Listen to music, look at photography, bicycles, or read ramblings below.
2020 World Listening Day
I finally got a chance to participate in World Listening Day. The year prior, a co-worker told me about it and organized a walk around Portland. I very much wanted to go, but had prior obligations. This year, I was able to make it! So, I invite you to go on a walk with me around downtown Portland during an epidemic.
This was recorded with a Zoom H6 with stereo X/Y mic with a dead cat, although it was particularly windy that day.
When you notice a teammate doing well, tell their manager
Inspired by a post I saw linked on pinboard, I wanted to share my story about why it’s important in larger organizations where you’re working with several interdependent teams that you recognize good work.
The team I’m working on at New Relic collaborates with several other teams. And it’s important that we work well together to deliver the best possible experience for our customers. If we don’t, it’s the customer that ultimately suffers. Part of working well together means giving feedback, both positive and not.
Here’s an example I wrote up for a person I collaborated with to deliver an awesome experience for our customers:
Hi Elaine. I know talent review is coming up soon and I wanted to pass along some positive feedback while working with Ben over the past few months.
On the Open Instrumentation Experience team, we needed Ben’s help to ensure a big part of our team’s launch deliverables. Throughout the process, I appreciated his communication and how, even though it wasn’t a part of his team’s deliverables, he treated it as if it were. Without his help, we likely wouldn’t have been able to ship in time and delight our customers with a first-class experience for open instrumented applications. Ben’s awesome!
If you would like more info here, let me know. Just wanted to pass along that little tidbit.
Not only did I tell Ben’s manager that he did a good job, I explained the what, the how, and what the impact was. It’s these little things that go a long way in improving the culture. It also one of those things that makes me feel good too.
I hope this inspires you to notice the good work and promote it to the people that may not have that perspective.
Good Bikes
After a good run, we let some bikes go to other homes.
I’m an admirer of good photography. And when I see beautiful pictures of bicycles, I often wonder if I could do the same. While these photos aren’t nearly the quality of pros out there, I am pretty happy with how they turned out and I think they helped when selling. If the picture looks good, you are more likely to get interested people.
Fairdale Archer Weekender
First up was Colleen’s second bike, a 2017 Fairdale Weekender. This was her first real commuter bike and it held up really well over 3 years and several hundred miles. A woman who was slightly taller than Colleen picked it up and it fit her perfectly. I think it was actually a little too large for Colleen.
Bianchi Pista Fixed Gear
This Bianchi Pista was my first real bike. Before this bike, I was graciously gifted a Raleigh touring frame that was about 8cm too large for me. When I found this frame and fork on craigslist, it had all the decals removed and it was the perfect size for me. At the time, fixed gear bikes were all the rage especially for me in Florida where most of the landscape is flat. It totally made sense then. Nowadays, I’m riding more mixed terrain and this bike didn’t see as much action. So, it was time to part. The downside, and a hard lesson for me to learn was that I ended up leaving this bike outside during a winter in our apartment on Overton where we didn’t have room to store it inside. So there were a few rust spots. The kind gentleman that picked it up didn’t seem to mind. And I actually ended up giving him a deal since he mentioned he was a restaurant worker that was out of work during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Farewell, good bikes!
These bicycles have been with us for a few years and they served us really well. We are happy that they are going to people who will breathe new life into them and give them more miles out on the roads.
Baraka
I watched Baraka again, but this time at Hollywood Theatre in Portland and in 70mm. I’m still blown away and even taken away by the scenes, the production quality, and the music. Nearly 30 years later, the film still holds up and probably will stand the test of time.
Baraka’s juxtapositions of old and new, poor and rich, fast and slow, big and small, regardless of when it was shot still has the same impact, or maybe more now that more time has passed. It’s impressive the director was able to achieve this.
There are no words (in the film). Ron Fricke leaves it up you as the viewer to make your own judgements about the world as its filmed. I appreciate films like this so much because it elicits feelings that the world is huge and complex (and doomed) but also so simple and happy at the same time. I found myself deeply moved and even contemplating things like vegetarianism, non-materialism, and religion.
As Roger Ebert says in his review of the film:
If man sends another Voyager to the distant stars and it can carry only one film on board, that film might be “Baraka.”
California Coast
I stumbled on this photo taken back in 2010 when Colleen and I drove from Florida to Oregon to start anew. The picture brings back wonderful memories as it was the first time in the trip that we reached the west coast. I remember the wind was quite strong that day.
Back to the Front-end
Web development is a long-lost friend of mine. I wanted to reflect on my journey, where I am today, and where I plan to go.
I started learning basic HTML and CSS way back in the late 90s when Netscape and IE were basically your only options. I had a lot of fun learning and eventually applying the skills I learned to help other people and businesses build their online presences.
As my career evolved however, I grew into more of a back-end developer thanks to Rails and its opinionated goodness. And then Python at Discogs. And then I made my way into management. This path took me further away from where I started originally which was ok at the time, but it took me while to realize how much I missed transposing designs into interactive web pages.
I’ve been less and less interested in reading about technical leadership and management and more interested in the modern day landscape of web design. Resources like HTML & CSS Is Hard and the Responsive Web Design Bootcamp have given me a boost in becoming familiar with modern web design. I’m amazed at how much has changed and how much easier some things are these days. But, I’m also overwhelmed by all the new technology and front-end related tools that are required; it’s not nearly as simple as creating a few HTML pages anymore.
To help with bringing myself back up to speed, I have been volunteering a few hours a week on helping a CEO bring her vision to life. What’s great about this opportunity is that there was a blank slate for the front-end, so I worked with my wife, who is a UX Designer by trade, to collaborate with the CEO and design the initial prototypes. Since I was working so closely with a UX Designer, I was able to iterate quickly and show the CEO proof-of-concepts in a short amount of time. It was this project that validated how much I missed web development especially when paried with a talented designer.
With this project, I have been able to learn a lot about React, webpack, and some of the newer-to-me parts of CSS like flexbox. I have had a blast doing so and I can’t wait to eventually land somewhere building intuitive and fresh interfaces.
You can see the work I’ve done by visiting Vino Voyage
Portland Bridge Pedal 2019
Over the weekend, Colleen and I completed the Fremont Express route for Portland’s 2019 Bridge Pedal. It was a blast! Just around 40 miles or so total, out and back. I took my Lilac Polyvalent and Colleen took her All-City Space Horse. I would do it again, but it was crowded in some parts, so I would rather opt for a more leisurely, country ride on some backroads with my camping gear with me.
Route
Here’s the route we took. This includes the ride to the starting point and back. It also includes a brunch stop off at Sweedeedee.
Birds in Gifford Pinchot
Camping in Gifford Pinchot, I awoke near dawn to the sound of a bird that I’m unfamiliar with and one I hadn’t heard before.
Hastily recorded with an iPhone XS.
Polyvalent Build
I’m building my own bike from parts! Not the actual frame, as some people thought. Also, I didn’t build the wheels this time. Jim at Gladys Bikes built them which I am super happy how they turned out. Thanks Jim!
I made several trips to Universal Cycles to pick up parts. I tried to do it all by bike.
I learned a lot throughout this process, like how to install a headset using a headset press (thanks Kenton Cycles!):
What was funny about this was at the time I did not have a car accessible to me. So I biked my frame up to the bike shop.
I was told that I should use some frame saver to prevent rust. The guy at Kenton cycles was nice enough to let me borrow a can since a little bit goes a long way.
I didn’t take too many photos of the build process, but here’s how it turned out!
Who is Ezra Caldwell?
If you aren’t familiar with Ezra Caldwell, he is most recently known (posthumously) for the bikes he fabricated.I remember seeing pictures on the late fffound of super clean, minimal, and beautifully built bicycles with wooden fenders and subsequently stumbled on Fast Boy Cycles. It was then that I became even more obsessed wih bikes and building my dream bike.
I started reading more about who Ezra is and learned that he also took amazing photographs and also had a stint in dancing. He unfortunately passed away from cancer in 2014. I still have some of the wooden fenders he made; they feel really special to me. His works (both bicycles and photography), his story, and his philosophy of life remain an inspiration to me today.
One of my favorite quotes from him is:
We remember pieces of history by the wars and the art.
You can find that quote in this interview from the Photographic Journal.
If you walk into a meeting and it isn’t clear who the owner
If you walk into a meeting and it isn’t clear who the owner is, feel free to leave and go do something more valuable for the company.
— Towards better meetings - Inside Intercom
“More valuable” is questionable here. Sure, if you have other priorities, go and work on them and don’t let me (or the meeting owner) waste anymore of your time. If there’s anything important that involves you, I’ll likely send you an email about it later.
I’ve been getting into radical candor lately and I think this is a good example of when being candid helps both parties.
Good teams engage directly with end-users and customers ever
Good teams engage directly with end-users and customers every week, to better understand their customers, and to see the customer’s response to their latest ideas. Bad teams think they are the customer.
— Good Product Team Bad Product Team
Yes! I agree so hard! This is something I wish we did more at Discogs.
Installing Ubuntu Linux on a Lenovo Yoga 11s
If you’re looking for a Linux laptop, I’d highly recommend the Lenovo Yoga 11s.
I picked up mine at a local Best Buy for $799. Here are the specs:
- Intel Ivybridge Core i5 Processor (1.5GHz) x 4 cores
- 4GB RAM
- 128GB SSD
- 11.6-inch (1366p x 768p) touch screen
- Multi-touch trackpad
I’d say it’s a pretty good deal, given the specs and the relative ease of getting Linux installed. Also, Ubuntu is already starting to take advantage of touch screens. While it’s not perfect yet, I think in time features should be improved making this an even better Linux laptop.
The build quality of the Yoga 11s is nice. I’m usually not impressed the look and feel of non-Apple laptops. A lot of the ones I’ve tried feel cheap and flimsy. The Yoga is for the most part plastic, but it’s done really well.
Getting Linux Installed on your Yoga 11s
Don’t let UEFI scare you if you’re new to it (I was). All you have to do is disable secure boot by hitting F2 at boot. After that, it’s much easier. Here are the steps I took:
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Resize your Windows partition by using the Disk Management tool in Windows. I halved it, so Windows and Linux are both using around 50GB.
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Download an Ubuntu iso and copy it to a USB stick*. You’ll need to use an application to do this. Since the Yoga 11s comes with Windows, I used a program called Rufus. It’s free and available here: http://rufus.akeo.ie/
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Reboot the Yoga and hold down F12 to get to the boot menu. You should see the USB stick as an option. Select that and it will boot up the Ubuntu installer.
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The rest should be pretty straightforward. Just follow the Ubuntu installer.
*Note: make sure you use a USB stick and not an SHDC card. This laptop will not boot from an SDHC card. I found this out the hard way after many hours trying to get it to boot.
Once you have Ubuntu installed, it should have set up a bootloader for you. Ubuntu will be the default to load upon boot. If you want to get back to Windows, simply press F12 at boot.
Wireless Woes
Wireless does not work out of the box, unfortunately. Getting it set up is, yes, easy. Here’s how:
- Using a computer with an internet connection, download this file https://github.com/lwfinger/rtl8723au/archive/master.zip and put it on the USB stick you used for your Ubuntu install.
- Boot up Ubuntu and copy the zip file over. Unzip it and then open up a terminal.
cdin to the rtl8723au directory and then type:make- Once compiling is done, type:
make install - Reboot and then use the wifi icon in the system tray to select your network.
If this doesn’t work for you, try updating your kernel to 3.8 or 3.9.
Happy Linuxing!
Success Installing Ubuntu 13.04 with a Lenovo Yoga 11s
I spent an entire weekend installing Linux on my Lenovo Yoga 11s. I could’ve halved that time if I had just bit the bullet and installed Ubuntu. But, I had to first try Arch (kinda the reason I wanted to get a Linux laptop in the first place), then when the realtek wifi drivers wouldn’t work, I tried debian and then the drivers still didn’t work so I just went with Ubuntu and compiled drivers from https://github.com/lwfinger/rtl8723au
The touchscreen stuff isn’t quite there yet. Touching the screen acts just like using the cursor. So, it’s pretty difficult to touch some areas since it’s so precise.
This laptop is still really new so the info is a little scarce. I think the Yoga 11s has similar hardware to the Yoga 13, so most posts on the Yoga 13 should apply to the 11s.
Oh, and I LOVE this laptop. It’s so light and portable. My first impressions with the battery are average. I’d say I got a good solid 4 hours compiling, browsing, etc. Need to do more testing to see how long it lasts while idle or just with light usage.
Wes Rogers — Mithrian (A Minor, Minor Threat Remix)
Drums, bass and vocals (Ian Mackaye) are sampled from various songs from Minor Threat’s Complete Discography.
Originally recorded on April 24, 2004.
Mithrian (A Minor, Minor Threat Remix)
Drums, bass and vocals (Ian Mackaye) are sampled from various songs from Minor Threat’s Complete Discography.
Originally recorded on April 24, 2004.
My bliss:
My bliss:
Streaming my home library from anywhere is pretty much the best thing ever.
nanoloop fun
Just messing around with nanoloop on the iPhone.
Thought #986235
One day, OSes like Windows and Mac OS will be viewed as “advanced operating systems” once Chromebook and look-a-likes hit the streets.