Thurple Thursday Morning

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This morning I awakened and as I got dressed, I thought to myself,”Iit’s not waffle Wednesday, why am I putting on waffle? Too bad there’s not a material called ‘thurple’.

“Hey, that would be a good name for my app. ” Then I googled it and found very few results. This one stood out, because my app is about creating an identification space.

http://www.serc.si.edu/education/programs/java/activities/purple.aspx.

Then I said the word out loud. Then I decided it didn’t make sense. The search for a catch name continues. For now it is still eeCardinal.

Ten Commandments of MS SQL Database Administration

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  1. Thou shall use no other databases before MS SQL.
  2. Thou shall not attempt to print thy database.
  3. Thou shall not assume thy databases are not corrupt.
  4. Thou shall perform DBCC and backups on the 7th day.
  5. Honor the query plan and statistics and keep it wholly in your mind at all times.
  6. Thou Shall not DELETE without a WHERE clause.
  7. Thou shall not commit thy transaction without isolation.
  8. Thou shall not unnecessarily transact with read isolation level uncommitted.
  9. Thou shall not say you have database security when you don’t know.
  10. Thou shall not transgress upon production bandwidth with maintenance task operations.

tile – the World’s Best Lost and FIND  

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Scott Ellis is a technologist,  an author, blogger, kalimbist, micro-blogger,  and a photographer, in no particular order.  Flawlessly forgetful, he is an avid tile user.  For a day job, Scott works as the infrastructure architect for the  e-discovery software company, kCura.

by Scott R. Ellis

I’ve lamented for years that I can’t just type in : Find: sneakers.shoes into my computer and have it tell me where my sneakers are.  One time, after I had been coding for nearly 20 hours, I actually tried to grab my coffee cup with the mouse arrow.  Yeah, right?

I lose my stuff in my house.  Every day, I spend a minute here, a minute there, just looking for things like my keys. Mostly, it’s my shoes. Sometimes, my keys are in my shoes.  In the daily battle between my left brain and right brain, organization is typically the first victim

Now, along comes tile. I’ve been seeing a lot of buzz, and with my inevitable forgetfulness and curiosity, I found their offering intriguing.  I decided to make a purchase, and give it a chance.

tile is a nifty little tag that I stick on just about anything to help me keep track of stuff.  It’s about 1 inch square by a quarter inch thick and I have them on everything from my kalimba to my camera to my shoes.  I even have one in each car.  I have placed another order for 8 more. The truth of the matter is this: If it were feasible, I would integrate this platform into everything.

Here are just a few, everyday uses for tile, most of which I will have cause to use:

  • How to find your bicycle in a row of 100 other bicycles.
  • locate your coat in a coat room or in a pile of coats at a party.
  • Find your significant other at a party (hopefully not in the coat room…)
  • Find your car in a huge parking lot.
  • How to find your kids’ missing gloves in the school lost and found.   (all teachers and school administrators should have theTileApp!!!)
  • The kids (Have you got them all? you lovebird you!)
  • The luggage from the hotel room
  • The luggage on the carousel at the airport
  • Finding your TAPE MEASURE!
  • Dog training clicker

ok, I’ll stop on that last one.  You know and I know that I could go on all day long like this — 10,000 uses for tiles that have almost nothing to do with someone finding your lost [insert your item here] and saving the day.

What’s was clear to me, the first time I ever saw tile, is that tile is a search engine for the physical world. At long last, I no longer have to keep track of ANYTHING.  Well, anything that I can affix a tile to…

“WAIT!”  You’re shouting (please stop shouting at me).  you say, “I don’t want to stick this little white tag on everything I own! My shoes?  Are you KIDDING Me??!”  (really, stop yelling at me!).

Ok, check out this video.  Acrylic paint is some seriously amazing stuff.  It dries really really fast.  The label on the paint I used cites that it cures in about 21 days.  “Cures” is just another way of saying, “It is really, really dry now.  Too late to change your mind!” Bonus: you can mix your own colors, too, and it’s super easy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tej38HVd9rM

I just painted mine yesterday, and I plan to wait 21 days (I know! more waiting, right? Patience, grasshopper).  Once the paint has cured, I’ll put it on my key ring.  We’ll have an answer in a couple more months how it is going.  How long will it last?

Speaking of the future, what’s in store for the future of tile?  I have no idea what they will actually do, but here are some suggestions (I hope they read this blog!!!!):

  • More clever designs, preferably by me!
  • Smaller size, different shapes.  Embed tile in everything!!
  • tile way stations – put little micro towers in busy locations, like train stations and airports that will only store the location of LOST items that walk by.
  • tile relay points – I want to have a master tile that I can stick on a wall in every room in my house that has more juice, and will communicate with the little guys.
  • Triangulation – two or more tiles and a cell phone should be able to pinpoint the precise location of a tile.  .
  • v.futuristic future : you don’t even think about it anymore.  Everything comes pre-tiled and registered to you when you buy it at the store.  It just shows up in your app. Every surface in your house is a charging pad – dropping your clothes on the floor recharges its integrated tile.

Clearly,. my impeccable forgetfulness is because I daydream too much. Yes, building a future like this will take A LOT of hard work.  Startups are NOT easy and they rely heavily on user feedback.  I am more than ok with this.  Together, we will grow, and build a future of tile ubiquity. Grab your tile, grab your inner child, and paint.  You can’t mess this up – it dries really fast and you just paint over your mistakes!

Measuring Efficiency of DBCC CheckDB with Computed Columns

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by Scott Ellis and Erik Darling

Published on: Nov 28, 2014 @ 11:16

VERSION of Microsoft SQL : Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (SP3) – 10.50.6000.34

Background

Recently we [a software vendor] added some persisted, computed columns to our software database, which is MS SQL 2008 and 2012.  We (my friend Erik and I – this is not an officially sanctioned test) wanted to know how much longer DBCC checkDB tests would take, and if we could put a percentage on it.  See the last paragraph for the answer if you want to skip to the good part and avoid reading all these accursed words.

Here are the basics of the computed columns.  An index is subsequently created on each computed column, each index contains 3 keys. The computed column is the leading key in all three of them.

Here is the computation in the table definition on each computed column:

 [redactedComputedColumnName]  AS (CONVERT([binary](20),hashbytes('SHA1',case when isnull([hashedField],'')='' THEN CONVERT([nvarchar](30),[ID],0) ELSE upper('S'+rtrim([hashedField])) end),0)) PERSISTED NOT NULL

The Rationale

Why did we want to do this test: This test seeks to identify the percent difference in duration of a DBCC check with and without computed columns.  We sought to determine if we could create a percentage difference based on the size of the single, very large table that houses the computed columns, and then apply that as a multiplier across thousands of databases.

Previously, these columns were populated by a trigger, so adding computed columns has increased the duration of DBCC.  We did the right thing and removed the trigger because it was a never-ending source of trauma when inserting massive amounts of data, which is a common occurrence in this software.

The Experiment

To begin, we restored a 5 GB database* that is representative of the types of databases about which many people will be curious. We ran this test against a database attached to SQL on an 8 core, 50 GB RAM SQL Server 2008 R2.  The table we examined is 3.398 GB.  The database server runs on an Intel Xeon E5 2.6 GHz virtual machine. Here is the restore code we used, if you are into this sort of thing:


 RESTORE DATABASE [DBCC_TEST5GB]
 FROM DISK = '\\Backups_SQL\RELO001\ERIK_COMP_TEST\FULL\v.NoComputedCols.bak'
 WITH BUFFERCOUNT = 500, MAXTRANSFERSIZE = 4194304, STATS
 
Restore Time: 670553 pages in 115.857 seconds (45.216 MB/sec)
Size of BAK file: 1.32GB (compressed backup)

We used BUFFERCOUNT of 500 and a MAXTRANSFERSIZE of 4 MB because we wanted to beat the shit out of our IO. Use this code (really, anything you find here) at your own peril. The word “STATS” allows you to see how far long the restore has progressed.

The we set:

STATISTICS TIME ON
We wanted to know how long it would take, both real world and CPU time.
For monitoring, we opened a new window to run sp_whoisactive to see what’s happening.  We even piped the output of Adam Machanic’s sp_whoIsActive script to a table for further evaluation and verification as needed.
Then we started the DBCC CheckDB. The following Traceflags were active:
--DBCC TRACEON (2549, -1)
--DBCC TRACEON (2562, -1)
--DBCC TRACEON (1118, -1)

You can look these up at:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/saponsqlserver/archive/2011/12/22/faster-dbcc-checkdb-released-in-sql-2008-r2-sp1-traceflag-2562-amp-2549.aspx  and  http://sqlperformance.com/2012/11/io-subsystem/minimize-impact-of-checkdb

Baseline 1: DBCC against a 5 GB, no Computed Columns Database

We need to know how long a DBCC check will take on a “normal” database. To get to a version of the software that has computed columns, we upgraded from an earlier version.  First we did the command against a previous version of the database:

 /* DBCC command for V.noComputedCols database */
 /* DBCC command for 7.5 database */
 DBCC CHECKDB ([DBCC_TEST5GB]) WITH NO_INFOMSGS, ALL_ERRORMSGS
/* Run DBCC check without indexes */
 Duration: 103985 ms.
 CPU time: 71663 ms.

Baseline 2: DBCC against a 5 GB,  database with computed columns disabled.

The previous database was upgraded to a version with computed columns. To establish foundation, we took a baseline with Computed columns disabled.  This was to look for possible differences introduced by the upgrade.

/* Disable indexes on computed columns */
ALTER INDEX [IX_1003669_RI] ON [EDDSDBO].[Document] DISABLE
ALTER INDEX [IX_1003671_RI] ON [EDDSDBO].[Document] DISABLE
ALTER INDEX [IX_1035456_RI] ON [EDDSDBO].[Document] DISABLE

Ran a DBCC command:

 /* DBCC command for disabled Computed Columns database */
 DBCC CHECKDB ([DBCC_TEST5GB_CC]) WITH NO_INFOMSGS, ALL_ERRORMSGS
 /* Run DBCC check without indexes */

Results:

Duration: 33003 ms.
CPU time: 70056 ms.

Experiment 1: DBCC with Computed columns on against a 5 GB database

To get the database back to where it needs to be, we rebuild the computed column indexes.

/* Rebuild indexes */
ALTER INDEX [IX_redacted_1] ON [EDDSDBO].[Document] REBUILD
ALTER INDEX [IX_redacted_2] ON [EDDSDBO].[Document] REBUILD
ALTER INDEX [IX_redacted_3] ON [EDDSDBO].[Document] REBUILD

Then run the DBCC

 /* DBCC command for enabled Computed Columns database */
 DBCC CHECKDB ([DBCC_TEST5GB_CC]) WITH NO_INFOMSGS, ALL_ERRORMSGS/* Run DBCC check without indexes */
Duration: 147264 ms.
CPU time: 81358 ms.

Baseline 3 : 430 GB database with disabled computed column indexes.

Next, to establish our multiplier, we ran against a 428.48 GB Database.  Having already established that the CheckDB time ran with negligible differences, we ran it again with the same three computed columns, but with them disabled.

The table with the computed columns sported a hefty 269.418 gigabytes.

/* Disable indexes on computed columns */
ALTER INDEX [IX_redacted_1] ON [redacted].[EDDSDBO].[Document] DISABLE
ALTER INDEX [IX_redacted_2] ON [redacted].[EDDSDBO].[Document] DISABLE
ALTER INDEX [IX_redacted_3] ON [redacted].[EDDSDBO].[Document] DISABLE
/* Run DBCC */
DBCC CHECKDB ([DBCC_TEST430GB]) WITH NO_INFOMSGS, ALL_ERRORMSGS
/* Indexes Disabled

SQL Server Execution Times:

Duration: 9705874 ms.
CPU Time: 4391135 ms.
This (9705874 ms) is 2.69 hours (161.7 minutes)

 /* Rebuild indexes */

ALTER INDEX [IX_redacted_1] ON [EDDSDBO].[Document] REBUILD WITH (ONLINE = ON)
ALTER INDEX [IX_redacted_2] ON [EDDSDBO].[Document] REBUILD WITH (ONLINE = ON)
ALTER INDEX [IX_redacted_3] ON [EDDSDBO].[Document] REBUILD WITH (ONLINE = ON)
Index Rebuild time: 00:01:59.003  (about 2 minutes)

Experiment 2: Run CheckDB on large, production-grade data set with enabled computed column indexes

/* Run DBCC */
/* DBCC command for 8.2 database */
DBCC CHECKDB ([DBCC_TEST430GB]) WITH NO_INFOMSGS, ALL_ERRORMSGS

SQL Server Execution Times:

Duration: 10846102 ms.
CPU time: 4689156 ms.

Conclusions

To fully understand what is happening during a DBCC CheckDB of database computed columns, check out this blog post from Paul Randall.

Paul’s post does indicate a much greater performance hit than what we saw. This could be due to some confluence of the calculation involved, the number of them, the size of the data, the index, trace flags in use, and the underlying hardware.  Paul suggests that dropping and re-enabling the indexes is not a “palatable solution.” I submitted an inquiry to him about this, asking why it is unpalatable (which quite literally means not very tasty), and he responded “Because someone might have indexes that take a long time to rebuild, might not have online, might be enforcing a constraint…”

This got me to thinking that, since with this particular database software, there is no constraint, that many people running this product have Enterprise, and many administrators have offloaded the DBCC process to an extraneous SQL server, disabling the indexes may be an option.  Certainly, in an offloaded situation, disabling and leaving them disabled may leave only a mildly unpalatable aftertaste.

For those of you who are doing consistency checking in production, the only real issue that you can experience is if users actually attempt to access and use the database while the check is in progress and the indexes are disabled. If your column has great potential to be used a lot, then we don’t recommend a production disabling of this index.

Also realize that if this index is corrupted in your production system, you run the risk of a user running across it and then you have to rebuild it during production hours. The risk is low, but it is there.

Many infrastructure admins that run corruption checks on very large** databases run them in an offloaded way.  They restore the databases to cheaper hardware and let the checks take a day or two to run.  For those people, disabling these indexes is a perfectly viable solution.  If even the remote capacity exists that someone may hit those indexes WHILE they are dropped and WHILE you are doing a DBCC check DON’T DO IT. This not a viable option for a production system and if you are caught doing it by this software infrastructure architect, I will scold you 🙂

Ultimately, whether you have Enterprise or not is irrelevant – you do far more damage to query capabilities for the one or two hours that the indexes are offline than you do for the two minutes it takes to rebuild them.   Moral of the story :

If you are offloading DBCC and want it to go faster, automate a computed column index disable.  If not, if you are performing DBCC in prod, A) Stop doing that B) leave these indexes enabled.

The percent performance improvement, for these particular databases,  seems to be in the neighborhood of XX%- YY%.

 

*No, you can not have, ever, no matter how often you ask me for it

** By very large I mean any size database that causes you stress!

 

 

Missing African Grey Parrot – Evergreen Park Illinois

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parrotHey – as a Chicago Bird Collision Monitor volunteer, I received this message today – please RT and post to FB too!!! It is cold out, and this bird will be scared and alone !

Missing African Grey Parrot
I’m forwarding this kind of heart-breaking message because CBCM might hear something about this bird that escaped.  The person who had it as a pet is a U of C grad student.  The fact he has put up a huge reward suggests it really meant something to him.
–Dave

———- Forwarded message

Hi all,

A good friend of Ben and mine lost his African Grey parrot (see below). If you get a chance could you pass on the information to any local birding societies, collision monitors, etc. that you have contact information for? The parrot was like a child to him and his partner and the loss of the parrot has been utterly tragic for them.
Many thanks,
Aaron
Begin forwarded message:
I apologize for sending this to the entire listserve, but I really could use your help.  Yesterday I returned from SVP in Berlin to the news that my 3-year old, African Grey parrot, named Earl, had escaped from the woman who was boarding him on November 1st (eleven days ago).  She had been lying to me the entire time that he was fine, “so that it wouldn’t ruin my trip.”  I am distraught, and I am desperate, because he could be anywhere on the south-side of Chicago by now (he is fully flighted).  He was last seen in Evergreen Park, IL.  My only hope is that he flew to somebody for help, before a hawk or the cold got him.
Please, if there is anyone you know that is a bird-watcher or who lives in the vicinity of Evergreen Park, please ask them to keep an eye open for Earl.  If you know anybody in any ornithological societies as well, please let them know.  Any sightings of a strange grey bird, with a bright red tail, a little bit larger in size than a pigeon, is a good sighting.  I can’t do this alone and it all feels so hopeless right now.
My sincerest gratitude,
Justin
—

How to Catch a Chicken and Leverage its Snark Containment Properties

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Recently I had a conversation with a friend about her snark. I keep my snarks in a pantry, in my backyard, underneath the tree where I hang my cheapshots. She was considering getting rid of her snark, and finally we arrived upon the decision that I would send her five, fresh and crinkly snarks.  Snarks, being quite snarky, depend upon chickens and thrive best in an environment that is replete with chickens.  So, of course, i can’t send anyone five new snarks unless they have a chicken for me to put them in.

My usual barter for a small chicken filled with fresh, newly minted, and incredibly jagged snarks, then, is exactly one self-addressed, stamped chicken.  iizeeuna, an apparent foreigner to the ways of snarks and chickens, perhaps mired down in his (or her? I really don’t know, it was twitter for frabjulous’ sake

That was a stupid sentence, so I stopped writing it.  No.  You didn’t misread it.  It ended without a completed thought.

I suppose that therein lay the secret to catching chickens. One must be nimble of mind, quick to abandon poor choices, and loathe to take the bother to cleanup after oneself – if one wishes to do battle with chickens.

Perhaps, let us first begin with the definition:  A chicken is a dreadful, dangerous beast and is defined as the only proper container in which a snark may be transported.  Mind you, snarks are not CREATED in chickens, they are only merely stored inside of them (they strike the chicken on the outside, and sink in slowly over time).  It is the existence of the chickens that instantiates the snarks.  For it is so dense in matter and form, that the bright shapely gestaltedness of a snark can only be preserved forever deeply within it.

Further more, neither the USPS nor the FedEx will agree to transport snarks in any other container.  They are far too toxic if left to float and meander about and be left to their own devices.

The etymology of the word “chicken” has its roots in ancient egyption.  This was their word for the country “Turkey” and is the sourse of much confusion in children regarding the separate species.

Further to that, the word combines many words to make the one. It is a portmanteau of the word “Chickadee” and “Monster that hath twice the fury of a woman scorned of which hell hath no fury + a 17 witch coven” the latter being a very long word that is broken up by spaces in order to make it more legible and is also, coincidentally, a transliteration from ancient swahili for “Bad ass dude with a big trident”.

The source of this transliteration in the ancient texts is apparent : one must have a big, big giant, three pronged TRIDENT (lord help you if you get the 3.2 pronged kind!).  You will use the trident to catch the mighty chicken, for it is a cowardly, yet formidable beast and a worthy foe of anyone in a loin cloth.  In fact,it is only permitted to hunt chickens while wearing a loin cloth.  Further outerwear will render your efforts ineffective.  If one is female, then one must pursue the chicken topless (I apologize if this offends, I do not make these rules).

To attract a chicken. one must first have incredibly crinkly and jagged new snarks.  If you don’t have any, perchance visit your neighbor, snark cup in hand, and beg to please borrow a fresh new snark. Be sure to dress in a manner of a Lord or a Lady, for the common man always has fresh snarks a plenty to lend to the aristocracy.

Now, take your fresh snark, and walk about the streets of your town.  Avoid the shadowy places.  Go to the light, to the crowds, where people are gathering and having fun.  Twirl your snark about your fingers, and laugh wittily.  All the while, cast about to the periphery with your eyes.  Halt your snark mid-twirl…there! you see the chicken.  It’s eyes are cast low and it may be whispering to another chicken (they invariably travel in pairs!).

Approach your quarry with your snark in hand, held high above your head and, as the chicken is distracted (nay, paralyzed!) by the awesomeness of your snark, drive your trident down and over the wretched creatures neck.

Take great care not to kill it!! Killing chickens is intolerable behavior.  After all, they have caused no harm to you, nor can they!  They are far, far scarier to behold than to actually fight.  Once you have your chicken captured, gently and carefully cram,shove, pound your fresh snark into its mouth. Watch as the snark migrates from the chickens mouth into its brain. Once the snark reaches the fowl creatures brain, you may suddenly be amazed (stunned speechless!) that the chicken actually begins to shrink.   Do not react to this!  if you react in surprise, the snark will burst free from the creatures maw, utterly wasted, and the chicken will expand to be TWICE its previous size and more frightening than ever!

Assuming you haven’t fucked this part up, place the proper amount of postage on the chicken, address it to yourself, place it in an envelope addressed to me, and when i receive it I shall insert FIVE – YES FIVE! – shiny new snarks into various cavities of the chicken and then drop it back in the box for you.

Now that an understanding of the beast has been fully cultivated, you may begin your pursuit.

At the end of it all, once you have received your chicken from me, you may notice that the chicken has MORE than FIVE snarks.  It may have become “snarkified” and begin producing snarks for you, all on its own!

This process is called transnarkification, a process that is both likely and probable.  Watch with amazement as the chicken shall emerge from the shadows and abandon its wily, sneaky, terrrorific ways.  It shall embrace you, and your snarks shall pass through it with ease, for it will no longer be a chicken! It will be a man!   Or a woman! Whatever.  Could be a puppy too.


(WARNING: not all chickens transnarkify with just five snarks.  Anything less than the use of the highest quality snarks may result in a disappointing outcome.  Use of a virtual trident spear is highly recommended as most states frown upon the actual pinning down of chickens with actual, large, multipronged weapons.)

How to Speak in Public – a troubleshooting guide

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Even experienced public speakers make the mistakes listed here.  The biggest two that seasoned pros make are eye contact deficits and projector spotlighting. The one that beginning speakers make is reading from their notes. They go into it, head down, and stay head down the entire time, maybe looking up a couple times to make eye contact, or perhaps to check the audience is still there.

If you have ever had to speak  in public, you’ve probably experienced fear.  That is the trouble, and these are the most common causes and solutions for dealing with that fear. If, at any step of the way, one of these things occurs, it can trip off a collapse of your confidence.  When that happens, your presentation caves in along with it.

Here is a punch list of the problems (in bold) followed by the solution.

  1.  When I start my presentation, nobody is paying attention. I have the same problem with my blog posts. But seriously: You Didn’t Start Out With a Reason Why. You started with “today we are going to be talking about metabolic subatomic mass spectrometry…(see, you are already bored)”. What is it that you have that is so important that you have either decided or been chosen to speak? Put that into a short sentence, pause, let it sink in, then dive into the details. “Today, I’m going to be showing you all our findings–findings that will change how you practice infrastructure management. So buckle up and prepare to be startled by some of these findings! I sure was!” Being a little cheesy is better than being boring.
  2. I am trying to act just like William Shatner when I speak. Everyone listens to him, why aren’t they listening to me? This is Because You Are Imitating Someone Else.  A lot can be said be said for  “Fake it ‘til you make it,” but William Shatner  isn’t even doing William Shatner very well anymore.  Be careful who you model. It can back fire horribly, especially if nobody likes who you are imitating.
  3. The people in the audience are skeptical of me, they don’t seem to understand why I am talking to them or what the point is of this talk.  You might be an unknown. You Failed to “work” the room. The audience actually wants to meet  you. Mingle beforehand and get to know some of the people. If you can do it without them knowing you are the speaker, all the better, and the nicer the surprise. If they like you, they have a vested interest because these people hate being wrong.  If you are standing at the podium when people come in, messing with your computer, they will probably think that you’re the computer guy, and that that handsome man over there, chatting it up with everyone, must be the speaker.
  4. I’m so nervous I feel like my heart is going to pound out of my chest and I might faint…or throw up. There is only one thing that works to solve this. Breathe. If your voice is shaky and you can’t control it, take a deep, deep breath, and speak your words off the top.  Keep as much air as you can, pausing to exhale and breathe normally a couple times. Don’t hyperventilate. Speak in short sentences. Take long pauses. Stay calm and keep breathing.
  5. I’m reading my speech word for word, and it’s an awesome speech!  Never, ever, ever read from your slides or read excessively from your notes. This is not kindergarten. You can’t connect to your audience if you aren’t talking directly to them. Ask questions and interact with the audience.
  6. Using someone else’s stories: Nobody wants to hear someone repeating what other people have said. That’s what Google is for. It’s okay to use brief quotes from other sources, but to connect with the audience, you must illustrate your most profound thoughts from your own life experiences. If you think you don’t have any interesting stories to tell, you are not looking hard enough.
  7. Unnecessary Movement  Don’t dance around and sway back and forth! Move, plant.  Move, plant.  Keep their eyes as steady as you can with just enough movement to keep things interesting.
  8. Hogging the Spotlight It’s not a spotlight! It’s a projector!  DO NOT STAND in the projector light.  It is super annoying. I mean it. You all do it.
  9. Hogging the Spotlight II Audience participation is key. Explore this – it is one of the most important concepts on this page. Make a list of Things You Can Do to engage your audience. Maybe you have a gift for saying interesting things. Pause often, give the audience the chance to engage, especially if you say something interesting.
  10. The Escape Artist This guy continuously scans the room, and never lands on one person for more than a second or so, which is about 4 words. Are they talking to the audience or looking for an escape route in the event that things don’t go well? TALK to people. Pick someone. Say something to that person – don’t look away in the middle of a sentence – FINISH IT. Then pick someone else. Keep sentences brief.
  11. Carpenter’s dream You think you are doing everything you think you need to do. You’ve measured twice, cut once. You practiced, but your presentation still falls flat. Like a board. What additional “edge” can you bring to your speaking? Speak with rhythm. Lose the monotone. If your spoken words have no rhythm, you won’t captivate your audience. Make use of doublets and triplets. Don’t be afraid to have a personality.
  12. I’m at the end of my speech, and I’ve asked if anyone has any questions, and nobody does. What should I do? Don’t be so cliché. Ask them questions instead.
  13. Over Preparation  What is proper preparation is subjective. Recognize what you’ve done in the past when you were at your best. Sometimes, too much preparation will leave you coming across as a dry accountant type, sounding too rehearsed, like a TED talk. Yuck.
  14. Failing to recognize that speaking is an acquired skill. Effective executives learn how to present in the same way they learn to use other tools to operate their businesses. They practice and they take classes. They listen to advice.  They try, and try, and they try again.

Bonus Tip: I’d rather die than…

Not only would some people rather die than speak in public, but some people would rather die than interrupt a public speaker. Be cognizant of the health of people in the room. I was teaching a class once, and a woman in the front row looked really uncomfortable. I stopped talking and asked her how she was. She said she was feeling a great deal of pain in her lower back, and said she’d been having some kidney troubles. It turned out we had to call 911 and get medical assistance.

About me : Just some guy who thinks he knows everything. Nothing to see here.

A response to Laura Erickson’s Humming bird predation post.

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Recently, a friend of mine forwarded me a post about hummingbirds:

Laura Ericson’s Blog posting regarding Hummingbirds and predators:http://lauraerickson.blogspot.com/2014/09/predation-and-hummingbirds.html

In her post, she presented an interesting postulate : That a 1985, scientific paper, written by Miller and Gass and titled “Survivorship in Hummingbirds: Is Predation Important?” is basically wrong.  Now, whenever a layperson begins bashing a scientific paper, my ears perk up.  I’ve spent a lot of time writing technical papers, books, and chapters for books, and I’m always interested to see how people perceive technical and scientific things.  Ultimately, Laura’s interpretation of the paper lacks foundation and is meritless, and is just another piece of Internet drivel (not unlike this one).  In the hopes that this blog post will crop up near Laura’s should anyone be unfortunate enough to locate and read either post, I have put the following editorial together.

I have no delusions that I can just say “she’s wrong” and then get on with life.  Rather, I am presenting evidence that she is wrong and I am also asking the reader to do some independent research and see where it leads.

Originally, I thought I would post this to her blog, but I do enjoy retaining copyright, as well as the ability to consolidate all of my Internet ranting to one place.  There is nothing worse that being unable to go back and remove an undesirable post (20/20 hindsight) or being unable to revise a malformed sentence.

This is the message to Laura as I originally intended to post it:

I have just a couple of question/comments after reading your blog post and the original paper you are discussing.

Question 1. The paper you mock refers to”‘natural predators’ in the usual sense” and you even quote this. Immediately, this excludes opportunistic predation and predation caused by things like cars, buildings, and cats, but your blog goes on to use these as refutation of the paper’s central argument.

That you mention cats as a hummingbird predator pretty much destroys your entire argument.  “Natural” predation also excludes opportunistic predation induced by human activity, such as introduced invasive predators, or luring hummingbirds in large numbers to poorly concealed, non-exhaustive hummingbird feeders where those invasive predators lie in wait. Where backyard feeders are concerned, we may as well be in league with the hawks and the cats. This wasn’t really a question, was it?

Question 2. How many squirrels are killed by Red-tailed hawks? Squirrels are definitelyHawk food.  A staple of their diet, as it were.

Question 3. How many hummingbirds per day are killed by, say, Cooper’s Hawks, which have been seen chasing hummingbirds (and vice versa)? I have never seen a hummingbird being chased by a hawk in nature myself, but even if did, a single incidence does not a pattern make. Even if 100 humming birds were killed by hawks, in the grand scheme of the food web, it is trivial. Thousands of squirrels are killed by hawks every day. Less than a thousand humming birds have been killed by hawks, possibly in the history of the species.

Question 3. It’s agreed by most people that, aside from other humans, we have no natural predators. Yet, thousands of humans are killed every year by lions, tigers, snake bites, sharks, etc. (I offer this as perspective). Are we to say, then, that humans are not apical?

Question 4. Finally, you argue the Hummingbirds’ alertness adaptation as foundation for their prey status. And it is an adaptation – it looks around a lot because it is hard-wired into its head to do that. It doesn’t mean the bird is flying around, terrified for its life all the time. So, why does it do this if it has no natural predators? Examine the adaptations of the kiwi bird for a clue. Why does the Kiwi possess such fabulous anti-arial attack adaptations when, in reality, no arial threat exists? (Hint : the Haast’s Eagle is extinct now).

In conclusion then, “chuckling” at the scientific and researched conclusions of actual scientist might best be left to disciplined minds…don’t get me wrong, I admire your work and understand and sympathize with your position that the hummingbird is a victim of opportunistic predation – I’m sure it is. I just think you went about expressing your point in a very unscientific manner, and that you victimized a very well written paper for seemingly opportunistic motives.

Brick Pilers strike again.

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This is in response to a post on the Lake Bluff Patch.  

http://patch.com/illinois/lake-forest-lake-bluff/daily-grind-loses-lease

I’m not saying that this is necessarily the case here, but my observation has been that there is a highly vocal faction of people in Lake Bluff that seem to want downtown Lake Bluff to be somewhat like a downtown Libertyville, with trendy little shops and bars and lots and lots and lots of people pouring through. What motivates this faction?  Ultimately, this is how the landlords will be able to raise rents and reap serious profits – when their tenants are raking it in.

How did this happen, how did we get here?  It started with the loss of Center Video, included a building collapsing “accidentally,” followed with an erection of what can only be described as (IMHO) a hideous monstrosity (the building that houses Lake Bluff Brewery and Lulu’s), and has transformed Lake Bluff from the quaint, hidden community into a caricature of North Shore suburban life.  Quietude and peacefulness was the reason that so many of us moved here. Loud, blasting music that can be heard from 2 miles away WAS NOT.
I’m not sure that Douglass had anything to do with any of the afore mentioned items, I’m not sure if he owns more buildings than the old Village Market building.  I seem to recall he was involved in the design and building of the Monstrous Brick Pile (again, just my infinitesimal opinion, which I am allowed to freely express).
One thing is certain – “progress” for this brick pile faction in the community (let’s just call them “The Brick Pilers” because that is what they do, and we should call a brick a brick) of Lake Bluff is not about building community and consensus, it’s about getting their way, getting their profits, increasing the tax base, so they can get more money more money more money.  “Let’s cover it all in concrete and asphalt.  Hey, isn’t a bustling community of shoppers and tourists what we want here?” they demand. Not me, no thank you.
The critical mass needed to satisfy the Brick Pile faction is NOT the kind of community of which I would be proud.  It’s not community – it’s just converting Lake Bluff into a beach-side tourist attraction that brings in lots of outsiders, spending money.  That’s it.  At the end of the day, that’s all the residents will see: Lot’s of outsiders, spending money and attracting crime, clogging the streets, and creating a general nuisance to the residents of the town.
Perhaps, the days when kids could leave their backpacks on the ground outside of Village Market, with zero fear they’d be stolen are already gone forever.  Thank you Brick Pilers.  Thank you. (<- that was sarcasm.)

Eulogy for Marilyn Swieck (How to Make Fudge and be a Good Person)

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Greetings, and good afternoon.  My name is Scott. I am most honored to be here today, to talk to you about my Aunt Marilyn.

These next few stories are slices from my life, my life with Marilyn and my family’s life with her. I don’t have much time to deliver this message, my cousins have threatened me with an undisclosed punishment should I take too long. So, some of my transitions will seem abrupt, and through it all, I’m going to interject bits and pieces of Aunt Marilyn’s fudge recipe, so please pay attention and keep your pens at ready. This will hopefully not be as all over the place as I am, but it probably will be. I’ll make liberal use of strategic pauses.

A few years ago, Marilyn and I made fudge together, and I captured it in a series of videos.  The first step, she told me, was:

*Get yourself a big, wooden spoon.  Preferably one that says “chocolate only”
—
I don’t remember a world without my Aunt Marilyn.  She was a familiar motif for me, in my never ending tangled up state, in my rush to understand everything.  Her home always offered a calm, stable place.

*butter just the sides of a heavy, 3 quart saucepan.

—
Marilyn meant so much to me and my family, that not mentioning the impact on my life that she had would be unfair, so forgive me if I seem to digress – everything here relates to Marilyn, and where and how I saw her in our lives.

*add 4 cups granulated sugar.

For the past few weeks,  I’ve had this song going through my head, and it has this motif, this concept of home, of the moon being in my side, of angels not arriving, and being able to hear the choir. So there’s that, this concept of home that Marilyn understood, and that I learned from her.  I remember her playing Blue Moon.

*Add one 14.5 ounce can of evaporated milk
—
I did not know what I wanted to be when I grew up.  But every year, at Christmas time and at my birthday, I would receive books.  Books on astronomy, on nature, works of fiction, and then of course there was the penguin mug.  I still have most of these gifts.  That was the thing about Marilyn, she gave thoughtful, helpful gifts, and education was important to her – as a result, it became important to me, and to my children as well.

*Mix it up before you put the margarine in.
—

My wife’s mother passed away 9 months before we got married, and this created a deep void in our lives. Aunt Marilyn was there for us during the very difficult grieving that followed, and I don’t think I ever thanked her enough

*add 1 cup land-o-lakes. because grandpa didn’t think there was anything else.  Cut it up, 6 or 7 times per bar so that it melts
—

When my son Ethan was born, Marilyn came and stayed with us for a week. She helped around the house, did laundry, cooked, and taught me that how you fold your towels depends entirely on the shape of the cabinet where you store them. We had just been folding them randomly and stuffing them in. She referred to our dog as her favorite area rug. He was half Great Dane.

*Turn on the stove, setting it to just below medium.  It really shouldn’t take you more than 45 minutes to make the fudge.

—

*now just let it melt.  Don’t stir it.

It was maybe ten years ago or so, I used my engineering and carpentry skills to install a handrail for Marilyn at her house – she had a short flight of stairs that had no rail. I told her I would take care of it. She gave me no requirements- she didn’t have to. It was Marilyn, and so it would be strong, beautiful, and it would last.  That something could be made better, stronger, and made to last, by these hands, became a standard in my life on that day.

*As the concoction on your stove warms, it boils up.  Let it.  Some recipes say to not stir it, but you can stir it every now and then.
—
I remember forgetting to return the library books I borrowed from Oak Park library, and my absolute terror that she would find out.Well, she was the head of circulation so I’m thinking she might have known. I don’t even remember if I returned them – if there is anyone here from the Oak Park library, please see me after the service for a donation…

*cook over medium heat to soft ball stage (236 degrees) or maybe a little below medium.  It cooks longer, but you won’t get it [to come out right] as..as much.

—
When Ethan was 11 months old, we (my wife and I), drove to Ohio with Marilyn. She rode in the back with Ethan the entire way. At this time, he was all “gibahbah*pbbbbbt” he had no words yet

*In the video, Marilyn changes her mind and says, “Ok, stir it more than you have to…and don’t worry if you scorch it a little.  Dark pieces might come up, but they’ll blend in with the chocolate.  Nobody will know.”

On the way back from Ohio, I think my wife was driving, and I looked at Ethan,  point at Marilyn and say “Aunt Marilyn” and he looks right at her, then at me, and he says, as clear as a bell , “no, Nana!” It was his first word, and the name stuck. “Nana.”

*To perform a softball test, take a little bit of the batter into your spoon and pour it into really cold water.  Dump the water out, and see how the fudge is.  Is it fudgy? Does it have substance?
—
Now, I’m sitting in an Italian Restaurant a couple of nights ago – all the most important events of my life have taken place in Italian Restaurants – and I’m writing this, and trying not to cry into my lasagna, and I’m thinking of my daughter, who left her sweater here, the sweater that she wore the last times she went to see her Nana.

I think it was last Tuesday or Wednesday, not this past one, the one before, that Elaine took Addie to see Marilyn that last time, wearing that wonderful sweater, with all her colors and her twirling, flouncing, bounce, Marilyn awakened, and in a strong voice, says “Oh my goodness gracious, look at you,” and she held out her hand to her. Those would be her last words.

—
*1 heaping, rounded serving spoon of marshmallow fluff. So that was the secret, a heaping, flouncing, bouncing serving spoon of marshmallow fluff. 

Recently, I was taking a class and the instructor asked me how I felt about being there, and I said, “I’m excited to be here!”  I think a big part of life involves always being excited to see people, and one thing is certain, is Marilyn was always excited to see people. 

*add one 12 ounce package semisweet chocolate pieces and a couple of small Hershey bars.
*1 teaspoon vanilla
–
For the past few weeks, while this song was going through my head, this entire time, we: Marilyn, my cousins and my children and my wife, and all of us, waited for the angels to come, to carry her Home.

I am thankful for the definition of home that she taught all of us, and I know we will carry it for the rest of our lives in our hearts, and in our minds.

*Once the pour has fully settled, score while warm, let cool, and call for someone to come, and carry it home.