Persitent Patient Parnoia

The recent trading software glitches has created a buzz about testing computer systems ( e.g. Knight loses $440 million).  I was fortunate to be trained at Accenture in proper system testing.  It was always a battle of cost benefit trying to convince clients on the proper way to assure a smooth conversion of a new computer system.  The potential business disruption, impact on employee confidence and acceptance, and even revenue loss factored into the risk of less testing.  There were unit tests, string tests, integration tests, user tests, volume tests, stress tests, and complete system tests to perform.

Obviously testing every logic path in a system is impossible (and not practical).  But only testing the most probable paths is equally not practical.  Many clients just wanted to use historical data to test the new system.  Typically this was the worst test methodology as it tested millions of transactions within one logic path instead of fabricating unique test data that would test thousands of logic paths once.

Susan has always commented on my intense skeptism and lack of confidence in so many things.  I think this comes from a career of testing and discovering system bugs. 

It takes patience, persistence, and partial paronoia.

Sleepy Sultry Summer

Congress is leaving town for a five week vacation. Back to School schedules are still four to five weeks away.  The lethargic feeling of heat weighs on both the physical and mental faculties.  Corporate decisions are difficult to implement with staffs at half mast and no wind available.  Traditionally everything in Europe stops while people vacation for the month.  Should we just write off August as a Rip Van Winkle month?

Source: Newsweek

Check out these dog days of August historical events - war, death, riots and hurricanes.  Clearly not a time to go to sleep.

Crazy Logic

S.S. was telling me one of his memorable stories about the early marriage years with his in laws.  He passed on some of his father's wisdom that he received during a difficult situation - "You can't reason with a crazy person". 

Melding two families together can be like mixing water with oil - a little surfactant is needed to make the blend work.  Culture and tradition are the ingredients of the wonderful diversity of human nature.  Just watching the  2012 Summer Olympic Athletes march into the  London stadium displayed the colorful garb of uniqueness of culture represented by each country. 

The United States is a great example of the melting pot mixture of culture and tradition.  The new "blend" of many demonstrates the power of mixing cultures together for over 200 years.

It's like our dogs - Bella and Fitch.  The product of a female Golden Retriever blend with (we think) a  black male Labrador/Pit Bull blend.  Their unique personality and appearance is loved by all. 

Clashing cultures can create crazy characters.  It is not reasonable to force your culture onto others - instead enjoy the mix. 

Sound's crazy - but it's logical.

Summer Olympic Job

I remember the Summer Olympics of 1976 very well since I got paid while watching the athletes compete. 

I was fortunate enough to receive an internship (the first awarded in Cincinnati) at Accenture.  There were three of us from Miami University that were assigned to a internal project to convert MACPAC (Accenture's manufacturing MRP package) from System 3 RPG to the IBM 360 environment.  The work involved inserting BAL subroutines for all the read and write commands in every program - a very mundane and redundant task. 

Since computer time was scarce, we were allowed on the client (Ilsco/Bardes) computer from 12 noon to 10pm.  Our Manager - G.V. had pity on us when we lamented that we would miss the Summer Olympic games.  So we were allowed to bring in a portable TV while we were key punching the subroutines, compiling and executing the tests. 

What a great Summer Olympic Job.

Memorable names included -  Romania Gymnast Nadia Comaneci; U.S. Decathlon Winner Bruce Jenner; and US Boxers Sugar Ray Leonard and Michael Spinks

Tree Wisdom

I received a lesson in ecological systems today from A.M. as we discussed the sad news he had delivered to me on Saturday night about the pending doom of the Ash trees in my forest subject to the activities of the emerald ash borer.

 "Yes, it will be expensive to cut down those ugly dead trees", I stated.  A.M. expression was obvious but needed probing: "I take it you are not in favor of cutting down old dead trees".

"Dead trees are like old people", A.M. replied.  "They are the biological capital critical to the long term health of the forest ecosystem" says George Wuerthner - "Praise the Dead: The ecological value of dead trees".

It all made sense - the habitat for forest creatures; snow fences; nutrients for ground; thermal protection for Marten; the list goes on.

Our forest is full of fallen trees.  In fact I have an area where I place all the collected debris.  Just the other day, I had mentioned to Susan we should remove that "eye sore".  With my new education in ecosystems, I can now say beauty is in the eye of the knowlegeable beholder.

Treebeard in the Lord of the Rings would be proud of my new found tree wisdom.

Follow Your Own Music

Keeping up with the Jones and the constant comparative and relative measuring of yourself is a human condition you can not avoid.  It is the safety and security of the "herd effect" similar to the reactive amydalae brain function that drives us to mimic the people we interact with, within our social demographic strata.  We listen, see and hear what they do - and we "follow the music".

As a teenager I had a black and white poster  in my room (I think Mom got it for me) that had a quote from Henry David Thoreau - "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

Add to that the lyrics of my favorite teenager 1968 song by Otis Redding - Dock of the Bay  and you begin to understand the music I followed. :)

"I can't do what ten people tell me to do .....
                              so I guess I'll remain the same"

No Secrets

If you are concerned about privacy - get over it.  There are no secrets in this data intensive world.  It hit me first when I being authorized at the bank as the Treasurer of the Indian Hill Boosters.  They asked if I had ever done business with them before.  I said no - but they found me on file with an old 1982 record of my Jeanie ATM card.   It happened again when I was in Las Vegas requesting a Members Reward card - they found a 1992 old rewards number from a prior visit. 

If you want to see how much information there is about you, just pay the $100 to get the internet search on yourself. The last credit report even showed the Hamden Ct. apartment I was in for only two months. 

At the Vistage all City meeting last week, a technical computer security geek gave the keynote address.  The tools he described that can monitor your cell phone and your computer were amazing.  He even mentioned the data collected (and maintained in the jpg file, on any picture taken of you (i.e. GPS coordinates).

So "What goes on in Vegas, " might not really "stay in Vegas"  ;)