Words On Wednesday

Work in any industry is often broken down to man-hours, the expected amount of work that an average person can finish in an uninterrupted hour. While that’s great for planning and budgeting purposes, I think it’s a terrible measure that gives inaccurate estimates at best and coerces people to work absurd amounts of unpaid hours at worst. And much like Fred Brooks probably suggested in 1975 (I’ve never actually read the book that I based this title on), there are several reasons why basing expectations on the work capability of some theoretical person in some theoretical hour is unhelpful and often harmful. The first problem with man-hour estimates is the amount of work. Who is this average based on? In the software engineering industry, there are vast differences in experience, specification, and familiarity with different products. If you ask me to build something in a language I’ve never written for an industry that I have no exposure to, it’s going to take a while. A recent code sch...

After discussing my  smartwatch experience , it occurred to me I haven’t talked about how I ended up with a Pixel 8 Pro. In July 2023, we went tubing with my brother-in-law. I had recently purchased a wet bag and I was itching to use it. I threw my phone (a Google Pixel 6 at the time) in there, my sister-in-law had her phone, and my brother-in-law had his vape. My wife asks me, “are you sure you don’t want to leave your phone in the truck?” Nah, the wet bag should keep it safe. Remember this, it’s important later. We get maybe halfway down the river and my brother-in-law wants to hit his vape. Cool, no problem. We drift over to a sandbar for a quick break. He gives me his vape, we throw everything back into the wet bag, and we continue on our way. Apparently, when I put everything back into the wet bag, I didn’t capture enough air in it or seal it properly. Once we reach our destination, I pull everything up onto the bank and notice that the wet bag is suspiciously heavy. I open i...

Wearable technology has been a thing for a while now, but is it still relevant? Is the Galaxy Watch by Samsung worth your money and your attention? I’d say yes. After skimming through some old posts, I realized that I discussed my old  Moto 360 watch, but I never got around to writing about the Galaxy Watch 4. You see, the Moto 360 was a fine watch. I really liked it. Problem is, I am absurdly clumsy and I dropped it. In the shower. Yes, I realize that wearing a watch in the shower is stupid, whether it is waterproof or not, but I was curious to see if the waterproofing actually worked. Physical shock is known to gradually reduce water resistance, and dropping it from eye-level into an actively running shower is probably the worst thing I could’ve done to it. It sorta kinda worked for a few days after that and died altogether soon after. RIP. Looking back through messages to establish a timeline, I didn’t realize how quickly I broke the 360. The guy I bought it from first mentione...

A lot of people in computer science and software engineering share the opinion that bleeding edge is always the best option for any new project. Newer is better, right? I would argue that this isn’t consistently the case. Occasionally newer is better, but often the reliability and availability of documentation makes older technology the superior option. Some people may not be familiar with the term “bleeding edge,” as it seems to be pretty specific to the information technology industry. “Cutting edge” is pretty universal, but “bleeding edge” suggests a step further. Something that is cutting edge may be appropriately described as “latest and greatest;” bleeding edge is even newer, albeit maybe not greater specifically. The difference in my mind is that cutting edge is very new but already widely adopted, where bleeding edge is so new that most organizations haven’t yet begun using it. Bleeding edge technology creators and supporters often tout the vast improvements over existing optio...

I got a MacBook Air for my wife a while back when her Surface Pro 7 started critically failing, and the process of setting it up and learning macOS has been super weird. For a very long time, I was aggressively opposed to anything from Apple. Their products were a bunch of overpriced, underperforming junk that didn’t have any place outside artsy studios used by media content creators. At least, that was my take on the brand. People who paid big bucks to use a browser at a coffee shop were just wasting their money for a faux status symbol. Eventually, I became apathetic to Apple and its presence in the personal computing device arena. It wasn’t for me, but I wasn’t everyone. There are plenty of people who like Apple hardware, they prefer Apple software, and I want those options available to them. I wasn’t interested, but why should I care what other consumers choose to use? I wasn’t a Google fanboy anymore, since Chromebooks really just aren’t a valid replacement for a full laptop or de...

In order to keep myself current on trends in the technology space, I want to start regularly blogging about various things going on in the field. Call it “Talking Tech.” This isn’t going to be a regular monthly segment. Book Report and Thirsty Thursday Eve chew up enough of the month as is. And maybe most months end up having a Talking Tech post in them anyway, but I don’t want to be beholden to it. I don’t know quite yet what this is going to look like, so it’s partially experimental. There are a few ideas floating around that I want to discuss and would fit well with the Talking Tech moniker. First post is most likely going to be an article spin on the no-code solution talk I suggested for the Carolina Code Conference and briefly discussed on the Carolina Code Cast. I’ve already created a short video presentation on it, but it makes sense to have that tied in with Words on Wednesday as well. Beyond that, the Raspberry Pi 5 came out, so that’s a pretty cool piece of hardware. If I’m a...