About nine months ago, <a href="http://divvybikes.com/">Divvy bike</a> sharing program went live in Chicago. I was thrilled with the concept of it from the initial launch, and was excited to see it quickly expand throughout the city*. Over the winter, I learned of the <a href="http://www.divvybikes.com/pricing/corporate-memberships">corporate memberships</a> that they offer. The simplest of which was a one-time $100 start-up fee, and all employees then received $10 off of annual memberships.
Clearly, thought I, this was an easy sell to Human Resources and a quick ten dollars saved per year. Last month, they announced that they would pay for all but $30 of the membership fee. How could I pass this up? I was one of the first to register under our plan, and this was the impetus for me to finally beg for this damn weather to be nice enough for me to comfortably ride.
Yesterday, it was over 60°F when I left the office, so I hopped on a bike, and pedaled my way home. It was delightful! The bike lanes on Dearborn through downtown provided for a safe pack of riders. A quick jaunt on Clark before taking the split to go up Lincoln, and I was at the Divvy station nearest me inside of 25 minutes. Fitbit says I burned approximately 232 calories, which is just a nice addition. It took me about as much time door-to-door as it would on a slightly slower than average day taking the L. I look forward to spending many mornings and evenings atop a bicycle in the months to come.
There are a few downsides, of course. The bikes are heavy, that is for sure. At 40 pounds, they are not easily swung around. Even <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raBz77k4fqk#t=55">professional BMX riders</a> have trouble doing anything impressive while on the bike. The three gear settings on the bicycle do not really allow for aggressive (or even fast) speeds. With my long legs and powerful strides, I would really like there to be a fourth gear or for the third gear to be tuned up a bit. I never used the first gear, preferring to start in second, and quickly ticked up to third before even getting through an intersection. In spite of this, the gear changes were completely smooth, and I never had even a hint that I might be stressing the machine. Some people are having a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/24/divvy-bikes-lawsuit_n_3795687.html">Not In My Backyard</a> reaction to the system, but personally I think they can just get over it.
While riding the bike, I found myself thinking of a niche market of lightweight, collapsible accessories waiting to happen. Certainly a bag <a href="http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2014/03/finally-bag-fits-tiny-rack-bike-share-bikes/8665/">tailored for the front rack</a> would be useful, as would a rear rack that could snap onto the seat post. It would make it viable for simple grocery shopping.
At the end of the day, it was a great ride, and I am very glad that I have an annual membership. With any luck, I may be able to convince some of my nearby coworkers to also grab the perk, and we can ride to and from work together.
<hr>
Footnote: Chicago is a <a href="http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-muckrakers/2012/06/segregation-in-chicago-is-a-complex-interplay-between-race-and-income-study/">very segregated city</a>; it is not something to be proud of, but it is the reality. "Throughout the city" for a white, middle-class resident pretty much just means the Loop, and all neighborhoods north of there. The west and south side just do not exist in my regular travels in the city. The city, when rolling out Divvy, <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-07-10/news/ct-met-divvy-bike-location-20130710_1_bike-sharing-program-divvy-pink-line">seemed to target these neighborhoods</a> the most. I cannot find anything that points to whether this has changed with the Phase 2 roll outs, or if the trend continues.

Divvy Is Delightful

<blockquote>
This old code? Sure, I think I can make a quick tweak to it. Let me take a look.
</blockquote>
Thus, the yak shaving begins. The code compiles just fine, the tests all pass, and I can just edit a couple of lines and be done with this. Edit, build, deploy, drink coffee.
It was nice of NuGet, though, to notify me that one of the libraries that I am using has an updated version available. Well, I think I will just click that handy Update Packages button.
Oh, there is a conflict between a file that already exists and the new version coming in - go ahead and overwrite the file. I am pretty sure it is something minor that I will easily discover; and if it does not work, then that is what source control is for.
<blockquote>
Whoa! WHOA! Slow down there, cowboy. You told me there was only one package to update, not the fourteen you just updated. Now my project no longer builds. Wait… you REMOVED A PACKAGE? Now we have a problem.
</blockquote>
At this point, I went back to TFS to figure out what package had been removed. Then I had to go research what that package used to do, find its replacement, discover how to interact with it, find that there is a better way to utilize it, rebuild the whole solution, fix a plethora of bugs this caused, and eventually get that small portion working.
One package update done; thirteen more to go. This was supposed to be a quick tweak.
Two days later, I decide that updating the packages is not worth it at this time. I document that the application needs package updates (all fourteen at this time), approximately how long I think it will take (a week), potential impact if it does not get updated (none), and what selling points for the user there are to updating (none).
Now, on to the next minor tweak that tries to convince me that library updates are smooth and painless. Also, I need more coffee.

Returning To an Old Project

<blockquote>
When you have children, you can have exactly one hobby. Anything else is an exercise in futility, self-deception, and ineffectiveness. Cooking healthy food is a hobby. Exercising is a hobby. Maintaining a website is a hobby. Writing a blog is a hobby. Bringing work home is a hobby.
</blockquote>
That is a minor paragraph in an otherwise <a href="http://dandreamsofcoding.com/2013/08/07/shutting-down-a-dream/">downer post</a> about a tech start-up shutting down, but it is entirely true and poignant to my life. Over the last two years, running has (injury dependent) been the singular hobby to which I have devoted any significant expanse of time. I have tried to engage seriously in other hobbies such as <a href="rovani.net" title="Rovani in C#">writing a blog</a>, engaging in home repair, <a href="http://darkerthanjealousy.com">creating</a> <a href="http://ckstaplesart.com">new</a> <a href="http://aerynlore.com">websites</a>, maintaining social bonds, even working on <a href="https://github.com/drovani">open-source projects</a>. However, I keep coming back to running. I am not even sure why. I really do not like running; I am constantly injured because of running; I am spending far more money than I should on running; generally, I am not entirely sure that I am happier for it all.
It has become a minor obsession, and I do not know why.
Actually, I do know why: I have a goal. It is an arbitrary, expensive, long-term goal. For some reason, I have it in my head that running all six of the World Marathon Majors is a "Good Idea". Berlin, Boston, London, New York, and Tokyo are all cities that would be fun to visit. Since I am terribly stubborn, and worse so when I have a "Good Idea", then I will find myself continuing with this arduous hobby. The next two goals along the path are to run the <a href="https://rovani.net/marathon-epilogue/" title="A Marathon in Three Parts: Epilogue">Chicago Marathon</a>, and to finish a marathon with a <a href="http://www.baa.org/races/boston-marathon/participant-information/qualifying.aspx" title="Boston Marathon: Qualifying Standards">Boston Qualifier</a>. From there, I will have to save enough money to make two different family trips to Europe and a trip to Japan. These are not cheap endeavors.
Until then, all of the other hobbies are just going to have to wait.

Exactly One Hobby

Now that I have been tinkering with Knockout for about a year, I have finally settled on a host of design patterns that I feel strike a nice balance between rigid consistency and flexible prototyping. I like to have all of my code look very similar. I can look at most code that I have written and know about when I worked on it last. I can usually even look at code that several other developers have touched and see what is mine and what is everyone else's code. Now that I have a team to direct and an expanding code base to maintain, I have realized that I need to document my own code patterns.
<a href="https://youtu.be/lZKiYgcgBAY" title="It&#x27;s good to be the king&#x27;"><img src="/images/good-to-be-king.jpg" alt="&#x22;It&#x27;s good to be the king&#x22;"></a>
Certainly, my way probably is not the absolute best, but it is what I like and what has worked best for me. Might I change my mind? Absolutely. Probably even before I finish writing this post, I will have changed my mind on several points. However, this is a good place to start.
<hr>
Two days later, as I started to write up the actual rules I had been following, I decided to look around and see if other people have put together lists of their own. It brought me to this <a href="http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/1323/does-your-company-have-a-coding-standard">"Programmers (Stack Exchange)"</a> question, which had a very nice explanation on why what I was doing was a bad idea.
<blockquote>
It is important for a team to have a single coding standard for each language to avoid several problems:
<ul>
<li>A lack of standards can make your code unreadable.</li>
<li>Disagreement over standards can cause check-in wars between developers.</li>
<li>Seeing different standards in the same class can be extremely irritating.</li>
</ul>
I'm a big fan of what <a href="http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?UncleBobOnCodingStandards">Uncle Bob has to say</a> about standards:
<ol>
<li>Let them evolve during the first few iterations.</li>
<li>Let them be team specific instead of company specific.</li>
<li>Don't write them down if you can avoid it. Rather, let the code be the way the standards are captured.</li>
<li>Don't legislate good design. (e.g. don't tell people not to use goto)</li>
<li>Make sure everyone knows that the standard is about communication, and nothing else.</li>
<li>After the first few iterations, get the team together to decide.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
So much for that idea.
What have I learned? Well, I have learned that I like this idea of doing two weeks of off-the-cuff posts, and then spending one week putting together a longer post with lots of research and information in it. I also learned that I should do the research for that post at the beginning of the week, instead of at the end of the week. I think I will be coming back to this idea, but it will be less formal that the list of edicts I started putting together. Perhaps a screen-shot of source code with annotations will be the good balance between formality and flexibility.

Establishing KnockoutJs Design Patterns

Somewhere between the freshly fallen, pristine snow of winter and the new growth and warmth of spring lies the ugliest week in Chicago. This week that exposes the filth of the city.
During these first several days with multiple above-freezing periods, including a spike into the fifties, the streets of this town become an ugly slurry of disgusting waste. All of the dirt, garbage, and feces that got buried with each new snow are now exposed. The thick ice under all the snow is now a deep black covered in litter. Large opaque pools form in the deep potholes created by the winter's fluctuating temperatures. Sidewalks are flooded with this same sludge because it has nowhere to go. The clocks were recently adjusted because of the abomination that is Daylight Savings Time, so everyone is a little grumpy this week. The weather hints at the coming warmth of Spring, but forces us to still keep bundled up, just in case another snow storm comes rolling through.
There is little good to say about this week.

The Ugliest Week in Chicago

Take a drink every time someone says "free" or "freedom", and you will be drunk before the battles even begin.
I would be surprised if you could survive the movie.
I enjoyed the movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416449/">300</a>, both the interpretation of history and the art direction. I had to turn
off my brain for some of the parts that adjusted history, but overall it was a lot of fun. If 300 was not appealing, then there is nothing
to enjoy in Rise of an Empire. For those that enjoyed the original, there is a lot to enjoy in the follow-up movie. Personally, while I
found the film a little long in exposition, it still met my expectations and was almost exactly what I wanted out of my cinematic experience.
Some things that I really enjoyed:
<ul>
<li>The art direction was absolutely gorgeous, and stung together an non-stop litany of stunning visuals. Combined with phenomenal editing, sound editing, and sound effects, and the movie is a treat on the senses.</li>
<li>Men and (two) women with excellent physiques constantly performing stunts, drawing copious amounts of digital blood, and seething with all the primal rage of battle leads to some epic battles.</li>
<li>Speaking of battles, the naval combat was as epic and glorious as the tight confined combat of the first movie.</li>
<li>Interesting interpretations of history. "Interesting" - that is a safe word.</li>
<li>Eva Green absolutely stole the show as Artemisia. This is one of the instance where the costuming team just did not give a damn about keeping it period accurate, and the movie was better for it.</li>
</ul>
Parts of the movie that I did not enjoy:
<ul>
<li>The exposition draws on forever in their constant, repetitive harping of the theme of freedom. The audience gets it, Themistocles wants to unite the Greeks, and he cannot do it without the Spartans. Also, a free Greece is better than a Persian Greece. Also, free men want to be free. It was the 'MerkaFuckYeah of 480 B.C.E.; if this does not play well to the Freedom Loving Free People for Freeing Freedom, I am not entirely sure what will.</li>
<li>The sex scene was gratuitous, but really damn hot.</li>
<li>Sullivan Stapleton is no Gerard Butler.</li>
<li>Lena Headey was not given a chance to be as wonderful in this movie as she was in 300.</li>
<li>The exposition ate up far too much screen time. I blame the writers for this, and possibly the director for not cutting more of it out of the movie. If they were trying to hit some magical amount of screen time, exposition could have easily been cut out and the naval battles could have been extended.</li>
</ul>
One final point that grates my nerves when movies do it, and this movie did it at least twice. In fact, it annoys me when televisions shows do it, too. Do not, ever, under any circumstances, repeat a scene from a previous part of the movie or television show. It is lazy editing and insulting to the audience to repeat the exact same scene, just copying and pasting the film from one point to another. If the director or story teller wants to have something repeated, at least do something new for the audience. Trying showing the scene from a different camera angle, or adjust it based on a different character's perspective. Just do not assume that I am so forgetful that sixty minutes later, I have completely forgotten about that critical scene that you already emphasized was very critical.
On a four star scale, I rate this movie Freedom and Meets Expectations.

300: Rise Of an Empire Of Freedom For Free Greeks

I am a tall, healthy, heterosexual, white, male, middle-class American. I will earn more money over the course of my career than my female colleagues and my racially minority peers. I will have easier access to credit lines, continuing education, travel prerequisites, political office, housing opportunities, career advancement, and basically anything else that I may want. I am less likely to be arrested on suspicion of a crime, and if I have to wade through the judicial system, I am less likely to be convicted of a crime. Statistically, it is pretty fantastic being me. The game is rigged in my favor, and I have no complaints about it.
Try telling that to a high school student just learning to discover the way of the world.
For years, I was bitter and upset - genuinely angry - at minorities. I could name a litany of very active, outspoken, well-funded groups and organizations dedicated to supporting everyone but me. Finding an organization that supports blacks or women or homosexuals or poor or fat or short people was easy. There were clubs at the school to support many of the ethnically, economically, or gender disadvantaged students. When applying for college, there were scholarships for every category of person except me. It was very easy for me to feel angry and unsupported.
Once I got to college, it all sorted out, and I was able to put together all of the aforementioned advantages of my situation. It took some serious work to stop being angry, to no longer feel disadvantaged, to embrace the privilege, to support equality. I am very much past that part of my life, and am a better person for it. It was certainly a difficult journey and I still have some of the scars from the internal reshaping I had to endure. However, this is not a post looking for pity, this is a look forward.
I have found that this is a lesson that I need to teach my son as soon as he gets to a point where he might understand these things. He too is a white, tall, male, middle-class American - too soon to know if he will share the healthy and hetero traits, but statistics say he probably will. Before he can come to the same initial conclusions that I did, I will need to direct him to the reality of his situation, and ensure that he does not have a false perception of social inequality of support.
It is easy being me, but it is incredibly hard. Society supports me without forming organizations explicitly to support me; life is easy like that. In particular, it is extremely easy to just accept the status quo and carry on with life. However, it is also my responsibility to help anyone else that is not being supported by society; that is the hard part. As a member of the majority my moral role is to make it so that minorities do not need specialized support systems. Imagine the amount of money that could be saved if women and minorities no longer needed to advocate for equal treatment or considerations; or the amount of time these smart, dedicated personnel would be able to dedicate to other causes. This… this is the hard part.
I cannot do much, but what I can do is affect one person at a time; and I will be starting with my own child.

Rovani's Sandbox

Blog Posts - Page 14