Time for a New Adventure

After 11 and a half years at Sony PlayStation it is time to move to a new adventure. Monday, November 1st will be my last day. It has been a great ride and I have enjoyed my time there a lot. When I first started, I thought it would only be a 3-month job. I originally started as a contractor working in the Research and Development group. The guy that hired me needed someone to take over so he could go back to his native South Africa to watch the 2010 World Cup. When he got back, I kept waiting to be let go. That never happened.

During my time at Sony Interactive Entertainment, I got to see the launch of the PlayStation 4. Employees were given the chance to buy the new consoles and receive them 2 days before the general public. The PS4s came in on Thursday and I had my new console in hand as I headed to the airport to fly home. Some people in the shuttle bus were so excited to see the new device before its release date that they took pictures with it on the way to the airport.

Not long after the release of the PS4, I had a bunch of friends ask if I would join their new company. I went into the office on Monday prepared to resign from Sony. On the way to talk with my boss, I got pulled into someone's office and asked to start working on the PS5. I couldn't say no to that and so I ended up turning down my friends and staying at PlayStation for a few more years.

With the release of the PS5 and my latest project moving into production with the next update of the console software, it is time to move on. Unfortunately my career has stagnated for the past couple of years at SIE and it will be good to jump start it at a new company. First I plan to take a few weeks off and get ready for my next adventure. I will be sure to post where I land.

Online Research for Fun

Today I got an e-mail from Alaska Airlines letting me know about a one-day sale where they have great deals on flights but you have to buy them today. I have a lot of credit on the airline and so I surfed over to their site and started entering destinations. The first question is where to go. I thought about it for a second and looked at what it would take to go see my son in Ohio. Unfortunately Alaska does not have an optimized route between Salt Lake and Columbus. I'm not a fan of connections and the trip would require several of them. Next I checked about going to Orlando. After all, doesn't that sound like a fun destination? While the flights only required a single connection, all of the layovers seemed way too long. My final destination to check was Hawaii. Who doesn't want to spend part of December in Hawaii? Alaska Airlines has some great flights between Salt Lake and Hawaii for about $450 round trip on the dates I selected.

While I am tempted to book the flights to Hawaii, I have other things I need to do and ended my research there. I am asking myself if there could have been a perfect situation that would have me booking flights tonight. What about $200 round trip? That seems tough to pass up but I still would not have done it.

The Internet is a great tool that constantly amazes me. Tonight I did a bunch of research that would have required me to waste someone's time on the phone before the Internet. Now I can play around with a number of parameters without inconveniencing anyone. I wondered if I wasted my time this evening but got some entertainment out of the exercise. I wasted my time no more than if I watched a YouTube video or an old movie. Yes, doing online research can be entertaining and fun even if you don't buy anything.

Where's Grandma?

We have recently had a death in my wife's family and it has caused a huge disruption. Grandpa passed away and so the family needs to take extra care in providing for Grandma. Fortunately a lot of plans were in the works before the death as it was somewhat expected. After the funeral, the family had an event where everyone could share their memories of Grandpa. Everyone expected Grandma to let them know when she was leaving. Instead she snuck out and didn't tell anyone.

Grandma's departure didn't raise any red flags until she didn't show up at her daughter's house in a timely manner. Grandma was lost. Unfortunately she has a horrible habit of not charging her phone and everyone assumed it was dead. It was only mostly dead and wouldn't take a call. The family was able to access her credit card statement and see where she last purchased gas. Then one of Grandma's sons called the carrier of her mobile phone and was able to get a faint ping location. I have to admit that I didn't even know that was possible. They found her 7 hours away from home. Let's just say she got really lost. Needless to say, it was a rather sleepless night for everyone in the family as they worried about Grandma. Everyone could finally go to sleep when they could see the credit-card charge for a motel in the middle of nowhere. The next morning, Grandma's daughter drove to meet her and caravan home.

Last week the family got together and worked on solving some of the problems that led to Grandma getting lost. First, they got her a new phone with a long-lasting battery. Second they got her a wireless charger so she just has to put the phone on the charger next to her bed. Finally, they installed a tracking device in her car. I understand you can get them for your teenage drivers so you know where your kids have your car at all times. Guess what? It also works with Grandmas. Grandma saw that they were fiddling with her car and asked if it would help diagnose car problems. It does that too, so they responded in the affirmative not wanting her to know they were lo-jacking her car.

A couple of days ago, Grandma got caught eating a brownie before dinner. The daughter reminded Grandma that she was making dinner and a brownie would spoil the meal. Instead of a pithy response like, "I'm old and may not live until dessert," she stormed out of the house and drove away. Naturally she left her phone at home and nobody could track her. You would think that they could just look at the tracker information from the car. Funny story, nobody installed the software and that wasn't possible. That problem is now rectified. Fortunately Grandma cooled off a little bit and eventually came home.

The moral of the story is to be sure you finish installing all of the software for your tracking devices before you need it. Otherwise it won't be worth a thing.

The Right Tool for the Job

Recently I wrote about diagnosing a bad diagnostic tool and would like to expand on the proper use of tools. Last week I flew out to my boat to clean it up a bit and work on the engine. I needed to replace the impeller on the water pump which required removing a pin on the water pump housing. The easiest way to do that is with a hole-punch and a hammer. Unfortunately I didn't have a hammer on my boat and so I tried a number of other tools. I did have a hole punch and so I lightly hit it with a wrench, a screwdriver, and even a piece of wood. While I made some progress, none of what I tried was a good substitute for a hammer. Ultimately I drove to a local store and bought a small picture-hanging hammer. Only 3 whacks later and the pin came out nicely.

The whole time I was working on the engine, I kept thinking of the phrase, "When the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat all your problems like nails." So what is the opposite of that phrase, when you have a bunch of other tools, but not a hammer? I'm not sure, but if you come up with something let me know.

This experience reminded me again of the importance of having the right tool for the job. With computers, this is very important. Anyone that has ever tried to work on Macintosh computers from the 1990's knows that the most important tool was a #8 Torx screwdriver. At the time you had to special order them but now you can find them at almost any store that sells tools.

While we all know the importance of hardware tools, there are a number of software tools that can make your life significantly easier as well. I remember one night trying to rebuild a corrupted database. It didn't have much data in it but the information it had was very important. To get the everything back, I looked at the raw data files using a hex editor. It allowed me to see the original data and write an extraction script to pull the information out in a human-readable format. Then I could rebuild the database and populate it with the correct information. Your typical editor or word processing software would have made the job significantly more difficult, if not impossible.

So how do you know if a better tool exists? Simple, just do a search on your favorite internet search engine and see if others have had similar problems. They will generally provide some ideas on what tools to use to solve them. That is how I solve car problems, boat problems, electrical problems, and even computer problems. Hopefully it works for you too.

Meeting In-Person For the First Time

This morning I got on a flight to head to the Bay Area for a quick trip. When I arrived in town, I headed to a local restaurant next to my office in San Mateo. A large group awaited me as they knew I would be in town and everyone wanted to get together. COVID-19 has prohibited coworkers from meeting in person and the group finally felt safe getting together.

We had a lot of new faces at lunch today. While I have seen everyone on frequent conference calls, today is the first time I have physically met some of them. This includes my data scientist that I hired back in January. We talk almost daily over video conferencing but I have never met him face-to-face. I have to confess that he looks significantly different than I thought. For one thing, he is tall. I always assumed we were the same height. Nope, he towers above me. There are other differences but nothing bad, just not the image I had of him.

Our department has hired a number of other people and it was good to meet them today as well. None of them looked significantly different than from the usual video conferences. I imagine that it is because I only see them once a week whereas I see my data scientist almost daily. I wonder how many other people are having or will have similar experiences once we all return to the office. Furthermore I wonder how different I look in person to the new guys on the team. Hopefully I didn't disappoint them.

 

How Long to Wait for a Video-Conference Call

I had a very important video-conference call this afternoon but got stuck in traffic and couldn't get on the call until 7 minutes after it started. As the call was a one-on-one with someone, that is much too long to wait. Fortunately the person I needed to talk with stuck around that long and waited for me. We had a great call but I felt miserable for being so tardy and apologized profusely.

This brings up the question in the title of this post. How long should you wait for a video-conference call? If it is just two people, 5 minutes is sufficient. If the person doesn't show up by then, you can easily reschedule. The question becomes much trickier when it is a group call. The easy case is if there are a lot of people and you are not required to present anything. In that case, you can show up at any time. Just be sure to keep your camera off and come into the call muted. This is similar to sneaking in the side door and is perfectly acceptable provided the other people in the call can assume you were in another meeting that ran late.

So what about the cases in between? Realistically you should always do your best to be on-time to meetings. It shows that you value everyone's time. Sometimes that isn't possible and you must be late. In those cases, being 5 minutes late is about as far as you can go. Sometimes the meeting will start without you but if you have to be caught up on items you missed, it wastes other people's time.

I felt really bad about being late to my meeting today and am glad the person I met with could forgive me. At a time when most people can work from home, I felt bad giving the excuse that I got caught in traffic even though that is what happened. Now I just need to make sure I am early to the next meeting we have together.

Diagnosing a Bad Diagnostic Tool

Yesterday I woke up early and drove the 15 miles to Alta ski area so I could do some early season skiing. We received about 25-inches of snow last week and then another foot or so on Monday evening. No the lifts are not yet running and so skiing requires hiking up the mountain. When you have the right equipment, it is a great form of exercise and fun. If you don't have the right equipment it is still a great form of exercise but not nearly as fun.

Last night I took a look at the statistics from my Suunto smartwatch and realized that it must have missed a few of my heartbeats during my hike up the mountain. The watch is generally very accurate but the readings I got yesterday are definitely low. When I go running up a hill with skis on, my average heart rate is around 120-130 beats per minute. The reading I got yesterday was a lowly 65. I know that is not right as there is always an informal competition with anyone else climbing the hill. You want to pass other people and never get passed. That means I could feel my heart beating quite noticeably by the time I got to the top of the hill. It was well past the 65 beats per minute.

On Monday I had a different experience but one that sort of relates. Follow me for a moment and you'll see what I mean. My wife's Jeep's check-engine light came on. I pulled out my trusty OBD-II computer and connected it to the car using the port under the steering wheel. I waited for the error code but only got an error reading the Jeep's computer. I tried several more times making sure to re-seat the connecting cable with the same results. Our son came over with his OBD-II reader but it also failed to read the error code from the car. Now what do I do?

Fortunately Jeep Wranglers have a way to read the diagnostic codes without having to use an OBD-II reader. You just need to turn the car on and off 3 times without starting the vehicle. Then the code appears in the odometer. It took me a few times as you have to go quickly and I was going too slow. The car spit out the code and it told me where to start looking for the problem. Basically the thermostat was bad. I had to do more to make sure that was the problem but then I replaced the thermostat for $25 and about an hour of my time. That $25 included the new thermostat and a gallon of engine coolant.

So what do these two stories have in common? Sometimes your diagnostic tool will give you erroneous information. If I had been relying on my smartwatch to give me my heart rate, I would be mistaken. Fortunately there is an easy check you can do yourself to get your real heart rate: look at your watch for 15 seconds, count heart beats, and multiply the result by 4. With the OBD-II computers, I got worried that the car had another fault with the connection. When 1 reader doesn't work, you can guess the reader is bad. When 2 don't, you start to get really worried. Fortunately I ordered a new OBD-II reader as my old one is over a decade old and needed to be replaced anyways. The new reader arrived yesterday afternoon and I was able to access the code and reset the Jeep's computer.

Diagnostic tools generally work fairly well. You just can't trust them blindly as you may be tracking down the wrong problem. Verify the results through other means if possible. Once I had a starting point on my wife's car, I could put my hand on the coolant hoses and verify that the thermostat was stuck in the open position before starting any work on the car.

A Review of iRobot's Roomba and a Eufy Robot Vacuum

When you think about keeping your house clean, there are some modern conveniences that make life significantly easier. While you don't NEED a dishwasher, it sure is easier to rinse your dishes and put them in a device that does a pretty good job cleaning and sterilizing them. Robot vacuums are not really a need but they really free up time to do other things like play video games. Back in 2015 I got my wife one of the iRobot Roomba vacuums designed specifically for pet hair. I loved that vacuum. Unfortunately they don't last forever.

Several weeks ago the vacuum stopped charging itself. It had started to exhibit other problems and so I figured it was time to replace it instead of getting replacement parts. My son has purchased several Eufy vacuums and so my wife replaced our Roomba 655 with the Eufy Robovac 11S Max. She only paid around $200 vs. the $350 I paid for the Roomba that I got from Costco. I figured I would post my comparison between these two robot vacuums.

The price of the Eufy is very attractive. You can almost get 2 for the same price as the Roomba and who wouldn't want a robot vacuum for each level of the house? Yes the Eufy is less expensive but how does it compare to the original standard? Frankly the Eufy is not nearly as good as the Roomba. There are some things that are better but the Roomba generally seems to be a better device.

The first thing I noticed about the Eufy is that my wife has it set to run daily instead of twice a week. When it runs that often, I am probably more aware of its defects as it always seems to be getting itself stuck behind a table in the living room or too far from its home base to return and charge itself. I'll be down in my office and hear it start beeping. I'll run upstairs and have to rescue it. The Roomba had similar problems but not nearly as often. I'm seeing this particular issue 45-50% of the time. The Roomba was probably only 5-10%.

You may not mind having to rescue your vacuum and it really isn't that big of a hassle to me. So how does it clean? I'm afraid I'm split on the answer to this. My experience is that the Eufy is better at picking up dust but the Roomba is better at picking up pet hair. I am always the one that empties the dust bin on both devices. I liked the Roomba's fur balls but don't remember much dust. The Eufy constantly has a thick dust blanket up against the filter and hair needs to be untangled from the roller brush.

The real test of the Eufy robot vacuum came the other day when my wife used the living room floor to cut out fabric for a large sewing project. She didn't worry about cleaning up all of the stray bits of thread because she knew the vacuum would take care of it the next day. Unfortunately the Eufy only got about 75% of the stray string. I had to go back through and handpick the thread off the floor. It didn't take more than 30 seconds but the Roomba did a much better job.

Unfortunately we have not had the Eufy very long and so I can't comment on how long it will last. If I get 6 years out of it then I will be very satisfied. My overall impression is that it is a good device and while I need to rescue it every other day, I don't mind as the cost savings make it an attractive alternative to the Roomba. If someone was to give me a choice of either one for free, I'd go for the Roomba.

Silicon Slopes Summit 2021

Today I attended the second day of the Silicon Slopes Summit. I attended as a guest of another company and appreciate Lucid Software for inviting me to the event. I made sure to wear my PlayStation 5 jacket and got a lot of comments. I learned a lot and want to share some of that today.

When I first arrived, I made sure to register and get my wristband so I could move freely about the summit. One of the people there saw my jacket and asked if I work for PlayStation. I told him I did and he responded that he loves his PlayStation 5. Naturally I asked how he managed to get one and he gave me a good secret. He said that a local furniture chain (RC Wiley) has some in stock and you just need to ask if they have any. Sometimes people will get a PS5 ordered but then not be able to pay for it. If you get them on the right day, you can pick up a new console. I will have to check if that works. Fortunately it did for the guy I talked to.

Next I went to look for the Lucid booth so I could thank them for the ticket to the summit. It took me a bit because I couldn't find a map of the exhibits floor. I ended up walking around and eventually found them. While walking around, I had several people ask me if I worked for PlayStation. They all thought it was cool and had some good questions. The most common was why there is a shortage of consoles. The best answer I could give is that we are manufacturing them as quickly as possible but demand is more than anticipated.

I did a bit more walking around the floor and discovered that there are a lot of companies hiring in the Salt Lake area. Now is a great time to see about improving your job situation if you live here. I liked seeing what new technology companies are in the area.

Eventually I made my way to the presentation that drew me to the conference in the first place. I enjoyed what I saw and glad I could attend. Once I finished the presentation I boarded the train and headed home.

Looking forward to the next Silicon Slopes Summit, it is an event that I will plan to attend in the future. Should you find yourself in the area next year, I recommend setting aside some time so you can do the same.

Don't Be Afraid to Push Buttons or Click Icons

Saturday evening I returned from visiting my son and his family in Ohio. He recently purchased his home and it was built about 100 years ago. The original seller did an excellent job fixing it up and ensuring my son did not get stuck with problems. The house has a lot of character and a number of interesting features. One that stuck out on this last trip is the sturdy front door. The front doorknob has a nice feature that when you pull it shut behind you, it locks automatically like many hotel rooms. My son made sure to warn me not to close the front door or I would have to walk around to the back door to get back in the house.

Towards the end of our trip, my son was examining his front-door latch and noticed 2 buttons. One was depressed and the other flush with the side of the door. Out of curiosity, he pushed the flush one in and the other popped out so it was now flush with the door. It also caused the outside doorknob to open the door even when it was pulled shut. Simply by playing with the buttons my son figured out how to switch between auto-lock and an unlocked front door.

I had a similar experience with some computer software recently. I saw some icons and buttons but didn't know what they did. Instead of remaining ignorant, I played with them and discovered some functionality I needed. I now use those buttons all the time and they make my work significantly easier.

The moral of the story is to not be afraid to try new things on your computer and in your software. If you don't know what something does, try it out, after you have saved your work. Rarely will it do something that is irreversible. Yes you may have to play around if you find yourself in an unfamiliar place but you will almost always be able to undo any negative effects.