Category: Experts and Expertise

A Change of Direction. Is Longer and Less Often Better?

I found the site Create And Go. They have a very nice post about blogging in 2023.

One of their recommendations is longer and more in-depth posts. And to do that even if it results in less frequent posts.

I am happy to hear that. I like longer and in-depth writing more anyway.

I started this blog over a year ago. I’ve enjoyed writing it. I enjoy writing about the topic of people using technology. But I have struggled at times to meet my self-set goal of two posts a week.

I’m not sure if I’ll continue this particular blog on this domain, or change to a different domain. That will probably be the first long-form post for me to write, to really consider that question.

Excel Files Are Zipped Files

I do remember reading this before. I hadn’t realized what all got zipped up in those zip files.

Among other things, there is a file called calcChain.xml. This shows the order calculations are done on cells in the Excel spreadsheet.

That in turn can be used to figure out if cells have been moved around the sheet.

Data Colada has more information in their (very fascinating) post “[109] Data Falsificada (Part 1): ‘Clusterfake’“. It is dated June 17 2023 (and last accessed for this post on August 5 2023).

I have no idea if this is true of other spreadsheet types, like the LibreOffice Calc spreadsheets.

Choices, Part 1: 15 dollars per hour Versus 150 dollars per hour

This is based on a speech I’ve seen Brian and Darren Hefty give multiple times at their farming and agronomy seminars. I’ve updated it for inflation, the original figures were $10/hour and $100/hour.

The Hefty brothers said their father would tell them to find the “$100/hour” jobs and focus on those. That most farmers would rather paint a fence themselves than pay someone else $10/hour to paint the fence. But that only saves at most $10 per hour.

It does not account for the opportunity cost, which might be much higher. So, the question becomes: can the farmer find something to do with that fence-painting time which would be worth more than $10/hour.

Can the farmer identify jobs which will make or save the farm $100/hour? If so, then someone else can be paid to do the $10/hour jobs. But likely no one else can do the $100/hours jobs.

A Good Idea Used as a Sales Pitch Is Still a Good Idea

Brian and Darren Hefty were using this speech as a sales pitch for their soil and tissue testing services. The logic is still valid. Their next part of the speech, to a room of farmers, would be to ask the audience members to consider how much they expected to spend on fertilizer over the next ten years? And if they could save even 10% of that number, how much would that be? If it took 20-30 hours of time to save that 10%, how many dollars per hour would that savings come out to be. Put that way, the figure was well over $100 per hour (this was over 10 years ago).

They went through this sales pitch because most farmers do not enjoy paperwork. Most farmers dislike paperwork. If someone enjoyed paperwork they’d get a simpler office job than the risk, complexities, and physical labor of running a farm.

So, to ask a farmer to spend the time to take multiple soil and tissue samples, keep a record of where the samples were taken from and when, and maybe what stage of the plant’s growth, to send it off to a lab for testing, then to take the results and spend another few days matching up the results to individual fields and figuring out where the soil needed to be amended and where it didn’t need to be amended, is a big request. But, is there even a chance that 10% of the current fertilizer program isn’t needed for the next five to ten years? If that answer is yes, then the savings could easily be in tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

How This Relates to Using Technology

This seems unrelated to the question of how to make a person’s technology work for them, instead of the person working for their technology.

Yet, it has everything to do with that question. If the approach to technology, whether it’s a spreadsheet program, voice recorder, or anything else, is to fight with it every step of the way, that’s a lot of lost opportunity. If the person instead steps back and asks “what is the $150/hour job I am missing?” it’s likely they’ll realize there is an easier solution. Maybe the entire tool doesn’t have to be mastered, only one function. Perhaps there’s a much simpler tool which can be used. Or maybe it is the exact right tool for the exact right purpose, so it will be worth the time to spend two to three days learning the tool extensively.

Well, Now I Feel Silly: Handles, Revisited

Just a day after I wrote a post about not finding much information on handles, handle design, or handle shape, my inbox received one of AAW’s regular emails. This was a showcase all about handles and AAW articles and videos about handles.

So, my gripe has been answered by God and cosmos, with a bit of a chuckle at my expense.

If I can get some good information about the how’s and why’s of handle design, I’ll be fine with the ironic timing.

Electric Motors: Power at Low Speeds

I’m currently reading through one of Bernie Tobisch’s books on sewing machines.

He mentions that older sewing machines have AC (alternating current) motors. These are simpler to build, but have low power at low speeds. He said this is why sometimes when first starting a seam, the sewist (which is a nice term, once I haven’t heard often) might have to turn the handwheel by hand to get the motor started.

He writes that newer machines have DC (direct current) motors. These have better power at low speeds. But they are also more complicated to build. Most houses aren’t wired for DC voltage. (I’m saying most because I’m sure somewhere there was someone who ran some DC power lines through their house.) Most houses in the U.S., 120 Vac RMS is what comes out of the wall. That will fry almost any DC motor. So, DC motors get used, but there’s more circuitry involved to make them work.

Somewhere I have a book about using small electric motors. I wanted to look at it the other day, so maybe I’ll spend some time this weekend finding it.

Identify the Problem, Part 4: ADP Destroys Its Own Numbers.

My Irritation

Yes, I’ve been ranting for a while now about the need to identify the problem before going hell bent after a “solution”.

The examples keep showing up. Here is another example:

“ADP, for example, changed their methodology to try to produce a job number that would be more predictive of the NFP data. Why they would take their own unique payroll data (and manipulate it) to try to estimate the official government data is beyond me, but they did it. So, ADP isn’t really trying to analyze how many jobs were created, it is trying to produce data that helps people predict NFP (at least the Establishment Survey).”

Peter Tchir, “Sherlock Holmes on the Jobs Report“, Zerohedge, dated June 11 2023, last accessed June 29 2023. Emphasis in original.

ADP is a payroll company. Producing jobs numbers is not their main job. But their jobs report is often looked at as another indicator of employment trends in the U.S. economy.

Tchir’s whole article, “Sherlock Holmes on the Job Report” in Zerohedge, dated June 11 2023, was about trying to make sense out of numbers that didn’t always have as much sense as a person would hope for. The paragraph about ADP changing its own numbers was one of many.

But in a sea of weirdness, it stuck out to me as being particularly weird. What problem was ADP trying to solve?

  • If the attention to their payroll report was interfering with their business of providing payroll services for companies, why not say that and stop with the report entirely?
  • If they were doubting their own internal numbers . . . I can’t think of any reason why they’d doubt their own internal numbers. But if there was some reason for that, I’d expect them to put the report and almost everything else non-essential on hold until that doubt got resolved. If I doubted the numbers for a core part of my business, resolving that would be top priority.
  • So, what “problem” does that leave, that this would be a valid solution? They wanted to stop using their own numbers, while not making it obvious they were no longer using their own numbers?

How is this related to technology?

One of the primary uses of technology, of all types, is manipulating information. Gathering it, tracking it, saving it, collating it, sorting it, looking for patterns in it.

Computer software in particular is really good at manipulating information. In a way, that’s a definition of what computer software is and does: it manipulates information. It manipulates it far faster than humans can.

There’s the perennial problem of GIGO – Garbage In Garbage Out. If the software starts with data that is bad or wrong, it’s output will almost certainly be bad or wrong.

But there’s a less recognized problem: solving the wrong problem.

Identify the Problem Part 2

Here are the two articles I mentioned previously:

A quote from the second article, originally published in 2017:

In surveys of 106 C-suite executives who represented 91 private and public-sector companies in 17 countries, I found that a full 85% strongly agreed or agreed that their organizations were bad at problem diagnosis, and 87% strongly agreed or agreed that this flaw carried significant costs.

“Are You Solving the Right Problems” by Wedell-Wedellsborg, Thomas, in Harvard Business Review, from the January-February 2017 issue (site last visited June 15 2023)

I’m slowly sidling up to expressing my own views on this topic, I know. My initial reactions are very vocal and filled with disbelief and profanity.

I’ll try to calm down a bit and be more methodical in my critiques. What are managers, whether low level, mid level, or C-suite, paid for in these companies? What are the discussions when they are promoted?

This would be like a national non-profit, closing down multiple chapters per year, with an acknowledged problem in getting members to sign up for leadership positions in chapters which are still active. And the national officers of that non-profit being most concerned with getting enough personal information from members that they can better qualify for government grants.

The bigger the problem is, the more chance there’s something about it people don’t want to acknowledge. The longer the problem exists, the more chance it spawns its own side-effect problems which will have to be dealt with, before the underlying problem can be addressed.

Bureaucrats of all types are very adept at finding what will get them promoted, what will keep their job safe, and what will threaten their job. Not what should get them promoted, keep them safe, or threaten their job. What will.

If an organization promotes people on how eagerly they follow orders, and not whether they understand the orders they give and are given, the intent, the immediate effects, and the long term effects of those orders, then the more likely this will be the result. Organizations which are much better at solving problems than identifying problems.

Life changes. These organizations will not be able to handle the change, and will die.

Cattle or Pets? Hardware Maybe, Social Media Probably.

I sometimes see references to the question of “Cattle or Pets” when it comes to computer hardware. I first saw this in discussions about how server farms were administrated.

Hardware

“Pets” was the older practice: each server had its own purpose, some were unique, administrators often gave the servers names. They were cared for like pets, meaning they were treated with care and allowed to die of old age. So, there might be several different types and vintages of servers in the same location.

“Cattle” was the new hot idea. Cows don’t get named, their own personal quirks aren’t catered to. Cows don’t get babied, especially when a cow has clearly gone lame or outlived its purpose. It gets sold or put down and a new cow is brought in.* There’s a schedule and it’s better to clean out everything old and replace with new, on a schedule.

The Cattle mentality depends on a lot of assumptions. One of those assumptions is that whatever is brought in on the schedule will be at least as capable and reliable as the thing it replaces. Another assumption is computer hardware will be relatively cheap compared to the labor to administer that hardware. If labor is cheap than hardware, then it makes sense to keep whatever is still working and train people on how to work with different systems of different types.

I am not certain the “Cattle” viewpoint is as effiicient as it was portrayed. At least, it’s not as efficient when it comes to hardware and software that a business or household might depend on. “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it” is a rule most large software companies no longer follow, and some hardware manufacturers ignore it too.

Social Media

I think social media is in a mirror position. The social media companies want their users to see them as “Pets”: very individual, irreplaceable, dearly loved Pets.

Yet, the arc of most social media platforms seems to be the same. There’s an initial growth phase where the social media company is trying to find something which differentiates it. Growing users is more important than how the users are grown. There’s an intermediate phase, where the social media company starts trying to make some money off of their platform. If they don’t charge users a subscription fee, then it becomes trickier. Usually ads and the information harvesting for targeted ads are somewhere in the mix.

It’s also during this intermediate phase, if the social media company gets there, that “regular” users start showing up. After that there’s a long slow managed decline. Enough “regular” users are showing up that some of the quirkier things get a lot more scrutiny. Maybe the quirkier things get some legal and regulatory scrutiny too. Meanwhile, advertisers are paying more, but also expecting more responsiveness to their complaints. And the social media company will start copying rivals’ ideas.

At which point, a new social media company or two will show up with their own quirky thing which differentiates them. The die hard fans of the old social media company aren’t as loyal. Why be loyal when the old platform is no longer what it once was? The newer members of the old social media company are there because it’s useful. They will leave when it’s not; the large established social media companies all have similar features.

Conclusion: It’s All Backwards

So, social media companies are the “Cattle,” even though they are trying desperately not to be. And the hardware and programs which work and work well are the “Pets,” even though hardware and software companies desperately want them to be seen as Cattle which get replaced regularly and provide a revenue stream regularly.

The world runs on irony.

*Never mind that in the age-old tradition of the world running on irony, most of the people applying “Cattle” to various server management practices had never been on commercial ranches themselves. There are ways in which cattle are all treated the same, but there are also ways in which cattle have their own definite personalities. I’ve yet to meet a person who works with cows professionally who doesn’t acknowledge this, but I don’t think the computer programmers thought to ask.

Useful Sites: Cyclone and Dust Collection Research, courtesy of Bill Pentz

The site: Cyclone and Dust Collection Research. The home page says it was created in 2000 and was last updated in August 2022. That’s an impressive amount of dedication.

I found this through a link from The Wood Database.

Yes, he is advocating for products that he helped design. I’m fine with that, profit is part of what makes the world go round.

Obviously, it’s about dust collection. I’ve only just started reading through the site, but I already found this bit of interesting information: it’s dangerous for a person to vent their dust collection system inside their shop. Very fine dust is what causes a lot of the physical damage and venting a dust collector system inside the shop lets particles too fine for dust filter continue to circulate in the shop. Much better is venting the dust collection system outside.

Mr. Pentz’s biography is quite interesting. At the end he says that his health has finally required him to retire and slow down. I hope his health gets better.

The Person Doing the Job Is As Important As the Job

Is It the Tool, Or Is It the User?

It’s as important to use a tool which fits the person doing the job, as it is to use a tool which fits the job.

I started this blog for a number of reasons. One of them is to get more familiar with WordPress in its current form.

And I have found I like the WordPress post editor for editing. I hate the WordPress post editor for composing. It’s not local, it’s hosted on a server somewhere, so sometimes there is a slight delay between me typing and the letters showing up on the screen. At times this is maddening.

More frustrating is trying to navigate between paragraphs using the keyboard. Sometimes the arrow keys work great in the post editor. Sometimes the arrow keys don’t work at all, even when I know there is more text to see if I could just get the screen to keep scrolling down.

I’m By Myself, So If It Works For Me, Then It Works For Me

The last couple of weeks I’ve started composing posts in a program that runs on my computer. No internet connection needed, navigation in the document is simple. Then I cut and paste it into the WordPress post editor and finish editing there.

That works much better for me.

I am sure there are writers out there who love the post editor. And that is the point of this post: sometimes who is doing the job and using the tools is as important, or even more important, than which tools are being used.

This is part of a larger theme I repeatedly see, confusing the How with the Goal and the Why. If my Goal was to learn how to use the WordPress post editor, inside and out, then using a separate program for composing would be admitting defeat. If my Goal instead is learning how to use WordPress efficiently, and it’s more efficient for me to use a separate writing program for composition, I think that’s fine.

What If It’s Not Just Me?

Writing this, I have newfound sympathy for someone supervising a group of creators. Yes, as long as each person gets their part of the job done, then how much do tools matter? But if they have to work together, they’ll need a common framework to talk to each other. If it’s expected that absences can be covered by co-workers, then common tools are essential.

Am I Looking In the Wrong Places?

For tasks such as editing photos or video or graphics, I see many tutorials on how to set up workflow. I don’t see nearly as many tutorials for how to set up workflow when it comes to writing, or to blogging. I’m not sure if I’m actually seeing a lack, or if I’m not looking in the right places.