This evening I find myself seriously looking to replace my 10-year old desktop in my home office. When I got the original machine I made sure to get something that would last. After 10 years I can say, "Mission accomplished." With work providing me a laptop to bring home every weekend I have not really had a need to get anything special. Now that I find myself working from home for the foreseeable future, I can justify an upgrade.
I want to put together some more adventuring videos and so my new desktop will be used to edit video. That means I need to get another powerful machine. In the past I have used iMovie on the Mac to build my videos and it works amazingly well. So should I focus on getting a powerful machine or spend the same amount and get a less powerful Apple Mac?
My oldest son seems to be invested in my decision as he has provided me with a number of references to help with my decision. Unfortunately that has only made my decision more complicated. At one time I expressed an interest in building a Hackintosh, which is a PC that is capable of running Apple's MacOS. My son ran with that idea and sent me a video of a machine that will run MacOS out of the box. Yes, there is a bit of a software configuration that I will have to go through. There is also the chance that future updates of the operating system won't work and I will have to modify things again. However you get a machine that runs circles around the latest hardware from Apple for about a third of the cost. I can also set it up to run Windows, Linux, and MacOS.
I have some time to decide and so I won't make a decision tonight. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to make a comment and let me know what you would do.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
How to Shelter in Place
Yesterday I got the news that all of my coworkers in the Bay Area are being asked to shelter in place because of COVID-19. I have been working in Salt Lake for the past week with indications that this might happen. Fortunately I don't have the same restrictions and so I can still leave my home. There is not much to do as all of the public places are closing down, including the ski resorts. I do have the option of backcountry skiing where I can hike up a mountain and then ski down it. I did that this morning before work and it is helping save my sanity.
I looked into what it means to shelter in place and discovered that you can still take your dog on a walk or go for a hike. There is a restriction to stay 6 feet away from anyone else while you hike but you are not stuck in the house for the next 3 weeks. It kind of cracks me up because you will need your spouse to leave the house and then you can follow at 6 feet or be subject to a misdemeanor infraction. Never mind that you are welcome to sleep in the same bed once at home. At least it is not like France where they have banned family get togethers.
So how can you pass the time during the shelter-in-place restrictions? Well I work for a video game company and am hoping that a lot of people will resort to playing video games. Who knew that being a nerd is the perfect solution to this difficult time in world history? Just remember to buy them online instead of from a physical store. If you prefer to own the disk for the game, you can always order online. It is my understanding that shipping company employees are exempt from the shelter-in-place restrictions.
Ok moving past the shameless plug for video games, what else can one do? I just got an e-mail from one of the national movie theater chains letting me know they are shutting down all theaters across the country. Fortunately NBC/Universal announced that they are making all of their upcoming movies available on a number of streaming services. Personally I would much rather view a new movie in the comfort of my own home instead of at a movie theater where I always seem to get the seat in front of a kid that insists on kicking mine throughout the entire movie. Sure it will cost something like $20 instead of the usual $5, but as long as you have someone to watch it with, that beats the cost of movie tickets. You also can pop your own popcorn, assuming you have any.
If you are having trouble coming up with ways to spend your time at home, just think about doing your taxes. My daughter has been busy with work at the ski resort. Since the resort is shut down, she got on the computer this afternoon and got taxes taken care of. It seemed that a lot of things got in the way of her filing her taxes and the loss of her job gave enough of a nudge to get it taken care of.
How you spend the next 3 weeks is completely up to you. I plan to spend more time with my wife, practice guitar, and hike up mountains to ski down as long as I can.
I looked into what it means to shelter in place and discovered that you can still take your dog on a walk or go for a hike. There is a restriction to stay 6 feet away from anyone else while you hike but you are not stuck in the house for the next 3 weeks. It kind of cracks me up because you will need your spouse to leave the house and then you can follow at 6 feet or be subject to a misdemeanor infraction. Never mind that you are welcome to sleep in the same bed once at home. At least it is not like France where they have banned family get togethers.
So how can you pass the time during the shelter-in-place restrictions? Well I work for a video game company and am hoping that a lot of people will resort to playing video games. Who knew that being a nerd is the perfect solution to this difficult time in world history? Just remember to buy them online instead of from a physical store. If you prefer to own the disk for the game, you can always order online. It is my understanding that shipping company employees are exempt from the shelter-in-place restrictions.
Ok moving past the shameless plug for video games, what else can one do? I just got an e-mail from one of the national movie theater chains letting me know they are shutting down all theaters across the country. Fortunately NBC/Universal announced that they are making all of their upcoming movies available on a number of streaming services. Personally I would much rather view a new movie in the comfort of my own home instead of at a movie theater where I always seem to get the seat in front of a kid that insists on kicking mine throughout the entire movie. Sure it will cost something like $20 instead of the usual $5, but as long as you have someone to watch it with, that beats the cost of movie tickets. You also can pop your own popcorn, assuming you have any.
If you are having trouble coming up with ways to spend your time at home, just think about doing your taxes. My daughter has been busy with work at the ski resort. Since the resort is shut down, she got on the computer this afternoon and got taxes taken care of. It seemed that a lot of things got in the way of her filing her taxes and the loss of her job gave enough of a nudge to get it taken care of.
How you spend the next 3 weeks is completely up to you. I plan to spend more time with my wife, practice guitar, and hike up mountains to ski down as long as I can.
Thursday, March 5, 2020
Simple Comforts
Every Thursday the cafeteria in my office has cookies and milk available at 2:30pm. It is a simple snack but oh so comforting. Comfort can be a great thing especially during trying times like right now with people worrying about COVID-19. Unfortunately it also hinders progress and learning. If we always stay in our comfort zone, we never progress. This week that point got driven home more than once on my current work project.
My project requires that I use a tool that I have been using for the past decade. I thought I knew it inside and out but discovered there is still plenty to learn. I put together a demo last week and showed it off at the beginning of this one. My boss thought I did a great job but had some minor tweaks with some very simple things like colors. The tool does a pretty good job of hiding color choices from you and selects them automatically. I had no idea how to change them as they didn't look too bad but could be better. When my boss asked me to do so, I said, "I'm not sure how but it is probably possible." Playing around a bit, I figured it out. In fact I managed to implement all of the minor changes rather quickly.
When the software you use automatically takes care of mundane tasks, it is easy to accept the defaults and say the project is done. My reality is that I settled. I could tell that things didn't look perfect but would rather work on other parts of the project than fix important little details for my demo. I'll have to remember that before my next demo so I take the time to show my vision of the project.
My project requires that I use a tool that I have been using for the past decade. I thought I knew it inside and out but discovered there is still plenty to learn. I put together a demo last week and showed it off at the beginning of this one. My boss thought I did a great job but had some minor tweaks with some very simple things like colors. The tool does a pretty good job of hiding color choices from you and selects them automatically. I had no idea how to change them as they didn't look too bad but could be better. When my boss asked me to do so, I said, "I'm not sure how but it is probably possible." Playing around a bit, I figured it out. In fact I managed to implement all of the minor changes rather quickly.
When the software you use automatically takes care of mundane tasks, it is easy to accept the defaults and say the project is done. My reality is that I settled. I could tell that things didn't look perfect but would rather work on other parts of the project than fix important little details for my demo. I'll have to remember that before my next demo so I take the time to show my vision of the project.
Monday, March 2, 2020
Someone With One Watch Knows What Time It Is
I just got back from the local grocery store as I picked up dinner for this evening and what I saw surprised me. On an evening like tonight I have the option of a protein shake or a bowl of low-calorie soup. When I went to the soup isle, only a few cans of soup remained. Normally there would be hundreds of cans, if not thousands. I decided to head to the toilet-paper isle and as expected, not a single roll could be found. It looks like the Novel Coronavirus (officially COVID-19) has the general public in fear.
Unfortunately this is not a rational fear. At least not yet. Let's look at some numbers. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and according to this morning's report, there are only 62 people in the United States with the illness and no deaths yet. But wait a second, didn't we hear that 6 people in the state of Washington have died for COVID-19? Let's look at what the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has to say. They are reporting 43 cases with 2 deaths. How about CNN? They are reporting over 100 (102 as of this moment) cases in the US with 6 deaths. Which one is correct? This comes down to one of my favorite sayings: "Someone with one watch knows what time it is, someone with two isn't quite sure." Let's talk about why the numbers are different after we do a small amount of math.
Let's take the worst case numbers and divide the number of cases by the population of the United States (331 Million). That means you currently have a 0.000031% chance of getting the disease. Those are pretty slim odds. I know I wouldn't want to take any chances but buying up all available soup and toilet paper seems extreme.
Ok, so back to why the numbers are different. CNN has different numbers because it is a news agency and wants to report the latest numbers on COVID-19. Both the WHO and the CDC update their numbers on a less frequent basis. The WHO reports daily and the CDC reports Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. They also have different protocols between the 3 groups. A news agency will include suspected cases while both WHO and CDC have to wait for verification. The difference in the later two groups boils down to minor technicalities in how they verify if someone has the illness or not.
Any time you are looking for accurate numbers it is important to read all of the fine print. One source may be more lenient while another is more strict. Unfortunately it can be difficult to decide which number to use. In non-life-threatening cases, it may not really matter and a rough number is all that is needed. Should the number of COVID-19 cases jump to a million in the United States overnight, it will be important to have the numbers we are getting from both CDC and WHO be a lot closer in value than they are right now.
Unfortunately this is not a rational fear. At least not yet. Let's look at some numbers. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and according to this morning's report, there are only 62 people in the United States with the illness and no deaths yet. But wait a second, didn't we hear that 6 people in the state of Washington have died for COVID-19? Let's look at what the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has to say. They are reporting 43 cases with 2 deaths. How about CNN? They are reporting over 100 (102 as of this moment) cases in the US with 6 deaths. Which one is correct? This comes down to one of my favorite sayings: "Someone with one watch knows what time it is, someone with two isn't quite sure." Let's talk about why the numbers are different after we do a small amount of math.
Let's take the worst case numbers and divide the number of cases by the population of the United States (331 Million). That means you currently have a 0.000031% chance of getting the disease. Those are pretty slim odds. I know I wouldn't want to take any chances but buying up all available soup and toilet paper seems extreme.
Ok, so back to why the numbers are different. CNN has different numbers because it is a news agency and wants to report the latest numbers on COVID-19. Both the WHO and the CDC update their numbers on a less frequent basis. The WHO reports daily and the CDC reports Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. They also have different protocols between the 3 groups. A news agency will include suspected cases while both WHO and CDC have to wait for verification. The difference in the later two groups boils down to minor technicalities in how they verify if someone has the illness or not.
Any time you are looking for accurate numbers it is important to read all of the fine print. One source may be more lenient while another is more strict. Unfortunately it can be difficult to decide which number to use. In non-life-threatening cases, it may not really matter and a rough number is all that is needed. Should the number of COVID-19 cases jump to a million in the United States overnight, it will be important to have the numbers we are getting from both CDC and WHO be a lot closer in value than they are right now.
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