[coding] The Data Layer

Sink or Swim

After hearing about how hard it is to start a business, I have been looking for that thing that would make the business hard.  I mean, dealing with people that can't work together was hard but I've basically solved that.  I'm talking about the thing that could make the business fail.  And I've found it:  the data layer is going to cost money.

At first they wanted $5,000 a month, which wasn't going to happen mostly because for that price I could just implement my own crappy nosql service on top of mysql and I'd still be better off.  Or I could use an Amazon service.  I mean, whatever.  After voicing my concerns to them, they dropped the price down to something I won't choke on.  Given that they are willing to make changes to their software so that I can use it without creating a separate web service to handle the parts they didn't have...I think this is the best option.  Unfortunately, this means we are still going to be burning a ton of cash every month.

All of this would actually still be fine, however they want me to sign a contract before they implement the changes I need, and I need those changes to finish the beta version, and I need the beta version to find out if even a single customer wants this software, and I need to know if anyone even wants this software before I commit thousands of dollars to a data layer contract.

So, maybe we'll have to change the "beta test" milestone to some kind of demo.

I still very much regret starting with an iOS version.  We are fucked on iOS.  What we should have done is create an android version.  This android version would be special, because if it detects that it was not downloaded from some lame app store like google play, it would let people sign up for a subscription via the app.  We could just hand out test devices to spas for a trial period and we wouldn't even need a website.





Perspective

A long time ago I posted this hilarious video making fun of fanboys.  Fanboys come in all types...language fanboys, architecture fanboys, OS fanboys, game fanboys, etc.  And as the video shows they make great punching bags.

However.

The video is a sort of relational database vs "nosql" database debate, but doesn't actually cover the reasons you would use one versus the other.  Watching it again years later...both characters sound like idiots.  When the relational database guy talks, he feeds us that line about "well we looked at all these databases and..." but that's just a line.  It's a line just like saying "did it hurt when you fell from heaven?" except its something we say in meetings to cockblock the jackass who is looking to make us look bad by pointing out that we should have done more investigation.  I actually have a lot of jackass-blocking lines, and I'd really like to work in a place where I don't have to use them.

So the relational guy never tells us why a relational database is really better for his use case.  Relational databases are slower...sort of.  Relational databases are slower when you are using them to store something that doesn't need to be relational.  For example, if you stored all of your favorite HD movies in a shared mysql database, that would be much slower than a non-relational store.  Databases really are the bottleneck in a large system, so we try to remove them from the picture as much as possible but there are use cases where you still need the locking and strong consistency of a database.  So did the cow guy actually need a relational database?  No one will ever know.

I think the same guy posted another video that was basically passive aggressively crying about being on some project where shitty programmers replaced a fast php website with a slow, poorly implemented ruby one.  It sounded like a small company where the entry level programmers and the CTO would be in the same meeting.  In their defense, php is ass-ugly.

Requiem for a Partnership, Part 8

meh

My Car was Raped, Part 5

And now, the final conclusion to the tale of why I will never have loose objects in my car again.  And also why I need to start checking my damn credit report weekly, and probably put of opening any new accounts even though I just found a reddit thread which invigorated my desire to move all my credit cards to credit unions (fun fact:  the only credit union I know of that lets you have a credit card with them, and lets you pay that credit card with an external checking account in a single action and without being a dick about it, is USAA.  Please tell me if you find others.  Everyone else I've tried makes you do an "external transfer," wait for 3 days, and then log in again to pay off the card).

So.

I went to the DMV yesterday.  Then I went to the other DMV, because the first one I went to only did driver licensing, and the second one only did vehicle licensing.  Whatever.  The person who stole my documents had a reason, and I hate them, so I'll visit every fucking DMV in the city if I have to.

I got a new registration, and I also told them I wanted new plates, hoping that will fuck up whatever scheme that shitfucker has planned.  Hmm...maybe I should call my insurance company and ask when the last time "I" contacted them regarding my account?  Anyway...they just handed me new plates.  They didn't even argue with me.  I had no idea they were so fucking efficient (or friendly!).  They just had these stacks of fucking license plates there, and they took a set, and give them to me, and it was done.  I've never seen any government agency act with such incredible efficiency.  In fact, I was expecting to spend weeks waiting for my new plates to arrive, which is why I only had a motorcycle and no backpack.  I actually had to walk across the parking lot to the climbing gym, buy a $2 practice rope, and lash the plates onto the back of my bike.

I think I did a damn good job, actually.  The really interesting part how I learned to tie those knots.

Amazon, Sucks a Bag of Dicks

One of the largest bonuses to using Amazon Video was that it worked in any browser.  Netflix required this Silverlight bullshit, which meant that despite whatever platforms it allegedly runs on, its not going to run on any linux or apple box I own.  So if I want to curl up in bed with my airbook thingy and watch a movie, I have to watch something on Amazon.

Until now.

You were supposed to read "until now" in that deep voice that is always used in movie previews.  Go back and do it.  I'll wait.  Anyway, I tried to buy the latest season of Mythbusters and was told I would need Silverlight.  I've actually purchased a number of movies on Amazon because it seemed more free and could work in any HTML5 browser.  Now, the value of my little movie collection I assembled there just dropped by more than half.

Fuck you, Amazon.

Ergo, Put.io.  I intend to make use of this service.  What I'd really like to do is only use it to download things that netflix doesn't have, or that I happened to feel like watching on amazon when I using a mac/linux computer, etc.  I think it would be cool if we could get a movement going, where people who torrent would classify media in categories like this:

1.  GREEN:  A movie that is not available to stream on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon (rent-only counts as not available on Amazon).  Physical services, and lame-ass streaming services run by the monopolies and content owners (Red Box, AMC, Comcast, MLB) don't count.  Torrent and seed as much as you can. Paint the streets with free pirated DVDs of this type of content.

2.  YELLOW:  the movie is sort of available, but the content owners (the "assholes") are being assholes about it.  This is a gray area that I don't have a good definition for.

3.  RED:  the movie is available on Netflix, or is one of the free videos you get with Amazon Prime or Hulu Plus.  You're kind of a dick for pirating this movie.  Maybe torrent it, but seriously consider if you should maybe pay money in some form, even if you are just buying one version on Amazon just to make it ethical to also torrent onto your myth TV box.  Obviously if you own the movie in any kind of physical form--DVD, laserdisc, VHS, Betamax--then pirating it is perfectly ethical.

Now, I think that if all netziens everywhere followed that model, it would put market pressure on the content owners to stop being dickwads and let us buy digital content without also trying to control us.  I'm skeptical that enough people would follow this.  I am starting to wonder if most of the people torrent-ing simply don't want to pay for things.

My Car was Raped, Part 4

So apparently the apartment manager did get back to me, via text message, and I the forwarding number I give out to businesses (like Comcast, etc) doesn't support texts.

I have the backpack.  Turns out, a few more items were missing than I realized:

• 1 M$ rain jacket
• blanket
• mechanic gloves
• bag of carabiners
• 1 sweaty athletic shirt that I may not wear again
• another athletic shirt
• sock
• sock
• underwear.  THIS event is now creepy.
• camelback water thingy
• deodorant i'll never use
• red bull
• skull thingy which does not belong to me
• garage clicker!
• scotch tape
• food I'll never eat
• schedule for bus 33
• receipts
• more deodorant
• GPS
• wires

MOTHER FUCKING CUNT my insurance and reg are not here.

My Car was Raped, Part 3

The manager at my apartment has suddenly became scarce that we need to arrange getting my stuff back to me.  I have a few ideas.  The first one was his:

1. she gives my stuff to the apartment manager, and he gives it to me
2. he gives her my contact info
3. he gives me her contact info

Its really...I am so close to having my stuff back.  But not he seems like he is not answering my emails now.  I am thinking about just going to the DMV to get a new registration after all.

My Car was Raped, Part 2

The apartment manager just called me.  My backpack, including the garage clicker and my insurance and registration, was found in some girl's car a few days ago.  The reason they didn't contact me is all of my stuff has my P.O. box on it.  So the thief broke into my car, took a bunch of shit out, then broke into another car, and put my shit in there.

I'm assuming they got interrupted.

I am pretty fucking happy right now.  I was about to go into the DMV and try to convince them to give me a new license plate, new tabs, new driver's license...the works.  I'd even ask for a new VIN if that was possible.  I actually had an enormous list of things to do, including building an enormous lego building in my apartment and hiding my safe inside...that one I might still do.  However, now it looks like the thief doesn't even have all that.

Also, for the record, my apartment manager seems competent.  He told me some of the steps he's been taking to reduce theft, so even though I live in a shitty apartment, the manager currently cares, and that is pretty helpful.

My Car was Raped

At some point in the last two weeks, some shitfucker got into my car.  Whoever it was, was apparently skilled.  My car has a feature that sets off the audio car alarm when someone used the key to unlock it.  That feature didn't work tonight, except then after I drove the car for 20 minutes it did work.  Not sure what they did to it.

I felt pretty violated when I surveyed my car and saw that they had ruffled through everything, including my gym clothes.  They left my motorcycle helmet but took the bag containing my climbing gear.  They left the climbing gear too.

It is pretty unsettling knowing they were able to bypass my car's security system.  I was hoping that keeping it in a "locked" garage was a good enough first step, but apparently thieves get in here all the time.  I would almost rather not own a car, than leave it down there knowing anyone with skill can just break into it, no matter what locks I put on it.

I spend about 10 minutes day dreaming about keeping a box labeled "jewelry" in the trunk, and rigging the hinges so they are spring loaded and spray acid all over the place when it is opened.  However, the potential for an innocent to get hit by it is too great.  Also, now that the NSA knows what I want to do, I probably shouldn't.

The most important thing that was stolen was the current registration and insurance.  I was unaware that these had any value--boy was I wrong.  The most likely goals for stealing that are apparently cloning the car, insurance fraud, or identity theft.

The one silver lining is that using a P.O. box service saved my ass today;  as the P.O. box was on the reg, the thief still doesn't know what apartment I am, so they won't know to come looking when they see one of my vehicles is gone.

One thing I'd like to try, is rigging the door locks so that they don't work at all, manually, and the only way in is to use the remote.  Of course, then I might have to add a hood lock as well....idk.  I just need enough to make some asshole give up, though keeping in mine that they could smash the window.  Maybe put a sign on the windows with a cartoon hand giving the middle finger and the words "there are no valuables in this car."  I don't know.  I unfortunately have a lot of work ahead of me.

I also need to decide if I should move to another apartment temporarily.  I don't really want to deal with that, since I'm planning to move home soon, but maybe it would be a good catalyst for shedding some of my furniture.

All I really want, is to find the person who did it, find where they sleep, and [redacted].




[Update]
An officer had to take a statement in person because it was in a "secure" garage.  He was the nicest guy ever, and also has a WRX.  I'm not sure I have the heart to be mean to traffic cops now.

Also, he pointed out that since there was no apparent damage, anyone sophisticated enough to defeat the alarm would probably have stolen the car.  Therefore, it is likely that I left it unlocked.  Which is what I did just now, after letting him look through the vehicle...we walked away talking while it was still unlocked 0.o
 

Lost

I feel stuck.  Work ground to a halt for the startup this weekend because the prototype coding is now blocked on a meeting with the CloudMine people, and the iOS coding is blocked on the final version of the graphics.   I would love to expand on that, but I'm trying to keep this short.

I can't work on my day job, because my current task there is to ram a square-shaped open source peg into a proprietary round hole.  And I'm not talking about coding;  just IT shit.  Imagine going into a five star restaurant and asking the pastry chef to figure out how to use an old jeep from World War II to power a freezer.

Socially...I've kind of given up, for a time being.  I figured, if I'm going to move back in a few months, why bother with all the effort of trying to meet people?  Unfortunately, I don't think I could last that long.  Just today, I could have been working on a second Android app to put in the app store (since my first one is admittedly pathetic).  However, the isolation got to me and I eventually just had to get out and go for a walk--oh wait, actually thats not what happened.  There were a million things I wanted to do, like motorcycling, and especially kayaking, or bicycling, and lifting, however every single one of them puts some form of stress on the chest, and since my scare last night I'm going to take it really fucking easy for a few days.  So I've been doing a lot of laying around on the couch watching Mythbusters test things that break bones.  Anyway.  That doesn't fit the narrative, so lets pretend that I was already planning to stay inside and program instead of kayaking, but eventually the social isolation got to me and I went out for a burger.

I was in an extremely weird mood.  Normally I walk about as fast as a short person runs, but today I was walking slowly and thoughtfully, and not for a single moment was I bored.  My mind was just racing around a bunch of different topics, mostly related to moving back home.

After my burger I decided to just walk from Broadway to 15th Ave, since I haven't explored that part of the city much.  Then I got the bright idea to check out some parks I haven't been to.  There was Volunteer Park, Interlake Park, and the Arboretum all close to one another.  Volunteer Park, according to the internet, is filled to the brim every night with hundreds of men having gay sex.  So I thought I would skip that.  The Arboretum is too close to girlfriend N-1, so I headed for Interlake Park.  Volunteer Park was along the way, though, and the sidewalk ended, and it was day time, so I decided, what the heck, I'll take a stroll through it.  Roughly...30 feet inside the park, I observed someone relieving themselves under a tree.

In contrast to Volunteer Park, Interlake Park was very nice.

I have decided that if this startup I'm doing now doesn't work out, I am going to quit my job, sell 60% of my possesions (like all furniture), move back home, spend the holidays with family and friends, and then move to Europe for a year.  If the startup doesn't immediately fail...well that's something I'm still not sure about.

Now You Did It

Today was supposed to be "Suit Up Day."  I am mildly interested in the idea of dressing up, especially when most of the people around you won't, so I got up this morning and got my suit out of my closet in order to discover that the pants don't fit me anymore--not by a long shot.  More precisely, I no longer fit my pants.  I threw on a button up shirt over jeans and consoled myself that at least I could ride the Falco into work.

Came home to do my daily lifts, which are at night now because since my last girlfriend I haven't been able to motivate myself to get up by 7 or 8 am anymore.  Anyway.  I've probably written to death about how a brief interest in running and weight loss led to nearly irreperable harm to the joins, tendons and ligaments in my legs.  Due to overdoing it, and wanting to concentrate on fewer things (in the hopes of actually accomplishing some of them), I cut out the cardio in favor of weight lifting, since having too thin a frame seems like a bigger problem than being fat.  I was taking it easy with the weights...until tonight.

I appear to have injured my sternum somehow.  Not sure how I did it, but I happened while I was bent over doing tricep extensions, although to be fair I had just been doing pushups with these little handlebars before that.  Sooo now my chest hurts from lifting too much.  It only hurts when I breath in though, so I have that going for me.




P.S.
I love 4 dimensions.

[fiction] How it Works

I got the idea while riding home from work one day to try to write a short story with gender roles slightly reversed.  Specifically, I was going to imagine a world just like this one except where girls dominate in programming and actively discriminate against men.  I thought, "hey yeah this will make me so enlightened and shit."  So I started going through the basic elements.  I thought I would expand on Coder's Island and make it the male protagonists sort of goal to be found worthy to join the girls there, even though [people think] most boys can't program for shit.

I was partly interested in this because when I hear about discrimination, whether gender or race based, I always try to put myself in the shoes of the victimized, but with an emotionless, chess-playing mindset.  What actions can I take to further my gender/people?

So, I started going through the discrimination my character would face.  Obviously, it would be an uphill battle with people telling him he can't do it.  Side note:  when I read accounts of "discrimination" by women...a lot of the time it seems like the only discrimination they face is people saying shit to them.  WTF?  Its just words.  Anyway.  So people will be saying shit, which is probably the easiest thing to deal with...you ignore it.  Then, there would be people making shit difficult for him...stuff like he'll have to study twice has hard because he will have to get a perfect score just to be admitted into whatever program, etc.

And then I thought about girls today in all-male environments, and how they are constantly hounded on a sexual level, and taking some inspiration from Mad Men, I tried to imagine this guy landing a programming job, with all girls, and the girls never leave him alone, and constantly make inappropriate jokes, and constantly...want to sleep with him...................I shouldn't have to tell you that at this point, the entire idea fell apart.  I would fucking love to live in a world like that.

First of all, since I'm the one being discriminated against, I don't have to listen to anyone bitching about being discriminated against.  Secondly, after being forced to be basically the best coder on the planet just to get a job, I will constantly be hounded by unsolicited offers for sex, or at least dates.  It won't matter how fucking ugly I am, because I'll be like the only guy in the fucking building.  This is basically the perfect fucking life.

I have heard this phrase "the odds are good but the goods are odd" referring to men in the computing fields, which is why I put significant effort into being able to break out of the computer nerd stereotype at will (I also hate 50% of nerds).  So, maybe to make this a true comparison, we need to make all of the girl programmers fat and/or WOW players.  Or worse, D&D players.  Or even worse...well I can't really think of anything more annoying than D&D.

I'm not going to do that though--not only do I believe that most male programmers are attractive enough, but I can't be bothered to waste time writing about a world full of fat girls.  In fact, typically, when I write fiction, all of the women are fit and bisexual.  The reason they are bisexual, obviously, is because I am just an enlightened and tolerant person....

So um...I'm stuck with this story.  I can't...I really want to explore what it would feel like to be discriminated against, because I feel like most of the time I am just watching from the sidelines, wanting to do whatever I can to encourage more female participation in certain areas of life, but whenever I talk to people about actually doing something about it, it seems like those people are more interested in just sitting around bitching about what my gender has done wrong.

So...maybe I will write this story, but its not going to be a serious essay.  In fact, it is going to involve:

• motorcycles
• sex on motorcycles
• tunnels
• cult people wearing cool looking robes
• gargoyle statues
• a sword fight
• an elite cadre of female programmers
• an unnecessary amount of sex scenes
• people dying
• an NSA agent gets burned alive or raped or shot by local police during a knockless warrant raid or something
• an offensive patent lawyer gets burned alive or raped or shot by local police during a knockless warrant raid or something 
• an executive of monsanto gets burned alive or raped or shot by local police during a knockless warrant raid or something 
• running from cops
• explosions
• races on motorcycles in tunnels
• secret society

Hmmm.....and, so, I've basically just turned it into another Road Ninja story. Except none of my male characters fit the role...Biff is either a narcissistic playboy or a melodrammatic, haunted shell of a person.  Snow Monkey is an aloof, borderline crazy person with a single dark event in his past who takes nothing seriously, ever.  Jason Web is a boring guy who follows Biff for a while but then settles down and gets married with kids.  Lawrence is Asian, and quit some random thing to own a tire shop--wait.  Hmmmmmmmm.  No he still doesn't fit.

In the same way that the rare girl is lured into the male-dominated world of motorcycles, I need a guy to be lured into this sort of awesome female-dominated world of programming.  Most guys don't love it;  he does.  His love for it draws him into this world like a magnet.  Maybe he is shy and sheltered, and trying to maintain appearances for an overbearing family member.  No, maybe not.  Maybe he is alone, like the narrator in The Great Gatsby.  Hey what if it was kind of like that, except Gatsby was a girl?

I think I at least have a name for him:  Ethan.  In computer land people call him "echo."

Damn

These fuckers have their shit together.  That is, possibly, the perfect interface for what they do.  I played with it and their prices are ridiculously competitive.  Probably low-balling, but still a great strategy.  I want everything I do to have interfaces this good.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

"But I am not capable of love..."

"Then its going to be a very unique experience."

-Data and Guinan

At work, the Android project that was basically canceled for good is now an enormously high priority project that needs to be done yesterday with millions of dollars on the line.  This is the same project that we could have done, and re-done, three times by now if they hadn't constantly stopped and started it.  The dumbasses making these decisions are above me by like 3 levels in the food chain.  I have no words.

At [relationship noun], I just had another relationship end.  Again, didn't write about it here until now, thanks to Chris.  It was growing obvious that the relationship wouldn't work.  I was second-guessing myself about ending it, though, because I seem to go through a lot of girls, however dragging my feet only prolonged things until she was the one to end it.  We'll call her girlfriend N-1.  You know whats weird?  I'm pining more for girlfriend N-2.  I thought I had disabled all of the machinery in my mind that facilitates these useless attachments to girls, but I must have missed some.  I'm pretty sure, at this point, that we've been broken up for almost as long as the relationship lasted, and I still miss her.  It was strange.  N-1 was a computer science major, and we shared a lot of common interests, but didn't have much of a connection.  N-2 had very few common interests with me, but I felt a very strong connection with her; when she wasn't trying to make me drink beer or try foods I'm allergic to or dragging me to a gay club, everything felt right.  Maybe I'll hit the salsa scene or something;  I don't know.  I'm pretty busy with this damn startup, and I don't feel motivated to make another list of 100 things I have to do right now that will change my life.  The only thing I'm doing is lifting again.  Inspired by a random post on reddit chronicling something Jerry Seinfeld allegedly said, I stuck a calendar page on my wall and mark off every day I lift.  My goal is to fill the calendar with red ink.  I'm not going to worry about the perfect form, or if I'm eating enough, or pushing myself hard enough, or if its the right time of day...I'm just going to make sure I lift, consistently, every day.  Fun fact:  at one point, I was trying lift every day, meditate every day, drink fruit smoothies every day, walk up 10 flights of stairs 3 times a day, do aerobic workouts every day, work on learning Spanish every day, and also practice salsa every day.  And I had to save every receipt for everything I bought, everywhere, and enter that into a spreadsheet.  So we are scaling back our goals a little.

At other work, with this startup, my business partner seems to have forgotten what guaranteed payments are and why we were going to have them.  This is unfortunate because the lawyers are waiting for a response to an email asking what amounts we want to set, and when I discussed the amounts with her, she suddenly wanted to re-do them.  You could technically say it is my fault for not taking better notes during our meeting with the accountant.  So now we are basically repeating an entire conversation again.  I'm doing it differently this time though.  I'm just patiently explaining shit over and over again, and letting her figure stuff out instead of just handing her the answer.  I waiver every other week between wanting to kill the partnership, and being certain that this is going to work out great and we will make a lot of money.  Regardless of the outcome, I am thrilled to be attempting something because it has been a phenomenal learning experience.

In other news, it has come to my attention that DC asked some artists to draw Harley Quinn naked in a bathtub, or something, and now I guess a lot of people on the internet have opinions on that, and its supposed to be an attack on women.  Let me leave you with this thought:  what if they had asked for a picture of Joker naked in the exact same way in a bathtub.  Would thousands of men be crying out at the injustice?  I think not.  Is my argument invalid because things are different for women, or some nonsense argument that involves the words 'patriarchy' or 'society' or 'misogyny'?  If so, I call bullshit.  If you want equality, the idea of Harley Quinn naked in the bathrub AND the Joker naked in a bathtub must both be evil/horrible/degrading.  Otherwise, neither of them are.

I, for the record, am not offended by either character naked in the bathtub.  But I probably don't have to tell you which one I wouldn't waste money on the comic for.

Finger Binging

You may hear the phrase "finger Bing" at some point.  I would you like you all to know I came up with that.

Requiem for a Partnership: Part 6

meh

Options

I wanted to move home by my birthday;  that was going to be my birthday present to myself.  Might not happen.  But I could do it if I really wanted to.  The only question is how much risk I can take.  I see a range, that is best characterized by these three options.

1.  Highest risk:  quit my day job now, and do whatever it takes to make money on my own, and move back East.


2.  Medium risk:  take a job back East to move there before any of my side projects take off.


3.  Low risk:  continue working at M$ until my side projects make a certain amount of money.

Options 2 or 3 could be made less painful by having my birthday in Vegas.

I've been doing #3 for a few years.  Fortunately, the skin care thing is at least gaining traction.  I have a timeline to making money, or at least I could easily make one if I wanted to, but I don't want to, because even the most aggressive timelines don't have us making much money before my birthday.  I don't want to spend another fucking birthday in this shithole city.

Speaking of, now that I am seriously considering leaving in a shorter timescale, I am beginning to appreciate many aspects of Seattle.  Maybe, once I move back East, I will regret it.  Maybe all of my friends will be married and boring with kids and I'll never recover my social network and I'll hate the weather and something about allergies.  Or, maybe, I will have the time of my fucking life being back in or near Philly.  All I really know is this:  I want to find out the hard way.