The Freezing-Thawing Humber River

Outside of leaves turning, I haven't lived close enough to nature to see much of the change that comes with seasons. We often walk past the Humber River, which the weather managed to turn into chaos toward the end of February. I had never seen anything like it.

Three weeks later, it started to look more like a river.

These images left me thinking about how much timing matters. If you had to get from one end of the river to another, forcing your way through the conditions in the first picture would take hours of exhausting labor. If you waited for the conditions of the second picture, you could flow through the river effortlessly in minutes.

FitBit

I bought a FitBit three months ago. If you haven't heard of it, it's a lot like a pedometer with some important improvements:

1. It tracks the quality of your sleep
2. It pulls together your activity on a timeline
3. It lets you cheer and taunt friends

I haven't been doing all that well with my goal of 10,000 steps so far. In fact, I had only hit it once through yesterday. I'm chalking that up to some combination of little daylight, harsh weather, and having an office job. Some would chalk it up to the device being little more than a gimmick.

Tonight I checked my progress, saw that I was close, and headed out into the slushy, cold streets one more time for a 15 minute walk. Just enough time to hit my goal. If that doesn't mean this is working, I'm not sure what does.

A Good Commute

I seem to have an endless supply of energy for shows about fixer uppers, moving to Hawaii, and deciding to love it or list it. Every now and then, particularly when the weather is why-did-I-ever-leave-San-Francisco bad, we load up Zillow and begin peering at houses around various cities. One lesson I've learned over and over again is that one person's bad commute is another person's normal commute.

For example, this is from the well-designed move-to-austin.com site about the nearby Round Rock:

The commute can be AWFUL. See if you can avoid driving to and from Austin on I-35 every day.

I dug a little deeper, which was easy with the estimated commute times map. The commute to Round Rock during rush hour is estimated between 45 and 75 minutes. If you're a suburbanite, this is clearly an awful commute. Here's some anecdotal data:

• My dad's commute was about 15 minutes (six miles)
• My mom's commute is about 15 minutes (six miles; different place)
• My girlfriend's dad's commute is about five minutes (two miles)

My story has been far different. Since heading to Chicago in late 2008, I have rarely seen a 15-minute commute to work.

• Chicago #1: 40 minutes L train (six miles)
• Chicago #2: 40 minutes express bus; 60 minutes regular bus (five miles)
• Little Rock: 20 minutes car (eight miles)
• San Francisco: 50 minutes muni; 25 minutes bicycle (four miles)
• Toronto: 50 minutes TTC; 35 minutes car (seven miles)

From these experiences, my idea of the perfect commute is 20 minutes by bicycle.

What's a good commute? What's an awful commute?

Toronto Snowman

Stop It, a photo by sghill on Flickr.

Today we built a snowman!

It had been a long, long time since I last built a snowman. Balki fought us every step of the way, but we were able to distract him just enough to get it finished.

Happy holidays!

The Rules of Software Development

Last year I was working at a large enterprise. Over the summer we had an intern join us, who I couldn't help but show the ropes. We managed to cover several rules of software development in just a few months. After the internship wrapped up, he was nice enough to forward the notes he took while on our team:

  1. Follow your heart
  2. Never volunteer for meetings, because then you become "The Guy"
  7. If all else fails, ask your neighbor
  9. If it's final, then it should be final
 13. Decision trees
 16. Always favor something that saves you 45 seconds
 22. Assertions should assert on something
 52. Monkey patching is for the zookeeper
 72. Always try to work in a place where there are palm trees
 82. Kernel panic is rarely good
 86. If you ever see a cool test, run!
 94. It's all slashes these days
 97. Agile doesn't work if you just hear things
186. Always use an attached keyboard
763. We were talking about splitting purchase orders, 
     they were talking about revision history, 
     now they're talking about splitting purchase orders 
     with revision history, and that's why agile works!

All the best, Michael! This advice will carry you far.

GiftIdea! 1.1.0

After shipping GiftIdea! on the Play Store last week, we were excited. For good reason too; without any prompting, we've received three 5-star reviews from our nine users. I'm optimistic, especially considering we're only available to about 2/3 of the Androids out there.

A number of folks asked if this would run on the iPhone or if an iPhone version is coming. There aren't currently plans for that. The idea is produce a high-quality Android app, while learning and sharing all the great lessons that I'm sure will come with it.

There are a handful of things on the table for future releases, but we're starting with two small, visible changes:

1. Recipients now show the number of active gift ideas
2. Editing an idea has different "hint" text

Under the hood there were 28 changes from the last release.

Happy Gifting!

GiftIdea! 1.0.0

Yesterday, I released a simple app called GiftIdea! to Google Play for Android 4.0+ phones. This is a lot more monumental than it might seem, because the vague goal of "releasing an app" has been on my radar for a while now.

For about five years I've had the goal of getting an app into the App Store. Originally that was for the iPhone, but for one reason or another, I never could actually get something in a final-enough state to call it released. There are always reasons not to do something, as it turns out.

I think the real problem is in viewing things as "finished." This release of GiftIdea! surely isn't everything an app could be; but it is a nice simple way to keep track of gift ideas for people, which is exactly what I was after. And while I tested it on a handful of phones, there are surely quirks that we can work out together over time.

I can't say thanks enough to +Ginger DePriest for early feedback and running through the feature set on several phones.

GiftIdea! 1.0.0 Icon

Idea: AutoZen

My dad cared about maintenance. Not just of his car, but just about every car he could keep tabs on. I'm the same way, and thinking about making a simple tool to make this easier.

A rough prototype of the 4 pages is below (or at gomockingbird). Any feedback is welcome, either in the comments or by email.

Landing Page

The landing page should answer the questions "Why?" and "How much?" as well as addressing the risk of putting data into a new service. If you can export the data right away, there is little risk of losing your work.

Home Page

I want the home page to give me an idea of what should be coming up, and easily let me record what I've done. The fewer clicks, the better. 

The estimate of what the service will cost is based on previous data. In my experience "How much is it?" is always the first question someone has about oil changes, and it's helpful to be able to know this right away.

Cars

Just a simple place to see the history of each car. It should be easy to print off a copy when trading-in or selling to private party. Detailed auto records often fetch much higher prices for used cars, and the system can do this for us easily.

 

Add a Car

Eventually, the details of the car can pull a recommended maintenance schedule, useful for creating reminders on the home page.

MegaCorp Risk

When signing up for a service with startups, you have to decide if the risk they'll be around in a year is worth it. With MegaCorps, you have to decide if the risk they'll cost you several hours a month on the phone is worth it.

I'm on hold with Bell Canada as I write this. Fed up with the way Rogers Cable Internet seems to go out for hours a week during prime Netflix time, I walked down the street on June 17 to switch my internet provider. They promptly signed me up and sent me on my way, informing me the modem would be in the mail and someone would be out to activate my line on June 19. The line went active as planned.

The modem didn't arrive. I called in, they called back. I finally ended up with a tracking number, which said it had failed to deliver for several days in a row. Someone at Bell suggested I go to the delivery distribution center to pick up the modem -- 30 minutes away by car, and only during business hours. Terrible customer service for a place that has a retail store no more than a ten minute walk from my place.

I knew I didn't want the service anymore. I called Bell proactively to cancel and was marched through a half-dozen cycles of being put on hold and transferred to another department. Finally I was told that if I didn't use the service, I wouldn't be billed. Sounded like nonsense, but after 45 minutes on the phone I was looking for any excuse to hang up.

Another bill came. I now owed $102 for a service I had never received and didn't want in the first place. I called again, went through the same holds and transfers, and ended up talking to a sales guy who just wanted to know "what [he] had to do to keep my contract going?" Reluctantly, he agreed to cancel the service, saying it would be canceled within the week.

The next month another bill showed up. I now owed $145 for a service I didn't want, had never used, and would never use. Calmly, I picked up the phone and informed the representative I had been wrongly charged, would not be paying, and wanted no further phone calls on the matter. She responded by saying that next a collection agency would be coming for me, all while agreeing it was ridiculous I owed so much money for something I never received.

Finally, after two more transfers I landed with the first competent, helpful person in the organization. After 38 minutes on the phone this time the account was actually canceled, and the balance was returned to zero before I hung up.

I prefer small- and medium-sized businesses.

Lockport Cave

I had never actually seen a firehose attached to a hydrant until we pulled up to the Lockport Cave in Lockport, New York. Thick black smoke filled the sky and seemed to get closer with every turn Google Maps told us to take. The smoke was coming from an old building directly across the street from the caves, but we had no trouble signing up for the last tour of the day at 4:00.

15 minutes later, we got some bad news: potential arsonists had the police asking the Lockport Cave operator to refund the money for the 4:00 tour. With the structure of a nearby railroad bridge in danger, and the thread of changing winds blowing smoke into all of our faces, the last tour of the day wasn't going to happen.

We did get to take a self-guided walking tour of the locks along the Erie Canal. Balki and Ginger graciously put up with me recalling one part of Low Bridge on an almost infinite loop:

I've got a mule and her name is Sal
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal
She's a good old worker and a good old pal
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal

While walking the enormous locks we saw Miss Jenny Lynn and another small boat go through. The wait time for a lock to fill up is long enough that I could ask the boaters a few questions. Apparently, they head out a few times a year on a season pass to get through all the locks, and you don't need to have appointments ahead of time. If you're looking to rent a boat for the weekend, a 2-day pass is also available.

We also talked to the the lock operator. He is now working 11 hours per day, typically running 15 boats through in that time. Some of the boats get up to 50 feet, but usually anything over that will run into height issues with the bridges along the canal. It's mostly tourists and vacationers now, not too many barges of iron ore these days.

As we were leaving, we noticed a cutout. We can't resist cutouts.

More on flickr.

Toronto Transit: 3 Things

I moved to Toronto half a year ago. This month, I learned some important things about the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).

1. Preorder monthly passes at a discount

TTC offers a Metropass Discount Program. If you sign up for a year in advance, you can get each monthly pass mailed to your home for $117.75 per month. The pass shows up more than a week in advance and is $10.75 less than buying it at the station.

2. Deduct the cost of a Metropass from your taxes

On the back of each card is a place for the cardholder to sign. Depending on your tax situation, it's possible you can deduct the amount of the pass. You must keep the cards from every month to do this.

3. Work may only cover part of it

Many companies have a transit benefit that is capped at a certain amount of dollars. In cities with lower cost transit, it generally covers an entire month. With Toronto's $128.50 monthly fee, only a part of it will be covered.

Michigan Should Create a Prize for a Working Animal Abuser Registry

Michigan was marching toward becoming the first state with a registry of animal abusers, much like the registry of sex offenders. Those plans are now canceled, for reasons that surprise no one.

the proposed registry has run into resistance from state police officials and others who fear it would be expensive and cumbersome

Instead, Republican Senator Rick Jones and Democratic Senator Steve Bieda are co-sponsoring a bill that requires breeders to pay $10 for Michigan-only background checks, and animal shelters to run free background checks. Why? A quote from Sen. Jones in the linked article (emphasis mine):

It's a start. Would I like it to be in law that no breeder or pet store would sell animals to someone who had been convicted? Absolutely. But we're looking for something we can get passed, and I think this is a good step,

We hear this constantly in software consulting. A good solution is identified and estimated only to discover the solution costs too much. The right next move is to find a way that gets you to the right solution for a lower cost, usually incrementally. Often, the next move is like what's quoted above -- finish something, anything, whether or not it accomplishes the goal, so we can say we finished something.

If we want a registry by the end of the year, let's put out a prize for a working registry by the end of the year. Make the prize $100,000; a reward high enough that I'd start working tonight, and lower than any piece of current government software. End the contest on November 30 and take two weeks to select the best application, in public. Every submission must be an open source web application.

By January 2014, we'll have a registry running. It worked for the railroads.

Little Things

Small, pleasant surprises are hard to come by. I think it's the small things that build loyalty.

My first car was a 1995 GMC Sonoma. This was one of the first cars with factory-installed keyless entry, and my dad had to order it from the dealer to get the option. It was a nice convenience, but unless you were close enough to hear the mechanical locks move, you had no way of knowing anything happened. The range decreased to almost nothing as the car aged, making sure you'd always be in earshot of the locks. Still, an unlock sounded almost exactly the same as a lock -- which meant one could never be confident the doors were locked without trying the handle.

There have been lots of cars floating through the family over the years. My grandfather has a Chevy Equinox, designed more than a decade after the Sonoma. My mom and sister both have Honda Civics from the 2010's. All three give a friendly beep when locking the car from the remote. But they're all missing something I never would have noticed without my car.

Now, I have a 2004 Volkswagen GTi. It was made in 2004, but the design dates back to 1997, making it almost as old as that first truck I had. It has keyless entry, too, but it gives me a reassuring beep every time I close it. The range hasn't seemed to decrease at all, despite being 9 years old. And my favorite part? I can open the hatch, hit the lock button, grab something with one arm, close the hatch with the other, and hear a reassuring beep -- it remembered my request to lock the car, and told me when it was done.

Newly understanding just how much the little things matter, I'm thinking about how to build these niceties into everything I make.

Olympia Arena Proposal

I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might [work], but... but it might work for us.

— Tobias Fünke

Ilitch and the Red Wings have announced plans to build a new $650MM arena in the sports and entertainment district. Over half would be privately funded, but a staggering $283MM would come from public funds.

The arguments for building the arena covered the usual areas: 

1. 8,300 new jobs
2. economic growth of $1B to $1.8B
3. no new taxes

Forgetting for a moment that the state's outstanding debt actually increased over the last year and there isn't $283MM sitting around, let's dig a little deeper.

Jobs

Jobs are very important; particularly in a place that has had an unemployment rate over the national average for more than the past decade. When you start throwing around 8,300 jobs in an environment like this, people are going to listen. Unfortunately, finding how anyone came to that number is a well-hidden secret.

The broader question is how do you rebuild an economy? Is it through temporary construction jobs? Is it through the retail jobs this space will provide? Or is it through creating the kind of export-worthy products and services that this kind of development could only potentially fuel through its office space?

Economic Growth

Stadiums have been built before. Lots of them. They don't perform well:

So, building a new arena doesn't seem to have any effect on a city's employment, per capita income, hotel occupancy rates, [or] taxable sales.

— Armina Ligaya quoting Victor Matheson, CBC News 

Glendale [Arizona] is...on the hook for...a $12 million annual debt payment for construction of its arena.

— Pat Garofalo and Travis Waldron, The Atlantic

Evidence that publicly financed stadiums generate significant economic development is shaky, particularly when the stadium houses an existing team rather than one new to the city.

— The Economist

If the state is really struggling to figure out how to spend $283MM, perhaps they should look to Chile's successful startup program. Investing $100,000 each, the state could fund a staggering 2,830 startups. Many would fail, but some businesses would be creating those export-worthy products and services that grow an economy.

The Joe

So, what then, becomes of Joe Louis? The Detroit News says its fate is unclear. Frightening words for anyone who remembers what became of the Silverdome.

The Silverdome was constructed for $238MM in 2013 dollars in 1975. Its most important tenant, the Detroit Lions, left in 2006. After the Lions departure, it cost the city of Pontiac $1.5MM in annual upkeep. The Silverdome was finally unloaded in 2010 for the rock bottom price of $583,000.

Fans

Hockey fans were excited Wednesday by what they feel is a long-overdue improvement.

— Louis Aguilar, The Detroit News

If the fans are excited, and it's actually a profitable venture, there should be plenty of private-sector financing for arena-building. As a fan who goes back to the Wings-Avs rivalry, I might even be willing to chip in. I'd do 50% over market for two tickets to a game any time in the first year.

But who knows? It didn't work for Montreal, Glendale, Bridgeview, Cincinnatti, Miami, and more, but it might work for Detroit.

Balki's First Summer

Balki is a huge fan of Winter. Two months back, we headed toward Montreal and found the last snow of the season.

Recently, we've started passing the 80°F mark. This is now a common scene in the living room —

That pad he's on is just-out-of-the-freezer cold¹, and the fan is spinning as fast as it can. As my Grandpa says, "That dog sure knows how to live comfortable."

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1. My girlfriend made that. You can find The SnugglePad at ruffelstiltskin.com

Experiment 2: Button-Activated Light

More than six months after our first Arduino experiment, we're back at it with a simple light and a button. The end goal of these experiments is something like a button-activated puppy feeder. Here's the setup —

It's pretty simple: hit the button and the light turns on.

Great! But does the button work with the puppy?

This is going to be fun.

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Big Dome Push Button by sparkfun

Arduino Uno

Balki

Balki Turns 9 Weeks!

It's been a busy couple of weeks for Balki.

He helped us unpack into a storage unit when our first apartment fell through.

He battled deep footprints in the Toronto snow.

He learned how to do stairs on the most terrifying flight there is.

And he was exhausted after moving into our new place.

It's a shame the store didn't have any big bones.

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Of course there's more!

Slightly Different: Credit Cards

I've been using credit cards in the US for almost a decade now. I'm familiar with cash back cards, mileage cards, and why some people refuse to use cards. But that's not why you rang — we're not here for the pros or cons of what amounts to a personal decision. We're here to find out how credit cards are slightly different in Canada than the US.

The Smart Card

Oh sure, your US-based credit card will swipe just fine at most every store in the Greater Toronto Area, but you'll be about the only person around swiping a card. Most cards here have a smart card on them for the Interac network, and instead of being swiped, they're inserted into the bottom of the machine.

Interac PIN Terminal by reinvented on flickr

The Transaction Is Yours

For years I've heard fears voiced at restaurants when a server takes a credit card to the register that "You just don't know what he or she is doing with it!" Apparently having the same distrust, but acting upon it, servers typically bring the terminal to you. Comically, the terminal comes to you in drive thrus as well, right out into the elements on a long cord.

Chancellor Ruffelstiltskin T. Balkonovich, Esq.

Great news! I've got a puppy.

He was born on December 26th, 2012. When we got Balki a few days ago, he was almost 7 weeks old. He's a lab/shepard mix who goes by the name "Chancellor Ruffelstiltskin T. Balkonovich, Esquire" or nickname "Balki"

FAQ

• You mean like Balki from Perfect Strangers? Yes!
• Do you like him? Yes!
• Are you and your girlfriend in some sort of Bronson Pinchot fanclub? No, but any friend of Axel Foley is a friend of ours.
• Is he potty trained? He's rocking it for a 7-week-old.
• Does he like the snow? Yes!
• What kind of food is he on? He's transitioning from Purina Puppy Chow to Blue Buffalo Puppy
• Do you have more pictures? Yes! Lot's more on Flickr.

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note This post was edited for clarity on Feb 16, 2013 12:42 AM

Righting London

A little over a month ago, my girlfriend and I made a stop in London, Ontario. We were nearly short on the bill, but promised ourselves we'd go back and tip our excellent server.

Prince Albert's Diner by Slack pics on flickr

Yesterday we imported just about everything into Canada. Along the way, we made a stop at Prince Albert's Diner. I parked the U-Haul in the parking lot, walked directly into the counter and made a rare request:

• "Hey, I was in here the week after Christmas with my girlfriend and there was a shorter guy doing just about everything — do you know who that would be?"
• "Dark glasses?"
• "Yah"
• "You're probably talking about Ken. Why?"
• "We didn't realize it was cash-only until we ordered, the ATM wouldn't take our cards, we only had $23, and the bill was $22.85"
• "Ah, so you want to leave a tip or something now?"
• "Yes! Would you be able to give it to him?"
• "Definitely. I'll actually be seeing him tomorrow, so I'll just make a note with this right now."

So Ken, if by some chance you happen to read this one day, sorry about the delay!