Now I’ve only been diabetic for a few years now, but every day (or meal, or test) I am reminded of it’s impact on my life. Please help the fight to end diabetes by sponsoring this Microsoft programmer dude I admire.
Thanks!
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Now I’ve only been diabetic for a few years now, but every day (or meal, or test) I am reminded of it’s impact on my life. Please help the fight to end diabetes by sponsoring this Microsoft programmer dude I admire.
Thanks!
]]>Recently I finished Rework by the guys who started 37signals. I read it on my iPhone and Kindle for PC, which was an interesting but overall pleasant experience. Putting my phone down at night, and then opening up the PC app at work during lunch the next day and having it go right to the page I was on is amazingly awesome.
Anyway, reading it inspired me to build some sort of software thing in my spare time. So I have been putting some hours into an idea from a friend and coworker, Allen Monroe. He is a bottomless “idea-guy” resource, which is great and inspiring in it’s own way. We also had some of our internet offerings go viral in the same week. He created a parody of Google’s super bowl ad, and I submitted a story and some code to The DailyWTF.
It’s been fun, but it hasn’t moved me toward my personal 2010 goal of contributing something to a Open Source Software project. I’ve been reading a fair amount of code lately, trying to find something to contribute to. If anyone has any ideas, please post in the comments.
Recently at home we’ve been trying to focus on getting more exercise. We bought a nice NordicTrack elliptical and set it up in the basement. I’m finding that changing one’s lifelong habits is a difficult thing. Especially with so much TV to watch :)
With the weather oscillating tantalizingly between Spring and Winter, Jakki and I are very excited to do some camping this year, especially since we now have a big truck and can pack ridiculous amounts of Glamper paraphernalia. The next stop is Trailerville!
The band I’m in (I hesitate to say ‘my band’ since I did not form it), has been having a lot of fun, and with Spring coming on, we are looking forward to many opportunities to play. I’m also working on getting them set up with some kind of blog thing so we can communicate with our fans better.
So to wrap up this quarterly update (and to try to motivate myself to do a better job of posting regularly): please stay tuned and keep in touch; I will endeavor to do the same.
]]>Unfortunately, Jakki had to work, and my parents had a dancing engagement, so I don’t have any photos of the gig to the post. I’m thinking that I might need to ask Santa for a video camera, so I can begin building up a video library of the band to put on youtube for potential venue owners to look at.
]]>The first type of coder/gamer is a person who likes the result of the game. They like the feeling that comes along with winning, or completing a level. If you played a dungeon-type discovery game such as Diablo with this person, generally they would be the person to reach the end of a level first. And then probably complain that you are taking too long. They enjoy the completion more than the act of playing. In fact, to them, the idea of playing is just the sum of all the completed levels so far. These types shall be known as the Completors.
The second type of coder/gamer is a person who likes the exploration and interaction of the game. Winning or completing a level is a secondary or nth-erary aspect of the game. These people will want to explorer every possible room in a dungeon, possibly returning to visited rooms just to check “if anything new has shown up”. Obviously, this drives the type 1s crazy, as these archetypes enjoy the act of playing more than completion. Personally, this is the group I tend to fall into. These types shall be known as the Wanderers.
So which is better? I don’t believe the question is nearly as cut and dried as that. From a business point of view, results matter, and it would seem that a gang of Completors would the best team to create a business-critical on-time and under-budget enterprise-level highly-available software solution. Let me pause for a moment here, to let my jargon buffer refill. I think that a good level of success can be had with a group of coders more toward the Completor end of the spectrum. But that comes with a price. Because Completors are so results-oriented, once they find a good solution or strategy to beat “the game”, they will just continue to apply it over and over. Why fix it if it ain’t broke?
The problem with the security of these repeatable results is that the world of software (and the world of games) marches on at a blistering pace. New technologies and methodologies spring up like dandelions in the summer. I personally spend a good deal of time just trying to keep up with a small amount of the New Stuff. Completors tend to shy away from personal growth and exploration because that’s their nature. Over a career, or many careers, this can lead to a certain amount of software stagnation.
Now let’s look at the Wanderers. You might think after that last paragraph, that you really want a team of Wanderers! Unfortunately, that group has some downsides as well: They tend to be the worst estimators ever. Some projects, because the game space is so large, will never actually reach completion. When faced with a very structured deadline or result, Wanderers may fail (for certain values of failure). Because the idea of exploration and self growth is very important, Wanderers tend to not have as much loyalty or “team spirit” as Completors.
So what’s the final answer? Just like in many things in life— I believe that moderation is key. A group that is a well-mixed solution of different levels of these elements will reap benefits greater than the sum of it’s parts. Wanderers will inspire and enlighten the Completors, The Completors will keep the Wanderers on the right track, possibly dragging them over the finish line with them. As a manager, or project leader, I think that understanding these two archetypes and using their strengths and weaknesses together can make for a most potent team. After all, who wants to play Diablo with a group solely consisting of Barbarians?
]]>Later on, the news they mentioned that all bus service was suspended because of the storm and the fact that the snow removal teams can’t get a handle on it. I posted some pics in our photo gallery. Note the abandoned U-Haul in the intersection. That’s never a good sign.
Since we are effectively snowed in, I’m working from home, although the internet keeps going up and down. We have plenty of food, and since we had the trees pruned this fall, I’m not worried about the power going out. The new furnace is keeping us nice and warm as well.
]]>This year, I’m thankful that everyone [EDIT: everyone in our time zone] can be together so easily, and that everyone is healthy. How about you?
]]>Let us know if there aren’t enough choices or price ranges. This sure beats circling items in the Sears catalog (like we used to do years ago)!
]]>This is not the first time I’ve noticed such a trend. We purchased a Hoover FloorMate from BestBuy a few weeks ago, and in it’s package was a similar “Do Not Go To Store, Do Not Pass Go” insert. Fortunately for us, the FloorMate was intact.
The part of this I find disturbing (in addition to the 3-5 day wait for replacement and the $125 deposit), is that the manufacturers have lost faith in the level of customer service that the stores that carry their merchandise provide. Is it that the Wal-Marts and BestBuys of the world have gotten so big, and their profit margins so “wafer thin”, that they can no longer provide the level of service that customers have come to expect from the manufacturers? I see this as a failing of the free market economy because of two reasons:
1- If the manufacturer is going to force the customer to deal directly with them for “customer service”, then what stake does the store have in treating their merchandise like it was their own?
2- How can the manufacturer ever hope to provide a level of customer service better than a place I can drive to conveniently?
Despite these market forces aligning against us, and Big Corp. trying to keep us down— Jakki and I played late into the night. She on vocals and me on guitar/bass, our band, “The Analogues”, made it into Act IV.
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