Automation is Automation

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency. - Bill Gates

I've got all of my music and movies and TV shows out on a shared drive on my Drobo. I've got this great script I wrote a little bit ago that scans across those drives and automatically adds it into iTunes on the home server. So the theory is that I can run Handbrake on my DVD on any machine, drop the MP4s onto the shared drive, and viola - they appear in iTunes. This command is the magic:

osascript -e "tell application \"iTunes\" to add POSIX file \"${VID_FILEPATH}\""

We're struggling with home Internet again, because this is my life, and AT&T came by to check things out. Whenever AT&T comes back I revert my home network into a standard configuration. Normally I have the AT&T supplied device just bridging the connection over to my much better AirPort Extreme. The challenge is that the AT&T response to this is, "Oh, you're running a non-standard configuration. Obviously the fact that our PPPoE server is dropping your connection is caused by this! It has nothing to do with our servers."

How are these two things related?

iTunes does some sort of magic where it checks if it has already added the file, but it is not doing this through a POSIX path, it is instead doing this through HFS+ magical references that I don't understand. Here is what I do understand: when the AFP mount goes away (because I switched my network back to standard mode) and then comes back, even though the POSIX filepath doesn't change, the HFS+ reference does. And iTunes re-adds.

Switching my home network back to standard mode on Friday was the first time my server had lost connection with Drobo since I started running the script months ago. I have good uptime! Once I switched the network back to normal and ChaosServer reconnected to Drobo - 100% of my content duplicated.

So I solved it by having it add all the POSIX paths to a text file and then checking the text file before loading it. Not the most elegant thing, but it's working.

It's kind of our friends fault

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. - Walt Disney

For countless years one of my friends went to Disneyland for her birthday. The annual trip in November became know as Birthdayland. With the annual trip we learned to maximum the Fast Pass system. In fact, we realized that Disneyland was really just a fluid dynamics problem. With multiple scientists in the group, solving simple partial differential equation just meant have six fast passes at once

Many of my friends have had annual passes. Then one year MsChaos and I got annual passes. The problem with annual passes is that once you have one, every day you are not at Disneyland, you are losing money! So we went a lot that year.

We still have a lot of friends with annuals passes who still lose money ever day that they aren't at Disney and so we still get a ton of invites. Got a free weekend, why not go to Disneyland.

All this Disney got a little bit infective. I mean, I did propose at Disneyworld. Which caused Disney-themed wedding gifts. MrsChaos did walk down the aisle to "When You Wish Upon a Star." So even though I look at my friends and think, "they are way more Disney nerds then I am," I guess I shouldn't be surprised when I get a present from my dad with the first photo of Mini-Chaos inside a Disney frame.

When you wish upon a star and all...

Adulthood

Here's the problem with new information--once you get it you always have to step back and reevaluate everything you thought you knew already. - Point Blank

Being a responsible adult is hard and expensive work. For a long time my financial strategy was "put a ton of money into retirement and savings and worry about it later." I think that strategy worked well for me throughout my 20s. The problem is, now it's later.

Now I've got a mortgage. Just as Mrs.Chaos is finishing up under-graduate there is a baby on the way. So now is the time to actually make sure all my retirement is organized how it's supposed to be and start to figure out if I'm going to be paying for college educates and when I'm going to retire. Now is the time to figure get life insurance in case I don't happen to make inherit the right set of longevity genes. Now is the time to have a living trust. Now is the time to have a living will and a real will.

Man - being an adult is lame.

Podcast Bankrupcy

Privacy. Some day in the future people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was. - Jodi Foster

I am not commuting enough! In the old job my commute consistent of eight hours in the car every two weeks. In the new job my commute consists of six hours on the train and one hour in the car every two weeks. So I would have expected that my Podcast listening time would have remained about the same.

It turns out that when I'm on the train I spend the time working, reading, and other things that don't involve listening to podcasts. The end result is that I can't keep up with all my listening! It's horrible! I wasn't listening to my audio books at all. The I realized that Game of Thrones will be resuming on HBO pretty soon and I hadn't even started of the latest book.

So I've updated my listening strategy! Now I alternate between one Podcast and one chapter of the book. That keeps me making progress on both. Additionally I've been declaring Podcast bankruptcy on my lower priority podcasts. Haven't listened to "From Our Own Corespondents" episode from two weeks ago? Mark as played.

Mini Chaos

A baby is born with a need to be loved - and never outgrows it. - Frank A. Clark

We found out that Mini-Chaos was on the way around the earlier possible time. I'm a by-the-book kind of person and figured as soon as found out that we would just wait until the recommended 12-week period to inform anyone else. Mrs.Chaos doesn't have the same philosophy on things - "it's like a present! You don't hide presents at home you give them to people!"

For this period of time from about 4-weeks to about 10-weeks every day was a bit of battle. "We have to tell someone!" "No, we're going to wait." "But I'm going to see my friends, and they're going to notice, so I'm going to have to tell them." "They aren't going to notice or ask." "Ohhh, I bet they will. The only way to keep this secret is just to not see any of my friends. Is that what you want? For me not to see my friends."

So thankfully we passed this period of not telling anyone and lifted the embargo - I mean, super lifted the embargo by posting to social network sites. Still, since it was such a stressful period of time of not telling anyone, now I still feel a little unsure. "Am I really allowed to tell people?" I know, I know. The answer is yes. Tell the world. It's like a present, and you have to give people presents!

Buying Another Headset

"Life is a game in which the player must appear ridiculous." - Violet Crawley (Downton Abbey)

"It seems like you're always buying new headsets." It's true! I have bought a lot of headsets over the past few years, but when you are remote phone warrior, the headset is a very important weapon in the battle against work.

When I first switched to be super-remote a couple of years ago, I worked out a fantastic trick combining my AT&T phone plan and Google Voice account to be able to get all my work calls through my mobile phone with unlimited minutes. It was awesome and I needed a good headset for my phone. I got the BlueParrot Xpress for my iPhone and it is amazing. I has a giant boom mic and the most incredible noise cancellation I have ever seen. I will be walking home in San Francisco talking with Mrs.Chaos and semi will pass by making it impossible for me to hear anything and she will say she can hear my just great and didn't hear anything out of the ordinary. Amaze!

Now with all the fancy AT&T fiber-to-the-door upgrades we've had, I've switched off my expensive wireless phone plan with AT&T and instead focused on using Google Voice, GoToMeeting VOIP, Skype, and all the other fancy ways to talk on the phone through my computer. While technically my BlueParrot can multiplex between multiple devices, I haven't found that it works very well.

I was using in iMic adapter connected to another fancy in-ear boom mic system, but there was a problem. With that setup I'm tethered to my computer while on the phone. So I can't easily walk into the kitchen to refill my coffee and that is an essential part of my productivity.

After doing internet research I settled in on the Logitech ClearChat. World of Warcrafters agree it is the bomb. I haven't had too much opportunity to use it yet, but I have confirmed that I can be chatting away on it and easily walk into the kitchen for a refill of coffee. What more do I need?

2012 in Review

So the thing is that Apple has not provided a good way to share iPhoto Libraries. So our solution was to merge into a single iPhoto Library on the fastest computer: MrsChaos. That means for me to do my Year in Review, if first requires me to find a time when I am allowed to use MrsChaos' computer for a long period of time. Those times are not actually that frequent. So that's the dealio.

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