tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54905481558497339622024-03-05T20:03:37.446-05:00A Crankiness SingularityThomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390888899858772858noreply@blogger.comBlogger1598125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-38095714148722588792022-08-28T14:11:00.003-04:002022-08-28T14:12:49.923-04:00Fuck Twitter (Pt. 2)<p> <a href="https://acrankinesssingularity.blogspot.com/2022/08/fuck-twitter.html" target="_blank">Previously</a>, I said, "fuck Twitter". Today, I found that I'd been temp-banned, again. Apparently, saying that someone should face the long-established legal repercussions of treasonous acts:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-c7wqvUvkWonJWC321umAqgCckcOnn2jzAqhV6aNm5wcCOd1e8eKB-7pLAVhFFLmxZKFn7OypgacYqIwhdrgQDbTcctTu0RzsvDE9mfVVgCp5VomEzmSzM-hsQXOroIG-Ri4aoBE69E7i-dqskLYdXLSqU8QPqbjAKpW7QJJByo9VvL1P7cnHpUi79w/s1004/FiringSquad.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="1004" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-c7wqvUvkWonJWC321umAqgCckcOnn2jzAqhV6aNm5wcCOd1e8eKB-7pLAVhFFLmxZKFn7OypgacYqIwhdrgQDbTcctTu0RzsvDE9mfVVgCp5VomEzmSzM-hsQXOroIG-Ri4aoBE69E7i-dqskLYdXLSqU8QPqbjAKpW7QJJByo9VvL1P7cnHpUi79w/w542-h196/FiringSquad.png" width="542" /></a></div></div>Is somehow in violation of Twitter's policies. Apparently, the above violates the policy of "<i>You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so.</i>" I don't see it. I'm simply stating that Trump should face <i>established</i> legal consequences of his actions <i>if</i> those actions can be proven.<p></p><div>Fun fact: when you request an appeal, they offer you the option to explain why your penalty should be overturned. However, they limit your explanatory text to not even half as many characters as one is afforded for a tweet. Seems pretty obvious that both Twitter's sanction <i>and</i> appeal processes are a sham.</div><div><br /></div><div>I guess that, after this (7-day) ban ends, I am going to export my posting-history and delete my account.</div>Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390888899858772858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-32707690460157373262022-08-17T16:19:00.001-04:002022-08-17T16:19:35.187-04:00It's Technological Annoyances Day<p>Every month, I archive my personal and work emails to a separate gMail account. It helps keep my actively-monitored mailboxes manageable and provides me a good backup of old mails, "just in case". Normally, I just go into my IMAP mail-client (Thunderbird), do a search for all of the prior month's emails, select all the returns, then use my mail client's message-move feature to kick off the archival process. Normally, it's fire and forget and, depending how much mail I've sent or received in a month, it takes a few minutes to as much as an hour. Today, however, Google keeps timing out on the transfers, as though they've implemented some kind of throttling. WTF, guys. I paid for the extra storage, stop fucking messing with me.</p>Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-77208863155995647142022-08-17T15:36:00.000-04:002022-08-17T15:36:31.106-04:00Fuck Twitter<p> So, this morning, I log in at 0600 to start my work day. As I'm waiting for the tunnels to my work-environment to set up, I hop on Twitter real quick to see if there were any overnight notifications waiting. Instead, I find:<br /><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhIcWj2Gtfqb_9LBDuJbFsOP2ViYggkir75Nu0n2dE-LOZPjZ3udCrW43Zy51NIXLl9wH23N6_qjGc7987ywI3IPMwjAwpYpx-_bOlCkhxZbCCvqOYfeCWDCKtbrkSW6lkpHBZyjLtaZQmats3QLQ8WUBBHznHQacxguxKxKEPIUphFlDtTXEfu78nLbQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="1200" height="103" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhIcWj2Gtfqb_9LBDuJbFsOP2ViYggkir75Nu0n2dE-LOZPjZ3udCrW43Zy51NIXLl9wH23N6_qjGc7987ywI3IPMwjAwpYpx-_bOlCkhxZbCCvqOYfeCWDCKtbrkSW6lkpHBZyjLtaZQmats3QLQ8WUBBHznHQacxguxKxKEPIUphFlDtTXEfu78nLbQ" width="320" /></a></div><br /> So, I follow the on-screen prompts to see what the fuck was the reason, this time. I find that someone had apparently reported me for the post:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEixr9fZlwr-UQhjLmSyghHIs0dsO5xvChuW7ufZZT06eR_7vTFf2g4vi14l7gf3JQfNpqkwxQh_Qmbtmf4wKnAzu9jmcKrfdMPozm4bu3TRJammLUig7M2qb2nHJ3ahQDxk2xJa4SUGwgLosp9N9e4l06uheKW7ZISPKZYkhaRQxKAKko4CcF-8DG_92g" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="1005" height="116" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEixr9fZlwr-UQhjLmSyghHIs0dsO5xvChuW7ufZZT06eR_7vTFf2g4vi14l7gf3JQfNpqkwxQh_Qmbtmf4wKnAzu9jmcKrfdMPozm4bu3TRJammLUig7M2qb2nHJ3ahQDxk2xJa4SUGwgLosp9N9e4l06uheKW7ZISPKZYkhaRQxKAKko4CcF-8DG_92g" width="320" /></a></div><p>I was, to say the least, incredulous. My response was to the post:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhuxLwL8b1weetWPAc1s_rN3N3ohuMi3Ed7DxhmKeGLF1qywNmO3xANZXJVa7e_WR6nDQDdViLQlNlD3I54qyXDUL1CoYk06GMuweSH6Z8mr6Ac2YjDlIrczeRdZOKpvJiyrmXQsCwr0eb6kHOSf2KrkWBxf2bzcWIqa7684xg3X9Z6T1ZFVEHBOSdNew" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="974" data-original-width="1200" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhuxLwL8b1weetWPAc1s_rN3N3ohuMi3Ed7DxhmKeGLF1qywNmO3xANZXJVa7e_WR6nDQDdViLQlNlD3I54qyXDUL1CoYk06GMuweSH6Z8mr6Ac2YjDlIrczeRdZOKpvJiyrmXQsCwr0eb6kHOSf2KrkWBxf2bzcWIqa7684xg3X9Z6T1ZFVEHBOSdNew" width="296" /></a></div><br />When I discovered my issue at 0600-ish, it said I had a bit over six hours left on a 12 hour ban. It asked if I wanted to appeal the temp-ban. So, I clicked on the links to do so. A little while later, I get an email saying "nope: the ban stands". It arrived <i>ridiculously</i> fast. Like, so fast that I have sincere doubts that such "appeals" are actually handled by humans, or, if they are even glanced at by humans, it's only in the most-cursory manner possible (likely some paid-by-the-article-reviewed wage-slave that doesn't actually bother to read the appealed-content).<p></p><p>I mean, the Trumps <i>collectively</i> post far worse on a daily basis. So to do their followers. Even after the ban of DJT and others in his hateful, pin-headed cabal, his followers continue to re-share his horrendous shit as images taken from postings on other sites.</p><p>Hell, it took DJT fanning the flames of an insurrection to get perma-banned and had taken significantly more than a joking-fantasy post to get his posts labeled with a moderation-notice (though, interestingly not actually banned).<br /><br />However, if I make an <i>obvious</i> joke, I get hit with the (temp) ban-hammer? I mean, seriously: when am I going to have the "opportunity" to interact with any Trump, let alone this, specific shit-weasel. Even if I <i>did</i> get a chance to make such an offer, how likely is it that said shit-weasel would accept it – yes, I know the fucktard in question has demonstrably-poor taste in food, but even he's gotta have high enough mental-functionality to turn down a meal at a shady restaurant even if he were otherwise predisposed to accept an offer.</p><p>So, again, how is this ban-worthy <i>at all</i> let alone compared to the things they've posted. My post was significantly tamer than other shit, even if one is so clue-impaired as to not see the obvious joke. I get that my miniscule number of followers means I get no special consideration, but still… combined with their <i>years</i> of failure to meaningfully moderate, it really makes one wonder what the fuck kind of sliding-scale it is they're using.</p><p>At any rate, with the temp-ban in place and the clock counting down, I was able to at least <i>read</i> posts. However, given that my VPN-tunnels had finally completed their setup and I had a busy work day to attend to, I flipped away to my work virtual-desktop and attended to my work.</p><p>I finished up my work-day a bit after 1500. Went to check on my ban-status, fully expecting that, since I'd worked for 9+ hours, the ban would be over. Instead I found my Twitter tab had refreshed itself to:<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgsI_TjyPEpt1YwzO9hnZ9ljIx2a-9yz0ZB6-wtD-_9kXUBrJWxQ_6kn4dORE4ho_zgwb1sTkvVoB0PjNuhiKX64qA8ilZtK1XCb4CFnRHXUcH_DDUvpl87Tm8hgwn9YIuD_d3H60KWc_NR8FvmrzxmxIAj779JWzN0umx-j2zVOzjXXhrFsmFpTggkmQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="1212" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgsI_TjyPEpt1YwzO9hnZ9ljIx2a-9yz0ZB6-wtD-_9kXUBrJWxQ_6kn4dORE4ho_zgwb1sTkvVoB0PjNuhiKX64qA8ilZtK1XCb4CFnRHXUcH_DDUvpl87Tm8hgwn9YIuD_d3H60KWc_NR8FvmrzxmxIAj779JWzN0umx-j2zVOzjXXhrFsmFpTggkmQ" width="320" /></a></div><br />And I was no longer even able to <i>read</i> posts. Clicking on the Start button, instead of getting me back to the reader, simply bounced me back to the above status page with a slightly decremented counter.<p></p><p>Also, it appears that having filed an appeal at 0600ish caused my temp-ban's timer to be reset.</p><p>So, again, "Fuck. Twitter."</p>Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-82905381500501240802022-07-28T10:39:00.003-04:002022-07-28T10:39:33.184-04:00You Call This Managing a Project?<p> You're in charge of a decent-sized, multi-year project. You've been using a hosted ticketing- and documentation-service to manage the work and documentation for that work. Eighteen months ago, you received notice that the hoster is discontinuing their offering and that you need to be off their service by 2022-08-01 (when it goes into a read-only mode for thirty days before finally being offlined). Do you immediately start planning your move …or do you wait till July of 2022 to start trying to move everyone off?</p><p>I think you know where I'm going with this, but, "wait: there's more!"</p><p>Middle of last week, project's management-team sent out a request asking us to test their IP whitelisting solution. They had selected a new hosted ticketing- and documentation-system. However for security reasons, they didn't want it to be attackable from random people on the internet. Therefore, to access their new, hosted service, they needed to whitelist everybody. Obviously, whitelisting a primarily-remote workforce of several dozen people would be an unwieldy IP-list to maintain – especially when someone's IP changed due to, say, a power outage. So, they decided to whitelist the IP address of a bastion-host we'd set up for SSH-based tunneling into their networks. However, they didn't understand that our already whitelisted host was strictly for SSH tunneling and not a full-fledged VPN solution. They'd been told that in 2019 but never really bothered to understand the difference. This meant that they didn't understand why it wasn't really meant to be an HTTP proxy. Yes, we tunnel HTTP through it, but the whitelisted host is the first passthrough-hop in a multi-hop tunnel. The proxied HTTP content was all hosted in network-space that was topologically part of the same network-space that the egress-node of the multi-hop SSH-tunnel was in. Setting up the first-hop tunnel-host as a direct HTTP proxy would mean needing to set up a tunneled-proxy on <i>that</i> first-hop host …and a corresponding new browser session so it could be configured to use that new proxy-endpoint. All for for <b style="font-style: italic;">one</b> URL.</p><p>Yesterday, they got one of the networks we tunnel to whitelisted. However, only sometimes does the login URL respond before timing out. And, when it does, the login service doesn't reliably recognize our 2FA tokens (and thus far, when I've actually been able to connect, has never recognized my token).</p><p>I reported these problems as I encountered them, but their response has been utter nonchalance, even when I reminded them "your current ticketing system dies at 0000 Monday".</p>Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390888899858772858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-9832762555034517462021-03-16T20:48:00.000-04:002021-03-16T20:48:07.498-04:00Buuuut I'm Already Paying for the Streams??<p> Recently, my Google Tiles have brought me a few different articles about how NetFlix is experimenting with shutting down different-household account sharing. <a href="https://screenrant.com/netflix-password-sharing-crackdown-policy-changes-details/" target="_blank">This</a> is the article that my tiles brought me, today.</p><p>Now, I can understand that there <i>are</i> people that are using NetFlix (et. al.) in a way that is providing more usage than is being paid for. That said, if your streaming plan allows for N numbers of concurrent streams, whether four individuals are using that capacity under one roof or not should be immaterial. Similarly, whether or not those four streams are being used, part-time, across four people or thirty should also be immaterial. The plans offered aren't "four concurrent streams for an aggregate of 48 streaming-hours per month", it's a max of four concurrent streams, full stop. Arguing otherwise harkens back to cellular companies and (post-consolidation/big) ISPs putting their ginormous asterisks on their "unlimited" plans.</p><p>Further, What Netflix needs to understand is, if they're selling accounts that allow for "N" concurrent streams, they aren't losing money if, as the account-owner, I retain a stream for myself and set up profiles for N-1 other users – whether under my roof or no. NetFlix offers plan tiers (per the article, $9/mo for single-concurrency; $14/mo for dual-concurrency; $18/mo for quad-concurrency). In the case of my NetFlix account, I popped for the $18/mo. plan. That allows my wife and I to be in different rooms watching two different NetFlix-hosted shows or movies. It also means I have two <i>paid for</i> streams left over. </p><p>My mom's retired and every dollar counts. So, since I have the two, <i>paid for</i> extra streams, I set up her Roku with my login. She doesn't watch much NetFlix. Indeed, if she didn't have the use of one of my <i>paid for</i>, extra streams, she'd not purchase a NetFlix subscription at all.</p><p>Me? I tend to be a binge-and-suspend streamer. Which is to say: I sign up for a given streaming-service when I know they've posted a series (or several) that I want to watch; I binge the series (or a few series); I suspend or cancel my account. Why would I pay for a year of any given streaming service when I can buy just one month. Especially, why would I pay four a half-dozen streaming services for a year when each such service might only have a few weeks worth of content I'm actually interested in?</p><p>There's currently only two streaming services that I don't binge-and-suspend: NetFlix and Prime Video:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The only reason I don't binge-and-suspend Prime Video is because it's free with my Prime account. If I had to pay for it as a standalone service ...I probably wouldn't even binge-and-suspend as their content is almost entirely garbage. The notable exceptions being their acquisition of <i>The Expanse</i> after SyFy canceled it plus both the <i>Jack Ryan</i> series and <i>The Boys</i>. While Amazon has had some <i>decent</i> original content (<i>Borat 2</i> was ok, as was <i>Coming 2 America</i>), it's rarely been content I'd sign up for a month's worth of service for or rent via Vudu (et. al).</li><li>I don't binge-and-suspend NetFlix almost exclusively because I'm sharing it. Basically, I don't want my mom going to actually try to watch NetFlix only to be rebuffed. Absent that share-with-my-mom anchor, NetFlix would definitely be on the binge-and-suspend list.</li></ul><div>At any rate, doing the math – and ignoring (for now) binge-and-suspend habits – what does NetFlix stand to make by making sharing outside of a household no longer doable? <i>Absolute</i> best case, I roll back to a two-stream plan and my mom ponies up for a one-stream plan. If <i>both</i> households leave their accounts in place, month in and month out, that $18/mo becomes $23/mo for them (. This is probably what their bean-counters are selling to their executives. But, what it ignores is:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The risk that the shared-with household won't sign up at all</li><li>The risk that the shared-from household won't retain at least the break-even number of streams</li><li>The risk that the shared-from household won't switch to binge-and-suspend</li><li>The risk that the shared-from household will simply wholly discontinue service due to the annoyance of having terms changed.</li></ul><div>The funny thing is, Netflix's primary streaming-base is younger viewers. Which is to say, viewers who are far more likely to move to binge-and-suspend usage patterns. While the risks around boomers wholly turning off or moving to binge-and-suspend consumption-style is low, boomers aren't the primary customer-demographic.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>I get that there is probably a non-trivial amount of <i>actual</i> abuse, but you could cut down on <i>some of it</i> by limiting the number of viewer-profiles ...and then using ML to evaluate whether any of the configured profiles are obviously being shared far-and-wide. But, overall, it comes across like NetFlix (and supposedly others) trying to hold on to a fistful of sand by squeezing tighter. There's too many ways to circumvent controls. Right now, circumvention is minimal. But, if the early 2000s demonstrated anything, it's that circumvention will proliferate if content-owners try too hard to dictate usage-terms.</div><p></p>Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-81767676058763586842020-06-29T20:02:00.002-04:002020-06-29T20:02:25.266-04:00Smells Like GriftA few weeks ago, I got a letter congratulating me on qualifying for a stimulus check. The letter further stated that if I'd filed electronically, I'd get the funds direct deposited. Since I'm still fully employed and wasn't in need of the stimulus, I didn't think much about it till last week. None of my bank accounts seemed to be surplused by the amount specified in the letter. So, I did a quick search of my accounts and found no deposits in any of them - even having checked as far back as the first of the month prior to the letter.<br />
<br />
So, I hit the IRS check-tracking site. After entering my info, it told me an electronic payment shoould have shown up during the second half of May and to doublecheck with my bank before filing a trace-request. I double-checked and, as before, no evidence of a deposit from the IRS.<br />
<br />
I returned to the IRS site to see what I should do. I found the steps for filing a trace. The site told me to call an 800 number. I called the 800 number where, after holding for half an hour, the person that answered my call told me that the staff answering that number don't actually have the power to initiate a trace. I instead had to call a different number – a non toll-free number. Of course, this made me wonder "why the fuck is the IRS.Gov website saying to call the 800 number rather than the number I had to get from that 800 number after the long hold??"<br />
<br />
At any rate, I called the number. SEVERAL TIMES. Each of the first few times, the number rang, I got a message saying the call was being transferred, heard what sounded like touch-tone numbers being auto-punched ...and then dead silence. Not a summary hangup, simply dead silence. I tried a half dozen or so times, last week, each time the same as the first. With my last failure, Friday, I decided, "I'll try once more on Monday morning. If that fails, I'll re-try the 800 number and see if there's a different number to call."<br />
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This morning, instead of getting the rerouting message, I got a "estimated hold time is 30-60 minutes" message and placed in a hold-queue with not entirely insanity-inducing hold-music. At the 62-minute mark, I got a message saying the call was being transferred to a representative ...followed by what sounded like touch-tone numbers being auto-punched ...and then dead silence.<br />
<br />
Vexed, I called the original 800 number back. Waited 15 minutes for a human to pick up. I explained why I was calling a number I knew didn't have the power to help me track my payment (and that the website said it WAS the number I needed to call). The agent told me he'd try to transfer me to the group that did have the power to do the tracing. I heard a few clicks and got transferred to a hold-queue. A hold-queue that started by telling me the current hold time was in excess of 60 minutes ...followed by the same hold music I'd already listened to for 62 minutes, today.<br />
<br />
I set my phone to speaker mode and continued about my day's work. At about the 95 minute mark, a message saying I was being transferred, followed by what sounded like touch-tone numbers being auto-punched. This time, however, I actually got a human. She asked me for my info. She then did a quick search and tells me, "you were sent a debit card". I was a skosh incredulous given that the IRS.Gov site had said I should have received a direct deposit – I stated as much to her, further informing her that I've been electronically filing my taxes for well more than a decade and that, prior to Trump's tax "cut" receiving my refunds via direct deposit (since the "cut", I've been electronically paying my taxes from the same accounts that the refunds were direct-deposited to). She told me to wait while she re-verified. A few seconds passed and she verified that I would have been mailed a debit card.<br />
<br />
She then told me that the letter would have looked like junk-mail. In my head, I silently railed, "who the fuck thought it was a good idea to make these things look like junk-mail???". She also informed me that I would have to contact the card-issuer to get a new card issued. Apparently, the IRS distributed the fund by way of a commercial provider.<br />
<br />
So, yeah, $560Bn+ was given to a corporation to distrubute. A corporation that, no doubt, is both getting a contracted-rate for administering the distribution of funds and I imagine they were given a lump-sum to distribute and are getting investment income from every dollar that they can hold onto before recipients use the last few cents of the debit card. Similarly, if a card gets "lost in the mail", then "replacement fees may apply".<br />
<br />
And, I get that they're trying to get people to spend the money rather than throw it into savings. But forcing me to take the funds by way of a debit card when I (fortunately) don't have any urgent expenses is just dicktacular. The whole thing smells like it was architected to line the pockets of the stimulus-distributor – probably a Trump cronie – rather than get useful money into people's hands.<br />
<br />
Further, as someone not exactly currently in a position of need, sending me a payment now, rather than if/when I might actually need it just seems really piss-poor. These one-time, lump-sum things rather than a proper social safety-net programs don't really encourage people to spend: knowing that you'll still have money (for food and shelter) <i>tomorrow</i> is a better way to ensure that people will spend <i>today</i> (in a way that keeps the economy humming).Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-20121625851339208102020-04-06T18:51:00.003-04:002020-04-06T18:51:33.890-04:00Then What the Fuck Was It???Became symptomatic three Thursdays ago (19th). Lasted into the first weekend. Hadn't wanted to be a hyphochondriac or one of the people overwhelming the system. So, I avoided looking up symptoms to try to avoid psyching myself into any I wasn't already displaying. Sat on the increasing illness until that first Sunday night, then went to the CDC website and did the health survey-bot thing. It said, "call your GP about testing".<br />
<br />
Called first thing that Monday (23rd). Their lines were, naturally, busy. I selected the "call me back" option. Day passed by with no callback. Since GP's office was due to close at 1700, I called at 1600 to find out, "yo: should I have maybe been called back by now". Got hold of one of the office staff. They said there was no record of my morning call, so, no, I wasn't on the scheduled to be called back. Naturally, I'm thinking, "damned good thing I don't really 'trust the system'." At any rate, she said the my GP was tied up, at the moment, but that she'd put me on the immediate call-back list.<br />
<br />
GP called back about 20 minutes later. He ran me through my symptoms and reviewed my health-history chart. He agreed that my symptoms and their progression – combined with my overall health history (immunocompromised due to my arthritis medications) – would normally warrant getting the test. However, he wasn't going to prescribe one at that time. He reasoned that, because the tests take 7+ days to come back and was already four days into my symptoms, I'd presumably either be recovering or in an ER (where I'd get higher-priority testing as a result) by the time results came back. That said, he told me that if, at any point, my fever went over 101, to call immediately for a reassessment.
<br />
<br />
Couple days later, symptoms started to abate. But, a day and a half later, they returned and were worse.
<br />
<br />
Having, by that time read up on things, one of the things I'd read was that a lull followed by a return and worsening of symptoms was also a normal progress-path for COVID-19. The really unfun note about that particular progress-path was that it was the more-common one for the 20% of people that end up needing hospitalization. Dandy.<br />
<br />
Saturday night, my temperature hit 101.7. Having hit the proverbial red line, I called the GP's after-hours number. The rotation-GP told me to switch from regular cold meds in favor of taking 1000mg/8h (3000mg/dy) of acetaminophen-only. She also prescribed me the test and instructed me to get the first appointment I could the immediately-following Monday (30th).<br />
<br />
A few hours after taking the first 1000mg dose, my fever started to come down a skosh. The first 24 hours, it hovered in the 100.0s depending on where in the dosing sweet-spot I was. Tried to level things out a bit by switching from the 8-hour dosing of 1000mg to 4-hour dosings of 500mg. Flattened the peaks and valleys a bit by doing so.
<br />
<br />
Given that my arthritis meds already cause liver-sensitivity, I decided to follow-up with my GP a couple days later (Wednesday, Apr 1). Wanted to ask about reducing the daily intake. I wasn't relishing the thought of saving my lungs but killing my liver. GP informed me that they had patiets in clinical liver failure that tolerated over 2000mg/dy for extended periods. However, he agreed that it was probably better for me to do the "half as much twice as frequently" thing I'd already started doing and, if symptoms allowed, try to go to 500mg every 5-6 hours instead.<br />
<br />
My symptoms were moderately controlled under that regimen between Monday and the Wednesday I'd called my GP back about dosing. Unforutnately, the night after talking to my GP, (Thursday, April 2nd) when temperature increased its upward trend to just shy of 103 even on 500mg/4h and was starting to experience right-lung constriction and pain to go along with increased violence of the hacking cough.
<br />
<br />
I thought I might have to call the ER to let them know to prepare for a possible COVID19 arrival ("possible" since results still weren't due till today). Didn't tell my wife about the ER thoughts or the lung pain and constriction because she was already freaked out by the progression of things and tends not to be proverbial "rock" when things start looking like they're at risk of going sideways.<br />
<br />
At any rate, since whatever I have consistently been hitting its temperature-peaks around midnight and this spike happened around midnight (ironically, was a day or two after this spike that I read an article that said nighttime temperature-spikes were also normal for COVID-19), I decided I'd try going to sleep and see if things were less awful in the morning. Took a double-dose of Tylenol PM in hopes it would both knock me out and curb the temperature and coughing-spike. Woke up 7 hours later with my temperature back down in the mid 99.0s.
<br />
<br />
Friday wasn't much better (evening temperature continued to hover in the high 100.0s to mid 101.0s, lots of coughing, right lung not feeling quite up to par, diziness etc.), but it also wasn't worse. Since it wasn't worse, I opted to continue to defer care-escalation.
<br />
<br />
Saturday and Sunday things were starting to head in the right direction: I was able to keep my temperature in the high-to-mid 99.0s most of each day on 500mg dosings (4-5 hours Saturday; 6-8 hours on Sunday). Though, each time the thermometer did the "fever" urgent-beep, Donna would come running into the room to ask what the temperature was.
<br />
<br />
Hospital lab actually called me on a Sunday night (21:12 according to my phone logs) to let me know the results came back negative. I asked the dude, "then WTF do I have that's causing these symptoms on this trajectory and for this long??" Even my GP had said he expected the results to come back positive. He feebly replied "you'll have to talk to your GP." All I could think was "thanks, dude: real helpful."<br />
<br />
As I'm want to do, especially when things don't seem to be adding up, I did some further reading on the virus and associated testing methodologies. Found out that, while the RT-PCR test pretty much never provides a false-positive, it had a better than 30% false-negative rate in China and elsewhere and appeared to be doing so at higher rates in the US. Further, one article I found hinted that initial testing-efficacy reviews (though they took care to note that their review of the two English-language studies they'd reviewed – others were in Chinese and they had't had a chance to translate, yet – had yet to be peer-reviewed) seemed to indicate that the oral test might be more prone to false-negatives than the nasal-test. The test I received was the oral test.<br />
<br />
Further complicating things is that I had oral surgery in 1998. That surgery left me with a grossly-abnormal throat and posterior-sinus configuration (due to no longer having tonsils, uvula nor much of my soft palate). So, "who fucking knows".<br />
<br />
Overall, I'm wondering if we'll ever find out what the accuracy-rates of early(ish) RT-PCR testing proves to be. I'm especially curious about the US and even collection-facility-by-collection-facility differences. Also curious if/when they might take to doing the test as a two-test battery across some period of days, especially given that China's results showed not-infrequent negative-then-positive testing-results both on asymptomatic and symptomatic carriers.Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-80740030434241414522020-01-30T18:38:00.002-05:002020-01-30T18:38:46.760-05:00The Other Shoe's DroppingSo, the place we take our doggos to for primary veterinary care announced on FaceBook:
<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Dear Clients,
</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>After serving the community for over thirty-one (31) years, our emergency service will be closing the doors on February 24th, 2020. Despite all of our efforts, we have been unable to hire able and willing veterinarians to work the difficult overnight hours.
</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Our doors will remain open for urgent care needs during our general practice hours.
</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>We hope to expand our general practice hours during the weekdays and on Saturdays and Sundays to provide you with more opportunities to for appointments and urgent care.
</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>There are quite a few area hospitals that offer overnight emergency care and below some are listed:</i><br />
<ul>
<li><i>VCA Southpaws, Springfield, VA
</i></li>
<li><i>VCA Woodbridge, Woodbridge, VA
</i></li>
<li><i>Regional Veterinary Referral Center, Springfield, VA
</i></li>
<li><i>Colombia Pike Animal Hospital,
</i></li>
<li><i>The Hope Center, Vienna, VA
</i></li>
<li><i>Friendship Animal Hospital, Washington, DC</i></li>
</ul>
<i>Sincerely,
</i><br />
<i>VCA Alexandria Animal Hospital Veterinarians and staff.</i></blockquote>
I'll repeat that: they announced this via facebook rather than doing their customers the favor of directly mailing or emailing them, first.<br />
<br />
When we first started to go to Alexandria Animal Hospital (now VCA Alexandria), it was a great place. To go: convenient, reasonable (for the area) prices, quick to get appointments, attentive service and had 24 hour emergency services and care. After they got acquired, the prices started to spiral while the service suffered. I'm guessing that those price increases weren't going to staff, especially since they're saying they can't get staff for the after-hours work (maybe if you paid people rather than lining stockholders pockets, you'd be able to get after-hours help?)<br />
<br />
Now, after our one dog was diagnosed with cancer, last summer, and we ended up taking her to RVRC's oncology practice. We discovered that we really liked the staff there. However, RVRC's not a general-practice facility. But, the level of care we got reminded us, "there are still independent practices that focus on great care and service," so we asked if they knew any general-practice vets near us that had the type of care that Alexandria Animal Hospital had lost in the years following their acquisition by VCA. They gave us a list, but I kind of sat on it. In the back of my mind was, "do I want to change practices when VCA Alexandria is where I'll need to go for emergency services, any way." Well, that FaceBook post changes the equation.<br />
<br />
To all these corporations buying out veterinary practices: "fuck you". You don't provide the level of care that brought in the customer bases you bought. You don't provide the level of service. And you're fucking price-gougers (which, if I thought was going to your staff rather than investors, I wouldn't mind). I hope VCA, Banfield, etc. all fucking die in a fire.<br />
<br />
Me? I guess I'll need to find a new, independent practice before this year's annual checkups are due.Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-16959120847033333362019-12-11T10:44:00.001-05:002019-12-11T10:44:14.799-05:00This Is Why We Hate YouUHC is a righteous pain in the dick:
<br />
<br />
UHC, like more and more health insurance companies, has their own, mail-order pharmacy service. In the yearly open enrollment, we're issued a warning about coverage of maintenance-medications: "UHC may choose not to cover maintenance-medications that are not procured through their mail-order service". Like a good little boy, at my last yearly checkup, I had my doctor write all my scripts as one-year, mail-order scripts so I could have UHC's mail-order service take care of them. That was January of 2019.
<br />
<br />
Fast-forward to yesterday. I get an email from the prescription mail-order service telling me that my next order is being cancelled: my script had expired and they couldn't contact the prescriber to get my script extended.
<br />
<br />
Couple things, here: 1) my current script, written in the second half of January 2019, is actually good through February of 2020; 2) my doctor will write early script, but charges a fee to do so; 3) because my insurer's pharmacy won't pay that fee, the doctor won't extend my prescription; 4) all of this is only a problem because there's a 1-2 month gap between when my on-file script ends and the period that my insurer's pharmacy is filling for.
<br />
<br />
So, now, I'm probably going to have to pay a non-office prescribing fee because my UHC's in house pharmacy is full of idiots (causing a 12-month set of prescriptions to effectively be a 9-month set of prescriptions) ...meaning I potentially end up with a medication gap for epilepsy medications as well as leaving me on the hook for to cover an early prescribing fee.
<br />
<br />
UHC: This is why people hate you and the rest of your cabal.Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-68389364692105095072019-12-04T22:18:00.000-05:002019-12-04T22:23:47.154-05:00Diminishing ReturnsSeems like, every time a zero-year birthday is imminent, I go into sort of a funk. And, with each looming zero-year birthday, the time between the actual birthday and the onset of that funk increases. I was a late-term baby: maybe I was late to my very first zero-year birthday because I didn't want to face it and was sulking in my mom's womb? Dunno.<br />
<br />
Weird thing for me is that I don't really have a sense of time. My memory makes it so that pretty much everything that's happened seems "recent". The only real way that I have any time-sense is that I'm able to recognize that my memories have order and I know that a longer line of memory-dominoes indicates that something happened further in the past ...but that's about the only semi-tangible clue about the scale of the amount of time that's past. Yet, as nebulous an indicator as that clue is, it still seems to be enough to cause the whole "looming zero-year funk" to start earlier and earlier.<br />
<br />
That this past Thanksgiving marked the tenth without my father probably didn't help. Similarly, not being able to have Thanksgiving with my mom due to illness probably exacerbated things. Thus, this time's zero-year dread seems to have started a full two months before my actual birthday. It probably started even before that – though less in the form of dread than small things like starting to answer people's "how old are you" question with, "nearly fifty" ...at least as far back as May.<br />
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<br />
The universe also seems to be prompting it. For starters, this summer, a month before she was to turn nine, by doggo was diagnosed with cancer. While it seems like like the surgery, recovery and three months of chemo successfully prosecuted the cancer, the event/process still turned my mind to aging and death. Then came the Thanksgiving-time reminder of things. And, as a coda to that, one of the streaming TV services decided that November would be a great time to run a Marathon of <i>Dead Like Me</i>. Don't get me wrong: it's a great series – even if it's been 15 years since I've watched it – but its timing was especially resonant this year.<br />
<br />
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<br />
As fun as going to EDM shows and festivals tends to be, it probably doesn't help the "I feel old thing". Not so much the aching joints an muscles the next day as being surrounded by people that are literally less than half my age (started this birth-year by going to see Herobust at Echostage, for my birthday, where I ran into another guy celebrating <i>his</i> birthday ...but it was his <i>24th</i>). And, while I'm not the oldest person at <i>festivals</i> I'm usually the oldest at one-night events (including performers, staff and probably even the ownership). And, while the twenty- and thirty-somethings we run into are usually very welcoming and like to point to my wife and me and say "life goals", it's still a compliment that drives home the gulf in ages.<br />
<br />
Plus, <i>this</i> zero-year, I'm almost certainly in that part of ones life where there's more years behind than ahead. The only way that's not true is if I manage to top the century-mark. And, while family-longevity says that's a <i>possibility</i> I've enough in the way of chronic health conditions – and semi-toxic treatments for same – that even if I otherwise could reasonably expect to top the century-mark, those conditions and their treatment means the safe money is on not topping it.<br />
<br />
Oh well...Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390888899858772858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-69155298906330262752019-12-01T02:07:00.000-05:002019-12-03T16:38:22.142-05:00RuminationsI dunno whether it's that had to spend Thanksgiving not with family. <br />
<br />
I dunno whether it's the fact that it's just after the tenth anniversary of my dad's death. <br />
<br />
I dunno whether it's the realization that I'm on my a bit more than twelve years younger than when my dad died. <br />
<br />
I dunno whether it's that my 50th birthday Loom's less than two months away. <br />
<br />
All I really know is that death, dying and whether or what might come after has been filtering through my mind a lot lately.Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390888899858772858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-50609157421818384402019-10-02T18:45:00.000-04:002019-10-02T18:45:01.543-04:00Why I Don't Respect Our Corporate Security or Training TeamsSo, I get to work today, and find an email from the computer-based training system saying that I'm nearly a month past due on some of my annual training-requirements. This struck me odd, because I generally make sure to knock out training either the day it's due or the last day I know I'll be in the office immediately before it's due.
<br />
<br />
I login to the portal to look at the training schedule. I find the "overdue" training. I look in my home directory's training certificates folder and notice that there's a matching ID in there from the second half of January of this year ...meaning that its renewal _should_ have been due in the second half of this coming January.
<br />
<br />
Go back to the training portal and see, "oh: this is a new revision of the training ...released a few days ago, but with an author-date of a few weeks ago. I guess this update obsoleted my existing training. And it looks like the 'overdue' notice was sent out on the day that the training was mad available on the training-portal but back-dated to the day it was authored." All of which is great because our managers get "overdue reports" about each of our training and anything beyond one week overdue is considered unacceptable and might result in our accesses being revoked. So, uh, yeah.
<br />
At any rate, I open the new training in my browser ...and quickly discover I have to use a different browser because the _brand new training_ is delivered via Flash and my day-to-day browser disables flash for security reasons. Irony: the training is security training.
<br />
<br />
As usual, at the end of the training is a "knowledge check" quiz. As I go through the quiz, there's a few questions whose multiple-choice answers are either "not quite right", have answers whose correctness varies on how you read the question (and the question's wording is awkward/muddy/etc.) ...or straight up wrong.
<br />
<br />
I answer the questions – including choosing "next best" answer on one where the one that turned out to be the "correct" answer _rhymed_ with what's correct but was, itself, _not_ correct (unless my ability to rent a car is an example of a best practice around providing minimized privilege set: apparently, whoever wrote the quiz and whoever did an editorial reading of the test thought "lease privilege" is a real thing in the context of IT security best practices). I hit the done/score button and fail the quiz ...by exactly the number of poorly-written/incorrect questions/answers.
<br />
Fortunately, there's a re-try button. So, I go back and provide the right incorrect answers and get a passing grade.
<br />
<br />
After printing out and saving the certificate of completion, I'm presented with a survey link. "Great," I think to myself, "I'm going to fucking roast them." I was, at minimum, planning to leave a one-word comment, "theiy're," in any available free-form response section. Naturally, the link to the survey doesn't actually work.
<br />
<br />
WTF.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-55544576672570525132019-07-24T18:50:00.003-04:002019-07-24T18:50:58.274-04:00Taking the Long ViewIn general, I'm not one of those "shiny, happy people". English is only my second language: sarcasm is my first. I'm generally a contrarian ...but I'm consistent with it: not only do I find the clouds to other people's silver-linings, I'll find the silver linings to other people's clouds.<br />
<br />
Recently, one of my dogs was afflicted with abdominal cancer. Originally, her primary veterinary-practice vet presumed insulinoma. Subsequent imaging – first a sonogram then a computerized axial tomography (I'd use the more common "CAT" but seems odd to do so in the context of a dog) scan – combined with a non-indicative test-result for overabundance of insulin seemed to indicate that it was probably a liver tumor. Today, she had surgery …and the tumor turned out not to be associated with her liver at all: was a tumor growing off her stomach that had butted up so snug against her liver that the imaging made it <i>look like</i> a liver tumor. Have to wait for histology results to come back to find out just what kind of beastie it is.<br />
<br />
At any rate, the afflicted dog was the fourth rescue we adopted ...and the third to be afflicted with cancer. The first two were euthanized because of their (untreatable) cancers. The third dog died of sudden renal failure. In short, I've plenty to be "cloudy" about – particularly when it comes to my pup-luck.<br />
<br />
That said, all five of the dogs we've adopted have been absolutely wonderful companions. So, my pup-luck isn't completely shitty. And, taking the long view of things, I've actually got plenty to be thankful for:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>I've been employed at a sufficient-enough pay-scale that I've been able to save aggressively not only for retirement but for "rainy days".</li>
<li>Due to the previous point, my care-decisions for the current dog's treatment have, thus far, only needed to be driven by probable outcomes rather than financial considerations.</li>
<li>I have a wonderful set of friends and acquaintances who've been wishing us well with our current canine-health straits</li>
<li>I live someplace where I have access to a number of both day-to-day and specialty veterinary practitioners</li>
<li>I live <i>close</i> to said practitioners</li>
<li>Those practitioners have flexible enough schedules that:
<ul>
<li>I was able to have my dog be seen by an emergency veterinarian within an hour of the episode that ultimately uncovered the tumor</li>
<li>Prior to the oncology-referral, the emergency vet asked to do some additional diagnostics that could have included ICU charges, but for which I was only charged the actual lab fees.</li>
<li>I was able to have very frank discussions with the emergency vet about likely diagnoses and prognostics</li>
<li>I was able to have my dog be seen by a veterinary oncologist within a day of the emergency vet's lab results coming back.</li>
<li>I was able to have a CT scan performed the first business day after the oncology consult.</li>
<li>I was able to have very frank discussions with the oncology vets about likely diagnoses and prognostics resultant of all the preceding diagnostics</li>
<li>I was able to have a surgical-consult the day after the final imaging results came back</li>
<li>I was able to have surgery performed the same day as the consult.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>I have a very understanding employer who's been able to accommodate me suddenly needing to take time away from the office so I could take advantage of all of the above scheduling flexibility</li>
<li>I have an employer who's trying to work within their legal frameworks to help me with the financial aspects of things</li>
<li>As noted previously, I have enough in the way of savings that I don't <i>need</i> my employer to come up with a financial hail-mary for me.</li>
<li>Because of my financial standing, even if I didn't have the liquid or semi-liquid savings as an immediate backstop, I could probably fairly trivially pick up a 0/0 credit card to help me bridge any savings-gaps I might have had.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Now, to hope that:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>The pathology report comes back with results that allow me to be thankful to have my doggo for another few years.</li>
<li>All of the dog-related concerns can ebb soon enough that (what appear to be) incipient health-problems for my wife can be addressed free of worry about doggo. Basically, if wife <i>does</i> end up hospitalized, again (fuck you, Chron's), hopefully doggo will be sufficiently on the mend that I'll be able to visit wife during her hospitalization.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Lastly, as crap as 2019 has been from a medical and veterinary standpoint, there've been enough other positives – both those listed above and those that I've not explicitly stated – that I can easily see that things could be so much worse. And, no, I'm not asking the Universe for a demonstration of how much worse things could be. I would prefer to be able to remain thankful for the luck-detour being <i>manageable</i>.</div>
</div>
Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390888899858772858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-50829903936527033832019-07-08T17:41:00.001-04:002019-07-08T17:41:29.356-04:00Stating the Blindingly-ObviousI was gonna title this "cancer sucks", but changed my mind for two reasons:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>This is may not be the only post in the coming weeks/months that would want that title.</li>
<li>It's a statement of the blindingly-obvious (and, thusly, not terribly original)</li>
</ol>
<div>
Vet contacted me, today, about Lady. The initial test-results were not confirmative of insulinoma. He said this wasn't surprising because, while her blood sugar levels were quite low, they weren't in the range typically necessary for a blood-draw to be definitive for insulinoma. Worse, just because the sonogram showed a obvious, consolidated tumor in her liver, that no tumors were visible in her pancreas isn't definitive of primary hepatic cancer. It's notionally possible that she could have pancreatic tumors that are too small to see on sonogram - even if they were the primary source of the cancer in her liver. It's a concern because primary hepatic cancer is rare in dogs. So, while she <i>could</i> be lucky - inasmuch as having life-threatening cancer in the liver can be - and have primary cancer of the liver, the odds are against that.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This left me with a couple options:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Do the oncology consult (scheduled for the morning of July 15th) without doing more to eliminate the likelihood of insulinoma</li>
<li>Drop her off at the vet, tomorrow, for some additional testing</li>
</ul>
<div>
Since it would be horrible to subject her to liver surgery if one could know that it was both unnecessary and make her spend her remaining weeks recovering from major abdominal surgery, I'm opting for the additional testing. Unfortunately, those tests can still produce a non-definitive diagnosis: like many tests, they're ok for confirming a positive diagnosis (that she <i>has</i> insulinoma) but not for confirming a negative diagnosis (that she absolutely doesn't have insulinoma). For potential longevity sake, I obviously hope for lack of a positive diagnosis from the tests. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Unfortunately, the tests aren't without risk. They have to fast her to see if her blood sugar drops enough to get a definitive positive test result. Fasting her to that point puts her at risk for seizures and worse. Primary thing going for her is that she'll notionally be being closely-enough observed during the fasting that (if she does have insulinoma) that she would be caught low enough to test yet not so low that she suffers neurological impairment (that would necessitate an even earlier departure than pancreatic cancer, by itself, would have caused).</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Still even if the fasting-blood-tests don't prove confirmative of pancreatic cancer, proceeding with surgery isn't a slam-dunk. They could open her up, do the liver resection, send off the excised tissue for biopsy and still find that it wasn't primary hepatic cancer. Meaning, that I potentially put her through abdominal surgery for nothing and put her in pain for a non-trivial chunk of her remaining time with us.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I imagine, if tomorrow's tests are non-confirmative, one of the things that we'll discuss at the oncology consultation is further pre-surgical testing. And whether they could be conducted as part of a larger, contingent procedure. That might be something like, "do an MRI (or something) and, if <i>that</i> comes back clean, only <i>then</i> move on to the resection."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Problem is, dogs, unlike humans, can't really be given an MRI without general anaesthetic. That means either doing one, long sedation for the MRI and then surgery (if the MRI were clean). The longer anything is under general anaesthetic, the riskier things become. Notionally, could do separate procedures, but that has its own risks: 1) two applications of anaesthetic in a short period of time is risky; 2) liver cancer is aggressive enough that the delay between discreet procedures likely results in the growth of the existing tumor and/or possibly allow time for it to metastasize even if it has yet to do so. And, risks to Lady aside, there's also the financial impact: doing the additional testing also markedly increases the costs of an already expensive procedure.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My primary concern is that I do the most good for the least amount of harm. And, if I can't do her any good, I'd like to at least not do her any further harm than whatever bomb ticking in her abdomen is want to do.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There's just not a lot of good choices, here. </div>
Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-38387264646289590302019-07-03T20:15:00.003-04:002019-07-03T20:25:55.157-04:00Unwanted CurveballsTo open, I'm not going to say anything like "God is a bastard". I'm, at best, agnostic. Which is to say, while I suspect that the life we have is all there is and that there's no father-like figure out there overseeing my existence, I don't have what I'd consider sufficient proof to make the leap to full-on atheism. Atheism requires a degree of certitude I don't possess. Not really sure how anyone has that much. …But I digress: it's the long-winded way of saying "I don't think there's anyone to call a bastard" and I doubt that, if there is, I don't think he's out there <i>trying</i> to make my life hard. If there's a God, he's got far bigger fish to fry than singling me out for torment. And, really, my torment is small potatoes compared to millions – maybe billions – of others'.<br />
<br />
What I do know is that, no matter how Right™ you try to live, no matter how hard you try to properly see to those in your care, no matter how much control you try to exert on existence, it doesn't seem to matter. Sometimes, it feels like the more you try, the more it blows back on you.<br />
<br />
I'm one of those people that ascribes to the whole "live within your means" thing and "save for a rainy day" and "save for retirement" ethos. For the most part, I've been able to meet those aspirations. That said, watching how others live frequently makes me feel like people who don't are often rewarded for flauting the fable of the ant and the grasshopper …or, at least, aren't as penalized for spendthrift behavior in a way that's adequately proportionate (which can feel the same as being rewarded).<br />
<br />
At any rate, while I don't lack for things I truly <i>need</i> – and it viscerally rankles me when people ascribe the term "need" to things that are, at best, "wants" – and I do indulge in occasional luxuries or self-pampering, I don't do so with the frequency that it seems many people I know do. I shepherd my money.<br />
<br />
What I do tend to spend on are things like healthy diet for myself, my wife and my pets. Similarly, I spend for regular/prophylactic medical care for myself , my wife and my pets. Unfortunately, there's years like this one – and felt most acutely on days like today – where it all feels like wasted effort. It's like tilting at windmills. My autoimmune arthritis continues to progress – if more slowly than it otherwise might. My wife's been in the middle of a months-long Chron's flare that looks to have her on a trajectory to another hospitalization. And today?<br />
<br />
Today I found out that <i>my</i> dog (we have two – one that's notionally my wife's and one that's notionally mine), Lady, has a large tumor in her liver. I found this out because, as I was working from home, writing automation for a customer's cloud environment, Lady started an episode of repeated pancaking.<br />
<br />
In the span of a little less than 30 minutes (from a hair before 11:00 to around 11:25 or so), she was falling flat for no apparent reason. First, I'd seen her get up from her one pillow to go get a drink. On the way, I saw her pancake out of the corner of my eye. It didn't look normal, but, I told myself, "maybe she just stumbled and it looked wrong because you saw it from the corner of your eye. Best to keep an eye on her." Self-delusion is grand. Unfortunately, as I feared, it <i>wasn't</i> normal. After getting her drink and starting to walk back from the dish, she shuddered, briefly, then pancaked again. She got right back up, though, so I didn't immediately panic. But then she went to go lay with our other dog, and pancaked again while taking a step up onto the main stairs. At this point, the sinking feeling really set in: barely controlled panic. I SMSed my wife to tell her to hurry home with the car before calling the vet to arrange an emergency visit. Between the SMS and call to the vet, Lady pancaked one more time before I brought her up on the couch. She had a worried look and I wanted to be able to soothe her. Donna eventually got home and sat on the arm of the couch next to Lady. Lady sat up to say hello ...then toppled back over against me.<br />
<br />
Wife home, I went upstairs to get dressed so we could gather up the dog and head to the vet. The on-couch toppling was the last such event before heading to the vet.<br />
<br />
We were able to run Lady and Kaiya (our other dog) outside to go to the bathroom without further pancaking from Lady. We were able to get them leashed and harnessed up for the trip (they actually had a scheduled appointment for booster shots, this afternoon) with no pancaking. Lady strode enthusiastically out to the car and hopped up into the back seat without any sign of lack of sure-footedness. Similarly, when we got to the vet, she hopped right down out of the car and did her boxery walk into the vet's office – all with no sign of problems.<br />
<br />
The vet-tech took care of Kaiya's booster shot while we waited with Lady for the vet. Kaiya was in an irritable mood – she tends to be leash-reactive, especially at the vet's – so I had Donna run her home while I stayed with Lady. The office staff took us to a room to wait for an available vet.<br />
<br />
Eventually he came into the examining room. We discussed what had prompted the change in plans for the day. He decided that some initial diagnostics were in order, but that it would take an hour or so to do them. So he offered the opportunity for us to leave rather than wait in the veterinary facility. Given that the pancaking happened a skosh before lunchtime and it was now 12:45 (and some of my panic had either semi-subsided or I'd been able to compartment it off), I was beginning to feel hangry. So, we took the opportunity to go home so I could get lunch.<br />
<br />
Vet called a hair before 15:00 to come talk about Lady. We rushed back down. He indicated that there were some troubling indications in her initial bloodwork. Specifically, here blood sugar levels were critically low – and they'd tested twice to verify that there wasn't a labwork error. That had caused him to do some preliminary imaging. He indicated he wasn't an imaging specialist, but that it had looked like there might be a mass near her liver.<br />
<br />
We discussed what this could mean – especially combined with the pancaking and blood sugar levels – and appropriate next steps. We opted to have their sonographer do a more-detailed imaging and analysis. This would take about an hour. Eventually, the results came back: a large, consolidated mass in her liver.<br />
<br />
Obviously, my heart sunk through the floor and my voice wanted to betray me. But, I gritted through discussing prognosis and next steps. Because the mass seems to be consolidate/confined, he recommended an oncology consult and offered a referral. There's a <i>chance</i> that, given early enough surgery and that the tumor <i>is</i> as confined as it looks, she could potentially recover in a way where she'd have decent quality of life and not suffer from a premature-for-her-breed death ...but that the oncologist would likely be able to give a better idea.<br />
<br />
We started talking numbers, both for today's vet visit, plus likely fees for consult, surgery, etc. Nice thing about numbers is it gives me something non-emotional to focus on. I was doing a running-tally of the current and projected numbers in my head versus how much I knew to be in our "rainy day"/vacation fund. The numbers were close but notionally wouldn't <i>require </i>making a life/death decision based solely on financial capability, and might not even require having to resort to credit cards or tapping into the investment-account (or, as I sometimes refer to it, "the <i>really</i> rainy-day account"). We agreed to a plan of action: he'd provide an oncology referral and steroids to help encourage her liver to release more sugar into her blood; we'd alter her diet to reduce simple carbs and increase protein and fibre intake (irony is that, with a hypoglycemia-inducing liver tumor, the diet change isn't "give her more sweets" but "feed her like she has diabetes") while simultaneously changing from twice-a-day feeding to an every-four-hours schedule (though same basic daily caloric intake) to help smooth out the glycemic peaks-and-valleys; we'd schedule an appointment with a canine oncologist and proceed based on the outcome of that meeting.<br />
<br />
Given that we didn't get home till after 17:30 and tomorrow being a national holiday, won't even be able to call to schedule the consult till Friday. I've asked for multiple referrals so that I can take her to whoever's able to see her first. Fortunately, there's enough in the "rainy day"/vacation fund that I'm able to accommodate a "speed trump costs" strategy. In the face of (personal) tragedy, it's always good to look for things to be thankful for where you can find them.<br />
<br />
Obviously, as of this writing, haven't had the oncology consult: everything could turn out to be moot.<br />
<br />
Regardless of this particular incident, this will make three dogs to have been afflicted with cancer:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Our first rescue-bullie, Lana, contracted a treatable cancer, but, it was discovered coincident to discovering she had advanced stenosis. Given her age, the stenosis and the toll treatment would take on her absent those other considerations, we opted to schedule a euthanization (so we could take her home for a few weeks of pampering).</li>
<li>A month later, our second rescue-bullie, Puckett, had manifested skin lesions. A vet visit revealed them to be from cutaneous lymphoma: an aggressive, untreatable (in dogs, at least) form of cancer. Vet predicted a possible remaining lifespan of six months. We got half that when the cancer spread to his lungs.</li>
<li>With Lady, our fourth rescue-bullie, I don't yet know the outcome. I suspect the worst, however. That seems to be the way of things.</li>
</ul>
<div>
By a small miracle (at least, it seems that way, at this point) our third rescue-bullie, Cira, was not afflicted with cancer. No... At just shy of nine years old (a skosh longer than six years after joining our household), she died of a sudden-onset, complete renal failure.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So, yeah, our pup-luck has been "not great". I mean, to date, we've been blessed with five really wonderful dogs, but three – and likely a fourth – we'll have only been able to share our home with for far shorter times than is normal for their main breeds' life-expectancies. And that's in spite of the previously mentioned attentive care.</div>
<br />
<br />
In short, dog-owning life has had a way of really making us feel like the Universe is, at best, indifferent, many times cruelly-so.Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-46284017290217181592019-02-07T19:12:00.000-05:002019-03-27T09:24:00.334-04:00News flash: Virginia is an "Old South" state. It's nickname is "Old Dominion" for a reason. Several of its most famous historical figures owned slaves and led Confederate forces. Hell, it was the <i>seat</i> of the Confederacy for a while.<br />
<br />
I've lived here for a quarter century, now. "Northern Virginia" was a near pejorative for "real" Virginians when I first moved here.<br />
<br />
I still remember how stark the difference between the 703 area code was from the rest of the state. It defined not just your dialing rates/locality but a noticable mind-set difference. Just beyond the 703, where you now find tech companies and huge tractsA-friendly neighborhoods McMansions, you used to see farms and rustic stores Hawking souvenirs from "the War of Northern Aggression".<br />
<br />
My point is, discovering that a politician that was born, raised and attended college in "Old South" Virginia before the 90s ever participated in black-face is utterly unsurprising. Not excusing it. Just pointing out some unfortunate reality. There's likely a lot of skeletons in the closets of a significant chunk of the Virginia state government's office-holders. It's likely to be another 15-20 years before that's no longer the case.<br />
<br />
It's not just a Virginia thing, either. Hell, it's not even just a "South" problem. I grew up in what, as an adult, I refer to as Pennsyltucky. The vast majority of the state is/was rural ...and its main cities were never (on average) something you'd have confused for "cosmopolitan", "sophisticated" or particularly "progressive". I knew plenty of people my age that, even 20 years ago, would say things that might leave you gawping or scratching your head and wondering, "did you really just say that?" And if you were talking people a generation or two older than me? Fuuuuuck. I loved my grandmother dearly, but I don't have enough fingers to count the number of times she would use "the coloreds" or similar terminology in her speech. It wasn't <i>meant</i> in a particularly-racist way - it was normal for her generation and class - but would still leave me sometimes speechless.<br />
<br />
I used to travel extensively, for work. I can tell you that Pennsylvania is not alone in this respect among Northern states.<br />
<br />
So, yeah, the current news cycle about what's going on in Richmond is pretty fucking gross. However, as alluded to above, given the current composition of the elected body, summarily cashiering people who've had skeletons might not be the smartest thing. The replacements could easily be <i>worse</i> people. It's even likely that the people that dug those skeletons up have the same damned skeletons (that they think are burried a bit better than those of the recently-exposed) but also have something to gain by digging others' up.<br />
<br />
I dunno. It sucks. Doesn't feel like there's a lot of good options inside the next decade or so. That said, I'd still probably prefer someone that <i>claims</i> repentance over someone still wearing a MAGA hat.Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390888899858772858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-18405088307387180392018-11-09T22:08:00.001-05:002018-11-09T22:08:05.642-05:00Going NowhereIt's funny, I've spent a decent chunk of my working-life traveling:<br />
<ul>
<li> 22 straight months for SGI
</li>
<li> 6 straight months for NetApp
</li>
<li> sporadically for Digex/WorldComm/MCI
</li>
<li> 5 straight years for Wells Landers (on behalf of Veritas, Sun and VMware)</li>
</ul>
Given that the above accounts for all but the most-recent nine years of my career, that I have managed to completely duck traveling for both my current company or my prior company is kind of an aberration. That said, that desire to avoid traveling isn't without reason...<br />
<br />
Having had to deal with the expensing systems for small items like tolls and similar costs for attending local event, certification exam costs and the like, I've felt compelled to avoid incurring <i>any</i> work-related expenses that I couldn't afford to not get reimbursed for. Worse, because said expenses are employee-fronted and their systems are/were such fucking disasters, there is/was the likelihood of incurring interest charges while waiting for the expense-processes to get worked out. I can cover a few $100s to pay off a credit card and avoid interest when the expensing-process is horribly broken and slow. Paying off airfare, hotel and meals for a week-long conference or training course (and the fees for attending the conference or course)? Not so much ...and I for damned sure ain't paying interest on that waiting for an expense check to get cut (or try to recover interest accrued due to said waiting).
<br />
<br />
So, over the last nine years, my travel has been limited to pleasure trips. Which is to say, travel that <i>doesn't</i> force me to have to deal with an expensing-nightmare. The only travel nightmares have been the horror-show that is the fucking TSA. With "TSA" accounting for why most of our vacations are "mini" vacations that are done either by car or train. Because of the TSA, a pleasure trip has to be <i>really</i> worth the hassle.Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-31624782004772770312018-11-08T17:26:00.001-05:002018-11-09T20:30:04.332-05:00Thanks For Nothing, FuckersWas kind of annoyed when I went to use my Hue app. Opened the app to control my lights, and the app announced to me, "you need to use the Bridge v1 application, now".
<br />
<br />
So, yeah, confirmation of why I'll <i>never</i> spend a huge amount on any given IoT device: deprecation. LED lightbulbs typically advertise lifetimes in excess of two decades. So, <i>notionally</i>, once you've paid the premium for Hue bulbs, you're done paying for bulbs for twenty or so years. <b>EXCEPT!</b> ...if you wish to continue being able to actually <i>control</i> those long-lived devices, Philips apparently wants you spend $100+, every few years, to buy a new damned bridge?
<br />
<br />
Fuck.
<br />
<br />
That.
<br />
<br />
Noise.<br />
<br />
And, the thing is, you <i>know</i> that Philips won't be alone in that nonsense. So, sorry Samsung (et. al.): while I could maybe see my way to laying out $10K for a "smart" refrigerator that will last me a couple decades, I'm certainly not dropping that much, <i>every few years</i>, just so I can keep using all of those "smart" features.
<br />
<br />
Somehow, it feels like "IoT" is destined to become a further driver of burgeoning landfills.Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-73180661002871894332018-09-27T20:32:00.000-04:002018-09-27T20:32:08.638-04:00We're Going to Vegas, Baby!Why it's sometimes worth making a polite call to an airline:
<br />
<br />
This past year, we went to the Las Vegas edition of the <a href="https://lasvegas.electricdaisycarnival.com/" target="_blank">Electric Daisy Carnival</a>. We had a fucking blast and wanted to do it again this coming year. However, for any such event, there's the problem of airfare expenses from the East Coast. This past year, we'd flown free by using a goodly chunk of the frequent flyer miles I'd banked from my days as a traveling professional services consultant. That chunk, however, left me a fair amount short for being able to do the same for 2019's EDC.<br />
<br />
So, I signed up for an American Airlines rewards card so that I could pocket 60,000 frequent flyer miles. The cost of getting that bonus was spending across three months less than what I normally push through one of my cards in a few weeks' time. At any rate, those points finally posted a few weeks ago. So, I went to book the free trip for my wife and myself using those points. Unfortunately, by the time the points had posted to my account, the itinerary's cost in points had gone up (naturally) such that I was short, again.
<br />
<br />
One of my other credit cards is a hotel card. The chain has a transfer agreement with American that let me convert points. When I'd looked to see how many points I'd need to convert, I found a page that said "transfer before December 21st and get a 30% bonus." Score. That would let me book the trip with points to spare. So, I went to my hotel's site to initiate the conversion. The points showed up today. However, there was no 30% bonus present and I was still 500 points shy of the free itinerary. So, I called American.<br />
<br />
The CSR was very helpful. She pulled up the page showing the bonus-offer and contacted her help desk. Since I was very close to my points needed and the help desk was potentially going to take a while, she comped me the necessary points to get me to my free trip. In the mean time, her help desk informed her that the bonus-offer web page we were both viewing was a 2017 offer that their web maintainers hadn't taken offline. However, since I'd acted in good faith (and have done a few hundred thousand miles of travel on the airlines that became the current incarnation of American), they comped me the bonus. Presumably, they'll be trying to figure out how to offline that stale page (since the page's terms only mentioned a month/day and not a year).
<br />
<br />
Now, to sort out hotel...Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-39599730033870227942018-09-13T10:22:00.000-04:002018-09-13T10:22:03.410-04:00Rich Man; Poor ManDirect-deposit on the pay-period where I make mortgage payments is particularly brutal from the "I'm rich! I'm poor!" standpoint.
<br />
<br />
With DD, your money-sender "notifies" the receiving bank anywhere from a few hours to an entire business-day before the money is actually going to post to the account. My bank notifies me of my DD as soon as they receive the intent-notice from my employer's payroll processor. That means that I "see" the incoming money even before it's <i>technically</i> available.
<br />
<br />
That said, my bank treats that money as though it actually <i>has</i> been deposited. That means that I can start writing debits against that credit even before it's technically been credited ...which I generally do.
<br />
<br />
When it's mortgage-paying time, I log into my loan-servicer's portal and arrange for the payment. Even if I tell them "pay the bill, today," the debit generally doesn't show up in my paying account (the one I receive the pending-DD notification from) till the next day. Still, sometimes the mortgage debit hits before the actual DD credit posts. Thus, some months, there's truly times where there's <i>zero</i> time between the rich/poor events (vice the more-normal "at least I was rich for a few hours!" scenario).Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-66787162113047472242018-09-01T12:13:00.001-04:002018-09-01T12:13:18.999-04:00"Travel" and PerceptionIt is kind of interesting how two people can see the same artist put on a set at a club or festival and come away with completely different impressions of the show. It's almost like, "were we both at the same show??"<br />
<br />
It seems to be kind of like life in a microcosm, though. If you don't "travel" (in the case of a show or festival, either move around the room or, when at the edge of the room while going to from the bar or restroom, observing the entire room rather than just the one pocket you and your group are in, that night), you don't really take in that there's a difference between the broader-scope and your particular part of it.<br />
<br />
Last night's Alison Wonderland show was a good case in point. I'd say that her set left me cold, but anger-inducing disappointment doesn't feel "cold" to me. SongKick sent me a "how was last night's show" link to leave a review. I left my honest opinion of the show. Afterwards, I looked at others' review of the show. To say that differences of opinion were "stark" is an understatement.<br />
<br />
By the reviews, there were clearly a lot of people that enjoyed themselves. And, on my trips to the bar and bathroom, it was clear to my eyes that there were, indeed, pockets of people that clearly liked the show.<br />
<br />
...Just as there were clearly pockets of people that were pretty much completely disengaged. To the people that were in those "happy with it" pockets that never really left those pockets (when you're rolling, I guess you don't really need to worry about hitting the bar) or never bothered to look beyond their pocket, it would be easy to think that, like at better shows, "the entire room" was into it. Basically, lack of perspective from lack of "travel" or desire to observe other than what's immediately in around them (or the act on stage). ...Or, other impairment effectively creates tunnel-vision (see prior aside about "rolling").<br />
<br />
Life — on any given scale — is probably a lot easier that way. It means that only your little cocoon really matters.<br />
<br />
/shrugThomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-39535912594945642342018-08-30T17:12:00.000-04:002018-08-30T17:12:06.936-04:00GREAT Customer ServiceWork/tech-related, so, almost worth putting in my tech-oriented blog. However, while I'm frequently cranky in that blog, I do try to reserve it for posts about how I solved a given problem.<br />
<br />
Any way...<br />
<br />
So, a couple weeks ago, I open a ticket for some software that purports to be "Red Hat 7 compatible" pointing out "you guys don't ship systemd unit files with your stuff; the manner in which your legacy-init files are installed makes them incompatible for use with a partitioned disk or a system with data-specific drives; and your legacy-init files invocation is so convoluted and dicked up that trying to <i>create</i> proper unit files is basically a non-starter". The CSR that responded to the ticket replies back, "you should open a feature request asking for unit files: use this URL".
<br />
<br />
Of course, I'm pissed that, what should just be a fucking given — shipping of unit files for an application that claims to be "Red Hat 7 compatible" — is apparently something that I need to request as a feature/extension. Take that already pissed-off state and then refer me to a URL that doesn't fucking work and you take that rage-state and dial it up.
<br />
<br />
I reply back to the ticket, "I can't get to that URL". The CSR eventually replies back, saying, "I'll have to look into the problem" ...then fucking ghosts, but not before marking the case as solved/pending-close.
<br />
<br />
Having marked it pending-close, their system kicks out a satisfaction survey. Of course, I give the CSR all zeros and fill out the "why'd you give these scores" box with polite-bile and asking, "do you really think you ought to be closing this ticket given the open-ended manner in which your CSR left it". Somehow, none of this results in an escalation or even a different CSR picking up the ticket.
<br />
<br />
Today, I get an auto-generate email saying "you haven't replied to the case in 10 days, so we're closing it."
<br />
<br />
So, if any of y'all are curious who this oh so helpful software's vendor is (hopefully you so you can steer-the-fuck-clear), it's <a href="https://www.collibra.com/">Collibra</a>. When you see their name on a product, run. Screaming. Far, far away.<br />
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<br />Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-90987204050839872482018-06-28T12:14:00.003-04:002018-06-28T12:14:41.878-04:00Joys of New DSLs<div style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 80%;">
Note: this document is very much a "for my own knowledge"/rant post. Don't try to use it as a reference unless you're really freaking desperate. Terms are likely wrong or inaccurate. However, I needed to capture the gist for posterity. I lost two days of my life teasing this shit out of Google (and across a few dozen only very obliquely-related search-hits) — particularly the last paragraph's contents — and don't wish to do so ever again .</div>
<br />
<br />
One of the projects I'm working on, they requested that I take all of the previously-delivered CloudFormation templates and wrap them in Jenkins pipeline jobs. They wanted to be able to reliably an easily re-deploy things, have the deployment-options saved as code, and they wanted to be able to easily check whether a given deployment had errors or not. All are good, valid goals.<br />
<br />
That said, the manner in which I'd constructed the CFn templates, I included a lot of built-in break-points and error-reporting. As far as easily redeploying, when you use the AWS CLI, one need only pass the <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">--parameters</span> flag to be able to feed a file of parameter values and settings to the command. Place those parm-files under revision control and all of their stated goals are satisfied. But, "whatever".<br />
<br />
Main problem for me is/was, "I'm not a Jenkins guy." While it was easy enough how to deploy Jenkins via CloudFormation, doing so via Jenkins meant (at least partially) learning the Jenkins equivalent methods to using a parameters-file. When first assigned the task, I'd indicated, "I don't know Jenkins: got any examples you can point me to?" All of the examples they had were GUI-authored "Freestyle" Jenkins jobs. Not a GUI-jock, but figured, "if this is what they want, I can probably ape their current job definitions to create ones for these templates."<br />
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In a matter of a few days, I'd banged out the requisite Freestyle jobs. Pointed my customer's technical PoC at them to review. He gives me an incredulous, "what are these??" I stated that they were the Jenkins jobs. He stated that he'd wanted them as pipeline jobs. To which I asked, "then why did you point me at Freestyle jobs as examples to follow?" We discussed things a bit further so I was better assured that what I was understanding as the desired outcome was the <i>actual</i> desired outcome.<br />
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So, I set to the task of learning how to author jobs using the pipeline DSL. It's been... "unfun". Jenkins is composed of a lot of "contributed" parts. While the core of Jenkins has something in the neighborhood of "ok" documentation, many of the contributed parts' documentation varies from "slightly better than ok" (rare), down through "awful" (common) and, in some cases utterly lacking to the point that you have to read the components' code to see how to make it go (annoyingly far from uncommon). Worse, because so much is "contributed" and the contribution-sources so varied, what works in one context may or may not work (or at least not work the same way) in other contributed contexts.<br />
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Further exacerbating things is that there are also multiple methods for denoting action-blocks. And, depending on which method you usde for denoting an action-block, variable interpretation and interpolation is processed differently. This totally glosses over the fact that one can reference a variable in multiple ways: naked "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">VARNAME</span>"; shell-ish "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">$VARNAME</span>" or "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">${VARNAME}</span>"; and, when embedded in a shell-block, "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">\$VARNAME</span>" or "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">\${VARNAME}</span>". For those still following along but not aware of the plain "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">$</span>" and "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">\$</span>" methods, the former is for Jenkins environmental variables and the latter is for standard shell variables.<br />
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Further, if one wants to fetch the value of a parameter, one can use "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">${PARAMNAME}</span>", "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">params.PARAMNAME</span>" or even "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">env.PARAMNAME</span>" (or, within the context of a script-block, the latter two become "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">${env.PARAMNAME}</span>" or "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">${params.PARAMNAME}</span>"). Use of straight-up "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">${PARAMNAME}</span>" is frequently fine. When it becomes <i>not</i> fine is if you want to allow <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">PARAMNAME</span> to have a value or be null. If it has a value, all is golden. If you try to pass a null value, it blows the hell up. Instead, you need to use the "<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">env.PARAMNAME</span>"/"<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">${env.PARAMNAME}</span>" to refer to it. Using that method, Jenkins understands, "oh, you wanted to process this as an empty value, not as an undefined parameter".<br />
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<br />Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390888899858772858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-79669428709744903042018-06-23T12:55:00.002-04:002018-06-23T12:55:53.888-04:00"Shop Local" Only Goes So FarFor a decade-plus, now, we've bought wines from <a href="http://www.northgatevineyard.com/" target="_blank">Northgate Vineyard</a>. Today, I'm reasonably certain that I bought my last bottle of wine from them. It's a shame, really, because I really liked doing business with them. Unfortunately, times change and, too frequently, the things that make you want to do business with people go away as part of that change. <div>
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Such has happened with Northgate. Earlier this year they were sold. Apparently, the buyer is someone that's buying up Virginia vineyards, presumably hoping to cash in on a stong "buy local" ethos that has powered the growth of the farmers markets, distilleries and the Virginia wine industry as a whole. Unfortunately, this buyer seems to want to recover his acquisition costs inside of the first 12-24 months of assuming ownership.</div>
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While I'm a proponent of "buy local", that desire has its limits. Admittedly, when we first started buying their wines a decade ago, they were a relative bargain: you could get a really decent wine from really nice people and spend well less than $20 to do so. Even over time, as their prices trended upward, the value proposition still made their wine an "ok" buy. Unfortunately, a wine that was a bargain at $16 and an ok value at $21 falls out of the "every-day drinking" price-range when it hits $30+. And, when the retail price goes up by more than 60% in the space of three months <i>and</i> you no longer cut frequent-buyers the same discount you cut for occasional case-buyers, you're really asking a lot of your existing customers. I'm concerned with value. If you're wanting to charge me better than 60% more for something I've been buying for years, you need to deliver a product that has a concordant improvement in value.</div>
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Funny thing with a better-than-$30 bottle of wine: you put it into the same price-class as some really decent "continental" or California wines. Yeah, you're still nowhere near the really superior wines that come from vineyards that have been making wine since before this country even existed, but you're definitely out of the "table wine" price category and into "special occasion" territory. You're no longer a wine that I'm just going to give to a newly moved-in neighbor as a housewarming gift. You're no longer a wine that I'm going to share with friends who are just as happy drinking a bottle of Barefoot from the local 7Eleven. And, hey: if you're able to make more money chasing the "occasional wines" market than the "every day wines" market, then "good on you" ...but I can't come along for that ride. And, like I say, if you're going to price yourself as an occasional wine, you need to taste like one. Sadly, I can't say that Northgate's wines fall into that category.</div>
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What's really sad is that they aren't the local wine-producer that's going down this path. Yes, Northern Virginia (DC Metro as a whole) has a lot of six-figure earning residents. And, of those, there's a non-trivial number — particularly the younger, less life-encumbered ones — who tend to have a "more dollars than sense" outlook on buying-decisions. But, that's a group that tends to shrink over time as they discover that there's plenty of things that are "just as good or better for less" and that spending money for the sake of spending money isn't really a sustainable path, no matter what your income is.</div>
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Point of fact, my income doesn't exactly put me in the "struggling" range, even given this area's cost of living. That said, I still measure everything I buy — no matter the price — on whether the reward was worth the cost. My spending habits are more about <i>value</i> than raw price. I've had "special occasion" meals that, at nearly $1000, were <i>far </i>better values than meals that were well less than 1/3 that price.</div>
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And that's the rub. "Shop local" is really only one point of consideration in the "value" equation. There's not many people I know that are going to completely ignore the rest of the value equation just to shop local. If people are going to ignore other aspects of a value equation, they're going to do it for a status-y "name", not "it's local". To be brutally honest, I don't know that there's a single Virginia winery that has a status-y enough name to overcome normal value equations.</div>
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It really makes me wonder how successful this vineyard-buyer is going to end up being. His practices, to date, have been pretty alienating. I've even spoken to a wine-buyer for a local wine outlet that has previously carried the labels effected by this vinyard-buyer's actions. And the opinion is basically the same as mine: "nice when it was at last year's price; completely not worth it at the current price." Worse, that buyer has to factor in seller-behaviors into the bulk-buying decisions and the seller's delivery-behavior has apparently suffered even as the asking-prices have soared.</div>
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So, "good-bye, Northgate." It was nice when it was Mark selling me wine. This new guy can go screw himself ...because that's exactly what he's trying to do to the people that helped make Northgate an attractive acquisition-target.</div>
Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5490548155849733962.post-78601085783127183312018-06-22T19:17:00.000-04:002018-06-22T19:17:20.595-04:00Do People Just Look Younger, Now?So... Facebook popped up a picture of me from my college days. While the specific picture was of me heading out to a Halloween party (probably the Friday before Halloween, 1989), there's nothing I'm wearing in the picture (aside from the small bit of makeup and the bleach-blotted, semi-shredded jeans) that weren't part of my regular look.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTv1RojvluhFca1_jWLfJvSfTCjUrM0DGCsOCVCLuCM6sVLnDL-v11T3KsveRfXzyQiHj55Zhz8w_aHFr_LfSEXZ9SsRHpNmZJoi0Qg0-dIVQ1IAGzYix4zy3_xVMgSL5alU59VsvW_-R9/s1600/SkaterMe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTv1RojvluhFca1_jWLfJvSfTCjUrM0DGCsOCVCLuCM6sVLnDL-v11T3KsveRfXzyQiHj55Zhz8w_aHFr_LfSEXZ9SsRHpNmZJoi0Qg0-dIVQ1IAGzYix4zy3_xVMgSL5alU59VsvW_-R9/s640/SkaterMe.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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At any rate, couldn't remember if I still had the original photo anywhere. It's possible that I do, just have no freaking clue where. But, it did exist in a "Photos from College" folder on one of my cloud accounts. It was actually one of only three photos of me from the entire time I was in college. There's probably more, but none that were ever in my possession. Basic fact is that there's just not a lot of pictures of me from <i>any</i> point in time as I generally eschew picture-taking.<br />
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At any rate, of those photos of my college friends, while everyone pictured looks noticeably younger, none <i>seem</i> to look as young as the college-aged faces I tend to see walking around, today. I dunno whether it's just that I tended to hang out with people that looked older than typical or if my brain is still applying the same filters to those pictures as it formed when I was seeing those faces with regularity (but doesn't to people who are <i>actually</i> 18-22 years old). Could be just a weird perceptual trick ...much like how pictures of former SOs no longer look as beautiful as you remembered them looking when you were still in the good part of when you were dating them.Thomas H Jones IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01261128344892452964noreply@blogger.com0