The Hesse Axiom of Sleep Deprivation

First, let us define axiom. According to wikipedia:
"An axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not proven or demonstrated but considered to be either self-evident, or subject to necessary decision. That is to say, an axiom is a logical statement that is assumed to be true."

So, therefore, I will provide the Hesse Axiom of Sleep Deprivation which I developed after the birth of our first child:

If you can taste the toothpaste used to brush your teeth before you go to bed when you wake up, you are sleep-deprived.

Junctions = An SSD owner's best friend

My main home computer is a Windows PC. Custom built, fancy graphics card, fancy power supply, the works. Built to outperform any system designed in Cupertino... but I digress.

I have a small 40GB SSD drive which I bought to be the boot drive for my system. It works fantastically. My Windows 7 system boots from cold boot up to login screen in under 10 seconds. (That includes the BIOS delay.)

Unfortunately, the more stuff I install, the more I have to be careful. I had a second folder on a second drive in my system for installing programs which wouldn't fit comfortably on the 40GB drive. Windows doesn't really like you moving things like the "Users" folder or the "Program Files" folder.

That doesn't mean you can't do it.

Note: these instructions are only valid for Windows users, and they are specific to Windows 7 but probably apply to at least Vista.

Here is my relatively fool-proof process for moving folders off your SSD without your system even knowing. A few caveats are listed below. Most importantly, you should back up your whole system before you try this.

1) For files which may be in use while your system is running (e.g. the Program Files or the Users folder), you'll want to boot into recovery mode. In Windows 7, you can do this by hitting F8 at startup and choosing "Repair your computer". When the System Recovery Options window displays, choose the last option to launch a command prompt.

For files which aren't in use while your system is running (e.g. the MSOCache folder created by Office 2007/2010), you can just launch a command prompt with administrative privilege.

2) Copy the files from your small drive to your larger, second drive using xcopy. This is the set of switches that work best for me:

xcopy c:\Users d:\Users /s /e /h /r /k /o /x /b


3) Delete the files from your small drive. (You did a backup, right?) Easy method for this is:

rmdir /s c:\Users


4) Make a junction point from your small drive to your larger drive:

mklink /j c:\Users d:\Users


Hurrah! You're finished! Well, unless you moved your Program Files and/or Common Files (including x86) folders. In that case, you need to launch your registry editor. Inside HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion you need to update the values to the actual physical drive locations. Note that the "Common Files" directory exists within the "Program Files" directory, so if you move Program Files, you have to edit the Common Files entry too.

Currently, I've redirected my Users, Program Files, Program Files (x86), and MSOCache folders to my second drive, and everything "just works". Windows and all the applications are as happy as can be because they think they are all stored in C:\Program Files, when in reality, they aren't.

100th post!

Today was a successful day of writing. I wrote 3 pages (1200+ words) of a piece and didn't finish before I had to leave for the day. (Call for our show at church is in 75 minutes). In addition to some other business stuff I had to write for customers.

I realized while I was jotting my notes down to finish my post later that I haven't been working on one piece. I've been working on two. Good realization. Both articles will benefit from being separated, and yet they are both related. They will be great, and they will go up on Security Musings next week.

And here we have a fish

Today was the first day of the thirty day writing challenge where I utterly failed to get any writing done. Well, until now. You see, I'm starting this at 10pm. I have just finished with the dress rehearsal of a variety show I'm performing in at my church. (The shows are Friday May 20 and Saturday May 21, at 7:30pm in the recreation & outreach center [ROC] at Centreville UMC, if you're interested.) Today I failed to overcome the resistance to writing, but it nagged at me all day and all evening. My wife is downstairs in the sanctuary registering a piece for this Sunday and I snuck up to her computer to do a little writing about not writing. Clever, eh?

I have a myriad of excuses, but really the best excuse I have is that I spent much of this afternoon doing the research I need for my next piece. I will have to write it first thing in the morning, because it will be the first piece I choose for editing. I have a number of things I need to write about, but many aren't the things I want to write about. This, I think, is part of the resistance I feel.

I believe I am what is classically defined as a procrastinator. I work best under pressure, and work well by responding to interruptions. It is a terribly unproductive and horribly stressful way to live. And yet, it is what I continue to do, day in and day out. I have tried to overcome my procrastination by scheduling time in my calendar to accomplish specific tasks, and then to not do that. To follow the Getting Things Done method, only to fall out of the habit. (By the way, reaching Inbox Zero is a fantastic feeling. My plan for this week was to get there. I think instead my inbox doubled in size in the last week.) I have tried to use the Pomodoro Technique as a way to brute-force myself into accomplishing things, but too often I let something interrupt me.

I should change. I need to change. And yet, there is a part of me that just falls into the comfortable, the predictable. Excuses come easily. "I've got that show this weekend." "My kitchen is under construction and our house is a wreck." "I haven't been able to spend enough time with the kids." They're just excuses, though. The real reason is that change is hard. Change does not come easy. A friend of ours always likes to say "change is bad!" whenever faced with a difficult situation. I don't think change is bad, and yet I am very resistant to it.

There's that word again, resistance. Resistance is a powerful force. Resistance is why we have high-voltage transmission lines, to minimize the amount of electricity wasted before it even gets to our house and lets us waste it. Without resistance we couldn't walk along the ground. (We'd only moonwalk, which would be pretty cool I guess.) Resistance keeps stuff from moving around when you don't expect it to. Resistance creates bacteria that aren't susceptible to common antibiotics, causing life-threatening infections. Resistance is futile.

Oh, wait. Resistance isn't futile. Isn't that what Captain Picard and the rest of the Star Trek folks taught us? Resistance can be overcome. It may be difficult, it may be ugly, but overcoming it is necessary to get work done. (Even in physics! Work = force · displacement, and you can't move something without overcoming the resistance to do it.)

So here I am, four days into this challenge, and I have written four substantial things - the last two of which were personal and focused on my need to change... and I haven't even gotten to my diet and exercise post yet.

And yet, I keep writing. Writing has been very therapeutic for me, I am sure of that. It will soon be time to turn that energy around to helping others and not just focusing it all internally.

Now, since you're undoubtedly dying to know, some information about why I chose this title for this blog post. Michael sent me (and the others participating in this challenge) an article the other day about the importance of choosing a title for your blog headline. Well, the title I chose tonight breaks pretty much every rule in that article. It has nothing to do with anything. And that's why I chose it.

The title actually has a funny story behind it. My wife took a class one year in college that was so dreadfully boring, she sometimes fell asleep during it. (I have never been mistaken for a narcoleptic. She, on the other hand can fall asleep at the drop of a hat.) In order to force herself to stay awake, she would furiously take notes during the class about everything that was said, and when nothing was being said, she would take notes about whatever was on her mind. It helped her stay awake. Usually. Well, this one time she actually wrote down part of a dream she had during a moment of semi-consciousness right before she fell asleep. Upon awaking, she read the words "and here we have a fish" and had no idea where they had come from, although they were in her handwriting.

My life is filled with tons of these wonderfully silly non-sequiturs. They might make an amusing coffee table book. (Although perhaps not the most amusing one.) Until next time, I'll keep overcoming my resistance and getting some writing done...

Too personal

Today (Wednesday, May 18) I wrote a long piece in the form of a blog post about my family. I have decided it is too personal to publish broadly. If you are a friend and you are interested in reading it and learning a little about my past and present family dynamic, please contact me. It was helpful to me to write it, and I don't mind sharing it. I just don't feel like posting it to SkyNet will do anyone any good.

Things I've learned

1) It's not true that nobody reads this blog. Especially when @catalyst directs people here. I also found out that two of my articles, one on fixing Vista's driver cache, and another on a Pandora bookmarklet, have quite a bit of views, both completely organically developed. The web is cool.

2) Writing emails is not what I was considering part of the thirty day writing challenge. Yet, a few circumstances over the last couple of days have required me to write some pretty good emails. I took the opportunity to not curse the emails and the fact they required responses, but use them as writing exercises. I was pleased with the results.

3) Contacting my lawyer is an expensive proposition, but it's usually the right idea.

4) Procrastinating certain work items (which shall remain unnamed lest I give away my secrets) is a bad idea.

5) Something very fishy happened with the calculation of scores at the charity golf tournament I was in yesterday. I would like to learn how handicapping team scores in a tournament is really done.

Today's writing challenge items consisted of a report which I cannot share, and some emails mentioned previously - also confidential. More public things will come this week, I still need a good candidate for others to edit.

Hello, World

According to Blogger, I haven’t written a post to this blog in 886 days. Well, that’s all about to change. I have undertaken a 30-day writing challenge at the prompting of Michael Santarcangelo (@catalyst). I have committed to spending 2 hours (more or less) writing for the next 30 business days. We have a team of four people participating in this challenge, two of which I haven’t met yet. I look forward to getting to know them through their writing over the next 6 weeks. This challenge is meant to provide value by encouraging quantity over quality; the theory is that an increased quantity will also result in increased quality. Since my typical quantity is measured best in 140 character increments, this is likely to help.

It will be difficult transitioning into longer form writing. It is relatively easy for me to quickly write an email message or blog post. Those tend to run in the 250-500 word area for me. Michael’s hope for us is about ten times greater. I expect that my writing style will prevent me from reaching those lofty word counts on any individual item, but I look forward to being surprised. If I am getting between 600-1200 words per day, I think I will feel like I’ve been successful. After all, I do not (yet) consider myself an author. I’m just a computer nerd that can string a few words together when required.

Frequently asked questions:

Why would someone who is having so much difficulty with time management commit to spending two hours a day doing something he doesn’t normally do? Well, that’s an excellent question. I do spend a fair amount of my time each day writing, but much of it is in the form of email messages or social network comments. Part of this commitment is to help me focus my writing energies toward things that will provide a lasting benefit and impact. I’m looking forward to writing some insightful blog posts (not necessarily to this blog) and strategy documents that will help me navigate the future. Also on the list are some biographical items – a speaker bio for me, a biography for Gemini (can you have a biography of a non-living thing?), and perhaps even some personal memories of my mother (before it becomes too hard to remember anything about her). There will be some calls for speakers, papers, and presenters along the way which I plan to knock out, and some internal documents that just need to be written and have suffered from a lack of available time.

How long did it take you to write this post? Well, I am editing and adding links on the fly, and limited myself to completing this post within 25 minutes (a single pomodoro).

Why are you submitting this post the day before the challenge actually begins? Two reasons. First is that I’ll be playing golf (weather permitting) in the Kids R First charity tournament tomorrow, and so my work day will already be shortened. The second is that I am spending some time at the office tonight because I had a major blow-up with my 5-year-old son, Brian, and I needed some time away. It seemed like this was a good thing to accomplish in addition to cleaning off my desk. Tomorrow I’ll be finishing a report that should have been completed a month ago, and that will pretty much wrap up my workday.

Why are you posting this here? Nobody reads this blog. Seriously, nobody. I didn’t even remember the address.

Anything else I should know about the challenge? I’m hoping I make it through and don’t disappoint the other participants. I am definitely going to be taxing myself to make it happen, and it is possible I won’t make it through. I’ll do my best.

The timer is wrapping up, so I will close with a message of thanks to Michael for encouraging me to take this journey. I’ll make sure I report back at the end of this challenge in case anyone does actually read this blog.

Total word count: 684 words. Not bad.

Twitter Followers for Heifer International

I debated doing this last year, and this year I decided to go ahead with it. The concept is simple: Follow me on Twitter, and I'll donate $0.50 to Heifer International. On Dec 31, 2008, I'll make a donation for $0.50 x # followers up to a maximum of $2500.00.

Why am I doing this? Two reasons. One is to share my semi-coherent ramblings with the world a little more. When I ask twitter a question, I rarely get a good answer - that's because I'm only followed by about 150 people. (Probably less than that in terms of people that regularly check twitter.) The second is to raise money for Heifer. If this raises Heifer International in the collective consciousness then I'll have done a lot.

I'm not into social media. I'm not into marketing. I'm not looking to use my twitter followers for any grand plan. I'm just looking to connect with some more folks out there and raise money for a good cause.

Meme

Copy this sentence into your blog if you’re in a heterosexual marriage, and you don’t want it “protected” by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.

Erie Insurance vs. AquaLogic

I had the pleasure of serving on a jury in Fairfax County district court on April 14/15 2008 in the case of Erie Insurance vs. AquaLogic, Inc. It related to a fire which occurred at a residence in Ashburn, VA in September 2004.

The plaintiff (Erie) alleged that the fire was caused by a faulty reef (fish) tank water chiller manufactured by the defendant. They further alleged that if other unsafe conditions existed, and caused the fire, they should have been warned about in the operations manual. The defense provided an alternate theory that salt creep, possibly caused by improper ventilation of the aquarium installation and components, caused a short across the plug face of the chiller, which caused the fire.

We were asked to rule in favor of the plaintiff if

• the defendant was negligent, meaning:
• they produced an unsafe product
• their manuals fail to provide adequate warning of potentially dangerous conditions
• the product violates any implied or explicit warranties
• AND the defendant's negligence was a proximate cause of the fire

The most important point to the jury was that multiple theories as to the cause of the fire were presented, and nobody was convinced of an absolute cause. Both sides produced a believable expert witness who was quite certain of their own theory as to the cause of the fire. We couldn't discern that one was any more an expert than another. Without knowing what the cause of the fire was, it is then impossible to know that the defendant's negligence caused the fire.

Even placing that aside, we all had doubts about all three possibilities of the defendant's negligence. None of the jurors thought the defendant produced an unsafe product, or a product which violated any warranties. Two of the seven jurors thought that the manuals should perhaps include warnings about salt creep and the fact that water and electricity don't mix. If we had decided to deliberate this further I'm confident all seven would have also agreed that the missing things in the manuals were "obvious" and/or "readily discoverable" and therefore did not result in negligence on the part of the defendant.

Overall I was very pleased to have been selected and to have participated in this great civic duty. It was an interesting experience and I would do it again, although things would get dicey if I was asked to serve on a trial that would take longer than this one - two full days.