Thoughts, Code , Creativity
Welcome Reader! You're likely here for one of 2 reasons: 1. My ingenious SEO manipulation helped you arrive here due to this post title. 2. We've talked about how I structure my 1:1s and you'd like the template. If you simply want the template without explanation, click here for the Template . Otherwise, see below for how I use the template and why it works. Workflow for a 1:1 Meeting This…
It's time to start a sprint/planning meeting. As always, more work exists than engineers. Work must be triaged and prioritized. The impact of the work is often a factor in deciding what cards rise to the top. How should Site Reliability Engineers (SRE) measure impact compared to Software Engineers (SWE)? SWE work is feature focused. What have I added to this project? What bug have I fixed? How…
I recently read about a do it yourself KVM called TinyPilot , by Michael Lynch . TinyPilot provides a KVM (Keyboard Video & Mouse) connection to any machine, for the low cost of around $150, or about an hour of your time and whatever Raspberry Pi parts you have sitting around. I have an old Dell R800 with an older version of iDRAC. The iDRAC fails every reasonable attempt to manage the server…
This was enough of a headache today that I wanted to keep a record. If the hostname of your MacBook doesn't match across various places (Terminal, System Preferences, iCloud) - you can fix it with the steps in this Ask Different question. I've also included the answer here, for my own sanity. Setting the Mac hostname or computer name from the terminal Open a terminal. Type the following command to…
Excited to share the video from my Lisa 2019 talk with Brian Artschwager . Ops teams have a higher volume of unplanned work than any other similarly sized team. This talk will attempt to explain the details of a practical method of managing unplanned work, though the engaging story of how our team used this method to systematically process our previously unending backlog.
Some time back I wrote this short guide for our internal wiki at Stack. I'm sharing it here for anyone with an interest in Python linting. Our team generally subscribes to a modified version of pep8 . Reference: Google Standards for Python Specifically: We allow long lines up to 120 characters. Classes should be CamelCase Globals FULLY_CAPITALIZED All other variables lower_snake_case The following…
I recently started poking around at Go again. I like to prove I can write FizzBuzz in a new language (without looking up any language-specific syntax). This is pretty straightforward - sometimes people go with a case statement, but I wasn't sure what kinds of comparisons were allowed in a Go switch . It might be fun to see if I can perform an evaluation (i%5 ==0), or am limited to specific values…
My brother asked about building web pages on Google AppEngine . A while back I recorded this getting started tutorial. The expectation is 0 knowledge of how AppEngine works and brings you from empty folder to working website in under 45min.
No one likes changing their password. Memorization requires wrote. Most password policies create passwords that are hard for people to remember, and easy for computers to guess . Password change can be fun, and even useful outside of improving security. I'd like to suggest the idea of "Password Mindfulness". Use your password change as an opportunity to focus on something you want to improve.…
Part of working at Stack Overflow means refreshing a desktop or laptop build every 2 years. For the better part of the last year, I've been waiting on my refresh, and proclaiming the good word about the upcoming Macbook Pro 2016 refresh. Sadly, MBP 2016 refresh is generally underwhelming . As a result, I went with a Razer Blade 2016 with Razer Core docking station. Razer Costs: Blade QHD+ 1Tb -…
You don't have to look much further than /r/overwatch to see that competitive play is broken. Matchmaking is a terrible joke , and Blizzard has acknowledge the problem . After losing around 15 straight matches this weekend, while playing with very competitive friends, I've concluded ranked play is just not functional, much less enjoyable. Below are some simple ideas, in patch note form, that would…
I'm writing a tool that needs to make over 200 API calls using the requests library in python. The function is doing little more than asking for information and then appending that information into a list. The current run time results look like this: [Finished in 209.3s] I think I can do better. The main delay is caused because each request must be made after the previous request has finished (or…
I'm not an accountant. I'm not a bureaucrat. I am a 31 year old with a mountain of student loan debt. Understanding student debt requires bureaucratic and accounting skills (neither of which were part of my college education.) The real problem of student debt is the problem of 'fake money'. To understand fake money, lets say two people decide to purchase an apple tree sapling. Lets call them Bob…
I'll be working out the Stack Exchange London office for the next 2 weeks. Getting there will be a 6 hour flight, and it is likely not to have an internet connection. On long trips, lacking internet, I like to work on problems from Project Euler . I'd rather not manually download every problem to my git repo , but with a little bit of Python I can automate it. A problem on project Euler is…
Configuring Google Apps Directory Sync ( GADS ) to utilize nested AD groups requires that the 'members' field, of the GADS group search rule , be populated with a valid AD filter. GADS will look at any Unicode attribute in an AD object to fetch that filter. Before we can point GADS to that attribute, we'll need to populate it. That filter can be generated a number of ways, but here's an example in…
I've been waiting a long time for a native VMware View Client for ChromeOS. Google recently released project ARC Welder which allows android applications to run natively in ChromeOS. Using ARC, I've published a working copy of the VMware View client for ChromeOS
I went to link a picture of my dogs on Reddit, and realized I don't have one readily available online. Now I do.
If you're like me and hate paying for "Voice" and "Data" plans (knowing at the end of the day, it's all "Data", and don't 'talk' on the phone much anyway) - You can finally escape the Voice Plan problem using T-Mobile. With a bit of poking around (and Google Voice) I've setup my tablet to do everything I used to do on my cellphone. I now pay $20 a month for 1 GB of 4G LTE data per month, with…
Recently I've been working on a database project for Grad class. I needed to generate a UML diagram as a milestone for the project. I've always felt like doing a "Rough Draft" of anything was like doing double work - so I thought it would be cool if I could programmatically generate a UML from my python models. It turns out other people have had this idea and done a nice job of implementing it…
Great Slideshow that I wanted to share. I look at the way they talk about how Google is run, and it reminds me of the way my Dad, and the other leaders ran our scout troop. If you asked any leader "who was in charge" they would say the kids were. The real "organizing" was in their ability to create invisible fences for us. We could fail. If someone forgot to buy the groceries for the trip that…
Often automating a task is not worth the time and rarely takes the time planned . At StackExchange we have lots of people on our team and in our community who are amazing at Powershell . I am not one of those people . Is it possible to save time using Powershell, even if you're not a guru? Sure! Framing the Problem At Stack we use Google Apps for Work . Google Apps for Work includes a great tool…
It happens to be a computer program. http://en.lichess.org/blog/U4mtoEQAAEEAgZRL/strongest-chess-player-ever
Pretty cool article on the most linked to Wikipedia pages on StackOverflow. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Injection (1001 links) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same_origin_policy (909) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSONP (501) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-origin_resource_sharing (492) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singleton_pattern (468) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undefined_behavior (420)…
What does it take to be an Awesome Sysadmin? This Post on Reddit does a nice job of fleshing that out. http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/255zpb/what_are_qualities_of_a_good_sysadmin/ Knowing what problems are worth automating is a great start.