Brain Dumps

Pimp My Architecture

Pimp my Architecture

There were a bunch of great presentations over at InfoQ last week. My personal favorite is Dan North’s Pimp My Architecture, a story of how he rescued a (possibly hypothetical) project from being a “shanty town”.

It’s a bit high level so you won’t be able to get some concrete steps from it, but project managers and tech leads would probably get some good tips along the way.

Learning Proverb

There’s an old Chinese Proverb that everybody knows:

I hear and I forget;
I see and I remember;
I do and I understand.

I find that that proverb still lacks another item:

I teach and I master.

There are some reasons why teaching can help one in achieving mastery in one’s craft. First is that it requires a certain level of skill in the craft before you can even start teaching. Another is that students rarely follow the same lines of thought as the teacher, and in doing so exposes the teacher to scenarios that they never have experienced before.

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Of course this doesn’t mean that everyone who teaches are masters of their craft. There are teachers who continuously teach outdated or incorrect information to their students.

Don’t be like them; continuous learning should always be part of your lifestyle.

What the Wealthy Buy on Pay Day

Ignoring for a moment that this video comes from an MLM guy and that I hate MLMs with a passion, the following video is a must-watch in my book.

Edit: the video was taken down. -_-

Anyway, here’s the gist of things:

Poor people waste their money on inexpensive but useless stuff. In the Philippine context, that might be cigarettes or cellphone load.
The middle class are worse off: they spend money on stuff that drains them of money. Houses, cars, spending on credit but just paying the minimum per month, etc. Most of them only appear to be rich, but in reality they don’t have any accumulated wealth.
The wealthy spend money on stuff that gives them money: investing on stocks, building businesses, etc. They actually avoid buying what the things the so-called “rich” people buy because they know it can jeopardize their financial independence.

It’s nothing new if you’ve read a couple of good financial management books. The good part about the video is it’s short enough to share to “busy” friends.

Grading Eggs and Tomatoes

Here’s a lesson I picked up from a presentation I watched yesterday:

In the US, eggs are graded by the USDA as AA, A, and B grade eggs. Most consumers don’t know what these grades mean.

Curious folks could easily figure that one out by going to Wikipedia:

U.S. Grade AA eggs have whites that are thick and firm; yolks that are high, round, and practically free from defects; and clean, unbroken shells. Grade AA and Grade A eggs are best for frying and poaching where appearance is important.

U.S. Grade A eggs have characteristics of Grade AA eggs except that the whites are “reasonably” firm. This is the quality most often sold in stores.

U.S. Grade B eggs have whites that may be thinner and yolks that may be wider and flatter than eggs of higher grades. The shells must be unbroken, but may show slight stains. This quality is seldom found in retail stores because they are usually used to make liquid, frozen, and dried egg products, as well as other egg-containing products.

When you think about it, these grades don’t really matter to consumers. All of them are perfectly edible. Very few people will notice the difference after they’re cooked. For most consumers, what matters more is the size of the egg and the freshness of the egg.

Another similar example is the grading of tomatoes. The USDA grades tomatoes by their color and their appearance.

The problem with this is that this metric won’t work on heirloom tomatoes (what some might argue as superior to typical tomatoes).

Also, this metric doesn’t state whether the tomato has a crap load of pesticides/fertilizers on it that would help it achieve that level of color and appearance.

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Now think of metrics used in your company: are they really relevant? or are they just there to provide a false sense of security?

Value

I could go out tomorrow and buy a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate; even though I am unemployed, I have enough money in the bank and credit in my credit cards to make the ~11k purchase look negligible.

But I won’t.

Because it won’t give me any value.

I have Windows 7 RC 1 running on my rig for months now and it has been working fine for me so far. The only reason I’ll need to upgrade is when the nagging screens start to pop up at March. Until then, I doubt that there would be problems sticking with this current installation.

Now think what I could do with 11-13k:

books that could boost my knowledge
games that could give me a break from the boredom of studying
exercise gear that could convince me to start working out again
office supplies that can help me organize my room/workspace
visits to coffee shops whose ~~pretentious~~ environments could provide me sparks of creativity

Note that “buying new clothes” and “going out of town” isn’t on the list. Those things might provide value for you, but they definitely won’t work for me.

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I’ll just get a copy of Windows 7 once I get some disposable income or when February rolls in, whichever comes first.