Blog

  • ISS docking simulator from SpaceX

    This is pretty cool, and really hard – ISS docking simulator for SpaceX

    You got the right stuff?

    Makes me think of how the video game in The Last Starfighter was a recruiting device.

  • Set your alarm for bedtime

    Set your alarm for bedtime

    We are getting our alarm clocks all wrong. Everyone sets their alarm for when they want to wake up. We don’t take into account when we go to bed. If you set your alarm for 6am but goto bed at 1am, thats only 5 hours of sleep.

    At this point it’s pretty much decided that we all need 7 to 8 hours of sleep everyday. If you need to get up at 6am then you should be going to bed at 10/11pm. If you set your alarm for when you need to goto sleep then you may not even need a wake up alarm. I know that I wake up a few minutes before 6am if I get to bed around 10pm.

    One neat feature of iOS is the Sleep section of the Health app. In this section you can set your sleep schedule for any days you want. I only set it for weekdays so that I can sleep in on the weekends. There is also a wind down setting which I set to 45 minutes. This notifies me at 9:15pm each night that my scheduled sleep time of 10pm is coming soon.

    I am not perfect about getting to bed on time but I am trying. When I do get consistent sleep everything else is better, this I know.

  • Never not felt better

    One truth I have relearned multiple times is that I need to get up and do something first thing in the morning. Usually that is a workout of some kind: cycling, yoga, strength training, This gives me time to wake up before I try to be productive with my day. Waking up is more than just opening my eyes and getting out of bed.

    The body has been at rest for hopefully at least 7 hours. If I am going to be awake, focused, present, and enjoying my day I need to spend time waking up all of my body. This helps me stay comfortable in my seat which means I can think about my work instead of my aching back. After doing a workout I have never not felt better.

    The problem is that before I do the workout I really don’t wanna do it. There are times when I am tired, or sick, and I should either stay in bed, or skip the workout. Most of the time when my mind is telling me to stay in bed it’s because my mind doesn’t wanna. We are all pleasure seekers, and a warm bed is pretty nice.

  • Always open in List view

    I have been using a Mac for over 22 years at this point, and I still have Finder windows open with a view of files in something other than List view. It drives me crazy every time.

    I like list view for the same reason I like ll and ls -la on the command line. If I am looking at files, and directories/folders, I want to see lotsa information. List view, when setup for what you need, gives you exactly what you need.

    Anyway if you use a Mac this can help make sure you have Finder always open in list view. I am most putting this here because I want to be able to find it again:

    Open finder

    Select your hard disk

    Command + J

    Check the top two check boxes (Always open in list view, browse in list view)

    Click use as defaults

    Open Applications->Utilities->Terminal

    sudo find / -name ".DS_Store" -exec rm {} \;

    Enter your root password, press enter

    How to set Finder to always use list view

    The second to last command there should give you pause: sudo and rm . The first one gives the command root privilege to everything on your harddrive. The second one removes/deletes files. Used in combination means you can delete some really important stuff. The good news is that the find command is searching for .DS_Store files, which contain information about how you want Finder windows to open. While we should be aware of what we are doing when using sudo and rm in any instance, in this case we are good to go.

    Before doing the terminal command take a moment to review the rest of the Finder settings. Here is what I prefer to see as default when I open a new Finder window in List view:

    Once you have it set as you want go ahead and run the terminal command and sing a little prayer.

  • Snow Managment

    Snow Managment

    When it starts snowing in our area of Colorado you need to be ready with some type of plan. If you want to be able to use your driveway or porch you need to figure out when and where you are going to start moving snow. This isn’t like mowing the lawn where if you forget to mow you can still drive your car. If you let snow stay in place it eventually turns to ice and then you are in big trouble.

    Snow management requires planning and then action. If its snowing hard you should plan on getting out at least 2 times a day to cover the same ground. For example we got about 8 inches of snow in 24 hours a few weeks ago. While my snow blower can handle up to 12 inches of snow it is best to clear things out before that much accumulates.

    This makes it easier on the machinery and also means you are keeping your driveway clear more often. If you want to use your driveway it is best to have it clear or at least mostly clear of snow. Once there is more than 1 or 2 inches of snow on the road or deck you should start clearing it off. At that depth is can start to give you traction problems and its going to start packing down.

    Packed snow is slightly better than unpacked snow in terms of traction, but it is more difficult to remove and melts slower than if you had removed it. If the snow is falling and you are at 1 to 2 inches get out there and clean things up.

    Then plan on getting back out there in 6 to 10 hours to clean up the stuff that kept coming down. Yes its a lot of work but once the storm is gone and your driveway and deck are already clear you will be happier. Once the snow gets time to melt and re-freeze it creates a crust and is much more difficult to remove.

  • Double the outlets

    As Kate and I inhabit our new home we have been 99% satisfied with how everything came out. The only complaint is that we should have doubled the electrical outlets. Especially in the garage, mudroom, and bedrooms. Its really hard to run wires once the insulation and drywall are installed.

  • Stopping Doom Scrolling

    Doom scrolling
    “If it’s not helping you take action to make things better, what’s it for?”

    I would say that I started Doom Scrolling when Headline News came out with the 15 minute news cycle. Today we have Facebooks and Twitters and Reddits with endless scrolling of all the horrible news going on, and on, and on. While I do think it is important to be informed there is a limit at which the information is useful.

    My personal vice is Reddit’s Popular page. I can scroll on that page anytime of the day. While not all of it is Doom and Gloom enough of it is to keep me going for more. The problem is that apart from some funny gifs that I share with friends it is mostly a waste of time. I could spend that same time reading industry news or learning something technical.

    The solution is that I am updating my NetNewsWire to only have feeds that fit some sense of utility:

    • Industry related: WordPress, hosting, cloud computing, etc
    • Business related: Seth Godin’s site is a great example here
    • Focused posts: For the most part the sites should be talking about a specific topic(s). There can be some posts about personal life but unless I know them personally I am not as interested

    The internet and web are amazing. We can all easily publish anything anytime and anyone with access to the web can read it. This is also a problem as there is way more information than we can review in our lifetimes. Finding a balance of information versus entertainment is a challenge. Realizing when we are sucked into someone’s algorithim based on fury and rage is a skill we must learn and practice.

  • 100,000 meters so far

    I bought an indoor rowing machine a few weeks ago to keep my aerobic fitness going through winter. We took delivery on Dec 24th and I did a short 10 minute workout to test it out. Since then I have used it 10 more days and so far have rowed over 100,000 meters or 100km, also known as over 62 miles.

    I am still trying to take it easy and the longest single distance rowed was today at 15km. I broke it up into four 3750meter segments with a 3 minute easy break between each one. Breaking it up like that is something I learned from a 12 week training program I am going to start after my vacation.

    One might think that rowing in a room would be really boring and it could be. To keep things more interesting I have been listening to audiobooks during the workouts. So far I have listening to Sid Meier’s Memoir, which if you have played any Sid Meier games is a fun listen. Now I am listening to Range by David Epstein, which is a really fascinating review of how humans have changed due to the modern world.

    This is a change from my initial use of Apple Fitness+ workouts, but I found that those workouts were not as helpful as more traditional rowing workouts. In the Apple workouts you watch the video to match the instructors strokes per minute. That works fine but from reading about rowing workouts the stroke rate they are using around 26 to 30 strokes per minute is pretty high.

    The training program I am using now has my long easy workouts at 18 to 20 strokes per minute. This is a lot slower stroke rate which allows me to focus on my form much more. It also keeps my heart rate in a zone 2 area which is best for improving aerobic fitness. There are also more difficult interval workouts that use higher stroke rates to work on my strength and speed.

  • Is Slack the problem?

    Interesting article about how some CEO’s are starting to dislike the openness of Slack in their company communication. I understand where they are coming from, somewhat. You don’t want a few people flooding company channels with divisive or unproductive conversations. I have seen this happen in real time with no one countering it.

    Complaining in a public channel can go 2 ways: 1) the complaint is constructive and brings attention to an issue or 2) the complaint is just to complain about a tough situation but offers no resolution. One is productive and the other needs to be addressed with your boss or HR. How your employees use these company chat programs is a reflection of how management uses them. I know that I look at how my boss, managers, and executives conduct themselves on Slack and do some mimicry. They create spoked and unspoken guidelines that I try to follow.

    My issue with this article is that it doesn’t provide much in the way of solutions, other than reducing internal communication. One example that it does spend time on is Google. Over the last few years Google has made changes to its internal communication tools to reduce the openness of conversations. There was a lot of political discussion about internal policies and also about products. Apparently the powers that be at Google dealt with this by shutting down the conversations.

    In Google’s case I think you have a bit of their own gravitas coming back to bite them. Their famous S-1 filing that mentioned: “Don’t be evil” seemed cool and innovative to some, but the reality is that Google is a massive money making advertising platform. What does it mean for an advertising platform to “not be evil”?

    One has to ask if the issues at Google are due to technologies that allowed internal communication, or Google’s early naivete about what a company and business is. It is easy to blame the technology but if you literally tell the world in your SEC filing that you are not going to be evil, then maybe you are setting yourself up for culture issues later on.

    Are you considering the long term implications of what the company is communicating internally today? If you say something like “Don’t Be Evil” and think that no one is going to take that literally then you are in for a rude surprise, as Google is experiencing currently. If, say, you are in negotiations with the Chinese government to create a search engine made for spying on its citizens then maybe your company culture is going to speak up about that.

    Also keep in mind that your employees are going to find ways to communicate with each other in ways that you don’t always approve. Whether its a physical happy hour at the bar or a chat room on a personal Signal account; they are going to talk about work. Just because you have kicked them off the company Slack doesn’t mean they won’t talk with each other. In fact if you police Slack too much you may be giving them something else to talk about.

    Personally I enjoy the ability to speak freely wherever I work. I was reminded of this while on a support call with a company last night. I was calling the company because there was an issue with their documentation and I needed clarification. In the course of the conversation we discovered numerous issues with the documentation and processes at the company.

    I mentioned that the support rep should be excited to share this information internally. They mentioned that at this company reporting errors isn’t always the best thing for the individual making the report. It made me sad to think that the employee had to second guess if they should report something as important as an incorrect support document, due to internal politics.

    It also reminded me why I seek out companies that value vibrant and challenging internal communication. “If you see something, say something.” is a motto I take to heart at work. No matter my position at a company, if there is something wrong with the product or documentation I feel like I should tell someone. If this is done in a public channel then it maximizes the potential for people to see it and take action to resolve it.

    Having effective open communications comes from the top down. If the executives allow or promote divisive discussions then the sub-ordinates are going to follow suit. If the executives don’t engage their people in open channels then they should not be surprised if the conversations that occur are not what they expect.

    If an executive or manager steps into a Slack conversation I know that I am going to read what they say very carefully. I am also going to use what they say and how they say it as a guide for how the company operates and pass that to my co-workers and the customer. If they are genuine and open about why, how, and what then so am I.

    My suspicion is that the executives complaining about Slack are not participating much beyond posting monthly announcements. From my experience Slack is a reflection of the company using it. If you put the classic top down management system into Slack then that’s what is going to show up. Expect sub-ordinates to create private channels to discuss things, because its not safe for them to talk like that in public channels.

    Creating a culture of open communication is not done by purchasing software. It is done by fostering open communication with your sub ordinates as a manager. This means opening yourself up for criticism and growing with your sub-ordinate. It probably means rethinking a top-down approach to management.

  • Home Theater

    Home Theater

    I have always enjoyed watching movies and TV. I enjoy all kinds of shows and use Youtube extensively for educational and entertainment purposes. I am not a hard core fan of anything but I do enjoy watching moving pictures. I enjoy going to the theater but it can be annoying when people want to talk during a show. Also with the pandemic theaters are now a no go for me.

    When we started designing our home I knew I wanted a basement with a home theater. I knew that Kate would be smart and get us a place to sleep and eat, but I was focused on one thing: Having a large screen and surround sound system for watching movies.

    At the start I wanted to have two thirds of the basement be one huge open room. It would have been 23 feet wide and 27 feet long. Then our builder told me how large of a beam they would need to install to make that work. We quickly redesigned the basement to have a weight bearing wall halfway across the 27 foot run. This added two bedrooms/offices/workout rooms at the south end, with a large room in the center.

    Weight bearing wall installed.

    While the center room ended up about half the size I had originally wanted, it was still plenty large enough for a 120 inch projector screen. Going from a 13 inch laptop would be quite the upgrade.

    With the room size determined, layout was the next focus. For a projector to create a 120 inch screen you generally want about 12 feet of distance from the lens to the screen. That is also the ideal distance to sit from a 120 inch screen so that you can see everything without turning your head.

    Since the room is 23 feet by 13 feet I could have pointed the projector to any wall in the room. However from a sound system perspective it is best to have some distance behind your head and the back wall. This allows you to place the rear and surround channel speakers further behind for greater effect. It also helps with reverb and acoustic stuff.

    With sound in mind it made sense to either place the screen on the east or west wall. Since the stairwell comes down to the west it made the most sense to place the screen on the east wall. This would allow me to place low level stair lights that would not effect the image quality. Also when you enter the theater room you aren’t walking in front of the screen.

    One thing I picked up while learning about home theater design is to place your receiver and electrical equipment to one side of the room. Then you don’t have to see the lights from the equipment when watching the screen.

    The stairwell comes down on the north side of the theater room. So we added a cubby hole under the stairs where I can put the electronics, with room for expansion.

    Whats in the cubby?

    With the location of the receiver determined I knew where to run all the speaker wire. The question was how many speakers to run. Dolby surround sound comes in a number of flavors:

    • 5.1 is the bare minimum with the standard left and right front channels, a center channel, two surround channels, and one subwoofer.
    • 5.2 adds a sub.
    • 7.1 and 7..2 add two rear channel speakers.
    • 5.1.2, 5.2.2, 7.1.2, and 7.2.2 adds two height channel speakers also known as Atmos.
    • 5.1.4, 5.2.4, 7.1.4, and 7.2.4 adds four height/Atmos channel speakers

    The most common setup is 5.1 and this is also the most common option recorded in most movies. More and more movies are adding height/Atmos support. I figured that speaker wire is pretty cheap so wired the room for 7.2.4 with the plan to setup 5.1.4 initially.

    There were a few factors in opting for 5.1.4 for the initial setup:

    1. There would be fewer speakers, which saves money.
    2. I would only need a main receiver/amp to power everything.
    3. The improvement in sound over my laptop would be incredible and probably enough, for now.

    Once I had the layout configured it was time to start shopping for speakers, receiver, and projector. This is where I started feeling overwhelmed with the options and costs. It turns out that speakers, receivers, and projectors can all get crazy expensive and complicated.

    In the end I went with some solid Sony speakers that didn’t break the bank but were high enough quality that they make the room feel solid. One thing I learned is that you want to stick with one speaker manufacturer for the entire system of speakers. Apparently they are tuned to each other or something like that. I feel like I read this on enough different websites and forums that it might be the truth and not some way for speaker manufacturers to sell more stuff.

    I spent a solid chunk of change on the receiver to get 5.2.4 of speaker channels without an external amp. It also has future support for 8K projectors when we start using them in 4 to 5 years. The receiver should outlast the speakers and projector, so it made sense to invest there. I went with a Denon AVR-X4700H.

    For the projector I initially thought I would go with a 1080p resolution as that would be good enough, and it would keep the costs down. As 2021 progressed the price of the BenQ HT2050A crept upward to $700 while its 4K replacement, the BenQ HT3550, was holding at around $1700. More than doubling the price but giving me beautiful 4K resolution. Then I saw a refurbished option for just over $1200 and jumped on that.

    With the equipment selected I needed to start thinking about finishing the theater room. Paint was a big decision. You do not want to use white or any bright colors in a theater room. The light from the projector or TV will bounce off of the bright walls and wash out the image. Ideally black is the best color for a theater room as it absorbs the light and makes for the best viewing experiences.

    Unfortunately a black room is also a bit terrifying because it is black. Burgundy is often used instead to create a more comfortable room when you have the lights up and aren’t watching a movie. While we were looking at paint colors for the rest of the house I started evaluating dark reds. Eventually I settled on Sherwin Williams’ Merlot.

    Color is the most subjective thing I can think of and I got quite a few side glances from the builders when I proposed painting the stairwell and entire theater room with this dark color. I had a few panic moments over my decision, especially after it was first applied to the walls and ceiling. In its wet state it gave off a lot of sheen and looked really scary.

    Something from a horror film.

    Fortunately it dried to the correct sheen and became much more comfortable to live in. I am really happy with how it came out and think that it works well when watching a film but also is nice to sit in with the lights on. I primarily work from this room sitting on the couch.

    I have learned to leave the projector off during the workday as it is just too distracting. One really cool thing about the Apple TV is that I can use the projector as a monitor with no cables involved.

    More of a novelty than anything productive.

    With the walls painted and the house finished it was time to install and test the setup. I was pretty nervous about the speaker wiring and if I had installed it all correctly. I was also nervous as a lot of construction happened after I installed the wiring. Did the dry-wallers cut or crimp any of the wiring?

    Fortunately everything worked and the home theater is my favorite room in the house. I need to work on hanging acoustical panels on the walls and ceiling, but it sounds fine to me right now. I can also add another sub but the existing one sounds fine and creates enough bass to elicit noise complaints from upstairs already. I can also add two rear channel speakers but need to get another amp for that. If I do that upgrade I will have the amp power the two front and center speakers and connect it to the Denon via the pre-outs. The HDMI cable is run through a conduit so that I can replace it when the HDMI standard is inevitably changed again. However there is no hurry to spend more money on this project right now.

    All said I spent a little over $4000 on the electrical equipment for the theater room. Not cheap compared to a TV with a soundbar, but very cheap compared to most of the home theater setups I have seen online. Looking back at the project the only thing I would have done differently would have been to run the speaker wires longer. Right now one of the runs is a little short and makes the setup in the cubby a bit cramped.

    When we were building the house Kate was a bit dismissive of the theater room. She did not grow up watching TV and movies so does not share my addiction. Now that we have moved into the house she has started warming up to the benefits of having a dedicated theater room. It allows us to keep the living room free of a TV, which we both prefer. However when the mood strikes we can easily retreat downstairs and enjoy some escapism.