I Have Something I Know That You Want

John Oliver is strong to very strong.
5 minutes of video, but you will need sound.

Nightmare Fuel: Spider Eats a Mouse

YE GODS WHAT THE HELL

This is all over the interwebs (HONK!) but it's worth revisiting here.

Photo shows a huntsman spider carrying off a small mouse that he, you know, killed, and is going to go eat. A bit of take-away, if you will. Take out? Whatever they call it down under. Who cares? Australia is terrifying. Everything there is poisonous. Even the mammals.

Your "Smart" Watch is Disposable Trash

Do You Know What Time It Is?

Let's get this out of the way up front: "Smart" watches are trash. I understand that this is a warm to hot take but I feel good about it. Let's unpack their disposable trash-ness.

Some context: In 1992 I bought a stainless steel (unusual for that time, when most Casio cases were resin) Casio Pentagraph DW-7200. I think I paid the princely sum of $120, which is about $200 today, so it was at the high end of the Casio range, mainly because of stainless case and screw down backing. Browsing the internets it seems that most people bought this thing because it looked cool: they liked the dials on the front (hence: 'pentagraph').

Since then I have replaced the band four or five times, and the battery once(!). It is no longer waterproof to 200M but it has served admirably for the past 20+ years. The only threat to its continued service is my own negligence. At this point it's the most reliable object I have ever owned. If everything else I bought lasted this long then the glorious consumer engine that is the American economy would shudder to a screeching halt. And it looks pretty good for what is now officially a 'vintage' Casio.

Contrast this functional, robust instrument with whatever 'smart' watch you like. This device has almost none of the features you can find on your Series 1* Apple "watch" (no retina display, no bluetooth -lulz, no wifi- lulz, no heart rate sensor, no 'watch os2' - whatever that is). It also doesn't have "up to 18 hours of battery life", which is a very interesting feature to offer in a device that is supposed to report the time and date, and also: are you fucking joking? What kind of asshole buys a 'watch' that can't even tell the time for at least 18 hours?

There are other watches that perform marginally better, but for the most part the pattern is the same. It's a micro-computer that integrates with the mini-computer in your pocket or purse, and in that role it is barely adequate. It does do some things, but you can get all of those things from your phone and a fitbit.

Also, let's be honest about what a 'smart' watch is: it's an excuse for someone to check their email and text messages without getting out their phone. So it gives you a new and novel way to be that asshole that is constantly checking your phone. Congratulations?

Will anyone be using these 'smart' watches in 20 years? Hell no. 10 years? No. Five years? Umm, no. In two or three years they will all be obsolete. And you will buy a new one, and then you have a growing collection of junk watches that won't even be as useful as the early-gen Ipods, which were at least viable as external hard drives.

Please don't buy a 'smart' watch. They are bad and dumb, and you are neither of those things. Right? Right.


* Note that the Series 1 is the old, even more trash version than the new version - Apple loves selling you overpriced disposable consumer items more than anyone. Don't people get tired of planned obsolescence?

Trolley Problem: Solved

Bit late to this but if you are familiar with the Trolley Problem then you will probably enjoy this creative solution. Kid gets a perfect score for fairness; empathy score is, ahhhh, somewhat lower.

Short summary of the Trolley Problem - a runaway 'trolley' is barreling down tracks towards five people. The resulting, inevitable crash will kill all involved. You can intervene by pulling a lever so that the trolley switches to a different track, killing only one person. What would you do?

Trump Sandwich

Much like the man himself - we know it has terrible taste.

Signboards are kind of a theme this week.

This Will Make You Feel Better

If this doesn't make you smile then I can't help you.

Microservices: Culture -> Strategy -> Skills -> Tools

(This post is related to a presentation I gave about two months ago on microservices tools. If you don't know what that means and/or aren't interested in it then just ignore. We will return to our regularly scheduled programming shortly.)

I was asked give a talk at a microservices seminar. My job was to cover/demo  the tools used for 'typical' microservices deployments. ('Typical' is a generic term and does not lend itself well to this kind of talk, but whatever.) The tool-specific section of that talk is less important than the overarching themes I explored when I introduced the tools. Specifically, I outlined a hierarchy of dependencies that will enable (or derail) any microservices initiative.* They are, in descending order of criticality:

1. Culture
2. Strategy
3. Skills
4. Tools

Any organization that attempts to adopt a microservices initiative without alignment in all of these key areas will never reach their full potential. At best they will fumble along with intermediate or haphazard success; at worst they will fail spectacularly.

No strategic microservices initiative will succeed without a culture shift. No amount of brilliant developers and their concomitant skills can overcome a weak or antagonistic strategy. And the best tools cannot help you if you don't have the requisite skills.

If you are considering a microservices strategy and aren't sure what tools to use then it is very likely that you have other, more serious challenges. Is your culture in alignment with microservices principles and best practices? Is your strategy in alignment with your culture? Does your team have the skills to execute your strategy? If so, what tools are they most comfortable with?

Of course there are a great many other issues to consider - that's why Amundsen, et. al. wrote a book. Go there for more information, or use the google. It will not take very long to find more information than you ever wanted to know. If that's not enough then I will unpack each of the component dependencies in a later post (get excited!), but if all you take from this is the four key elements then you are off to a good start.

Thanks for reading.



* None of this happens in a vacuum. I adapted the work of the authors of this book along with some interesting and useful strategic thinking from some other hobby interests of mine.

Costa Rica is Nice, You Should Go

Click to Embiggen

Liked my trip to Costa Rica well enough. Had some good experiences, and the yoga was great. I took hardly any photos so the only photo record I have is from my friends that were there at the same time. This is one of those photos.

Having my picture taken is a sadness so as soon as the camera came out I made sure to try and get out of the way. Limited success on the photo-dodge but the result is a good example of how I spent most of my non-yoga time in Santa Teresa and surrounding environs: out hiking or at the beach or on the quad to get to different hiking or beach or lunch spots. Good times.

Van City Beers and Van City Bears

I'm Risk Averse

This is from a couple months ago when I was in Van City. Enjoyed the sign so much I went inside to see what they had in they way of beers. Plus bears are dangerous, and you never know. 

(I didn't see any bears in Van City - I saw a lot of heroin addicts and able-bodied homeless and general street trash but no bears. Go figure.)

I Am an International Financier! But Also: Diversify Your Portfolio - Kiva Loans Defaulted :(

I submitted my first loan through Kiva in July 2007, right about the time they blew up on Oprah and got all their loans 100% funded. Since then I have circulated the money to 16 different people, which is quite a few more than the 'average' kiva lender, although this is probably down to the fact that most people loan once or twice and quit out. That's a lot of people to contribute to and help in some some small way.

Kiva provides some useful statistics on your account. Turns out I have been mostly lucky in delinquency rates and default rates, because until recently none of my loans had been delinquent or defaulted.

Now for the less than good news: my luck ran out and I went from a default rate of zero to way past the average when a single organization that was managing a couple of my loans went under and I lost about $100. Sad faces. Per Kiva the average default rate is 1.33%, and my default rate went from zero to 8% overnight. This is disappointing but what can you do? Nothing is guaranteed, life is uncertain, etc and so forth. I'm about to re-lend the money I have in my account now. Let's do this!

Fix That with Gum

Turns out you can fix high-pressure hydraulic seals with chewing gum! This fun fact would be a lot more interesting if chewing gum and o-ring seals commonly used in this application were not comprised of the same material.

This man is a hero. "We'll use the old saskatchewan socket on it - we know we got it just the right tightness because it's rounded right off'.