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.

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.

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.