Scott Miller

I have been giddy with the 40th Anniversary celebrations of Apollo 11.

I have been following the stage by stage simulcasting on We Choose the Moon.

The videos I have watched this week still choke me up. And Gene Kranz, mission control genius, and the person who said "Failure is Not an Option", is speaking here in November. I am excited.

Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins have said in numerous speeches all week, "We need to go to Mars".

But today at the White House, Obama says nothing about the Moon, nothing about Mars, and nothing about the 2020 goal of going back to the Moon.

Yahoo News - Obama Meets Astronauts - no promise on Moon or Mars

"So with Armstrong standing next to him and nodding, Obama said those magic words: 'Keep the goal by 2020.'

But he wasn't finished. 'Keep the goal by 2020 of having the highest college graduation rates of any country on Earth, especially in the math and science fields.' "

WHAT??!!

This should be no surprise. Cancel the Moon and Mars and you will have more money for social programs like government subsidized healthcare for all.

Heaven help us, we have lost what it means to be Americans...We are now, or soon will be, some clone of the prissy French.

Oracle Support sucks. No two ways about it.

12/30, 2 PM.
I had to call Oracle Support because my Oracle Apps was hosed and not allowing me to create a Supply Chain Plan. Production is down.

Most of the time, the analyst will communicate via the Metalink TAR support ticket. So you have to frequently click update to see if they posted something new to the ticket. This is especially important as the support "follows the sun" through different time zones around the world.

Typical response, "you don't have the most up-to-date patches" (duh, but that is not what is causing this problem). "Run the plan, upload the logs".

A couple of hours go by...
"Change settings to generate debug info, rerun the plan, upload logs".

Now we get to the first hurdle. Every time that the support ticket was passed off to the next time zone they dropped the ball. And completely dropped off the radar. No response, no TAR postings. So I had to call and escalate the TAR.

Levels of Oracle support call escalation:
Customer->Regular Analyst->Escalation Manager

12/30 6 :30 PM
Now it is being handled in Australia. I escalated to a manager. Told them that Production is down. A very proper Australian woman with a hot voice chides me about escalating the call. She says rerun the plan and upload the logs again. This will take 90 minutes.

Uploaded the logs and an hour goes by. I have to escalate again. This time I get SE Asia. They don't even know what the escalation process is! I ask to be called at home. No such luck.

12/30 Around 11 PM
Another 90 minutes goes by. I escalate again. I ask to be called at home. They can't read the TAR, apparently, so they call my office and leave a voice mail message.

Finally I get someone in India, who is actually quite helpful after I completely explain and explain the whole thing over again.
Damn you Oracle, why can't your techs read the TAR notes up to this point?
"Send some query dumps and more logs".

12/31, somewhere around 2:30 AM
More settings, more dumps of logs.

12/31, 4:30 AM
The analyst in India is better than the others I have so far. He finally figures out it is a problem with a date calendar setting. But there are several places to setup the calendar. He chooses the wrong one.
We change the settings and rerun the plan and upload logs

Shift change and we lose that guy. Two or more hours go by and we are starting over again with someone else! "Why don't you have the current patches?"

Don't you idiots read the #$%@ TAR notes up this point?

It is past 8 AM. Production is still down. Oracle doesn't seem too worried. We have to escalate to the Division Manager. This requires my boss making the call.

Levels of Oracle support call escalation:
Customer->Regular Analyst->Escalation Manager->Division Manager

12/31, 10 AM
Now I have the original support guy that I started out with yesterday at 2 PM! Except for a few winks of sleep (like 20 minutes) here and there I have been up since yesterday at 5:30 AM.

The support guy finally gets me the right settings and the plan works. We are fixed.

12/31, 1 PM
The Division Manager calls me and tells me these following nuggets of wisdom to weave things through the Oracle support web:

• Ask for manager oversight when you escalate to a manager. This will require the manager to follow the progress, not just pass you to an analyst.
• Ask for a "warm handoff" when support moves to a new team and time zone. This requires the previous staff to help the transition instead of just assigning a new person in the support queue.

Try these yourself and see if they work.

BTW - this made for a pretty crappy New Years Eve

D'Arcy commented on a Inc magazine article by Joel Spolsky on rewarding employees. I like D'Arcy's comments, and, rather than replying to his comment, I have many ideas of my own.

How do you reward IT employees? And what do you reward them for? Joel has some interesting examples - do you reward the intern who brings a new million dollar business idea, or do you reward the rest of the team who is finishing a product that will double the regular revenue of the biz?

We have all heard the horror stories. "If you just get this delivered on-time, then you will all get a bonus/trip/whatever". The manager knows that the project won't be on-time, so there is no risk to him and only frustration for everyone else.

I worked for a small company and worked many hours on a project. When review time came I expected a raise. Maybe not for the hours worked and success, but I had gained and demonstrated many skills which could translate into future projects (this is a key idea that I will come back to shortly). My boss said that I had done a good job, but in his opinion the project and its timeline and workload were exceptions and not the rule. And that the next six months or year did not have extraordinary projects that would require longer hours, so why increase the pay? I protested about the long hours. Then he bragged that he basically got all that for the same price, which showed that he was shrewd business man (and a jackass).

If you live and work in corporate IT-land this may be quite different than if you work for an IT-only business or service. Corporate culture may have a specific reward structure (or no reward structure).

Tim Harford's book The Logic of Life - the Rational Economics of an Irrational World, (a book I recommend), is all about incentives in daily life. The book has a chapter on the rationality of a manager pitting all workers against each other for that larger raise. This behavior has built-in incentives for the manager. The idea is that raises are given out based on comparitive performance. If someone works 60 hours a week, he is most likely to get that top raise, while the rest get decreasingly less, with some in the department getting nothing. I worked in a place like that where the people who worked those long hours got 3% and everyone else got less. Pretty soon people don't care anymore, especially for a measly 3%.

At one place I worked, there were quarterly IT awards - a certificate and some cash reward. Almost all of the things rewarded were based on an IT person putting in long hours to fix something or to bail out the business. And, almost without fail, these instances actually involved some emergency that could have been avoided by better business practices, better IT practices (like documenting something before someone leaves, fixing bugs a little better before go-live, or avoiding obvious risk in the first place). What they were rewarding was a cowboy-coder, hero culture, where someone saves the day in the middle of the night. And, similar to Joel's examples, people grumbled because they compared their project to the other guy's project. Or a person got a $20 certificate to the company store and a resulting lime green company-logo'd shirt (because that was the only one available) for his efforts.

And what about pay? Are performance reviews focusing on past performance or on traits, responsibilities, and gained and demonstrated skills which can translate into future performance? I think that they should have a balance of both, but definitely stress the latter. And stressing skills which will likely translate into future performance should be the focus of increases in pay.

What do you think?

Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar

A new picture every day for the first 25 days of December. Some pretty amazing pictures.

I just got done reading Strategic IT Portfolio Management by Jeffrey Kaplan.

Governance is something that doesn't get talked about very much, and certainly not in a positive way. Many companies do governance during the project charter and approval process, to fiigure out what projects to approve, but do very little governance after go-live. Most project requests or project charters have exaggerated expected return on investment numbers, and how much savings or revenue the project implementation will bring. And, in my experience, many of these project requests are sales driven and are nothing more than fiction.

Who does governance after the project goes live? What metrics exist to see whether the project did realize these savings or increased revenue ROI numbers? This book focuses on asking these questions - to ask "are we allocating our IT resources adequately to get the most value for the business (internal) or customer (external)?" This is not for downsizing or outsourcing. Sometimes the on-going costs of support and licensing are not offset by a compensatory value in the business; maybe the project is not even paying for the upkeep costs after go-live. Perhaps the line of sales or market did not materialize. Often the process improvement and savings are not realized because the stakeholders' department didn't really embrace the process change or found a work-around to keep doing the same old bad practices. Or perhaps the scope of the project was cut because of deadlines or all of the project features were not implemented.

This book shows how to ask these questions in the organization, and propel the conversation in a positive direction, so that IT resources are spent on the best value for the business. I highlighted alot of the first two chapters, and I found the book to be very useful. It also shows how to structure the IT portfolio so that governance has real goals and expectations when projects deal with new markets and R&D so that those projects that will bring future value are not hit.

My pics from the Venus, Jupiter, Moon conjunction. Venus moved significantly over the last few days, as much as two full moon widths a night. It was joined by the crscent moon on Dec 1.

11/26/2008 - Jupiter on top, Venus on the bottom

11/26/2008 - Jupiter on top, Venus on the bottom

11/29/2008 - Jupiter on top, Venus still on the bottom

12/01/2008 - Just after sunset. Big change in two nights. Crescent moon on left, Venus on bottom, Jupiter on right.

12/01/2008 - Starting to see some Earthshine on the dark side of the moon.

12/01/2008 - With the sunset

12/01/2008 - A little darker

12/01/2008 - Final pic of the night. Moon on the left, Venus on the bottom, Jupiter to the right.

Venus and Jupiter Conjunction

Venus and Jupiter will move closer (conjunction) over the next few nights until they are very close to each other, along with the crescent moon on December 1st.

Venus and Jupiter are seen in the southwest sky just after sunset. Venus will move almost two full moon widths in distance closer to Jupiter each night this week.

It has been a wild week, hearing the gloom and doom on Wall Street with the credit crisis.

All That Money You've Lost - Where Did It Go?

I found this article to be helpful. Realistically, all that "gain" or "loss" that we see in the market, whether the stock market or the housing market, is all on paper. It only makes a difference if you are looking to buy or sell soon. Otherwise, you just keep the asset, whether on paper (stocks) or the real asset of your house, until later. And most likely it will go back up later in the future.

Many people have treated houses as short term investments over the last few years rather than the longer term assets that they are. Interest rates were low. People borrowed from equity. This demand increased the value on paper, governments greedily reacted by raising the appraised value, which fed more into the value increase. My home doubled in value from 1994 to 2005. I didn't do that much to it to deserve that increased valuation. And my taxes seriously increased also. No one screamed bloody murder that their house was rising so fast in value.

My 401K went down 6% in the first week of October. And that is before the bigger drops in the next few days. I moved some of it into bonds. If everyone did that, it would bring the stock market down lower as well. Realistically, if you are greater than 5 years from retirement, it doesn't make much difference. Sure, you won't make 10+% ROI in the next year, but you are not going to make that much more anywhere else. And most of us have limitations of what we can do with the money. We can't really touch it until retirement anyway.

So did I really lose the money? I lost the potential, but in a good market I could have gainjed more potential. That's why I like the article linked to above. It puts it in perspective.

My summer astronomy continues. Although a cold front and the remnants of Gustav are making it cloudy for the next few days, last night was pretty good, even from my backyard in the city.

I spent about an hour watching the shadow of a Jovian moon traverse across the face of Jupiter. A moon will look like a star next to Jupiter until it crosses in front of it, whereas you can see the shadow on the face of Jupiter.

According to this Javascript utility on Sky and Telescope's website (with a good article), what I saw was the moon Europa. I couldn't see the moon itself against the disk of Jupiter, but I could see its trailing shadow:

I also used this ancient Java-web-based Jupiter moon calculator from 1997:

Here is my first attempt at Photosynth. I used the creepy Dreamer's Awake sculpture by Tom Oterness at the Wichita Art Museum.

Although I had a full 180 degree panorama, the right half was at a different zoom than the left half, making it disjointed. I wish Photosynth would have some better editing tools (like outline the order you want) rather than relying on the software to group them.

What do you do?

Many people, particularly men, have their personal identity defined by what they do for a living.

At a recent church picnic, there was the usual small talk, which eventually leads to the question, "What do you do?". And, even though people mean well, they may feel better about you or themselves, or even evaluate you differently, based on your response.

One of the guys was embarassed and avoided the question. Later, he said that he used to have a prominent job with a big office and large salary. But he got laid off. Now he is working at UPS and is waiting for his 6 month anniversary so that he can eligible for full-time work.

 

In American society, our jobs are treated as a defining point of our identities. Maybe it is appropriate since we spend more waking hours working than doing any other activity.

I have always found the response "I work at XYZ company" to be almost a statement of "I am owned by XYZ company". According to an article in Fast Company magazine a couple of years ago, they apparently agree. It was recommended that the correct answer to the question should be : "I am currently employed at... and I do xyz there". This is supposed to show that you are not defined by your current job, that you are not "owned" by the job/company, and it also supposedly shows that you are open (and available) to other opportunities, especially since the best job leads are from contacts.

What do you do? (geek style)

As geeks, the "What do you do?" question takes on even more levels of meaning - with the usual tech posturing and questions like "what tools do you use?", etc. Someone in this group of preening peacocks will always feel better about themselves after this exchange.

Who am I? I am a ...

I updated my resume this week. This inevitably leads to the question of "Who am I?", which is not much better than "What do you do?".

I am a Business Analyst, Project Leader, and Project Manager. And when I say that, you will filter that based on your personal and professional experience. I have had technical people immediately avert their eyes and mumble, "Oh...". I know. I saw you. Some have even quoted The Dilbert Principle - stating that companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to management. Such BS...

I used to primarily be a developer. I worked on some cool projects - but it was always someone else's ideas or directions. I am now more interested in IT strategy.

Oh no, I'm doing it again. "I am"..."I do"...

The funny thing is that I am much greater than the sum of my parts. And my potential is much greater than the "trail" I have left professionally, as evidenced in my resume. God knows I am under-utilized at my current employer!

Maybe it is more

Maybe we are not supposed to be defined by our jobs. So many of the GeeksWithBlogs bloggers are much greater than the sum of their parts also, and most are defined more by what they do outside of their current job.

D'Arcy, consultant by day, is an aspiring motivational speaker with his Ignite Your Life series.

Chris Williams, while being a Microsoft MVP, is just as known for his blogging, tattoos, and XNA presentations.

And George Clingerman is not defined by where he works, but by his XNA game development.

And really, my most enduring memories of the last two years have nothing to do with work, but are parts of life - bike rides, rock climbing, sunsets, vacations, bunnies (ok, I made that last one up). They make the other BS with the job seem pretty unimportant by comparison.

Google Maps has finally done the street level maps in Wichita. This is fairly impressive since they haven't even bothered to chart Seattle.

One of the funny things is the outcry that it is "invading people's privacy". A woman on the news was upset because it showed her kids in the pool in front of her house. She said that it will make her a target for predators. Of course, being on the local TV news would have more of an effect, I would think.

And the local paper took note of all of the cars in the local tittie bar parking lot. Too bad they couldn't have gotten pictures of license plates, which is a favorite pastime of snapping photogs around here, who take a pic of the license tag, look up the tags and e-mail a "shame on you" postcard to the car owner's house.

Google has gone through the images and blurred out people's faces and license plates, like this:

This must have been some technological feat to blur out faces and license plates, especially since it is one frame about every 10-20 feet on some streets.

My weekend wasn't as adventurous as Chris' jaunt through a storm drain, but I had the most fun and productive night of stargazing ever, last night.

I have an 8" Dobsonian telescope that sits in its own stand. It doesn't have a motor or computer to find sky images, and it doesn't auto-track to keep them in view. I used to have one of those but sold it to buy this one, because the longer focal length allows more magnification and the wider diameter allows it to collect more light so I can see those things better when I blow them up.

I have been very unimpressed with most star charts and astronomy books because they usually give more information than I need, and they show the pictures in color. Most dark sky objects, like nebulae, are not the pretty colors that you see in the books. In a scope they are faint and usually black and white. This is because it is faint enough that the cones in the center of your retina in the eye, which can sense color, need more light than what you see.

You also have to get away from city lights to see the dark sky objects, so I trekked out of town where I could have a clear view of the southern sky to explore Sagittarius and Scorpius, which are impoosible to see from my house, due to city lights.

I got a new book, Turn Left at Orion - A Hundred Night Sky Objects to See in a Small Telescope - And How to Find Them, an excellent book that shows good charts and what the area looks like in a finderscope, as well as what you can expect to see in a small telescope, not the false color images from Hubble.

Very impressive. I tallied several scope finds in the three hours that I was out, including the Ring Nebula (M57), the Swan Nebula (M17), the Lagoon Nebula (M8), the Dumbbell Nebula (M27), and many star clusters in both the southern sky and M13 and M92 globular clusters in Hercules.

In my previous post, I was focused on making One Game per Month. Well, that only works if you continue to work on it. I, on the other hand, got distracted on doing something else. Which is a problem, because when it stops being fun and I'm in the bowels of coding and debugging, it seems more like work.

This brought to my mind the nature of epiphany. We all want to get that lightning bolt from the sky that gives us the great idea. In fact, epiphany used to mean that you got the idea from God.

I am reading The Myths of Innovation, by Scott Berkun. In the book, he covers the myth of epiphany, that great ideas seldom come as epiphanies, unlike the story of an apple dropping on Newton's head yielding insight into gravity, which is likely a myth of story anyway (the apple, not gravity...).

Instead, ideas come *surprise* through hard work, practice, and failure. Often what is attributed as a true epiphany is really the ability to put two disparate thoughts together, noticing the possible connection. Discovering penicillin through mold could be an example.

I have a book on song writing and lyric writing that basically says that you only get better through practice and working at it. Getting that flash of a great song idea doesn't happen very often, which is also why most of the songs on the radio sound the same, because it is easier, and yea even advisable, to follow a formula.

Berkun's book on Innovation also has a funny story of a group of business people touring Google, and marveling at the amount of toys, games, bean bag chairs, etc. And they wondered how anyone can get that next great idea if the staff is sitting around in bean bag chairs playing games and talking to each other. :)

For the last six weeks I have been working on a Master of Orion clone called Sovereign - all in XNA.

Main screen

Intro screen

Menu screen

Planet info screen

All of these graphics were created with Paint.Net. All graphics, such as the logo, menu screen background, and planets, were created from tutorials on the Paint.Net forums.

 

 

Current Features:
• Intro screen has a gear animation that moves across the screen, cracks like an egg, and an Appsguild logo flies out, complete with Fade.
• Menu screen has a menu manager
• Main screen has planets that are dynamically loaded from an XML file.
• When right clicking on planets, a planet info screen appears with an enlarged graphic and planet info numbers

Download my current code from: sov06012008.zip

Still alot of work to go. I used example code for Fade and Screen Manager from George Clingerman's XNA Development, and some Screen Manager ideas from Domination for Xbox 360 by Focused Games.