resolution

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My resolutions for 2009 involved reading good stuff and being more social. More or less they were successful. I read fulfilled the reading goal by October. To fulfill the social goal, I attended most of the BrunchBunch, Athens Flickr Meetups, Athens Strobist Meetups, and even lunches with coworkers. These were by and large successful.

So, in thinking about 2010, my intentions for this year are:

  1. Read 12,000 pages. Unlike last year, I am not going to restrict the type of content except to say it must be in a book. Magazines, blogs, and news do not count. If they did, then I’d make the goal in a couple months.
  2. Learn to cook 20 new dishes. Considering I don’t cook, this is by far the most ambitious resolution. I’ll need to buy a cookbook.
  3. Participate in Project 365. (tips to get started) I considered 365 Days, but I don’t think I am up to daily self portraits. This is a Flickr group where people post daily submissions for every day of the year. I’ve previously failed this one, but I made it to 99 photos. Will be interesting with just an SLR and a bad phone camera.
  4. Have fun now not later. I haven’t visited the local state parks or much in Atlanta or even taken a personal trip. I keep procrastinating expecting it to be better later, making me an exemplar of Procrastination of Enjoyable Experiences. (Also Carpe Diem? Maybe Tomorrow in NYT)

There lots of other things in the back of my mind for things I ought to accomplish this year.

  • I only went out on one date for all of 2009, which is actually more than 2007 and 2008 combined. Assuming I don’t chicken out, I may equal that in January 2010?
  • I need to cull the blog list down from 403 subscriptions to around 200.
  • No flying at all for 2009? The furthest I drove was to Panama City, FL? Obviously I should travel more.

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    1. Read 10,000 pages of science, economics, health, history, or policy books. For 2008, it was read 25 books. This year, I thought to change it page-based as the previous one shied me away from larger books. Two 350 page books vs one 700 page book shouldn’t be a concern. See Reading for last and this years’ progress.
    2. Be more social. A lot of will power is required to force myself to attend social events. Over the years it has only gotten worse. Before it reaches the point of requiring professional help, I probably ought to change my habits.

    Useful resolutions to me are things I realistically can and will accomplish applying moderate effort. Making too hard of a challenge will result in giving up too quickly. Making too easy of a challenge will result in doing something I would do anyway. Last year was the first time in a really long time I even bothered other than using 43things to make some goals I rarely have met more by accident than any real intent.

    Some resolutions I would pick I already do to the extent I realistically would….

    • Take the stairs and walk more. I already do these as far down the exercise more resolution as I realistically will go.
    • Eat better. I already mostly avoid red meat and eat lots of green vegetables.
    • Spend more time with family.

    There are resolutions I would never actually keep without support from family and friends I don’t really have to keep me honest and stick to the narrow path….

    • Less fat, less sugar, no soda, no sweet tea.
    • Exercise more.
    • Finances.
    • Organization.
    • Less time spent in front of the TV or computer.
    • More blogging.
    • I already do not smoke or drink alcohol.
    • Get a Master’s Degree.

    Hmmmmmm… Resolutions are bad for your health?

    I haven’t checked my blog in a long while.


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    Last night I read Uncle Bill’s Christmas letter. He mailed it, but he apparently doesn’t have my postal address so I got the electronic version. Woohoo! His letter recaps the year for his family. Do any of you have such a tradition? Or a family member who does? Oddly my blog doesn’t provide much basis as it is devoid of personal information.

    So here goes….

    Family

    Mom went off to Houston in January to consult with one of the best doctors in the country about a health issue. How things fell into place to allow her to get better amazed me daily. I got to grandparent sit for a week where I made Nannie tell stories so I could post them on Youtube. :D

    William married Nicole, his high school sweetheart. I finally have a sister. It rained on us briefly, so if you are into superstitions, that means either: 1) kids, 2) money, or 3) good luck.

    I met Dad’s girlfriend, Sally, this year. She is definitely very nice. I’m happy with the match.

    Friends

    My only New Year’s Resolution for 2008 was to read 25 books this year. I completed that goal back in October. I’m thinking for 2008 to do a similar resolution. This time I’ll count up the number of pages and set a goal to read 20% more pages.

    Some fellow Flickr users started an Athens Flickr Meetup. I’m hoping this is something to continue in 2009 as the weather improves. (Though who knew Georgia would be 20 degrees Farenheit above normal in December?)

    RingsAdrianne and Britt asked me to be the photographer for their wedding. I spent hours looking at professional photographer portfolios for ideas about what I should capture. You see, while I do have a camera, I had never really taken photos at a wedding. Heck, few people invite me to weddings, so I was a little unclear what happens. In the end, I think it all turned out pretty well. Adrianne is happy. So I am happy. Working in computers became a profession because it was a hobby. Maybe photography will end up the same in the end? Posted 840 photos to Flickr this year. Started freelovephotography.com to show off my photography.

    Las Vegas in July? Dumb. Star Trek: The Experience made my geeky heart soar.
    NCC-1701-DNCC-1701-D @ ST: TXP


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    Pointless

    So I wanted to open a support ticket. However, in thinking about what I can ask for the company to do arrayed against what they are willing to offer for support, I realized… I am not going to get a resoultion for the ticket.

    1. It is functioning as designed.
    2. They are just going to tell us the workarounds we have already implemented.

    So, what is the point? Other than distracting employees of the company with something they are never going to solve, I get no benefit. I just get to be the passive-aggressive, CYAer, paper pusher who gets to point at the fact I opened a pointless support ticket to justify my employment.

    Yes, the problem could trigger a cascade of events which would result in the failure of services for about 3,000 active users. We stood at the brink twice yesterday and the day before. Because we DBAs are responsive, we saved it. The next time we will do the same.

    The company is not going to release another patch for the product unless forced to do so (aka glaring security hole). So even if we could convince them of a bug, then no resolution would be provided in this version. I’ll have to replicate to see if the same problem exists in a newer version they do adequately support. If so, then I would have justification in opening a ticket.

    Now… how to I identify an 8GB section archive…


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    I just read:

    Clients are receiving responses to and closures of long-outstanding tickets. In the past quarter we’ve reduced the number of outstanding tickets by 15% (1500 tickets).

    We closed several tickets because it was decided no resolution was ever going to be provided after the ticket was open for 6 months without the tier 3 or higher folks providing a single response other than, “Maybe we can look at it next week.” Hopefully these were not in this count.

    On the other hand, an attempt at a fix for a critical bug may actually be tried? Right now we have one campus with about 1,500 students affected. Those numbers will bloom to 30,000 or more students by the start of Fall term.


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    Clusters can making finding where a user was working a clusterf***. Users end up on a node, but they don’t know which node. Heck, we are ahead of the curve to get user name, date, and time. Usually checking all the nodes in the past few days can net you the sessions. Capturing the session ids in the web server logs usually leads to finding an error in the webct logs. Though not always. Digging through the web server logs to find where the user was doing something similar to the appropriate activity consumes days.

    Blackboard Vista captures node information for where the action took place. Reports against the tracking data provide more concise, more easily understood, and more quickly compiled. They are fantastic for getting a clear understanding of what steps a user took.

    Web server logs contain every hit which includes every page view (well, almost, the gap is another post). Tracking data represents at best 25% of the page views. This problem is perhaps the only reason I favor logs over tracking data. More cryptic data usually means a slower resolution time not faster.

    Another issue with tracking is the scope. When profiling student behavior, it is great. The problem is only okay data can be located for instructors while designers and administrators are almost totally under the radar. With the new outer join, what we can get for these oblivious roles has been greatly expanded.

    Certainly, I try not to rely too much on a single source of data. Even I sometimes forget to do so.


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    I just finished How Doctors Think yesterday.

    First impression was doctors don’t spend very much time thinking and gathering information to make a diagnosis. That impress struck a very negative chord with me as it sounds like in my profession of database and computer administration we spend hours picking apart the data we have to diagnose even minor sounding issues.

    The better impression ought to be doctors spend very little time with a seemingly routine diagnosis. When confounded they spend more time doing analysis. They also have to deal with the patient’s lack of patience.

    In tier 3 support, we spend even less time with routine issues. “Try another web browser and call me in the morning.” anyone? When we don’t know this gives the “patient” something to do while we go investigate the real cause (looking at logs or stats). Unfortunately, our computer “patients” want resolutions in minutes or maybe hours. Few find taking a few years to heal a computer problem acceptable.
    :(

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    Our awesome sysadmins have put the user agent into our AWStats so we are tracking these numbers now. They discovered something I overlooked. Netscape 4.x is 10 times more used than 7.x or 8.x. Wowsers! Some people really do not give up on the past.

    Back in the Netscape is dead post, I used this to count the Netscape 7 hits.

    grep Netscape/7 webserver.log* | wc -l

    Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! The above requires running for each version of Netscape. This is why I missed Netscape 4.

    This is more convoluted, but I think it its a much better approach.

    grep Netscape webserver.log* | awk -F\t ‘{print $11}’ | sort | uniq -c | sort -n

    It looks uglier, but its much more elegant. Maybe I ought to make a resolution for 2008 to be elegant in all my shell commands.

    This version first pulls any entries with Netscape in the line. Next, the awk piece reports only the user agent string. The first sort puts all the similar entries next to each other so the uniq will not accidentally duplicate. The -c in the uniq counts. The final sort with the -n orders them by the uniq’s count. The largest will end up at the bottom.


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    Several of us saw a demo of Coradiant Truesight yesterday (first mentioned in the BbWorld Monitoring post). Most of the demo, I spent trying to figure out the name Jeff Goldblum as one of team giving the demo had the voice and mannerisms of the actor’s characters. Had he mentioned a butterfly, then I definitely would have clapped. The other reminded me of John Hodgman.

    Something I had not noticed at the time, but a reoccurring point of having Truesight is to tell our users, “Here is evidence the problem is on your end and not ours.” This assumes the users are rational or will even believe the evidence. They wish the problem never occurred (preference) and a resolution (secondarily). Preventing every problem, especially issues outside our domain, probably is outside the scope of the budget we receive. So, we are left with resolving the issues. Especially scary are the users who take evidence the problem is on their end or their ISP’s end to mean, “This is all your fault.”

    Resolutions we can we offer are:

    1. Hardware change – We can replace or alter the configuration of the hardware components of the network, storage, database, or application.
    2. Software change – We can alter the configuration of the software components of the network, storage, database, or application.
    3. Request a code change from a vendor – We can work with our vendors to get a code change. These take forever to implement.
    4. Suggest a user resolve the issue -
      1. We can provide a work around (grudgingly accepted, remember the preferred wish is the problem never occurred).
      2. We suggest configuration changes the user can make to resolve the problem.

    Truesight provides us information to help us try to resolve issues. Describing the information provided as “facts” was a nice touch. At Valdosta State, I gave up on users reporting the browsers accurately and captured the information from the User-Agent header. Similarly, at the USG, I’ve found users disagree ~30% of the time about the version of the browser according to the User-Agent string. Heck, they have errors in the name of the class ~40% of the time. My favorite is something took 15 minutes, but all I could find was it took four minutes. Ugh. Because Truesight is capturing the header info, it ought to be much easier to confirm what users were doing and where problems occurred more accurately than the users can describe.

    After receiving all the “facts”, we still have to determine the cause. Truesight helps us understand the scope of the problem by how many users, how many web servers, and how many pages are affected by slowness to what degree. As a DBA and administrator, my job identifying cause ought to be easier, though quantifying how much easier probably is difficult to say.

    Part of why: (Mostly speculation.) Problems identified as a spike in anything other than “Host” are external causes. These are causes in front of the device. Causes behind the device are “Host”. If these were more narrowly broken down, the maybe we could better determine cause. That would require knowledge web browsers typically would not know like the server processing time, query processing time, or even the health of the servers.

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    Quotes to Make You Think

    Also make great signature files! Additional collected quotes are under the blog’s quotes category. Drop a comment to suggest something.

    Organized alphabetically by first major word.

    Anonymous/Unknown Author

    A

    Accomplishing the impossible means only the boss will add it to your regular duties.

    According to my calculations the problem doesn’t exist.

    Adult: A person who has stopped growing at both ends and has started growing in the middle.

    Advice is free: The right answer will cost plenty.

    After all is said and done, more is said than done.

    All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the flame of a single candle.

    Almost anything is easier to get into than out of.

    Always remember that you’re unique. Just like everyone else.

    Always try to be modest. And be darn proud of it!

    Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

    B

    Be nice to your kids. They’ll choose your nursing home.

    Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes.That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes.

    The best part about procrastination is that you are never bored, because you have all kinds of things that you should be doing.

    Blessed are the pessimistic for they hath made backups.

    By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong.

    C

    Children may close their ears to advice, but they keep their eyes open to example.

    A clean desk is a sign of a cluttered desk drawer.

    Cleaning the house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it’s stopped snowing .

    A clear conscience is a sign of a bad memory.

    A company is known by the people it keeps.

    A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

    Confidence is the feeling you sometimes have before you fully understand the situation.

    A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

    The customer is always right but not always pleasant.

    D

    Don’t be irreplaceable; if you can’t be replaced, you can’t be promoted.

    Don’t hate yourself in the morning – sleep till noon.

    Duct tape is a lot like the Force. It has a Dark Side, it has a Light Side, and it binds the galaxy together…

    E

    The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

    Endeavor to so live that when you die even the undertaker will be sorry.

    Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?

    Every time I think I’ve hit the bottom, someone lends me a shovel.

    Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

    Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lessons afterwards.

    Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.

    F

    Few women admit their age, Fewer men act it!

    A filing cabinet is where papers get lost alphabetically.

    Four-word story of failure: Hired, tired, mired, fired.

    G

    Generally speaking, you aren’t learning much when your lips are moving.

    Go the extra mile. It makes your boss look like a slacker.

    A good test for conversation: if you wouldn’t write it and sign your name to it, don’t say it.

    Good resolutions are often checks drawn on an account with insufficient funds.

    The great essentials of happiness are something to do, something to love and something to hope for.

    H

    Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off NOW.

    The haves and the have-nots can often be traced back to the dids and the did-nots.

    The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.

    How many of you believe in telekinesis? Raise my hand….

    I

    I don’t exaggerate. I just remember bigger than most people.

    I don’t suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!

    I have a mind like a steel trap – rusted open.

    I haven’t lost my mind. It’s backed up on tape somewhere.

    I pretend to work. They pretend to pay me.

    If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

    If at first you don’t succeed, give up, no use being a damn fool.

    If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.

    If both of us thought alike, one of us would not be necessary.

    If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

    If nothing ever sticks to TEFLON, how do they make TEFLON stick to the pan?

    IF Pro is the Opposite of Con, What Is The Opposite of Progress? Congress!!

    If you’re going in the wrong direction, God allows u-turns.

    If you ask a question you don’t want an answer to… expect an answer you don’t want to hear.

    If you don’t learn from your mistakes, what’s the point of making them?

    If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.

    If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

    If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

    If you were somebody else, would you want to be friends with you?

    Indecision is the key to flexibility.

    It has been determined that research causes cancer in rats.

    It is harder to conceal ignorance than to acquire knowledge.

    It is when we forget ourselves that we do things that are most likely to be remembered.

    It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong.

    It will do no good to get on the right track if you are headed in the wrong direction.

    J

    Just because someone doesn’t love you the way you want them to doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have.

    K

    Keep your ideals high enough to inspire you and low enough to encourage you.

    L

    Language is a wonderful thing. It can be used to express our thoughts, to conceal our thoughts, or to replace thinking.

    Laugh alone and the world thinks you’re an idiot.

    Leaders go down in history — some farther down than others.

    Leadership has been defined as the ability to hide your panic from others.

    Life is a sexually transmitted disease with a 100% mortality rate.

    Life is complex: part real, part imaginary.

    Love may be blind, but marriage is a real eye-opener.

    M

    Many people quit looking for work when they find a job.

    The measure of man’s real character is what he would do it he knew he would never get caught.

    The mistake a lot of politicians make is forgetting they’ve been appointed and thinking they’ve been anointed.

    The more people I meet, the more I like my cat.

    The more you know, the more you know you ought to know.

    N

    Never miss a good chance to shut up.

    No matter how far money goes, it still can’t go as far as the next paycheck.

    No matter how much I care, some people just don’t care back.

    No one is listening until you make a mistake.

    O

    Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important.

    One of the mysteries of life is how the boy who wasn’t considered good enough to marry the daughter can be the father of the smartest grandchild in the world.

    One reason folks get into trouble is that trouble usually starts out being fun.

    One trouble with the world is that so many people who stand up vigorously for their rights fall down miserably on their duties.

    The only time the world beats a path to your door is if you’re in the bathroom.

    P

    People who do the world’s real work don’t usually wear neckties.

    People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin Franklin said it first.

    Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.

    Practice makes perfect, so be careful what you practice.

    A professor is one who talks in someone else’s sleep.

    The quickest way to get a lot of undivided attention is to make a mistake.

    People who wonder where the younger generation is headed for would do well to consider where it came from.

    The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.

    Q

    R

    The really productive ups and downs are getting up in the morning and down to work.

    The reason we never see ourselves as others see us is that we’d never believe what we saw.

    A reckless driver is a person who passes you on the highway in spite of all you can do.

    S

    Save time… see it my way.

    Some people get lost in thought because it’s unfamiliar territory.

    Some people spend the first six days of each week sowing wild oats; then go to church on Sunday and pray for a crop failure.

    The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.

    A sure-fire formula for making a good speech: have a good beginning and a good ending–and keep them as close together as possible.

    To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

    A synonym is a word you use in place of one you can’t spell.

    T

    Tact is the ability to close your mouth before somebody else wants to.

    There can’t be a crisis today, my schedule is already full.

    There is absolutely no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation.

    There is nothing so comforting as the patter of little children’s feet about a home, because the moment the sound stops one knows that they are up to something they shouldn’t be.

    There is nothing that upsets a person quite as much as having company drop in and see the house looking as it usually does.

    There needs to be fewer Republican Senators and fewer Democratic Senators, and many more United States Senators.

    Thinking is when your mouth stays shut and your head keeps talking to itself.

    This isn’t an office. It’s Hell with fluorescent lighting.

    Those who complain about the way the ball bounces are usually the ones who dropped it.

    Time may be a great healer, but it certainly is no beauty operator.

    Trains stop at train stations
    Buses stop at bus stations
    On my desk is a workstation.

    A true friend is one who thinks you’re a good egg even though you’re slightly cracked.

    U

    Usually I try to take it one day at a time, but lately several have attacked me at once…

    V

    W

    Warning: Dates in Calendar are closer than they appear.

    We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.

    What most people want these days is less to do, more time to do it, and more pay for not getting it done.

    When adults act like children, they are called silly. When children act like adults, they are called delinquent.

    When computing, whatever happens, behave as though you meant it to happen.

    When our children are old enough not to say or do anything in public to disgrace us, they have reached an age when the things we do and say embarrass them.

    A wise man learns by the mistakes of others, a fool by his own.

    Why is ‘abbreviation’ such a long word?

    Wild horses couldn’t drag a secret out of most women. Unfortunately, women seldom have lunch with wild horses.

    With every right there is a responsibility. Just once, I wish someone would demand his responsibility.

    A woman wants one man to meet her every need. A man wants every woman to meet his one need.

    A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item she doesn’t want. A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he DOES want.

    Work is the easiest thing man has ever invented to escape boredom.

    Work like you don’t need money,
    Love like you’ve never been hurt,
    And dance like no one’s watching.

    X

    Y

    Years wrinkle the skin, but lack of enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.

    You are only young once. After that, you have to think up some other excuse.

    You can’t keep people from having bad opinions about you, but you can keep them from being true.

    You cannot build a reputation on the things you are going to do.

    You cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them.

    You only live once, but if you live right, once is enough.

    Z

    Misc.

    Comment from a correspondent in Australia on the U.S. political scene: “Thank God you got the puritans while we only got the convicts.”


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