Esoteric Curio - Rambling

Remiss regarding reading recommendations.

nospam@example.com (Theo Schlossnagle) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:26:43 -0400

It's been ages since I wrote about a book I've read. I didn't stop reading, just sharing.

I recently read Jared Diamond's "Gun, Germs & Steel." I'm not going to spoil the book, but not for the reason you think. You can't spoil this book without regurgitating it in its entirety: it is pure content. Every page is interesting and I refreshingly exercised my mind on the challenges of our world from an old-world perspective. If you've the time and patience (and haven't read it already), I highly recommend this book. Plain and simple, it makes you think. If you are like me (i.e. an entrepreneur or an engineer), you likely will think in atypical patterns. Thinking differently means thinking smarter tomorrow.

Enjoy!

If you've read it, please let me know what you (as a fellow engineer) thought of this book. Did you find it fascinating or is my head just malfunctioning?

Vibram Four Fingers: Syndactyly Successful

nospam@example.com (Theo Schlossnagle) — Sun, 23 May 2010 21:21:39 -0400

These are vibram five fingers:

However, I have syndactyly affecting both of my feet.

I love the idea of having my toes separated which is why I prefer barefoot so much more than shoes. Vibram five fingers have always appealed to me. However, I cannot wear them. I wrote Vibram and asked for a pair of shoes to cut up and make acceptable for all the people with toes like mine, but they seemed completely uninterested.

This weekend, I finally took the risk and bought shoes I cannot even try on. And here is my short, simple and successful journey.

First I cut down the side walls between the second and third toes. I trimmed the fabric a few millimeters from the rubber sole and about four millimeters from the top seam (where grey meets black). Stopping here gives me wearable shoes that would collect rocks and offer a separation of the sole between the second and third toes that would be quite uncomfortable to walk in after a while.

The next part lack photography as the working space was very small and I couldn't take any solid pictures. However, I used grey embroidery thread to loop-stich the two toe soles together from the inside leaving the bottom attached:

Then I did my best at a plait stitch (which I'll admit I did poorly) across the top of the toes from seam to seam:

And then I can slip my darling feet into them:

All in all, this took about an hour for the first shoe and about a half hour of the second shoe. I'm pleased. It turned out well. These are my Vibram "syndactyly-enabled" Four Fingers.

Plan Wagon

nospam@example.com (Theo Schlossnagle) — Mon, 10 May 2010 10:54:33 -0400

What does it mean to architect a system? It means you solve problems.

While that might seem simple, I am absolutely dumbfounded by the number of people that attempt to solve their problem by simply applying the solution to someone else's problem without any sort of reasonable thought process.

Let me tell you all about "Plan Wagon."

Bob's a great parent. In fact most people that know Bob are extremely impressed by Bob's parenting skills. He spends time with his kids and one of his favorite things to do with them is take them for wagon rides around the neighborhood. Bob's blogged a few times about how challenging it was to take his kids around the block before (as they were all different ages with different walking speeds and attention spans), but now with the wagon — life is swell.

Jack reads Bob's blog amongst many others, and he himself has some experience with wagons and knows how they operate. He was a child once and just the other day saw someone transporting some children in a wagon. Jack is an important player in education: he coordinates various programs and has been very successful.

Jack is posed with a challenge at work: a new educational program being offered will serve 120 children ages 4 through 9 across a suburb and his organization must provide transportation. Jack feels confident. Jack knows Bob's success with wagons. Jack has used a wagon, has seen them work. Jack purchases a fleet of 64 wagons. He figures that two kids per wagon would work fine and that having four extra will leave some to be used if another wagon needs servicing. Now, who will pull them? Well, with 60 wagons, you'll need at least 60 adults. And the distance to be covered is about 4 miles, so they should allot for approximately 2 hours each way of travel time.

A casual observer notes to Jack that perhaps a transport with higher service capacity and faster travel time might be more appropriate. Jack is irritated because he knows that the wagons will work (and BTW, he is correct). Despite his irritation at being distracted from ironing out the implementation details of "Plan Wagon" he does some research. Jack finds that a both a Boeing 737 and an Airbus A320 will hold 120 children and go around 500 miles per hour. But, clearly those are impractical because of the cost.

A colleague of Jack's suggests that perhaps buses should be used. Jack, of course, knows exactly what these are. However, Jack doesn't have a C class license so cannot drive a bus, nor has Jack ever fixed a bus, and buses typically don't have seatbelts, which has always concerned Jack. Jack is confident that were something to go wrong with "Plan Wagon" he could act in any role required to facilitate success.

Jack sleeps on it. After reviewing the facts he comes to a decision. Jack's goal is to move different aged children around the suburbs. Jack knows that Bob effectively moves children around his suburb on wagons and the choice of a wagon made Bob happy, popular and solved the critically important problem of varying mobility of children of different ages that Jack is sure to face. Jack goes ahead with "Plan Wagon."

Jack is an ignorant ass clown.

Now, in reality, Jack's "Plan Wagon" can work. It's overly expensive and painfully suboptimal, but possible nonetheless. The issue here was very obvious: Bob's problem and Jack's problem were different — no matter how much Jack wished otherwise. For some reason, in technology, even seemingly smart people act like Jack.

People applying NoSQL to problems that would clearly benefit from deep relational management. People applying traditional DBMS to problems that require no atomicity, isolation or consistency. People who feel they need to use Hadoop to process a mere terabyte of data. These technologies aren't "wrong" — but can't be considered "solutions" when they are applied to the wrong problem.

Here's an idea: how about understanding the problem before you try to solve it? I know it's a radical concept, but it might just help. I would argue that almost every solution has at least two legitimate technology selections that can be cleanly applied. In other words, if I need a strong DBMS, chances are good that both PostgreSQL or Oracle will work. If I need a horizontally scalable key-value store, likely Cassandra or Voldemort (or MongoDB or CouchDB) will work. Now stop. I'm not telling you to look hard at the differences between Cassandra and Voldemort, I'm tell you to look hard at the differences between a DMBS and a key-value store. Do not assume that because you are building an app "today" that you it must be powered by a key-value store.

Next time you are posed a problem and you pick up your favorite tools — put them down. Why? It might just force to think about what you are building instead of the tools you are using. Be an engineer and think about the solution to the problem rather than the building materials and tools.

At OmniTI, we hire engineers and often immediately have them use a language and a database and an operating system they don't know. It separates the engineers from the programmers — programmers are a dime a dozen.

Unfortunately, engineers are hard to find. If you want to be an engineer consider OmniTI as a home for engineers. It was built by engineers and continues to be run by engineers. We're hiring people that are more excited about the solutions they produce than they are about the tools they use. We're hiring people that want to solve problems right and can restrain themselves from trying to jam a square peg in a round hole just because the peg is shiny or familiar. We're looking for people that care to understand a problem before they solve it. Ignorant ass clowns need not apply.

Regardless of who you are and what you are doing: avoid "Plan Wagon."

What does it mean to be a patriot?

nospam@example.com (Theo Schlossnagle) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:07:15 -0500

I love my country. My sense of patriotism has grown since I was a child to what it is today. I can't imagine being a citizen in any other country (I hope all foreign nationals feel the same about their country). What does it really mean to be a patriot?

Patriotism is support of your country... I believe my country was founded on a principal of liberty. Liberty is the state of being free from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life or behavior (or political views). "Give me liberty of give me death" is a very famous American quote that deeply represents what the United States of America is all about; Patrick Henry was no chump.

Liberty means that you never sacrifice your rights or freedoms for simple conveniences such as safety. In plain English, the US PATRIOT act is the most unpatriotic American act in my lifetime. Damn sad. I am a patriot, I will outlive this abomination and I will once again live in a country where our citizens and our representatives act out of principals instead of a sad fear and artificial sense of safety. It only requires staying the course and acting without fear.

Death by icicle.

nospam@example.com (Theo Schlossnagle) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:59:34 -0500

This fell off the gutter onto the doorstep. Damn lucky no one was standing there. Just ridiculous.

Sexified fonts for the web.

nospam@example.com (Theo Schlossnagle) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:08:05 -0500

OmniTI has been working with Clearleft for a while now on Fontdeck. The super Greg Chiasson has been pushing our beta live and I've been provisioning machines and setting up infrastructure just so you can read this web page in a nice sexy font... Nice... Sexy.

And yes, of course, fontdeck is powered by our friends: Apache, PostgreSQL, OpenSolaris, a bit of Linux here and there, a sprinkling of both asymmetric and symmetric cryptography and an ancient dialect of computer-speak called Perl.

Painful reading.

nospam@example.com (Theo Schlossnagle) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 21:50:14 -0400

I just read “Selling to Big Companies” by Jill Konrath.

“Ugh.” Written on a third-grade reading level with a tone of voice often focused on a fourth-grade audience this book was beyond painful. The author adumbrates a plan, but (being a decision maker) I find several of her positions paradoxical. The book does has useful information, but it was not reinforced with compelling storied or anecdotes. As I trudged to the end of this book I realized that reading just the “Key Points” sections at the end of each chapter just might have ameliorated the experience.

Basic premise: good decision makers (like those at big companies) buy on business value, not on shininess of product. Don't sell your offering, sell the value they will realize. Understand the company and personalize the pitch. All of this should be obvious to anyone who is even considering taking a meeting with a large corporation. Unless you are selling commodity services, the shotgun effect never works well in sales. For specialized services, the shotgun effect can be a good marketing approach (if done well) — never a sales approach.

The section on words to leave out of email correspondence due to spam filters was simply uneducated.

It hurt. This blog post is only a method of me expelling my disappointment.

Only buy this book out of morbid curiosity of what I can endure reading.

Business Chaotics, It's All I Know.

nospam@example.com (Theo Schlossnagle) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 10:02:57 -0400

Yup, I read another book. I think we can all agree we live in turbulent times. Current economic conditions combined with market globalization causes all sorts of fluctuation and chaos. I enjoyed parts of this book, but didn't find it particularly valuable. I believe the lack of value is not the author's fault, but rather a condition of me being a young entrepreneur.

I liked how the author reinforced the concepts by correlating turbulence and chaos to our immediate past (2008). What unfolded in 2008 is still quite fresh in my mind and it forced me to draw more meaningful parallels into the book. While we've had bad economic times in the U.S. before, the last time it was really bad I was only nine years old. I don't have scars from that. The harsh realities that hit in 2008 (and 2009 at least) were more directly meaningful to me as a business owner and employer.

"Chaotics: The Business of Managing and Marketing in the Age of Turbulence" by Philip Kotler was really a discussion to help people mentally transition from an old paradigm of business management to a new one. In the old one, there were good times and bad times and the transition between the two was, while not exactly predictable, regular and rather slow (measured in multiples of years). In the new paradigm, there is a realization that shit happens and it happens all the time. Due to globalization and other factors, there is a lot more chaos. In the old paradigm people were taken off guard by the unexpected events of natural disaster (weather, fire, etc.). Now, regular economic fluctuations can take people off guard. Globalization, hypercompetition and the fact that we (as a global community) apparently don't understand how to manage risk well have introduced all sorts of uncertainties.

Business chaotics is the mindset and process of preparing for uncertainties and having plans laid to deal with the shit that is sure to happen, even if we don't know precisely kind before we step in it.

So, why did I say I didn't get much value from this book? Don't get me wrong, I got some... However, I didn't have any revelations as the reviews indicated I might. The reason for this is that I've been an entrepreneur and business owner in the Internet sector for 12 years. My company enables start-ups and other companies intending to serve a global audience on the Internet. We apply technologies appropriately to improve the experience of their users (and thus increase revenues) as well as reduce operational costs. This marketplace has been turbulent since its inception. This is the only type of business environment I know. As such, this book didn't help me transition mentally from the old way to the new way because I don't know the old way.

Project Management Reading

nospam@example.com (Theo Schlossnagle) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:29:26 -0400

Long ago I studied Project Management very briefly. OmniTI does a mix of project work and operations work and the orchestration of those two things is quite interesting (more to come on that in a future blog post). Regardless, my understanding of project management principals was getting far to rusty and I decided to read up.

The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management by Eric Verzuh, while likely an awful project management book for anyone serious about learning the deeper craft of project management was an excellent book for me. It runs through a brief history of the topic and then launches into terms, technique concepts and explains their purpose. Occasionally, the author is really talking to the reader as if they will be applying the techniques as a project manager. Given that this book is (appropriately) geared toward someone pursuing an MBA, it seems unlikely that a real (good) project manager would ever read this book.

Most of my colleagues said something like: "A book on project management... must be riveting." I responded that I was actually enjoying it, but around 85% of the way through the tide turned and from thereon out I wanted to gouge out my eyeballs. Miraculously, I pulled through and finished with vision in tact. I'd recommand this book to other business people that have the need to hire and/or manage project managers. The restraint learned by not gouging your eyeballs out at the end of the book can even be applied at times when working with a bad project manager.

The one thing that got me thinking in the book (and that's what I really want books to do) was the articulated different between projects and operations. It was clear and well laid out. It spoke to the intrinsic need for a fundamentally different management style for projects and for ongoing operations. While that itself may be obvious, it make me realize that many of the engagements we take on at OmniTI aren't just "a bit of both" they are both. I'm still collecting my deeper thoughts on this, but suffice it to say I have more understanding and respect for why it is so challenging to manage expectations when delivering fast-paced services offerings on the Internet.

Fuck the blind.

nospam@example.com (Theo Schlossnagle) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:08:45 -0500

One of my favorite jokes always results with a wry grin on my face and ends with the punchline: "fuck the blind." Like many jokes, it is not politically correct. The only reason these jokes are funny is that they expose prejudices and injustices that still exist. Many of us laugh at these things and find little bits of truth in ourselves. The best of us reflect on that and increase our level of tolerance for all things different. I, like most Americans, have a long way to go, but see profoundly increased tolerance from generation to generation.

I am for freedom of choice; it allows people and corporations to take action on which they can be harshly judged. Amazon has given publishers the choice of disallowing their author's works from being automatically read aloud by computer. Now, I actually have no issues with this. If an audio version of a work is provided at the same price as the print version, then we have some element of accessibility. However, if a publisher disallows this and makes no spoken derivative available I think I get the message: "fuck the blind." However, I'm no longer laughing.

What's love got to do with it?

nospam@example.com (Theo Schlossnagle) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:11:06 -0500

We can always be better at what we do, right? My father gave me this book a long time ago and yesterday I ran across it an consumed it. It's a discuss of the art of loving (but not really). It talks about the discipline and dedication required to master any art and goes on to postulate that the art of loving is no different: to become a master you must dedicate yourself to the pursuit of the art in everything you do.

Like most philosophy books it is part bullshit and part common sense (the real value where the two meet) and 100% something that you can argue about. Most Western philosophers stick to their axiomatic Aristotelian logic to explain their ideas, but then dive into paradoxical logic when convenient to their argument and the reader will never know if it actually explains more to them than it did to the writer (or so said 老子). Everything is nothing. That which is one, is one; that which is not one, is one. All having profound truth if you define their context. This book is no different, it leaves you with a well-argued (even if not-so-compelling) opinion on that which stands in the way of good ol' lovin'.

It's more a book about the philosophy of giving love as opposed to receiving it (or more pointedly, expecting it). The only reason I've gone through all the effort of writing about it on my blog is that I rather enjoyed other aspects of this book. Now, I will digress into two unrelated topics: religion and parenting... Wow. WTF?

Religion

I do believe that the experience of being one with everything is fulfilling and leads to happiness. One can call that religion or a belief structure... I call it living. Religions that anthropomorphically approach the goal of being one with everything make no sense to me. As such, Fromm's discussions on loving God were quite fascinating. He expounds upon an evolution of religious practice: most interestingly the interpretation of religious conscience in the form of beliefs versus actions. He makes an statement that action-based religions are more evolved than belief-based religions. I like the argument because I agree.

Parenting

Fromm talks about motherly and fatherly love in a way that is almost palpable in the context of the era in which the book was written (1950s). It's an interesting throw-back into a time before my existence, but I find it profoundly interesting as I see the delineation between motherly love and fatherly love (in the roles of the mother and father) eroding in modern society. Our attempts to instill equality have resulted in a profound amount of sameness. As such, in our society, fathers tend to show much of the same unconditional love that is shown by mothers. (Fromm blames this on capitalism -- that's an awesome argument, I chuckled through most of that section). This erosion is not a bad or good thing, it just is. It does however put us in a position where our previous understanding of how love works is less applicable, but hey... evolution's a bitch.

Seven things.

nospam@example.com (Theo Schlossnagle) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:18:12 -0500

Wez Furlong wrote an interesting piece on "seven thing" you may not know about him. He singled me out... (er... sevened me out)... as someone he'd like to know seven things about. I figured this would be a fun reflective journey down memory lane, so here goes...

My good friend Aaron gave me the nick-name Jesus in college -- it stuck. Though I've had many many hairstyles before and since (including the ever-popular flat top).
I studied electrical engineering at The Johns Hopkins University, but accidently satisfied the requirements for a Bachelor of Science in computer science and was graduated without my E.E. degree.
I finished each of middle school, high school, my undergraduate degree, and my graduate degree one year sooner than expected.
I married the love of my life at the age of twenty.
I created a MIG-29 flight game on Apple IIe when I was ten. And the went to run my own BBS on my Packard Bell 286.
I have bad circulation, so my feet are always cold... really, really cold.
I enjoy using my hands to create and change things. Mostly home construction like renovations, landscaping (before / after), etc. My next career will be carpentry or landscaping.

I'm supposed to chain seven people that I'd enjoying know seven things about. If figure that even if these people don't buy into this distraction, at least they'd be flattered that I thought of them.

Joshua Drake, a man on a mission not too different from my own
Bryan Cantrill, whose technology rocks my world
Chris Shiflett, who never speaks of himself
Lisa Schlossnagle, who keeps me balanced (I really want to see the seven people to whom she chains)
Paul Querna, hacker extraordinaire
David Reid, who manages to hold a real (interesting) job outside of technology
Sergey Ivanov, who seems to have more interesting stories than a library

and the rules:

Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
Share seven facts about yourself in the post - some random, some weird.
Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

Systems Operations and Fishing.

nospam@example.com (Theo Schlossnagle) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:19:29 -0500

There is a pleasant dream where the world is black and white, problems are discreet, and solutions are straightforward. People that live in this dream are an obstacle unto themselves. The harsh reality is that we struggle daily to simplify things because they tend to be so complex. Most choices lead to outcomes that have both positive and negative aspects. This includes the choice of inaction (wrongfully referred to as "not choosing"). When presented with options, by and large people tend to make decent choices. The conundrum is identifying good options when none are presented. This skill, in many people, just plain sucks.

There is an old proverb: "Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime." Perhaps I am oversimplifying fishing, but I struggle to adapt this proverb to systems operations. Perhaps it is due to the intangible nature of computing, but the one-step-closer proverb fits better (at least in my twisted brain): "Fix a man's car, and he can drive to the repair shop. Teach man to fix his car and he can go where he pleases." Why is this better? Perhaps it is just how my mind works. Perhaps it is because of the way symptoms present:

Dave: my car has issues.
Carl: what's wrong with it?
Dave: not sure.
Carl: why do you think it has issues?
Dave: It seems sluggish when pulling onto the interstate.
Carl: so it accelerates inadequately?
Dave: I guess.
Carl: What kind of car do you have again?
Dave: a brown one.
Carl: Uh, I mean make and model.
Dave: a Ronda Jackel.
Carl: is that carbureted or fuel injected?
Dave: um... um... it's got carbs.
Carl: really? what year?
Dave: oh, 2007.
Carl: okay, it's fuel injected.
Dave: oh, yeah.. That's right.. it's the Jackel GT, with the sports pack.
Carl: That has low-profile tires; are they properly inflated?
Dave: I think so, they look good.
Carl: when was the last time you checked?
Dave: last week, when I filled up. It costs like $58 to fill up. Gas prices are crazy!
Carl: *thinks*
Carl: Wow, where did you find high-test gas at that price?
Dave: Oh, I put 87 octane in that... that expensive stuff is a sham...
Carl: really? who told you that?
Dave: Alan
Carl: Who's Alan?
Dave: This great guy who taught me to fish.

Most people simply have no idea how their systems operate. They just know they are supposed to "go." Now, the purpose of this rant is really not to complain about car owners and their lack of knowledge (I'm one of them!), but rather to ask a wider audience about techniques to make the Carl's of the world better at their jobs.

Computing systems, like cars, can be immensely complex systems. When things go wrong, as they so often do, I feel you need someone who knows every single part. Not only should they know the part, they should know who built the part, why they built the part, when it was introduced into the system, what component it obsoleted, and what general advantages (and disadvantages) the newer part has over the older part. In car-speak, you should know who invented fuel-injection and when the industry transitioned, what advantages (and disadvantages) FI has over carburetor-based design. That should extend to every other part of the car down to the rubber on the tires and the stitching method used on the seat upholstery.

Note that I said "I feel you need someone..." I know a few people that can walk into a room with systems engineers and (knowing nothing about systems operations) assess a situation, ask a handful of high-level questions that results in at least two engineers slamming their heads into their desks. I call these people "Critical Thinkers." Critical Thinkers have the ability to critically think (surprise surprise), as well as understand other people's thought processes and deduce where they did not think critically.

Critical Thinkers are hard to come by, but they are out there. People with experience in computer science and operations are a little less hard to come by. It would make sense to take a Critical Thinker and teach them systems. However, to be really good at operations work, it takes years (probably five to ten). What is more challenging is finding a good Critical Thinker that actually wants to work in systems operations. What I constantly strive to do is mold people with solid technical skills and knowledge into critical thinkers. This brings us to the heart of this post.

I can hardly articulate my method of teaching critical thinking skills. Much of it is teach-by-example, but that has serious shortcomings in critical thinking scenarios. I could really use some breadth in my teaching/mentoring techniques. Does anyone have any good training materials that could be used to develop critical thinking skills? How do you cultivate and improve intuition?

There is nothing quite like a shorn scrot^H^H^Halp...

nospam@example.com (Theo Schlossnagle) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:39:44 -0500

My daughter Gianna has Alopecia Areata (more particularly Alopecia totalis). She's bald -- completely. She's three and just now she is beginning to become a bit self-conscious about her different appearance. It's understandable... kids are cruel, no one (young) really likes to be different. Lisa and I are exploring getting Gianna a nice wig to make her feel more like she fits. For now, I shaved my head so she's not the only one bald in the house. People have told me that they think what I did was awesome. I thank you all for your encouragement, but it is very little sacrifice. I really don't care what I look like -- I'm anything but vain when it comes to my appearance. Thank Lisa, she's the one that has to look at me all the time!

Sweat Investment

nospam@example.com (Theo Schlossnagle) — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 09:29:07 -0500

A lot of people know I started OmniTI 10 years ago and many ask, "how did you do that without investiment?" The answer is always the same: "sweat... and several ulcers." Recently, I reminded myself of how gratifying sweat investment can be.

Five years ago, Lisa and I moved from Germantown, MD to Laurel, MD. We moved into the house in which I grew up. So, there is a lot of nostalgia as well as age. We're not talking about the "100 years old" age, but rather the "20 years old" type that results in the rather long schedule of replacements (like roof, kitchen, windows, etc.). We renovated the kitchen soon after moving in, and soon after made the sun room on the back of the house and integral edition. Both of those things we lived through, but did not do ourselves.

Landscaping, on the other hand, is something that Lisa and I are much more comfortable tackling ourselves because no matter how big of a mess we make, we can always walk away from it at the end of the day and go inside to peace and order (as much as one can get with three little girls in the house).

I am notorious for taking a rather simple project and slightly complicating it. I look at it as taking the time to make sure that the proposed effort will truly be worthwhile. I'm pretty sure Lisa thinks it is a mental disorder.

The desire: a chimenea.

Continue reading "Sweat Investment"