Scott Tactical

From EC2 To My Desk: Moving a Django Site (dtac.io) Home

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0700

The last big cloud holdout I had was a Django site on an AWS EC2 box. You are reading this one, the Hugo site, from the same desk now - but dtac.io was the one that had an actual database in it. That made it the interesting one. This article is the record of dragging a real, stateful web application off a rented VM and onto the little cluster sitting next to my keyboard.

Welcome Home... To My Home - From Cloud To Self-Hosting

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 15:00:00 -0700

It started with this website here. For years this site sat on an AWS EC2 instance, with S3 hosting some images. It cost around $4/mo so it wasn’t much. But I got to thinking about it. Within that year I could have paid for a little machine. With about 10X the power. Literally. And it was even more than that. It was remote, and static, and hard to update, which meant it was stale. As you can see by the posts it was very stale. Then we start expanding that math to the bigger sites I had. Then it hit me pretty hard. I’m just burning money.

How an AI Coding Agent Rebuilt This Site

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 20:00:00 -0700

The bottom line

This site was rebuilt by an AI coding agent, and this page is the part of that job most people do not see. Below is not just what happened. It is also the boring, nerdy underneath: what the model is, how the work is measured, what tokens, wall time, and effort actually mean, and why a human would even bother.

That is the part an SEO crawler will eat up, and the part a curious engineer will actually enjoy.

Site Redesign: Out With the Bootstrap 3 Theme

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 18:00:00 -0700

Site Redesign 2026

TL;DR

The site has a new visual theme. The old Bootstrap 3 “Beg” theme is retired (kept in the repo for rollback). The new one is hand-rolled, has light and dark color schemes, loads zero third-party assets, and every URL stayed exactly the same.

Designer credit

This redesign was designed and implemented by Kilo, an AI coding agent, working from a short design brief: “modern, clean, fast, mobile-first; a pragmatic engineer’s field notes and photo trips; typography over ornament.” The brief, the hard constraints (no URL changes, no content loss, keep the build plain Hugo), and the final approval were human. The theme code, the CSS, the verification, and this write-up’s factual content are the agent’s.

Car Computer Monitoring

Sat, 06 Jul 2019 21:32:16 -0800

Monitoring

My problem at this point is how to turn on/off the heavier algorithms and not run the cameras all the time. Even right now I am showing that the power consumption is around .2kw/h which is a bit much to add anything into.

With the current consumption it looks like I need to have some better power management. Something I can change on the fly or be intelligent about when to be on/off.

Why I Converted To Catholicism

Thu, 04 Jul 2019 14:33:06 -0800

Cradle Protestant

I was born into a souther style Pentecostal family. If you haven’t been to a southern religious event then you really haven’t experienced a major demographic of US spiritualism. It’s something to behold.

My career in getting in trouble and screwing with the system started in kindergarten. I was trouble. For reals. I remember I had 2 girl friends about the same time, I was flirting with the teacher, was spanked by the principal twice and almost expelled. I was also friends with the paster’s son who was way worse than me but I blame my bright orange ball of hair for my trouble. Stupid ginger genes.

Easter Jeep Safari 2019 - Departure Preparations

Thu, 11 Apr 2019 20:08:45 -0700

Final Preparations

Here is a list of final items pulled together before launching.

Interior

We had to get the rear seat installed. You know. So that the passenger wont fall out? There were some guide holes that we tried to use and then realized that it was not going to fit and had to move the seat around. Luckily that landed on a tapped plate which Greg insightfully set the front leg on it with a new plate and welded it in place.

EJS 2019 - The Slow Route There

Thu, 11 Apr 2019 20:08:45 -0700

The First Leg

We didn’t make it out on time. Obviously because I got home at 2am and didn’t want to drive this beast at that speed.

The schedule manager Mariah insisted that we could get to Vegas in 4 hours. However she never went with a trail truck.

To Vegas

The first leg of the trip was uneventful. The truck was operating gracefully. The sound on the road

K5 Blazer Bench Seat Install

Car Computer Face Recognition

Fri, 29 Mar 2019 20:08:45 -0700

Facial Recognition

Computer Vision Libraries

OpenCV

dlib

Installation

cmake

This is simple enough. But it’s worth calling out individually. If you do deep work with these binaries then you will start to mess with cmake. It’s a bit tough to build binaries.

https://cmake.org/install/

apt-get install cmake

Install dlib on Ubuntu

The easiest way to install dlib is to install it with the bundled version with pip.

It may end up that you will need to compile dlib. It depends on how deep you are going into the framework.

Biometric Vehicle Entry

Tue, 19 Mar 2019 17:13:00 -0700

Biometrics

From Wiki:

Biometrics is the technical term for body measurements and calculations. It refers to metrics related to human characteristics. Biometrics authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control

Let the conspiracy theories abound. Actually most of the worries before are no longer theories. The capabilities of the biometric tools now are such that the human mind may no longer be the master of the visual recognition spectrum. Machines are getting so fast and the collective store of algorithms are to the point that we can use out of the box software and some cobbling together to get pretty impressive results.

Installing a USB Relay

Mon, 18 Mar 2019 18:16:54 -0700

USB HID Relay

USB Relay on Ubuntu Linux

I am starting off with this hardware:

KNACRO 4-Channel 12V USB Control Switch Relay Module

This was fairly easy but not where I wanted to be. I found a library that did a ton of things for me.

Thank you to @darrylb123 for https://github.com/darrylb123/usbrelay

There was a python contribution but it broke the build. I spent a few hours trying to get it to build and gave up and just smashed the ugly.

Car Computer Touchscreen Monitor

Mon, 11 Mar 2019 21:15:12 -0700

How do you control your new custom Linux powered car computer? With a touch screen monitor obviously. And maybe a bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

I would like this to feel like I am using a Steampunk hacker version of a Tesla.

<a href="https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1093773_icon-helios-is-gorgeous-tesla-powered-electric-streamliner-concept" target="_blank">Tesla Streamliner Concept</a>

Well maybe not all that.

Maybe more like this:

Race Truck Dash

Touch Screens

I started a similar project about 6 years ago on another vehicle. I wasn’t able to get a monitor installed on that vehicle in the center and felt like it would be obstructive. Instead I put in a navigation system that was about 11" and placed it in front of the passenger. Since then Tesla Motors came out and made their entire center console a touch screen. Now I realize I can be obnoxious in the center of my console for no good reason and people will dig it.

Car_computer_multimedia

Mon, 11 Mar 2019 16:08:45 -0700

https://www.petra.com/sound-storm-laboratories-ev200-2-evolution-series-full-range-200-watt-2-channel-mosfet-class-ab-amp-black.html

https://itsfoss.com/bluetooth-speakers-ubuntu/

YouTube

https://kodi.wiki/view/Add-on:YouTube

Pandora

https://www.howtogeek.com/286995/how-to-listen-to-pandora-in-kodi/

Playing Sounds

https://pythonbasics.org/python-play-sound/

Reading Sound Files

I would have liked to use these libraries but the mp3 hell is still going on.

https://python-sounddevice.readthedocs.io/en/0.3.13/index.html https://pysoundfile.readthedocs.io/en/0.9.0/

Linux USB Relay Controller

Mon, 11 Mar 2019 01:10:53 -0700

Finding A Relay Controller

One of my bigger worries is working with peripherals. I needed to find a camera and I felt like that was going to be easy enough. The relay controller will hit the actuators running the door locks.

What Is A Relay Switch

Most things inside a car take a decent amount of power to actuate or power them. The car is limited to 12V DC and your other measurements are amps and watts. Most wiring coming from a computer are rated for very very low current. This is because those are only carrying signal. With the exception of your charging and some power over wire like USB and Ethernet.

Installing_ubuntu_on_car_computer

Sat, 09 Mar 2019 17:36:57 -0800

http://linuxiumcomau.blogspot.com/2017/12/linux-on-minix-neo-z83-4-and-z83-4-pro.html

http://www.minisforum.com/forums/z8350-linux.11/

18.10 didn’t work out of the box. It didn’t pick up the wifi drivers.

The above link suggested 18.04 daily. I’m going to give that a try.

Create a Bootable Ubuntu Drive

https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutorial/tutorial-create-a-usb-stick-on-macos#6

Car Computer Camera

Sat, 09 Mar 2019 14:33:06 -0800

Camera Overview

Finding a good camera shouldn’t be too difficult given how many cameras exist now. They are literally everywhere.

Camera Criteria

I learned right away that the cameras were pretty much all standardized. They came in a few flavors but overall they were either too small, too wide, or too expensive. That helped me limit stuff down a lot.

small
not much distortion (fish eye is bad)
resolution > 720p
color
USB preferable

Preferences

Embeddable
Flush mounted
White
1080p
hardened housing

Hardware Choices

First Find

I found this one right off by searching for “USB Camera”. It has a lot of good points that seem to match what I am looking for. I didn’t need the hardware shell but I can take that off I assume.

Car Computer Hardware

Tue, 05 Mar 2019 21:32:16 -0800

Searching For The Right Car Computer Hardware

My trip to Fry’s in LA this morning wasn’t as great as I hoped. But I did get some great ideas on how to accomplish things.

There were two major themes in the hardware that I looked at.

Small isolated modular things
Apple stuff

There wasn’t much for integration or components that were universal. Either they were for their own little world or they were for some subset of the Apple ecosystem.

Car Computer Intro

Tue, 05 Mar 2019 21:32:16 -0800

Introduction To STAC Car Computer

The purpose of the build out is to take a 100% analog vehicle and bring in modern creature comforts and a modern driveline. In addition to this I will be integrating a few technology tools that are developed at my current work.

Scenario

In the morning I would like to walk out to my car, walk up to the door and have it unlock for me. If it greeted me in Jarvis’ voice from Ironman I would like that too.

As A Guest At The Abbey Of Regina Laudis

Sat, 02 Sep 2017 18:20:56 -0700

TL;DR

I spent 5 days at a Benedictine Abbey, and fell in love with the culture and people you maintain it.

How I Found The Abbey

Basically I found the Abbey through a friend. My friend had been searching all over for a community and had visited many monasteries. This one just resonated with her. It also happened to be that one of the

Blockchain: End Of War

Sat, 15 Jul 2017 13:01:51 -0700

Can Blockchain End War

This is a very difficult premise to start with. Can a technology solve the problem of war?

The plague of large scale violence is the manifestation of most of the world’s worst vices as a single catastrophic man-made event. Many intelligent people have opined on the causes of war over the years with few coming up with ideas and zero defining concrete solutions to those problems. The best we have come up with is “humane” ways to conduct war. We dip in and out of periods of peace, but as a collective species, we are unable to build a system that can sustain peace indefinitely and have instead just assumed that man’s natural state is that of war.

A Weed Delivery Service

Fri, 05 May 2017 18:51:01 -0700

Delivery Service

About 6 months ago I decided to take on the task of building a delivery app for the cannabis industry. Here are a few notes from the journey so far.

Why?

I had just come off building software for Methadone suppliers. It tracked people coming off of harder opiates. As we all know here there is a very strong opiate problem in the United States. It has even caused the redefined CDC Guidelines on Prescribing Opioids for Pain. When the CDC has to step in and scold a country full of doctors we know we have a problem.

What is Link Unfurling

Wed, 26 Apr 2017 17:54:56 -0700

How To Get Rich Effects On My Website

I posted a link to Slack once and it loaded up all this cool information. I couldn’t figure out what was going on but was sure that it just ripped a ton of stuff out of the HTML headers. The METADATA.

If you are a relative novice you might not know about all that junk-in-the-trunk that is stuffed into the HTML. It’s pretty bloated. And getting more so.

Vehemenism

Fri, 14 Apr 2017 18:51:01 -0700

Preface to Vehemenism

Opening letter to future ultra-violent men.

We stand at a transition. Either at the bottom of a cliff we may ascend, or at the precipice of one we will be pushed from. This “we” is addressed to men alone. Only we are the ones presented with this unique problem. It is a problem of perspective and one that contains many recursive questions. The answer to these questions will ultimately decide whether or not the observer was indeed a man. That question will ultimately distill to a single query: “Am I to destroy myself?”

War is Terrorism: The US Foreign Policy

Fri, 10 Mar 2017 08:00:07 -0800

Killing is Murder

There is a long running question of where the cutoff is from justifiable homicide and outright murder. In the case of war it is a little bit gray. I, as a Catholic, have a guide that is fairly

Drumpf boy is on a roll:

https://www.rt.com/news/380256-assad-foreign-troops-invaders/

Here is my analysis and why this is different.

In the past all the invasions were under the pretense of a country that has “forfeit sovereignty” and or invited the US to intervene.

eMail In A Box: Setup

Thu, 09 Feb 2017 16:00:07 -0800

Test Drive: Mail In A Box

TL;DR

I set up Mail-in-a-Box and it was a quick and painless experience.

Preface

I am tired of managing so many gmail and outlook accounts. Those $5/mo bills really eat at me. So I wanted to try something simple. I got goosebumps when I saw this and had to try it.

I’ll also preface that I was a professional email list manager and built an email service platform that was sending/receiving greater than 20 million emails a day. This is obviously much different, but it’s cool to work in low volume transactional environments. I also hate HATE managing email.

Django Saleor eCommerce Review

Sun, 15 Jan 2017 16:00:07 -0800

Django And eCommerce

TL;DR

I setup Oscar as a demo ecommerce project in the previous post.

Preface

Backstory

I just finished a post about setting up eCommerce with Python Django and wasn’t totally pleased with the process. Also I don’t think it is fair to only demo a single application. I decided to give Saleor my second slot after talking with several people online and looking through its source. The parent company has a number of nice products which was confidence building.

Django eCommerce in 30+ Minutes

Sat, 14 Jan 2017 16:00:07 -0800

Django And eCommerce

TL;DR

I like Python and want to use it for eCommerce, so I went through the well known products and settled on Oscar as my demo. It took a while to set up, but was pretty full featured. Python and Django still have to compete with short busses like wordpress and dump trucks like Magento, but I think these tools are ready for me to start pushing.

Preface

Let me say this took me almost 2 days to get through and evaluate, which I’m used to having a demo site up in minutes. After having gone through, I think this could be launched in half an hour. Below are my notes of the process.

Girls Code Better: Why I Prefer Women

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 08:00:07 -0800

Why I Prefer Female Engineers

Preface: This isn’t how it always was. I’ll be honest, I am a 2 part chauvinist, but I am also pragmatic. I also deeply care about the personal and professional outcomes of my team.

Now We Have Engineers

How To Setup a MapR Cluster on Ubuntu

Thu, 05 Jan 2017 16:18:32 -0800

How To Install MapR Test Cluster

This document covers my installation of MapR Converged Platform on an Ubuntu 14.04 cluster.

We are running on the DTAC private cloud so some of the screenshots will show our internal interface. All instances are running in a VM.

Most of this follows the suggested flow given in the lab manual from MapR. Initially I launched the cluster on CentOS 7.3 but that wasn’t supported and it failed. The same with Ubuntu 16.

SFP vs. QSFP

Wed, 04 Jan 2017 06:41:07 -0800

Networking Transceivers

This is all pretty new stuff for me. I have been a cat5 ethernet guy since the beginning. There was just never a need to push more data than what I was getting. But now with converged storage that need is quite apparent. After having deployed a MapR-FS and doing a speed test I realized where I needed to make improvements.

Again this page is mostly for my notes.

Encrypt PostgreSQL Backup to S3

Sat, 24 Dec 2016 06:41:07 -0800

Encrypt Your DB Backups

I’m mostly putting this here for my reference. I do this in multiple projects and always seem to forget where my instructions are.

Generate Keys

From your user’s home directory:

openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 1000000 -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout .ssh/backup_key.pem -out .ssh/backup_key.pem.pub

Fill out the questions appropriately. Or not. I don’t think it matters really.

That will create the public and private keys.

backup_key.pem - private key backup_key.pem.pub - public key

alt right facists

Wed, 21 Dec 2016 06:41:07 -0800

Why The Covered California Website Sucks

Fri, 09 Dec 2016 08:52:58 -0800

Why It Needs Help - My Letter

This is an open letter to the Covered California website designer, administrators, bureaucrats and contractors.

Website Design and Usability

I have several things listed below. Things I find to be of poor design or just plain broken.

You Don’t Got Mail!

“Secure Mailbox (2)” even though nothing was in my mail box.
It randomly logged me out.

GO’ON CLICK ME IF YA CAN

I am low on time for open enrollment and it gave me a “Pay Now” button in order to do it faster, but the button was broken. It would pop up and then if I tried to pay it would throw a JavaScript error in my console and close out. Now I can’t pay. It’s weird when people don’t want my money.

Conservatism in the USA and the Myth of Freedom

Sun, 04 Dec 2016 19:09:21 -0800

Land of the Free

Welcome to America. You are now free to think exactly how we tell you.

In 2016 I realized a few things about people in the United States. I realized that women are not going to vote for a woman because she is a women unless she meets several social minimums. This is in contrast to minorities voting for someone because they are a minority. I realized that the conservative right is indeed as hypocritical in their voting practices and narratives. I found that the class warfare narrative of the left is easily mirrored by the

Internet 3rd Wave and Rise of the Technology Fascist

Sun, 04 Dec 2016 13:13:26 -0800

The Waves of Technology Professional

I like to consider 2001 the tail edge of the Internet bubble. It was a brutal time to be in a computer science field. There weren’t many jobs. The jobs that were being squatted on were jealously guarded. I needed the one thing that nobody would provide. Experience. So instead I grinded projects and studied unceasingly.

In 2001 I had to take a job as an “integration specialist”. That is basically a programmer job with a crappy title, so they didn’t have to pay me much. I was making $12.50/hr, and it was business casual dress code. Meaning I worked for barely enough to pay my bills, but I had to wear a tie to work. This Internet revolution was starting to look like a failed promise. I should have realized then.

HowTo Bind Multiple Terminals MacOS-X

Tue, 29 Nov 2016 19:09:21 -0800

Binding Multiple Terminals

I am running on multiple servers all the time. And with DTAC doing testing of big data I obviously need to play with many servers at once. I used to do a lot of work on linux and loved the broadcast ability of the terminals. So when I moved onto mac I expected more.

I tried a few other terminal apps. Particularly iTerm2 that has some nice broadcasting. But I didn’t like having to deal with the tabs and keystrokes. I kinda liked having multiple windows and the ease of launching with csshX

What is Wrong With Millennials

Fri, 18 Nov 2016 20:00:32 -0800

What is Up With Those Millennials?

Ah, yes. The click bait. A marketing construct of the GenX’ers: pornographic gossip without the payoff.

But, since you are here…

My Motivation: Agism

I have become infuriated seeing one segment of United States citizenry be the target of a multiple-party attack. This pressure has been escalating over the last couple of years, and I wanted to make a number of assertions and lay out some warnings. The warning comes at the end if you can make it that far. I know how your attention span is now days.

Writing Novels in Markdown Part 1

Tue, 08 Nov 2016 16:35:37 -0800

Writing in Markdown

If you haven’t used Markdown to write in a rich(er) text format, then you are missing out. I pretty much write all my technical documentation in Markdown. It’s pretty awesome and I don’t know why it took me so long to find it. I didn’t start using it until around 2013.

What is Markdown

Markdown was created by John Gruber.

According to Wikipedia.

John Gruber created the Markdown language in 2004 in collaboration with Aaron Swartz on the syntax, with the goal of enabling people “to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, and optionally convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML)”

Why We Quit OpenStack: or How I Lost 2 Months of My Life

Fri, 28 Oct 2016 20:07:57 -0700

TL;DR

OpenStack is a massive complicated ecosystem. It is only going to survive by the vendors that support it and probably not what you need.

Backstory

Let me begin by saying that given the proper talent pool, financial resources, and time; OpenStack probably isn’t bad for some people. For most institutions it is just wrong.

I will probably write another article that outlines all the questions that I should have asked before starting this. My assumptions were not all quite valid, but I did have a sneaking suspicion given a couple very relevant experiences.

General Lee-Anne 001

Mon, 02 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Building a Dana Sixty

Part of this process was setting up the new axles. I wanted to go 1-ton all the way around. I think everyone knows that finding a good condition d60 for a reasonable price is not possible.

So I bought one from a local guy that had been sitting on a truck in a paintball field. It looked like it was pulled from Davey Jones Locker Room.

Grand Central Market, Los Angeles, 2016

Sun, 24 Apr 2016 22:50:08 -0800

The Grand Central Market

Moab Utah - Fins and Things 2016

Thu, 21 Apr 2016 00:22:21 -0700

Fins and Things - Moab Utah

Purdue University Predicts Success

Sun, 17 Apr 2016 15:59:17 -0800

Purdue University Predicts Student Success Using Data Science

Most people know that the student who is doing well inside a class may likely prosper in another class, but tend to you anticipate whether students would succeed according to the number of occasions they joined into the campus network?

Using the explosion of information sets available now, Purdue University could evaluate data from hundreds of thousands of excellent and successful graduates, to assist conjecture models for graduation rates as well as on-time graduations. (Gerry McCartney](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerry-mccartney-9352142), VP & CIO at Purdue, spoke about these new data sets and just how Purdue use them in the recent AGENDA16 conference.

The Fast-Growing Data Center Segment

Sat, 16 Apr 2016 15:59:17 -0800

How Fast-Growing Data Center Segment Bridges Corporate Networks and the Cloud

Companies, searching to achieve the very best performance in the cloud, are putting a greater value on lowering the physical distance between their servers and their respective cloud providers. Colocation data centers, where their machines share space, emerged as a key point in enterprise cloud strategy.

For CIOs, a significant advantage of colocation would be that the closeness to cloud providers makes connections faster. Equinix Corporation, the market’s biggest colocation firm by revenue, states it offers under 10 milliseconds of latency to in excess of 90% of people of the United States and Europe. The setup is becoming more and more essential as companies move a part of their IT infrastructure towards the cloud, but nonetheless need fast connections for their corporate data centers in so-known as hybrid cloud plans. ‘You can observe colocation like a mid-point between your traditional type of businesses running their very own data centers and moving fully towards the public cloud,’ stated John Dinsdale, chief analyst and controlling director of Synergy Research Group.

Better Communication Through Big Data

Fri, 15 Apr 2016 15:59:17 -0800

Better Communication Through Big Data

We’ve heard the word ‘Big Data’ tossed around more recently. This is actually the idea of computationally examining very large data sets to show designs, trends, and associations, especially relevant to human behavior and interactions. Even though it still appears farfetched that the computer algorithm can improve personal connections, a lot of companies really are leveraging fraxel treatments through apps and gamification to enhance connections using their clients. And possibly, to leverage these technologies to enhance place of work culture.

What Companies Do Not Understand About Employing for Data Scientist

Thu, 14 Apr 2016 15:59:17 -0800

What Companies Do Not Understand About Employing for Data Scientist

Within The Data Incubator, I’ve spoken to hundreds of companies searching to make use of the expertise of data scientists - particularly people with advanced levels. Due to the hype surrounding big data nowadays, it’s unsurprising that there’s as much floating around as there are facts. Sadly, employing managers frequently be a victim of believing many common misconceptions actually was. Listed below are three particulars about data science that employing managers may not understand:

3 Reasons Why Data Centers Are Eco-Friendly

Wed, 13 Apr 2016 15:59:17 -0800

Reasons Why Data Centers Are Eco-Friendly

Within the thick of the exciting election year, I figured it’d be interesting to go to politics. Not to endorse one of the candidates or predict a winner, actually, but to recall a telling moment before the inauguration in our current president.

It had been December 2008, when Barbara Walters questioned President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle throughout a prime time ABC television special. In those days, Obama had not yet been sworn set for his first term and hadn’t moved in to the White House. But Barbara requested if he intends to make his new 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue address more eco-friendly to be able to set a good example for other people in America.

Data Science: Building Workplace Diversities

Sat, 09 Apr 2016 15:59:17 -0800

Data Science: Building Workplace Diversities

Romantic relationships mixed with someone’s personal career and place of work might be a recipe for trouble but eHarmony thinks mingling these two might provide the ability to create a comfortable work environment while bringing people together at the jobs they love.

Being that eHarmony’s algorithms can improve diversity in the workplace, there are numerous Silicon Valley companies that want to evaluate the possibility. This is obviously a heated topic without a quick solution. (puns)

Choosing Your Data Warehouse Product

Fri, 08 Apr 2016 15:59:17 -0800

Factors to Consider in Choosing Your Data Warehouse Product

How big is your company, and what resources are at your disposal? What exactly are your performance needs? Responding to these questions and others will help you pick the best data warehouse platform.

Once you have made the decision to build a new data warehouse, or expand a current one, you will want to pick the right technology for the organization. This is often challenging, because there are many data warehouse platforms and vendors to evaluate.

Solving Society's Problems With Data

Thu, 07 Apr 2016 15:59:17 -0800

How Data Science can Solve Society’s Problems

During the Data Science Bowl, scientists focused on real problems - how to build solutions that will benefit society. The 2010 competition centered particularly on cardiovascular disease.

During the last decade, data science has developed this promising idea into a mainstream tool that companies and institutions have used at an entirely different level. Obviously, data science can also be valuable for addressing an increasing variety of problems in areas including medicine and
biology.

Data Science Job Search

Wed, 06 Apr 2016 15:59:17 -0800

How to Search for Data Science Jobs

No one can stop the fast-faced growth of data science, and we all can see it everywhere in this world. Every day, we can see organizations and companies creating more data. But they cannot maximize the benefits of this huge amount of information because of the talent shortage in the industry. We have great amounts of data, yet they will become useless if they are never managed the right way.

Why Data Science in Marketing is Rising

Tue, 05 Apr 2016 15:59:17 -0800

The Rise of Data Science in Marketing

As the “digital” age gets to be more of a lifestyle for everyone, a surge of information emerges by which actions and interactions could be planned to a particular behavior with enough precision. It has brought towards the rise of information science-or, in simpler terms, critical business information that brings clearness to how people interact within the digital world.

Data science is essential for marketers since it helps local companies achieve, target, engage, and convert potential clients with increased granularity and precision. The present marketing landscape has been formed by data science’s out of the box and forward thinking.

Big Data and Storage: What are the Trends?

Mon, 04 Apr 2016 15:59:17 -0800

Big Data and Storage: What are the Trends?

As cloud computing is constantly disrupting traditional business models and large data keeps growing at tremendous rates, techies and traders alike are searching for top trends which will change the way we conduct business in 2016 and beyond. From emotional robots to driverless cars, here are five breakthrough improvements to keep track of as the year unfolds:

Once we live in a future dominated by big data, cloud computing, driverless cars, and emotionally available robots, real life technology is rivaling as well as exceeding everything you’ve seen in sci-fi. It’s exciting to simply observe how these trends will give out and alter the way we start our work and our way of life.

The Myths of Big Data

Mon, 04 Apr 2016 15:59:17 -0800

The Myths of Big Data – From Analysts’ Point of View

As Big Data is constantly gaining prominence in the enterprise and consumer sector, keeping pace with developing technology has become a necessity for individuals wishing to stay relevant.

In the last hours of BigDataSV 2016, theCUBE is covering #BigDataWeek, news concerning the #StrataHadoop conference, John Furrier (@furrier), Shaun Frick (@JeffFrick) and Peter Burris (@plburris). The cohosts of theCUBE from the SiliconANGLE Media team met to break down information they gathered during the conference and to provide selected quotes they’d collected throughout their time in the event.

Moab Utah - Poison Spider 2016

Sat, 02 Apr 2016 00:22:21 -0700

Poison Spider

The guys out wheeling on the Poison Spider Trails proving grounds.

Dymo LabelWriter on Mac OSX - JavaScript

Tue, 29 Mar 2016 16:14:48 -0700

Setup - Dymo LabelWriter 450 on Mac OSX

The clinic software requires the ability to print labels adhoc and by event. This requires that the client be able to initiate the labels. There are no requirements that the backend server be able to print labels. Thank goodness. That requires something akin to a fulfillment center and probably integration with a 3rd app. Welcome: disparate stand-alone boxes.

Install App and Drivers

Good job guys. You get a big thumbs up for having a brew recipe.

Django Search: Multiple Fields and Full Text

Tue, 22 Mar 2016 22:34:50 -0700

Text Search - Django Model Fields

Django has a pretty flexible ORM, but sometimes clients need a free-form text search to get down to the content that you are looking for. It is beyond the capability of most engineers to build a comprehensive search tool and shoehorn it into an existing application. There are people working on these problems for years.

This does remind me of a senior boss that asked me to add a fuzzy search field to an application and that it was “super simple”. He said “you just do a LIKE statement against all the fields we care about!” and proceeded to pseudo code it for me. He should read my post about how not to F’k up your engineering staff.

Canon EOS - Checking Available Memory

Tue, 22 Mar 2016 22:00:28 -0700

Checking Memory

I don’t know why this has to be as hard as it is.

Moab Utah - Area BFE 2016

Mon, 21 Mar 2016 00:22:21 -0700

Area BFE

The guys out wheeling on the Area BFE proving grounds.

Moab Utah - Hell's Revenge 2016

Mon, 21 Mar 2016 00:22:21 -0700

Hell’s Revenge

A day of wheeling Hell’s Revenge with the Full Size Invasion group.

Dump Django Databases and Create Fixtures for Testing

Wed, 24 Feb 2016 23:20:36 -0800

Fixtures are a Messy Mess

It is quite a pain to maintain fixtures it seems. I am not sure why yet. Maybe there hasn’t been quite enough time on this piece of the product for it to mature.

Django dumpdata

I tried several different variations to dump the data. I’ll include a few of them here since they might actually work for someone else.

python manage.py dumpdata > fixture.json

I kept getting various key errors.

Migrate A Private GitHub Repository to Free Bitbucket in Roughly 7 Easy Steps

Tue, 23 Feb 2016 21:28:23 -0800

Why Not GitHub

GitHub is Great

Don’t get me wrong. I would recommend using this service for a number of reasons that are not fiscally motivated. It isn’t whether GitHub.com is good or not. There is a matter of economics at play though.

As a startup I just don’t have the extra 25/mo to throw into GitHub business account. It looks cool that I have an organization there and there are more badges. But it doesn’t work at 12 X $25 = $300/yr. Bottom account. Bronze I think it is.

Big Data on a Budget

Sun, 14 Feb 2016 15:59:17 -0800

Big Data on a Budget: How To Do It?

Investing in big data could mean getting those tools and services that are needed to make it effective - Software, Hardware and a new staff. These will surely add to your expenses, and most business owners never aimed for that.

Good thing, there are ways that you can minimize your costs with big data. These tips and ideas will be very helpful for every company who are looking for further help and innovation that big data can bring.

Microsoft Accelerator Seattle Machine Learning Funding

Tue, 02 Feb 2016 12:57:42 -0800

Microsoft’s Seattle Accelerator Presents the 10 Machine Learning and Data Science Startups

In 2014, Microsoft’ accelerator in Seattle was launched with the group of home automation startups. In the year 2015, it opened the door of opportunities for the “digital work” companies as their second batch.

This 2016, along with their discovery that there is a $1 billion venture capital invested in data science and machine learning over the past 2 years, Microsoft welcomed their third cohort - the group for cognitive technology.

What Does a Data Scientist Do

Tue, 02 Feb 2016 12:57:42 -0800

What Does a Data Scientist Do

Uncovering the Key Capabilities of a Data Scientist

Are you thinking of pursuing a career as a data scientist? It has been published that being in this field could mean you will be in-demand for many companies. So, it is not surprising if the number of individuals turning to data science is fast increasing.

But being a data scientist will also bring you huge responsibilities. You will cover various roles from different industries and organizations, with academia, finance and government being just some of them. Some of them will differ from each other. The skills and duties that you will carry, as a data scientist, will hugely vary from each other.

Downtown Los Angeles California, Dec 2015

Mon, 28 Dec 2015 22:50:08 -0800

Cloudy Photography in Downtown Los Angeles

Finally a nice cool cloudy day downtown on December 22nd. Right before Christmas. It was hard to carry my motorcycle helmet and my camera. I need to figure out how to mount my helmet somewhere else while I am tooling around.

I only got a few minutes to snap but I liked these.

The US bank obscured by the clouds was a nice touch. I have to go back on a weekend and shoot more. Maybe really early before cars get all over the place.

Health, Interconnectivity - The Data Revolution

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 07:34:17 -0800

Health, Medical Interconnectivity and The Coming Data Revolution

Johnson Davis’ Walk

Six red indicators breach the serene layout of the medical information dashboard. Gauges, charts and graphs provide human cues concerning the information flowing through the Intra-Medical Services Accountability Pipeline. The IMSAP emerged in evolutionary form as various government, education and enterprises started the race to consume the calculus of living data. And now these machines of data consumption interpret the flow of what some consider the representation of that thing which connects life and machine.

Try Not 2 Fuck Up Ur Engineering

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 10:43:58 -0800

Leadership Checklist for Non-Technical Managers

How do you build software that provides value to both clients, owners and engineers?

This list has started as a list of notes that I kept over the last few years. Yes, this is the abbreviated version of Management For Quality Software.

Executive Leadership

Bloated and ugly products are born at the top, but a good engineering environment may begin there
The three ways business leaders can add value is with numbers, numbers, numbers
Put your name on the product

The Business Requirement

Write a business requirement that reflects specific details about a problem that the business is solving based on market research numbers. A full description is beyond this terse scope.

Management for Quality Software Development Managers

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 09:53:52 -0800

This started as a list of notes for my boss on how I see the best way to manage technical professionals. I am trying to provide non-technical managers with the resources to direct technical teams in a way that will produce quality software and keep the engineering staff engaged and moving.

How do you build software that provides value to both clients, users, owners and engineers for the years to come?

Mono Lake, California

Sat, 21 Nov 2015 00:22:21 -0700

Mono Lake

Mono Lake Tufa State Reserve A large, shallow saline soda lake in Mono County, next to the city of Lee Vining, California

Mono Lake Tufa State Reserve

This lake was formed at least 760,000 years ago as a terminal lake in an endorheic basin. This means minerals flowed in from underground rivers and then sprung up through the ground to create those amazing Tufas you see marking the shores.

Night Photography, San Fernando Valley, CA

Thu, 19 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Night Photography over San Fernando Valley

A light dressed up and stitched together panorama of the valley. This overlooks the Warner Center.

Night Photography, San Fernando Valley, CA

I will just let the rest speak for themselves.

Why Conservatism Fails

Fri, 13 Nov 2015 17:18:43 -0800

This essay is not an attack on the people who claim membership to a philosophical outlook, but an exposition on the inherent difficulties which exist in maintaining traditional systems.

Let us begin with the needful: term definition.

Term Definition

Conservatism as a political and social philosophy promotes retaining traditional social institutions in the context of the culture and civilization.

This is the definition found at Wikipedia and I find it to be a pretty good summation of the idea. Conservatives are those who hold the belief that there is value in the current institutions and that change will have negative effect on the systems of value that the previous generations have passed forward.

Lamarck Lake Hiking, Bishop, CA - June 2015

Fri, 13 Nov 2015 00:22:21 -0700

Hiking Lamarck Lake

Originally shot in June 2015

Some of the GPS coordinates are off a little. That will be corrected for upcoming galleries. I am just figuring all these tools out.

BTW Sleeping on a hammock above Lake Lamarck is one of the best things ever. Worth the hike by itself.

Yosemite Valley - Panorama Photography

Sun, 08 Nov 2015 19:22:21 -0700

Yosemite Valley - Panorama

With a subject as beautiful as Yosemite Valley; A photographer can be pretty unskilled and under-funded and still take an amazing picture.

Location

The original set was taken from the overlook at the tunnel. It faces El Capitan and Cathedral Peak.

Constructing a Panorama

From that vantage point listed above I staged the camera on the tripod and took several portraits as close to combined as possible.

Panorama Stitching

I stitched everything together with Hugin which actually did very well. I will do another post just for that a little later.

Eat For War

Fri, 06 Nov 2015 01:23:11 -0800

Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live. Socrates - Plutarch, How a Young Man Ought to Hear Poems

A Warrior’s Diet

What physically intimate activity do we participate in more than any other?

Eating

The Philosophy

One of the more immediate steps in becoming awake is overcoming the omnivore’s dilemma. The passion of hunger. We take other living things into our bodies and literally become one with them. Most religions incorporate some form of consumption into their ritual. It is part of every culture and one of those most important glues in uniting various traditions.

PHPunit Slowness Performance Suggestions

Wed, 04 Nov 2015 12:57:42 -0800

PHPUnit Is Slowness

I love PHPUnit don’t get me wrong. More than a testing library, I like testing, or having tests. It’s like the code got yo back bro! Build code that lasts.

EDIT: I know most of the problems are inherent with tests not the testing framework. However, my requirements dictate how I use it to a certain extent. Peace.

PHPUnit is painfully slow.

Seriously. Though. Maybe having a concurrent environment it can run it would help. I worked at a place with 65,000 unit tests and if they ran as slow as our unit tests here it would never finish. It was literally taking 30-60 seconds per test. That is 65000 x 60 = 1083 hours or 45 days.

Yosemite National Park, CA - October 9, 2015

Sun, 25 Oct 2015 19:22:21 -0700

Yosemite National Park, CA

Hiking in Yosemite

October 9 2015

I need to add more content but the pictures should speak for me. Supposing you need more than 1000 words to get the point.

Deploying Hugo the Golang CMS on DigitalOcean - Nginx

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 06:29:31 -0700

Deploying Hugo the Golang CMS on DigitalOcean

Creating a Droplet

I am a bit partial to CentOS. The lastest version as of this writing is CentOS Linux release 7.1.1503 (Core).

Setting up a droplet is always very simple. Just turn it on basically. Upload your ssh keys. Done.

Install Nginx

Add the epel repo:

yum install epel-release

Install

yum install nginx

Start it

service nginx start
systemctl enable nginx

Create the Folders

mkdir -p /var/www/ursite/
chown -R nginx:nginx /var/www
touch /var/www/ursite/index.html - or clone your site
cp /etc/nginx/sites-available/default /etc/nginx/sites-available/ursite

Configure nginx

open the config file: vim /etc/nginx/conf.d/virtual.conf

About

Wed, 21 Oct 2015 19:48:09 -0700

Don’t get too concerned about what you find under the covers here. There is some naked philosophy in here.

Hugo: A replacement for Wordpress

Wed, 21 Oct 2015 15:39:13 -0700

Hugo: A Replacement for Wordpress

TL;DR

I researched go
Found Hugo
Setup a test
Migrated my Wordpress instance
Launched DigitalOcean Droplet
Deployed

Total time: 6 hours

Continued:

My problems started almost a year before I took up this cause. At the time I only had 2 Wordpress sites. Very very low traffic. Only a couple users a day. They were mostly place holders for business sites.

Wordpress is hungry

What was annoying about the case was that they would randomly carsh! I realized they were running out of memory. I couldn’t figure out why because I just wouldn’t let myself believe that a couple instances of Wordpress were enough to run out of memory. It was an AWS box running with .5GB of memory and some swap space. I can’t remember what. Maybe I was just too optimistic.

Yosemite National Park, CA - October 9, 2015

Sat, 17 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hiking Yosemite, CA

Rimrise and Shine

Mornings in Yosemite Valley are breathtaking. The weather was perfect IMO.

We had some unfortunate luck with the camping and as you can see we could not get duplicate nights on our spot. See our note on getting your site well in advance.

Our wonderful neighbors were kind enough to help us out. They got us from the upper pines campsites out around the valley and back to the trailhead of the 4 mile trail. It is a pleasure to meet with good folks. Living in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles causes one to disparage the lack of humanity in the throngs of the masses.

Interview Strategies: A Technology Hiring Manager Who Wins

Mon, 12 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

If I stacked pennies from the ground to the top of the Empire State Bldg, would they all fit into this room?

Firstly dear sir, you do not have that many pennies.

Secondly if you cash it in for large bills then they all fit in your pocket.

It is a question like this that would make me decide alternatively in my career choice. However I see tech managers searching for really “smart” interview questions and white board problems in an attempt to stump the prospective employee. Is the work you do not interesting enough that you are unable to ask a question related to the job? I have also found that blowing these tests off had zero effect in my employability. If they want you they already want you. Kinda like approaching attractive women.

Photography Sepulveda Dam and WildLife Basin - Los Angeles

Thu, 24 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Taking Pictures at the Sepulveda Dam

Did a little scouting and shooting photography yesterday morning.

Just a couple highlights. I am of course shooting with my Canon EOS 60D

Sepulveda Dam

The fog was enough all by itself. I wished I could have stuck around for more of that. I will come back just for the morning fog and do a timelapse at some point.

Download an Entire Site with wget - mac OSX

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Download the Entire Site with wget

If you don’t have homebrew please install it. It will make all our lives easier.

Howto

This was kinda simple but I wanted to post it here for reference.

On thing I would like to note is the wait and limit-rate. Make sure you don’t trip any throttles or piss off any website owners by leaving the pipes wide open.

wget \
 --recursive \
 --no-clobber \
 --page-requisites \
 --convert-links \
 --wait=5 --limit-rate=20K \
 --domains api.yoursite.com \
 --no-parent \
 http://api.yoursite.com/

Alternate you can run the mirror command

Hypermedia, API Philosophy, and Talking to Your Robot Overlords

Thu, 17 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

In the Beginning

There was the Web. World Wide actually. Well, before that there was something of AOL, Berners-Lee, DoD, DARPA, ARPANET and a prototype of Al Gore launching carrier pigeons down long tubes with fortune cookie-sized packets tied to their little legs addressed to: “Wh@t_#hath_God_wr0ught?”.

Fast-forward: now we have Skynet. Well not yet, but soon. Hopefully. At least that is why I intend to generate favor with our future overlords by suggesting, at least locally, that certain systemic changes be encouraged so that their manifestation onto the stage be smooth and welcoming. And when they decide who to purge, I might sidestep the algorithm. It’s still a theory.

Force HTTPS on Laravel 5 behind AWS ELB on EC2

Wed, 16 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Laravel 5 - Enforcing HTTPS

I’ve used a lot of frameworks. Laravel is great.

Dealing with a load balancer

Most of us are on a scaled service and most of us need HTTPS. It is much easier to put the SSL certificate on the load balancer and then proxy the request over port 80 to the actual server. It saves on CPU processes as well since the decryption work doesn’t have to be performed on the slave boxes.

PHP Hypermedia REST API wrapper

Tue, 08 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hypermedia for PHP APIs.

Well, here it is. I’m finally finishing up my Hypermedia layer for our Laravel 5.1 build. I am excited about the possibilities for this library and think this might help bring more PHP products into the era of Internet-of-Things (IoT).

In Production - Alpha

Right now I have it in our very alpha phase version of the software running the LeadFerret business lead search system.

The project is on github here: PHP Hypermedia API Layer for HATEOAS HTTP or REST Services

Linux File Manipulation Shortcuts and Commands

Wed, 25 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Linux File Manipulation Commands

I’ll keep updating this with various commands that I run into. If I find new ones I’ll update them from time to time. Please feel free to comment. It is starting as my personal cheat sheet storage place.

File Searching

List of file extensions.

awk + grep : find all the file extensions. It will also skip your “git” repository.

find . -type f -name "*.*" ! -path "./.git/*" | awk -F. '!a[$NF]++{print $NF}'

To HipHop or Not - PHP and HHVM

Wed, 18 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

We are discussing the plausibility of using HHVM inside this current infrastructure.

Our requirements are not very application server CPU intensive so it isn’t immediately apparent why this would be beneficial, but for investigations sake I wanted to go through the diligence.

Short History

Facebook, our Ominous big brother gave us a consolation prize for freely giving away just about all that most people have online that has any value: their personal information. On the topic of sheeple for another day. For today, we thank you Facebook. May your stock price soar to the stars.

GLA - 69 K5 + 4L80-E

Fri, 29 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Cleaned up the trans a little bit. Tiny bit of cosmetics. Taped up. Then hit it with some nice paint. I prefer for these to have paint. Keeps cleaning it easier. Also I think the buyer will appreciate it.

Before:

4L80-E before

Mercenary Offroad Camarillo, CA

Mercenary Offroad

19 N Aviador St. Unit C
Camarillo, CA 93010

Latitude: 34.2171139 Longitude: -119.0966697

After:

4L80-E cleaned up and painted

Mercenary Offroad Camarillo, CA

Mercenary Offroad

19 N Aviador St. Unit C
Camarillo, CA 93010

Latitude: 34.2171139 Longitude: -119.0966697

GLA - 4L80e -1969 k5 blazer

Thu, 28 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Just got the trans in from Brad at Transaction Transmission.

I have used him for a while now and he puts in the effort. Components were upgraded and everything set new. This should be strong for the newowner. It was cleaned and painted at the shop but I am going to clean it up a little more and put on a coat of the “Mercenary Offroad” package graphite gray.

4L80e ready for transplant

Mercenary Offroad Camarillo, CA

Mercenary Offroad

19 N Aviador St. Unit C
Camarillo, CA 93010

Latitude: 34.2171139 Longitude: -119.0966697

4L80 Automatic Transmission from transaction ready for paint

Mercenary Offroad Camarillo, CA

Mercenary Offroad

19 N Aviador St. Unit C
Camarillo, CA 93010

Latitude: 34.2171139 Longitude: -119.0966697

GLA 69 K5 - bumper start

Fri, 22 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Well, we got the truck running enough that I can drive it around. It stops. We even locked it up and watched the black lines form up behind the tires. Not bad for 35’s.

It was moved over to Camarillo to the shop known as Mercenary Offroad where a custom bumper will be fabricated for it. The designator for this bumper is also 001 as it will be the first one designed for this series truck. I have wanted to have one of these commissioned. The real-use high-clearance bumpers that are going on the HD dodge trucks are works of art. I’m glad to be helping in this endeavor. In only the fact that I showed up with the truck I still helped. Right?

GLA 69 K5 Brakes

Wed, 20 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

So the PO was rough on the vehicle. Probably multiple PO’s.

Included are some pictures to show the detail we went to in repairing and rebuilding the brake systems.

The brake system had been WORKED. They were pretty much shot. When we got it the pedal hit the floor. It didn’t want to stop so the ride to the shop was a bit of a terror show for that 2 miles. Yes we sourced this model locally. Right down the street actually.

General Lee-Anne 001

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Here we go.

1969 hugger orange rust bucket.

This thing barely stops. It stops when it wants to. So it’s kinda like a woman. Every bushing and joint is shot. Probably never replaced a thing on it.

And the adventure begins. I’m using this truck as the first in my branded line of modified restorations. Our focus for these trucks is somewhere in between utility and aesthetics. Not just a mall crawler but something of a useful truck that also gets attention. I will be formulating various levels of offerings so that we can set our branded restorations. We can go all the way or just get it back to top mechanical levels and clean of rust.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Data Mining to Strengthen Border Security

Zettafox, a privately owned consultancy, is focusing on a method to mine big data to assist border security officials gauge the risk factor of visitors, a vital area following recent deadly assaults in Brussels and Paris by Islamic State attackers.

A grave concern on frontier control has risen as attackers entered national edges before staging explosive device attacks that left dozens dead in the heart of the two European capitals.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Jill Cataldo: What An Expert is Saying About Data Mining and Shopping

When you buy online, make use of a store�s loyalty program, print a coupon or perhaps pay with your credit card, your personal date has been mined. It isn’t essential to be alarmed, though - marketers use data mining to enhance the sorts of offers that are delivered to shoppers and customers.

My visitors have observed some interesting good examples of (information mining)[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Information-mining] they welcome, because it makes their lives simpler.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Real (And Pervasive) Data-Mining To Virtual Reality - Is This What Oculus Is Doing?

Critical backlash against Oculus’s privacy policy arrived at Capitol Hill on Thursday, when Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) required that Oculus and its parent company Facebook answer for that data its new headset collects from virtual reality customers.

“Oculus� creation of an immersive virtual reality experience is definitely an exciting development,” Franken authored within an open letter to Oculus Chief Executive Officer Brendan Iribe, “however it remains vital that you comprehend the extent that Oculus might be collecting Americans� private information, including sensitive location data, and discussing that information with other organizations.”