Life

Tutored

/ hsoi / 10 Comments

Doggie is going to get “tutored” today.

This is showing what sort of “not a dog person” I am. I have been agonizing over it… knowing she’s going to be left “alone” at the vet’s office, how much it pains her to be away from us and additionally locked up at some strange place with strange people. And then having to come home wearing “the cone of shame” and how miserable that’s going to be for her for a few days.

It’s been one of those “hurts me more than it’s going to hurt her” sort of situations.

Even Wife and Kiddos aren’t as pained about this as I am.

Yes… I’ve become a total sucker for that dog. *sigh* 🙂

What to teach the kids?

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

A friend pointed me to this article by Eugene Wallingford titled “I Just Need A Programmer“.

The Slashdot entry sums it up best:

“As head of the CS Department at the University of Northern Iowa, Eugene Wallingford often receives e-mail and phone calls from eager entrepreneurs with The Next Great Idea. They want to change the world, and they want Prof. Wallingford to help them. They just need a programmer. ‘Many idea people,’ observes Wallingford, ‘tend to think most or all of the value [of a product] inheres to having the idea. Programmers are a commodity, pulled off the shelf to clean up the details. It’s just a small matter of programming, right?’ Wrong. ‘Writing the program is the ingredient the idea people are missing,’ he adds. ‘They are doing the right thing to seek it out. I wonder what it would be like if more people could implement their own ideas.'”

The interesting thing was, before reading this article my friend and I were talking about teaching kids how to program. He’s been studying this nifty 2D graphics library and given how well-written it was, maybe he’d be able to use it to teach his son how to program. Maybe, but the problem I saw there was there was still too much other stuff to deal with, like the language issues, because the first time you try to figure out pointers in C/C++/Objective-C well… it’s mind-bending. 🙂

The thing that hit me was the last sentence of the Slashdot summary:

I wonder what it would be like if more people could implement their own ideas.

And as I was thinking about teaching our kids I realized what we need to give them are the tools that enable them to realize their ideas.

One cool thing about programming computers is computers are such general purpose tools, that with a little work you can get them to do almost anything you want. Such is a great thing about learning to program. But kids tend to not see that, they just see they want to play a game. So if they want to write a game, give them those tools.

Daughter is very artsy, so we ensure she has a constant supply of art and craft materials. For example, yesterday morning, inspired by the movie “Tangled”, she took some paper plates and painted some really neat stuff on them. We have to keep brushes, paint, pencils, paper, and all sorts of art supplies around at all times for the kids. I’ve even bought software for them to help them be creative. In fact, I think our Christmas card this year is going to be one designed and assembled on the computer by Daughter.

Or if the idea your child has is to create music, ensure they have instruments or other tools to create their music… even software like GarageBand.

The point is, in whatever realm the kids are having their ideas, don’t let them just dream about their ideas coming true; give them the means to make their dreams come true. And that includes a lot of encouragement and support.

Observations from the morning dog walk

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Dog walk this morning was well before dawn. Point being, it’s very cold, it’s very dark.

  • Loose pants are good. I can put some long johns on before the walk, then easily slip out of the pants and remove the long johns upon return. Layers are good, but only when you’re out in the cold. Tac Pants 1, Jeans 0.
    • I state that because I find myself gravitating back to wearing jeans. Tactical/cargo pants are very useful, but they have zero style. That said, I am looking at “tactical jeans”… not many out there, but they don’t even have to be “5.11”. Just the chief requirement being the front pockets have a more open mouth.
  • Christmas lights are very useful for detecting movement. They put down a blanket of predictable and traceable light patterns, so when a deer trots out it’s very easy to spot their movement.
  • There’s this buck living back here. Oh he’s pretty sweet. If he’s the same guy we’ve been seeing and he lives another year, he’s going to be a monster (for the Texas Hill Country) come next year. Shame we all live in the city.
  • Someday I’ll get more into star-gazing, such that I’ll be able to spot-recognize more constellations than just Orion. 🙂
  • An essential part of good home security is having a well-lit property — cockroaches don’t like light. This morning I noticed an interesting pattern. Houses that were well lit (interior and/or exterior) also were near street lights. Houses that had little to no illumination from street lights were also dark (no interior nor exterior lights). I could make lots of inferences as to the meaning of this, but they’d be only hypotheses. Still I found it interesting that if the house was in the light, it was really in the light, and if the house was in the dark… well, there were lots of places one could hide and do evil things without anyone noticing.
  • It’s good to carry your flashlight in your hands at all times. It doesn’t have to be on throughout the walk, but if nothing else it’s useful for letting that guy backing his truck out of his driveway know you’re there. Besides, if someone did jump out at me, having the flashlight already in hand means it’s the first line of “give ’em a WTF moment”: flash ’em in the eyes to disorient them while you take the precious seconds to side-step and assess the situation (or immediately draw). Of course, having big killer doggie at your side doesn’t hurt either. 🙂
  • Doggie likes cold weather — a lot. Some weeks ago Daughter said she can’t wait for summertime, because doggie will mellow out. 😉

Couple random things

/ hsoi / 12 Comments

Oh, before I go… couple random things.

1. Feeling a lot better. I think whatever I had is now gone… but last night I felt really bad. My guess tho? The cigar and glass of wine did it… body just wasn’t quite ready for that yet. 🙂   But I’m on the mend, almost 100%. Thank you for the well wishes.

2. Daughter did something cool.

My father-in-law has a deer lease (natch) and the first couple weeks of January there’s a special youth season. He invited Daughter out to come take a doe or a spike during that time. I spoke with Daughter about it and she declined. Why? because she doesn’t feel her marksmanship skills are quite there. She would rather pass on the opportunity than recklessly take it. I am mighty proud of her. I know  she’s got the ability to put a rifle round within an 8″ circle at 100 yards, but she’s not sure of her ability to do it on demand especially given the excitement and pressure of “the moment.” I respect her thinking here; she wants to do the right thing and would rather wait than rush into it and do things wrong.

So it just means more range time. No arguments there!

Make me think… maybe time to buy a second Ruger 10/22 and do an Appleseed with the kids. I’ve been wanting to do that for some time. Hrm.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

/ hsoi

Over at The Climbing Up Blog, a posting titled “Good Cop, Bad Cop”.

Nothing to actually do with police, but more a mindset about what differentiates a good person from a bad person.

The crazy thing? As I read the list of “bad cop” things I couldn’t help but think of politicians and our current state of governmental affairs.

How did we manage before Google?

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

I’ve been working on a new programming project that’s new in every way. It’s a new project, it involves new API’s, new platforms, new paradigms, new things to explore… just about everything with this project is new.

When I get stuck and wonder how to get something done, first I turn to documentation. The docs are useful but generally are straight API docs. I need more conceptual docs, I need more HOWTO docs. So I look for sample code, and while some code is linked to from the docs, it many times hasn’t been enough to satisfy my question. So I do what has become natural in this day and age: turn to Google. Within a few keystrokes and clicks, I tend to find what I’ve been looking for. I can implement a solution in my code, get back to work and get on with things. Progress is quite rapid, all things considered.

What did we used to do?

I recall having to walk down the hallway to talk to other engineers at the company and ask for their help. Working from home for the day job and then having my own side gig, I just don’t have that luxury any more. Oh sure there are people I can turn to when I need it via IM or email or phone, but the world is growing so diverse in languages, technologies, platforms, APIs, and then the depth of what’s within those areas that often I ask someone a question and their response is “never used that before… never did that before… I don’t know”. 😦   While that isn’t solely a problem of today, in the old days we’d then turn to things like Usenet newsgroups or ad-hoc mailing lists; today we’d use web forums and official mailing lists But no matter whether we walked down the hallway or posted online, those all took one thing: time. If you walked down the hall you had to keep asking until you found someone who had a clue about the problem set, then you’d talk at great length, you’d get sidetracked, and eventually get back to your desk and work. If you posted online, you had to wait for a response with netiquette saying you should give it at least a day or two for people to respond. That sort of lag time isn’t always acceptable.

Now with so much content being online and Google’s amazing search capabilities, it takes almost no time. Chances are your problem isn’t unique, thus someone has asked about it before. And if you’re lucky, someone has responded with a useful solution… and Google was there to index it. Just craft your search string well and hopefully you’ll dig up what you need and be back on track within a few minutes of typing, clicking, and reading. The only thing we need is for people to keep their data online: websites can’t go away, blogs can’t close up, else that knowledge and information goes with it.

I’m quite impressed with how much I’ve gotten done this past week. With everything so new and having to wrap my head around so many things it’d normally take me a few weeks to get done what I’ve accomplished this week. The immediacy of the giant collaborative network that is The Internet is becoming a more awesome thing and powerful tool each day.

on a dog

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I don’t know why you were given to me.

But here you are, part of my life from now until the end.

You have your issues, but don’t we all?

We have to work. We have to adjust.

We have to sacrifice.

I sometimes wonder if it’s worth it. But you look at me and I melt. Yes, it’s worth every moment.

We are learning. You don’t speak our language; nor do we speak yours. We are learning, and I can only hope you are patient and forgiving of us as we learn. It’s our job to understand you.

All you want is to protect us. That’s why we have you. We need you to gain perspective. We need you to understand the UPS Man is cool. Our friends? Allow them into the house and protect them like us. But otherwise, your instincts should remain true.

You are work. You are sacrifice. But you are awesome.

Thankful

/ hsoi

Today in the United States of America is Thanksgiving Day. A national day of giving thanks.

But what does that mean?

It means that you should take a moment to reflect upon what you are thankful for.

But the way I see it? You shouldn’t just perform this reflection on some establish day of the year — you should perform this every day.

You shouldn’t tell your mother you love her on Mother’s Day. You shouldn’t show Dad how much you love him just on Father’s Day. You shouldn’t just limit expressions of love to your Wife on Valentine’s Day.

Expressions of love, thankfulness and gratefulness should happen every day.

So sure, use today as a starting point. Tomorrow? Do it again. Saturday? Do it again. Sunday? again. Every day of your life you should count your blessings, let those important to you know how important they are. Be thankful every day. Take no day for granted.