That was the goal that I had given myself last year. I had never consistently written ever. Outside of NaNaWriMo's craziness I had never taken on such a challenge before. So there I was, committed to writing something everyday. It was the first time that I had ever done a 30 day trial.

I was teaching at the time and life was "super busy". As an aside, that Carlton had NO IDEA what it meant to be busy. I cranked out words everyday. I posted those gems along with a silly number of cat pictures. I had several posts that didn't hit until 11:59pm but I refused to give up.

"Create Something Awesome Today" - Roberto Blake

Mr. Blake tells his audience the qbove quite every video. In order to grow our audience we have to have something to show. Whether it is written words like this, audio, or video you need to be putting yourself out to be discovered. Garyvee says to document not create. This means to documetn your process. It is hard to consistenly crank out creative works. However if you are documenting the process of creating.

Not only des it help you to create more content it also gives your audience insight into who you are. Being transparent with your audience is beneficial to community growth. You also need to post your creative works as well but this essentially doubles your content.

• Create things your audience wants to see
• Create things that excite you
• Create things that are complete nonsence

Whatever you do, keep creating.

Your content is the funnel that your audience comes through. Whether they enjoy your content, your nonsence or your process, keep them engaged. Fresh content will keep them coming back.

What will you creat today?

Tomorrow we will talk about connecting with your audience.

I think I am suffering from new baby brain now so I am short cutting this train of thought

The same thing happens with me. Now it is not as dramatic as it is for little me but I recognize that change is coming. I get inside my own head which can be very disruptive to my family. ;-)

While I might be able to push it off and hold it back, eventually the Change Gone Come

So what does that mean? As I mention frequently in The Minute you have to plan/prepare for change. It is inevitable. You cannot hold it back for very long. There really is no stopping it. Like with our new baby it is going to arrive, causing a big splash changing the landscape.

The question is, will you be ready when the change comes?

I have been asked to share some tips and tricks on starting a podcast. This question has come up in a couple of different forums so I thought I would share some of our podcasting journey. Luckily for me I had access to a full mixer board in the early days of recording. Our church had a lot of equipment along with a full stage so I was able to practice with a lot of different setups.

This doesn't translate into the world of podcasting now, especially if you don't have the budget. The good news is that getting started as a podcaster can be as simple or as complex as you want.

So what do you need to get started in podcasting?

1. An Idea
2. Equipment
3. Host
4. Distribution

Idea

When I say you need an idea I do not mean that you have to have a full show complete with format and outlines for each week. I mean that you need to have something to talk about. You need something that you are passionate about enough that you will stay interested. Podcasting, depending on the format, can have you talking to yourself a lot so you'll need something that matters to you.

Questions to ask yourself

1. What am I passionate about?
2. What do I enjoy doing?
3. What irritates me?
4. Who would I like to talk to if I can get access?

Equipment

I'll split this section up into beginner and intermediate. I am by no means a pro so I will defer to others on pro setups. I want to get you up and recording as soon as possible.

Beginner

If you are just getting started and are not even sure that this is for you I would recommend against spending a bunch of money up front. most of us carry around a full audio rig in our pockets in the form of a phone. Whether an iPhone or Android you can use your phones mic to get started in podcasting. Here are 2 apps that can be used for creating, hosting and distributing your podcasts.

• SoundCloud
• Anchor.fm

The process for both of these is to install the app on your device and record your content. New episode will be pushed out to users of their platforms and other podcast players as you configure them. I think Anchor distributes to more systems than soundcloud natively.

• Voice Record Pro

Lastly I also use an app called Voice Record Pro when I need to record a quick snippet. Here is an exple from series over on Youtube called The Minute Podcast over on YouTube.

Intermediate

If you want to invest some money into your podcast setup than you will need the following:

1. Mic(s)
2. Computer with editing software
3. Optional: Mixer

Here are some example setups depending on how you plan to record your podcast.

Single Desk Reporter

• Mic: Blue Yeti
• Computer: Windows or Mac dependant on software choice
• Software: Audacity or Garageband

Nice and easy for recording a single voice or multiple voices that do not need individual leveling.

Traveling Reporter

• Recorder: Zoom H4N Pro Recorder
• Computer: Windows or Mac dependant on software choice
• Software: Audacity or Garageband
• Optional: Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB Cardioid Dynamic USB/XLR

The Zoom is a recorder with the ability to attach multiple mics as well as a single built in mic for use in a roving interviewing setup.

Questions to ask yourself

1. What style of show am I doing?
2. Do I need my recocrder to be portable?

Hosting

If you are going with the Anchor or SoundCloud options than this section is not as relevant for you. Make sure you research the payment tiers for each. Hosting is expensive so there will be a charge for using either of these sites.

If you are recording/editing using your computer than you will need to host your podcast online. Here are some sites that can host your podcasts.

1. Podbean
2. Libsyn
3. PodOmatic

Our podcast Life in the Clouds Podcast is currently hosted on PodOmatic.

Once you have selected your hosts, signed up and uploaded some episodes you can move onto the last step. Distribution.

Questions to ask yourself

1. How much do I want to spend for hosting?
2. Do I need web streaming for my podcast?
3. How much support do I need?

Distribution

Once you have picked your host you will be given a RSS feed link which is what you will need to submit to the platforms where you want your podcast to be found. For our podcast we distribute through:

1. LITC on Apple Podcasts
2. LITC on Stitcher Radio
3. LITC on Google Play Podcasts

Depending on your host you may have to submit yourself to each platform individually. I know that Anchor provides you a way to submit yourself to different platforms. Here are the links where you can submit your podcasts:

1. Submit to Apple Podcasts
2. Submit to Stitcher Radio
3. Submit to Google Play Podcasts

Once you have been approved each time you post new episodes you episode will publish to each of the platforms.

Hopefully this will help you get started on your podcast journey.

Happy Recording

I was having a discussion with an online friend about a business that he had gotten involved with over the summer.  I was once involved in a network marketing and since his new business was affiliate marketing he was asking our group for marketing advice.  Here is what I sent to him:

Things to Avoid

Self-limiting Beliefs

This is the thing that kills folks early on in their business.  We doubt that we can be successful in our new endeavor.  I know that there is the new business excitement.  Especially in network marketing situations because of opportunity meetings and conference calls.  While they are good for motivation they don't often encourage the internal work that we have lived under as 9to5'ers.  

Things that keep us in jobs for a long time is comfort, inertia, and fear.  We are used to what we have been doing and are most likely good at it. Changing means being vulnerable and we have been trained to not make mistakes.  You have to be ready to do something new and possibly stink at first.  When we are afraid of having to climb a new ladder we avoid taking the necessary steps.  We have to stop avoiding the difficult work, learn the fundamentals of the business and practice.

Next we need to track the right things.  Know what the effective measures are in your business.  I remember our 8-5-3-1 approach.  The specifics of that don't matter but knowing your numbers are important.  

Selfishness

The last thing to avoid is selfishly interrupting peoples lives with your business.  That doesn't mean you don't share your opportunity but you need to consider your approach.  Consider the person more important than you pitch.  If you lead with your pitch you will seem callous, uncaring and ultimately push someone away.

Community, Tribes and Mastering the Long Cut

If you want to build you business you need to have a tribe.  People who are with you in your business.  They might be directly affiliated with you or are people who know you that will bring opportunities.  When you are new you wonder *how do you build a tribe from scratch?  *

Is it really from Scratch?

I don't think that you will need to build a tribe from scratch.  There are tribes that you are already in that you need work within.  They can lead you to new tribes.  

Finding a new tribe

1. What does your opportunity provide people?
2. What is the smallest group you can support

Identify a Need

1. What does this tribe need?
2. How does my opportunity help?
3. How can I serve?

Serve Them

1. Take small steps everyday.
2. Give people something they can take action on.

I hope this helps you.  As always I am available to answer questions in the comments or on my socials.

Carlton

Everyone who knows me knows I love The Shawshank Redemption. It is one of my favorite movies and I can quote much of it. The story isn't terribly complex but the narrative is rich and engaging. And Morgan Freeman is awesome no matter what he does.

Today I want you to stop worrying about what obstacles are in your path. I want you to get started today. Even if you can only take one step today. Commit to that one step and do it.

Then set a goal to take another one tomorrow and take it. Every day commit to taking one postive step towards your dream. Let me know what it is and I will cheer you on.

It really does come down to making a choice. I want you to choose to get busy living. I will to.

Carlton

Dear Future Me,

Take a listen to these thoughts on creativity from John Cleese of Monty Python fame. Here are my thoughts today. I hope we took some of these to heart.

Play For Play's Sake

Creatives play and it is just for the sake of playing. Your life needs to have space for play. That means you need to have time for it. The busyness of life destroys the creative flow. You have to build boundaries in your life to create space for play.

Breaking Through a Roadblock

Around 10 minutes John Cleese talks about how Alfred Hitchcock overcame creative blocks. He mentions that he, Hitchcock, would begin to tell a story that was totally unrelated to break the tension and open the creative flow. However, once the flow is open you have to swtich back to working on the creative pursuit.

Original Ideas

"Give your mind enough time to come up with something original"

Timeboxing yourself can often hinder coming up with creative solutions.

Humor Heals

Don't take yourself too seriously. Humor cuts through our self-importance.

"...giggle all you want."

Playing Together

Share your creative time with other people. Make sure that your play friends are people that you trust. Nothing kills creative work faster than the tension brought on by combining people who cannot work together.

Stamping Out Creativity

He ends his talk by sharing how managers could stamp out creativity in our subordinates.
1. Allow subordinates no humor
2. Undermine your employees confidence
3. Demand that people always be doing something

I got this image in my inbox today and got a chuckle out of it as I do with most XKCD comics. I came back to it about about an hour later and thought about what I would write to my future self now. I did the opposite exercise back on my old blog. I'll have to dig through the archives to link to it.

There is something appealing in pointing an arrow into the future. When I was much younger, early teens I think, I wrote a list of things that I wanted to achieve before I graduated college. The list included things like, get published, start a company, work in video games, learn to give massages, meet my wife amoung others. The funny thing is that I completed most of those of them before graduation and had completed all of them before proposing to my wife.

After this I wrote a narrative of what I thought life would look like for my wife and in 15 years. We are coming up on year 15 and many of those milestones have come to pass. The pastor one was not even on my radar back then, but isn't that how God works.

So what would I share with Future Carlton? Much that I would share with Past and Present Carlton as well as my children.

Stop Being Afraid

There really isn't any reason for it and there isn't really any value to it. The pain of failure is nothing compared to the pain of missed oppurtunity.

Plan, Prepare and Execute

One of the best ways to defeat the monster of fear is to prepare now and then charge ahead. Course correct as needed. Before you know it you will be closer to that goal then you were when you started.

I'll be taking some time to think about Future Carlton and what I want to say to him. For you dear readers I leave you with a poem by Gavin Aung Than of Zen Pencils fame.

The Monster Named Fear

We all grown up with dreams of what we can be. In the playground shwing off our talents for all to see.

Anything's possible when you are laughing in school. For Instance: A ballet-dancing prodigy sounds prety cool.

How about a rockstar in a band? Or maybe a tennis pro with a killer backhand.

There's this one girls who makes you laugh till you cramp.
And another who wants to be World Wrestling Champ!

But the road to those dreams are filled with dangers. Obstacles in the way: Parents, Teachers and even some Strangers. Most mean well but some are just mean trolls shouting at you, they're downright obscene.

"*It's never gonna happen."

"You're so gonna fail."

"Why don't you just quit?"

"No! No! No!"

That's all they scream

"You can't do that..."

"It's an Impossible Dream"

But there's something worse than those doubters, you'll find killing more dreams than all of them combined.

It gets bigger and bigger crushing your soul unill it breaks free and goes out of control.

Your enemy speaks, its vice strong and clear. "Hi, pleased to meet you. My name is FEAR"

You smell a foul stench as it gets up realse close, scaly and slimy and disgutingly gross. But you're not bothered by all the mucus and goo, what's most disturbing is the thing sounds like you.

"I'm all of your fears and all of your stress. I'm your fear of the spotlight and fear of success.

"Fear of embarrassment and not enough training. I'm what scares you the most, I'm the fear of you failing!"

Some spend their whole lives running from fear, even when they have friends who support them and cheer. They get gobbles up and deveoured by the beast, their dreams turned to food for the monster to feast.

But don't worry too much, hope is not lost. Fear can be beaten if you are willing to pay the cost.

There are steps to take, steps that are essential. To make sure you don't live your life never reaching your potential.

You land the first blow when you decide to commit. Now it is time to mix hard work with a whole lot of grit.

Practice and practice the practice some more. Improve your craft even when it's a chore.

Get out of your comfort zone and you'll learn faster. You've got to be brave, don't let fear be your master. *. Those butterflies are normal you feel in your tummy. That's when you know fears there in the front row *sitting right next to mommy.

It takes time to get better, I know progress is slow. Just roll up your sleeve and keep giving it a go. And for those sitting at home, thinking it's too late. Fear can be beat no matter your birth date.

Practice and practice, then practice some more, after so many battles you'll be winning the war. Slowly but surely, you've faced fear head on. Now the beast is no more it's finally gone!

Oops, sorry. I lied, I must take that back. Fear never leaves, it's always waiting to attack. It's lurking up there inside of your head. Sometimes it comes back just when you thought it was dead.

But this time you're in charge. There's no need to fret, the fear is so small, it's no longer a threat.. Thanks to persistence and focus and much * follow through*, the monster has shrunk to the size of a shoe.

Fear's scary no more, not even a fright, 'cos you've put in the work night after night. Year after year and the end is in sight, now, at long last you're ready.

Time To Finish The Fight!

Get out there, dream and then execute my friends.

Summarize what data mining tools can reveal about the Iris data.

Data mining tools can help to identify patterns and trends within the Iris data set. These types of tools can also facilitate statistical analysis of the data. Tools like R can be used to explore that data and gather descriptive statistics on the data such as record count, mean, and percentiles. Through this identification of patterns machine learning models can be built and trained. The Iris dataset was used during the recent Google Developers series on Machine Learning. (Gordon, 2016)

Why is it important for the data-mining tool to have visualization capabilities?

Data visualization is the process of showing information in a tabular or graphical way. (Tan, Steinbach, & Kumar, 2006) While spreadsheets are one way of visualizing data it is often more useful for an audience to see data represented in a graphical way. Charts and graphs can be used to visualize patterns in the Iris dataset. One of the reasons that a tool like R is powerful are the built-in visualizations. Instead of having to transpose data from one tool into another you can build pie charts, histograms, and scatter plot graphs directly in the tool. This eliminates the data entry errors that can occur across tools.

Is an open source data mining tool better than a commercial one?  Why or why not?

Over the course of my career I have worked with both open source and commercial software tools. Open source software described software whose source code is available for free redistribution and can be modified by anyone. (Open Source Initiative, 2007) Using open source software and tools typical has a lower cost of ownership that commercial tools. These types of tools often include a community of users who volunteer best practices and feature upgrades. This can give an organization greater flexibility over the control of their tools. The downside to using an open source tool comes in resolving bugs when an open source tool is abandoned. Since these types are tools are supported by volunteers many projects are abandoned with no avenue for getting fixes. On the other hand, commercial tools typically have dedicated support infrastructures. Enterprise customers purchases legally binding service level agreements(SLAs) that promise both timely support and upgrades. With the support systems behind them commercial tools have much higher cost of ownership for an organization. As a systems engineer for the federal government we use a combination of both commercial and open source software and tools. I encourage my clients to decide on which to use on a case by case basis. For the benefit of this question I would recommend using open source tools initially. The low cost of ownership and flexibility allows you to learn. Once the project has matured or needs a greater level of support than it is time to examine moving to a commercial tool.

References

Gordon, J. (2016, March 30). {ML} Machine Learning Recipies. Retrieved May 19, 2016, from Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKX8hZ1Cat4P2cG_ha40e803oOl4aM7MK
Open Source Initiative. (2007, March 22). The Open Source Definition. Retrieved May 19, 2016, from Open Source Initiative: https://opensource.org/osd
Tan, P.-N., Steinbach, M., & Kumar, V. (2006). Introduction to Data Mining (Vol. 3). Boston, MA, USA: Pearson Education, Inc.

TO: Senior Director Business Analysis
FROM: Carlton Matthews
DATE: 24 April 2016
SUBJECT: Using Python for Textual Analysis

Introduction

At our last information exchange meeting, you put to the team to determine ways to increase our analytical toolkit. As a financial services business much of what we do involves numbers and other hard data points. However, during our discussion, we wondered if there were ways to determine sound investments based on more than just hard financial data.

I recommended that we look at other sources of information related to companies we are investigating. Specifically, I wondered if we could look through the annual reports looking at the CEOs letter to identify any interesting patterns. Over the last week I have spent time developing a program using the Python language to look at a series of CEO letters from Berkshire Hathaway Incorporated a publicly traded company headed by Warren Buffett. Every year Mr. Buffett writes a letter to the shareholders as part of their annual report.

Processing the Raw Text

I pulled CEO letters in 10 year intervals starting in 1977 and ending in 2016. This gave me a total word count 53219. Using Python to extract the text was a simple exercise however turning that data into something meaningful was a challenge. First the more commonly used words in the English language should be excluded from our analysis. These words are known as stop words and there are collections that exist online for use for this application. Here is some of the list that I used for my analysis.

'beside', 'besides', 'between', 'beyond', 'bill', 'both', 'bottom', 'but', 'by', 'call', 'can', 'cannot', 'cant', 'during', 'each'

After processing the text files across the time periods I was give a list of over 200 words. Each of these words was used at least 10 times within that year’s letter. To further reduce the number of words I began to combine root words with their tenses. I combined business and businesses as an example. While this still left us with a list of 227 words now some interesting patterns were beginning to emerge.

Quantitative Textual Analysis

The above figure shows the top 50 words used within the CEO letters. I could have removed Berkshire as you would expect it to be used multiple times but it serves as a visual descriptor of the data. From here we can see the most used words are business, company and earnings. This makes sense as Berkshire Hathaway grows by buying portions of companies. From their “Owners Manual” one of their stated goals is, “… directly owning a diversified group of businesses that generate cash and consistently earn above-average returns on capital.” (Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. - An Owners Manual, 1999))

Another way to represent this data can be seen below. This chart shows the top 20 words stacked by year.

As with the first visualization the top words are business, company and earnings. Later on I will examine these three terms but I want to note that from 1977 to 1987 there was significant growth in both the company and the size of the CEO letter. The 1977 letter is a little more than 2300 words while the 1987 letter is just over 12000. During that time period Berkshire Hathaway also increased their stock value from $138 in 1977 to $2,950 in 1987, primarily through increasing their business holdings. (Pritchard, 2008)

Most Used Words

This leads us to the most important set of words in our dataset. These three words are used more times than any other words within the CEO letters. The words, which have already been discussed, are business, company and earnings. In the below chart we see one representation of how these words have been used over time. The dark blue area of each bar represent 1977, followed by 1987 in orange, ’97 in green, 2007 is read and the 2015 words in purple. Business includes both the singular and plural usage of the word. For a company that is in the business of holding stocks of other businesses you expect to see multiple instances. From 1977 to 1987, as mentioned previously, there were a lot of businesses added the the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio. That shows in the spike in the usage from 1977 to 1987.
In 1977 there was a lot of discussion of the company and the companies that make up their portfolio. As more companies were added which caused growth in Berkshire as a company the usage increased with a peak in the most recent letter. As expected, as the company grew the earnings also grew which is seen in the usage of the the word earnings from 1977-2015. Below we see the same data represented. This time however we are looking at each word and their word counts over time. It paints the same picture as described above. This style of graph best illustrates the spike in the usage of the word business.

Conclusion

After walking through this process. I think that we can use this type of analysis to supplement financial models to better understand our investments. Berkshire Hathaway was a good choice for this analysis because provides a long history and publically accessible data to glean from. If you think that this is a worthwhile endeavor, I can begin enhancing the program to ingest and process even larger volumes data. Berkshire Hathaway could be used as test case again as they have all their CEO letters publically available.

References

Buffett, W. E. (1978, March 14). 1977 Shareholder Letter from the CEO. Retrieved April 18, 2016, from Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1977.html

Buffett, W. E. (1988, February 29). 1987 Shareholder Letter From the CEO. Retrieved April 20, 2016, from Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1987.html

Buffett, W. E. (1998, February 27). 1997 Shareholder Letter From the CEO. Retrieved April 20, 2016, from Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1997.html

Buffett, W. E. (2008, February 27). 2007 Shareholder Letter From the CEO. Retrieved April 20, 2016, from Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2007ltr.pdf

Buffett, W. E. (2016, February 27). 2015 Shareholder Letter From the CEO . Retrieved April 20, 2016, from Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2015ltr.pdf

Buffett, W. E. (1999, January 30). Berkshire Hathaway Inc. - An Owners Manual. Retrieved April 20, 2016, from Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/owners.html

Pritchard, J. (2008, April 02). A Look at Berkshire Hathaway’s Annual Market Returns From 1968 – 2007. Retrieved April 20, 2016, from All Financial Matters: http://allfinancialmatters.com/2008/04/02/a-look-at-berkshire-hathaways-annual-market-returns-from-1968-2007/

Appendix: Python Code

See project on Github

Here is the transcript:

Good Evening and welcome to my time series presentation. As you can see by the title I will be adding to what has been titled The Quantified Self movement. The tagline over on the website quantifiedself.com is self knowledge through numbers.

My name is Carlton Matthews and I will be you guide through some of my personal data.

So how did I become interested in this type of data tracking. For me it started after listening to a TED talk given by Dr. Talithia Williams entitled, Show Me the Data: Becoming an Expert in Yourself in Feb 2014. She gave this talk at Claremont College in 2014 and she explained how knowing your bodies data can help you make better decisions. It was a fascinating talk that pushed me to further my own data collecting habit.

In the summer 2014 I purchased my first fitbit flex and started tracking daily activity like the number of steps I was taking as well as the number of hours I slept and the number of calories I would eat. Even though I had been tracking this data for almost 2 years I have never exported it and looked for any trends.

I decided to extract a small slice from my data and look at the 1st 2 months of 2016 and see what i can predict going through the rest of the year. From 2 January 2016 through 2 March we will look primarily at the how the number of steps I take fluctuate from day to day. We will also look at hours slept and calories eaten and see if either of them impact the steps.

We will also be looking at the high temperature for each day to see if that has any influence on my daily activity.

I expect to see that warmer temperatures lead to more steps taken. I also think that days that I am ore active I eat less calories. So as Dr. Williams says in her video Show Me The Data.

In this slide we take a look at both number of steps and hours of sleep laid out together. The Blue line shows the number of steps take while the yellowish green line shows hours sleep. There are 2 reference lines that show the 2 goals I have with this data. My step goal for each day is 10000 steps and my sleep goal is 8 hours per night as you can see I consistently do not meet either goal.

The interesting thing that I see here is that periods of higher activity seemed to indicated a period of longer sleep. I guess this is to be expected but I did not think they lines would mirror each other as much as they do.

Here we see steps and calories shown similarly to the previous slide. This time however I do not see the number of calories impacting the number of steps as much. My assumption was that on days when I was more focused on what I ate I would likewise be conscious of the amount of activity I would participate in. Again we see that I have not been hitting my goals here denoted by the reference lines for my step and calorie goals.

When I decided to see if the daily temperature impacted the number of steps I thought that it would be an simple task to pull in the necessary data. That was not the case. I eventually found the Quality Controlled Local Climatological Data on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration page. This allowed me to extract the data from the local weather station near the BWI Airport.

With all of that introduction we see the step counts plotted against the daily temperatures for my area. As I expected we see based on the trend line that there is an increase in the step count as the warmer weather hits. I am glad to see this confirmed.

This last chart is the most interesting to me. I decided to look at which days I was the most active and got the most sleep. Here is the breakdown. I am the most active on the weekends. This makes sense since I work in an office and am at my desk for most of the day. I also get the most sleep on the weekends. Again this make sense due to family, work and school commitments. I do the least amount of moving and get the least amount of sleep on Thursdays. I did not expect that.

Not the question is what can we predict for the data that we have just seen. Looking at the data I expect to see an increase in the number of steps taken. I also expect this to result in a greater amount of sleep.

Here are some additional observations that I made from this exercise. Having good data is key. This means that the data set should have consistency. I had to exclude a larger range of data because there were gaps in my logs. Even in this dataset there were days of missed food logging, step counts and sleep records.

Sadly I also observed that I am eating too much and not moving as much as I should. Going forward I need to correct that.

Thank you for joining me on this look at my quantified self. Start tracking your own data. Who knows what you might learn.

"You have some concerns about moving your entire airline operations out of SQL to this flat file format. Write your boss a memo, outlining any concerns or hesitations you have about moving to this format for management of your data. Include the pros and cons of the relational database format and the flat file format. Be sure to think critically, and include any problematic use case scenarios."

Sir,

I know from the last few staff meetings that we are looking to change our database configuration from a traditional relational database mangement system (RDBMS) to a flat file storage based system.

Advantages of a Flat File System

Two of the main advantages of a flat file system are the simplicity of record storage and the ease of use of the data.

Record Storage

One of the main advantages of a flat file based system is having all of the available data in the same location. This means that all the data available is within any given record. In the case of our data a flat file system would look like this.

Flight_ID Airport_Code_Origin Airport_Code_Destination Departure_DateTime Arrival_DateTime Airport_Code Airport_Location Year_Opened Num_of_Terminals Manufacturer Model_Num Original_Purchase_Date Last_Service Number_of_Seats Carrier_Name 1 MIA JFK 2/20/16 23:26 2/21/16 4:04 JFK New York, New York 1943 12 Boeing 737-900 12/2/09 1/26/16 500 Virgin Atlantic
2 MIA SFO 2/21/16 8:55 2/21/16 9:11 SFO San Francisco, CA 1927 8 Boeing 737-900 12/2/09 1/26/16 500 Southwest Airlines
3 LAS PHL 2/21/16 12:51 2/21/16 15:18 PHL Philadelphia, PA 1927 6 Embraer RJ-45 11/25/08 1/27/16 550 Delta
4 SFO PIT 2/21/16 21:45 2/21/16 23:18 PIT Pittsburgh, PA 1946 4 Boeing 747-400 10/25/01 1/3/16 250 Southwest Airlines
5 IAH PIT 2/22/16 19:34 2/22/16 22:27 PIT Pittsburgh, PA 1946 4 Airbus A330 12/2/01 12/16/15 400 Virgin Atlantic

Each flight record would include all the necessary fields to describe flight. This setup makes the data very readable and understandle to anyone who has access to the file.

Ease of Use

The second advantage we will examine is the ease of use for the database. A flat file system can be viewed from any number of applications making is very accessible. Users will also have very little difficulty with understanding the data because each record contains all available about a given flight. Simple queries and sorting should be no problem for most flat file based systems.

Disadvantages of Flat File Systems

While a flat file based system can work for some datasets I do not think it is appropriate for us. There are several disadvangtes to using a flat file system for our data. These include data duplication, difficulty of updating, and data security.

Data Duplication

In the example data extract shown above records 1 and 2 have flights orignating from the MIA airport. Each record includes the data about that airport. This data duplication causes the size of the flat file system to increase with unnecessary data. Not only is the originating airports data duplicated, the aircraft data is also duplicated for every flight on that days route. This duplication does not exsist in our RDBMS because the airport data is only stored once. The same is true for aircraft and carrier data. This leads us into the next disadvantage, difficulty updating records.

Update Difficulty

As was mentioned in the last section there is a lot of duplicate data in the flat file. Imgaine when an update needs to be made to a piece of data. In the case of an airccraft we keep track of the last service date. When and aircraft is serviced we will need to update every instance of that aircraft within the flat file. That would me traversing the entire data file and updating the last service date. Even with an automated update script it would be a time consuming and error-prone process. This is just one use case where updates could be difficult. The same process would need to be applied for airport and carrier data. There would need to be multiple users accessing the data to process the amount of updates we would generate. Who would have access and how would we control it is the last disadvantage I would like to expand upon.

Data Security

Data housed within flat file systems is hard to restrict. Only file level restrictions can be applied in this type of configuration. Individual records cannot be protected. A user who has access to the file has access to all of the records. In our system we need to restrict the level of access on a per flight basis. This would not be possible in a flat file system.

Recommendation

My recommendation is that we keep our system as it currently configured. Since we are using a RDBMS our data can be accessed in a variety of different ways. From screens within the airport terminals showing read only listings of flights to gate agents updating flight records our data is much more customizable to our needs in a RDBMS.

MC Jin - Open Arms

Flame ft. NF - Start Over

NF - Wake Up

Andy Mineo - You Can't Stop Me

Trip Lee ft. Thi'sl - Lazarus

What are you listening to?

I am working through the javascript lessons over at Free Code Camp. Towards the end of last year they added a bunch of new lessons to their javascript course as well as a bunch of new topics. If you are looking to hone/learn new development skills Free Code Camp is a great site. Here is my page.

As much as I enjoy writing code my current job does not afford me the oppurtunity. In fact it is outside the scope of my work as a Systems Engineer. I also learned that while I have a pretty high opinion of my skills I got some feedback that there was a perception that I was on the slow side in terms of coding speed.

But I digress. I was working on Profile Lookup assignment.

Given an array of objects you need to search for a record and retrieve a property from that record. If the record or property doesn't exsist you need to respond appropriately.

Here is my array of objects
var characters = [ { "number": "0543236543", "firstName": "Clark", "lastName": "Kent", "catchPhrase": "Up Up And Away!", "weaknesses": ["Kryptonite", "Magic", "Lois Lane"] }, { "number": "0543236544", "firstName": "Bruce", "lastName": "Wayne", "catchPhrase": "Because I'm Batman!", "weaknesses": ["Old Age", "Nothing"] }, { "number": "0543236545", "firstName": "Cain", "lastName": "Marko", "catchPhrase": "I'm The Juggernaut Fair Lady!", "weaknesses": ["Telepathy", "Wolverine", "Hulk"] }, { "number": "0543236546", "firstName": "Alexander", "lastName": "Luthor", "catchPhrase": "I'm The Greatest Criminal Mind of Our Time.", "weaknesses": ["Superman", "Ego", "Old Age"] }, ];

Create your function

We have to create a function that takes in our ID and the property that we want returned. Here is the stub

function lookUp(number, prop){ //Do Stuff }

Search for the record

There are a couple of ways to attack this challenge. You can use a FOR loop to cycle through each object in the array.
for (var x = 0; x < characters.length; x++) { if (characters[x].number === number) { //Do Stuff } }

While this approach would work I wanted to try something different. Enter the Array.Prototype.Filter. From the Mozilla Page:

The filter() method creates a new array with all elements that pass the test implemented by the provided function.

The filter takes a callback as a parameter. Here is how I implemented the number search using the filter.

function lookUp(number, prop){ var character = characters.filter(function(obj) { return obj.number === number; }); }

This code looks through the entire array of objects and tests the number property to see if it exactly matches the number passed in as a parameter. It then returns an array of objects. In this example it will return and array with one object.

Looking for errors

After retrieving records we need to check if any records match our search parameter and if the property we want is valid. Here is how we implement this check.

if (character != "") { result = character[0].hasOwnProperty(prop) ? character[0][prop] : "No such property"; } else { result = "No such contact"; } return result; }

Putting it all together

var characters = [ { "number": "0543236543", "firstName": "Clark", "lastName": "Kent", "catchPhrase": "Up Up And Away!", "weaknesses": ["Kryptonite", "Magic", "Lois Lane"] }, { "number": "0543236544", "firstName": "Bruce", "lastName": "Wayne", "catchPhrase": "Because I'm Batman!", "weaknesses": ["Old Age", "Nothing"] }, { "number": "0543236545", "firstName": "Cain", "lastName": "Marko", "catchPhrase": "I'm The Juggernaut Fair Lady!", "weaknesses": ["Telepathy", "Wolverine", "Hulk"] }, { "number": "0543236546", "firstName": "Alexander", "lastName": "Luthor", "catchPhrase": "I'm The Greatest Criminal Mind of Our Time.", "weaknesses": ["Superman", "Ego", "Old Age"] }, ];

function lookUp(number, prop){ var result; var character = characters.filter(function(obj) { return obj.number === number; }); if (character != "") { result = character[0].hasOwnProperty(prop) ? character[0][prop] : "No such property"; } else { result = "No such contact"; } return result; }

If you call
lookUp("0543236546", "weaknesses")

The output will be
["Kryptonite", "Magic", "Lois Lane"]

Fun times coding. Do you have any suggestions on how I can make this code better? Do you have another approach to doing this? Leave a comment and let me know.

Carlton

While my wife is going the traditional route and sitting in a classroom I am pursuing an online Masters degree at the University of Maryland University College in Data Analytics.

The first assignment that I have been given is to write a This I Believe essay. It should be focused on my professional career. In my continuing effort to #ShowYourWork I am sharing it here.

This I Believe as a Professional

I was talking with my daughter a few days ago about my new job. She knows how hard I worked to get through the interview process. The thing she could not figure out was why did it matter so much to me. When she asked I responded with a phrase that she has heard for much of her young life. It is a mantra developed many years ago that has informed much of my personal and professional life, "How you do anything is how you do everything.” For me this means that no matter where I find myself or what I may be doing I attack things the same way. The same effort and energy that I put into my play time, I also put into my work. What this looks like in my life can be summed up into three directives: stay curious, be bold, and build a legacy.

Stay Curious

I love learning new things. I am a "tinkerer" who enjoys finding out how things work. Whether it is a piece of technology, a business process or artistic endeavor, my curiosity drives me to keep learning. In my career I have worked in both the public and private sectors. I have experienced life as a VP in a Fortune 50 firm, as well as part of 6 person startup. Each position afforded me the opportunity to solve interesting problems while learning about the nuances of different industries. For me, problem solving often involves looking at issues from a new direction. I enjoy helping organizations break out of their comfortable cycles.

Be Bold

This has often required being bold enough to suggest a new course of action. This is the part of the process that is the most difficult for me. As an introverted person, pushing for change often causes a level of internal and external conflict that often makes me uncomfortable. I have learned that success is typically on the other side of my comfort zone. Pushing aside my own comfort has opened up a lot of doors in my career. I have learned to never be afraid to ask for what I want or to give needed counsel. As a result, I have always left organizations in a better position than when I arrived.

Build a Legacy

One of my mentors told me that it is important to build a legacy no matter the position you are in. Building a legacy means that you are always on the look out for someone to teach, a person who wants to learn what you are doing. In some organizations this is easier than in others. I have enjoyed the relationships that have been built over the years. When we leave this place the only thing that will be left are the people that we have met and the impact we have left on them.

In the end whether I am talking with my daughter or the CEO of my company, I bring the same perspectives to the table. The curiosity to really learn what is needed, the boldness to seek actual change and the desire to create something that lasts beyond myself.

“Difficulties are mean to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.” – William Ellery Channing

Staying away from difficulty is often a foolish choice. While it may provide a temporary reprieve the challenge will eventually rear its head again. No matter what difficulties must be dealt with. Might as well Do It Now.

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” - C.S. Lewis

Don’t let situation and circumstances keep you from doing something new or different. This directly relates to what you do in the day to day. Change is always hard(see above) but that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be done. You should probably Do It Now.

“If only people knew how hard I word to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.” – Michelangelo Buonarroti

Mastery comes from grinding it out every day. Your skills only atrophy when you stop working. Always keep learning. Yes it can be hard to do(see the first quote), yes it might take longer than it once did(see the second), but it was going to be hard anyway so you should Do It Now.