Sunday, December 27, 2015

Merry Christmas, Happy Christmas

Merry Christmas or Happy Christmas or whatever you might say in your neighborhood. Or not.

Those of us here in the United States have a way of assuming that folks everywhere do things in the same fashion that we do. And then we beat ourselves up for this notion. However, I'm thinking that this might just be simply human nature rather than American stupidity, because I think as a rule, we probably believe that everyone is going through the same stuff that we are.

For example, I have a couple of coworkers that (obviously) live in the same area that I do, except that they live to the south of me. We generally experience the same weather.

Last year, though.... One of our coworkers is originally from Russia. North of the Arctic Circle. Bloody ******* cold Russia.  Chicago had experienced one of the worst cold winters on record. So cold, in fact, that it was warmer north of the Arctic Circle- where our coworker hails from.

Perceptions and your reality are not universal truth.

As John Lennon said, "So this is Christmas".

Christmas is most likely unknown in some parts of the world, and misunderstood or maligned where it is known. In the United States, which is probably the "Christmas Capitol of the World" (I just made that up, but it's probably accurate), Christmas has become so secularized and commercialized that, like Halloween and Easter, not much seems to be left of its real meaning.

Therefore, I've decided to make a sort of peace with the two versions of Christmas:  the secular and the sacred.

The secular: I enjoy this simply because it is so joyful and peaceful on a number of levels. For starters, it's about winter in the northern hemisphere- something that is quite familiar to me. The scent of pine has always been pleasant to me, and the effect is compounded in the brisk, wintry air. I also love the music of Christmas- a great deal of it. There have been some real stinkers that have come out (Santa Baby, and The Most Wonderful Time of the Year come to mind immediately).

Folks tend to be a bit more divided about movies, though, because although its generally pretty easy to tell that a song is a Christmas song, the criteria for Christmas movies is pretty much a grey area. For example, apart from movies which actually feature the story of the birth of Jesus, we're left with a pretty large collection of movies which either deal with the secular version of Christmas, or merely occur around Christmas. I'm not a real movie fan, but two of my favorite movies fit into the latter category- they occur around Christmas: Die Hard, and Lethal Weapon. And for the record, I do NOT like Elf.

As for the real "reason for the season," I think the Bible explains it better than I can.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Thursday, December 24, 2015

More "Pause" than "End"

Some years back, on a particularly busy night, a new hire rubbed eyes and blearily asked the Nightstalker crew, "Just how long DO you work?"

I answered in the only possible way: "Until the job is done."

That, truly, is what makes the overnight hours in Data Services interesting. I say "overnight" because my hours can be a bit fuzzy- and this is true for everyone in our department. Some folks come in fairly early, some come in around the traditional office start time of 0800, and some come in at 2200 or even later. We have one person who works a traditional second shift, and the remainder of the crew work something of a hybrid 3rd shift, starting anywhere from 1800 to almost 2300. I don't believe there's anything like an official policy regarding this; it's more of a rule of thumb: as long as one works one's 40 hours, everyone is happy. But, back to "until the job is done."

I think I may have previously mentioned that our plant can be considered a "job shop" or "contract manufacturer." In other words, the product that we manufacture- direct mail- does not "belong" to us. You will typically not see our name on it anywhere. We may have some involvement in the design process, and we are often involved in the postal and logistics components of a job, but at the end of the day, we're simply the folks who manufacture something for someone else.

Sometimes...

Sometimes things just need to get done. One of our top clients has a job that runs every month, and it keeps the programmer pretty busy for around a week. However, once the client approves the job, yours truly ("me") typically swings into action. This particular job requires a lot of hard copy:  proofs for press and prepress, and tray tags for press. Printing, collating and marking up of this takes ~12 hours, and is best done when the office is empty. Why? Because one simply needs a lot of space to do the job correctly and efficiently, as well as tying up two printers.

So, the Friday before last, I came in with the expectation that I would be working on this job. I had put a dent in it when I left Saturday morning, and came back Saturday evening. I got home around midnight, and everything was done.

In a nutshell, my weekend was more of a pause than an actual end to the week. The obvious downside to weekends like this is that they are short. Jennifer and I got in a nice walk on the following Sunday- almost three miles. I did a bit of work in the Secret Underground Lair, as did Mr. T, and great progress has been made. My plan for the weekend, though, had been to get to the unused desk and hook up my Raspberry Pi. That hadn't happened yet, but we're on the cusp of it!

One other huge thing that happened the previous week was the Great Book Cull, during which time a few hundred books were donated to our local library. Although both Jennifer and I hate getting rid of actual paper books, there were a few compelling reasons for eliminating these particular volumes from our collection:

1) They were classics (Shakespeare, Tolstoi, etc)- these are readily available online and downloadable as plain text files

2) Cold War fiction- entertaining reading when it was written, but no longer plausible.

3) Out of date software texts- bye, bye, Windows 95 For Dummies, etc... I  kid you not.

So that was the two weekends ago. I visited the opthamologist for the last post surgery follow up for my right eye. (all is good- come back in a year). Don't get me wrong- if you're in the Des Plaines area, Dr. Winkler is the best. I'm just ready to get on with my life!

Pause, continued... this past weekend (Dec 19-20): I got out on time on Saturday morning for a change, but I knew I'd be coming back on Saturday evening. I figured a few hours would take care of a few quick production QC's- boy was I wrong.

The first job went smoothly, and it was done fairly quickly. The second, though, took much longer, as some paperwork was missing. It's not unusual for this to happen with this particular job, though. The third job was unexpected, but pretty easy- especially since the lead programmer was also in the office to explain a few things. The last job, though.

In a nutshell, it was programmed correctly but the output was set up incorrectly, and consequently compiled incorrectly, and the output was just plain wrong. As it was late and hadn't brought my meds to the office, I remade the files and recompiled the job, but did not perform the production QC.  

Finally, data.

I need to say something about my writing process, which will eventually relate to data. I promise.

When I write a blog, I generally have an idea of where I want it to go. Sometimes it goes there, sometimes it doesn't. This blog is a case of: IT DOESN'T CARE WHERE I WANT TO GO.

Point: my idea for this blog actually had to do with a concept for music opinion data analysis.

Way back when, in my college days, I started my music database. It was on looseleaf paper, and it was unwieldy and incredibly difficult to update or edit. At some point, I decided I'd create something of a personal "Top 40". Only looking at my stats was somewhat biased, I quickly surmised.  Undaunted, I expanded my pursuit to include what others were interested in. When I shared my results, however, some (many) of the participants were upset when I told them the results were weighted. That is, their top votes received 10 points, and their bottom votes received one point. Huh?

Participants in the survey were asked to vote for up to 10 of their favorite albums, and 10 of their favorite songs. I asked that they please put them in order of preference. When the results had been tabulated, I shared them. In my circle of friends and acquaintances, no one could believe that "Bread's Greatest Hits"  was more popular than "Barry Manilow Live" (joke).

I did it this way for a couple of (what I thought) were very good reasons. First: everyone probably has a favorite song. Hey, if its YOUR fave, why not weight it? Second, I wanted to be able to track which songs were actually more popular than which songs were most often voted for. Taking the two most "popular" songs of this era (from my polls), the hands-down winners were The Beatles' "Hey Jude" and Led Zepplin's "Stairway To Heaven". As my survey was quite small, let's say I had 10 voters: 4 went with the Beatles, and 4 with Led Zepplin. Let's say the other two went with Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" as their favorite. If Hey Jude == 1, and Stairway == 1 and Freebird == 1, then we have 4 to 4 to 2. What matters next is what is the next greatest song.  So, two of the "Beatles" guys vote for  "I Saw Her Standing There", and a couple of Zepplin fans vote for "Rock and Roll". After that, each of the other Beatles and Zepplin fans votes for Hey Jude and Stairway, furthering the tie. Then, we factor in the Skynyrd fans, who generally might like the Zep guitars, but can sing to Hey Jude. So, the final score ends up being Beatles: 5.8 (among Beatles fans), Zep: 5.8 (among Zepplin fans). The two Skynyrd fans, though, both vote Hey Jude #2, and Stairway #3, giving the Beatles a total of 6.6 and Led Zep 5.8. Therefore, in this tiny, theoretical sample, "Hey Jude" is the greatest rock and roll song of all time.

Sorry about the length of this... I told you all of that to tell you this: I have a new data project which is based on my previous data project.

I know what songs I like and those which I don't like. I plan to quantify this data and publish my findings in a new format.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to,

Sunday, December 6, 2015

The State of the Blog, v.03


If it's December, then it must be time to...

Celebrate. Commemorate. Conjugate...?

Well, maybe not conjugate, but it's the THIRD anniversary of this blog! I'm somewhat e-excited about this. I can honestly say I never expected it to go this long, or have so many entries. Here's the quick recap, from the 1st blog The Final Frontier to the still strangely most popular one Why, 2K to the one that slipped through the proverbial e-cracks A Red Letter Day In History.

The unifying theme of this blog is data. A casual observer might not notice this, but I did say "unifying theme". So, if you're looking for the golden data nuggets of wisdom check out the twitters or websites of my good e-buddies Kirk Borne Ph.D. Lee Baker Ph.D. or Gregory Piatesky Ph.D.

For  those who think my data science is a bit sexist, please check out my good e-buddies Diego Kuonen Ph.D., Carla Gentry and Carol Lynn Curchoe Ph.D.

(In the FWIW column, these folks are some of my followers on Twitter). Not to drop names, of course! :)

In any event, I did drop a few names there, so I should probably clarify things a bit. Some of my more recent posts have been of a somewhat personal nature, and not much data was presented. For the (I'm sure this is a very small percentage of my) readers who were expecting some data in those posts, I apologize.

In actuality, most of my "data" occurs on Twitter, with some on Pinterest. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what my most impactful social medium is these days... Twitter is the easiest, Blogspot is the deepest, and Pinterest is the broadest. And, most importantly, it's hobby, so I'm not paying for analytics!

I suppose I enjoy blogging the most, as it is the most creative. Pinterest is lots of fun- and easy. However, there's very little original content. Twitter is fun, but once again, not much original content, as I'm generally more of a repeater rather than an original content contributor. Blogger... this is my "original" e-home. To quote AC/DC- "No stop signs, speed limits...." Not that I'm an AC/DC fan.

An update on the SUL (Secret Underground Lair)....


This is my corner of the SUL. If you're curious, the two leftmost PCs are Win7 machines, and the other is an HP workstation running Ubuntu 12.10, I think. There's actually a 4th screen (which is off camera to the right) for Raspberry Pi use and testing), and there are two additional PCs- one of which is another Win7 box, and the last one is an offline XP machine. In fairly big SUL news, we've been getting rid of old tech boxes (those of the cardboard variety, to clarify), and have reclaimed nearly a square meter of floor space.

That's all for now. Oh... still hoping someone in Antarctica will pick this up!

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.





Sunday, November 29, 2015

...Can't. Sleep. Urrgh!

I discovered comic books rather late in life. I mean, as a grade school kid I would read comic books from time to time, but I didn't really get interested in them until high school. Brian, who sat behind me in homeroom, introduced me to them. By the time I was a junior, I was reading the larger format pulps like Conan the Barbarian, Kull, Red Sonja and Thor, and tried mightily to emulate the drawing style. After much effort, I became subpar. Oh, well, a graphic artist I'm not. I did learn one exceedingly valuable writing tool from the comics, though: SUPERHERO SPEAK. 

If you're familiar with comic books, you're probably familiar with the speech/thought bubbles that are where speech or thoughts are placed to accompany the illustrations. And of course folks like Thor, Wonder Woman and Conan are superheroes. And they often get into struggles, fights, and feats where extreme concentration is required. In instances like these, every superhero reverts to superhero speak- and this is not to be confused with pithy remarks or simple statements of fact. For example, of the following-

"The blog waits."

"I should finish the blog"

"Must. Finish. Blog. AUUURRGGYHH!"

-(the first is a lame pithy remark, and the second is a statement). Only the third example is superhero speak. Note each word is capitalized, each has a period after it, and there's what some would consider to be a requirement for true superhero speak: the somewhat unpronounceable expression of supreme effort, almost always completely capitalized, and finished with an exclamation (sometimes this last bit can be the entire superhero speak- as sometimes words get in the way, and you can bet your bottom local currency that these folks listen to pop music). Please note also: superhero speak is always expressed as two words, and is never anything other than a noun. It is not pluralized, conjugated or declined.

Wrong example: The superheroes spoke was like this: "This. Is. Wrong", grammarian! "ARRRRRRGH!" (Note: the parts in quotes is correct superhero speak- "grammarian, of course, is the "villian" and should be capitalized).

Correct example: Erase. This. Grammarian! SKREEESSSHK!

I hope this clarifies the title just a bit, as I bring this up because I went to bed at midnight, and for the third night in a row could not get to sleep in a reasonable amount of time. No clue why. So, I decided to make use of the time and get one more blog in before the end of the month.   

I'm happy to report that since my cataract surgery earlier this month, my vision has improved dramatically. 

I think that's about all for now. Oops- before I forget, a thank you and shout to all of my readers around the world and on the ships at sea- the blog broke 14K views worldwide. I've got a new reader somewhere (they're somewhere in Eurasia, but I hesitate to give a shout out because of current conditions there [no, it's not in the Middle East]). Still no one in Antarctica. Sigh. I'm putting the blog to bed... I've got least another hour and a half before I do the same.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Smokey has gone to a better place

In my last post, I introduced you to Smokey.

Now, before any readers who may be animal lovers get distressed, please be assured: Smokey is still "with us"... that is, he has not crossed over the rainbow bridge, kicked the bucket, met his fate, expired or achieved ambient temperature (that last one is a favorite at our house!) Here's what happened between my last blog (Saturday, Nov 14., and today Sunday, Nov. 15)

Jennifer has been watching the seven day weather forecast for the past few days, and last night noticed that snow is predicted for Friday of the coming week. She was concerned for Smokey, and accordingly tasked Mr. T with finding a nearby shelter where we could take him.

I should probably give a bit of background about "pet" animals in the United States.

This may seem a bit puzzling to those readers outside of North America, Europe and Australia, but we keep small (or sometimes, not so small) animals for pets. Be they cats, dogs, fish, birds, snakes (yuck), spiders (double-yuck!) or critters even more esoteric, we welcome them into our homes and adopt them as a part of the family. We love them. The livestock, in return, provide certain benefits to us.

Reptiles entertain- I suppose. I've never owned one of these, but some of them seem to have a universal "cool" factor- turtles, for example. Gerbils, chinchillas, ferrets and other rodents also tend to be popular with some folks. Fish are quite fun, generally pretty low maintenance and inexpensive. One typically does not develop much of an attachment to fish... they're almost biological art. I could stare at them for hours.

Larger animals- cattle- can also be pets. Jennifer's niece Paige was quite attached to a horse, and my cousin Lynda loved a bull that her family had raised for food.

There are others, but typically in the United States when one is talking about pets, one is usually talking about dogs and cats.


I can't speak for anywhere else, but here in the United States dogs and cats are LOVED. Pet owners treat their "furbabies" as they might treat biological children, and the most extreme ones will even put these critters into their will! Now, having been a pet owner for some time, I have to agree that a certain amount of bounding and love does occur between pet and pet parent. A certain amount of trust must be established. And, like children, not all animals are going to have the same personality, level of trust or personality.

Our own personal experience. A truism about cats which we lived out: a shelter from which we've adopted three of our four cats from, Furkeeps, had posted a picture of a beautiful pair of cats who were brothers (Cheech and Chong). We thought they would be a perfect addition to Schwarz and Tinka, but these two poor felines wanted nothing to do with us- they even hissed at us! We, of course, were quite disappointed: not only had we driven some distance to see these critters, but a lady from the shelter had agreed to meet us on her day off. The story ends well for everyone, though: we got Kenji (top photo) and Kaley (bottom photo) that day. Total opposites, but totally made for each other. In the small confines of their shelter environment, Kaley seemed to target Kenji. Kaley was a free spirit and Kenji was reserved; when we had them out of their caged environment, they were nice to us and each other, so we adopted them as a pair- and they've done quite well together.

Smokey, though....

As I had mentioned, Smokey is young- technically still a kitten. The weather reports indicate that we will get a cold snap by the end of the week, so we decided that it would be best to get Smokey in shelter. We could not take him, as we didn't want to expose our other four cats to any potential diseases. Mr. T was tasked with finding a shelter, and he came through. Buddy Rescue was the group he found.

There is a funny ending to Smokey's story.

We own a Subaru Outback. Subaru is somewhat famous among car brands in their support of pets. When we pulled up to The Buddy Foundation, there was a single car parked in the street- it was a Subaru.

I'm hoping that Smokey didn't contract some horrid feline disease while he was abandoned. I'm hoping he has a clean bill of health and will be adopted by a loving family.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.




                                                          




Saturday, November 14, 2015

Hello, Australia... and blogging

I've mentioned this at least once before: blogs don't always go according to plan. This is my 188th post, and to my credit or dismay, I've probably only scrapped a handful of original ideas for updated ones in that span. I've changed my mind before words ever hit the screen on a number of times- at least ten, including this one, but have only totally scrapped ~five blogs, including the most recently published one.

So, what is up with the shout out to Australia, one might ask?

I might ask that myself, if I only relied on the data I receive from Google about this blog.  However, Blogger is only one part of my online marketing strategy. LinkedIn, Twitter (and Facebook) and most recently Pinterest, round out my online strategy. At this point, it would be fair to ask, "Why does a blogger need an 'online strategy' at all?" And how does Australia fit into the grand scheme of a single blogger?

For starters, I like to look at the big picture. I was pleased beyond words when I touched six continents in one year with this blog (Antarctica still eludes me!). My blog has been read in over fifty countries, most of which do not have English as their primary tongue.

And, even though I currently write for fun and not money, its better to have more readers than fewer readers.

So... Australia- continent, country, attitude.

In the current Google rankings, Australia ranks 24th in my worldwide blog readership. However, as I've said, my blog is only one part of my e-presence. I'm seeing a fair amount of attention in the Twittersphere (@CJoelHarrison) in Australia primarily because of some retweets about coral reefs and related Australia-specific marine science. My Pinterest account (www.pinterest.com/hochspeyer) has not seen much activity from Australia, mainly because Pinterest doesn't seem to emphasize locations. And, there aren't many infographics that I've found on the Great Barrier Reef.

So that's what I've got- in terms of casual analysis- on Australia. To my e-friends "down under", thanks for the likes and the blog reads!

Finally, I'd like to close with a very candid photo of Mr. T in action. This is a photo from our back yard of Mr. T and "Smokey". Smokey showed up recently in our yard. He's a very friendly neutered male around 2-4 years old. We think he might be a cat that actually belongs to someone, but he has no problem taking food and water from us, which leads us to suspect that even if he has a home, he is being neglected. He's a delightful little animal, and he's actually come up to our back door. It pains us greatly, but we can't let him in, as we know nothing about his medical condition. We don't want to expose our little group of cats to whatever Smokey might have. We're going to try to get him picked up by one of the local cat rescue societies.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Friday, November 13, 2015

Careful, kid, you'll poke an eye out

This had originally started out as a blog on data quality, but I wasn't too sure about the direction in which it was headed- trust me, you didn't miss out on anything. Something happened to me recently that I found quite interesting, and which totally pertains to my programming career and aspirations to deepen and broaden my programming skills.

Back in April of this year (2015), I went in for an eye exam. Everything was good, and I ended up getting a frame with progressive lenses. As I'm far-sighted with astigmatism, I've been wearing reading glasses since I was eighteen. This was my first foray into "distance" lenses. To be completely honest, I don't strictly "need" a distance prescription, but I was told they might help out with night driving, which I do practically every day. So, my progressive stack has distance on top, "computer" in the middle and reading on the bottom. They take a little getting accustomed to,  but they're quite effective- especially in the car, where everything both in and outside of the cabin is in focus.

I did have a slight problem with them at work, however: the computer part of the prescription was not large enough. I was offered the option of a wider field of view when I first purchased the lenses, but being that this was my first progressive lens, I decided to go with the basic one. Bottom line: this pair works great in the car and is fine with my 15" (~38cm) laptop, but with 23" (over 58cm) monitors at work and in the Secret Underground Lair (SUL), I could only see with clarity what I was looking at directly; to get focus on the left- or right-most parts of the screen, I had to do a bit of adjusting. And, as the nature of my work requires that I take in the whole screen (left to right and top to bottom), these didn't quite fit my needs. Therefore, I got a second pair of single visions lenses designed specifically for computer work.

This was pretty much what I was hoping to avoid- the expense of a second pair of glasses. However, upon trying out the new single vision computer glasses, everything was perfect, and I was happy.

Until the morning of September 12th.

September 12th was a Saturday, but (in my "quantum" time) it was actually Friday. I still had a couple of hours worth of work left, so I got up to have a short stretch and clean my glasses. Normally I'll use the piece of microfiber that I keep in the case, but this time I decided to give them a good dousing from the water cooler. I rinsed them, gave them a good wiping with the cloth and returned to my desk. I put them on, and discovered that I still had the same blurriness. I took them off, and looked at them through my desk lamp. Yup, they were clean- which meant that the problem, literally, was inside my head- my right eye, specifically.

So, if you'll pardon the pun, the chronology gets just a bit fuzzy here. At some point after that, Jennifer and Mr. T had their eye exams. As they were wrapping up, I nonchalantly asked someone about my recently discovered difficulty. As I described my problem, the nice folks at Vision Care Specialists decided that what I had described was important enough to squeeze me into their late afternoon schedule. After a bunch of tests, it was determined that I "probably" had a cataract.

Now, I'm told that pretty much everyone over the age of forty is in a "pre-cataract" condition- in fact, I was told this at my exam in April. What I was not aware of is that some folks have a rapidly-developing type of cataract. Unusual, but not rare... I'm an overachiever.

I was referred to an opthamologist. He confirmed the diagnosis and recommended the treatment: REPLACEMENT OF MY EYE LENS! This well and truly deserves all caps, as I had never heard of such a thing. And outpatient, to boot! No sutures, no bandages... not even a stinkin' pirate patch!

Anyway, it JUST SO HAPPENED that I had scheduled the bulk of my vacation for November. I had to rearrange two days, but this is how November has shaped up so far:

On Tuesday the 10th I started my eyedrops. With discounts, three tiny vials of eyedrops were $~120! I'm not one of those "older" folks who seem to be constantly medicated, so I can't tell you what these drops are... suffice it to sat that one stings a bit, and the other two do their job painlessly.

Wednesday, 11/11, the day of the surgery/procedure (throughout the entire process, the medical community referred to it as a "procedure"; in my mind, when someone stabs your eye, rips out your lens and puts a new one in, it's an operation).

I arrived at Holy Family Hospital, did some paperwork, paid part of the bill and was admitted. Jennifer and I were directed to a waiting room. After a very short period of time, I was invited by a nurse to a room where I was asked to put on a hospital gown... but allowed to keep my socks and fire engine yellow skivies. I was given booties, but they just didn't seem to want to stay on.

I don't want to say I was nervous at all, but the blood pressure measurements from admission to release showed about a 70 point swing.

And for all of the hype, the procedure itself was pretty painless. The pre-op prep was pretty painless; I experienced many firsts: first IV, first gurney, first operation. When the procedure was done, I was a bit woozy from something they gave me, and happily accepted the wheelchair ride to the curb.  Jennifer drove us home, and I'm happy to report that everything seems to have turned out exactly as planned. It looks like I'll be taking eyedrops for the next 2-3 weeks... it's a small price to pay to be able to see.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Monday, November 2, 2015

Sunday Night

By the time I finish this, some of my readers may be well into Monday morning (actually it will be closer to the following weekend!) . If you're one of these folks, I apologize. Because for me, Sunday night is about relaxing.

Surprisingly enough, there's a backstory here: this is the first weekend in five where I have not worked on Sunday. In other words, I've worked thirty-four days in a row.To be completely honest, I'm not crazy about the hours, but Jennifer and I love the pay. OTOH, I've had checks that were smaller than the Federal witholding tax I was assessed recently.

So, here it is, Sunday night. The end of the week. My first free Sunday night in five weeks. What am I up to?

Besides writing a blog, I'm catching up on some music that I haven't listened to in some time. That, and playing Railnation.

And today is now Thursday. After my first weekend off in five weeks, I've had overtime every day this week. And for those of you who might have missed this: depending on personal circumstances and job requirements, my coworkers are not always able or willing to take overtime, and when this happens, it falls upon whoever is available to pick up the slack. And even though I do not program jobs as often as I'd like, I'm familiar with so many of the jobs we do, as well as those we do for other plants, that I'm often called upon to pick up the slack in quality control.

And I do this partly out of a sense of duty and partly because I have a familiarity with a broad base of jobs few others in my department possess. And, to be completely transparent, I like the money.

I need to close this and get on to the next great adventure in my blog... whatever that may be. It's been a week since I started this, and as you might guess, I worked another Sunday. So, the tally follows: five of the last six Sundays I've spent at least some time in the office. Now, before anyone gets into the "evils of capitalism" or "wage slave" mindset, I'd like to remind my readers that although I don't always enjoy OT, Jennifer and I certainly do enjoy its benefits. And, as I live so close to the office, in the end the benefits ($$$) far outweigh the liabilities!

That's all for now from the Secret Underground Lair. As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Sunday, October 25, 2015

So, how was your internet day, dear?

I'm guessing that most readers of this blog spend a fair amount of time connected (at work, on the internet, in the cloud, streaming music, messages, videos, driving a late model car, or interacting in some other way with data or the IoT). Even when I am at work, I am contributing to the data glut as I wait for certain processes to finish doing their... processing.

Creating certain types of files and compiling programs are two time intensive tasks I normally perform. As these tasks are also resource heavy, rather than stare at the progress bars, I turn to my phone and play a round of Bejeweled Blitz or Angry Birds or check my Twitter feed... all of which add to the data glut. Mind you, these activities are innocuous- I'm filling time rather than wasting it staring at progress bars. I'm guessing that the activities I choose to fill the time might be considered a waste of time, but as I have a feel for how long certain process require, Angry Birds & Co. keep me alert and sharp.

The odd thing is that quite often my "decompress" time after work is still internet time. My employer uses a "netnanny" so there are many sites which one simply cannot access at work. This doesn't bother me greatly, as I don't need additional distractions.  So, when I get home, I generally logon to two computers- one to play "Rail Nation" and the other for blogging, tweeting and everything else.

In essence, I guess I'm actually decompressing from my work e-framework by logging in to another network or two.

For those who are not constantly connected, this may seem to be quite the conundrum. However, even though I do not consider myself to be in the "continuously connected" category, I thy to keep my social media interactions in the "constantly interacted with" category.  And this, I find, is my greatest challenge.

Five years. It's a good measure of time and goals...I think the Soviet Union was famous for these. So, going back 5 years...

The Soviet Union did not exist. I had a Facebook, Google, and Yahoo account. At some point, a Pinterest account was created. Apart from these, I have LinkedIn, Amazon, Newegg and "memberships" on a couple dozen other sites which I infrequently visit.

I'm most active these days on Twitter, then Facebook and finally LinkedIn. Now, this is not to say that I derive social media value from these services in the order in which they are presented; rather, I derive social media value where it exists.

For example, even though the vast majority of my internet social interaction may be generated on Twitter and reposted on Facebook, it does not mean that the main focus of my internet time is on Twitter. Like many folks, I shamelessly self promote- one has to in order to be heard above the static and background noise which is the Internet.

Every so often- generally once every month or so- I post a disclaimer on Twitter indicating that i am NOT a Data Scientist, related data professional , analyst or statistician, because, partly, I have a coworker who initially said, "You're a complete fraud!" To which I replied, "No, I'm completely honest.". He still says it, but mostly in jest these days, mostly because I've shown him comments, retweets and favorites of things I've tweeted or RT'ed. My "thing" is this: although I have no formal background, I have a serious amateur interest in stats, big data, analytics, tech, IoT,  and STEM/STEAM, and am a huge proponent of them.

I also love the maker scene. Although I'm not hugely into it right now, our family has three Arduino Uno's, a pair of Raspberry Pi model B's, a couple of Linux (Ubuntu) PCs and lots of Legos, as well as an original Gilbert (pre-Meccano) Erector set, as well as one or two Meccano sets. Don't ask me how many PCs we have- I literally have no idea.

So, to close... I haven't done this in some time, but here are some previous posts you might enjoy. And, in keeping with the spirit of the5 year theme mentioned earlier- here is a selection of 5 older posts, which are currently #6 through #10 in all-time popularity. FWIW, this is post #185... I'm planning something special for #200, which may occur near Christmas (hopefully!)




I hope you are able to enjoy one or more of these. They're far from perfect, but they're honest, and I hope you have at least a bit of fun reading them- I really enjoy writing them!

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging  data analysis and management so you don't have to.
 





Friday, October 23, 2015

Shopping at the local Euromart

I'm not certain that I have stated this categorically before, but Jennifer and I do a great deal of our grocery shopping at a store downtown which is part of a local chain of stores called Shop N Save. The basic selling point of these stores is that they sell all sorts of imported foodstuffs and household consumables. Jennifer and I spent the formative years of our marriage in Europe, far away from the "normal" support system of family and friends that most young couples enjoy...  our "early" years were spent in West Germany and Germany (we were there through the Weidervereinigung, so even though our two oldest children were born in the same hospital, they have different countries of birth on record. Therefore, Shop N Save is a fun and money-saving place for us to shop, partially because we very carefully research our food purchases, and partly because this chain has such a neat selection of stuff. And partly because it takes us back to some familiar foods we enjoyed in Europe

The products pictured below are herbal teas from Poland.  Whilst we were in Europe, herbal teas were not a part of normal conversation, but we've learned through keen observation that there's an herbal fix, remedy or aid for most common ailments. Generally speaking, these products have English translation stickers- I didn't look at the translation for the first one, but I'm guessing it has something to do with one's solid or liquid waste, and the regulation thereof.



                                              

The next one is an aid for varicose veins. I showed this to a coworker (who is married to an OTB [off-the-boat, born in Poland] woman, and he said that in no way would a woman that had those legs have varicose veins. I guess truth in advertising is abused everywhere. The last one shows a young mother breastfeeding.  I'm guessing by the brown flower or leaf decorations at the bottom left and right that, when taken an hour before feeding, will allow the newborn and infant to enjoy chocalatey mother's milk. What will they think of next? 

Oh, well, enough of herbal tea. Let's talk about data.

As some readers are probably aware, I work for a company that produces large volumes of "high quality" direct mail. That's "junk mail" to most readers. We print stuff for a wide variety of clients- insurance, video services, sweepstakes, nonprofits and Federal agencies, to name a few. As a programmer, I look at LOTS of data. Some is good. Some is very good.

And some is atrocious. 

The sad part about the last comment is that in some cases, the client actually OWNS the data- it doesn't come from a rented list. In other words, the person who is receiving the mailpiece has actually done business with our client before.

In the wonderful world of programming, we have the ability to at least skirt some bad data. For example, if the first name and last name are mere initials, we can throw some logic in to substitute "Dear Neighbor" in a salutation or "Current Plutonium Purchaser" in the address block. We often alert clients to these situations, and the clients themselves are often aware that these situations may arise, and they give us instructions to cover these situations.

Sometimes, though, an unforseen situation arises, and despite all safeguards, the best option available to the programmer is to warn the press that the imaging is not a mistake- the data is messed up.

I was recently QCing a job prior to printing, and came across an interesting record. Normally, when we pull signoff records for a client, we include a "longest name", and often a "shortest name". The longest name shows the client that a name will fit where it needs to fit. The shortest name shows them what a short name looks like. The problem is this: the shortest name is often an initial, and rather than spending a few extra bucks on programming or data cleanup, the client often lets the data go to press  "as is". This particular client had a special field for a "first+middle name". The problem I ran into was that the middle name was not properly cased in 100% of the records I looked at. So, I alerted the press to the situation so that they would not stop running- which can be expensive.

That's all for now- next up, an update on overtime.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.








Monday, October 12, 2015

Geomorphology, meterology and Big Data

Edit: I found a glaring quantitative error, and corrected it.


I'd like to open with an apology to my long-suffering and patient loyal readers.

To be polite, my recent writing has been sparse at best. The reason is that I've been working a lot- I haven't had a "real" day off in three weeks. I think- this is my third weekend without a whole day off. I took Saturday evening off and will be back in the office on Sunday. And what, one might ask, does the author do for a living that requires so much work?

I'm a programmer, working in direct mail (a.k.a. "junk mail"). And what causes overtime in this field?

To keep it simple, there are really only two factors: workload and workforce. Here in the United States of America, the month of October is the time for senior citizens (folks who are 65 years of age or older) to make some choices regarding their prescription drug benefit provider. I'm not an expert on this, but the bottom line for my company is that in September and October we experience a huge spike in this business from these clients. This year, however, workforce came into play. There is another manufacturing plant that our plant has a fairly close relationship with, and they are currently shorthanded (as is our plant) and they also have a client that is doing a similar ad campaign. The deadlines have been tight, and everyone's resources- human and physical- have been severely stressed. My role in this has been pretty much support- but it's been for both plants. Or, wL > wF.

Having said that, I wanted to take a bit of a light-hearted look at Big Data.

There's been a few topics that I've been wanting to write about, but some recent twitter activity led me here. Just for the record, I'm currently listening to Steely Dan's "Midnight Cruiser", and thinking about data.

Data. Steely Dan. Yeah, not much of a connection there.

I'm not sure if the average reader realizes that data geeks even enjoy music.  To be blunt, we do.

But... back to data. Geomorphology is a real word. I was introduced to this term by my wife, who has a geology degree. Geololgy one- liner: she has rocks in her head. She said so. Anyway,  I find the big data landscape falling somewhat messily onto this collision of mismatched terminologies.

As I am not a true "data" person, I often laugh at data terminology and enjoy extending it to its ridiculous, but plausible limits limits.

Point:"data lakes".

Everyone pretty much understands (more or less) what "big data" is. Pretty much like everyone understands what "crime" is. Or "pornography". Alles klar?

In other words, aside from I.T. insiders and those who follow big data, no one really knows what big data is- or how pivotal it can be.

So, I suppose this is a call to action: how do you define your data?

I do not have a lot of data, relatively speaking. "Relatively speaking", of course, is a HUGE qualifier.

When I think about my personal data, I think in terms of things that matter to me- in the "real world",  these things have little value. In the real world, I tend to generate lots of data which has no value to me personally. For example, I've been on twitter for around three and a half years, and in that time have posted nearly 2900 tweets.That sounds like a lot of tweeting, but in reality it's far less than three tweets per day. What would be interesting to me would be a breakdown of my top hashtags.

But, as usual, I have digressed.

The personal data that I track is only in a few categories. I use data to catalog stuff, for the most part: books, videos, music and Legos. I also keep a pedometer log.

Most- if not all- of this data is useless to pretty much anyone except me. But, here we get a peek into the actual application of data science IRL. All data is data, but of all that data, which is most relevant to you? Does Lego care how many 3001 blue elements I own? I think not. They probably do care, however, about my age, where I purchase Lego products, and how much I spend on Lego in a month or year.

This is truly the science and ART of data science. Much of what I tweet on the subject of data science and data analysis is somewhat technical, focused on languages, algorithms and "sciencey" stuff... but business and ethics are also huge, and seem to be marginalized.

"What is the greatest Rock 'N' Roll song of all time"? A valid question. Of course, it is a question that cannot be answered- at least, not with data. Usually, there seem to be three contenders: "Hey Jude" (The Beatles), "Stairway To Heaven" (Led Zepplin) and "Freebird" (Lynyrd Skynyrd).

Likewise, a data scientist must be in tune with business: what is your best product/service? Data science should not only answer that question, but give stakeholders the answers to the five great press questions: Who? What? When? Why? and How? When a data scientist returns valid, data-based answers that are clearly communicated to these questions, the stakeholder has a valid representation of their business based on science and art.

Sorry- I never got around to the humor of Big Data... maybe another time.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Monday, October 5, 2015

"How was your weekend?"

A typical Monday-at-work will often early on experience the "How was your weekend" question. It's pretty safe, really, and it's pretty much a soft question- there's almost NO way that this ice breaker can fail. Please note- I said ALMOST.

"Weekend" means the end of the workweek: no work, no school. Downtime. Sometimes, occasionally, it means that despite prior commitments, stuff that needs to get done at home, or an astronomical event that last occurred in 1982 and won't happen again until 2033, you have to work.

I'm trying really hard not to sound like I'm complaining, but the plain fact is this: I do not relish working on Sundays. Sunday has always been the quieter day of the week for me- relax, maybe catch a sporting event on TV, and do a bit of home-related stuff (grass mowing, etc.).

Not this weekend, though. This weekend was nonexistent for me.

I rolled into the office around 2230 on Friday night. It looked like a fairly busy night from the start; I had no way of knowing exactly HOW busy it would be. Busy ended up being NINE hours of overtime of Friday, and another SEVEN on Sunday. The downside to all of this was no weekend. The upside is overtime pay. We just had a few medical expenses (optometrist, veterinarian), so the extra buckazoids are much appreciated. Still, my "weekend" is shot. Gone. Nonexistent.

It's now Monday, approximately 1000. I had stuff I wanted to do that won't get done today because my sleep is totally hosed. Yes, the money is great- and needed- but the time lost to work cannot be recovered. Friday ended up being a 15 hour day, and Sunday was another seven hours (hmm, that sounds familiar!).

It is now Tuesday. We're so busy that I already have 21.5 hours on the clock, and only eight of these are "straight" time- the majority are overtime. And this week shows no promise of slowing down... I predict major overtime for at least the next three days.

Wednesday update- sixteen hours of straight time, and nineteen of overtime. Crazy night.

Thursday- I think the O.T. now is ~22 hours. And my supervisor has even more.

Friday- The week has officially ended with 29.5 hours of overtime. I am going in to work (tomorrow) for the second Sunday in a row.

So, here I sit on Saturday afternoon, decompressing. I'm in the Secret Underground Lair, trying to finish this blog on one computer and playing Railnation on another PC. I'm tired beyond words, but not exactly sleepy... I still have things on my mind. 

Sunday- One is not required to work overtime in my company, but as the reader can see, we've been busy. My supervisor has put in as much overtime as I have (and possibly more), so I went in to the office today. I had anticipated a "light" day- boy, oh boy, was I ever mistaken. I ended up working on three projects in addition to the one I was there for. Total time on Sunday? 13.5 hours. Adding insult to injury, Jennifer had a lovely roast for dinner which I missed out on. I had also planned on a nap- which obviously never happened. Lastly, as I had anticipated a "light", short day, I didn't bring a lunch. Fortunately, I am prepared for situations such as this, and grabbed a canned pasta meal from my emergency office supply.

The last day I had off was two Sundays ago. Not bragging. Not complaining- I get paid to do this. I'm just stating a fact.

That's all from the SUL (Secret Underground Lair) for now. No data news to report, no Arduino progress report, and no Raspberry Pi update.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.



Monday, September 21, 2015

Down and out on a Sunday.

My Arduino Uno is sitting on my desktop in the Secret Underground Lair. It mocks me, sitting there connected to the PC with a 1M USB cable, it's onboard LCD flashing amber every second per its programming. And I am responsible for the programming. Tomorrow, though, all of that changes. Tomorrow is the scheduled arrival of "official" Arduino bases, and another Arduino. Jennifer will be getting my current Arduino, and I will be getting the new Arduino. Why, one might wonder... why indeed?

Because, Mr. T's Arduino has an Atmel 328 chip in a DIP configuration, whilst my current one is in an SMT package. I'm hoping to be 100% compatible with his board as we journey through the programming adventure together.

So, Sunday....

The weekend officially began for me around 0600 on Saturday morning, as it usually does. I got a decent amount of sleep before Jennifer, Mr. T and I headed off to The Bridge Community Church later that afternoon.We came home and Jennifer made tamales. They were incredible- and they are gone.

Sunday rolled around. When I woke up, my head felt like a balloon. Sinuses were off the scale in mucus output. I felt (*bleh*). I felt so (*bleh*) that I drank copious amounts of water for around eight hours. Kenji, our black and white tuxedo snowshoe cat, hung out with me for the better part of the day (he likes TV and he likes human presence while watching or listening to TV). I watched three complete football games. Not only is this unheard of- it is unprecedented. I was a couch potato- this is also unheard of.

That's how crummy and run down I felt.

The good news is that most of that seems to have passed. The bad news is that the weekend turned out to pretty much be a complete wash. That is, all of my plans were for naught. I had planned on a good walk, cutting the grass, fixing Jennifer's computer, and some quality "alone" time with my spouse.

None of these things happened.

It's now almost 0200, and I'm feeling much better, but my weekend is essentially over. Monday promises to be an adventure- Kenji and Kaley have their first visit with the veterinarian. Joy. 



The Monday recap- almost time to get ready for work. The cats survived their visit to the vet. It turns out that Dr. Chris is also a huge Lego fan, so much Lego discussion occurred while the cats were being poked and prodded. The new Arduino arrived along with the bases. I mounted the base to my old board first, and gave it to Jennifer. Then, Mr. T and I mounted the other two. I tested my new board out, and the amber LED started blinking immediately... I guess Arduino tests boards out with the blink program. So, for me to test it, I would need another program. The serial monitor program is the perfect sketch (program) for testing the Arduino for a couple of reasons. First, it's short- only two lines. Secondly, it tests two way communication with the board: write the program, compile, and upload. Then, open the serial monitor, and you should have a short message... this is the Arduino equivalent of "Hello, world."

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Regarding memories

I don't know about anyone else, but my my memory of events tends to be faulty. That is, the date may be wrong, or the place might be wrong. Or, any number of other related details may be wrong.

On the other hand, I have an excellent memory of scents and textures. I'm not certain that this is important or peculiar, but judging by my own observation, it may be both.

For those who might be skeptical, I'd like to ask: which of you has taken in the aroma of an infant child? If you have, I think you'd agree it's unique. There are a lot of other olifactory triggers out there-  a powerful one for me is diesel exhaust.

Eh?

Sometimes, even things which are not exactly pure and wholesome can trigger pleasurable responses. Earlier this past week, I had pulled in to a parking spot at my workplace, when I was accosted by a fairly heavy scent of diesel exhaust in the air. To most folks, this would be the exhaust of an overloaded, dirty truck rumbling by.

To me, though- the aroma of diesel exhaust takes me back to younger days. It reminds me of high school and college. Of days when my Dad and I (or sometimes just me) would get on a Greyhound bus and travel to Minneapolis... or sometimes beyond. It reminds me of my 1st taste of Jack Daniels (and I still don't like Jack Daniels). It is (apart from the Jack Daniels) a happy scent memory. Likewise, burning leaves. When I was growing up in Chicago, everyone seemed to gather their leaves in the gutters of the streets and burn them. It was such a happy aroma. Nowadays, it's illegal- something might get burned down. Funny... I never heard of anything getting burned down back then.

But, we're so much smarter now- and the leaves are so much more nefarious. I jest, I jest.

In any event- probably for the better- folks don't burn their leaves in the street anymore. When they do, though- it takes me back to grade school days. With a smile.

Data and "stuff" update- our third Arduino is scheduled to arrive from the Arduino, USA store on Monday. Mr. T and I have gotten back into working with the Arduino, and are currently using Jack Purdum's most excellent book Beginning C for Arduino Second Edition.  We're only starting the second chapter, and have already learned quite a bit about this cool little board.

A curious problem has arisen with Jennifer's computer: the case fans have stopped working. I'm not happy about this on a few levels. First, because this is the SECOND ASUS motherboard we've put in this computer in two years. Second, because it's the second ASUS motherboard we've put in this computer in two years. What's the problem, ASUS?

One other "interesting" problem developed this past week relating to both the Arduino and Secret Undreground Lair. I had installed the latest version of the Arduino IDE (1.6.5) on one of my PCs and tested it with a simple two line program. Much to my dismay, the program "bombed out". Being a person of legendary patience, I tried a few more times with identically dismal results. After looking at the log, I realized that this particular PC has a problem with its front USB ports. I ran the program from my laptop; the board is fine- the PC has issues.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Happy #Talklikeapirate Day 2015

My apologies (belatedly or in advance) in regard to the title. As I repost blogs to Twitter, sometimes a hashtag (#) is appropriate in the title. This is one of those occasions.

Visit the official TLAPD  (Talk Like A Pirate Day) site for the latest news and information; for the history of TLAPD, please check out the excellent Wikipedia entry. In the FWIW category, this is the 20th anniversary of TLAPD, or as it is officially know these days, International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

In honor of TLAPD, and in recognition of the underlying theme of this blog (data analysis and management) and my Twitter interests (big data, data analysis, IoT and related topics and languages), I'd like to offer up some TLAPD data humor.



Q: What is a pirate's favorite mathematical formula?
A: Circle == Pi Rrrrrrrr squared.

Q: What is a pirate's favorite data analysis tool?
A: ARrrrrrrrrrrr.

Q: Why do pirates have parrots on their shoulders?
A: Because Pythons won't stay put.

Q: Why don't pirates use Hadoop?
A: A yellow elephant weighs as much as a grey elephant, and does not like ships.

Q: Why do pirates have trouble navigating raw big data?
A: They navigate by the stars; big data is usually found in clouds, lakes or silos.

I suppose those were pretty lame, but I hope I got at least a chuckle from one of them!

Just to be clear, TLAPD and I do not condone modern IRL piracy; the "holiday" is more a tongue-and-cheek homage to 1950's Hollywood's take on old school Caribbean pirates.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Buying I.T.-themed books

I've recently been in the market for a couple I.T. themed books. Specifically, I'm  looking for Raspberry Pi and Arduino books.

I have a home-brewed approach to book selections which has worked pretty well for me. In the past 10 years (I figure), I've first searched out my subject matter on Amazon.com, and then looked at the available titles. From these, I generally like to look at the one-star reviews first, as these often have to do with either shipping or the format (physical vs Kindle). I've read that there is a lot of trolling and inflation of reviews on Amazon (especially in fiction), so I try to keep a "weather eye" on reviews.

I've found that, as good as a book may be, it may never get 5 stars... and even a "bad" book may may manage 3 stars. So, I look at the 1 star reviews first. Typically, at least 10% of these have to do with the format or shipping issues; as I typically purchase books in a physical, paper format, these critiques (while valid) do not concern me. Another 10% are books purchased by the folks who are best described as clueless: "I bought "Intro To Quantuum Physics" for my four year old great-great grand niece...."

Whatever- this 20% is rubbish and can be discounted, as far as I am concerned.

The rest of it...,  well, I've heard a lot of late about rating inflation on Amazon. I'm not sure how this affects nonfiction, but  it surely affects fiction. Still...reviews of nonfiction works are plagued by well-meaning reviewers, to the point of making reviews problematic.

Here's a "typical" review (with the positive and the negative presented simultaneously)-

"/* I recently purchased "The B#+ Language for the Completely Clueless". This book is (useless) wonderful. What an incredible (waste of) time! The author starts with (overly simple) code and (slowly) builds from there (you need the 3rd party errata to wade through the defective code). Developers of all levels will admire (gag at) the flexibility (complexity and ridiculous syntax) of the language and (sleep through) the seventeen ways to print "Hello World". And that's just the first chapter! */

The "positive" reviewer- A. Niceguy. Goal: learn enough of B#+ for the Arduino and Raspberry Pi so his 4th and 2nd grade daughters can learn programming. Background: the office PowerPoint expert.

The "(negative(" reviewer- A. Sysadmin Ph.D. in Computer Science.  Goal: evaluate B#+ before rolling out to an internal network of ~1K devs. Was the 1st Banyan Vines network admin of his company; later led the Banyan>> Novell migration, and currently is the network admin of a 10K+ Linux network. Lead developer for all internally created software. On a first name basis with Linus Torvalds and Larry Ellison."

And this is why computer books are so bloody difficult to purchase. My backstory is as complicated as anyone's when it comes to this stuff. I'm self-taught in many areas of tech, with interests ranging from Big Data to relational DBs to IoT and its myriad of applications to photography to single board computing devices.

My "thing", though, when it comes to learning something that is completely new, is a book. I mean, I understand that much of what I want to learn is freely available on the internet- or someone might even have taken some *ahem* liberties with copyrights and published some titles without the author's permission. My bottom line is that I prefer to legally acquire copyrighted works, and as I don't always find a video presentation useful or readily accessible, I like to have the physical book at hand.

And so, I purchase physical copies of books. One I'd like to recommend today is from Jack Purdum, Ph.D. Dr. Purdum is a longtime college-level programming instructor, and his book is "Beginning C for Arduino, Second Edition.

I was attracted to this book because Mr. T and I both have Arduinos, and C is a language you can't go wrong with. What I found interesting about this book was its cover, which shows an Arduino Uno with the SMD version of the ATmel328 rather than the DIP version (yes, I know what both of those are- even thought this may be amateur writing, the content is totally pro: for those who might be wondering, SMD is surface mount [package] device, and DIP is Dual Inline Package; that is, the device is inserted into a socket rather than being soldered on to the board.)


I think that's all for now. I need to visit the Arduino site and update the software on my laptop. Mr. T needs to do the same for his computer, and then we will delve into the wonderful world of microprocessors, microcontrollers and programming.

Until then, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

So, what do you do for a living?

I want to give a shout out to everyone who works for a living. Not that being independently wealthy is a bad thing.. I wish more of us could claim that as our occupation. It's just that, this weekend, in the United States, we have a holiday that commemorates the value of work and workers.

To be honest, most holidays in the United States end up being "just" a day off. Labor Day, for example, is generally recognized as the "official" end of summer. It has little, if anything (in the "popular consciousness") to do with the labor reforms that inspired the holiday. Likewise, it's bookend Memorial Day, is generally considered to be the "official" beginning of summer. It has been so sanitized it does not cause us to reflect on the horrors of war, or those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Memorial Day started out as a day to remember just that: the ultimate sacrifice that Union soldiers made in the U.S. Civil War, and eventually evolved into a day to commemorate all of our military's fallen. Today, it is a sham.

It  ****ing **sses me off. We are now the land of the needy, and the home of the knave. America is damned.

Blogs tend to write themselves. Although I work very hard at producing a quality piece of text, the actual subject matter is often outside of my control. I have a theme I've been wanting to write on for a few blogs, for example, but other more important topics keep on popping up. So, the blog I really want to write keeps on getting pushed back.

But... to be real: holidays. In the grand scheme of things, most of them have nothing to do with what they were intended to be. And some of them, ... I just don't get.

For those who are unaware of the holidays celebrated in the United States, here's my rundown-

January 1 is New Year's Day. This one is a bit odd as it actually spans two years. In any event, for those who celebrate it, it is generally a "party" holiday, with much noise, drinking, dancing and occasional debauchery.

MLK Day (Martin Luther King Day) is officially observed on the third Monday of January. How many of us know that King was a Reverend? A Christian? Listen to his most famous speech, and share his dream. I Have A Dream  LISTEN TO IT.


February 14th is Valentine's Day. This is supposed to be a romantic holiday- it's origins go back to the guy who was supposedly was the 1st Christian martyr. Not exactly romantic.

March and April- not big for holidays in the U.S.

Nothing else happens until the 4th of July.  Independence Day- a grand old time. Probably the only time the holiday gets its true due.

Easter, Halloween Thanksgiving and Christmas:  religious holidays that have lost their meaning.

I think I've covered most everything. Happy holidays. 

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.






Saturday, August 29, 2015

Week 5


This is the third- and I swear- the last rewrite of this installment of my blog! In the event you may be counting, this is post #176. I'd like to take a moment, before I forget, to welcome a few nations to my readership (this is called a "shout-out" in American pop media.)

First, my newest readers in Brunei- welcome! I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Norway, which Jennifer and I tried so hard to visit in the 90's! Lastly (everyone knows that lists are MOST effective in three's), thanks to my readers in Algeria!

So there- three countries on three different continents. I really enjoy blogging, but I wish I had better analytics available. That's okay- knowing that one's work has been read in fifty-three countries around the world is a bit humbling- especially as most of these countries do not use English as their primary language. Of my top 10 markets, the United States is the biggest with generally 75-77% of readership. After, that, however, come the following (in order of most views):

2. China
3. Russia
4. Germany
5. France
6. Japan
7. United Kingdom

Of these, three don't even use the same alphabet that I do! And only one speaks my language! I truly wish I had better analytics!

As I write this, it is approximately 0600 on the 1st of September, 2015. The official release date of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Mr. T is generally not awake at 0600, but because he had a Steam key issued to him because of a purchase we made a few months back, he is fully dressed, the cats are fed, tea is brewing and he is ready!

Lastly, as mentioned in the very first paragraph, this particular blog has had more than its share of birth pangs. Some blogs tend to "write themselves." As an aspiring author, I tend to love those. Others require some thought and planning- these are fun as well. However, there are days- weeks, in fact, where there's nothing there. And for amateur writers like me, these tend to stink the worst. The thing is this: I'm not writing for fame or fortune. I'm writing because I BELIEVE. What do I believe? I believe there are folks out there who want to read my thoughts. I didn't believe this at first, but after a couple of years and readers in over fifty countries, this is a fact.

And the funny thing about all of this is this: I don't know why folks are reading my blog. If I were a business, this would be a huge data FAIL. As it stands, I'm a small data producer and consumer.

Speaking of small data, I wanted to share a bit about my "new" fitness regimen. Like all "great" plans (of anything), my plan predicates its success on simplicity.

The simplicity of my plan is based upon my work schedule. Like most peeps, I work five days per week, The difference is when I work. While most "normal" humans work something like a 9-5 workday, my workday is generally something like 2000-0400. Generally is the operative term. For example, it is now Wednesday the 2nd of September, around 1000 (GMT -6). Yesterday started out as a normal day, but evolved into an eleven hour workday. I'm not complaining, as we do get overtime, but a bit of warning would be nice!

That's all I've got for now. Stay tuned for another exciting adventure next time- one of these days I hope to talk a bit about the data in my weight loss program.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis nd management so you don't have to.