My son made it on the KAC Bronco Tournament Team. Yay!!!
The team will be playing in a qualifying tournament next month and if they are in the top 4, they get to play in the state tournament in Kauai. The winner then advances to the mainland to play in other regional tournaments and then the Pony World Series.
I'm not sure how far this team will go, but it's great working with the kids. The coaching staff is really good this year and the kids are learning a lot and getting a feel of what it's like to compete for a position.
My son was the starting second baseman for his regular season team. He also played pretty well in the outfield, blocked the ball really well as catcher, and pitched the closing inning in a lot of games. On the Tournament Team, he is one of the younger players and may not see as much playing time. I've been talking to him all season long about working on his game. Now that he is on a team of really good players, I can finally see it sinking in. He is finally realizing that he needs to practice hard and work on things to get better.
He may or may not get the playing time. But I think the lessons that he is learning is worth more in the long run. Work hard, care about what you are doing, and improve something every day.......KAIZEN
Friday, May 16, 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Finding Answers
I've come to realize that the ability to find answers is a skill. I always thought it was something that everyone did about the same, but a couple of recent events have shown me that people have different ability levels when it comes to finding answers. (And when I say finding answers, I'm basically talking about Googling for an answer)
You would think that since everyone has access to the same Google, that answers/solution finding would be about the same, no matter who did the searching. But that is not always the case.
Event 1: A person that I work(ed) with occasionally (often) asks me for help solving a problem. Most of the times, I find the answer with the first Google search. I'm not trying to make myself sound like a Google-savant but it usually isn't that hard. Sometimes it would be a couple of searches, but basically the answer was there. I just chalked it up to that person being lazy.
Event 2: I recently became a ChaCha seach guide. When you research answers to questions, you get to see a log of prior questions and answers. Some of the answers don't seem to have as much substance as others. A lot of times, the client would ask the question again and you can see the different quality levels of the answers.
So then it dawned on me. Maybe the ability to find answers on the web is not the same in all people. I'm not sure what the difference is. It could be different levels of curiosity or persistence. Or maybe the ability to think a bit out of the box and trying different types of search terms when the first, obvious ones, don't give you the answer that seems right.
In any case, I think that as more and more information is available on the Web. Being able to filter through the data to find what you want is a skill that is very valuable.
You would think that since everyone has access to the same Google, that answers/solution finding would be about the same, no matter who did the searching. But that is not always the case.
Event 1: A person that I work(ed) with occasionally (often) asks me for help solving a problem. Most of the times, I find the answer with the first Google search. I'm not trying to make myself sound like a Google-savant but it usually isn't that hard. Sometimes it would be a couple of searches, but basically the answer was there. I just chalked it up to that person being lazy.
Event 2: I recently became a ChaCha seach guide. When you research answers to questions, you get to see a log of prior questions and answers. Some of the answers don't seem to have as much substance as others. A lot of times, the client would ask the question again and you can see the different quality levels of the answers.
So then it dawned on me. Maybe the ability to find answers on the web is not the same in all people. I'm not sure what the difference is. It could be different levels of curiosity or persistence. Or maybe the ability to think a bit out of the box and trying different types of search terms when the first, obvious ones, don't give you the answer that seems right.
In any case, I think that as more and more information is available on the Web. Being able to filter through the data to find what you want is a skill that is very valuable.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
ChaCha guide: Day 1
I was accepted as a ChaCha guide.
My first task was to complete a set of 15 sample questions, which I passed. These were questions that were fairly straight forward. Things like the score of a baseball game, some simple facts, and some history type questions. These questions were ones that I was thinking that I would be getting when I really started.
So after passing those samples, I was ready to start for real. I was really looking forward to it. I read a couple of comments that mentioned that a lot of the questions were pranks, but I still felt that I would be helping the search community and it would be fun.
My first question: 13 hoopers
?? WTF ?? I actually spent 20 minutes trying to figure out what that was. No luck.....I was a search failure.....this sucks.
My next couple of questions were asking about people. Not famous people...just regular Joes. I found one of them but not the other. At this point I was feeling not to good about this. Finally after 5 more questions, they started to get better. "Who is better Chris Paul or Deron Williams?", "Who is the Seattle Mariners franchise leader in home runs?", "How did they create Alloys back in the old days?"
It got to be fun and I learned a thing or two....and on top of that, I've earned a whopping $2.40.
I'm going to keep going with this. It's a great way to relax between coding and a nice way to end the day.
My first task was to complete a set of 15 sample questions, which I passed. These were questions that were fairly straight forward. Things like the score of a baseball game, some simple facts, and some history type questions. These questions were ones that I was thinking that I would be getting when I really started.
So after passing those samples, I was ready to start for real. I was really looking forward to it. I read a couple of comments that mentioned that a lot of the questions were pranks, but I still felt that I would be helping the search community and it would be fun.
My first question: 13 hoopers
?? WTF ?? I actually spent 20 minutes trying to figure out what that was. No luck.....I was a search failure.....this sucks.
My next couple of questions were asking about people. Not famous people...just regular Joes. I found one of them but not the other. At this point I was feeling not to good about this. Finally after 5 more questions, they started to get better. "Who is better Chris Paul or Deron Williams?", "Who is the Seattle Mariners franchise leader in home runs?", "How did they create Alloys back in the old days?"
It got to be fun and I learned a thing or two....and on top of that, I've earned a whopping $2.40.
I'm going to keep going with this. It's a great way to relax between coding and a nice way to end the day.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Human Powered Search
I really think that putting a human in the loop can improve the quality of search results. For example, I think that Mahalo seemed like a really good idea. I even signed up to be a guide on Mahalo. A guide basically compiles the search result page for a particular search query. I was rejected, but that's besides the point. The good thing about Mahalo is that you get results that have up to date information, the bad thing is that if the search string that you input has not been created by a guide, you won't get any results. For example, if you enter Java, you get a nice page with general Java information. If you enter Java String, you get some results on String Theory and some Google search results.
I also have recently found ChaCha, which is not really a search tool but more of an information tool. You send a text message from your phone with a question and a real human does the research and sends you back an answer along with a page link to the information source. I signed up to be guide at ChaCha as well....and I was accepted. Right now I'm in the final phases of getting setup but it should be any day now. If you want to try it out, text to 242242 and send in a question. I think it's free right now. There is also an 800 number where you can verbally submit your question (1-800-2ChaCha).
I also have recently found ChaCha, which is not really a search tool but more of an information tool. You send a text message from your phone with a question and a real human does the research and sends you back an answer along with a page link to the information source. I signed up to be guide at ChaCha as well....and I was accepted. Right now I'm in the final phases of getting setup but it should be any day now. If you want to try it out, text to 242242 and send in a question. I think it's free right now. There is also an 800 number where you can verbally submit your question (1-800-2ChaCha).
Monday, April 28, 2008
Science Schmience
I know for the most part that science is not exact. You need to gather facts and come to conclusions based on those facts and that it's sometimes just a series of educated guesses. And I have no problem with that, especially when these "conclusions" are fully disclosed and backed up. But sometimes, studies can be just complete non-sense.
Case in point, this article that links breakfast cereal to the sex of your baby. Come on.
The survey pool was 740 first-time mothers, of which 56% had a boy if they consumed a high calorie diet. From this, the "scientist" further drilled down to breakfast and then to breakfast cereal. Now really.....I think that's pretty close to 50-50 in a fairly small sampling.
I do realize that 6% in the larger scheme of things is fairly significant, but where'd they get breakfast cereal? And what about other factors? What about just plain old dumb luck?
And now that I'm completely into this rant.....I think scientist that release these studies should be held accountable for them. If their findings are disproved later, they should rack up one in the Loss column....or something.
I'll wrap this up by saying that my comments are not based in fact either. The study may be completely correct and I have no proof that says that this is not the case. I just find it rather disturbing at how some things are stated like they are truths rather than the educated guesses that they are.
Case in point, this article that links breakfast cereal to the sex of your baby. Come on.
The survey pool was 740 first-time mothers, of which 56% had a boy if they consumed a high calorie diet. From this, the "scientist" further drilled down to breakfast and then to breakfast cereal. Now really.....I think that's pretty close to 50-50 in a fairly small sampling.
I do realize that 6% in the larger scheme of things is fairly significant, but where'd they get breakfast cereal? And what about other factors? What about just plain old dumb luck?
And now that I'm completely into this rant.....I think scientist that release these studies should be held accountable for them. If their findings are disproved later, they should rack up one in the Loss column....or something.
I'll wrap this up by saying that my comments are not based in fact either. The study may be completely correct and I have no proof that says that this is not the case. I just find it rather disturbing at how some things are stated like they are truths rather than the educated guesses that they are.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Baseball Website
I created a website for my son's baseball team. Used Google pages to create/host the website. I learned a couple of things while I did this.
1) Google is pretty cool. The Google page creator is really easy to use and it allows you to do a lot of things....much more than I was expecting.
2) I should have used CSS to make formatting changes easier.
3) Compiling baseball stats is not as easy as you would think.
Anyway, here is the site if you are interested in checking it out.
1) Google is pretty cool. The Google page creator is really easy to use and it allows you to do a lot of things....much more than I was expecting.
2) I should have used CSS to make formatting changes easier.
3) Compiling baseball stats is not as easy as you would think.
Anyway, here is the site if you are interested in checking it out.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
What's A Database Layer Good For?
I've spent the past couple of days refactoring my database schema. Nothing really major, just removing a categorization layer to make it less complex. It was determined that the extra layer would not be needed. I would have just left it but it wasn't my call. We also modified some table and field names to keep things consistent.
My manager seemed rather shocked that this change would entail changes in the database layer all the way to the UI. He seemed to think that having a database code layer would protect you from these changes and isolate the code that needs to be modified.
But in fact a database layer does not necessarily do this. If there is a new field, for example, that a user needs to supply data for, or in this case an entire table that does not need to be supported. The field needs to be added to the UI and then it needs to be processed and passed to the database layer. Therefore all aspects of the code that deal with this data need to be modified.
A database layer IS very useful and should be used when dealing with anything but very simple database table structures. It gives you the ability to isolate database functionality by hiding the database specific stuff from the rest of your code. These include things like connecting to the database, transaction handling, mapping object data to table fields, and other functions that deal directly with the database. Most of these changes can be easily modified without impacting other sections of your code.
Just make sure that everyone on your team, especially managers and project planners understand what you mean when you say you are implementing a Database Layer and that they know how certain changes to the database will impact the code.
My manager seemed rather shocked that this change would entail changes in the database layer all the way to the UI. He seemed to think that having a database code layer would protect you from these changes and isolate the code that needs to be modified.
But in fact a database layer does not necessarily do this. If there is a new field, for example, that a user needs to supply data for, or in this case an entire table that does not need to be supported. The field needs to be added to the UI and then it needs to be processed and passed to the database layer. Therefore all aspects of the code that deal with this data need to be modified.
A database layer IS very useful and should be used when dealing with anything but very simple database table structures. It gives you the ability to isolate database functionality by hiding the database specific stuff from the rest of your code. These include things like connecting to the database, transaction handling, mapping object data to table fields, and other functions that deal directly with the database. Most of these changes can be easily modified without impacting other sections of your code.
Just make sure that everyone on your team, especially managers and project planners understand what you mean when you say you are implementing a Database Layer and that they know how certain changes to the database will impact the code.
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