incredible and Frozone hang out on "bowling night" waiting for a police dispatch so that they can be super heroes again in a world where super heroes are outlawed. I used to sell these, so I'm a little familiar with their use.
Lastly, the CSRs where I work use scanners. These are a mystery to me... I'm not sure even if they're made out of paper or acetate, or what their purpose is. And while I realize that's pretty lame, its still another legitimate use of the word.
I had another data epiphany a few days ago, and this one solved an issue I had raised one or two blogs back- that being how do I know when a title has a corresponding entry (or entries) in the main Media table? I tested out adding a "check" column to the Media_Title table, but almost immediately discovered its Achilles' Heel: I could tell if the title was in use, but I could not tell exactly how, or for that matter, how many times. The new method uses the same table that the main Media table uses to categorize a piece of media- CD, DVD, etc., but allows for multiple entries. This is a god thing, as titles tend to repeat.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to,
"No, what's that?"
"Well, I know about four different ways which that word can be used." And with that, I proceeded to describe the various scanners with which I was acquainted. In no particular order, the first one is the barcode scanner. These devices are ubiquitous- at stores, information kiosks... most smartphones have a QR and/or barcode app that can be utilize the phone's camera as a scanner. Here in the United States, the Post Office uses these scanners to scan the Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMB) which is found on most mail. While barcodes found on merchandise usually has a code that is attached to a single item and doesn't vary from one identical item to the next, IMBs are serialized- that is, within a mailing (say, for example, a monthly advertising piece), each IMB has a unique serial code. Some of these scanners can also read 2D barcodes. The 2D barcodes are the ones which look like square mazes or puzzles; they are capable of carrying all sorts of information. In contrast to an IMB, which has numeric information such as the postal data, a serial number and the ZIP code, a 2D encodes alphanumeric information; the addressee's full name, street address, city, state, ZIP code, and (depending on the size of the 2D), additional information.
Next is another type of optical scanner- the computer scanner (and the closely related photocopier, and fax). They all do pretty much the same thing: take a picture of something and make a paper copy of it. The duties of these machines have blurred quite a bit, with copiers able to fax or copy to file, faxes able to copy, and multifunction printers can even output photographs from file, hardcopy, or even old photonegatives or slides.
Next is the RF, or radio scanner. This is the classic "police radio" that is often talked about in older movies, where the whiz-kids hear a dispatch on their radio and end up nabbing the crooks before the cops can get there, or more recently, when Mr. Incredible and Frozone hang out on "bowling night" waiting for a police dispatch so that they can be super heroes again in a world where super heroes are outlawed. I used to sell these, so I'm a little familiar with their use.
Lastly, the CSRs where I work use scanners. These are a mystery to me... I'm not sure even if they're made out of paper or acetate, or what their purpose is. And while I realize that's pretty lame, its still another legitimate use of the word.
I had another data epiphany a few days ago, and this one solved an issue I had raised one or two blogs back- that being how do I know when a title has a corresponding entry (or entries) in the main Media table? I tested out adding a "check" column to the Media_Title table, but almost immediately discovered its Achilles' Heel: I could tell if the title was in use, but I could not tell exactly how, or for that matter, how many times. The new method uses the same table that the main Media table uses to categorize a piece of media- CD, DVD, etc., but allows for multiple entries. This is a god thing, as titles tend to repeat.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to,
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
11.12.13 (or, 12.11.13 depending upon one's location)
For whatever its worth, I usually take note of "special" number days- maybe its the geek in me, but I usually wish someone a hearty "Happy (fill in the number) Day!" It makes me geek-sad to realize that they don't always get it. For example, although it is nearly universally known (at least among my circle of family and friends), not everyone celebrates or is even aware that March 14th is Pi Day... I think even in parts of the world where this is rendered as 14.3 rather than 3.14, in the spirit of Pi the day is celebrated.
Of course, there wasn't much time for celebrating or even well-wishing as today was a work and a workout day. I got in relatively late Tuesday morning, and for some reason did not fall asleep too quickly. This may have been related to the pain in my knee, which does not takes sudden drops in temperature gracefully. A few days ago the temperatures had been in the mid- to high-fifties F (~11-15 C), but the past two days saw a sudden, dramatic drop- at one point the weather service on my phone said eighteen F (~ -8 C)! I had taken some of my over the counter medication in the morning two days in a row, but I still had a fair amount of tightness and discomfort. So today, after we got gas in the truck, we headed off to the gym. I spent about fifty minutes on the upstairs track, getting in nearly three miles (~4.8km). This did more than the drugs, and my knee felt nearly normal when I went to work this evening.
In the wonderful world of data, I finally pulled myself away from a few online distractions and added the check field to the Media_Title table. After such a (relatively) long lapse in development, I was glad to finally be able to get a little bit back on track. However, I ran into a problem right from the start: I had to keep switching between the two tables in order to synchronize my activity. I'm sure there's a way to automate this, but even if I knew how to do that, it would not work in this situation.
You see, to the best of my ability I've striven to keep the database as near to normalized as possible right from the start, and the existence of a Media table and a Media_Title table is a reflection of this. While each recording or publication may be unique, titles are often shared. In fact, as media has evolved, titles of the same work have been duplicated even in our small collection- to the point that we might now have even a print title in hardcover, softcover, audio, Kindle or .txt format. Ditto Music- vinyl, cassette, CD, mp3. And then there's video- VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and probably a few others. The whole point of the little parade of formats is this: in order to normalize, the title must come from another table... it saves a lot of brain pain.
One little bit of progress was made just moments ago- I discovered that even on my relatively small LCD display on the computer I usually use in the Secret Underground Lair, I am able to display downsized windowed versions of the two tables side-by-side, so this may speed the process somewhat. I may also have the opportunity to use a PC with a larger monitor to expedite the process. We'll just have to wait and see.
Until then, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Of course, there wasn't much time for celebrating or even well-wishing as today was a work and a workout day. I got in relatively late Tuesday morning, and for some reason did not fall asleep too quickly. This may have been related to the pain in my knee, which does not takes sudden drops in temperature gracefully. A few days ago the temperatures had been in the mid- to high-fifties F (~11-15 C), but the past two days saw a sudden, dramatic drop- at one point the weather service on my phone said eighteen F (~ -8 C)! I had taken some of my over the counter medication in the morning two days in a row, but I still had a fair amount of tightness and discomfort. So today, after we got gas in the truck, we headed off to the gym. I spent about fifty minutes on the upstairs track, getting in nearly three miles (~4.8km). This did more than the drugs, and my knee felt nearly normal when I went to work this evening.
In the wonderful world of data, I finally pulled myself away from a few online distractions and added the check field to the Media_Title table. After such a (relatively) long lapse in development, I was glad to finally be able to get a little bit back on track. However, I ran into a problem right from the start: I had to keep switching between the two tables in order to synchronize my activity. I'm sure there's a way to automate this, but even if I knew how to do that, it would not work in this situation.
You see, to the best of my ability I've striven to keep the database as near to normalized as possible right from the start, and the existence of a Media table and a Media_Title table is a reflection of this. While each recording or publication may be unique, titles are often shared. In fact, as media has evolved, titles of the same work have been duplicated even in our small collection- to the point that we might now have even a print title in hardcover, softcover, audio, Kindle or .txt format. Ditto Music- vinyl, cassette, CD, mp3. And then there's video- VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and probably a few others. The whole point of the little parade of formats is this: in order to normalize, the title must come from another table... it saves a lot of brain pain.
One little bit of progress was made just moments ago- I discovered that even on my relatively small LCD display on the computer I usually use in the Secret Underground Lair, I am able to display downsized windowed versions of the two tables side-by-side, so this may speed the process somewhat. I may also have the opportunity to use a PC with a larger monitor to expedite the process. We'll just have to wait and see.
Until then, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Swinging on a star
I've mentioned a few times that I really love music, and it is the original basis of my database. And while I think the cloud is a pretty neat idea, I am practical enough (paranoid, perhaps) to know that if I store my data in the cloud, it could be gone without warning. More and more, tech writers seem to agree in their writing that the cloud is not a matter of technology- its a matter of trust. And to be honest, most of the data I have on electronic storage devices is not important in the grand scheme of things, nor does it have great value, nor is it particularly embarrassing.
Still, its my data, and I don't intend to lose it should an ill wind suddenly blow my cloud away (Mick Jagger apparently was concerned with his personal cloud as early as 1965, in Hey You Get Off of My Cloud). So, I safeguard my data by keeping it local. One of the best ways this happens is demonstrated by my music collection. I do purchase .mp3s from time to time, but I prefer having the music on CD. If I do purchase a song or find a free mp3 (Amazon offers freebies, as do several other legitimate sites), I usually try to burn it to a CD, or at least make a copy to be burned at a later date. When Jennifer and I go to the local Goodwill store, the first section I peruse is their music. This past Sunday, we went there and someone had donated around fifty recordings from the Forties through the early Sixties. I picked out eight. Swinging on a Star by Bing Crosby was one of the songs on one of these collection discs (each has over twenty songs). I really enjoyed listening to it just now, but the funny thing (and please don't think less of me for it) is that I think I like the version sung by (of ALL people) Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello in Hudson Hawk. Yup. And I generally am a purist, preferring the original recording to covers.
Update: I started writing this a few days ago (hmm, have I said that before?). Work has been crazy-busy... I don't complain about that, really, because I still like to eat! As I ended Friday with overtime, the work I anticipate on Saturday will put me well over fifty hours- and we really do need the money, so I consider it a blessing. However, as a knowledgeworker with I.T. interests outside of my job, these hours can be a bit challenging. The most visible example is this blog: it often languishes for days from start to publication date. However, I don't force what I publish, and having what I consider to be a naturally terse writing style, I don't try to add a bunch of words just to make a piece a decent length. So, if I have nothing to say, I write nothing.
In a tweet the other day I remarked that epiphanies are easier to conceive than to execute, which fits perfectly here. In the evolution of my database, I've run into a bit of a conundrum: to simplify data entry, I've been adding records to subtables prior to adding the info to the primary table. This leads to a problem of not knowing which subtable data has been updated into the primary table.I think the solution is pretty simple- I say "think" because I have not tested it yet. The plan is to add a field to the affected subtables which denoted if a record has been added to the main table. Not rocket science, but the database is evolutionary rather than revolutionary, so I can't complain too much.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Still, its my data, and I don't intend to lose it should an ill wind suddenly blow my cloud away (Mick Jagger apparently was concerned with his personal cloud as early as 1965, in Hey You Get Off of My Cloud). So, I safeguard my data by keeping it local. One of the best ways this happens is demonstrated by my music collection. I do purchase .mp3s from time to time, but I prefer having the music on CD. If I do purchase a song or find a free mp3 (Amazon offers freebies, as do several other legitimate sites), I usually try to burn it to a CD, or at least make a copy to be burned at a later date. When Jennifer and I go to the local Goodwill store, the first section I peruse is their music. This past Sunday, we went there and someone had donated around fifty recordings from the Forties through the early Sixties. I picked out eight. Swinging on a Star by Bing Crosby was one of the songs on one of these collection discs (each has over twenty songs). I really enjoyed listening to it just now, but the funny thing (and please don't think less of me for it) is that I think I like the version sung by (of ALL people) Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello in Hudson Hawk. Yup. And I generally am a purist, preferring the original recording to covers.
Update: I started writing this a few days ago (hmm, have I said that before?). Work has been crazy-busy... I don't complain about that, really, because I still like to eat! As I ended Friday with overtime, the work I anticipate on Saturday will put me well over fifty hours- and we really do need the money, so I consider it a blessing. However, as a knowledgeworker with I.T. interests outside of my job, these hours can be a bit challenging. The most visible example is this blog: it often languishes for days from start to publication date. However, I don't force what I publish, and having what I consider to be a naturally terse writing style, I don't try to add a bunch of words just to make a piece a decent length. So, if I have nothing to say, I write nothing.
In a tweet the other day I remarked that epiphanies are easier to conceive than to execute, which fits perfectly here. In the evolution of my database, I've run into a bit of a conundrum: to simplify data entry, I've been adding records to subtables prior to adding the info to the primary table. This leads to a problem of not knowing which subtable data has been updated into the primary table.I think the solution is pretty simple- I say "think" because I have not tested it yet. The plan is to add a field to the affected subtables which denoted if a record has been added to the main table. Not rocket science, but the database is evolutionary rather than revolutionary, so I can't complain too much.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Polyglots and linguists and speak Engrish please, oh my! Or, why English is not easy.
In previous posts I have mentioned that I am a contractor at what is considered a mid-sized firm in the United States. I know a great deal about this firm, as I was once an employee there. As a contractor, I'm working pretty much the same evening-night-wee hours of the morning shift that I'd previously worked, and with the same group of people.
About six months back, I made an observation: not including myself (as I was not an employee), only one person out of the five who worked at night was a native English speaker (and the one who was a native, born in the USA speaker, was of Mexican heritage and fluent in Spanish). I'm reminded of this because I just found out that one of my coworkers- who has been with the company for over twelve years- is leaving at the end of this week.
Charly- sometimes known as Chaz or Chazbaby, taught me quite a bit, and I'm grateful for this. I also helped him a bit with English, and he eventually grew to trust my judgement and expertise in linguistic matters enough to ask my advice when he needed to write some serious stuff, such as our nightly job status updates, or when he needed to be perfectly clear on his motorcycle forum. After a bit of digging, it seems that it was George Bernard Shaw who originally came up with the idea of "two nations separated by a common language". Although Mr. Shaw was referring to Great Britain and the United States, his truism can also be applied to the United States and the Philippines. And one need go no further than Charly to prove this.
According to wikipedia, there are approximately 206 nation states, sixty of which claim English as their official or primary language. The Philippines is one of these. However, just because one speaks the language, it doesn't mean one speaks the lingo.
Charly loves humor, and growing up near Manila, I don't think he experienced much in the way of classic American humor. For example, he was only recently introduced to the classic Laurel and Hardy Who's On First routine. He found a clip of the routine on YouTube, and I think the first night he played it for a solid hour.
My experiences with Charly over the years have underscored for me just how difficult American English must be for someone to learn. He grew up exposed to a form of English in Manila, but to the American ear it sounds accented and just plain odd at times. For example, I understand that in Tagalog gender is not associated with pronouns, so that when he is talking about his wife, Charly will use "him" or "he". Ditto with his daughter.
Much of American English is contextual. For example, in English if I wanted to say, "I give the milk to the cat", because of the way that the words are positioned, one understands that I am giving milk to a cat. However (in German, for example) I would say (write) Ich gebe der Katze die Milch (English: I give to the cat the milk).
I'm not sure what else to say at this point. I wish Charly the best, and English is what English is.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
About six months back, I made an observation: not including myself (as I was not an employee), only one person out of the five who worked at night was a native English speaker (and the one who was a native, born in the USA speaker, was of Mexican heritage and fluent in Spanish). I'm reminded of this because I just found out that one of my coworkers- who has been with the company for over twelve years- is leaving at the end of this week.
Charly- sometimes known as Chaz or Chazbaby, taught me quite a bit, and I'm grateful for this. I also helped him a bit with English, and he eventually grew to trust my judgement and expertise in linguistic matters enough to ask my advice when he needed to write some serious stuff, such as our nightly job status updates, or when he needed to be perfectly clear on his motorcycle forum. After a bit of digging, it seems that it was George Bernard Shaw who originally came up with the idea of "two nations separated by a common language". Although Mr. Shaw was referring to Great Britain and the United States, his truism can also be applied to the United States and the Philippines. And one need go no further than Charly to prove this.
According to wikipedia, there are approximately 206 nation states, sixty of which claim English as their official or primary language. The Philippines is one of these. However, just because one speaks the language, it doesn't mean one speaks the lingo.
Charly loves humor, and growing up near Manila, I don't think he experienced much in the way of classic American humor. For example, he was only recently introduced to the classic Laurel and Hardy Who's On First routine. He found a clip of the routine on YouTube, and I think the first night he played it for a solid hour.
My experiences with Charly over the years have underscored for me just how difficult American English must be for someone to learn. He grew up exposed to a form of English in Manila, but to the American ear it sounds accented and just plain odd at times. For example, I understand that in Tagalog gender is not associated with pronouns, so that when he is talking about his wife, Charly will use "him" or "he". Ditto with his daughter.
Much of American English is contextual. For example, in English if I wanted to say, "I give the milk to the cat", because of the way that the words are positioned, one understands that I am giving milk to a cat. However (in German, for example) I would say (write) Ich gebe der Katze die Milch (English: I give to the cat the milk).
I'm not sure what else to say at this point. I wish Charly the best, and English is what English is.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Monday, October 28, 2013
The busy season
I don't remember what my original topic was going to be for this edition of Ye Olde Blogge, but it had something to do with our whiteboard. Someday, it may come back to me, but until that fateful day arrives, I will need to move along.
The reason I'd forgotten what the whiteboard idea was about was because I had just finished working thirteen consecutive days. Yep, October 27 was my first day off in fourteen days. Please note, I'm not complaining about working- especially in this wacky economy. It's just that in those thirteen days, I also had a significant amount of overtime- twenty-one hours the first week, and eleven the second week.
The upside to all of this is that there is a lot of work, and I am getting a good amount of training, programming time and experience. And, the money is nice as well.
The downside is... well, after family time and shopping and other sundry bits of life, there's precious little time left for my I.T. projects.
However, as I'm not a huge fan of the downside, there's another side to this: it is just a season. Prior to writing this blog entry, I was unaware that Pete Seeger was the writer of the Byrds' hit Turn! Turn! Turn!. Well, I suppose arranger is a better description, as the lyrics are nearly straight out of the Bible's Book of Ecclesiastes. The idea of the song, though fits really well here: this is just a season, and this is a new week- and, in my perspective, a new season.
So, as a differently-spelled Seger (Bob) suggested, its time to Turn the Page.
I moved a few of my I.T. reference books into the office last night and downloaded and installed Steam onto another computer. I did a quick test on a PC and found out that I need a sound card, so I need to order an inexpensive one this week. And, get back to database work... and maybe a bit of dev work, if time allows.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
The reason I'd forgotten what the whiteboard idea was about was because I had just finished working thirteen consecutive days. Yep, October 27 was my first day off in fourteen days. Please note, I'm not complaining about working- especially in this wacky economy. It's just that in those thirteen days, I also had a significant amount of overtime- twenty-one hours the first week, and eleven the second week.
The upside to all of this is that there is a lot of work, and I am getting a good amount of training, programming time and experience. And, the money is nice as well.
The downside is... well, after family time and shopping and other sundry bits of life, there's precious little time left for my I.T. projects.
However, as I'm not a huge fan of the downside, there's another side to this: it is just a season. Prior to writing this blog entry, I was unaware that Pete Seeger was the writer of the Byrds' hit Turn! Turn! Turn!. Well, I suppose arranger is a better description, as the lyrics are nearly straight out of the Bible's Book of Ecclesiastes. The idea of the song, though fits really well here: this is just a season, and this is a new week- and, in my perspective, a new season.
So, as a differently-spelled Seger (Bob) suggested, its time to Turn the Page.
I moved a few of my I.T. reference books into the office last night and downloaded and installed Steam onto another computer. I did a quick test on a PC and found out that I need a sound card, so I need to order an inexpensive one this week. And, get back to database work... and maybe a bit of dev work, if time allows.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Let's hear it for autumn!
I think autumn is Jennifer's and my favorite season, followed by winter, spring and then summer. Its sweatshirt and jeans weather, and that suits us just fine. There's a certain crispness in the air, aromas seem to be enriched and linger longer than they do in the busy summertime air, and the colors of leaves and flowers are just plain magnificent as they stand in sharp contrast to the browns and fading greens of surrounding foliage and the somber greyness of the sky. Even the compost seems perkier, sometimes giving off a bit of steam in the morning as if it were enjoying a cup of coffee or tea with us. If there is a downside to the early part of autumn, its this: the grass still needs to be mowed.Yes, grass is truly the party-pooper of the autumn parade. Now, don't get me wrong- grass mowing is one of those homeowner tasks which I truly enjoy. I don't pay someone else to do this for me, and I'm not one of those suburbanites who revels in a superior lawn: I merely enjoy the task of getting out the mower and cutting the grass. It is 30-45 minutes of tranquility for me. Its a bit of exercise as well (*yardio- look it up in the Urban Dictionary- its my term!) It also makes the compost happy- during the winter, the compost does get some additions on a fairly regular basis, but they are no substitute for the weekly feedings of grass that happen during the growing season.
I just realized its been a while since I've included a picture in a blog. All of the pictures featured are mine, and I think all are taken with my phone by me. They're pretty nice, I think, which is why I include them. However, I grew up in the 35mm era, and have owned a few SLRs- one of these years I'd like to acquire a DSLR. While cell phones can do amazing things (like the photo above), when it comes to photos, I believe a dedicated camera really is the way to go.
Data- I know there are a few readers who are wondering when the data will return to the blog. The short answer is this: it will be back when I have the opportunity to bring it back. I started writing this blog entry right after I had published the previous one, hoping to get back on track of publishing something every two-three days (Hey! It's a goal- everyone's gotta have goals, right?). I believe I've mentioned that I'm currently a contractor, and lately, business has been booming. In fact, its been so busy that I've worked seven days straight, and this pay period has twenty-one hours of overtime. I'm not complaining about the hours- they are a blessing. I'm just saying that when one works seven days a week, something has got to give. In my case, its my projects. My projects currently are my nonexistent website, my database, my training spreadsheet and this blog. As the blog is featured on my resume, this is the only project that receives ANY attention while I'm putting in crazy hours. The website still needs a domain and hosting, the database gets updated occasionally and data is still accumulating for my training spreadsheet. And adding insult to injury, I have a Win7 box that won't give me any audio.
As much as I hate to admit it, Sting and I agree on one thing at this juncture: I want my MTV!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Friday, October 18, 2013
A digital dilemna of sorts
Last night turned into one of the nights where, once one's job is finished, one then proceeds to start another job. If you work at a particular task for any length of time, you have a pretty good feel for how long the task will take to complete. After training, QCing and programming throughout my work evening, midnight rolled around and I was done. Well, I was done with what I had been assigned to do that day. There was work that remained- work that I had managed to avoid on the previous evening (and on the previous evening, somehow I knew I'd be seeing it again).
Monday night, I was asked at 0100 to work on this job. As there were two programs involved, I knew it would take a minimum of three hours to complete. Tuesday night, however, the day's tasks were done by by midnight, and Chazbaby asked if I could take care of it. I agreed.
Four hours later, I was getting into my truck, shaking my head and wondering why, why, why? I suppose the real answer is simply because the job needed to be done, and done properly. So, I sucked it up and did it.
This, in turn, got me to thinking about time management on a grander scale- and in this case, grander means "in my life" . Whenever I decide to "take one for the team", I pay for it the next day in terms of lost time. I generally get enough sleep- although its generally not as much as I'd like. The payment comes in the realm of lost personal time, and here is where my digital dilemna lies.
Like many folks that I know, much of my waking day is spent on the computer. Education, entertainment, information- all occur for me at the PC. My problem is not with too much time on the PC; rather, my problem is not properly apportioning my time on the PC... and twelve (or even more) hour workdays complicate this even further. I consider myself to be a night owl, generally doing my best work when most civilized folks are fast asleep. Consequently, I work an evening shift. Problems arise when I work late, though, as in order to get enough sleep, I have to sleep later into the day. Many (if not most) sleep experts recommend arising and going to bed at approximately the same time every day. In my line of work and on the shift I work, this is almost never possible, so I attempt to compensate by at least getting a decent amount of sleep before rejoining the fray.
Postscript to sleep... I started writing this on Tuesday of this week. As of Thursday (actually, Friday morning), I had worked over forty hours, and I will also be back on Saturday.
No data news to report tonight, so until next time, I remain hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Monday night, I was asked at 0100 to work on this job. As there were two programs involved, I knew it would take a minimum of three hours to complete. Tuesday night, however, the day's tasks were done by by midnight, and Chazbaby asked if I could take care of it. I agreed.
Four hours later, I was getting into my truck, shaking my head and wondering why, why, why? I suppose the real answer is simply because the job needed to be done, and done properly. So, I sucked it up and did it.
This, in turn, got me to thinking about time management on a grander scale- and in this case, grander means "in my life" . Whenever I decide to "take one for the team", I pay for it the next day in terms of lost time. I generally get enough sleep- although its generally not as much as I'd like. The payment comes in the realm of lost personal time, and here is where my digital dilemna lies.
Like many folks that I know, much of my waking day is spent on the computer. Education, entertainment, information- all occur for me at the PC. My problem is not with too much time on the PC; rather, my problem is not properly apportioning my time on the PC... and twelve (or even more) hour workdays complicate this even further. I consider myself to be a night owl, generally doing my best work when most civilized folks are fast asleep. Consequently, I work an evening shift. Problems arise when I work late, though, as in order to get enough sleep, I have to sleep later into the day. Many (if not most) sleep experts recommend arising and going to bed at approximately the same time every day. In my line of work and on the shift I work, this is almost never possible, so I attempt to compensate by at least getting a decent amount of sleep before rejoining the fray.
Postscript to sleep... I started writing this on Tuesday of this week. As of Thursday (actually, Friday morning), I had worked over forty hours, and I will also be back on Saturday.
No data news to report tonight, so until next time, I remain hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Saying goodbye
After having a home delivery subscription to the local newspaper for several years, Jennifer and I decided today to cancel our subscription. It was a fairly easy decision to make, yet it is still a bit distasteful.
There's a bit of history to this. In the past year or so, the newspaper doubled its subscription price without warning. At that time, like many folks, I called to cancel my subscription. They must have had lots of calls, because after only a little bit of negotiating, I was able to renew my subscription at a much more reasonable rate. Today, we received a renewal notice in the mail, and decided to take a look at subscribing to the digital-only edition. We figured that this would be more cost effective. Jennifer did a bit of research online, and found out that the digital edition price was about 60% of the home delivery (which includes the digital edition). However, after the six-month "introductory" period, the price shoots up by about 50%, making it only slightly less (~15%) than home delivery. Then, we factor in our delivery person. We've never met this person, but every year around Christmas she puts a Christmas card in one of our December papers. The card does not have a note thanking us for being loyal subscribers, but rather is a note asking for a "gift". Maybe I'm missing something here, but a gift is generally given because of a special occasion, or because you want to help someone out, or as a reward for doing something special.
Our delivery person seems to reward those who give the "gift" and punish those who don't. I'm guessing our neighbors give the "gift", because their paper is almost always in the same place on their driveway, while ours will be anywhere within a 20ft radius (approx. 6 meters). After many years, after "expressing our concerns" about our paper delivery, this year she finally started to properly put a second plastic bag on the newspaper when it was rainy or snowy. Prior to that, we probably had to call the newspaper around three-six times every summer and winter to get a replacement paper because the miswrapped one was water-logged from rain or melting snow. And, if you don't call before a certain time, you can't get your paper replaced- although your account does get credited. In fact, it seems as if you have to call them to do anything regarding your subscription.
And so, as of 14 October, 2013, we bid a fond and final adios to the Chicago Tribune. 20th century pricing, delivery and customer service no longer cut it with us.
Data-related news: my responsibilities at work have changed a bit, and now include programming. More on the situation as it develops.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
There's a bit of history to this. In the past year or so, the newspaper doubled its subscription price without warning. At that time, like many folks, I called to cancel my subscription. They must have had lots of calls, because after only a little bit of negotiating, I was able to renew my subscription at a much more reasonable rate. Today, we received a renewal notice in the mail, and decided to take a look at subscribing to the digital-only edition. We figured that this would be more cost effective. Jennifer did a bit of research online, and found out that the digital edition price was about 60% of the home delivery (which includes the digital edition). However, after the six-month "introductory" period, the price shoots up by about 50%, making it only slightly less (~15%) than home delivery. Then, we factor in our delivery person. We've never met this person, but every year around Christmas she puts a Christmas card in one of our December papers. The card does not have a note thanking us for being loyal subscribers, but rather is a note asking for a "gift". Maybe I'm missing something here, but a gift is generally given because of a special occasion, or because you want to help someone out, or as a reward for doing something special.
Our delivery person seems to reward those who give the "gift" and punish those who don't. I'm guessing our neighbors give the "gift", because their paper is almost always in the same place on their driveway, while ours will be anywhere within a 20ft radius (approx. 6 meters). After many years, after "expressing our concerns" about our paper delivery, this year she finally started to properly put a second plastic bag on the newspaper when it was rainy or snowy. Prior to that, we probably had to call the newspaper around three-six times every summer and winter to get a replacement paper because the miswrapped one was water-logged from rain or melting snow. And, if you don't call before a certain time, you can't get your paper replaced- although your account does get credited. In fact, it seems as if you have to call them to do anything regarding your subscription.
And so, as of 14 October, 2013, we bid a fond and final adios to the Chicago Tribune. 20th century pricing, delivery and customer service no longer cut it with us.
Data-related news: my responsibilities at work have changed a bit, and now include programming. More on the situation as it develops.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
George Romero, Michael Bay and Formula One
I had an epiphany a few days ago. There was a television commercial a few years ago which, for a bright shining moment, brought "epiphany" into the collective vocabulary of the day. Its one of those words which I savor using, and this is a good day to bring it out and use it. The epiphany involved George Romero. Sort of- it involved the what I can only was the inspiration for the zombies of Romero's classic "Dawn of the Dead", which in their turn, were parodies or paid homage to in the equally brilliant (but nowhere near as dark) fashion in "Shawn of the Dead".
Jennifer and I were at the gym. I had planned to do some shoulder work, and then spend the majority of my time on the indoor track. Lifting completed, I told Jennifer I was going to the track. I started the stopwatch app on my phone, and commenced walking. I had not gotten very far (maybe a quarter of a lap) when I was confronted with a classic Formula One racing dilemna: do I venture out onto the dirty part of the track and attempt a three-wide pass? Here's the quick F1 "backgrounder": oddly enough, in F1 racing, the dirty part of the track is the part where cars aren't normally driven. Because of this, debris (generally tire clag) collects there, whereas the clean part of the track remains clean because the cars are cruising along at speeds well in excess of 150mph (240kph). And, in my opinion, three cars side-by-side (three-wide) is visually a lot of fun, and fairly rare.
So, there I was, approaching the corner when I came up on a man I would guess to be in his lower seventies and a lady in her sixties. She was on the inside lane- recognized everywhere and mandated at our track as the slow lane- walking at a robust pace with her right arm swinging wide to the right with every stride. In the middle lane was the gentleman. He was slower, but I had to admire the fellow for being on the track- and he was putting forth a great effort, even with about a fifteen degree list to the right and being very hunched over. She was slowly but surely passing the gent, but his listing gait concerned me a bit. The good news was that even though he was effectively in the passing lane with his turn signal on, he was staying in the lane.
I had seen enough- I hit my afterburners, and my orange New Balance MT610v2's responded beautifully, providing traction and lateral stability as I passed my trackmates before they even knew I was overtaking. During my session, I passed the lady four times and lost track of how many times I passed the gent.
In personal I.T.-related news, at my contract job I've started to do some programming, which is a lot more fun that just quality control. My database project has moved forward a bit, with a new table waiting in the wings, and some physical reorganization of digital media in the Secret Underground Lair. Finally, I almost pulled the trigger and bought a domain name, but then I heard that ICANN is supposed to be releasing some new TLDs (Top Level Domains). One of these would be perfect for the site I'm planning, but I may just go with a different site name just to get online.
Lastly, inquiring folks might be wondering what Michael Bay is doing in the title. Its pretty simple, really: as I passed the two walkers, I didn't look to the side or back. For a brief moment, I imagined myself piloting an F1 car and passing the other two at Monza, the sudden blast of dirty air from my wing causing the other two to momentarily lose control and slowing to avoid colliding into each other. I could see the checkered flag....
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Jennifer and I were at the gym. I had planned to do some shoulder work, and then spend the majority of my time on the indoor track. Lifting completed, I told Jennifer I was going to the track. I started the stopwatch app on my phone, and commenced walking. I had not gotten very far (maybe a quarter of a lap) when I was confronted with a classic Formula One racing dilemna: do I venture out onto the dirty part of the track and attempt a three-wide pass? Here's the quick F1 "backgrounder": oddly enough, in F1 racing, the dirty part of the track is the part where cars aren't normally driven. Because of this, debris (generally tire clag) collects there, whereas the clean part of the track remains clean because the cars are cruising along at speeds well in excess of 150mph (240kph). And, in my opinion, three cars side-by-side (three-wide) is visually a lot of fun, and fairly rare.
So, there I was, approaching the corner when I came up on a man I would guess to be in his lower seventies and a lady in her sixties. She was on the inside lane- recognized everywhere and mandated at our track as the slow lane- walking at a robust pace with her right arm swinging wide to the right with every stride. In the middle lane was the gentleman. He was slower, but I had to admire the fellow for being on the track- and he was putting forth a great effort, even with about a fifteen degree list to the right and being very hunched over. She was slowly but surely passing the gent, but his listing gait concerned me a bit. The good news was that even though he was effectively in the passing lane with his turn signal on, he was staying in the lane.
I had seen enough- I hit my afterburners, and my orange New Balance MT610v2's responded beautifully, providing traction and lateral stability as I passed my trackmates before they even knew I was overtaking. During my session, I passed the lady four times and lost track of how many times I passed the gent.
In personal I.T.-related news, at my contract job I've started to do some programming, which is a lot more fun that just quality control. My database project has moved forward a bit, with a new table waiting in the wings, and some physical reorganization of digital media in the Secret Underground Lair. Finally, I almost pulled the trigger and bought a domain name, but then I heard that ICANN is supposed to be releasing some new TLDs (Top Level Domains). One of these would be perfect for the site I'm planning, but I may just go with a different site name just to get online.
Lastly, inquiring folks might be wondering what Michael Bay is doing in the title. Its pretty simple, really: as I passed the two walkers, I didn't look to the side or back. For a brief moment, I imagined myself piloting an F1 car and passing the other two at Monza, the sudden blast of dirty air from my wing causing the other two to momentarily lose control and slowing to avoid colliding into each other. I could see the checkered flag....
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Monday, September 30, 2013
The Boys of Summer
When I first typed the title of this blog, I made a small typo and missed an "m", which caused me to chuckle. As this is something of an end-of-summer recap, I had this picture that floated into my mind of a bunch of guys playing baseball with epic Gilgamesh beards! End of Sumer, indeed!
It took just a little bit of time to come up with the title. It's a bit of an onion this time, with a few different, but related meanings. The first, and probably most obvious one, is to baseball. In the United States, the boundaries of summer seem to be Opening Day and the last game of the regular season (that is, the last game before the playoffs). Next, of course, is Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" which I think is a great song, but I never really liked the video (I have not posted the video, as YouTube said there were copyright issues). This song, in turn, refers to at least one song from the Sixties: "Will I See You In September". This song was recorded by several artists, and refers to teen romance, angst and all of that gooey stuff.
What initially got me on this line of thought was the calendar. As I write this, it is 30 September 2013. It was forty-five degrees Fahrenheit when I got up this morning, which made me think of The Mamas' & The Papas' "California Dreaming". I got the newspaper from the sidewalk, and noticed that the remaining foliage was rapid turning colors or already brown. I went back inside and enjoyed a hot cup of tea with some yogurt as I read some email. Jennifer was up and had opened the back door, and Tinka was begging to go outside. Tinka is our rather skittish calico cat, and of the four humans in our home, I rank #3 on her favorites list; if our daughter were still living with us, I would be #4. Tinka was standing by the door with a look of longing in her eyes. I grabbed my mug and walked over to her, opening the door. She must have really wanted to go outside, because she dashed out and began to chew on some grass. Schwarz came out after her and found a spot in the sun.
Everything was perfect about that moment. The cats were enjoying Nature, the air was crisp and clean and the sun was at the perfect angle to make the morning dew sparkly. Today is the perfect denouement for a Chicago summer.
That's all for today- no data to take away from the moment. However, the blog is incomplete without the tagline, so until next time, ...
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
It took just a little bit of time to come up with the title. It's a bit of an onion this time, with a few different, but related meanings. The first, and probably most obvious one, is to baseball. In the United States, the boundaries of summer seem to be Opening Day and the last game of the regular season (that is, the last game before the playoffs). Next, of course, is Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" which I think is a great song, but I never really liked the video (I have not posted the video, as YouTube said there were copyright issues). This song, in turn, refers to at least one song from the Sixties: "Will I See You In September". This song was recorded by several artists, and refers to teen romance, angst and all of that gooey stuff.
What initially got me on this line of thought was the calendar. As I write this, it is 30 September 2013. It was forty-five degrees Fahrenheit when I got up this morning, which made me think of The Mamas' & The Papas' "California Dreaming". I got the newspaper from the sidewalk, and noticed that the remaining foliage was rapid turning colors or already brown. I went back inside and enjoyed a hot cup of tea with some yogurt as I read some email. Jennifer was up and had opened the back door, and Tinka was begging to go outside. Tinka is our rather skittish calico cat, and of the four humans in our home, I rank #3 on her favorites list; if our daughter were still living with us, I would be #4. Tinka was standing by the door with a look of longing in her eyes. I grabbed my mug and walked over to her, opening the door. She must have really wanted to go outside, because she dashed out and began to chew on some grass. Schwarz came out after her and found a spot in the sun.
Everything was perfect about that moment. The cats were enjoying Nature, the air was crisp and clean and the sun was at the perfect angle to make the morning dew sparkly. Today is the perfect denouement for a Chicago summer.
That's all for today- no data to take away from the moment. However, the blog is incomplete without the tagline, so until next time, ...
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Wednesday night at the gym
Tuesday night I got called in to work fairly late, starting at 2100 and finishing up Wednesday morning at 0545- I wasn't kidding about working odd hours. As Jennifer and I had planned on a few errands in the morning, I decided to stay up until stay up until she got up. As I had gone in late, she seemed only slightly surprised to see me sitting at the computer when she emerged from the bedroom. I explained my thinking, and she agreed. She had a quick cup of coffee, and we took care of our errands. We got back, and I hopped in bed, emerging sometime around 1830.
I made a cup of tea and grabbed a yogurt out of the refrigerator, which has become my standard preworkout feeding routine. I think that after honey, strawberry is my favorite yogurt. As I mixed the strawberry into the Greek yogurt, though, I found that the yogurt had become frozen. As it is written on the internet, this gave me a sad. Undaunted, I mixed the strawberry into the yogurt as well as I could, but there was a stubborn block of yogurt ice that resisted all attempts at assimilation. Undaunted, but by now a bit hungrier, I grabbed a smallish saucepan and filled it about halfway with water. Next, I put the yogurt into a bowl, and place that in the saucepan which was now basking on the stove over a low fire. Then, I stirred.
I'm going to say one final thing about yogurt, and then it's off to the gym. Friends, if you're an amateur, leave the yogurt freezing to the yogurt freezing professionals. I did end up with yogurt, and it was pretty good, but instead of that smooth, pudding-like consistency I had expected, I ended up with a dairy product that bore a certain similarity to cottage cheese. Here in the United States, cottage cheese generally is available as a large curd or a small curd product. The best way to describe my yogurt was nano curd: a great deal of liquid had been separated from the solids, and those solids can best be described as curds: not unpleasant. Just unexpected and odd.
Jennifer told me that she had already gotten her workout for the day done (we have an elliptical and some free weights in the basement). It was around 2000 by the time I was ready to hit the gym- I asked if she'd like to come as it was my cardio (track) day. She said, "sure", and so we got our gym duds, grabbed our bags and drove off into the night to the gym. We arrived, got our towels from the attendant, and went off to our separate-but-equal locker facilities and changed into workout shoes.
The park district's rec center has a very nice outdoor track with .5 and .75 mile courses, and the longer one loops around a pond. I like to use this track on Sundays and on evenings when I don't work in the summer. However, its officially autumn here, and the sun is down fairly early so Sundays are the only times I have to use it now. For all of those other times, there is the indoor track.
The indoor track is very nice- it has a joint friendly rubber-like surface with three lanes, one each dedicated to walkers, joggers and runners. Its like a balcony above the two basketball courts, with netting which allows for safely viewing the courts without falling on to them or getting struck by errant basketballs. The thing that is peculiar about the track is the length: 1/11 of a mile. There was a basketball game going on this evening when we were there, and some of the fellas had some pretty good shots, which made the walk a bit more interesting. When I finally finished, Jennifer informed me that I had taken an extra lap, so I ended up with twenty-three... I've got to figure how the lap function on my watch works!
Its been some time, but I finally have some database news. While thinking about this blog, I had some time to work on the database today. I started populating a table that's been sitting empty for some time, and in the midst of data entry I had an idea which sounded good at the time. I quickly created another table, put some data in it and saved it. Next, I went back to the other table and created a lookup and saved it, then went back to data entry. After only a few entries, it hit me that the lookup was not only unnecessary, it was also potentially creating a small mess. I should have tested it before creating it, especially as Access forces the DBA to save whenever changes to a table's design are made. I deleted the relationship and the lookup, and all is good again. One more table and a little more data.
That's all for now. As Always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
I made a cup of tea and grabbed a yogurt out of the refrigerator, which has become my standard preworkout feeding routine. I think that after honey, strawberry is my favorite yogurt. As I mixed the strawberry into the Greek yogurt, though, I found that the yogurt had become frozen. As it is written on the internet, this gave me a sad. Undaunted, I mixed the strawberry into the yogurt as well as I could, but there was a stubborn block of yogurt ice that resisted all attempts at assimilation. Undaunted, but by now a bit hungrier, I grabbed a smallish saucepan and filled it about halfway with water. Next, I put the yogurt into a bowl, and place that in the saucepan which was now basking on the stove over a low fire. Then, I stirred.
I'm going to say one final thing about yogurt, and then it's off to the gym. Friends, if you're an amateur, leave the yogurt freezing to the yogurt freezing professionals. I did end up with yogurt, and it was pretty good, but instead of that smooth, pudding-like consistency I had expected, I ended up with a dairy product that bore a certain similarity to cottage cheese. Here in the United States, cottage cheese generally is available as a large curd or a small curd product. The best way to describe my yogurt was nano curd: a great deal of liquid had been separated from the solids, and those solids can best be described as curds: not unpleasant. Just unexpected and odd.
Jennifer told me that she had already gotten her workout for the day done (we have an elliptical and some free weights in the basement). It was around 2000 by the time I was ready to hit the gym- I asked if she'd like to come as it was my cardio (track) day. She said, "sure", and so we got our gym duds, grabbed our bags and drove off into the night to the gym. We arrived, got our towels from the attendant, and went off to our separate-but-equal locker facilities and changed into workout shoes.
The park district's rec center has a very nice outdoor track with .5 and .75 mile courses, and the longer one loops around a pond. I like to use this track on Sundays and on evenings when I don't work in the summer. However, its officially autumn here, and the sun is down fairly early so Sundays are the only times I have to use it now. For all of those other times, there is the indoor track.
The indoor track is very nice- it has a joint friendly rubber-like surface with three lanes, one each dedicated to walkers, joggers and runners. Its like a balcony above the two basketball courts, with netting which allows for safely viewing the courts without falling on to them or getting struck by errant basketballs. The thing that is peculiar about the track is the length: 1/11 of a mile. There was a basketball game going on this evening when we were there, and some of the fellas had some pretty good shots, which made the walk a bit more interesting. When I finally finished, Jennifer informed me that I had taken an extra lap, so I ended up with twenty-three... I've got to figure how the lap function on my watch works!
Its been some time, but I finally have some database news. While thinking about this blog, I had some time to work on the database today. I started populating a table that's been sitting empty for some time, and in the midst of data entry I had an idea which sounded good at the time. I quickly created another table, put some data in it and saved it. Next, I went back to the other table and created a lookup and saved it, then went back to data entry. After only a few entries, it hit me that the lookup was not only unnecessary, it was also potentially creating a small mess. I should have tested it before creating it, especially as Access forces the DBA to save whenever changes to a table's design are made. I deleted the relationship and the lookup, and all is good again. One more table and a little more data.
That's all for now. As Always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Never ask a geek a question that you really don't want answered....
For those readers who may be geeks, you've probably either seen this before, or actually done it yourself. For those of you who are not geeks, this may apply to your particular realm of expertise as well, and you may find yourself nodding in agreement. For those who are the posers of the questions, you have our collective pity, because geeks are hard-wired this way. Well, some of us are, anyway.
Jennifer was checking her Twitter feed the other day and saw something unfamiliar, so she asked me about it. What is PHP? I replied that it was a programming language; a better answer might have been "it's a scripting language," but that would have been more appropriate for Mr. T rather than my wife. I also told her that there was a book about it in the bookshelf next to the dining room table and gave her the approximate title. Then, just to make sure I had given her the correct information, I found the link on Amazon and sent it to her. I waited patiently- it had to be at least two minutes, and then I texted her, "What, no PHP love?"
Predictably, I did not receive a response.
A long time ago, I had a boss who once said of me, "I once had another employee just like you: when I asked him what time it was, he told me how to make a wrist watch."
My particular genus of geek doesn't get a lot of love when it comes to things which we are able to expound upon. However, I am not unique in my immediate family in this regard. Most all of us will regale the unsuspecting poser of an innocent question with facts, details and minutiae on our particular areas of expertise or interest at the drop of a hat. Jennifer, for example, knows a lot about a lot of things. With her geology background, she'll be more than happy to explain why (as I understand it, anyways) there's no such thing as sand. Nope- just sand-sized particles... and don't even get her started on "jungle." Daniel can wax long and eloquently on cinema, manga, and console video games, as well as Eighties and Nineties pop culture. Mr. T keeps abreast of the business side of gaming companies, and can hold his own in a video game discussion with Daniel. He's also involved with computer graphics cards and game graphics.
Me? Trivia in general- military and music in particular (anything before the 90's- you know, the good stuff), as well as all sorts of PC and software related stuff.
You've been warned.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
*And in my spare time, this weekend I'm web host shopping.
Jennifer was checking her Twitter feed the other day and saw something unfamiliar, so she asked me about it. What is PHP? I replied that it was a programming language; a better answer might have been "it's a scripting language," but that would have been more appropriate for Mr. T rather than my wife. I also told her that there was a book about it in the bookshelf next to the dining room table and gave her the approximate title. Then, just to make sure I had given her the correct information, I found the link on Amazon and sent it to her. I waited patiently- it had to be at least two minutes, and then I texted her, "What, no PHP love?"
Predictably, I did not receive a response.
A long time ago, I had a boss who once said of me, "I once had another employee just like you: when I asked him what time it was, he told me how to make a wrist watch."
My particular genus of geek doesn't get a lot of love when it comes to things which we are able to expound upon. However, I am not unique in my immediate family in this regard. Most all of us will regale the unsuspecting poser of an innocent question with facts, details and minutiae on our particular areas of expertise or interest at the drop of a hat. Jennifer, for example, knows a lot about a lot of things. With her geology background, she'll be more than happy to explain why (as I understand it, anyways) there's no such thing as sand. Nope- just sand-sized particles... and don't even get her started on "jungle." Daniel can wax long and eloquently on cinema, manga, and console video games, as well as Eighties and Nineties pop culture. Mr. T keeps abreast of the business side of gaming companies, and can hold his own in a video game discussion with Daniel. He's also involved with computer graphics cards and game graphics.
Me? Trivia in general- military and music in particular (anything before the 90's- you know, the good stuff), as well as all sorts of PC and software related stuff.
You've been warned.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
*And in my spare time, this weekend I'm web host shopping.
Monday, September 16, 2013
#notsobigdata- an update, a new spreadsheet, and gym rats!
Sometimes I feel like a nanobot in the data universe. A pretty diligent, hard-working nanobot, to be sure. But in terms of the data I typically handle, still very much a nanobot... and in the For What It's Worth Department, nano == 10-9.
I didn't get many cards for my birthday this year: actually, I only got one, and it was from an insurance agent in Utah. I live in Illinois; I guess I won't get any when their #notsobigdata specialists clean up his mail list. In the bigger scheme of things, I guess the ~seventy-five cents this agent probably spent on this card isn't any big deal. However, when one considers the cost of bad data (and in this instance, my name is bad data) on a larger scale, its easily into the millions of dollars when one considers how many (postal) mail lists exist. In my current role, I have the opportunity to look at all sorts of mailing list data. Just last Saturday I was doing a quality check on a segment of a job, and I ran across some bad data. In this particular instance, the program looked for the addressee's (member's) first name (fname) and last name (lname). This particular customer has a couple of places where the lname is used and the fname is not. The customer wants verbiage like "To the lname home", in some places and "To the head of the lname family" in others. Its really a nice, personalized rewards mailpiece, but it breaks down when the data are incorrect. As in, when the member puts their lname in the fname field, and vice versa.
Lets face it, you and I fill out lots of forms. For our favorite stores, there may be some sort of loyalty or rewards program: we agree to give the store certain information, and in return, they pass along some savings. Jennifer and I (and Daniel) are members of a number of these, and for the most part, the paltry amount of personally identifiable information (PII) that we surrender is a fairly small price to pay in return for the savings on merchandise that we realize. There are other programs that we participate in, though, where we have some options as to our input, and in these we further limit our exposure. Yes, we reap some benefits of the programs, but we do not share all of the data they request.
In other data news, Jennifer and I have been going to the gym recently, and now that we've been going for a few weeks, its time for a report.
It only took us about a week to recognize many of the "regulars" at our local Parks and Recreation Department Fitness Center (a.k.a. the gym). There is what I suppose is the usual assortment of 40- and 50-something folks wanting to get (back) into shape, some 20- and 30-something women.... mostly women who hit the cardio equipment hard, and then there are the runners, lifters and other sundry amateur athletes.
Among the lifters, I'm the only one who keeps a log book. At least, I've never seen anyone else there with a logbook. My logbook goes back about two years, and documents my previous intermittent attempts to become a more physically fit human specimen. Now that Jennifer and I are working together, the plan is finally starting to come together. My logbook has blood pressure, weight, and exercise activity. It is going to get transferred to a spreadsheet pretty soon- and that's the #notsobigdata. #notsobigdata really is important, especially if it pertains to you or to someone you love. Don't be a victim of big data. Use #notsobigdata to make a positive impact on your life!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
**I almost forgot: time to post links to some *ahem* golden oldies!
I didn't get many cards for my birthday this year: actually, I only got one, and it was from an insurance agent in Utah. I live in Illinois; I guess I won't get any when their #notsobigdata specialists clean up his mail list. In the bigger scheme of things, I guess the ~seventy-five cents this agent probably spent on this card isn't any big deal. However, when one considers the cost of bad data (and in this instance, my name is bad data) on a larger scale, its easily into the millions of dollars when one considers how many (postal) mail lists exist. In my current role, I have the opportunity to look at all sorts of mailing list data. Just last Saturday I was doing a quality check on a segment of a job, and I ran across some bad data. In this particular instance, the program looked for the addressee's (member's) first name (fname) and last name (lname). This particular customer has a couple of places where the lname is used and the fname is not. The customer wants verbiage like "To the lname home", in some places and "To the head of the lname family" in others. Its really a nice, personalized rewards mailpiece, but it breaks down when the data are incorrect. As in, when the member puts their lname in the fname field, and vice versa.
Lets face it, you and I fill out lots of forms. For our favorite stores, there may be some sort of loyalty or rewards program: we agree to give the store certain information, and in return, they pass along some savings. Jennifer and I (and Daniel) are members of a number of these, and for the most part, the paltry amount of personally identifiable information (PII) that we surrender is a fairly small price to pay in return for the savings on merchandise that we realize. There are other programs that we participate in, though, where we have some options as to our input, and in these we further limit our exposure. Yes, we reap some benefits of the programs, but we do not share all of the data they request.
In other data news, Jennifer and I have been going to the gym recently, and now that we've been going for a few weeks, its time for a report.
It only took us about a week to recognize many of the "regulars" at our local Parks and Recreation Department Fitness Center (a.k.a. the gym). There is what I suppose is the usual assortment of 40- and 50-something folks wanting to get (back) into shape, some 20- and 30-something women.... mostly women who hit the cardio equipment hard, and then there are the runners, lifters and other sundry amateur athletes.
Among the lifters, I'm the only one who keeps a log book. At least, I've never seen anyone else there with a logbook. My logbook goes back about two years, and documents my previous intermittent attempts to become a more physically fit human specimen. Now that Jennifer and I are working together, the plan is finally starting to come together. My logbook has blood pressure, weight, and exercise activity. It is going to get transferred to a spreadsheet pretty soon- and that's the #notsobigdata. #notsobigdata really is important, especially if it pertains to you or to someone you love. Don't be a victim of big data. Use #notsobigdata to make a positive impact on your life!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
**I almost forgot: time to post links to some *ahem* golden oldies!
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
#notsobigdata updates
Well, its getting down to the wire, so to speak. TechNet is gone, and I'm thinking its time to make the big leap to a website. Yes, I am aware there is no real connection between a website and TechNet, but in my little #notsobigdata corner of the world, a tenuous link can be postulated. The connection is this: as TechNet was considered to be an education expense, a website is the next best thing (I think you might actually have to know me to make the connection). And so, I will create a website (eventually).
I'm in no real hurry to create a website, partly because up until now I've had no reason to have a website. I mean, there are oodles of websites out in cyberspace with even less reason to exist than I can think of, but I'd like to think that my little corner of the web will have some sort of special significance. Yup, I'd really like to think that. Just like that special feeling you get when its jeans day, and everyone wears jeans. Still, there are a few things that outweigh the negatives, like experience and education. I've found- at least for me- that rolling up your sleeves and actually working on something is a worthwhile investment of time. So, when all of the factors are weighed, it seems that the website is on the way. I've started doing some research- pricing, features, domain names, but I think its going to be a bit before I take the plunge, as it appears that the domain name I wanted is taken (well, its registered as a .com domain but does not appear to be active; .net is currently available and I might go that route).
In other #notsobigdata news, I found an interesting piece on LinkedIn about Little Data. #notsobigdata is important, but it's not always so easy to define. One commenter on the LinkedIn piece had a really nice definition of Small Data- fairly short and to the point.
And unfortunately, that's all the news for now. If I don't publish this now, I don't know when I ever will!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
I'm in no real hurry to create a website, partly because up until now I've had no reason to have a website. I mean, there are oodles of websites out in cyberspace with even less reason to exist than I can think of, but I'd like to think that my little corner of the web will have some sort of special significance. Yup, I'd really like to think that. Just like that special feeling you get when its jeans day, and everyone wears jeans. Still, there are a few things that outweigh the negatives, like experience and education. I've found- at least for me- that rolling up your sleeves and actually working on something is a worthwhile investment of time. So, when all of the factors are weighed, it seems that the website is on the way. I've started doing some research- pricing, features, domain names, but I think its going to be a bit before I take the plunge, as it appears that the domain name I wanted is taken (well, its registered as a .com domain but does not appear to be active; .net is currently available and I might go that route).
In other #notsobigdata news, I found an interesting piece on LinkedIn about Little Data. #notsobigdata is important, but it's not always so easy to define. One commenter on the LinkedIn piece had a really nice definition of Small Data- fairly short and to the point.
And unfortunately, that's all the news for now. If I don't publish this now, I don't know when I ever will!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
 |
| Normally not very photogenic, Schwarz appears to be posing here. |
Sunday, September 8, 2013
#notsobigdata-a birthday, an epiphany and a conundrum
My birthday was this past week, and as birthdays go it was not spectacular. That's fine with me, as I grew up without most of the pomp and circumstance that is normally associated with kids' birthdays here in the United States. Still, as birthdays go, it wasn't bad. Jennifer and I had planned on going to the fitness center (*it's officially the fitness center to distinguish it from the gym, which is the big hardwood-floored room where basketball and volleyball are played, but since "gym" is colloquially used to mean 'a place where you go to lift weights, do cardio and sweat', all references to "gym" will refer to the weight and cardio place). I got up early, and after a few phone calls and a chat with tree trimmers who showed up unexpectedly to do some utility easement cleaning for the electric company, we were off to the gym. In retrospect, I could have slept in. However, we did have a very good workout.
The epiphany was the night before. Part of Mr. T's education this year is going to be about investing. He reads the business section of the Chicago Tribune every day, so this is really a logical progression. I figured the best way to do this would be to make a fantasy stock portfolio and track its performance in terms of profits and losses. He has Excel 2007 on his PC, so I whipped up a spreadsheet that he could use as a sort of master ledger for the exercise. I've done these before, so it came together pretty quickly- I even color-coded the cells with formulas so he wouldn't break anything.
The whole "whipping up" process took about ten minutes, and it was nearly perfect and complete. Of course, nearly == almost, and in this case there was a little issue which I had never had to deal with before.
The rules of the exercise include a provision for the paying of commissions on the virtual purchase and sale of equities, so I have a column for commissions- for the purpose of the exercise, this is set to == 10 USD. I did not build the commission directly into a purchase formula because this spreadsheet can be repurposed to do real world investing, and the ability to change the commission price should be available to the user. So, the grand total for a transaction is the purchase price ((price * number of shares) + commission). The problem is that this column ("total") appears as part of another formula which shows total available funds. As there are initially twenty-five rows for transactions, the user automatically starts off with a 250 USD deficit in their available funds, as 0*0+10==10. So, I embarked upon a quest to find the function that would take care of this.
I knew what I wanted, and a simple IF/THEN script would have done the trick, but VBA in newer versions of Microsoft Office (2007 and on) have apparently also had the developer tools revamped, as the Expression Builder I had hope to see was nowhere to be found.
Bummer.
On to Plan B: the library. My personal collection, that is. I spent a few hours pouring through my books, and came close to a solution on several occasions, but as they say, "close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades". I found the definitive solution (and syntax) on an Excel site. (For those with inquiring minds, the function is IFSUMS.)
This made me happy. See, I have a smiley :)
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
The epiphany was the night before. Part of Mr. T's education this year is going to be about investing. He reads the business section of the Chicago Tribune every day, so this is really a logical progression. I figured the best way to do this would be to make a fantasy stock portfolio and track its performance in terms of profits and losses. He has Excel 2007 on his PC, so I whipped up a spreadsheet that he could use as a sort of master ledger for the exercise. I've done these before, so it came together pretty quickly- I even color-coded the cells with formulas so he wouldn't break anything.
The whole "whipping up" process took about ten minutes, and it was nearly perfect and complete. Of course, nearly == almost, and in this case there was a little issue which I had never had to deal with before.
The rules of the exercise include a provision for the paying of commissions on the virtual purchase and sale of equities, so I have a column for commissions- for the purpose of the exercise, this is set to == 10 USD. I did not build the commission directly into a purchase formula because this spreadsheet can be repurposed to do real world investing, and the ability to change the commission price should be available to the user. So, the grand total for a transaction is the purchase price ((price * number of shares) + commission). The problem is that this column ("total") appears as part of another formula which shows total available funds. As there are initially twenty-five rows for transactions, the user automatically starts off with a 250 USD deficit in their available funds, as 0*0+10==10. So, I embarked upon a quest to find the function that would take care of this.
I knew what I wanted, and a simple IF/THEN script would have done the trick, but VBA in newer versions of Microsoft Office (2007 and on) have apparently also had the developer tools revamped, as the Expression Builder I had hope to see was nowhere to be found.
Bummer.
On to Plan B: the library. My personal collection, that is. I spent a few hours pouring through my books, and came close to a solution on several occasions, but as they say, "close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades". I found the definitive solution (and syntax) on an Excel site. (For those with inquiring minds, the function is IFSUMS.)
This made me happy. See, I have a smiley :)
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Meanwhile, at the railroad crossing...
Late Friday afternoon (August 30), a magnificent storm blew through our area. It was a wonderfully violent display of Nature, with gusting winds, chain lightning, driving rain and an unrealized threat of damaging hail. There was no real damage in its aftermath that I saw- however, according to the Chicago Tribune, over 150,000 homes lost power briefly, but as of ~2200 CST (Central Standard Time, or GMT -6), about two-thirds of these had power restored.
We knew the storm was coming- the National Weather Service (NWS) had issued some warnings at least a day in advance, so when it hit it wasn't really a surprise to the denizens of the Secret Underground Lair. I had worked late Thursday- well into the wee hours of Friday- and had consequently risen late on Friday. Jennifer and I were able to get all of our necessary running around done long before the storm hit, and I decided a nap was in order. I got about seventy-five minutes of snooze before the storm arrived, and I was able to get some really nice photos. I did a little experimentation with flash, and was quite pleased with the results.
The storm was quite amazing- and I had to get to work. I took my time getting ready, which initially annoyed Jennifer until I reminded her that it was the Friday night of a holiday weekend (Monday is Labor Day, a national holiday here in the United States). I expected traffic to be exceedingly bad because of the holiday and the storm. As it turned out, by the time I left (~1900 CST), the pavement was actually drying off, and the traffic was as good as could be expected. As the light turned green at the intersection I was at, I saw that the railroad crossing gates ahead were coming down. I pulled up to the crossing and waited.
Although I have never counted them, I've read that there are twenty-eight railroad crossings in our town. In fact, I can barely drive a mile in most directions from our house without having to cross tracks. The thing is, I like trains. I really like trains. When I was younger, I wanted to build a model railroad. When the kids were old enough to appreciate it, I ran an N scale train around the Christmas tree, and one year ran a Lego train under the tree. One year, we drove up to Union, Illinois, to visit the Illinois Railway Museum, the largest railroad museum in the United States. When we got cats, we stopped putting a tree up, but I still love trains. Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon is still one of my favorite PC games, and the online game I play most often is Train Station.
So, yeah, I like trains. When I'm trying to get somewhere, though... well, I tolerate them (and now we- actually I- am back on... track). This particular train was pulled by a single diesel electric locomotive, and moving fairly quickly. It was comprised entirely of container cars. However, the setting is everything....
As I was sitting there in my pickup truck, watching the railcars pass, I decided to try and find a song on the radio. It only took one or two presses of the "search" softkey on the radio to find a station that was playing Poison's classic "Every Rose Has Its Thorn". Now, I'm happily married- Jennifer and I have been married for over twenty-five years, and even though this song is a boyfriend-girlfriend cheating song, it is still one of those classic 80's hair band ballads that puts me in a contemplative mood every time I hear it. Not because the song holds any special significance to me, but because it just takes me back. Sometimes nostalgia is just best taken at face value. Adding to the time travel nostalgia was the actual atmosphere: to the north, the sky was clear and blue, with a very distinct line of clouds that defined the storm front. To the south, the sky was pouty and petulant, serving up shades of grey with chain lightning for punctuation. Of course, I was eventually going to head south.
Nostalgia can be a wonderful thing. I suppose if it had been a passenger train, the Poison song would not have had quite the effect as, say, Steve Goodman's City Of New Orleans. Steve wrote it, but I think Arlo Guthrie (yes, Woody's son) had the larger commercial success with the song. And the reason this would have been more powerful for me, is because I used to perform it at a college coffeehouse in the Seventies once a month as part of a 3-5 song set. I did it a bit more like Steve than Arlo, and it was always warmly received. I guess everyone has their song, and every rose does have its thorn.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
We knew the storm was coming- the National Weather Service (NWS) had issued some warnings at least a day in advance, so when it hit it wasn't really a surprise to the denizens of the Secret Underground Lair. I had worked late Thursday- well into the wee hours of Friday- and had consequently risen late on Friday. Jennifer and I were able to get all of our necessary running around done long before the storm hit, and I decided a nap was in order. I got about seventy-five minutes of snooze before the storm arrived, and I was able to get some really nice photos. I did a little experimentation with flash, and was quite pleased with the results.
 |
| Storm in background |
The storm was quite amazing- and I had to get to work. I took my time getting ready, which initially annoyed Jennifer until I reminded her that it was the Friday night of a holiday weekend (Monday is Labor Day, a national holiday here in the United States). I expected traffic to be exceedingly bad because of the holiday and the storm. As it turned out, by the time I left (~1900 CST), the pavement was actually drying off, and the traffic was as good as could be expected. As the light turned green at the intersection I was at, I saw that the railroad crossing gates ahead were coming down. I pulled up to the crossing and waited.
Although I have never counted them, I've read that there are twenty-eight railroad crossings in our town. In fact, I can barely drive a mile in most directions from our house without having to cross tracks. The thing is, I like trains. I really like trains. When I was younger, I wanted to build a model railroad. When the kids were old enough to appreciate it, I ran an N scale train around the Christmas tree, and one year ran a Lego train under the tree. One year, we drove up to Union, Illinois, to visit the Illinois Railway Museum, the largest railroad museum in the United States. When we got cats, we stopped putting a tree up, but I still love trains. Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon is still one of my favorite PC games, and the online game I play most often is Train Station.
So, yeah, I like trains. When I'm trying to get somewhere, though... well, I tolerate them (and now we- actually I- am back on... track). This particular train was pulled by a single diesel electric locomotive, and moving fairly quickly. It was comprised entirely of container cars. However, the setting is everything....
As I was sitting there in my pickup truck, watching the railcars pass, I decided to try and find a song on the radio. It only took one or two presses of the "search" softkey on the radio to find a station that was playing Poison's classic "Every Rose Has Its Thorn". Now, I'm happily married- Jennifer and I have been married for over twenty-five years, and even though this song is a boyfriend-girlfriend cheating song, it is still one of those classic 80's hair band ballads that puts me in a contemplative mood every time I hear it. Not because the song holds any special significance to me, but because it just takes me back. Sometimes nostalgia is just best taken at face value. Adding to the time travel nostalgia was the actual atmosphere: to the north, the sky was clear and blue, with a very distinct line of clouds that defined the storm front. To the south, the sky was pouty and petulant, serving up shades of grey with chain lightning for punctuation. Of course, I was eventually going to head south.
Nostalgia can be a wonderful thing. I suppose if it had been a passenger train, the Poison song would not have had quite the effect as, say, Steve Goodman's City Of New Orleans. Steve wrote it, but I think Arlo Guthrie (yes, Woody's son) had the larger commercial success with the song. And the reason this would have been more powerful for me, is because I used to perform it at a college coffeehouse in the Seventies once a month as part of a 3-5 song set. I did it a bit more like Steve than Arlo, and it was always warmly received. I guess everyone has their song, and every rose does have its thorn.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Tesla- Motors, that is... not Nikola
I've been following Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) with a bit of interest lately, as have many market watchers and potential investors. For those who are unaware, Tesla manufactures luxury electric vehicles in California, which is also currently their primary market. Tesla has been in the news recently (hence, this blog) because of their very positive sales numbers. According to a USA Today story, Tesla's solitary product, a luxury performance sedan, outsold Porsche, Lincoln, Land Rover, Jaguar... in fact, the first half of 2013, the Model S even outsold the Audi A6 and Lexus GS in California, beating Tesla's sales target for the entire year, and turning a profit.
I'm pretty impressed, but there is not enough here for me to invest. Here's why.
Like most investors of any size (and I'm definitely in the small category), I'm pretty careful about where my money goes. Also, like most investors, I've had my share of hits, misses and "woulda, coulda, shoulda" investments. I looked at Tesla, much like everyone that has an interest in "The Market" when that story came out; at that time I think the stock closed just under 132 USD per share. Today it is around 167 USD per share. When Tesla was an IPO (initial public offering) it was offered at around 37 USD per share. So as of today, this stock is essentially a "four-bagger"; that is, it has quadrupled in price. If you had purchased it at the IPO, you'd be sitting on a pretty profit.
Of course, if you had purchased Ford (NYSE:F) in the dark days of 2008, you could have had a share for less than 1 USD, I believe. It closed today just under 16 USD per share. A 16 bagger.
When it comes to investing, one of the greatest voices I've ever heard was Peter Lynch. Lynch was the first fund manager to take a mutual fund over the 1 billion USD valuation. I've learned much from his book One Up On Wall Street and I highly recommend it to all investors. Lynch said he learned much from watching his wife: while he concentrated on the "gee-whiz" high tech stocks of the era, she would continuously shop at the same stores and purchase the same brands. Of course, she was not an investor- she was a consumer. But, when he started observing her behavior, he ran the numbers on some of her favorites and had one of those epiphanies: these companies were not merely solid investments, but were growing! After some time, her purchasing patterns changed, and he asked her about this. She gave her views and then he checked the numbers. Sure enough, they were no longer growing and he saw "sell" written all over their balance sheets (figuratively speaking).
So, my takeaway from Mr. Lynch regarding stocks is this: more than anything else, if you can't explain what a company does- no matter how good the fundamentals look- walk away, McFly. These equities are not the equities you're looking for. My extrapolated corollary is this: if you can't see, feel, taste or touch it, walk away.
And so it goes, sadly, with Tesla Motors. I really like the story: an efficient, high performance, high-tech automobile- even made in the United States! But after that, it goes south for me really fast. First, there's the ~90K USD entry price. The company has announced more models are in the pipeline, including a more down-to-earth ~30K USD model. That's good. However, even though I learned today that Tesla does have dealerships outside of California (in several parts of the world, including two in the Chicago area), I have never seen one, nor do I know anyone that owns one, nor have I ever seen one of their charging stations.
So, although this may be the next Google or Apple, it just isn't a good fit for my investing style, and I'm going to take a pass.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
I'm pretty impressed, but there is not enough here for me to invest. Here's why.
Like most investors of any size (and I'm definitely in the small category), I'm pretty careful about where my money goes. Also, like most investors, I've had my share of hits, misses and "woulda, coulda, shoulda" investments. I looked at Tesla, much like everyone that has an interest in "The Market" when that story came out; at that time I think the stock closed just under 132 USD per share. Today it is around 167 USD per share. When Tesla was an IPO (initial public offering) it was offered at around 37 USD per share. So as of today, this stock is essentially a "four-bagger"; that is, it has quadrupled in price. If you had purchased it at the IPO, you'd be sitting on a pretty profit.
Of course, if you had purchased Ford (NYSE:F) in the dark days of 2008, you could have had a share for less than 1 USD, I believe. It closed today just under 16 USD per share. A 16 bagger.
When it comes to investing, one of the greatest voices I've ever heard was Peter Lynch. Lynch was the first fund manager to take a mutual fund over the 1 billion USD valuation. I've learned much from his book One Up On Wall Street and I highly recommend it to all investors. Lynch said he learned much from watching his wife: while he concentrated on the "gee-whiz" high tech stocks of the era, she would continuously shop at the same stores and purchase the same brands. Of course, she was not an investor- she was a consumer. But, when he started observing her behavior, he ran the numbers on some of her favorites and had one of those epiphanies: these companies were not merely solid investments, but were growing! After some time, her purchasing patterns changed, and he asked her about this. She gave her views and then he checked the numbers. Sure enough, they were no longer growing and he saw "sell" written all over their balance sheets (figuratively speaking).
So, my takeaway from Mr. Lynch regarding stocks is this: more than anything else, if you can't explain what a company does- no matter how good the fundamentals look- walk away, McFly. These equities are not the equities you're looking for. My extrapolated corollary is this: if you can't see, feel, taste or touch it, walk away.
And so it goes, sadly, with Tesla Motors. I really like the story: an efficient, high performance, high-tech automobile- even made in the United States! But after that, it goes south for me really fast. First, there's the ~90K USD entry price. The company has announced more models are in the pipeline, including a more down-to-earth ~30K USD model. That's good. However, even though I learned today that Tesla does have dealerships outside of California (in several parts of the world, including two in the Chicago area), I have never seen one, nor do I know anyone that owns one, nor have I ever seen one of their charging stations.
So, although this may be the next Google or Apple, it just isn't a good fit for my investing style, and I'm going to take a pass.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Pop flops
I've been promising- well, threatening... no, alluding to an upcoming blog for a bit that would actually talk a bit about music. Music, of course, it a natural tie-in, as my original analog (pen and paper) database was all about my music collection, which at that time consisted of LPs, singles (both 45s and 78s- my grandfather worked for Rock-Ola, and we had a juke box in the basement), cassettes and eight tracks. I also used to do music popularity polls among my friends.
Having said all of that, I want to say that the opinions expressed here are entirely my own, and the reader is free to disagree- I can promise I'll probably make someone at least a little angry, and that someone will probably think, "Hey, he can't say that about (fill in the artist)". It's okay- feel free to continuing to like the artist or song- these are just my thoughts.
I'd like to say that there are rules to this little rant. Firstly, it's about big stars that released crummy songs, which went on to become big. The big stars also have to normally put out quality music (Bob Dylan and Alanis Morissette may be able to turn a clever lyric, but they can't sing... and Alanis is not even in the same league as Dylan). It's also not one- or two-hit wonders that produce music that is quirky, or odd or just plain bad (Alanis) music. It's also not about one- or two-hit wonders that odd, quirky, or bad music that I happen to like- Robert Hazard's Escalator Of Life, Escape Club's Wild, Wild West, The Jim Carroll Band's People Who Died. It's also not about odd, maybe even good songs by artists I don't like- Neil Young's Hey, Hey ,My, My (Into The Black). No- the rules are simple- big artist, bad song, commercial success.
In researching this blog (yes, I do research), I found out some interesting things about the songs: two of the three were written in conjunction with death- one by a writer with a terminal illness, and the other as a memorial to a child. The other one was claimed to be autobiographical by the artist, but the writer (not the same person) said it definitely was not. So, without further ado...
#3- Leaving Las Vegas by Sheryl Crow. I'm not a huge fan of Sheryl, but she has produced a couple of songs that I really like which I can only classify as "slacker" songs (if you know Soak Up The Sun) you get the idea. This was the song which was claimed to be autobiographical. I don't know- she just slumbers emotionlessly through this thorough waste of 5:10.
#2 All Of My Love by Led Zepplin. It was written in honor of Robert Plant's son, who died of a stomach infection at the age of 5. It's just a horrible song.
#1 The Greatest Love Of All by Whitney Houston. I like most all of Whitney's work, but this song is horrid. Composed by a woman with a terminal illness, it should just never have been recorded. Whitney sings it badly, the video is ...odd, and the verses just fly in the face of my beliefs: the greatest love is not self love. We have a word for that in English- it's narcissism. It is unholy and unhealthy.
And that's a wrap for now. Comments are welcome, especially if you know of any other flops- just keep to the rules: big artist, commercially successful song, bad song.
No data tonight!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
*Around every five entries, I provide links to some older posts you may have missed- here's today's crop-
Having said all of that, I want to say that the opinions expressed here are entirely my own, and the reader is free to disagree- I can promise I'll probably make someone at least a little angry, and that someone will probably think, "Hey, he can't say that about (fill in the artist)". It's okay- feel free to continuing to like the artist or song- these are just my thoughts.
I'd like to say that there are rules to this little rant. Firstly, it's about big stars that released crummy songs, which went on to become big. The big stars also have to normally put out quality music (Bob Dylan and Alanis Morissette may be able to turn a clever lyric, but they can't sing... and Alanis is not even in the same league as Dylan). It's also not one- or two-hit wonders that produce music that is quirky, or odd or just plain bad (Alanis) music. It's also not about one- or two-hit wonders that odd, quirky, or bad music that I happen to like- Robert Hazard's Escalator Of Life, Escape Club's Wild, Wild West, The Jim Carroll Band's People Who Died. It's also not about odd, maybe even good songs by artists I don't like- Neil Young's Hey, Hey ,My, My (Into The Black). No- the rules are simple- big artist, bad song, commercial success.
In researching this blog (yes, I do research), I found out some interesting things about the songs: two of the three were written in conjunction with death- one by a writer with a terminal illness, and the other as a memorial to a child. The other one was claimed to be autobiographical by the artist, but the writer (not the same person) said it definitely was not. So, without further ado...
#3- Leaving Las Vegas by Sheryl Crow. I'm not a huge fan of Sheryl, but she has produced a couple of songs that I really like which I can only classify as "slacker" songs (if you know Soak Up The Sun) you get the idea. This was the song which was claimed to be autobiographical. I don't know- she just slumbers emotionlessly through this thorough waste of 5:10.
#2 All Of My Love by Led Zepplin. It was written in honor of Robert Plant's son, who died of a stomach infection at the age of 5. It's just a horrible song.
#1 The Greatest Love Of All by Whitney Houston. I like most all of Whitney's work, but this song is horrid. Composed by a woman with a terminal illness, it should just never have been recorded. Whitney sings it badly, the video is ...odd, and the verses just fly in the face of my beliefs: the greatest love is not self love. We have a word for that in English- it's narcissism. It is unholy and unhealthy.
And that's a wrap for now. Comments are welcome, especially if you know of any other flops- just keep to the rules: big artist, commercially successful song, bad song.
No data tonight!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
*Around every five entries, I provide links to some older posts you may have missed- here's today's crop-
Sunday, August 25, 2013
#notsobigdata- an epiphany of sorts
I recall writing recently that I was going to lay off of the data-focused posts for a bit and get back to the format of life in and around the Secret Underground Lair for a bit. I was even ready to go with a new topic, a music topic that is near and dear to my heart: why did (fill in the name of a popular and talented musical artist- singer or band) record that atrocity? Furthermore, why did it sell and why did it receive massive airplay? Alas, that will have to wait for another day, because I had one of those moments, and now the Secret Underground Lair's Data Vault will never be the same.
As I had briefly mentioned in an earlier blog, I had updated a table which had the effect of blowing out all of my queries. This is not important right now, as the total amount of data is still under 5Mb(!) and there are still fewer than 900 records in the main data table. For the purpose of updating this table, though, I decided to make a query which would simply list movie titles and formats. So, I sat down with the query wizard and proceeded to make a simple query which would output an alpha list of only movies, as well as their formats.
Simple, right? Muahaha, I guess the air in the Secret Underground Lair was a bit thin when I tried to do this, because I kept on trying the same thing and I kept on getting the same error. Suddenly, as I was staring at the Criteria in Design View, it hit me: it was not working because when I tried to run with the criterion I had selected, the criterion was not recognized. In plain English, I wanted what I thought was data, but Access interpreted it as a displayed name.
Since there are only two pieces of data in the table, I figured out that Access wanted to see the record's autonumber rather than the name displayed in the target table. I switched the so that Criteria==9 (where 9==the record number of the piece of data that I actually wanted to use), and it worked. Which means, if I'm feeling adventurous, I'll save a copy of the database and figure out how the relationships are set up, and then correct so they are pointing to the desired field in the source table. Then, I will eliminate the autonumber field, setting up the only remaining data as the primary key.This will lighten the database a bit, and make it much easier to write queries, as the criteria will all be in plain English. And going forward, all new single field tables will not have an autonumber.
Next time, I'll try to get those songs out, as well as an idea for a relatively ultralight database that I had some ideas about. Until then,...
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
As I had briefly mentioned in an earlier blog, I had updated a table which had the effect of blowing out all of my queries. This is not important right now, as the total amount of data is still under 5Mb(!) and there are still fewer than 900 records in the main data table. For the purpose of updating this table, though, I decided to make a query which would simply list movie titles and formats. So, I sat down with the query wizard and proceeded to make a simple query which would output an alpha list of only movies, as well as their formats.
Simple, right? Muahaha, I guess the air in the Secret Underground Lair was a bit thin when I tried to do this, because I kept on trying the same thing and I kept on getting the same error. Suddenly, as I was staring at the Criteria in Design View, it hit me: it was not working because when I tried to run with the criterion I had selected, the criterion was not recognized. In plain English, I wanted what I thought was data, but Access interpreted it as a displayed name.
Since there are only two pieces of data in the table, I figured out that Access wanted to see the record's autonumber rather than the name displayed in the target table. I switched the so that Criteria==9 (where 9==the record number of the piece of data that I actually wanted to use), and it worked. Which means, if I'm feeling adventurous, I'll save a copy of the database and figure out how the relationships are set up, and then correct so they are pointing to the desired field in the source table. Then, I will eliminate the autonumber field, setting up the only remaining data as the primary key.This will lighten the database a bit, and make it much easier to write queries, as the criteria will all be in plain English. And going forward, all new single field tables will not have an autonumber.
Next time, I'll try to get those songs out, as well as an idea for a relatively ultralight database that I had some ideas about. Until then,...
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
What's in a name? Or, for Bowie fans, Changes.
As I progress through a deeper experience (and hopefully a greater understanding) of not-so-big-data, I've come to realize that Ye Olde Blogge needs a bit of a tech refresh. Nothing really out of my comfort zone, but a few changes to make that old, familiar sweater feel more comfortable in 2013. Therefore, I've made a few minor changes to the look, and updated the title- which now more closely aligns with my philosophy on data.
I'd like to take a few steps back and try to explain why #notsobigdata is vitally important, possibly even more than Big Data or Megatrends. By the way, I did not read John Naisbitt's Megatrends, but I do remember seeing it in bookstores (does anyone remember bookstores?)
#notsobigdata, though, is both important and timely. It does not necessarily appeal to larger corporate consumers, but rather to ordinary folks, SOHOs and SMBs... a whole lotta acronyms that identify data producers and consumers... folks that, if they knew how to gather or interpret data, could possibly compete more successfully with the big players in their respective industries, or budget money better.
My #notsobigdata is focused on insurance and entertainment at this particular moment. Insurance and entertainment may seem like strange bedfellows to the casual observer, but have you ever considered how much media you have purchased in the past year? Have you ever considered how you would replace it should something catastrophic happen? In other words, if you have a collection of media that is stolen or destroyed, how would you recoup that loss?
The "cloud" is a consideration, I suppose. You could store all of the data about your collection(s) there. The problem I have with the cloud is that its hardly private- and this is true of all of your web-based email as well. I've never been really comfortable with posting all sorts of photos on the internet, which is the primary reason I don't post many pictures- and the ones that I do post are generally not of persons. I also take steps to control PII (personally identifiable information)- which is why nicknames are often used in this blog.
Not to belabor the point, as I've mentioned this at least a few times- the biggest problem I have with data is actually entering it into the tables or worksheets (I'm currently using both Excel and Access for this project). It's not that I mind doing it, it's just that I'm not particularly quick (~30 wpm). And, I don't have enough data in some of the tables yet to justify making some nice-looking front-end which could speed the data entry process. I do see a future for dashboards, though, and possibly some sort of map-like application. Alas, those things are the toys which may be in the database of my future- but for now, I have to be content with building my as yet to be glorious database one cell at a time.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
I'd like to take a few steps back and try to explain why #notsobigdata is vitally important, possibly even more than Big Data or Megatrends. By the way, I did not read John Naisbitt's Megatrends, but I do remember seeing it in bookstores (does anyone remember bookstores?)
#notsobigdata, though, is both important and timely. It does not necessarily appeal to larger corporate consumers, but rather to ordinary folks, SOHOs and SMBs... a whole lotta acronyms that identify data producers and consumers... folks that, if they knew how to gather or interpret data, could possibly compete more successfully with the big players in their respective industries, or budget money better.
My #notsobigdata is focused on insurance and entertainment at this particular moment. Insurance and entertainment may seem like strange bedfellows to the casual observer, but have you ever considered how much media you have purchased in the past year? Have you ever considered how you would replace it should something catastrophic happen? In other words, if you have a collection of media that is stolen or destroyed, how would you recoup that loss?
The "cloud" is a consideration, I suppose. You could store all of the data about your collection(s) there. The problem I have with the cloud is that its hardly private- and this is true of all of your web-based email as well. I've never been really comfortable with posting all sorts of photos on the internet, which is the primary reason I don't post many pictures- and the ones that I do post are generally not of persons. I also take steps to control PII (personally identifiable information)- which is why nicknames are often used in this blog.
Not to belabor the point, as I've mentioned this at least a few times- the biggest problem I have with data is actually entering it into the tables or worksheets (I'm currently using both Excel and Access for this project). It's not that I mind doing it, it's just that I'm not particularly quick (~30 wpm). And, I don't have enough data in some of the tables yet to justify making some nice-looking front-end which could speed the data entry process. I do see a future for dashboards, though, and possibly some sort of map-like application. Alas, those things are the toys which may be in the database of my future- but for now, I have to be content with building my as yet to be glorious database one cell at a time.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
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