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April 2016 Archives

Runkeeper’s paid charts still aren’t working

Posted at age 27.

I started using Runkeeper to track my runs in July 2010, and soon after I started paying $19.99 per year to support the service. The additional features for the money were limited, basically boiling down to some extra charts and a live run feature where others can see your run in real time. This wasn’t as cool as it could be, or even as similar features from competitors. I’ve seen friends using a Nike app, I think, where it would post to Facebook at the start of a run, and the phone would read comments and cheers as friends interacted with the post. As far as I know, Runkeeper never did anything like that. And I’m not sure I would have used it anyway.

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Android voice transcription prompts

Posted at age 27.

I use voice transcription instead of typing quite a bit, and I have for a few years. Often I don’t even bother correcting it, or I only use it for shorter sentences so I can easily see problems and fix them. But I’m trying to use it more …

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Raspberry Pi and Smokeping network monitoring

Posted at age 27.

We’ve had some network issues lately, so I dug out one of the Raspberry Pi Model Bs I got for free from Adafruit with my first couple of orders in September 2013. I then set it up to do network monitoring using Smokeping. Since it takes 10 or 20 seconds to generate the graphs, I switched to a master-slave setup where the graphs could be generated on my web server, but the measurements taken from the Raspberry Pi on my home network.

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Alignment in Python code

Posted at age 27.

Since my first programming book 15 years ago, I remember the convention of using extra spaces to align the equal signs in lines of variable assignments. This has been pretty standard in most of the languages I’ve used over the years. It’s not a big deal, but it’s something I do instinctively. I struggle much more with other spacing and indentation issues, and seeking guidance, I read Python’s PEP8. And I’m not sure I like with what I found.

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Taxes done, happy birthday Brad

Posted at age 27.

Today I woke up later than hoped as usual, but not super late: 10:30ish. Brad broke up and went to work before 8, and I hope to pick it up at that time also, but when I finally went to bed around 2 I was still quite awake and …

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Year 1 review: need more discipline, but many successes

Posted at age 27.

Three months ago, randomly read a book called “The 12 Week Year,” and I decided to start using the system to make sure my time away from work wasn’t wasted, and hopefully establish some routines that would make it easier to be efficient and productive. While I stuck with it in general, I didn’t take it seriously enough to see the major benefits I hoped for. It still helped me be more accountable and better understand my failings, so I will continue with it. I probably need some adjustments; maybe writing this will help.

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Amazon product questions poorly designed

Posted at age 27.

I’ve noticed and commented on this many times, so it should probably be documented so I can remember how hard life was in 2016. The customer answers to product questions on Amazon are mostly useless, thanks to a process flaw on Amazon’s part.

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