Scream Testing

I came across an interesting method of testing, but not to find defects. Instead, scream testing can be used to determine if some hardware or a service is being used or not:

...we put these servers into a scream test environment where they still have access to our corpnet, but users are now limited from doing just about anything on the machines except logging in.  If someone does log onto a machine to try something (like running tests, installing other software, etc.), a dialog pops up telling them that this machine is in a scream test and they need to contact my lab managers if they want access back for this server, otherwise it will be retired in so many days.  We usually put a set of servers in a scream test for 2-4 weeks.  Some people on the team will scream profusely and we are happy about that.

Hello, Machine Learning

If you’ve ever been curious about Machine Learning, this is a short, easy to understand introduction to the concept.

Hobbies

I have a problem with the world: it’s too dang interesting.

Since starting my career, with more time and money, I’ve had the opportunity to explore more hobbies than ever before. Here’s the hobbies I have invested at least some time into, in no particular order:

  1. Woodworking
  2. Mountaineering (hiking, bouldering, rock climbing, etc.)
  3. XC Biking
  4. Alpine skiing
  5. XC skiing
  6. Reading (science fiction, fantasy, historic, business, etc.)
  7. Video gaming
  8. Tabletop gaming
  9. Rotaract/Rotary
  10. App development
  11. Web development
  12. Guitar/singing
  13. Camping/over-landing
  14. Socializing
  15. Auto repair
  16. Self development (meditation, journaling, etc.)
  17. Photography
  18. Financials (investing, etc.)
  19. Dancing
  20. Writing
  21. Martial arts
  22. Horology

Whew. That’s a lot of hobbies. And I want to pursue them all!

Of course, the watch on my wrist says I can’t; we have a limited amount of time each day and in life. So which hobbies should I be investing in?

Traditional wisdom would say to pick the select few that interest me most and pursue them to completion. The problem is my interest moves between hobbies frequently, and in the past I felt guilty that I was leaving something incomplete. This resulted in me doing nothing for a while — my guilt prevented me from moving on; my change in interest prevented me from completing what I had started.

My solution: move between hobbies fluidly. My constant is my career, everything else is open to change. Thus far, I’ve found I return to some hobbies in time and will eventually pursue them to completion. My posting frequency on this site is a great example of that.

Emilie Wapnick detailed a personality like this in her TED Talk, Why some of us don’t have one true calling.

The world is an interesting place, and I’m going to experience as much of it as I can through a variety of hobbies before my time runs out.

Mailing List Working Again

My mailing list was failing to send updates for the past few weeks due to a technical issue. That issue has been fixed now, and the mailing list should resume this Friday morning (or today, if you’re reading this from the email).

Sorry for the inconvenience. I wrote some posts that weren’t sent out, so if you’re interested take a scroll down the homepage to see what you missed.

Programming Sucks

Fact: I love programming.

Also fact: I loathe programming.

Programming Sucks does an impeccable, and hilarious, job of describing the parts of programming that, well, suck:

Every friend I have with a job that involves picking up something heavier than a laptop more than twice a week eventually finds a way to slip something like this into conversation: “Bro, you don’t work hard. I just worked a 4700-hour week digging a tunnel under Mordor with a screwdriver.”

They have a point. Mordor sucks, and it’s certainly more physically taxing to dig a tunnel than poke at a keyboard unless you’re an ant. But, for the sake of the argument, can we agree that stress and insanity are bad things? Awesome. Welcome to programming. [...]

In particular, this is one metaphor that rings far too true:

...the bridge was designed as a suspension bridge, but nobody actually knew how to build a suspension bridge, so they got halfway through it and then just added extra support columns to keep the thing standing, but they left the suspension cables because they’re still sort of holding up parts of the bridge. Nobody knows which parts, but everybody’s pretty sure they’re important parts. [...]

Much of programming is managing insanity. Some of us are insane enough to love doing it.

Star Wars - Danger Zone

Kenny Loggins, meet Star Wars. Star Wars, meet Kenny Loggins.

Like they were made for each other.

Desperate for Cable Subscribers

Every 6 months or so I remember that I’m paying Comcast for both cable and internet service. This is despite my cable box having sat, unplugged, in my closet for well over a year.

(The only thing I use from my cable subscription is HBO Go, but I would happily pay directly for HBO Now.)

Every 6 months or so I call Comcast to attempt to reduce my bill by cutting my cable service. Here’s the crazy part: cancelling my cable would cost me more money per month for worse internet speeds. Here’s how it lays out:

  • Current: Cable + 105Mbps download + 10Mbps upload, $65/month
  • Internet Only #1: 75Mbps download + 5Mbps upload, $70/month
  • Internet Only #2: 25Mbps download + 5Mbps upload, $60/month

To cut my cable and save any money, I would have to cut my internet download speed by 76%.

There is some nuance happening. I’m holding onto a legacy bundle I got when I first joined Comcast, and the internet-only prices are without any deals. Regardless, that is a massive performance difference for what is effectively the same price.

It fascinates me that Comcast is so desperate to hold onto cable subscribers, even if it means giving them significantly better internet speeds than their prices would normally dictate.

BadUSB, a USB drive that turns into a keyboard

BadUSB is a hack announced at Black Hat USA in 2014, that is both ingenious and terrifying. A standard USB drive is re-programmed so that shortly after being plugged in, it changes its device type to a keyboard. From there, it can quickly enter keystrokes to install malware onto the host machine.

See the demo and full technical explanation in the video. The demo starts at the 1 minute mark.

Manure Test

If you spend enough time reading and talking about trucks, one question inevitably comes up: what is a truck?

This, of course, is a question with highly opinionated answers and has little meaningful impact in life, but I’m passionate about trucks so I’m going to throw my opinion into the fray.

To determine whether a vehicle is a truck or not, I’ve come up with a simple test: The Manure Test.

To apply The Manure Test, follow these steps:

  1. Choose the vehicle that you want to evaluate.
  2. Ask yourself this question: “Would I willingly carry a load of raw manure with this vehicle, without any attachments or modifications?”
  3. If you answered “yes”, then it’s a truck. Otherwise, it’s something else.

To come up with this test, I asked myself what differentiates a truck from other types of vehicles. Features commonly listed in response to this question, such as body on frame construction or having a V-8 engine, simply aren’t unique to a truck. Many of these fearures are shared by full size SUV’s, as well as many cars designed in the mid 20th century.

The one truly unique feature that all trucks have, but other vehicle types do not, is the truck bed. More generally, a cargo area that is physically separated from the passenger cabin. The Manure Test validates this physical separation by smell. If there isn’t complete separation between manure and passengers, the smell would be over-bearing for most anyone.

If I’m ever in a discussion with someone about what makes a truck a truck, I now have an easy way to explain my thinking.

The Last Days of Target

Canadian Business has a fascinating, inside look into what happened with the Target Canada failure:

In the fall of 2013, hundreds of Target Canada head office staff piled into the auditorium at the Mississauga Living Arts Centre for a state-of-the-union address from their leaders. The employees were weary and frustrated by this point. The bulk of the 124 stores had opened, and it was clear the launch had gone seriously awry. Consumers were frustrated when confronted with empty shelves, and the media and financial analysts were hammering the company for it. On stage, Fisher stated his conviction that Target Canada was making progress and that 2014 would be a greatly improved year. A Q&A session followed; one employee bravely asked Fisher what he would do differently if he could do the launch over again. A man in the front row stood up and offered to field the question. Taking the microphone, Steinhafel, Target’s CEO, didn’t hesitate with his answer: He would renegotiate the real estate deal that facilitated the company coming to Canada in the first place.