Wanderings and Musings

Ignorant Exuberance

rickheil — Thu, 21 May 2009 01:43:18 +0000

I am humbled by the power of exuberance. Never underestimate the power of enthusiam, conviction, and energy of pure focused thought. Occam’s razor (‘lex parsimoniae’) requires us to look for the most direct solution. However, we live in an world of complexity, not easily reduced to simplicity… so how do we balance understanding and compassion with governing. When pressed, Cain responded “Am I my brothers keeper?” are any of us responsible for another… or just ourselves?

TED simply amazes

rickheil — Mon, 04 May 2009 18:53:24 +0000

I’ve been watching TED videos for a while. They always amaze.

I seem to forget to visit for a while, then ‘re’discover TED some weks later. It always entertains, enlightens and enthuses me.

For example: This great presentation (funny and insightful) on The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz.

Early Research into DB2 / pureXML XML storage

rickheil — Mon, 04 May 2009 18:45:39 +0000

I’m starting a reference to various native XML databases/store I am looking into.

SOme links for DB2 pureXML
Download DB2 Express-C

http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2/express/download.html

Download Working Demos for XML Industry Standards

http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/purexml

Redbook: DB2 9 pureXML Guide

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247315.html?Open

Redbook: DB2 9: pureXML Overview and Fast Start

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247298.html?Open

Video: Storebrand Group
13 © 2008 IBM Corporation
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/data/videos/storebrand/loader.html
Flash Demo: pureXML Benefits

http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2/videos/purexml-benefits/

Customers Page

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/db2/customers/

Wiki: Technical Articles

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/db2xml/Technical+Papers+and+Articles#TechnicalPapersandArticles-

GettingStarted
Wiki: News and Success Stories

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/db2xml/News

Zalman Notebook Cooler

rickheil — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:50:36 +0000

I live on my laptop (a Dell M1530) which like all laptops tends to run hot. Especially when on your lap.

I’ve tried several laptop ‘coolers’ and finally found one that not only works, but works well. It is variable speed, a good size platform, fairly light weight but sturdy, with good air flow. All you need and want in a laptop cooler, I think.

I bought it thru Amazon, I’m sure there are other outlets. If you have a laptop this is recommended!

Zalman Notebook Cooler ZM-NC1000

Interesting blog on Collaboration

rickheil — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:57:37 +0000

Found a blog from CISCO’s CTO about organizational collaboration. Some good succinct points. Good read.

http://blogs.cisco.com/news/comments/5_predictions_for_the_future_of_collaboration/

Diving Lake Mead

rickheil — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 14:28:37 +0000

Last weekend we did our open water dives for TDI Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures. This has been a really good class, as good as Rescue, teaching much more about safe diving practices. Planning the decompression aspects of a dive are not very difficult at all and are simply an extension of regular no-decompression dive limits. In essence every dive should be planned and the deco obligation will range from zero to whatever given the depth and time. The challenge comes in learning how to dive more competently, knowing what to do in any situation so you can handle it without surfacing. Personally, I think these are excellent skills to have whether doing a decompression obligation dive or not, all my dives now are treated as deco dives, many with only the normal 3 min safety stop.

There were four of us; Brent, Lena, myself and Josh our instructor. We rented a pontoon boat from Lake Mead Marina at Lake Mead Boat Harbor. The boat rental has lots of plastic carts to haul gear to your boat, a most welcome sight given we each had a large gear bag, a dry suit bag, a set of doubles and a 40 cu ft alum deco bottles. Lots of gear. While the boats can hold ten people with no gear, with gear 4-6 is clearly the limit as space runs out fast.

Our first dive site was Purgatory, over in Black Canyon, by the Hoover Dam. This narrow canyon slopes at about 30 degrees, with a couple of shelves. Vis was 40-50ft plus giving us clear, full view of the canyon as we did our shallower dives practicing skills (to 100 ft). At about 70ft the canyon narrows to just beyond arms length, very cool!. This was a fun canyon to dive giving me the feeling of flying thru a slot canyon. At about 200 ft , there is reported to be a small boat with a drop thru tunnel to 240 ft, then opening all the way to the bottom of the Lake (about 500 ft when full, now estimating 350?), but we didn’t shoot for this on these dives, stopping at a shelf at 100 ft. Water temp was 57 at surface, 53 at 100 ft but didn’t notice any thermalcline. We all wore Dry Suits (White Fusion) with MK3 undergarments. I was fine all day, never getting even slightly chilled. It was 85 degrees on the surface, so toasty getting into and out of gear.

Our afternoon dive was over at the cement plant, just south of Island. Here we simply practiced our deco stops, shooting lift bags and practicing bouyancy in Dry Suits and Doubles (it’s taking some time to get this down – lots of weight and lots of gear!). The area due south is simply a gravel field at about 60-70 ft. Not much to see, some fish life. Zebra mussels cover everything, everywhere.

The next day, Saturday, we did our deep dive over on Wreck Alley. Wreck Alley is littered with boats, with eight boats at depths from 140 to 300 ft tied together with orange cave line. Others are being discovered and added to the inventory. We tied off to the beer keg buoy just off the North East side of Sentinel Island. For todays dive we were joined by a second boat with Matt and Randy who were doing deeper dives, they providing surface support for us and visa versa.

We followed the bouy down to about 70 ft, stopping midway for our safety drill. The buoy is chained to a huge bolder and isn’t going anywhere soon. At the bottom is an orange line leading to the boats. The first boat is the SS “Alden J. Gumby” at about 130 ft. This is a 20 foot speed boat style boat. There is no motor and has it was completely stripped before its sinking. Leaving the Gumby there is a line down to a large sailboat the “Southern Cross”. It’s probably 60 ft or so in length and leaning on its starboard side. Wreck started at about 140 and midpoint was 150, our max depth. Its in great shape and fun to explore, the highlight being the open cabin entry which when you stick your head inside your greeted by a big ol teddy bear in the galley. There is another line to other wrecks which I can’t wait to explore! Lake Mead Technical Divers has a site describing them.

Having reached our time limit of 2o min we started heading back up the line. We did 6 deco stops and one deep stop at 75 ft called for by my dive computer. Using V-Planner (Conservatism of 3) our plan was 150 ft 20 min, 60 ft 1 min (23 RT), 50 ft 2 min (25 RT), 40 ft 3 min (28 min), 30 ft SWITCH to EAN 80 4 min (32 RT), 20 ft 2 min (34 RT), 10 ft 7 min (41 RT). My dive computer cleared a minute after I swtiched gas at 30 ft., but we dove the plan for practice and safety. Our intent was to follow the slowest computer or plan, and the plan turned out to be the slowest. This was most likely becuase our dive, was more of a V with an angled descent following lines down and back rather thna the harsher U of wond and back that the V-Planner plan anticipated. I actually surfaced at 45 mins since my computer also wanted a 3 min safety stop after the deco stop. Our bottom gas was EAN 26, with deco gas EAN 80. I had twin 95 cu ft steel tanks, giving me 180 cu ft of bottom gas and 40 cu ft of deco gas.

These were great first tech dives and Lake Mead a great site to do them! I also reached the milestones of 100 dives and over 75 hours underwater on this trip, as well as my deepest dive to 151 ft. Vis was excellent at 40-50+, light was great, didn’t really need lights even at 150, though it did help signaling each other. I did feel pretty narc’ed, noting it took me some pause to read and think thruough where I was on the plan and next steps. I noticed putting my light away (I really want a tech light with a goodman handle) took me far longer than I thought it should, getting it clipped back up and hooked in under its strap. Having all the gear, full hood and gloves (5 mil), dry suit, doubles, deco bottle definately increased my task loading was all managable. Now I just need more dives. Bouyancy was never a problem, though asecending I did notice extra lift from all the air in my dry suit especially since it did have a lot of air from 150ft. All the more reason, even necessity, for a slow ascent to allow the air to flow out of my dry suit.

Gotta Love Wiki’s

rickheil — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:27:33 +0000

I found this great quote – “The native speakers of the islands of Hawaii probably had no notion of the inadequacy of the duopoly of Word and Email in corporate communication while coining the term Wiki (literally meaning fast). However, Wikis have grown into just that – a fast and efficient way of fostering communication across corporations worldwide.” The article is here.

I’m a huge fan of wikis, having setup Mediawiki, TWiki, and others. In my last three jobs, and as a consultant I’ve setup a lot of them. My current favorite, by far, is Dekiwiki which is a powerful yet easy to use wiki. Its really more than that too, its a platform for building mashups (or RESTful applications). They host a free version. They also publihs the code as open source on SourceForge. We use the commercal version, for support and to simplify the updates/builds.

I’ll writeup a review of this and comparison with other wikis I’ve used – but suffice it to say Dekiwiki really is one to evaluate whether you’re looking for a wiki, just want to try one out, or have one and would like it to be ‘better’.

I just caught up on the recent release from MindTouch… some impressive progress. More…

My Computers

rickheil — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 02:19:48 +0000

I started a page documenting the computers I’ve owned, from 1970′s until now. It’s interesting reflecting back… I’m going to work on these pages, tweaking them as I remember and research. Enjoy!

Great diving blog

rickheil — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:02:46 +0000

Just a quickie note… found a really good diving blog, DeepStop (itself a good practice)… check it out.
Have you found any favorites you can share?

Digsby – Merging many worlds into one?

rickheil — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:37:40 +0000

I live in email (multiple accounts) and have 4 IM addresses, a fairly active LinkedIn account monitoring several evolving Groups, and more recently have gotten more active in Facebook to keep up with friends and family.

I stumbled upon a potentially great tool, Digsby (www.digsby.com), which purports to pull together your IM, EM, and social sites into one UI/toolset.

I only loaded this week, but so far it’s living up to its billing. Indeed it pulls all my IM, EM, and Facebook & LinkedIn activities into one applette. It’s growing on me and I’m keeping it going for now. Worth checking out!

One thing it has done is make me more aware of what others are doing which prompts me to be a bit more social and post on Facebook, etc. So far not bothersome or annoying (not sure what others think of MY postings) but I’m liking it. More later on how it works long term but I’d say worth a look.