An ADHD Avenger’s Weekly Wanderings #2

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This Week in Tech

I’ve been developing my own process for documenting legacy code while I refactor, drawing from the experiences of the general collective at  software engineering stack exchange. The sentiment for most is that inheriting old code is such a hassle. I, on the other hand, feel like an investigator of sorts, and I get satisfaction out of knowing that when the rest of the team arrives, they’ll have a head start because of my efforts. That brings me to the next item on the list for this week!

We’ve been interviewing candidates to fill our mid-level and junior developer positions. Interviews are not unlike auditions; you get chance to show off how you can play, and the rest is trying to figure out if we’d enjoy sitting next to each other for the coming years. Having just gone through the process myself, I’m fascinated by the number of variations out in the field when it comes to selecting candidates. Do we screen them with phone calls or a coding test? Should we have them submit a real code sample, or are we more interested in how they communicate concepts verbally? How about those coffee/happy hour interviews? It’s almost as much of an art as it is a process.

Lastly, I’ve made some progress this week on submitting my first pull request for dev.to. Whether or not it is accepted, I’m really enjoying getting to know Ruby!

Sights and Sounds

On the way to work this morning, Spotify let me know that Muse’s new album, Simulation Theory, is available. The timing is perfect, because I’ve just discovered an old article on digital trends that lists the 10 best video game soundtracks on Spotify. All of it’s fantastic for coding IMHO, and I especially love those moments when something familiar comes on, something that was in the background of your story for hours on end, and you’re instantly transported to another world. Video game music is every bit as iconic as film scores, or at least that was the topic for a paper I wrote in my 21st Century Music class in 2008. Music is powerful stuff.

Other Thoughts

I need to start drafting these on Monday, or even on the weekend. I’m running low on sleep because a certain little boy had a bad dream at 0400 this morning, and I don’t really have a lot of other thoughts at the moment. In fact, it’s pretty quiet inside … the good kind of quiet!

This Week I am Grateful For …

… being part of a family that lets me take time away to make music with the Rockville Brass Band, especially as we head into contest season.

That is All.

An ADHD Avenger’s Weekly Wanderings #1

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The First of Some Unknown Number

In an attempt to reflect on my week and get back into writing, I’ve decided to document a portion of my internal and external encounters every seven days. If you read through the rest of this blog, you’ll find gaps, sometimes years, between writings. Does the “Some Unknown Number” make sense now? Good.

This Week in Tech

Today marks the end of my third week at my new job! I’ve been documenting a legacy codebase, and I found some tools that have made this process so much easier:

  1. mermaid.js – I’ve created three sequence diagrams with Mermaid this week, and it really is a joy to use. The documentation is iffy at times, so I visited the repo for answers. What I found were 205 open issues, 12 pull requests, and a request for assistance in the README. This may be the open source project I’ve been looking for!
  2. Mermaid Preview for Visual Studio Code – Along with mermaid.js, this plugin provides a preview in VS Code and supports a number of formats. It worked great for the sequence diagrams, but the mini-preview was seriously in the way when I tried to make a flow chart. That led me to yet another new visualization tool.
  3. draw.io – This thing is just fantastic, and it can be integrated into Confluence. I got that flow chart finished after all, and then I moved on to creating a visualization of entity relationships.

Separating Authentication and Authorization

It’s been a while since I’ve heard anything about PolicyServer, but I’ve been working on a Dockerized example project that includes IdentityServer4, PolicyServer, and messaging with RabitMQ and MassTransit. I plan on serving two micro-frontend applications for a separate conversation, one with Chris Davies’ eev, and one with single-spa by Canopy. If this sounds ambitious, head over to Enterprise Integration Patterns to nerd out on some much more complicated topographies. You just might experience some web design nostalgia, too.

Don’t Feed the Trolls

I took a stroll through the top dev.to posts of all time where I found this article about the risks of storing your JWTs in Local Storage. Sure, it has a clickbait title, but I found the content to be very informative. Continuing on to the comments, I discovered that the topic is a very unpopular opinion. Attacks were coming from all angles (e.g., “using memes in your little disquisition is kind of meh unless you’re five.”), but the author remained tactful and pleasant throughout.

More on Authentication Systems

By now you’ve recognized a theme. I read a 2016 article about authentication systems specifically because I’ve seen those two in use, and I wanted to dig a little deeper into the pros and cons of each. At my last position, scaling wasn’t really an issue, so it’s been interesting to learn all the ways that can become a factor. I’m curious which more people use.

 

Authentication as a Filter
Authentication as a Filter
Individual Endpoint Authentication
Individual Endpoint Authentication

images from https://cybersecurity.ieee.org/

Sights and Sounds

This week I’ve hardly listened to my latest podcast obsession, On The Wind, because I’ve started a book on audible per a friend’s recommendation, Dawn of the Code War. Counter-terrorism using social media back channels is an interesting thing. I suppose most would use the word scary over interesting. I might have a warped view thanks to my exposure to the military.

I’ve been spending some time with 80’s country music this week, along with the usual suspects, The Avett Brothers, The Punch Brothers, and, of course, 92 different renditions of Baby Shark. On that note, I’m continuing to encourage my two-year-old to try new music, and this week we jammed out to Led Zeppelin and Stevie Ray Vaughan. He’s the cutest little car seat drummer.

Other Thoughts

Maddox was such a joy for Halloween. We never got a trick-or-treat out of him, but he nailed the thank-yous and bye-byes at almost every house. Cheers to the lady in our neighborhood that was pouring shots of cheap sangria for adults! Our community is awesome, but we live on a section where the trick-or-treaters are scarce. It’s perfect because we were able to avoid the madness on Hampton and enjoy the slow pace of going door-to-door with a toddler dressed as a puppy. His little blond locks of hair got him called young lady for most of the night, or, as Jeanene said, “At least they’re not assuming his gender!”

I pulled out my BuJo this week. I’m determined to improve at planning so that I can make the most of my days.

This Week I am Grateful For …

… Katie. She lives in Adelaide, Australia. It’s the perfect distance away for us to talk on opposite sides of the day. Conversations usually start with:

Me, on my way to work: Have you had your evening tea?

We met online in the Hotmail Personal Ads some 20 years ago, and our friendship couldn’t be more normal in spite of the distance. She’s one of the good ones—not oblivious, actively learning about the world around her and the people in it. In other words, she gets it.

That is All.

Daily Prompt: Layers

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Damn the cold! He shivered violently while waiting for the nurse to return with more blankets. Why is it a good idea to push two liters of room-temperature fluid into someone who already feels like they are going to die?

On a normal day, he embraced the crisp winter air of the North Country. The pristine landscape inspired him, and even the labor of dumping shovel after shovel of freshly fallen snow made him feel so alive.

That was different. This was a soul-sucking chill from within. Layers couldn’t be worn to shrug off this icy embrace. His veins ached, his teeth chattered loudly, and he nearly longed for the sickness that brought him to the emergency room in the first place. How many blankets will it take to make this go away?

 

From the WordPress Daily Prompt

Daily Prompt: Burn

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There will never be too many metaphors involving fire. I like to imagine that our fascination began when lightning struck an animal down, probably a deer since those damn things are always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some proto-human got a whiff of nature’s latest dish and, in spite of his instinctual fear of lightning, kept an eye out for electric Bambi flambé (minus the alcohol—those poor souls wouldn’t experience the arrival of the beer gods for a few million years) in order to create the means to cook on his own. Cooking leads to condensed protein ingestion which leads to brain development which leads to metaphor after metaphor about fire.

Here’s one that has been on my mind lately: in order to stay excited, you have to keep your coals in the fire.

If you’re still of dreaming age—I don’t believe there is such a thing, but a sample of American culture would suggest that, tragically,  the large majority of people here give up on their personal goals and dreams by about 45 years of age—you have to be excited! Big goals aren’t achieved solo, and in order to get people to believe in your dreams, you have to have … wait for it … a fire burning inside of you that other people can warm themselves with.

Being excited is easy! I’m excited to be writing this morning after a two years of ADHD induced paralysis. Staying excited for a long time is not as easy. It requires discipline, tenacity, and a real hunger. If that sounds like work, it’s just because it is work. Here comes the metaphor to help you break it down and make it easier to swallow, like Bambi.

Imagine a campfire that’s been burning through the night. Some of your group has gone to bed, the stars are out, and all the stories have been told for the night. You’re staring at the fire burning low. Something gives way, and a coal rolls out of the fire. You watch as the ember’s bright orange glow begins to fade until it’s vanished into the darkness away from the fire.

As you’re looking at the thing, you realize that it has changed. A few minutes ago it was a hot coal in the fire. Now it’s a beat up and burned chunk of wood. In a way, it’s reverted to its former self. This is what happens to us when we stop feeding our fire! We go back to the life we were living before we were excited, usually with the addition of regret.

If you were to pick up that stick and put back in the fire, it would begin to glow almost immediately! Suddenly it would be unrecognizable as a stick, to you or anyone else, and the fire would grow and attract more bodies looking for a place to get warm. Growth and attraction.

Keep your coals in the fire. Don’t let them roll away and die. Do the daily activities that produce results in favor of achieving your goals and dreams. Experience personal growth, and attract the kind of people that will support you along the way. Get excited, and stay excited!

That is all.

From the WordPress Daily Prompt

Uninventing the Chair

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I was drinking some Kool-aid a few days ago—Kelly Starett’s Kool-aid, to be exact—and now I find myself pouring glasses for everyone.

Sitting on things is just unnatural. I know this is hard to hear, but just think back to the days before chairs. We all sat comfortably back on our heels in a deep squat position. If the thought of getting that low sound unnatural to you, well … let me get you a glass of this delicious drank.

The reason you can’t squat down with ease like your middle eastern brethren is because you’ve been sitting in a chair your entire life. As a result, the muscles that run across your hips are too short on one side, pulling you in the wrong direction when you try to get low. Enjoy your aching back and inability to take full steps when you’re in your 80’s.

Okay, that’s an exaggeration. The aching back will be there by your early thirties.

There are so many benefits to moving your chair out of your office and into the hallway. Find out for yourself! Read Deskbound by Kelly Starett. I know I’m going to.

Seriously, self. You own two of his books. How did you not know about this one until you asked the google Gods to provide you with content for this post?

Ahem.

I’m going to stand up and walk away from this computer. Right. Now.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Undo.”

Old Barns, Stetson Cologne, and Motor Oil

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My first ten years were spent in southeast Texas with cracked dirt, yellow hay, and cottonseed. I’m much more apt to remember sights and sounds, but there are a few smells that will always take me back to the place where Indian Paintbrushes and Bluebonnets blow in the wind.

The putrid smell of horses and cattle churning fields into mud are sickening to most. Stetson, the legendary fragrance of the American West—that is, of course, disregarding any imaginable timeline—is a cheap fragrance at best. Grease, oil, gasoline, other petroleum products … please, just take a bath already!

They’re not the most pleasant smells, but they belong to me as much as any set of Regina lyrics, a few clumsy notes on the guitar, or the first road trip in brand new (old) car.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “The Transporter.”

Someday. That’s a dangerous word. It’s really just a code for ‘never’.

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Roy Miller offered this profound statement in Patrick O’Neil’s Knight and Day, and it has haunted me ever since. I was immediately struck by those words, and my obsession continues to grow. Someday is a filthy word, the soot and ash from dreams tossed in the burning pile out back with so much garbage. Should the word ever accidently leave my mouth, it takes with it all moisture and leaves behind only the sour taste of metal and disappointment. I have such a passion for ridding someday from my existence that I have spent hours scheming, planning the day a cookie-cutter revolution is revealed in its name.

Perhaps ironically, that day has not yet come.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Silver Screen.”

Day 6: Building Character

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Who’s the most interesting person (or people) you’ve met this year? Today’s twist: Turn your post into a character study. – Writing 101

My job as a military musician regularly allows me to engage with veterans. I have met Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines that fought in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and more. I have also met veterans from other countries, such as Scotland, The Netherlands, Estonia, Cambodia, Singapore, and Afghanistan. War knows no boundaries. It doesn’t matter which side is right, which side is wrong, or which side you’re on—if you were a sniper, a courier, a member of a special operations team, a musician (nearly every country has military musicians), or even a civilian working in support of troops, war will leave a familiar taste in your mouth in the same way a pair of saxophonists who speak different languages will delight in singing the opening bars to Charlie Parker’s Ornithology together.

While I was stationed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, we had the opportunity to spend time with the queen’s (or is it The Queen’s) Parachute Regiment Band. We had so much in common; the life of a military musician must always revolve around maintaining the balance of musical and non-musical duties, and the corporate nonsense that is the lifeblood of Big Army will always test the sanity of its musicians. When deployed, our job is to bring some comforting familiarity to Sevicemembers, to momentarily take them away from the harsh environment that surrounds them. We agreed that it can be one of the most rewarding jobs on the planet.

They make music while wearing their nation’s uniform. We make music while wearing our nation’s uniform. They have been the keepers of military tradition for ages, as have we. Our pasts diverge and converge, and together still form less than a sentence in the annals of world history. Sure, in their eyes we were the ones with the funny accents, but we were otherwise writing our stories in the same book, the one with mordants and mortars on the cover.