tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49486740345895218922024-03-05T12:11:12.353-08:00Doreen HintonMiscellaneous thoughts on miscellaneous subjects: unemployment, agile, project mangement, dog training, literature and a bit of epistemology...Doreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4948674034589521892.post-5688452070852799902012-03-13T18:40:00.001-07:002012-03-13T18:41:36.594-07:00New Unwanted Dog Behavior -- or Really? NOW? (Part 1)A few months ago, I scooped up my worldly goods and pets and relocated to a different part of the U.S. How different,you ask? Well, it is SO DIFFERENT here that a great majority of people here use retractable leashes – yes, even for non-miniature sized dogs. To me, this signifies a few things:
dogs on retractable leashes don't walk next to their people – they haven't been trained to;
every timeDoreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4948674034589521892.post-9477407561106762972012-01-13T07:11:00.001-08:002012-03-07T18:28:59.606-08:00An Excerpt from a Letter Written 49 Years Ago (which challenges you to consider just how much things have stayed the same in the States)
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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justiceDoreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4948674034589521892.post-90278923794801984432011-08-20T18:15:00.000-07:002011-08-20T18:18:06.779-07:00An Epistemological View of QA...In my last post I mentioned that "QA can be seen as an excellent example of a posteriori knowledge" and that it could reinforce arguments against a priori knowledge.
So lets start with the idea of the a priori. Put in very simple terms, this is knowledge you gain before (or prior to) experience. Philosophers like Kant* and Plato believed that there were just certain things you knew -- you Doreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4948674034589521892.post-56648851334983780582011-07-14T22:33:00.000-07:002011-07-14T22:34:11.912-07:00Time to Start Talking About QA...QA, or "quality assurance," has been coming up a lot in my conversations, job-seeking - and naturally, thoughts - lately. Poor QA! No one wants to do it: companies, as a whole, don't always invest much in it and individuals themselves don't necessarily seek it out as a career path -- at least, that's what it feels like.
At the end of the day, QA just ain't that Doreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4948674034589521892.post-23941902429264393112011-07-04T22:34:00.000-07:002011-07-04T22:34:29.919-07:00Tonight is a Three-Kitten/One Old Cat/One Young Dog NightIt has been incredibly busy on my end of the world these days -- yes, being unemployed can mean being productive, just not in an office for a company. Being an unemployed project manager means you're juggling multiple projects, even some with conflicting priorities. In a scrum environment, I'd be my own product owner, scrum master and Team, all rolled into one.
So I've been busy.
Now, to Doreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4948674034589521892.post-42296748378665932022011-06-16T18:42:00.000-07:002011-06-16T18:42:33.008-07:00How I Learned to Ululate for My Dog
Instead of pointlessly screaming my dog's name throughout a dog park, whilst hiking, etc., I ululate for her.
The story of how this came about is: one day, we were in an urban creek – this means that it's a small creek just off a road in a residential area; the road frequently has cars driving on it. She'd met another dog in this creek and the other dog turned out to be a runner – he was Doreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4948674034589521892.post-4169317799469169602011-06-12T13:53:00.000-07:002011-06-12T13:53:15.296-07:00Resume Writing is Not FunI've been working this weekend on re-doing my resume; this not fun.
First, there is the big question I have to ask myself: functional? or chronological?
For the longest time, I'd used a functional format. Then, a couple of years ago, on the advice of a recruiter (who never did find me a job), I changed it to chronological. The thing is about as fun to read Doreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4948674034589521892.post-62025208470348203932011-06-07T21:22:00.000-07:002011-06-07T21:22:39.690-07:00Steve Jobs His Own Doppelganger?SFGate.com published a gallery of photos of Steve Jobs Over the Years today. I was struck by the contract between an image from 1997..
and one from 1998, about eight months after he was named interim CEO.
Does this look like the same guy to you? He looks like two completely different people to me.
Personally, I prefer his black- mock turtleneck-and-dad-jeans look to the stodgy Doreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4948674034589521892.post-61393932775522038202011-06-03T23:25:00.000-07:002011-06-03T23:25:08.850-07:00A cool job I have never heard of beforeI recently met someone who has a cool job I'd never heard of before: he's a Mitigation Specialist. As he explained it, his job is to take detailed life history of a criminal in preparation for a criminal proceeding -- specifically which I didn't remember, so I Googled it. As it turns out, it's for capital cases; mitigation specialists come into play during the penalty phase of a Doreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4948674034589521892.post-49007397692295186752011-05-30T18:40:00.000-07:002011-05-30T18:40:43.469-07:00Oakland's City Council Is Up To No Good -- YET AGAINThe Oakland Animal Services shelter is one of the only "no questions asked" shelters in my area -- they take everyone, including owner surrenders.
As someone who's helping a friend re-home a cat, I can tell you that it's incredibly hard -- if not impossible -- to find any place that will take an owner surrender of an animal with a less-than-stellar temperamentDoreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4948674034589521892.post-88653213593434981532011-05-27T20:58:00.000-07:002011-05-27T20:58:14.490-07:00Agile-ity Training: Dog Training as an Iterative Process (Part Four)Then the team does it all over again...
So I've now shown how training my dog not to jump meant that I first performed a little bit of requirements gathering and then I had to do a little bit of design, coding and testing along the way:
I did this by initially starting in very small increments of time (given my dog's short attention span) and then mark and reward in order to Doreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4948674034589521892.post-79434884319167203782011-05-24T20:48:00.000-07:002011-05-24T20:49:21.727-07:00Agile-ity Training: Dog Training as an Iterative Process (Part Three)Did teaching my dog not to jump take time? Absolutely. The entire process is what I would certainly describe as “iterative,” – and because we're talking about an individual living creature with a will of her own and not an inanimate project, there was backsliding, too. So I had to inspect and adapt regularly as we went along.
For instance, one day she would do her sit/stays perfectly; the Doreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4948674034589521892.post-76216415631857679212011-05-23T21:03:00.000-07:002011-05-23T22:44:16.824-07:00Agile-ity Training: Dog Training as an Iterative Process (Part Two)After the one- or two-second sit was well in hand, we extended the time and continued adding more until it was no longer an issue – until Liffey could consistently stay until I released her, however long that may take. As more time is added to her stays, my dog is delivering more value.
And as the training progressed, I was able to inspect and adapt both her ability to sit and stay (untilDoreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4948674034589521892.post-89147928377365994142011-05-22T23:10:00.000-07:002011-05-23T22:44:25.381-07:00Agile-ity Training: Dog Training as an Iterative Process (Part One)Recently, after spending a few hours with me and my dog Liffey, a friend asked me how long after I got her did I begin training her?
"Immediately," was my answer. He was surprised that I didn't wait for her to reach some developmental milestone before I began teaching her. I explained to him that he may have been thinking about old-school, traditional (aversive) training techniques, Doreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4948674034589521892.post-24343519209064693272011-05-18T18:30:00.000-07:002011-05-18T18:30:09.589-07:00Agile-ity Training: Dog Training as an Iterative Process? (Introduction)Most of the development environments I've been around or exposed to have been more traditional than Agile and have therefore followed more traditional methods like Waterfall. There are other places to learn more about the history and theories of waterfall and other methodologies. I'm here to relate my own experience with these methods. (One day, I may tell you the story about the time I was Doreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4948674034589521892.post-6562841785810220242011-05-14T00:29:00.000-07:002011-05-14T00:29:03.551-07:00Cognitive Dissonance: A StartIn the last few months, I've found it challenging remembering normal, once- everyday words, terms and phrases. The example I'll give here is "cognitive dissonance," since, ironically, I experienced cognitive dissonance about forgetting "cognitive dissonance."
I vaguely recall now that I'd originally learned about cognitive dissonance via Sterne's Tristram Shandy -- Doreenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13999845846209366152noreply@blogger.com0