Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  This morning I built the seconds counter on my clock kit (photo of that section at right).  It all worked on the first try.  When I put my 'scope on the output of the 2^3 flip-flop, I saw a “0” for 8 seconds and a “1” for 2 seconds, repeating in that 10 second cycle.  That's exactly what I should see there, because that flip-flop is only set when the seconds counter contains an 8 or a 9 – which it does for 2 seconds out of every 10.  The other three flip-flops in the counter also had the expected patterns.  My next assembly effort will be the seven-segment decoder logic, the seven-segment LED driver, and the LED itself.  When I get that done, I'll see the seconds for the clock counting up!

Yesterday I started installing some network cables in the house.  The first step was to run two CAT-6 cables from the basement “mechanical room” up into the attic.  I ran them alongside the chimney, where there's already quite an assortment of pipes and wires running.  Today I'm hoping to run them from the attic down through a wall in our second floor office, where I'll terminate them in a wall panel.  One of those wires I'll be connecting to the underground CAT-6 that runs out to the barn; the other I'll be running up through a wall in the kitchen, to attach to a second wireless router for the house.  Our WiFi on the first floor (especially in our bedroom) is kind of shaky, so we're hoping this will fix it.

We took Debbie in for her first treatment with a transdermal steroid patch.  This is designed to attack her patella tendinitis.  The patch contains a battery that uses an electric field to drive the drug down through her skin into the tendon.  The physical therapist there noted that Debbie's extension in her injured leg isn't quite as good as in the uninjured leg, and he's pretty sure that's the root cause of her tendinitis.  We got a bunch of exercises for her to do, all with the objective of improving that extension.  She's hard at work on them already :)

Suppose I told you...

Suppose I told you ... that there was a group of armed people in the U.S. who have (so far) killed over 1,000 people this year.  Would that alarm you?

It certainly alarms me!

Well, there really is such a group – the cops.

It's remarkable how little press this phenomenon – a recent one – gets...


Charts in presentations...

Charts in presentations...  This morning's Dilbert cartoon (below) triggered a memory of a conversation I once had with my company's CEO.  I was, at the time, the Chief Technology Officer.  I had been tasked with making a presentation to the Board about our software development process.  In my presentation, I had a chart that showed the number of unresolved bugs in our main product declining over time.  If you're a software company, a steadily declining number of unresolved (“open”) bugs is a really good thing.  The CEO – my boss – was very unhappy with that chart.  Why?  Because the trend was down, and that (to him) by definition was negative.  So he had me change out the chart for one that showed the resolved (“closed”) bug count, which of course went steadily up.  My protestations that the closed bug count was the wrong measure fell upon deaf ears.  I couldn't even get him to let me use the inverse of unresolved bugs (which would make the trend upwards), as he said that would be too hard to explain to the Board.

The result? 

When I gave my presentation, two Board members reacted as my CEO hoped – they saw the upward trend and assumed life was good.  The rest of the board – four or five members – all jumped on me for having a stupid metric in my presentation, and they proceeded to lecture me about the importance of tracking unresolved bugs.

I'm so glad to be retired! :)


Your morning smile...

Your morning smile...