Category: Blog

I had spent 29 years at Microsoft before they finally laid me off.  I spent that entire time in the Operating Systems division.  I wish I could try to describe the sheer enormity of a project like this, but I can’t.  We had too many moving parts; I doubt anyone understood everything.  We built our product from source code at a particular snapshot in time.  To put it in perspective, hundreds of engineers may make changes within seconds of each other, and it all had to work.

Some of these engineers had the unenviable task of coordinating these changes from different places.  We called this process reverse integration.  The best way to describe it is like air traffic control for software changes.  They took a snapshot at a specific time, created a distinct version of our product, and then we ran a battery of tests.  If the tests passed, they allowed those changes through.

Continue reading “Empathy is not a spectator sport” →

I’ve rooted for the Atlanta Braves since 1982; this is longer than many of you have been alive.  From 1991 to 2005, the Braves won their division; this excludes 1994, a strike-shortened season, but includes a division move from the NL West to the NL East.  In 1999, the Braves’ closer John Rocker played exceptionally, but he was also an asshole.  This included disparaging remarks about homosexuals, immigrants, minorities, and women.

Shortly after that season, a loved one asked me point-blank.  Do I agree with what John Rocker said?  Absolutely not.  He’s an asshole and an embarrassment to the Braves.  The team traded him away in 2001.  He pitched well, but he was poisonous.  I’m not the general manager, but really…  good riddance.  Get the fuck out!

Continue reading “Rolling back the clock to ‘great’.” →

I spent my life through college graduation in the tropics, and I had never traveled to a snowy location.  However, I did grow up on the sunny beaches along the Atlantic Ocean, both in Puerto Rico and Florida.  I had a quiet fascination with snow, the white, fluffy solid water.  Our freezer grew frost that resembled hairy ice; that’s about the closest I got.  In Puerto Rico, we had a shaved ice treat called a piragua.  That certainly resembled snow, but maybe the quantity of a snowball.

My other fascination is the combination of snow and beaches.  The rational pre-engineer in me reasoned that beaches existed in locations cold enough to snow, and snow must at least occasionally accumulate there.  Therefore, there must be instances of waves crashing onto a shore while snow is visible.  This isn’t rocket science.  Why don’t we see pictures of it?  This thought crossed my mind before we all had access to the internet; I couldn’t get answers through a web search.

Continue reading “Seeing the snow on the beach” →

Like most middle school children, I took a physical education class.  On Mondays, we brought gym clothes and a towel for the showers, and on Fridays, we brought the clothes and towel home to wash them.  A requirement to pass the class was to verify that we showered before continuing to other classes.  We all needed to shower and walk to our teacher’s office off the locker room, wet and wearing a towel, then he would check us off a list on his bulletin board.

I found the practice a bit goofy.  We spent a class learning the rules of volleyball or softball, then spent a week playing those sports by the rules we had just learned.  While I understand that we don’t want students walking into the classes that followed dripping with sweat from PE, the practice of walking into our teacher’s office, soaking from the shower and wearing a towel, only to be checked off in a cryptic list was silly.  Still, I participated.

Continue reading “Keep the tip” →

In 1982, I fell in love with baseball.  In 1981, a major league baseball team ended the season near the bottom of its division.  The following year, they developed amnesia.  They started the season with 13 consecutive wins, a record that still stands (though two teams have since tied that record).  In many ways, the Atlanta Braves didn’t know any better.  At the time, I knew nothing about baseball, but I learned quickly.

Though I didn’t know it yet, those 13 games established a kinship that endures today, over 40 years later.  Ted Turner owned both the TBS network and the Atlanta Braves, and thus TBS aired most of their 162 games back then.  I watched every game that I could.  I subsequently learned the names of every position player and remember them today.

Continue reading “Rooting for the home team” →

In 19991, I started my professional career as a software tester at Microsoft.  I began as a Software Test Engineer and then transitioned to a Software Design Engineer in Test.  I also spent time as a Developer and Data Engineer, but I spent the vast majority of my time as a software tester.  The oversimplification is that I verify ‘correct’ behavior.  In my case, documentation and common sense define ‘correctness’.  If the documentation defies common sense, I may push back to change the definition of ‘correctness’.

Occasionally, there are conflicting corner cases. For instance, children can ride in Space Mountain, but only if they’re at least a certain height. That’s just one rule. However, determining which rules apply under which conditions can be complex. There are safety and compliance standards (accessibility, for instance) that we may choose to adhere to.

Continue reading “The threshold of our rights” →

Many years ago, I purchased a new home when my wife and I started a life together.  A new neighborhood so new that it confused our GPS since it did not yet exist.  Based on the address, I triangulated its location and found it.  We made an offer on that house, and after a few weeks, it was ours.  That day when we got the keys was exhilarating, and we celebrated in the kitchen of our new home.

However, I already owned a condo.  We were lucky enough to have the means to purchase our new home without needing to sell my existing home.  These circumstances, while lucky in most respects, had their own disadvantages.  We were focused on establishing our new home, but I still had a home filled with my existing belongings, many of which remained at that condo.

Continue reading “Abusing the voting system” →

‘The Princess Bride’ is among my favorite movies; I discovered it on cable television.  It performed modestly at the box office, but it gained a cult following.  Naturally, I can quote dialogue from the film, though many people already do.  A few years ago, I attended a special afternoon showing of the film with a friend.  A young couple sat next to us; they looked a bit younger than I expected.  I asked them, and they admitted that they were introduced to the film by their respective parents.  Neither was alive in 1987, when the film was released.

The Princess Bride is only one among many favorite films.  I’ll admit that among many of my favorite films, there’s an element of romance.  There’s a subtle way in which the relationship between two people develops.  It may be in the uttering of the words, “As you wish.”  Or it may be in the way that Art3mis and Parzival in Ready Player One say to each other, “You’ll forgive me for this, I promise.”

Continue reading “Love is in the Air” →

I grew up in Florida for a fair portion of my life.  Fort Lauderdale lacked traditional theme parks.  Though we occasionally had these traveling proxies instead.  Groups of traveling theme parks will assemble amusement park rides in the parking lots of shopping centers.  We may have gone to one of these from time to time.

However, large theme parks such as Disney World, Universal Studios, and Busch Gardens are located in Florida.  Throughout my childhood, I’d occasionally visit these parks.  Many times, these trips were coordinated by family or friends; other times, our schools organized them.  In fact, when I graduated from high school, we spent a night at Disney World at an event called Grad Night.

Continue reading “It’s not a funnel” →

Many years ago, I worked into the evening at Microsoft.  As I waited for a task to finish on my computer, I thumbed through a magazine.  It was an issue of A. Magazine, an Asian American-focused magazine.  A friend comes by my office to ask a question.  After a few minutes, he looks at the magazine cover quizzically, and I respond with, “It’s an Asian American magazine.”

His response shocked me, “You’re the least Asian person I know.”  For context, this is a friend who met me shortly after I arrived in Washington years before.  He had never heard me speak in any language other than English.  I arrived here for my first professional job, and all my friends were people I met at work.  Therefore, only two observations indicated that I was of Chinese heritage:  my surname and, to a lesser degree, my facial features.

Continue reading “Reflecting on my heritage on this month” →