Clayton’s Weblog

Verizon’s provisioning system is impressive:

Somehow my order is now 58% complete, even though I’m 5 days into the 30 day waiting period for my install!  At this rate I expect it’ll be installed by the end of the coming week.

FWIW, I’m getting the 15/15 package, for $70/mo.  While this means going back to having a dynamic IP at home, it also means I’ll have upstream fast enough that it’s basically like being on my home LAN most anywhere I go that has decent net.

Technorati Tags: fios

Lately I’ve been reading more software engineering/development books, especially those with more of a project management slant.  I got a copy of Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams in the mail today and I’m about 30 pages into it and so far I’m really digging it.  I particularly liked this quote which was mentioned in a section about Parkinson’s Law:

In a healthy work environment, the reasons that some people don’t perform are lack of competence, lack of confidence, and lack of affiliation with others on the project team, and the project goals.  In none of these cases is schedule pressure liable to help very much.  When a worker seems unable to perform, and seems not to care at all about the quality of his work, for example, it is a sure sign that the poor fellow is overwhelmed by the difficulty of the work.  He doesn’t need more pressure.  What he needs is reassignment, possibly to another company.

As an aside, I also finished reading Rapid Development over the holidays, and it’s what got me thinking about this sort of thing in general.  I had someone at work the other day ask me why I’ve started reading more about this sort of thing, and I think the first few pages of Peopleware kind of summed it up.  Most of the problems on most software projects aren’t with the software, but it’s what most people would call office politics, and what I see as more of as project management and process issues.  I didn’t really have to deal with this sort of thing much at RCN, but with larger groups working on projects at TWC, it’s definitely something I have to deal with on a regular basis.

While the whole article is interesting, this bit from Joel Spolsky’s recent article in for Inc really rang true:

Think of it in these terms: Mama walruses deliver their calves at the end of a 15- to 16-month pregnancy. You might ask the mother to commit to 15 months and she might say, “No problem!” Or you might say, “Fifteen months? Are you crazy? We need this in eight months!” Of course, haggling like this can’t possibly make things happen any faster, and even if you get the walrus to agree to an eight-month timetable, I’ll let you in on a little secret: It’ll never happen. You can have a schedule that says 11 months, but you’ll still ship in 15 months, because that is how long it takes to make a baby walrus. Sixteen, sometimes.

We have a project going on at work now that was originally supposed to be in field trial by the end of the year.  The principal on the project is leaving the company, so now it’s gotten tossed over the wall to us.  We need to come up with a new date by the end of the month.  We only have a rough idea of what the final solution will be, and all kinds of interesting questions about the scope of the project.  Thankfully the project is actually fairly interesting, and our management is generally pretty understanding of justifiable schedule slips.

So after a year or so of nagging on and off, work agreed to buy Macbooks for the people in our group that wanted one.  As a result, I’ve ended up with a 15″ Pro.  So far there are some things I like and don’t like.

• The screen is beautiful.  I wish it were a little higher DPI, but the resolution is better than I was expecting.  The LED backlighting should also mean that I won’t be horribly disappointed that the screen isn’t as bright as it was the first day in a few weeks.
• Magsafe is neat.  Magsafe plugs shouldn’t fit as well into usb ports as they do into the Magsafe plug.  No, this didn’t end badly, but on the 15″ MBP, they’re right next to each other and it’s easy to put the plug into the USB port if you’re not paying attention.
• The keyboard is ok.  I find it a bit awkward, but I suspect I’m just not used to it.  It seems really stupid that I have a dedicated eject key, but no home/pgup/pgdn/end keys, but with DoubleCommand, it’s livable.
• The trackpad and gestures work very well.  I’m generally fairly indifferent about input devices.  I’ve used mice, trackpads, trackpoints, trackballs, etc, and I find that I get used to all of them fairly quickly.  The right click with two finger tap works much better than I expected, but I’d still prefer to just have two mouse buttons.  Hint to Apple: Make it look like one mouse button, but make the mechanicals underneath be able to tell if you clicked on the left or right hand side.  Then make OSX consider the two sides to be one button by default.  That way you don’t confuse anyone, and people that want two mouse buttons have it out of the box.  Consider this my proof for prior art when you try to patent this idea.
• Sound is definitely better than any Thinkpad I’ve used.  It’s unrealistic to expect it to be fantastic, but it’s completely workable, compared to IBM who likes to put speakers on the bottom of the laptop…
• Power brick is kind of large, but no larger than average really.  Power cord is longer than average I’d say, which is nice.
• The thermal design, for lack of a better term, sucks.  The MBP is generally always a little warm, and if the CPU is maxed out then the fans kick up to really high RPMS and it becomes too hot to have in your lap.  None of the other laptops I’ve owned in the past 5 years (Including a CoreDuo and Core2Duo) had any thermal issues.

All and all, I’m pretty pleased with it so far.

So, if everything goes well, next Wednesday I’ll be leaving to from Cumberland, MD to ride the length of the C&O Canal. It’s 184 miles, fairly flat, and should be mostly downhill to the end point in Georgetown. I’m planning to do the trip self supported over 4 days or so, although Caitlin will be staying in the area for the first day or so, if something comes up and I need something.

I’ve been stressing a little bit about the prep work, but it’s mostly coming together now. I’ve got 80-90% of the gear I’m bringing with me gathered together, and the tent, sleeping bag, etc are already packed up.

It’s going to be a little tight, since I’m traveling to Tampa for a business trip on Monday night, and coming back on Wednesday morning, but I’m planning to head home when I get back into town and finish my packing. Then we’ll load the car up and Caitlin will drive Paul and I up to Cumberland. I’m tentatively planning to ride the first 10-15 miles of the path that evening, and then I’ll setup camp.

If you’re curious, there is more information on the C&O canal at Bike Washington and the National Park Service.

DoubleCommand
Open source OSX keyboard remapping extension. Allows remapping meta keys including Enter = Fn
(tags: osx)

The Brazing Book
Online copy of a very interesting book that covers how to learn brazing
(tags: brazing framebuilding cycling)

tpl: serialization for C programs
C and Perl API for serialization to a binary format
(tags: c programming perl)

DC Randonneurs
(tags: cycling randonneur)

BackpackGearTest.org - Home Page
Great site for backpacking/camping gear reviews
(tags: camping)