Category: Links

Technician Tuesday: To Learn a Skill, Solve a Problem.

Don’t be afraid to try something. The easiest way I have found to learn something is to try and find a problem that you need to solve.

Mark KR6ZY, interviewed by Jeremy KF7IJZ, in the Ham Radio Workbench podcast, episode 19 “Listener Projects”, dated March 14 2017. Quote is from about 1 hour 53 minutes into the podcast.

I was going to write something else today. Then I heard this podcast the other night. I agree with Mark and Jeremy. If I want to learn a skill, the best way to motivate myself is to use the skill to fix a problem which is bothering me.

Mindset Monday: Do You Actually Believe in What You Are Doing?

A company makes an item, or multiple items, and their finances look great. The finances fall apart. People dig into the books and find the company had stopped focusing on making money from making the items they were supposedly in business to sell.

Instead, the company had started making money from fancy footwork in their finances.

Fancy Financial Footwork in digital currency miners

The first place I heard about this recently was in Nathaniel Whitmore’s podcast The Breakdown with NLW. It’s a CoinDesk podcast, the specific episode is “Where Bitcoin Mining goes from here” from January 8 2023. In that episode Whitmore refers to the January 1 2023 CoinDesk article “What Will It Take for Bitcoin Mining Companies to Survive in 2023?” by George Kaloudis.

Before going on, I know bitcoin and crypto currency are controversial topics for many people.

The principle still applies. If a company makes money not from selling the things they claim to be making for a profit, but instead from playing financial games, something is deeply wrong. Kaloudis attributes bitcoin miners sitting on bitcoin and playing financial games to make money to two conditions: the price of the good supposedly being produced is increasing, and the cost of capital is low.

Fancy Financial Footwork in GE, which used to make physical things

I suppose General Electric’s financial arm had similar excuses in the 2000’s, but what excuse did GE’s top management have?

The second podcast I’m going to link is Jim Grant’s Grant’s Current Yield podcast. The episode is “Destruction of Value” from January 19 2023. Grant and his co-hosts interviewed William D. Cohan about his book Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon.

General Electric (more precisely the General Electric which existed for most of its history and made many types of machines and physical goods) and Bitcoin are about as far apart as anything technical I can think of. Grant’s Interest Rate Observer and CoinDesk are probably as far apart as any two nonfiction publications I can think of.

Yet, the conversations were similar. Cohan had found that General Electric was more focused on GE Finance than the other parts of GE which made things. It was easier to make money from money than to make money from jet engines and whatever else GE made.

Large amounts of GE’s profits were coming from their finance arm. They financed an astounding amount in commercial paper markets. At one point, before things started crashing in 2007, they were one of the largest issuers of commercial paper.

This has nothing to do with the physical goods GE was once known for making. At the time of the Grant’s Current Yield episode, Cohan said GE is still breaking down into two or three smaller subsidiaries.

Why I am writing about this.

I use this blog to write about people using technology. There’s technology I use, and some of that I write about. I write about people who talk to me about using technology. I’ve written about people who ask me for recommendations on which technology I think they should use.

The theme I keep coming back to is the user of technology being honest with themselves. What do they want to do? Why do they want to do that? How are they planning on doing that? What results have they gotten in the past? What results are they hoping to get in future? And what results are they actually getting in the present?

It’s when people are not honest with themselves that I see the biggest problems with their use of technology. And it’s when people are not honest with themselves or others that I see the biggest problems in their lives in general.

Making money from moving money around is fundamentally different from making things and selling those things. As Cohan mentioned in the Grant’s Current Yield episode, making money from money is regulated in very different ways from making money from making things. A company which does one while saying they do the other is being dishonest at some level. And it will cause problems.

Mindset Monday: The Cloud and TANSTAAFL

The word “cloud” has long existed in the English language. “The cloud” took on a technological meaning several years ago.

The concept of “the cloud” was originally met with skepticism. It seemed unlikely that companies would throw away the investments they’d made in servers and the infrastructure to support servers and would entrust their data to servers that they didn’t have physical access to and which were run and maintained by people who weren’t their employees.

The skeptics were wrong. Even though “the cloud” means a computer owned by someone who isn’t you, once all the cyberpunk and world of tomorrow imagery is stripped away, “the cloud” became so popular it’s a multi-billion dollar business for multiple companies.

And yet, problems remain.

Today I read the article “Basecamp details ‘obscene’ $3.2 million bill that caused it to quit the cloud” by Simon Sharwood in The Register (article dated 2023 Jan 16). That article led me to “The world was promised ‘cloud magic’. So much for that fairy tale” also by Simon Sharwood (article dated 2022 Nov 2), “VC’s paper claims cost of cloud is twice as much as running on-premises. Let’s have a look at that” by Tim Anderson (article dated 2021 Jun 02), and “AWS Free Tier, where’s your spending limit? ‘I thought I deleted everything but I have been charged $200′” also by Tim Anderson (article dated 2021 May 28), all in The Register.

If it wasn’t obvious from the titles, the common theme of these four articles is “the cloud” can be expensive.

Why am I writing about this in a Mindset post?

I believe one of the eternal human temptations is for each of us to believe we are uniquely special. Sure, there are rules which almost all of us agree apply to almost all of us, almost all of the time. But there is the temptation to then say under our breaths “but not to me.”

TANSTAAFL means There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

The illusory promise of “the cloud” was the cost of hiring people who understood servers and server infrastructure, and the cost of buying, installing, using, and maintaining servers and their supporting infrastructure, could be farmed out to a different company and it would be cheaper and simpler. Even though there would be additional layers of cost and overhead because it was someone else’s employees and physical installation which was being used, that would still be better and cheaper.

I’ll even admit for many companies it was better and cheaper. For many companies, it’s still better and cheaper for right now.

There (still) Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. The servers cost money and so does the electricity, air conditioning, security, internet connections, employees to monitor and maintain the servers, and everything else which comes with having a data center.

Eventually someone has to pay that price. It’s very unlikely the cloud companies are running their businesses as charities or non-profits. And that means the cost comes back to the customers.

Technician Tuesday: Technicians Are Necessary.

I have been in many conversations where a lot of ideas and concepts were thrown around, but discussion of whether it would actually work was limited. If I pointed out times something had already been tried, and failed, and it sounded a lot like the ideas being discussed, people got uncomfortable. Sometimes the discomfort was sadness or anger that I was raining on their parade, or being too nitpicky. I preferred that to the times when the answer was “You don’t understand, I’m taking the thirty thousand foot view, so I’m not really getting into details right now.

Because of that, I created the category “Technician Tuesday” when I started this blog. Ideas are great, but how are they being implemented? How am I using technology around me? How do someone else’s ideas interact with the rest of the world.

Today, I listened to a recording of a discussion between Dr. Temple Grandin and Dr. Jordan Peterson. It was all about the importance of practical hands-on knowledge and experimentation. Applications of ideas are the true test of those ideas. A lot of that knowledge and experimentation is being lost.

The discussion was very interesting and very troubling. I’ll be buying a copy of Dr. Grandin’s most recent book.

Technician Tuesday: Some last flashlight links, and then I’m done with this topic for a while.

While I was looking up flashlights and flashlight standards earlier (here and here), I found a couple of sites which have more information about flashlights and ratings.

Both seem to focus on the 2009 version of the flashlight standard. I found both to be interesting. The first is Flashlight Wiki.

And there is also LED Resource.

I have a relative who swears the new LED flashlights which use sets of AAA batteries last for a shorter amount of time than older flashlights with incandescent bulbs and C or D batteries. I haven’t done any testing on that. And I don’t know of anyone else who has done testing on this. If I find someone who did, I’ll post about it.

Technician Tuesday: About that flashlight standard.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about flashlight specifications. At the end of that post, I mentioned there was a standard for flashlights.

I was curious. I went looking for a standard described as ANSI NEMA FL 1. ANSI is the American National Standards Institute. NEMA is the National Electrical Manufacturers Association. I assume FL 1 means it was flashlight standard number one.

Searching for “flashlight” on NEMA’s site brought up the result “Flashlight Basic Performance Standard.” That link takes me to a page which says ANSI/NEMA FL 1-2009 (ID: 100237) has been rescinded and is now held and maintained by the Portable Light Trade Organization (PLATO) and is no longer for sale on the NEMA site.

(PLATO is a catchy acronym, but I’m not sure where the A comes from. There’s no “a” between the L of Light and the T of Trade.)

Now I go to PLATO’s website. This standard appears to be the only standard they issue and it’s now called the revised ANSI/PLATO FL 1 2019 standard. Their first edition of ANSI/PLATO FL 1 was released in October 2016, with a revised edition issued in 2019.

And it costs $500.

The website says it is provided free to PLATO members. The cheapest membership on their member dues page is $1,000.

I don’t know what is in that standard that it costs $500 per copy, but I hope it’s something pretty impressive. No, I am not going to buy a copy to satisfy my curiosity.

PLATO’s site includes a list of seven icons (after I scrolled down the page a bit) included in the standard for use with flashlights, and an explanation of each icon. I did find that to be useful.

Technician Tuesday: It’s not magic, part II.

Yesterday I wrote about users who expect technology to be magic — and then find out it’s not. (That post was written and posted December 19, 2022.)

Later yesterday I was catching up on some old episodes of Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income podcast. Episode 604 is titled “SPI 604 – I Really Wanted to Believe This” and it’s dated August 19, 2022. It’s about almost exactly the same thing: technology is not magic.

Flynn uses a good analogy of an amateur photographer who buys a new camera lens and hopes that will make all of his pictures better. At best the lens only showcases the photographer’s skill at timing and framing and composing. At worst it becomes a distraction and another thing to clutter up the photographer’s bag.

Flynn calls this “squirrel syndrome.” I’ve also seen it referred to as “shiny object syndrome.” By either name or any other name, the hope is the same: I get this and everything becomes easier or better. Flynn even uses the word “magic” to describe this hoped-for effect.

But technology doesn’t work that way. It’s not magic. It’s only a tool.

It was nice to hear someone else say that. And a bit of synchronicity to hear that old podcast episode cover the exact same thing I had just written about.

On one side note, that was a good podcast episode. Flynn suggests that everyone do an audit of the tools they currently own and be really honest about how many they actually use, how many they actually need, and how much money they are paying for tools which are subscription-based.

On a second side note, I originally planned to write about product standards today. That’s a post I still intend to write.

Technician Tuesday: A Wi-Fi analyzer from Matt Hafner and some things I like about his website

How I got there.

The December 2022 issue of Maximum PC magazine (link takes you to magazine subscription page, Maximum PC does not have online archives at this time) recommended the Wi-Fi signal analyzer program from Matt Hafner, at MattHafner.com.

(A side question: I know periodicals like Maximum PC get their titles italicized when cited, but I’m not sure about personal websites. That is something for me to look up another time.)

I’ve downloaded and installed his Wi-Fi analyzer on one Windows 10 PC already. I like it. It works. I can already see my current 2.4 GHz router channel setting might be too close to another nearby network’s channel.

Why I lingered.

I’m also impressed by Matt Hafner’s own website.

It is easy for me to navigate.

His affiliate link was marked by an asterisk with “* Affiliate-Link: I earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you!” as an explanation below. That is very elegant in my opinion. For someone who knows what an affiliate link is they can quickly see that it’s an affiliate link. And for someone who doesn’t know what an affiliate link is, he’s provided a clear explanation and the name so they’ll know what affiliate links are the next time they run across the term.

His photos and videos seem to be the main focus of his website. He doesn’t crowd the page with zillions of each, but presents enough I can get an idea of what his work looks like. There’s clear links to find more videos and photos if I want.

I’ve started reading privacy policies and terms and conditions on websites and programs. His website privacy policy is one of the clearer and more straightforward website privacy policies I’ve seen in a while. The privacy policy on the Wi-Fi analyzer app is also easy to read and answers my questions.

I came to his website to download the Wi-Fi analyzer app. I browsed through most of the website, and I’m writing about it now, because the design was that nice to look at and interact with. That’s really good web design.

Mindset Monday: Occasionally Read the Experts

What makes someone an expert is often not only their skill, but their experience. This includes knowing what shortcuts to take, when, and why, and what shortcuts to avoid.

Being an expert can also include knowing what basic requirements of success are absolutely essential, but are often lost in the details. Or, they know how often the forest gets missed for the trees.

I just finished reading the book Couture Sewing Techniques, Revised and Updated by Shaeffer. Do I intend to make a couture garment? Not any time soon. Do I intend to buy a couture garment? Not unless I have a lot more money than I have now. Did I learn anything useful? I sure did. Among other things, I learned some things about how shirts and jackets are supposed to fit when they fit correctly. I learned some things about making pockets.

The biggest thing I learned was why that level of tailoring and dressmaking costs so much: it’s not because of all the handwork, but because the handwork is combined with expertise in appearance and construction to make garments which are comfortable to wear and really flatter the wearer.

The word “technology” can apply almost any skill or craft. From the Online Etymology Dictionary, the etymology of technology:

technology (n.)
1610s, “a discourse or treatise on an art or the arts,” from Latinized form of Greek tekhnologia “systematic treatment of an art, craft, or technique,” originally referring to grammar, from tekhno-, combining form of tekhnē “art, skill, craft in work; method, system, an art, a system or method of making or doing,” . . .

D. Harper. “Etymology of technology.” Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/word/technology (accessed November 22, 2022).

For the purposes of this blog, I usually use “technology” to mean electrical, electronic, or computer technology.

But there lots of fields, lots of “art, craft, or technique” which have varying levels of skill and expertise. It’s still a human creating something. And the end user of the created thing is usually a human.

“If it’s expensive, it had better be comfortable for me to use, or make me look good in front of others”: that’s why it’s worth reading the experts.

Technician Tuesday: Taking Breaks

Several weeks ago I wrote a post titled “Always Be Looking.” It was about how much of what I do isn’t new to the world, even though it might be new to me.

Last week I found another instance of that. Years ago I read the 20-20-20 rule of taking 20 seconds every 20 minutes to look at something at least 20 feet away while working on a computer*. Last week I found a suggestion for taking breaks in the November/December 2022 issue of Handwoven magazine. Just like being hunched over and staring at a computer screen, being hunched over and staring and warp and weft threads can also cause physical problems if it’s done without breaks.

The suggestions for taking a break in that magazine article are more detailed than just the 20-20-20 rule. In addition to looking away from the work every 20 minutes to do something else which takes a few seconds, the article recommended stepping away completely from the work, for a few minutes, every hour. I think that will be easier for me to remember.

(The specific article is “Healthy Weavers: Using Ergonomics for Comfortable Weaving” by Cynthia Evetts and Tina Fletcher.)

* The 20-20-20 rule really does help my eyes. More than that, it helps my whole upper body relax. I recently heard on a podcast that a focused narrow gaze will tend to make us more mentally focused and anxious, while a panoramic gaze will tend to make us more relaxed and less focused. Maybe the relaxation is something to do with that.