Progress on Dad

Turns out it's metastatic melanoma, and it's stage IV, which means that it's spread to places other than the skin cells where it started. The places I know of are his lymph nodes and liver. He's going to head over to the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, since his oncologist advised him that there's a team that specializes in melanoma over there. Clinical trials are a possibility, but if there aren't any new treatments to be tried, then 'regular' chemotherapy will start in a bit less than three weeks.

I'm pretty bummed about it, but probably not as much as my dad is. My dad had called me to let me know what he knew as I was coming back from lunch with a vendor. Not really a pleasant way to end a conversation, but the guy I was with was very kind and understanding about it.

I've sort of been caught in between immersing myself in work as a means of denying it's going on and the fact that I'm having a bit of a hard time concentrating on work at all because it's going on.

Then throw the fact that it's 360s season at work, and I'm just about ready to implode under the weight of all this introspection.

At least they found the termite nest while doing the water damage/fungus repairs, but that's another story.

By the way, I feel a little better now.

The subject kind of says it all. Work's been a little stressful. Dad's in the process of being diagnosed with something that looks like lymphoma. At least Isaac seems to be sleeping through the night reliably.

Been reading a really good book. It's by this guy.

I'm going to finish it before recommending it to our Chief Talent Officer as something she should hand to everyone here the day they become a manager.

The Danger of Attachments

I'm not talking about the email kind. The joys of having a relationship are overshadowed from the very beginning by the darkness of that relationship's end.

It may be a business relationship that runs aground upon the shoals of a changing economic climate. It may be a high school sweetheart from whom you grow apart. It may be a beloved spouse who is lured away by another person, or lost to some other obsession. Worst of all, it may be a child or parent who is lost to an untimely death. Every beautiful and tender thing in our lives can be ripped from us by random or premeditated events that are beyond our control.

Death can come slow or quick, through a freak accident with an umbilical cord, a suicide or the rise of a rebellious clump of cells against the greater good of the body that hosts them. It can be hard to see the simple joys of connecting with others through the haze of pain unleashed by ripping away relationships you already have.

Even though the joy of every new attachment contains within it the seeds of its own painful destruction, it's important to seize today's connections for the richness they bring, regardless of the eventual, inevitable costs. Otherwise, why are we here?

A Very Original Spam

As annoying as spam usually is, I was somewhat tickled to have received an email from a "Mark Madoff" who was interested in obtaining my help in sheltering $45MM in an offshore account from the authorities. Full text below:

From: "Mr. Mark Madoff" <mark@blminvestments.com>
To: <undisclosed recipients>
<no subject>

Hi

I looked up your contact details and I am contacting you because of the urgency this situation demands.I am
Mark Madoff son of Bernie Madoff founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. My father is currently
involved in a $50 billion Usd swindle with investors and the U.S government has decided to confisticate my family
empire worth billions of U.S dollars.

We need your assistance to help us receive and conceal 45 million Usd ($45,000,000,00)from one of our family
offshore accounts as we are currently under pressure from the U.S government to give up all family assets. For
your efforts my family is willing to compensate you with 35% of the total funds. Note also that we have to be
careful due to the huge nature of the funds.I will update you with more details as soon as I confirm your
commitment to this deal.

Should you be interested please send me your details via email to enable us work on this together. @


1:Full Names
2:Occupation:
3:Private Phone Number:
4:Current Residential Address:

Regards
Mark Madoff
N:b
Look up the below links to understand the urgency of the issue.

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=4432249

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081212/bs_nm/us_madoff_arrest

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/December08/madoffarrestpr.pdf

'blminvestments.com' exists as a server, but there's no website, and I tried connecting to port 25 and couldn't get a proper SMTP response (but perhaps my knowledge of how to do so is out of date...). Here's the whois data from http://www.robtex.com/ (which appears to be a niftly little toolkit for resolving domain name and IP info:

Registrant:
BL Investments
P.O Box 9137
Coral Springs, FL 33075
US

Domain Name: BLMINVESTMENTS.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
BL Investments jeff@blminvestments.com
P.O Box 9137
Coral Springs, FL 33075
US
954-344-4700


Record expires on 29-Apr-2009.
Record created on 29-Apr-2003.
Database last updated on 17-Jan-2009 12:12:32 EST.

Domain servers in listed order:

WINNT.NETWORLD-INC.COM 208.249.244.1
NS2.NETWORLD-INC.COM 208.249.244.2

So, it looks like there's possibly some real people in the US on the end of this particular spam. Not sure if there's an upside to following up further, but still, it was amusing.

Updates on open positions at Netflix

Couple of minor matters:

1. These positions will all be available to apply for at jobs.netflix.com some time soon.

2. Because of this change, someone else will be doing the hiring for two of them.

I'll be looking for a configuration and release engineer in the next 30 days or so. The test automation engineers will be hired by the new functional QA manager (who hasn't yet been hired).

Eloise and Lucy Trying On Glasses

Here's a couple of Eloise and Lucy, but they're sideways. Not quite getting the use of the cameraphone 100% yet.

Isaac in glasses

A picture of Isaac while we were out waiting for an eye exam to be over.

New Job, Old Job

We've made some organizational changes at work recently, and instead of managing the entire Web QA team, I'm not focused on what I'm calling the Operational Quality team.

We're going to be focused on the downstream functions formerly handled by the whole WebQA team. Anything to do with building, deploying, configuring and monitoring the production website and supporting middle tier applications will now be handled by me and the new team. The rest of the WebQA team will be focused more intently on functional testing, performance testing and preventing bugs from making it out of the lab in the first place.

I think this is a great opportunity to focus more intently on filling some gaps in the Experience Chain.

Open Positions at Netflix

I have an immediate need for a software engineer in test for the Customer Account group on the Web QA team at Netflix.

I have an upcoming need for a software engineer in test for the Software Infrastructure group on the Web QA team at Netflix.

I also have an upcoming need for a build and release engineer.

Any help from anyone that happens to read this message in a bottle would be most welcome.

For all of them, I need someone who has a proven ability to:
• get the right things done when there's always too much to do
• solve problems in a proactive and elegant way
• communicate clearly and succinctly

First, a description of what I'm looking for in the Software Engineer in Test -- Customer Account

THE ROLE:

Netflix has a goal of 20 million members by 2012. Part of keeping those members happy is helping them manage their own data and efficiently sharing that data with other parts of Netflix. Your team provides services to members, internal Netflix teams and external partners. These services span authentication, account information management, and authoritative answers to questions about member data.

We are in the process of consolidating our business logic into services and SDKs from where it lives today: the presentation tier and stored procedures in the database. As we untangle and streamline our code, we need a safety net of automated tests. The tools and automated tests that you build will help insure that planned changes don't cause unintended consequences. What you build will help prevent defects by finding them in the test environment and detect defects that make it out to production.

At Netflix, you will work with a team of intelligent and capable software engineers who are committed to delivering high quality software through test driven development, test automation and a deep partnership with quality assurance.

REQUIREMENTS:

• Expert in assessing software quality in an ecommerce environment using:
- Test driven development
- Java, Tomcat, JDBC and Apache
- jUnit test automation (or equivalent)
- Web services
• Tests as part of cross-functional teams and supports back-end application interfaces
• Understands relational databases and SQL deeply
• Develops and maintains production system and data monitoring tools
• Desires to work in a fast paced, evolving, growing, dynamic environment

Now, here's the description for Software Engineer in Test -- Software Infrastructure

THE ROLE:

The number of people getting their movie entertainment through the Internet is continuing to grow at a rapid pace. Between DVDs by mail and Instant Watching, Netflix wants most of those subscribers to be Netflix members. Part of keeping those current and future members happy is making sure our systems are built from components and services that will scale to handle the volume.

The Software Infrastructure team builds components that include:
• management of Queue and rental history data
• a Netflix server reference implementation
• security APIs and services
• session management APIs and services
• message bus services for logging and data transfer
• explorations into The Cloud for all of the above

You will be a key part of the core team that ensures our broader development teams are using an intuitive and robust set of services to build the website and operations applications. You will ensure that we capture and accurately deliver data, and that we do it in a timely fashion. You will ensure that our internal services meet the needs of the developers consuming them. At Netflix, you will work with a team of intelligent and capable software engineers who are committed to test driven development, test automation and a deep partnership with quality assurance.

REQUIREMENTS:

Expert in understanding, assessing and providing feedback on the quality of high traffic, n-tier, web based environments including:
• Test driven development using Java, Tomcat, JDBC/Oracle, service buses and Apache with jUnit or TestNG test automation (or equivalent)
• Cross-functional testing of back-end system interfaces

Experienced with testing:
• Traditional and non-traditional e-commerce applications
• High traffic/high availability components
• Service oriented architectures

Deep understanding of:
• relational databases and SQL
• Linux or some other unix flavor
• a scripting language like Perl or Python

Familiarity with:
• testing under open source frameworks, such as Struts, Hibernate, Spring, etc.

Desire to work in a fast paced, evolving, growing, dynamic environment

Finally, I bring you a description for what I'd like to see in a Configuration and Release Engineer:

THE ROLE:

Web Engineering at Netflix provides our public face to our customers, so it's very important that we deliver an easy to use and engaging web experience. As part of the Web QA team, you'll be responsible for the team's test servers and their environment. Other duties include herding the changes to the code base from development, through testing and out to production. You will coordinate the change process across all of the teams involved, so you need not only technical chops, but also excellent communication skills. This position is part Linux admin, part software engineer and part project manager. The ideal candidate should be equally comfortable owning bash scripts, java code and ant configuration files, and will have an insatiable craving for making the deployment process more and more push-button and more and more secure.

REQUIREMENTS:
• Excellent communication and inter-personal skills
• Working experience in web based environments utilizing:
- Java, Tomcat, Apache and other web applications
- Perforce and other source control applications
- Ant and the 'x'Unit family of test automation applications
• Skilled in Unix shell and SQL
• Desire to work in a fast paced, evolving, growing, dynamic environment

DESIRED SKILLS:
• Perl hacking
• Bugzilla maintenance and modification
• Configure and use Kintana (Mercury IT Governance Center) deployment application
• Build and manage automated build/test/deployment environments

What is Applesauce the Gateway To?

In the last few weekends of September, I was making applesauce from the Fuji and Granny Smith apple trees we planted a couple of years ago. I had just picked the last apples, except for one lonely Fuji. At the time, I wasn't sure if it would ever ripen to the point where it would come off easily when one of us happens to be there to test it. It might have just dropped off in the middle of the night, and wind up in the ant's larder instead of ours. As it was, it did come off just before Thanksgiving.

Back in September, I had just finished putting a batch of cooked applesauce into a couple of 2 quart containers and left them on the counter-top, loosely covered. I wanted them to cool a bit before sticking them in the refrigerator. It was very deeply satisfying to pick and wash and peel and core and dice and simmer. Sampling the apples at different stages along the way lit up paths in my brain leading to very comfortable and comforting places. The snap and explosion of biting into a freshly picked and washed apple is like summer fireworks. Peeling the apples, I felt the juice slip over my fingers, making the peeler and the apple slick. I wondered just how much of the juice went down the drain instead of into the sauce. I've asked Jen to put a peeler on my Christmas list and I wonder if it will make next year's applesauce any different.

Lucy had introduced me to chewing some of the peel just after it drops into the sink. You get the tartness of the skin without the moderating sweetness of much juice or flesh. It's work, chewing on the peel, but it recalls other pleasures that are satisfying because they are work and not pure pleasure. Running is like that for me as well: it's hard work, but I feel better afterward.

Coring the apples is always an adventure. Attempting to pop out the heart of the apple with the seeds while minimizing the degree of flesh that goes with them. I ponder whether an apple corer will have a better or worse core/flesh ratio, since it's an indiscriminate cylinder versus the custom "cone plus wedges" that I'm cutting out.

If you compare the dollar cost of a quart of organic applesauce at Trader Joe's to the time and effort of growing, waiting for and harvesting the apples, then processing them all the way into sauce, it seems penny wise and pound foolish to spend the time. However, like many other things in life, the main value comes down to the doing, and not the monetary value of the physical product.

Software As A Manufacturing Activity

Another book that I read recently was Goldratt's The Goal. It's gotten me thinking about software development within the context of manufacturing. If a software development cycle is constrained by one of the intermediate steps, it either will starve the downstream processes or let software of inferior quality out in front of the paying customers. Neither is a desirable outcome.

So, you have two problems from the world of moving around atoms that may be applicable to the world of moving around bits. First, the problem of coordination and scheduling that supply chain management gurus have thought about. Second, the problem of throughput and productivity that constraint based manufacturing theory has gone a long way towards optimizing.

How much can be applied directly, and how much just doesn't apply because turning out software doesn't suffer from the same scarcities as turning out physical products?

I guess that's why I'm trying to think and write about it.

Experience Chain Management

You heard about it here first, folks. I've just created a new discipline: Experience Chain Management.

It was fueled mostly by some reading I did of Lou Carbone's writing, in his book Clued In: How to Keep Customers Coming Back Again and Again.

The core of it is that every business is trying to create a valuable customer experience to keep the money coming in the door. However, nobody thinks about the internal consumers of the business processes that deliver those experiences to the paying customers. Someone upstream can sabotage the effectiveness of the downstream team members and, without even realizing it, impair the customer experience.

Simple example that I'm periodically wrestling with:

• Developer publishes a code change past the start of the testing cycle
• The QA engineer doesn't regress that part of the code because they don't know about the change
• A bad bug slips through to production
• A customer can't get what they want done, and gets angry instead

I'm thinking that there are probably some lessons to be learned from all of the work done on supply chain management. Even though you're shuffling bits instead of atoms, when you have a team turning out software that drives a customer experience, it's still an awful lot like manufacturing. You have:

• raw materials (product ideas)
• manufacturing (coding)
• assembly & testing (build, configure, QA)
• delivery (deployment & operations)

Of course, the thing I need to think about more is how downstream components and processes can block or impair the productivity of upstream partners. For that, you need to look at a different discipline (see next post).

The Morning Report

The dorkiness continues. Caught myself on film with Isaac this morning and was playing around with annotations.

Definite mst3k potential there.

I've Joined Generation Stupid

As is evidenced by the following:

And of course, being stupid, I recorded the following before realizing that the one you see above wasn't broken after all:



And then, of course, the quick obligatory shout-out to a relative.

I'm astounded

I received a multi-forwarded email from a relative older than me, and the content actually interested me! I don't know if this has ever happened to you. It's really eye opening that it's even possible that the content from this person was something worth more than a quick scan and deletion, because the probability of it being something you've seen before approaches 100%.

Regardless, here's the text:


Dear Friends and Family,

I was one of the ones who wrote my friend, Anne (as mentioned below in her letter) as soon as Sarah Palin was chosen to run for Republican V.P. I received her really informative reply plus another informative letter from a friend of hers. I think it's really good info...and not all of it is negative...a lot is strictly informational. Sorry I didn't forward it right away: since then, Sarah Palin emails are flying around me like bats in a belfry!

I have put info about Anne herself at the very bottom of this email, in case you would like to know.

Hope this is useful to you...in whatever way.

xxoome

------------------

Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 15:46:40 -0700

From: anne......

Subject: Sarah Palin

Big Alaskan-sized hello to one and all,

Over the holiday weekend I received several emails from friends and family asking about our relatively unknown governor who has suddenly become a name you all recognize. As I started to write an email response, I received a copy of an email sent by a woman I used to know very well. She has a way with words that I think you'll enjoy. Additionally, I will mention:

I like her as governor, but won't be voting for her in November. As another dear friend of mine (who also lives and works in Alaska - and may have even more access to the Palin administration than I do) said, "she's not the one you want just one fluffernutter away from the presidency."

The ethics reform bill she signed recently was actually the work of Alaskan Democrats who pushed it through.

While she turned down our infamous bridge-to-nowhere, she accepted the federal funds to build the road to the bridge, and built the road, which goes to exactly nowhere.

She pronounces nuclear the same incorrect way the our current president does.

Yep, she wears her hair like that all the time. Who doesn't love a sexy librarian?!? There's a reason we have bumper stickers that say, "Alaska... coldest state but the hottest governor."

Trooper-gate... if it hasn't hit the news yet where you are... it will.

Although she didn't fish this year, she and her husband have fished in Bristol Bay for years. Even though her family has been deeply involved in the fishery, she announced a week before the election last week that she would not be supporting the ballot initiative that would have safguarded the water quality of the salmon natal streams in Alaska. A no vote on the initiative made it easier for large-scale metallurgic mines (like the controversial and poorly planned Pebble mine at the headwaters of Bristol Bay) to pollute, redirect and otherwise destroy the water that supports people and salmon resources. Her vote swayed thousands of undecided voters and ultimately defeated the initiative. Our salmon aren't in trouble yet, but yours??

I could go on and on, but... Anyway, below is the email referenced above. Enjoy!

Anne

She is very scary on a number of levels....one big one that Nancy identified is that she'll be underestimated.

D

-----Forwarded Message-----

>Subject: Sarah palin
>
>Hi Everybody,
>
>Five of you have written and asked about our Governor Palin as VP, so
>here's what I know from Halibut Cove. First off ... every single person in
>Alaska is just as surprised and amazed as everyone else about this. I
>was in Anchorage on Friday listening to NPR and when I first heard the news - I
>thought it was a joke or just hypothetical. Then the phone started
>ringing... As many of you know, we Alaskans talk about our politics
>constantly and this year with an indicted senior Senator, our sole
>Congressman under investigation, etc etc etc it's juicier than ever, but the
>Palin announcement takes the cake. Imagine what it would be like if any of
>you was asked to be the Vice President. That is the level of experience
>that Palin has. She's not kidding when she describes herself as a hockey
>mom - she really is. She really did grow up in a small town in Alaska.
>She really was the mayor of Wasilla (population 9,000). I would
>imagine most of you have been in Washington DC more than she has.
>
>On the one hand Palin's nomination is preposterous, but at the same time she
>will be a formidable candidate. We live in a celebrity culture which
>thrives on the personal story, and Palin's story with all the fabulous
>Alaskan scenes as backdrop will be hard to top. I think of poor John
>Kerry trying to carry a gun around in 2004 or Michael Dukakis in the
>tank, and then think of Palin's parents who were out on a gold panning
>expedition when the news broke.... She is the real thing - small town
>girl, father a teacher, grew up in Alaska, goes hunting and fishing,
>likes snow machining because "it pounds the snot out of you", husband
>is the Alaska version of a NASCAR dad, he's handsome and known as First
>Dude. On top of all that Palin is both beautiful and HOT. Look at the
>pictures of her versus Cindy McCain and you'll get the idea.
>
>I did not vote for Sarah Palin and have always wondered if her blowing
>the whistle on the head of the Republican party was pure calculated ambition.
>On the down side she not only opposes abortion (think of the Supreme
>Court
>appointments) but is a creationist. Despite her father being a science
>teacher, she seems to have little regard for the subject and recently
>was accused (like Bush) of overwriting her own staff scientist's
>recommendations on the polar bear endangered listing. On the other
>hand, she picked a very competent unbiased scientist (a friend of mine)
>to be Commissioner of Fish and Game. I asked my friend, the
>Commissioner, about what she's like in Cabinet meetings and he said
>"she's just insecure enough that she actually listens". She is a
>lightweight but a quick study, and a brilliant natural politician.
>
>Which is why I, and 80% of all Alaskans approve of her as Governor.
>(That's down from 87% five months ago.) She has made excellent and
>independent appointments to her Cabinet. She has vetoed our legislature's bloated
>budget items. She has pushed through major changes in the state's
>relationships with the oil companies. She has cajones, no doubt about
>that. In addition, she is what she is, a wonderfully attractive down
>to earth person--Kathryn even saw her shopping with her husband and new
>baby at Costco!
>
>And that will be the killer in this campaign. She may not know
>anything, but I believe more than anyone else (including Barack) she
>will attract people from a wide, wide swath of the population. No one
>can accuse her of being elitist. I looked at that picture of her
>signing photographs after the announcement and I was reminded of Mia Hamm and the
>women's soccer team.
>That's the kind of appeal Sarah Palin will bring to the Republican
>ticket, and it'll be tough to resist. Sarah Palin is the type of
>person that people tend to underestimate, which is partly why she was
>able to come out of nowhere and knock off a 20 year Senator and
>incumbent Republican Governor AND a past two term Democratic Governor.
>
>Wish us luck. Best to all of you, N

Automated Testing and the Mayan Apocalypse

Odd idea that popped out of a conversation yesterday. What if the trend towards test driven development and behavior driven development is a harbinger of the apocalypse? Automated testing could be a first step toward machine self-awareness if it were married with self-modifying code. Genetic algoritms could optimize themselves towards the specified tests and behavior, but what happens when the self-modifying code creeps into the tests (which are, after all, just more code)?

I think you get an increasing rate of accelerated change leading to Skynet launching the nukes in 2012, just in time for the Mayan calendar to be right about the end of the world.

Dr. Horrible is Fantastic

Thank goodness that Saturday on the east coast starts around 9pm on the west coast. Didn't have to wait until tomorrow to see Act III of Dr. Horrible. Recommended is not strong enough of a word. Go watch one, two and three RIGHT NOW BEFORE THEY DISAPPEAR ON SUNDAY AND YOU MIGHT HAVE TO PAY FOR IT!!! (even though paying for it would probably be a good thing because it would encourage more things like it through the action of the free market blah blah blah)

All My Hate Is Washed Away

I was kind of miffed at Yahoo last time I wrote here. Then I found this:



I laughed uproariously. Can't wait until tomorrow. Must remember to watch part III tomorrow!

Many many thanks to the folks at io9 for passing along this gem.

Yahoo has made me angry

Well, maybe not out-and-out angry, but seriously peeved. They've been periodically threatening me with switching my MyYahoo account to some newfangled ajaxy home page. My experience with it so far is that it's slower and shinier at the expense of just putting the text I want on the page in front of me.

The latest assault of trying to force me to use it happened this morning. I tried to go to the /switch URL that has worked in the past, and that failed. I did go to the 'switch back?' page, but when I clicked on the button to switch back, I still had the new UI. I noticed a link at the bottom of the new home page for switching back, and even when I clicked on that, it still failed and left me with the new home page.

Very Annoying(tm).

It's getting to the point where I'm about to switch everything over to gmail and igoogle. Google's creeping me out a little, lately, though. It's all free to use, but maybe the price is too high <backgroundmusic type='ominous'/>.

New Widget and A Shout Out

The new widget on the left is a thingy that shows where people come from when they come in a look at my ramblings. I found it on Joel Mier's blog, Think For A Moment.

He'd posted a commentary about Netflix's recent reversal on the 'kill profiles' issue. As always, well reasoned and articulately stated commentary. Miss ya, Joel. Hope all's well.

Puppet Sex

I was just watching "Team America: World Police" on the Roku box. Didn't get all the way through it, because the kids came home and that movie is FILTHY! Can't say that I wasn't chuckling along like some kind of adolescent. However, there's a reasonably explict sex scene that had me rolling. You haven't seen anything until you've seen marionettes... er... 'engaged'.

Otherwise, the movie is reasonably entertaining. Not a classic, by any means, but the irreverence, inappropriateness and general bad-boy-ness you'd expect from Parker & Stone is all there in spades.

Ongoing Changes

Minor milestones this morning.

1. Eloise rode without a carseat (she's not > 60 pounds, but she is six, and the shoulder strap doesn't cut into her neck)
2. Talked with the swim class people about how old Isaac needs to be for baby-and-me classes (3 months, get on the waitlist one month ahead)
3. ummm. Had a third one but forgot it (I blame sleep dep)

Anyway, feeling the flow of the currents of life today. Seems like the pace has picked up even as the length of days seems longer (for this I also assign some blame to sleep dep...)

exploring wirelessness

So as you can see on the left, I've been dumping occasional tidbits onto Twitter via my blackberry I have from work.

I'm also writing this post from said blackberry. I guess in addition to a new baby around the house, I'm getting in touch with my inner blogger.

That said, I don't generally see the attraction of leaving behind a constant stream of sound bites. It's been a cool novelty, but I don't think I have a strong enough itch for self-expression to need to scratch it that way.

Twittering a birth

I didn't think I was being particularly clever by jotting notes down about Isaac's birth via twitter. I'd just joined and was messing around.

Now I know I wasn't even being that original. Googling 'twitter pitocin' led me to finding this oldest account of twitlivery of a baby on July 15, 2007. I'm a year late to the party, it seems. Also, she's a bit hard-core. Of the other dozen odd accounts, we were all husbands, and Carmen's account was the only account from the driver's seat, so to speak.

Isaac Lorenzo Gilbert-Fagen

We settled on a middle name: Lorenzo

For those of you not following along at home, that would make the following updated thusly....
Tale of the tape:

• Name: Isaac Lorenzo Gilbert-Fagen


• Born: June 2, 2008 18:37 PDT


• Weight: 7lb 8oz


• Height: 20 1/4"


• Mom & baby: happy & healthy


• Dad: ditto

Netflix Player by Roku

I was really thrilled to hear today that people buying Roku's new set-top box for the Netflix Watch Instantly service is backordered by 10 days. Well, not so thrilled since I just ordered mine, but happy that the device is so popular.

Bacterially Generated Buckytubes

I'm a fan of the concept of a space elevator. I'd love to be able to see this technology envisioned by Arthur Clarke in the 70's become reality some time before I die. One of the biggest obstacles to the creation of the a space elevator is a breakthrough in the material science necessary to build a tether.

There are some promising bits of work being done on carbon fiber and buckytubes, but the last I heard, there were scaling problems. Sure, we can generate a fiber a few millimeters long that's strong enough, but getting from there to 100,000km is still a really big leap.

What if someone genetically engineered a bacteria that had some chlorophyll in it and had a predilection for growing a buckytube tail? Now you stick a vat in the sunlight and start pulling the thread... Voila! space elevator tether!

Did I mention that I was hiring?

I'm currently looking for three different people to fill three different jobs here at Netflix?. The first is a QA engineer for our Instant Viewing on the PC client. The second is a QA Engineer for the Netflix API team. The third is a QA Engineer for the Customer Account team.

While each of those job descriptions has a list of technical requirements, I need someone (three someones) who can understand the why of testing just as much as they understand the how of testing. A particular tool in your toolbox isn't as important as knowing how to select the right tool for the job (or even learn a new one). Likewise, having demonstrated prior experience in knowing where to apply your tools for the greatest effect is more important than any particular bit of prior experience with a particular technology.

I've been toying with a mission statement for my group:

Economically review changes in order to prevent, detect and mitigate impaired customer experiences.

If this somehow speaks to you, I'd love to hear from you what you think it means. I might want you to apply yourself to that mission.

Software Plasticity and Risk: The Search

After writing yesterday's post, I decided that it might be a good idea to take a look and see if anyone else was using plasticity in the sense that I was trying to use it, or if there was an already established notion of plasticity that I'd be swimming upstream against.

Again, my notion of plasticity is: how changeable is the system in question balanced against the cumulative risk to the business of the change itself and the risk to the business of actually making the changes.

I found a couple links via Google. The first was from a paper submitted to a 2004 conference in Hamburg, Germany. It discussed the concept of a new widget type, "the comet", that would adapt its function based on the execution context. Not exactly what I was after. The second was a link to the same paper from a different source. Then, surprisingly, the third entry was my blog post from yesterday.

In the fourth position, was a blog page that was just a click through to the real article which was actually discussing the use of aspect oriented programming (AOP) and the concept of software plasticity. In reviewing it, this appeared to be more of a discussion of how to apply AOP as a debugging tool, rather than how to build and maintain a system in the context of keeping a business running and satisfying customers.

After that it seemed to get a little random, except for a link to a PDF on UI plasticity. The article referenced by the top link continued to show up an awful lot from a bunch of different sources as well. I took a look at Yahoo search and Dogpile. Came up with the same set of stuff.

From this survey, it seems like there hasn't really been a lot of thinking published on the web about the development effects of the plastic nature of software, and especially when evaluating plasticity within the context of business risk.

I guess I'll keep flogging it and see if anything useful comes of it.

Software Plasticity and Risk

I've been toying with the concept of plasticity with respect to software. I've also been thinking about the software development process and how plasticity relates to the risks introduced by making changes to software.

Think about using a scale from 1 to 10 to describe how plastic a software product is. A one (the least plastic software product) would be a consumer electronics device where the software is embedded and it's impossible to update the software. Examples would include a portable DVD player or a digital clock radio. A ten would be something like a website (perhaps like the Netflix website or Instant Viewing PC client -- and I happen to be hiring one or two QA Engineers), where if there are defects discovered, they can be fixed quickly by pushing new code to the servers, and instantly, all users get the new code.

Then, think about the risks you run by making changes. My canonical examples to contrast the risk of changes usually go something like this:

1. We're updating the encryption key that we use to encrypt the credit cards for our members. We test this very thoroughly. The risks to the business are very large if there's a screwup and the benefits of avoiding screwups are equally large. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to invest a lot in testing.

2. We're modifying how we format the pages for different genres of movies so that boxshots are right aligned instead of left aligned. Not a lot of risk for damaging the business there. We may not even do any formal QA and leave it up to the UI engineers to make sure they get that one right.

I haven't worked out the details yet for measuring risk vs. plasticity, but I imagine some kind of matrix with plasticity across the top and different software components down the side. The intersection of each row and column would have some metric that boils down the cost to fix, the cost to deploy, the risk of change and the risk to the business. Then, during the course of normal development, or in the case of an emergency, evaluate the proposed change on those four dimensions to come up the metric for that change and compare to the matrix for where the change lies. If there's a net positive risk/reward, do the change immediately in the case of a fix to production. Likewise, if it's part of the normal development cycle, then if there's a positive risk/reward, allocate the QA resources to fully test. If there's not adequate reward for testing, or the risk to the business is low enough, dedicate the limited QA resources elsewhere in that push cycle.

Comments?

OLPC Laptops Delivered Today

I ordered two of the OLPC via the Give One Get One program. They just got delivered today.

I think that perhaps I'm more excited about them than the girls will be when I give them to them for Christmas.

I'm going to unpack and boot them up after the girls go to bed tonight to... um... make sure they work! Yeah, that's it!

More news as I have it.

----

So now, it's tomorrow morning, and I took a look at the laptops last night. They're pretty cool. They work as expected. They're not quite as peppy as I'd have hoped, but they're certainly not sluggish.

I still have to figure out how to get the wi-fi to connect to our secured WAP. I guess the answer might be in the support forum. Duh.

Well the boxes are wrapped, so I guess I'll play with wi-fi after Christmas Day.

I didn't play too much with the apps. I recorded a short video of myself. I played with the 'measure the distance between two laptops' widget. That last one made a sound that was really annoying to my wife. Might have to restrict usage of that app to outside or downstairs.

The video was kind of grainy, but sort of cool to see.

It will be interesting to see how intuitive the interface is for a relatively computer-naive child.

I guess I'll post those impressions after Eloise (6) and Lucy (4) get ahold of the machines in a couple days.

Give One Get One for "One Laptop Per Child" is in Effect

I just put in my order earlier yesterday for two laptops under the OLPC "Give One Get One" program.

I got one for each of my daughters, and I feel a little warm and fuzzy that two children I'll probably never meet will have an opportunity to explore the digital world.

Providing my own children with that opportunity for discovery made the expenditure of a couple days wages seem like a pretty good deal.

Pokerstars Blogger Tourney

I played in that this afternoon. Got about an hour into it before getting busted. I actually feel that I played fairly well. I was patient until I played my first hand that turned into the nut flush, and I managed to extract 3k where if I'd just jammed with the nuts I don't think I would have gotten the call. I also managed to get away from a hand where I'd semi-bluffed on the flop and followed through on the turn to lay it down to a big re-raise. Final hand was A8o vs A9o who was in the big blind. Couldn't think of a way that I could have gotten away from it, and am kind of surprised the other guy called. He was fond of saying 'donkey', so I expect he's a "hardened professional" and goes looking for marginal hands that he can "get sucked out on" with.

Anyway, I had a good time. Since I busted out so quickly, I was able to substitute for my wife on taking the kids to see "Ratatouille".

Side note. Firefox spell-check thinks I misspelled ratatouille. The suggested correction is "bouillabaisse". Very freaky.

Anyway, Jen was going to take care of the kids so I could play in the tourney, and part of it was to take them to this animated feature (which is her absolute least favorite genre of cinema). Since I busted out, I took the kids instead. We get about 85% of the way through. We see the false happy ending and start heading down into the reversal and Lucy starts crying that she doesn't want to watch any more. I ask Eloise if she's ok to watch the end alone if I take Lucy out into the hall to wait, and she says ok. Big mistake on my part. I take Lucy outside and get her calmed down. We start to go down the hall to the bathroom, and all of a sudden, Eloise comes screaming out of the theatre and down the hall. She's scared, doesn't want to watch any more. She's in full on screaming tears mode. She forgot her water bottle in the theater. I calm her down, everyone uses the bathroom. I go back in the theater to get the water bottle. We head home.

One good thing is that as we walk back towards the car, we discover Beard Papa's Sweet Shop. Verrrrrry tasty cream puffs. I'd heard of them from a parent at a birthday party that Eloise had gone too. Worth the trip.

It's that time of the year again

Pokerstars.com is having their annual blogger's tournament. I might as well give it a try (assuming I can talk Jen into giving me some time at noon on Oct 14).

Here's the verification stuff:

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 6402628

Another Prosper Listing

I haven't plugged anyone on Prosper for a while, but I think this listing deserves some attention. He seems like he's got his plan together and just needs a little help digging out from underneath high interest credit card debt.

As a little reminder, if you sign up through the link above and help fund his loan, both you and I will get $25.

Followup on the July Prosper Listing

So I was beating pretty hard on MWALKER650's Prosper listing. She got funded, but the community finally got so enthusiastic about her loan that I was underbid and didn't get a piece of the action.

What a bummer. I'm glad she got funded though. It was an interesting experience providing advice on how to improve the listing. Just helped out a bit to much, I suppose...

Alright you slackers, cough up the dough

You may have been reading where I've been promoting this loan on prosper.com, and you may be getting sick of reading about it.

Well, one way to stop me from posting over and over and over again would be to:

1. join prosper (you get $25 FOR FREE!)
2. fund this loan
3. enjoy the warm feeling of helping someone get out from under the grinding heel of the consumer debt peddlers.

Do the right thing, peeps.

Something I forgot from yesterday

There's something that I've been telling myself as I've been running (which I didn't do this morning -- website issues got me out of bed at 5:50 and now the kids are up, and I have to get into work).

That thing is:

The body can be trained to do whatever your mind has the will to train it to do.

This seems particularly applicable to the new style of running I've been trying. It's more painful (sometimes much more painful) but it seems to yield better progress overall.

From a strict pain/utility perspective, a slower continuous pace might seem to be optimal, but for a longer term perspective of no slowly degrading performance over time, I think it makes sense to train for the pain. That way I'll always know that I'm pushing things to the practical limit and won't slide down a slippery slope of complacency.

Only by having the will to train through the pain would I get to a better overall solution.

Running, running, running again

I was on a regimen of running 3 miles every other day. I got some new trail running shoes over the weekend. They inspired me, as new footwear often does. This week, I decided to start running every day. Not only did I decide to run every day, but I also decided to change my style of running.

Previously, I'd take off from house at an easy trot up the hill to Rancho San Antonio, and pace myself to keep at least shuffling along in a gait resembling a run the whole time. I'd slow down on the uphills and be out of breath at the top and then kind of coast down hill until I'd caught my breath.

The new plan is to run flat out until I can't run any more, and then walk at a brisk pace until I feel like I can start running again. I actually feel better for it. I think that I'm moving faster overall (but I suppose I could measure that).

I suspect that by training my body to keep moving at all costs, I was opening the door to a complacent pace. It seems that was a slippery slope to slowing down. The new regime will train my body to always be going flat out. While I can feel the lactic acid building up much more with this style (especially on the uphills), it seems like over the course of the week that the recovery period is getting shorter.

I'll keep you posted.

Here's another one

So you may recall that I've been promoting a loan for a young Bay Area woman trying to get herself out of debt. In the course of communicating with the other lenders who were trying to fund a loan for her, I was referred to this listing.

She seems to be a little bit more of a risk, but it's a good story, and the other Prosper member says that she's been a pretty good communicator in their email exchanges. A smart girl in a tough position.

Once again, in the interest of full disclosure, if you sign up through one of the links above, both you and I will get a $25 sign-up bonus.

Trying again

So that gal that I was trying to help out through Prosper.com didn't get that loan funded. She's trying again, with some more information in the listing. If you'd like to help out, click on through

In the interest of full disclosure, if you sign up through the link above, both you and I will get a $25 sign-up bonus.

Someone who could use a little help

Would you like to make $25 while lending someone a helping hand?

Here's a listing from Prosper.com for someone who I think is listed as a 'high risk' borrower but really isn't a high risk.

She appears to have a good head on her shoulders, understands that she's in a bit of a bind, but needs a little help to get out of the bind.

I'd encourage you to sign up and lend to her. I have. If you sign up through the link above and lend to her, you'll get $25 as a sign-up bonus, and so will I.

Looking again

I need to find a QA engineer. Here's a rough draft of the job description:

----------------

Senior Software Engineer in Test -- Customer Service Applications

THE ROLE

We are looking for someone who can own the process of reliably getting the good ideas out of our developers heads onto the desktops of our customer service reps. We are looking for someone familiar with testing enterprise applications built from web services, Oracle, SQL, PL/SQL and telephony integration in the customer service space.

Quality Assurance at Netflix is not about waiting for some code to fly over the wall from development. It's about providing an environment for the development engineers that helps them minimize the number of bugs that make it into the code in the first place. It's also about insuring that what works when we test continues to work as well when we deploy it. Working on our customer call center software, you will help the people that help our members solve their problems.

You will provide your expertise in understanding what to test, as well as how to test. Given a schedule that is always too short and a feature list that is always too long, you'll identify and efficiently evaluate those changes to our software that pose the greatest risk to the smooth and effective operation of the customer service staff.

RESPONSIBILITIES

* Validate and verify the correct operation of the customer service application
* Advocate designs that are usable by the customer service representatives
* Collaborate with customer service management to design a complete system that meets business needs
* Bridge any communication gaps between the development and operational teams supporting the system
* Improve and extend the automated regression test suite and production monitoring tools

QUALIFICATIONS

Must have:
* 5+ years of white box 3-tier application testing, building and deployment
* Deep experience with Oracle and PL/SQL or equivalent database systems
* Experience with Java/jUnit or C#/nUnit development and testing
* Experience with testing high-traffic, highly scaling, multi-threaded software design
* A Bachelors or Masters in Computer Science or equivalent engineering experience

Nice to have:

Familiarity with contact center technology (e.g. CTI, IVR, CRM)
Familiarity with use of .NET Remoting, Web Services, 3rd party .NET controls, TestComplete

----------------

Email me if you're interested.

Fiction writing

You should never see the phrase "I woke up and went through my usual routine" or anything like it in fictional stories. The point of writing the story is to give insight into the character. If the reader doesn't already know what the character's 'usual routine' is, then they will infer that the character's routine is just like their own, which is probably very boring. If your character usually runs out onto the patio to chase away the squirrel at the bird feeder, you should tell your reader.

Real Life on Second Life

I saw a pretty funny movie when I was visiting Valleywag today. It was about what real life would look like if real life were like Second Life.

Prosper

So there's this service out there that hooks up lenders and borrowers and trims out a lot of the fat of more traditional financial institutions by using an auction to set the rate.

There's a button off to the left that you can use to click thru and signup. If you want to be involved in lending money, get a much better rate than a savings account, and maybe help some good folks with a better rate than they'd ever get from a credit card or bank, then you can make $25 at the same time I make $25.

You can also click through just below.

Run for the WSOP 2007

Yesterday was my annual attempt to get a seat in the WSOP at the Oaks Card Club in Emeryville, CA. The format is no-limit holdem, with a $100+25 buy in and a single $100 rebuy. The top twenty were paid both cash and points towards a freeroll in which the top five prizes are WSOP seats ranging from the $10k main event down to a $1500 ducat. First place gets 20 points and 20th place gets 1 point. As of the start of the tourney yesterday, the bubble for the top 75 (who would be those invited to the freeroll) stood at 16 points, or a 5th place finish. That was likely to become 17 points after the day was out and possibly become 18 (but that was unlikely). So I went in to the game looking for 4th place or better.

My results were unspectacular, busting some time in the 2nd round after the rebuy period ended. With QQ I raised to 600 with 100-200 blinds UTG and was put all-in for 1500 more before the flop by AJo in middle position. The ace on the turn ruined my day.

More impressive was my father-in-law Tony's performance. Last year, he took 25th place when 20 places were paid. This year, he managed to make it all the way to 8th place, and probably could have done better had his KK not been vanquished by 55 which turned a set. 8th place paid $1,015 and 14 points. The $1k paid for his entry last year, this year, and now he'll be back again next year. The 14 points wasn't enough to make the freeroll, but he was busy weekend after next anyway.

I'll be back again next year.

Separated at birth: David Foley and Ira Glass

So, we received in the mail a preview DVD of the new collaboration between the Showtime cable network and the Public Radio International show, This American Life. My wife and I watched it, and we got to see Ira Glass for the first time. My first thought was "That's David Foley. This must be a gag." However, once I heard the voice, it was clear that it was our old buddy Ira.

See for yourself (Ira's on the left and David's on the right):


My wife thinks I'm nuts, and that they look absolutely nothing alike.

Star of the Show

This is my daughter Lucy.


She was in the Club Med 'Petite Club' end-of-the-week show. She did a group number,

and then she was the star of a second segment.

Rob on the trapeeze at Ixtapa Club Med

My family went to the Ixtapa Club Med in February 2007, and I took a turn on the flying trapeeze. Excellent experience that I'd recommend to anyone.

2007 SAP Open

At the 2007 SAP Open tennis tournament, I saw a match today with Bjorn Phau. He showed incredible sportsmanship while playing in the first round against Konstantinos Economidis. A ball that Phau hit to Economondis was out, but not called out by the line judge. Economidis returned it, and Phau having seen that his ball was out, let the return go by, giving the point to Economidis. Phau went on to win the match and advance to the second round.

He was graceful, both in his stroke and his approach to the game. Quite refreshing to see someone acting professionally in a professional sport.

Memorial for Grace Alice Gilbert-Fagen

My wife Jennifer and I expected our third child on January 1. Unfortunately, when we went in on Thursday, January 4 to induce labor, they weren't able to find a heartbeat. Jennifer had been in on Tuesday, January 2 for a non-stress test, and the baby was happy and healthy from all indications.

While delivering the baby, we discovered that there had been a cord accident. The cord had wrapped very tightly twice around her neck some time late Tuesday night and become compressed to the point where blood flow was blocked. In every other way, she was a perfect baby.

We decided to call her Grace Alice Gilbert-Fagen.On Saturday, February 3, we had a memorial service for Grace at our home. Family, friends and co-workers showed up to support us in our moment of great sadness. Jennifer and I both said a few words. Jennifer read the following poem:

Emily Dickinson (1830–86).
Complete Poems. 1924.

Part Three: Love

XXXIII

I HELD a jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep.
The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
I said: “’T will keep.”

I woke and chid my honest fingers —
The gem was gone;
And now an amethyst remembrance
Is all I own.

I read something that I had written for the occasion:

Last spring, I wrote a poem.
It was a short poem, only 23 lines long.
Into that poem I put everything that I am:
all of my hopes, all of my dreams, and all of my love for my family.

I gave that poem to Jennifer, and she bound it into a book.
It was a short book, with only 23 pages to start, but plenty of room to grow.
She put into that book everything that she is:
all of her hopes, all of her dreams and all of her love for our family.

We waited patiently, and in the case of Eloise and Lucy not so patiently,
for the author to arrive. We wondered what the story might turn out to be.
We wondered if the author might be an artist, like Eloise.
We wondered if the author might be a gymnast, like Lucy.
We wondered if the author might be a dreamer, like me.
We wondered if the author might be the best of all possible people, like Jennifer.

The cover was beautiful, the spine was strong, and the pages were smooth and blank.
The book was perfect. The pages were ready for the author to write the story.

But in the end, when the book was delivered, the author was missing.
A tragic accident took the author from us before the story could even get started.
Grace Alice Gilbert-Fagen will never have the chance to write her own story.
And so, in her honor, we who love her, gather to write the epilogue.

Senator Tim Johnson Conspiracy Theories

Well, I just checked google, and there aren't any conspiracy theories that have yet surfaced about Senator Johnson. I certainly wish him well, both for his own sake, and for the sake of the country.

Just seems to me that we should check him for any Polonium that George W. Putin, or one of his minions, left lying around.

Employment opportunities redux

Here's an excerpt from an email I sent to a friend who was telling me that she didn't want to commute quite as far as Los Gatos for a job:

Anyway, if you *were* working, and there was anyone that you'd want to have on your team again, let me know who they are. They're not necessarily even traditional QA people. Anyone who is smart, curious and diligent, and who understands how computers work qualifies.

I'm trying to build a different brand of QA. It's the java engineers who are ultimately responsible for the correctness, completeness and scalability of their product -- you can't test in any of those attributes. All QA can do is assess whether those attributes exist and advise the developers on any significant lack.

I'm not looking for someone who knows silktest or loadrunner or even jUnit inside and out. I want someone who can understand the fact that our business is driven by three things: 1. customers can sign up, 2. customers can add movies to their queue, 3. customers get discs shipped to them

Everything else is just syntactic sugar that dresses up our core semantics.

So, as I've mentioned before, I'm looking for a couple of people who are interested in addressing the issue of software quality at Netflix, and I'm NOT looking for a browser-poker or someone who dreams up test cases for an offshore outfit to throw warm bodies at.

If you want to help us run with scissors, apply

Free Blockbuster Rentals for Netflix Customers

On HackingNetflix there is an article about being able to take the address flap from your Netflix rental envelope into a Blockbuster store and getting a free rental. I wonder if BBI is harvesting the addresses for targeted direct mail campaigns? That free movie might not only be costing you the gas to drive there, but it might cost you a bunch of future junk mail, too.

Employment opportunities

Most people think of Netflix as either a movie company, or a logisitics company, because on the surface, we appear to buy DVDs from the studios and just mail a bunch of plastic around the country.

However, the secret sauce to the business is that we're really a software company. We're solving problems in how to scale the website to serve 20 million members (Java, Oracle). We're working on machine learning problems (like the Netflix Prize) and scaling problems with our recommendations engine (C++, mysql). I'm most closely involvd in figuring out how quality fits in to all of these development processes. I'm changing the role of a QA engineer from someone who pokes at a browser to someone who writes software to test software.

Then there's all the stuff that the back end teams do (logisitics, inventory, order generation). Once all the software's figured out, it has to run somewhere, and we need good system admins, DBAs and managers for those people that can plan for growth and install, configure and deploy to that plan.

The key thing is that we aren't doing this with an army of developers like an eBay, Yahoo or Google. We've got a relatively small team of really smart software engineers solving problems in an efficient and clever manner. A very deeply ingrained cultural value here is to only hire very senior people who understand how to solve problems, and then go and solve them. It's how we've been able to scale from just over 1MM customers when I joined 3.5 years ago to nearly 6MM customers today. The team that builds the website hasn't grown by more than 10-15% over that time, and we've added a ton of new stuff to the site. It's all because we don't scale the business by doing what we were doing just with more people; we scale through clever automation.

There's a list of what's open at our jobs page, but if there's something that anyone's specifically interested in, let me know. We're always looking for the right kind of person more than we're looking for a particular technology or skill.

I stuck the equivalent of two dead bodies in the ground today

That would be the six bags of concrete that weighed sixty pounds each. I'm building an emergency shed out in back of the house. This has been a bit of a saga, going on for the better part of eight months. Maybe I'll tell that whole tale some other time. For now, I can share the more 'concrete' part of the story.

If you haven't worked with concrete then you may be underestimating, to a great degree, my latest foe. Six bags of portland cement, sand and small rocks. Each bag is 0.45 cubic feet of concrete. A half a cubic foot sounds pretty small. It is pretty small when you're trying to do a footing around the perimeter of a 8'x10' shed foundation. I did six bags on Sunday and six bags today while waiting for an air conditioning repairman to show up. It only took me an hour to mix and distribute the six bags, but that was the longest stinking hour of my life. Add on top of that the effort to get the 360 pounds (hence, the two dead bodies reference) of dry concrete down from the garage to the shed site, and I didn't have to go running this morning to get a workout. I considered whether to cut down the amount of water I was mixing in, to balance out the amount of sweat dripping off me that was falling into the mixing trough.

I actually have about 4 more bags to go, then I can actually start assembling the shed on the flat, level foundation that I've built. I'll try to snap some pictures so you all can mock my efforts.

You looking for a job? I'm looking for someone to work!

As you may or may not recall, I'm the QA manager for the Netflix website. I've also been given the responsibility to manage our customer service call center application. If you fit the following description and also happen to like the idea of the job, drop me a line or even better, apply directly.

------------------------------

Senior Quality Assurance Engineer — Customer Service Automation

The Position:
Join Netflix and help insure that every member who has a problem gets that problem solved quickly and effectively. Working on our customer call center software, you will help the people that help our members.

You will provide your expertise in understanding what to test, as well as how to test. Given a schedule that is always too short and a feature list that is always too long, you'll identify and efficiently evaluate those changes to our software that pose the greatest risk to the smooth and effective operation of the customer service staff.

We are looking for an experienced engineer with a background testing applications involving .NET, Oracle, SQL, PL/SQL, telephony integration, email and customer service application user interfaces.

Responsibilities:
• Validate and verify the correct operation of the customer service application
• Continuously improve and extend the automated regression test suite

You are:
• An advocate for the customer service representatives with regard to usable system design
• An advocate for customer service management with regard to accuracy and completeness of the system
• A bridge between the development organization and the operational groups supporting the system

Qualifications:
• 5+ years of rich GUI client application testing, building and deployment
• Deep experience with Oracle and PL/SQL or equivalent database systems
• Experience with C# and nUnit development and testing
• Experience with testing high-traffic, highly scaling, multi-threaded software design
• Able to work autonomously and flexible enough to shift priorities based on changing needs of the business
• Familiarity with use of .NET Remoting, Web Services, 3rd party .NET controls, TestComplete, Parasoft .TEST and Tuvox are all plusses
• A Bachelors or Masters in Computer Science or equivalent engineering

Harder's getting easier every day

A few days ago, I wrote about running, and how sometimes it wasn't physically difficult, but mentally difficult to put my body in an active state. I guess sometimes if you can distract the mind, the body will do what it has to.

Case in point, today while running, I was tangling with a statistical problem. There are performance monitoring tools built in to the Netflix website server that keep track of how long it takes to do stuff along the way to presenting a page to a member. We call them tracers. We keep track of the average execution time, how many times it's executed and also buckets for ranges of execution time. For example, we keep track of how many times it took less than 10 milliseconds, and how many times it took 10-50 milliseconds, 50-100 milliseconds, etc. Using them, we can diagnose the health of the system and discover if a recent change is the source of site problems.

I am studying whether we can learn if the system is healthy from comparing the skew of that distribution of buckets. I'd worked out a database query that gave me a value for skew, but I was measuring the skew of the number of hits per bucket, instead of the skew of all the values of all the individual hits (which is what I actually want). For example, if the eight buckets have the values of (10, 14, 100, 20, 3, 0, 0, 0), I would a value based on those eight numbers, with a relatively high positive skew of 2.57, because the 100 is a pretty far outlier to the right, making this distribution of eight numbers 'pointy' on the positive end. What I was really after is the skew of the 147 individual data points with 10 instances of value 1, 14 of value 2, 100 for value 3, etc. This would have a much more neutral skew of -0.56 indicating that it's slightly pointy on the left.

Anyway, while pondering all of this, I was running along and didn't even have time to whine to myself about not wanting to be out there running, and it was over before I knew it. I think I made pretty good time today, too.

It's kind of bugging me that I lost track of another thought that I had running. Something to do with just a little bit of peril. Now I can't recall what it was. I guess maybe I need the inverse of an iPod. Something I can run with and dictate the flotsam that crosses my mind, and be able to play it back later.

Interesting page from ten years ago

I saw an interesting puzzle with a surprising answer while tripping around the net today looking for something else (isn't that always the way)?

The twist to the story entertained me, and the commentary following the twist moved me. Even though the commentary is going on ten years old, most parts are relevant or even more relevant today.

Easy's Getting Harder Every Day

So I run several times a week. Usually every other day. I go running in Rancho San Antonio near my home. Usually just under three miles. Some uphill and some downhill and some flats. Several weeks back, I was running and thought about what it would take to run across America. After all, Interstate 80 runs from San Francisco all the way to New York City. 3000 miles at three miles a day. A thousand days. Just about three years. I could do that, easy. Be kind of hard to only do three miles a day, though. I get through my three miles in 20-30 minutes, usually. I could probably slow down a bit and do 30 miles a day over the course of 10 hours of stops and starts. That gets it down to 100 days. Start in San Francisco in April with nothing but a running outfit and a credit card, then run and walk the whole day. Go to sleep whereever you're at and do it again the next day. Might be able to make it to Manhattan for the Fourth of July.

That seemed doable a few weeks ago (even if a little crazy). Lately, though, it's been harder to get up the hills, and even going down the hills has been awkward and sluggish. Now, running across the country seems not only crazy, but impossible. The hardest part of exercise is willfully putting myself into a state of discomfort. I know that I'll feel good when I'm done, but overcoming that inertia is the biggest obstacle. Once I'm going and I'm away from the house, then it's easier to go, but those first several scores of steps are hard.

I wish I could write

I want to write the perfect paragraph. I want it to enfold the sum of all human desire. I want it to motivate the world to do well by others. I want it to have rhythm and grace. I want it to enrapture all readers and purge them of ill intentions. I want honesty and freedom and the ability for all to reach the pinnacle of who they can be. I want to believe in the best of all possible worlds, and I want to believe that the world we live in is that world.

Googling me

So, I decided to type in my name "Rob Fagen" in the Google search box to see what comes up. Here it is:

The ADB Drinking game (me)
"DBs in Vegas" (me)
Google Groups: rec.gambling.poker (me)
Membership Directory (not me)
About STLAHA (not me)
[PDF] Gambler (me)
Radio Days--and Nights (me)
Council defers appointment to Planning Commission -- Los Altos ... (me)
The First Tee of The Seacoast Home Page (not me)
[PDF] TUESDAY, MEETING DATE (me)


Not bad... only three out of ten misses, and the top three were me. Interesting that the oldest stuff is ranked the highest. Not one mention of this blog, though. I guess maybe after this entry gets indexed that I might see more of me.

But it's good for you, isn't it?

The hardest part for me about running, or any exercise for that matter, is willfully putting myself in a state of discomfort. If there was a magical machine that could stress my muscles for me, then I don't think I'd mind the puffing, sweating and thumping heart pain. It might violate the Geneva Convention, but it would be easier to exercise if I were able to abdicate responsibility for continuing.

I guess that's part of what makes a top-tier athlete: the ability to push past limits and train yourself to go past limits that stop everyone else.

That's probably what makes for a top-tier anything.

Sudoku Combat

The Sudoku Combat blog discusses the change history of a really good online Sudoku challenge game. I like it. A little quirky, but it gets the game on with some competition (which always adds a little spice!).

Well, so much for that.

Hrmph. So I'm sit down to play in the Pokerstars blogger championship. First hand of the tournament, and I get the big blind. First bad sign. I get 83 off-suit. Second bad sign. There are a couple of callers, and I check. Flop comes K83 rainbow. I check. Late position caller makes a pot sized bet, everyone folds between him and me, and I raise to 450. He comes back over the top, all-in. I have him on a King for sure, and anything but an 8 or a 3. However, I'm in for a rude awakening when he turns over K8 off-suit. I somehow managed to not find one of the other two 3's in the deck. I wished him good-luck and went on my way. I guess I may have been overaggressive in calling the all-in. Still sucks.

Maybe another shot at the Big Dance?

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 2521058

That $100 Laptop Again

There is a place where you can pledge to purchase one of the OLPC laptops for $300 if 99,999 other people also pledge to do so by Oct 31, 2006. With that $300 purchase, you'd be getting one of the laptops for yourself and funding two more for the children elsewhere who are the focus of the program.

I'd recommend pledging. It was featured on Slashdot a week or two ago and got a big spike in pledges, but it's tapered back off. Projected pledges by the deadline are about 7,000.

Given Up

So, I've given up on the Full Tilt freeroll series. The play is just too crazy to continue investing the time. For the 27 events I entered, I had a best finish of 134 out of 1800. My worst finish was 1714th. You may recall that a seat plug averaged 269th.

My average finish was 646, with a stdev of 392. My median finish was 581. If my finishes were normally distributed, I should have had a cumulative chance of finishing 36th or better of 5.96%, but I never made good on it.

After the 9th attempt, I started keeping track of my finishing hands. Of the 18 where I kept track, I got my money in with far the best of it 9 times (things like AA cracked by KK, or AA vs AxQc and four clubs came).

They play being uniformly horrendous didn't really help me as much as I thought it might. It kind of worked against me in that no matter how many times I went in with a 2:1 or 3:1 or 14:1 advantage, there's be some nutcase still out there that would draw out on me.

Back in the saddle again

FullTiltPoker is running a promotion consisting of twice daily freerolls of up to 1800 entrants, where the top 36 from each event roll up into a weekly freeroll of about 1000 entrants, of which the top 9 from each week in a given month join frequent players and other good customers of the service in a tourney where the top 20 are given $10k seats for the big dance. They're giving away 20 seats per month for the next five months.

I found the combination of:

1. free
   
2. often
   
3. convenient
   

to be too much to not obsess over.

So, I discussed with my lovely wife whether she would divorce me and/or kick me out of the ouse if I decided that I wanted to try and win a seat through this series. This in mind of the fact that I've already taken my yearly foray at the Oaks, as earlier reported. This in mind of the fact that she and I had previously discussed my annual foray being executed on-line, instead of in a cardroom, and that was roundly rejected as the temptation and availability of playing online for money was too disquieting to her.

In preparation for this discussion, I ran an experiment. I installed the client and registered for one of the daily tourneys and then just left the seat unoccupied to be blinded away, just to see how long it lasts. My hypothesis being that with the insanity of free play, I wanted to see how long it took for the 'real' tourney to begin. Turns out that of the 1800, generally 1300 of them are gone in the first hour. My test subject lasted until 283rd place.

That's a lot of crazy and/or dead money in there, I decided.

Armed with these facts, Jen & I had our discussion, and she actually agreed to a trial run. A big part of it is that they dailys generally start after the kids are in bed and are running when we are usually just watching TV or reading in bed, anyway.

So, I get to play in the dailys until:

1. I win a seat
   
2. I'm too grumpy in the morning to take care of the kids
   

I've played in four of them so far, and have not finished higher than the low 400's. Three of these times I went in with the best of it, and the most recent time was ended with a total brain fart with a double gutter on the flop to which I made the idiot end of a straight. I was actually on my A-game up to that point and had about a 4x average stack. I am not as upset and I could be about the brain fart, as up to that point, I'd identified and avoided stupid situations I'd fallen for in the past, as well as having identified and exploited obvious weaknesses in other players to take pots.

So, for now, I'm in and I'm stoked. I still have faint hopes for the Oaks freeroll, but now I've got a second chance.

I figure that given the competition, I'm about a 500:1 against getting a seat. With each of the three rounds taking about 5 hours from start to finish, it could be as little as 15 hours to get a $10k seat. An additional part of their promotion is if you play on FTP money and get to the final table, you get $50k extra prize money, $100k for top three and $10MM if you win the event. The $10MM is $1MM/year for 10 years as part of an endorsement contract, where you have to play 10 hrs/week on FTP and promise to wear only their t-shirts.

Anyway, hopefully see you at the WSOP :)

I Heart Lemurs

Apparently so does this guy. A rather comprehensive collection of everything you'd ever want to know about lemurs of all types. Also some good pictures of the critters, like rruffed02.jpg and ringtailed07.jpg

Originally, I posted direct links to the pictures, but the host appears to be blocking access from external referrers. Maybe I can cut & post them here...

Not Visiting South Dakota Any Time Soon

I was disheartened to read a story about S.D. passing a law making abortion illegal, even when the mother was raped or if the fetus is endangering her life.

This seems reactionary to the point of irrationality. There were, of course, the required quotes from Operation Rescue. It made me think, how come there isn't an 'Operation Choice.'

Instead of Operation Rescue people blocking access to clinics and acting in an intimidating way towards women choosing to exercise control over their reproductive functions, Operation Choice people would provide emotional support and a calm environment within which a woman could make a considered and informed decision about a very important thing going on in her body.

I didn't mean to be a politician

So I was recently up for consideration to be part of Los Altos, CA's Planning Commission. I actually live in the County of Santa Clara, not within the city limits of Los Altos proper. I do have a Los Altos postal mail address, and do consider Los Altos to be the town I live in. However, this fine distinction became an issue, apparently.

I was in the past involved with the Bernal Heights East Slope Design Review Board when living in San Francisco, and I enjoyed the task of keeping an eye on the neighborhood architecturally, and providing a conduit for compromise between the needs of the existing neighbors and the needs of those wanting to improve their properties. So, when I saw an ad inviting applications for the Los Altos Planning Commission, I tossed my hat in the ring.

The original city council election almost four weeks ago resulted in a couple of congratulatory emails and welcomes to the commission. However, the next day, I heard from the City that there had actually been a tie in the voting that wasn't detected until after the meeting, and that there would be a run-off at the next council meeting. I thought it was no big deal, and raised the question about city vs county at that time. I was told that my address had been cleared through the registrar of voters, so I let the issue slip from my mind.

Between then and the next council meeting, I met with the one city councilperson who wasn't able to be at the original interview, and we seemed to get on quite well regarding the planning commission's job and what my role would be on it. We also discussed in passing where I live. It once again didn't seem to be an issue.

I came to find out that it actually is a very important issue. I guess I'll read the city council minutes when they get published to find out the details, or maybe I'll read the article in the next edition of the Town Crier, since I got an email from a reporter and spoke with her briefly on this subject.

How Can I Hire QA Engineers That Write Software?

Software is an interesting animal. It can do useful things like help you find movies you love. Software can also test other software to help insure that movie-lovers get the best possible movie-finding experience. I manage the quality assurance group for the Netflix website. For over a year, we've been aggressively pushing towards more test driven development. We've constructed a jUnit based automated framework for testing that lowers the barriers to unit test creation for the development engineers. We've integrated the EMMA code coverage tool with our nightly regression test runs to get a handle on how our level of testing is improving. We've developed code that allows us to execute tests within the context of our Tomcat application, relieving some of the burden of fixture and mock-object creation. What I'm having a much harder time doing is finding QA engineers that can wear both hats:

1. can analyze the underlying business and insure that the developed system accurately follows that model
2. can effectively develop software that automatically tests the website and underlying tiers in a relevant and productive way

I've looked on craigslist, LinkedIn and plumbed the depths of our recruiting database looking for this rare bird. Anyone out there have a good idea of where else to look?