Mentoring

Last night I flew home from the Bay Area so I could see my daughter dance at BYU's Christmas Around the World. One of the regulars who also lives in Salt Lake but works in San Francisco joined me on the flight. It worked out well because he gave me a ride home from the airport and that gave us a chance to talk.

Yesterday was a traumatic day from my fellow commuter. He works for an animation studio and one of his fellow animators was let go. The reason for being fired was because the animator had failed to keep up with the latest technology. New guys were coming in and running circles around him. He had been warned but failed to act and was now paying the price.

My friend and I discussed how to keep from becoming irrelevant in the constantly changing hi-tech industries in which we work. Interestingly enough, we both came to the same conclusion. Both of us have taken fellow co-workers under our wings to help mentor. In return, those that we are mentoring are helping us by showing us all of the latest technologies. It is a win-win situation for all parties. Mentoring is often seen as someone with experience helping a novice, but that isn't the only help taking place.

Helping with Homework

I was trying to get to bed early on Monday night because I had to catch a flight to the Bay Area the next morning. I was just climbing into bed when my son came in asking for some help with his girlfriend's school project. She needed to take a music file and cut it down from 4 minutes to 2. I have Audacity on my Linux machine in my office and knew it could perform the task without any issues. I reluctantly got out of bed and stumbled to my home office with son and his friend in tow.

I should have known it was not as easy a task as it sounded simply because teenagers never give you the entire truth. The first hurdle came when I plugged the thumb-drive into my computer and saw that the audio file was only 860 bytes long. Most MP3 files are in the order of 5,000,000 bytes in size, which is not a lot when you think about it. The 860 bytes told me that someone copied a link to the file instead of the actual file. Curse you Windows! At least the Mac is smart enough to know that when you drag and drop a link from the desktop to your thumb-drive, it copies the actual file, not just the link.

My next task was to locate an alternate source of the original music file. I could pay $0.99, but was really just trying to get this done as quickly as possible without spending any money. Besides, my son's girlfriend had already paid to use the song and it was the principle of the matter. So I downloaded the movie file from YouTube, striped out the audio portion, and then expanded the audio track to a .WAV file. Don't ask me about the steps I used as I didn't bother to write them all down. It wasn't a trivial task, but it wasn't too complex either.

Now I like my son's girlfriend even though she may think differently. However she really had no idea how to cut the music file down so that it was under 2 minutes long. She couldn't decide if she wanted the first 2 minutes, the last 2 minutes, or something in between. Naturally I ended up trying all 3, which takes up a lot of time as you have to listen to each segment all the way through to make sure you got the right stuff. The last 2 minutes was "yuckie" and the middle 2 minutes just didn't sound right. I just took the first 2 minutes and cut it at an appropriate spot. She ended up with 1 minute and 43 seconds of music that sounded good.

The final task was to burn the newly edited music onto a  CD. Who uses CD's any more? I tried a few different ways to create a music CD but none of them worked. After 30 minutes of frustration, my son's girlfriend asked if it was in a format she could just stick on her iPod. It was and so I gave her the file. I wish I had known that before wasting precious sleep time. Finally we were done and I could head off to bed.

I love my son but was a little irritated with this last-minute homework request. I was up an hour and a half later than intended simply to help one of his friends. Never mind that we had just come off Thanksgiving break where I had plenty of time to help with such projects. As I drifted off to sleep, I realized that even though the project was not for my son, it was important to him. Therefore it was important to me and worth giving up 90 minutes of my evening.

No VPN Access

This morning I got up early and immediately went to work in my office at home. I got through my e-mail in a hurry and was feeling like I had a great start on the day. Then I had to run a quick errand. Rather than remain logged into my company's virtual private network (VPN), I logged out. My errand only took 20 minutes and when I got back in front of my computer, I tried to log in again. I got an error saying: "Your primary account has been disabled." Gee, I hope I didn't get fired. I like my job.

Actually I have a pretty good idea what the problem is. When I first started this job almost 2 and a half years ago, I was given 2 different accounts. On some of the computers at work, I log in using a mix of several characters from my first name with my complete last name. On the rest, I just use my first initial with my last name. It can be confusing at times and I ran into a problem a few weeks ago. Now our IT department is making an effort to unify all of my accounts and I am sure this is a temporary side-effect. It is a good thing Snowbird is open as I know how I am going to spend the rest of my day while they get this resolved.

Jet Lag

I am back in Utah after a nice week in Japan. The only problem with coming home is getting used to the time difference. The trip out is easy as you just have to stay up late. Flying back to the States requires a different tactic. Unfortunately I have yet to figure out what works. On my last trip, it took 3 or 4 days. This time doesn't seem to be doing much better and so I can't recommend my methods.

In the spirit of Thomas Edison and finding out what doesn't work, I cannot recommend napping during the day. It makes it tough to sleep through the night. Then you get stuck in the vicious cycle of napping the next day. Unofficially I may have fallen asleep at my desk this afternoon.

Music CDs in an MP3 World

I love living in the United States but it is also fun to visit other countries and experience other cultures. This evening I will be headed from Tokyo back to the US, but I have expanded my understanding of the Japanese people. One phenomenon here is the pop music group AKB48. It is a group made up of nubile young ladies ranging from the mid teens to the early 20s. I'm not sure where the number 48 comes from as there are 67 members of the group. They are split into 3 groups with 22 in Group A and 22 in Group B. The rest of the girls are trainees. As the girls get older, they graduate and younger girls audition to take their place.

The genius of the group is how members are voted in. When you purchase the CD single for one of the group's songs, you get a voting ticket that you can cast for your favorite member. So if there is someone you really like, you can purchase multiple CD's and stuff the ballot box in her favor. It is not uncommon for fans to purchase many copies of the same CD simply to cast more votes.

Everybody loves cute young girls and so you can't help but become interested in them. The music isn't bad and their music videos are fun to watch. I have to hand it to their producer as he has also figured out how to sell music CDs in an MP3 world. I wonder if it would work back in the States?

Japanese Keyboards

Yesterday I was at a meeting and got the opportunity to use a laptop with a Japanese keyboard. At first, it looks like a regular US keyboard until you take a closer look and realize extra keys are added at the expense of the space bar. The laptop I was using also had a smaller "SHIFT" key on the right side. I was trying to type in a password to a website and kept hitting the wrong key while I was aiming for the right-shift key. Eventually I had to stop trying to touch type and just look at the keys.

It wasn't until I started learning Japanese that I realized there are three different character sets for the Japanese language and all of them are used together. That means you can have all three in a single sentence. I understand the basic principles of how to use a Japanese keyboard, but am not an expert. It helps that most Japanese words can be "Romanized" or converted to Roman characters (those are the characters in the English alphabet). Then conversion software coverts the Roman syllables to the correct Japanese characters.

I am impressed that the Japanese have figured out how to adapt keyboards to their complex character sets. I'm glad I don't have to try and figure it out though as my fingers have the US keyboard pretty well memorized. I say my fingers have the keyboard memorized because if you ask me, I have to think really hard where specific keys are but my fingers jump right to them. Now if I could only figure out how to teach my fingers to spell.

American Newspaper

I left my hotel room this morning to go get breakfast and was glad to see an American newspaper outside my door. I am in Japan and so it wasn't just laying on the floor like most hotels back in the States. It was in a clear plexiglass newspaper holder on the wall just outside the door. As I was coming back from breakfast I started looking at all of the other guests' newspapers. Some were Japanese while others were American. Then I noticed that there were one or two other nationalities represented as well.

When you check into a hotel outside the United States, the hotel asks to see your passport. They will generally make a copy of it before handing it back to you. The hotel also asks you for your home address and so they have a really good idea where you live. There is no need to ask where you are from or what preference you have for your morning newspaper because they already know based on information they already have.

What does this have to do with computers? Well your computer knows an awful lot about you. So do your other electronic devices. If you are watching a movie on your iPhone or tablet computer and walk into an empty room with a television, shouldn't the television take over displaying your movie? You may not want to watch on the TV, but it sure would be nice for your iPhone to at least ask. There are hundreds of other similar examples. If I was willing to spend countless hours downloading various pieces of software and even more hours configuring things, I could make some of them a reality. If only my devices already had the software installed and could discover other devices on their own, it would make my life much easier. I think it would for everyone.

Big in Japan

There is a song by Alphaville that was popular when I was in high school entitled "Big in Japan." I have been singing the song this morning as I am in Japan and I think I got a hotel room normally set up for the locals. I am used to the beds being low, but this trip it feels like the sink in my bathroom is set unusually low. In the United States, I am of average height. Here in Japan, I feel taller than normal.

My flight was unusually empty last night and that was nice because I could spread out on the plane. I was able to grab a couple of seats by the window and didn't have anyone in front of me or behind me. That kept someone from leaning back on me and I didn't have to worry about leaning back on someone else. Oh the luxuries of an empty plane. This allowed me to pull out my computer and work on an article I am writing for a game development magazine.

There is nothing quite like a 12-hour flight to test the battery power of your laptop. Tablets are known for long battery life, but they are best suited for tasks that don't involve typing unless you have an optional keyboard. I brought my tablet with me on this trip but opted to leave the keyboard at home for weight-saving reasons. I needed my laptop anyways and pulled it out after watching a relaxing movie. The nice thing about using word processing software like Microsoft Word is that it does not eat a lot of battery juice. I cranked out around 1000 words yet used only 10% of my battery power. I could have kept going but my own personally battery needed recharging and so I took a nap.

My oldest daughter recently replaced the battery in her MacBook and found a really great deal. It was probably too great as she only gets about 2 hours before it is time to recharge. I can get close to 10 hours on my factory MacBook Pro battery if I am power conscious. The 2 hours works fine for my daughter who rarely is away from a power source for more than an hour. However if you intend be away from a power outlet for more than that, I highly recommend investing in a quality long-life battery.

Technology Can't Replace Mom and Dad

I have an international flight today as I head from Salt Lake to Tokyo, Japan. That means I had to be at the airport 2 hours early. I showed up and expected to spent time in lines. Just 15 minutes after I arrived, I am checked in, have gone through security, and have an hour and 45 minutes to kill before I leave. I figured I would add something to my blog today in the hopes of killing a little bit of time.

I was leaving the office on Thursday and was having a conversation with one of the department admins. She has two young kids and a mother that loves to play Grandma. The admin's mom wants to buy a Kindle Fire for each of the grandkids. The oldest is only 4 and the youngest isn't quite a year old. I am someone that embraces technology but can't see the logic in that purchase. The admin explained that her mom thinks the young kids can use it to watch videos or be read to. We both agreed that it is a bad idea though.

One of the joys of being a parent is reading to your kids. I used to read to my own kids every night. We read the complete Harry Potter series as well as a good chunk of the Hardy Boys mysteries. One of my kids favorite series was Swallows and Amazons. Research shows that while it is important for a mother to read to her children, it is also important for Dad to do so as well. So while we have technology that allows machines to read to our children, that doesn't mean it is a good idea. Trust me on this one.

Ski Season Around the Corner

Last night I flew home to Utah from the Bay Area because I will be heading to Japan on Sunday. I am attending a conference and last year I needed to leave on Saturday to make it in time. This year my team has decided to forget about the first day so we don't blow a weekend at home. I wish I had known that when I was making my flight arrangements a month ago. Oh well, I got an extra day to work from home. It actually worked out well though.

Before I left last night, my wife sent me a text indicating it was going to be a bumpy landing. She was not wrong, it was quite the roller coaster. That was because we had a storm coming in. There was a 40 degree temperature drop over night and this morning I had a bunch of snow in my front yard. It is a good thing my home office doesn't have any windows or I would have spent the day watching the snow pile up.

I am in my fourth year on the board of directors for the Snowbird Sports Education Foundation or Snowbird Ski Team. One of the perks is that I get a huge discount on my Snowbird Seasons Pass. The only problem with it is that I have to abide by certain rules. One of those is that I have to pick up my season's pass at specific times. This afternoon at 4pm was one of those times. I won't be around at the other times and so if I want to get my pass before the mountain opens, I had to get it today. So it worked out for me.

What does any of that have to do with computers? Well a number of resorts are getting ready to open and the best way to decide if it is worth making the trek to the mountains is by looking at their web cameras. Here are some links to some of my favorite mountains:

Alta, Utah
Snowbird, Utah
Snowbasin, Utah

Squaw Valley, California
Kirkwood, California

Vail, Colorado

Whistler, B.C., Canada

So You Want to Work in Video Games

When people find out that I work for a video game company, they always ask me how to get into the industry. This may be for themselves or for one of their kids. I get the question often enough that I thought I would take a stab at answering that question on this blog.

It is important to understand that in my current company, there is no middle class. There are either well-paid employees or low-paid employees. Nothing in the middle. So that means I have to answer the question twice as there are different standards for each class of employee.

The low-paid employees are the game testers. Some of them are really good at what they do. Unfortunately there are so many people trying to become game testers that we don't have to pay them very much. The job is also very short term and lasts between 8 to 18 months. Then we let them go and hire a new crop of video game players. If you want to be a tester, start looking at video game companies right after high school. You will also want to have fairly good writing skills as there is a lot of reporting associated with testing. The rest is just being at the right place at the right time. It is a great summer job that will look good on any aspiring software developer's resume.

The high-paid employees have corresponding educations to match. It is rare, not impossible, but rare for someone to join my department without a college education from a top-notch school. Looking at the current list of people we are trying to hire, there are a lot of requests for people with Masters and PhD degrees. You will need a good math and stats background as well as very strong computer skills. It also helps if you are passionate about video games.

Would I recommend a career in video games? Definitely. It sure beats going to work every day.

An Elegant Example

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Antoine was a smart guy and one of my favorite writers. Of course it helps that I am fluent in French and can read his works as they were written. His quote about perfection is very true. Lately I have been working with a coworker to get a Hadoop cluster running and that has been an exercise in frustration. I am glad that Oracle had much better documentation writers when I was learning SQL. Otherwise I might be working in a completely different industry.

A lot of credit should go out to Bruce Scott for creating Oracle's scott/tiger example database tables. It started with just a couple of tables that could be used to provide examples for all of Oracle's SQL commands. The beauty of them was their simplicity. You basically had a table listing employees with basic information and a second table listing departments. Each employee belonged to a department, which allowed for a number of different JOIN examples between the two tables. Furthermore, each employee reported to another one except for KING, who as his name indicated, was the head honcho. Both tables were so small, you had them memorized after the first three examples. They were also so simple there was just a NAME column. No need to memorize a first name and a last name and the names were just a single syllable.

Version 6 of the Oracle database added a few more tables and then some genius decided to complicate things with an entirely new and overly complex set of tables. I understand that a lot of new features were added, but the simplicity of the original scott/tiger tables should have served as a pattern for future examples. Now I only wish Hadoop's document writers had noticed as well.

Election Night Alternatives

Halloween is one of those nights that children look forward to weeks before it happens. So is Christmas Eve. Tonight is the opposite. I will be so glad when this evening is over. I am tired of watching all of those political commercials or listening to them on the radio. One will be for a proposition or candidate while the next one will be against the previous ad. Recently there was a story about a young girl crying because of all the name calling. I can sympathize.

My trick for getting through this evening is to not turn on the TV. That is why I am on my computer adding to my blog. Later I will be doing other things on the Internet. There are a number of wholesome and worthwhile activities to be found there. If I was at the office, playing online video games would be a great start. As I am on my boat and don't have my gaming console, I will opt for something else.

I could watch a movie on Hulu or NetFlix, but my Internet connection is shared among a number of other boats and can be slow at times. This causes pauses in a streaming video and can be rather tedious. This evening I am going to do some software development. Previously I mentioned I am working on a new game and so I will work on that. That would be a better use of my time anyways.

Daylight Savings Time

This weekend we will be experiencing a semi-annual event that causes havoc with our clocks and watches: daylight savings time. In the spring we change from standard time to daylight time. In the fall, we go back to standard time. The idea behind the time change is that going on daylight savings time means we will use less electricity in the evenings for our lights. It was a good idea until air conditioning became so common. Now it is a toss-up as to if it saves any energy at all. One thing that is certain is that we all spend a lot of time adjusting clocks around our offices, homes, and wrists.

Computers also have to deal with daylight savings time. Most home computers are smart enough to automatically adjust themselves. So what happens with sophisticated servers? In the spring, we jump forward an hour and so it instantly goes from 2am to 3am. In the fall, we jump backwards from 2am to 1am. If there are any scheduled jobs meant to run between 1am and 2am, they get executed again. The autumn can be a good thing if every night at 1:30, the bank deposits extra money in your account. You get 2 deposits instead of 1. However the bank rarely just gives away money. The more common case is that they will charge a fee. In the fall, you will get charged twice and that can be a bad thing.

The way most servers get around daylight savings time is by staying on one timezone and that is generally UTC or universal coordinated time. Doing so keeps the time the same even during the spring and fall semi-annual time changes. This can save a lot of hassle. Trust me on this one as I had to move one of my servers from PDT to UTC this evening. The time change caused a lot of problems in the spring and was poised to do even more this next Sunday morning. Now I can sleep more soundly on Sunday evening and don't have to worry about fixing stuff on Monday morning.