LinkedIn is more and more green these days and not in a good way....

 

If you browse LinkedIn these days, you can't escape the fact that a lot of profiles have a green #opentowork badge. I know a bunch of these people personally and know that they are technically very strong. But it's looking bleak at the moment, uncertainty with the tariffs and the overall economy has forced a lot of companies to not even give earnings guidance. These same companies have also instituted a hiring freeze for the foreseeable future. 

Then there is the elephant in the room... AI. Perhaps 1 person + AI can now do the same work as 2 or 3 people before? Time will tell but for sure it's a factor to take into account in regards to all these layoffs

This period right now reminds me of the period around October and November 2001. First you had the dot com crash in 2000, this was followed by the September 11 attacks which caused a massive stock market crash, all this resulted in massive layoffs.  

Back to current times: If you check the layoffs.fyi site, you can see a lot of layoffs in Tech and Federal Government

Here is an example

Let's go back to to the year 2001 again: I used to work in Silicon Alley, this was in New York City around 23rd Street and Broadway/5th Avenue, you might recognize some of these companies that had offices there like RazorFish and Kozmo.com.  

I was a web programmer doing ASP/JSP/ColdFusion and SQL Server.  Life was good in the summer of 2001, so good in fact that we used to have this massive 3 year project plan printed out and taped to the wall. Then in September someone took it off. A few weeks later we were called into a meeting and were told our last day was today. So of course the first thing we did was buy some beer and huddle together to says goodbyes and reminisce about the past few years. 

Now it was November, who will hire anyone in November? I decided to have 2 types of resumes, one was a Web Developer focused resume, the other was a SQL Server focused resume. I uploaded my resume to monster.com and a few days later someone contacted me that they had a 2 month contract job that needed someone with SQL Server 2000 and DTS skills. I decided to take it since like I said earlier, nobody will hire you in November/December. Well I got the job, after 2 months, they extended it for 3 more months, after that, they made me a full time employee. I stayed there for 3.5 years.

Why am I telling you this? Most people will not take this 2 month contract, but you never know, it might get extended like in my case, or you might learn a new skill during that time that might help you land the next gig. In addition, the co-workers at this temporary job  might know someone that needs a full time job filled

A few other things that come to mind:

Customize your resume and cover letter for each job. Highlight the skills and experience that match the job description exactly. Use keywords from the job posting: many companies use automated systems that screen for them.

Ensure your LinkedIn profile is up to date and reflects your current skills, accomplishments, and job goals. Recruiters often search LinkedIn before reaching out. Use a professional photo, write a compelling summary, and showcase measurable achievements.

Reach out to people in your industry: friends, alumni, or professionals on LinkedIn. Ask for informational interviews or referrals. A warm introduction often leads to more interviews than cold applications. Ask for feedback about your resume to these people as well as endorsements on LinkedIn

Jobs often receive the most attention in the first few days after posting. Apply early, and focus on roles you’re genuinely qualified for. Quality over quantity improves your chances of standing out.

After applying, follow up with a short, professional message to the recruiter or hiring manager if you can find their contact. Reaffirm your interest and briefly restate why you’re a strong fit.

If you are 55 or over, do you know about the Rule Of 55?

Ageism is a thing, companies might say you are overqualified or use some other excuse not to hire someone who is older.  For those that are 55 or older, keep reading. 

The Rule of 55 is an IRS provision that allows individuals to withdraw funds from their 401(k) or 403(b) without the usual 10% early withdrawal penalty if they leave their job in or after the year they turn 55. This rule applies only to the retirement account from the employer they just left, not IRAs or accounts from previous jobs. It’s designed to offer more flexibility for those who retire or are laid off early. While the penalty is waived, regular income taxes still apply to the withdrawals. 

See more here at the IRS site: Retirement topics - Exceptions to tax on early distributions

This can help you out if you are in a cash crunch since there is no 10% withdrawal penalty, you do however still pay regular income tax on that amount

Some ideas for 2021, books to read or to get, stuff to plant, exercise to do

Here are just some ideas of what I would like to do in 2021, these are all non professional goals if you will

Run 800 miles

I ran 800.3 miles last year, this should be easily doable, it's about 4 miles 4 times a week

Read 50 books

Last year I read 60 books.. I assume at some point, I will be back in the office two times a day or so, this will maybe bump it down to 50 books from 60 books

Books in the queue

These are  books I or my kids already own, some of these I have gifted to them this Christmas season (Masters of Doom, 1984, Brave New World, Infinite Jest, Pirate Latitudes)

I have not read any of these except for 1984 and Brave New World, I will re-read those, it's been 20 years or more since I last read those

Here is a picture of some of these books.....

Here is the full list, the titles link to Amazon so you can read the reviews there

• Hyperion by Dan Simmons
• The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
• The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons
• Endymion by Dan Simmons
• Philip and Alexander Kings and Conquerors by Adrian Goldsworthy
• The Prince by Macchiavelli  
• The Dutch Overseas Empire by Pieter C. Emmer, Jos J.L. Gommans
• 1776: The riveting story of George Washington by David McCullough
• The Great Bridge by David McCullough
• Ulysses by James Joyce
• The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy by Michael Lewis
• The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton  
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith 
• The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War Paperback by Michael Shaara 
• The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley
• How Computers Really Work A Hands-On Guide to the Inner Workings of the Machine by Matthew Justice
• Can't Slow Down: How 1984 Became Pop's Blockbuster Year by Michaelangelo Matos
• Powers of Darkness: The Lost Version of Dracula by Bram Stoker , Valdimar Ásmundsson, et al
• Black Box Thinking The Surprising Truth About Success by Matthew Syed
• Life on Mars: What to Know Before We Go by David Weintraub
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays by David Foster Wallace
• Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton 
• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
• 100 Things Millionaires Do Little Lessons in Creating Wealth by Nigel Cumberland
• Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe by George Dyson
• Where the Past Begins: Memory and Imagination by Amy Tan
• Gerald's Game by Stephen King
• If It Bleeds by Stephen King
• The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King
• The Dead Zone by Stephen King
• The Running Man by Stephen King
• Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
• Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner  
• SQL Server 2019 Revealed Including Big Data Clusters and Machine Learning by Bob Ward
• The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick

18,300 pushups

Do about 100 pushups every other day.. this adds up to about 18,300 pushups for the whole year

10,000 in dividends

Last year I received 9551 in dividends, since companies increase the dividend payout usually every 4 quarters and since I reinvest them, I should be easily able to get 10K

300 Hours of Pluralsight watching

I plan to watch about 6 hours a week of Pluralsight content. About 1 hour at lunch time and then 1 hour over the weekend

Get 10 of these book in 2021

Get at least  10 9 books of the "wish list" below

I have heard about these from friends or family. I also might have heard about these books from the various podcasts I listen to

• The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance During the Blitz by Eric Larson
• Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat
• The Lessons of History by Will Durant and Ariel Durant
• 1/1 The Prince by Macchiavelli  
• The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War by Peter Hart
• Hero with a 1000 faces by Joseph Campbell
• The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great by Steven Pressfield
• Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West by Tom Holland
• Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides
• Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S. C. Gwynne
• The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic by Mike Duncan
• Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary by Joe Jackson
• What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir by Haruki Murakami
• The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
• The Innocent Anthropologist : Notes from a Mud Hut by Nigel Barley
• Shogun: The Epic Novel of Japan by James Clavell
• Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
• Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
• The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 by John Toland
• Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway by Jonathan Parshall, Anthony Tully
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy 
• The End of October: A Novel by Lawrence Wright
• Change Agent by Daniel Suarez
• Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
• A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century by Barbara Tuchman
• Azure SQL Revealed: A Guide to the Cloud for SQL Server Professionals by Bob Ward

Plant all these peppers

We got the following seeds in December

The 3 packs on the left side are the Carolina Reaper, Trinidad Scorpion and Apocalypse Scorpion. These are some of the hottest peppers.... these things just look menacing, you can see they look spicy

Last year we planted 31 plants, you can those in the 2020 in Numbers... post

I am excited about the chocolate habaneros, those look pretty cool

Progress so far

Activity	Count	%
Pushups	370	2.02%
Run	22.17	2.77%
Pluralsight Hours Watched	2.13	0.711%
Books Read	1	2%
Dividends	$63.89	0.6389%

Done

Book Finished

Date    Title

-----    -------------------------------------------------------

Jan 3    St Petersburg

Pluralsight Course Finished

Date    Title

-----    -------------------------------------------------------

Jan 6    Optimizing Query Performance with Columnstore Indexes

2020 in Numbers...

I am glad 2020 ended and hopefully 2021 will be much better.  A couple of items on my list for this year got either postponed or will never happen.  I planned to go to the PASS Summit in Texas in 2020, that obviously didn't happen and it looks like it won't happen in the future either. PASS is no more :-(

Here are some numbers for 2020 that I put together looking at some sheets and journals

123,116
Calories burned running. I ran a little over 800 miles this year and burned what seems like a lot of calories. But since we are all home, the wife and kids did a lot of baking, this evened out the calories :-)

13,930
Pushups.  I try to do 100 pushups every 2 or 3 days, this is the total for the year

9,551 
Dividends. This is the total amount of dividends I received this year. All of these have been reinvested. Until I retire, I am doing a reinvestment into the same security

800.3
Miles run. My goal was 800 and I stuck to it... It's nothing major, about 4 miles 4 times a week

300

Days since I was last in the office

I told my wife when the office is open again, you won't see me for a month :-)

60
The number of books I read

Since there is no commute, I had some more time to read this year, I read about 5 books per month

Some of the book I read

Will have my 5 favorite books after the numbers list

40

Longest bike ride. 

Did this bike ride with my oldest son. We left around 6:40 AM because it went up to 95 degrees that day. I Also managed to get a flat tire 30 miles in :-(

After we came home we just sat on the couch for the rest of the day

31 

Number of pepper plants planted

We planted 31 spicy pepper plants. We picked a lot of the peppers, gave away a bunch, made pepper flakes etc etc

Here are some pics

The first one is the ghost pepper

11

Seasons of shows I watched and finished with my wife

Narcos Mexico II

Mr Robot I

Mr Robot II

Mr Robot III

Mr Robot IV

The Crown I

Succession I

Succession II

Succession III

Ozark III

Curb Your Enthusiasm X

0

Number of tables I dropped on the production database server

Best item purchased

Since I am working from home constantly, I decided to invest in a universal docking station. We got new laptops from work, they only come with 2 USB ports, and of course these are right next to the HDMI port. Using this USB docking station makes live so much easier

The one I picked is the Hiearcool USB C Hub,USB-C Laptop Docking Station,11 in 1 Triple Display Type C Adapter Compatiable for MacBook and Windows(2HDMI VGA PD3.0 SD TF Card Reader Gigabit Ethernet 4USB Ports)

And here is what it looks like, I included a mouse for scale (sorry didn't have a banana)

As you can see it comes with a nice pouch, it's really small and fits easily in your bag.

Best 5 books

Here are my favorite 5 books I read last year, I did not include books I re-read like The Stand and Fellowship of the ring

Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers by Andy Greenberg 

This is even more relevant now after the SolarWind hack

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow 

I admit I did not know much about Hamilton, this was recommended by my brother in law. This is a fantastic book about a man who was part of the beginnings of the US

The Terror by Dan Simmons

I watched the show 2 years ago on AMC, the show is really good... but the book is even better

Permutation City by Greg Egan

Will this be us in 100 years?

The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World by Charles Mann

There are two ways to go about things... either conserve.. or use technology to fix things.....

That's it for 2020......  I will be back in a couple of days to show my list of things for 2021....

Have a good 2021

TWID May 16, 2020: random potpourri of things

This is a post detailing some stuff I did, learned, posted and tweeted this week, I call this TWID (This week in Denis). I am doing this mostly for myself... a kind of an online journal so that I can look back on this later on. Will use the label TWID for these

In last week's post I mentioned that the pepper and tomato plants were ready to be planted outside. This was done yesterday and the plants are outside now

In front of the house we have put them in pots

In the back of the house we have transferred the plants to a raised bed

It is over 80 degrees today, hopefully the plants will love this weather and grow big

For Mothers day... we didn't do much because we are still under lockdown.. my oldest son made this crumb cake.. it was delicious

This Week I Tweeted

US video game sales have record quarter, as consumers stay at home 

New numbers from NPD confirm what we’ve known for a while: The first quarter of 2020 was a very good one for gaming companies. The new report notes that sales hit a record $10.86 billion in the States between January and March of this year, marking a 9% increase over a year prior; $9.58 billion of that figure was from video game content.

The primary driver is, you guessed it, COVID-19. As stay at home orders have been enacted on the federal and state levels, people are coping with the ongoing daily horror that is life in 2020 by playing video games. Lots and lots of video games.

Some cool stuff you might enjoy

Most detailed ever photograph of The Night Watch goes online  

The Rijksmuseum is today publishing the largest and most detailed ever photograph of The Night Watch on its website, making it possible to zoom in on individual brushstrokes and even particles of pigment in the painting. Work on Operation Night Watch will resume on Wednesday 13 May in the glass chamber in the museum.

I have seen this painting many times, the reason is because I grew up in Amsterdam and my neighbor worked for the Rijksmuseum. I always got complementary tickets. The interesting part is that I have been to the Rijksmuseum more times when moving to the US than I did when I lived in Amsterdam  :-(

This does looks pretty cool,  you can just keep zooming. Direct link  http://hyper-resolution.org/Nightwatch



Why millennials have fallen in love with stamp collecting

Covid has increased the number of people getting interested in stamp collecting. Here are 3 articles I happen to see in the past couple of weeks

Post modern: why millennials have fallen in love with stamp collecting

Philately is gaining popularity with younger hobbyists, who are drawn to its vintage - and Instagram - appeal

It was once a byword for boring, but it seems stamp collecting is finding a new – young – audience, despite the fact that some hobbyists have never actually posted a letter.

Philately is gaining popularity among millennials, many of whom see the creative pursuit as an escape from their screen-based lives, says 37-year-old Suzanne Rae, from North Yorkshire.

“Philately is tangible: it’s relaxing and unplugged. It’s also very Instagrammable,” says Rae, who is only the second female chairman the Philatelic Traders Society has had in its 91-year history. “Twitter and Instagram enable young collectors to find people like them, and see that it’s not only a geeky old man’s pursuit.”

Covid-19 Virus Affect On The Stamp Market

The strong reaction of the US Government to the Covid pandemic has resulted in the self-isolation and self-quarantining of millions of Americans as well as people worldwide. While this is having a devastating effect on the economy, it has been a real boost to the stamp market. Stamp collectors around the world suddenly have many hours of time to fill since they can't go out, go to work or watch sporting events. Hence, they spend time buying stamps. The dealers I spoke with all report a surge in orders, many from customers they have never had before.

COVID-19 a shot in the arm for stamp collecting

Well, if you’d asked me a few months back what was needed to give stamp collecting a kick up the backside, my first answer would probably not have been “a global supervirus pandemic.”

But it sure feels like that’s what has happened. The enforced worldwide recreation break has existing collectors burying their heads into their albums, lapsed collectors dusting cobwebs off old shoeboxes, and curious novices taking their first tentative steps into a mysterious world.

New philatelic blogs and Instagram feeds are starting up, and online viewers are devouring YouTube clips. Philatelic magazines have even been offering free access to an edition or two.

Even the mainstream media have noticed. Stamp dealers report rising sales. Kids are writing letters. Even before the COVID-19 crisis kicked in, both the BBC and the Observer were reporting the growing popularity of stamp collecting among younger collectors.

Some Progress

Books finished so far/in progress

In progress

Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 84% done

The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome  44% done

Return Of The King 4% done

Done with these

Book	Completed
Stealth War: How China Took Over While America's Elite Slept	01/04
Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers	01/25
Alexander Hamilton	02/12
The Quick Python Book, 3rd Edition	02/13
The Gene: An intimate history	02/17
Moonwalking with Einstein	02/27
The Somme	02/25
The Art of Learning	02/16
Ready to Run: Unlocking Your Potential to Run Naturally	03/08
The Tudors, a very short introduction	03/17
South: The Illustrated Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917	03/18
The Body: A Guide for Occupants	03/30
The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean	04/07
Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything	04/11
Lifespan: Why We Age – and Why We Don’t Have To	04/27
The Stand	04/30
Fellowship of the ring	05/07
The Two Towers	05/15

Books in the queue

These are next... in no specific order

• Return Of The King   (started 4/15)
• The Silmarillion
• The Library Book
• The Histories
• Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War 
• The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6,000 Miles in the City 
• The Wind Through the Keyhole: The Dark Tower IV-1/2 
• Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio
• The Godfather 
• The Terror
• A Legacy of Spies 
• Four Past Midnight 
• A Random Walk on Wall Street
• Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused
• Marathon: The Battle That Changed Western Civilization
• Walden Illustrated

Books to get
Here are the books I plan to get. These were either mentioned on more than one podcast, recommended by friends, or are new books from authors I like, for example Eric Larson's latest book about Churchill and the Blitz

• The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance During the Blitz by Eric Larson
• Ulysses by James Joyce
• Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat
• The Lessons of History by Will Durant and Ariel Durant
• The Prince by Macchiavelli
• The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War by Peter Hart
• Hero with a 1000 faces by Joseph Campbell
• The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great by Steven Pressfield
• Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West by Tom Holland
• Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides
• Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S. C. Gwynne
• The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic by Mike Duncan
• Permutation City by Greg Egan
• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
• Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary by Joe Jackson
• What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir by Haruki Murakami
• The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
• The Innocent Anthropologist : Notes from a Mud Hut by Nigel Barley
• Shogun: The Epic Novel of Japan by James Clavell
• Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
• Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

Running progress
My goal is to run 800 miles this year, this means about 4 runs of about 4 miles per week

Miles        Percentage
296.81 37.10%

So far that burned a bit under 45,600 calories

TWID May 9, 2020: Books and Plants

This is a post detailing some stuff I did, learned, posted and tweeted this week, I call this TWID (This week in Denis). I am doing this mostly for myself... a kind of an online journal so that I can look back on this later on. Will use the label TWID for these


It has been a while since I posted here.. but I decided to bring back the TWID posts again

I have been reading a lot lately, since I am already home for 60 days, I decided to read some of the big books I own or re-read them.  I already finished the Stand, almost done with Gotham and I am 35% done with the Lord of The Rings book.

I read 10 pages per day of the Gotham book and then I usually have a book I read at home and one while I commute. Since I am home now, I read the commuting book in the morning

Here is a pic of the books I owe but never read (except for the Lord Of the Rings book)



At the end of this post, you can see all the books I finished, what I am reading now and also what is in my backlog/queue to read.


Here you can see some of the seeds my son and I purchased




That's right.. the second one from the left in the top is a ghost chile... not sure yet what I will do with those.  Maybe make pepper spray or some extremely hot sauce   :-)

This is what the plants looked like a couple of weeks ago



This is what it looks like today

As you can see they are ready to be planted outside. It still cold at night but after Wednesday May 12th, these should be fine to be transplanted


Here you can see what the plants look like 2-3 weeks ago with a fan blowing on them

Put a fan blowing on these to prepare for the harsh outside world when they go outside around Mother’s Day #gardening #tomatoes #peppers #ghostpepper pic.twitter.com/BT5UcG5oAI

— Denis Gobo (@DenisGobo) April 25, 2020

The reason you use a fan inside is to strengthen the the plants, this way they don't break when you put them outside and it is a little windy on the first day

This Week I Tweeted

One Trader Started The Day With $77,000 In His Account; By The End He Owed $9 Million

As a result, crude was actually trading at a negative $3.70 a barrel when Shah’s screen had it at 1 cent; the reason: Interactive Brokers never displayed a subzero price to him as oil kept diving to end the day at minus $37.63 a barrel.
At midnight, Shah some very bad news: he owed Interactive Brokers $9 million. He’d started the day with $77,000 in his account, expecting that his biggest possible loss was 100%, or $77,000.

Ouch that is so bad, who knew oil could go negative....


Can't quit Excel

This happened to me.. pasted a lot of data into Excel on a VM and then tried to cancel it and quit.... nope.  So I just used task manager to kill it

Some cool stuff you might enjoy

You know about waitfor delay but did you know there is a waitfor time?

You may or may not know that WAITFOR has TIME in addition to DELAY

Did you know, I sold kinderzegels while in 6th grade?

When I sold kinderzegels as part of school (semipostal stamps that benefit child welfare)

Mindmap Diagram Codes

This is pretty cool, you can create a mindmap, code on left.. output on the right, you can share it as well

Looks like this

Some Progress

Books finished so far/in progress

In progress

Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 78% done

The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome  20% done

The Two Towers 21% done

Done with these

Book	Completed
Stealth War: How China Took Over While America's Elite Slept	01/04
Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers	01/25
Alexander Hamilton	02/12
The Quick Python Book, 3rd Edition	02/13
The Gene: An intimate history	02/17
Moonwalking with Einstein	02/27
The Somme	02/25
The Art of Learning	02/16
Ready to Run: Unlocking Your Potential to Run Naturally	03/08
The Tudors, a very short introduction	03/17
South: The Illustrated Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917	03/18
The Body: A Guide for Occupants	03/30
The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean	04/07
Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything	04/11
Lifespan: Why We Age – and Why We Don’t Have To	04/27
The Stand	04/30
Fellowship of the ring	05/07

Books in the queue

These are next... in no specific order

• Return Of The King 
• The Silmarillion
• The Library Book
• The Histories
• Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War 
• The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6,000 Miles in the City 
• The Wind Through the Keyhole: The Dark Tower IV-1/2 
• Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio
• The Godfather 
• The Terror
• A Legacy of Spies 
• Four Past Midnight 
• A Random Walk on Wall Street
• Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused
• Marathon: The Battle That Changed Western Civilization
• Walden Illustrated

Books to get
Here are the books I plan to get. These were either mentioned on more than one podcast, recommended by friends or are new books from authors I like, for example Eric Larson's latest book about Churchill and the Blitz

• The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance During the Blitz by Eric Larson
• Ulysses by James Joyce
• Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat
• The Lessons of History by Will Durant and Ariel Durant
• The Prince by Macchiavelli
• The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War by Peter Hart
• Hero with a 1000 faces by Joseph Campbell
• The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great by Steven Pressfield
• Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West by Tom Holland
• Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides
• Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S. C. Gwynne
• The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic by Mike Duncan
• Permutation City by Greg Egan
• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
• Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary by Joe Jackson
• What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir by Haruki Murakami
• The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
• The Innocent Anthropologist : Notes from a Mud Hut by Nigel Barley
• Shogun: The Epic Novel of Japan by James Clavell
• Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
• Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

Running progress
My goal is to run 800 miles this year, this means about 4 runs of about 4 miles per week

Miles        Percentage
279.57 34.95%

So far that burned a bit under 43 thousand calories

Interesting quote....heard it on a podcast... don't remember which one  .. sorry  :-(

A fool never learns

A smart man learns from his mistakes

A wise man learns from the mistakes of others

A quick and easy way to count the percentage of nulls without a where clause in PostgreSQL

This came up the other day, someone wanted to know the percentage of NULL values in a column

Then I said "I bet you I can run that query without using a NULL in the WHERE clause, as a matter of fact, I can run that query without a WHERE clause at all!!"

I created a SQL Server version of this post here: How to count NULLS without using IS NULL in a WHERE clause, this is the PostgreSQL version


To start, first create this table and verify you have 9 rows

CREATE TABLE foo(bar int);
INSERT INTO foo values(1),(null),(2),(3),(4),
 (null),(5),(6),(7);

SELECT * FROM foo;

Here is what the output should look like

To get the NULL values and NON NULL values, you can do something like this

SELECT COUNT(*) as CountAll FROM foo WHERE bar IS NOT NULL;
SELECT COUNT(*) as CountAll FROM foo WHERE bar IS  NULL;

However, there is another way

Did you know that COUNT behaves differently if you use a column name compared to when you use *

Take a look

SELECT COUNT(*) as CountAll, 
  COUNT(bar) as CountColumn
FROM foo;

If you ran that query, the result is the following

CountAll    CountColumn
----------- -----------
9           7

Here is what it looks like in pgAdmin3

Let's see what the PostgreSQL documentation has to say


COUNT(*) number of input rows

COUNT(expression) number of input rows for which the value of expression is not null

This is thus indeed documented behavior, count(*) counts all rows, count(column) skips the rows with NULLS

So now, lets change our query to return the percentage of non null values in the column

Here is what the query looks like

SELECT COUNT(*) as CountAll, 
  COUNT(bar) as CountColumn, 
  (COUNT(bar)/COUNT(*))*100 as PercentageOfNonNullValues 
FROM foo;

Running that gives us this output

CountAll    CountColumn percentageOfNonNullValues
----------- ----------- ---------------------------------------
9           7                  0

Here is what it looks like in pgAdmin3

As you can see, we have a 0 in the percentage column. The reason is that if you do math with integers, you will get an integer back


We can fix this easy by multiplying one of the integers by 1.0, this will convert the integer to a numeric data type . So instead of this line

 (COUNT(bar)/COUNT(*))*100 as PercentageOfNonNullValues 

We will change it to be like this

(COUNT(bar)*1.0/COUNT(*))*100 as PercentageOfNonNullValues

Here is the changed query

SELECT COUNT(*) as CountAll, 
  COUNT(bar) as CountColumn, 
  (COUNT(bar)*1.0/COUNT(*))*100 as PercentageOfNonNullValues 
FROM foo;

Here is the output

CountAll    CountColumn percentageOfNonNullValues
----------- ----------- ---------------------------------------
9           7           77.7777777777800


Here is what it looks like in pgAdmin3

Instead of doing * 1.0, you can also explicitly cast the integer like this

(CAST (COUNT(bar) as numeric(20,10))/COUNT(*))*100 as PercentageOfNonNullValues

The query now looks like this

SELECT COUNT(*) as CountAll, 
  COUNT(bar) as CountColumn, 
  (CAST (COUNT(bar) as numeric(20,10))/COUNT(*))*100 as PercentageOfNonNullValues
FROM foo;

Here is what it looks like in pgAdmin3

That's it for this short post.. hopefully you knew this, if not, then you know it now  :-)

The Vessel, a honeycomb shaped structure that will be a great tourist destination at Hudson Yards in New York City

I took a stroll at the high-line in NYC yesterday and noticed that the Vessel was open to the public


The Vessel is a  copper-colored steel structure comprises 54 interconnecting flights of stairs, 2,500 steps, and 80 landings, it was designed by Heatherwick Studio's. The Vessel rises to a height of 150 ft (45 m) offering views of the city and the Hudson River.

Here is what it looks like




Here it is on the map, it's right at the end/start of the highline and also just a block or so from the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. I think a lot of visitors to the Jacob Javits Center will stop by

The first thing you will notice is how shiny the Vessel is... in place when the sun hits it..it's like hitting a mirror. I wonder how soon before it turns green because of oxidation. I wouldn't want to be the person who has to polish this copper behemoth




The second thing you need to know is that you can't go inside the Vessel without a ticket. Tickets are free, I picked one up in front of the Vessel near the building right in front of it. I did have to wait 30 minutes to get in, the tickets are only valid for 1 hour

The third thing you will notice once you enter the Vessel is a blue light and a crowd of people near it

You will see something like this

 

Or something like this


 

That spot with the blue light is the selfie station, you put your phone down in the middle, then you stand there while a selfie is taken

I decided not to do that since I don't take selfies, but here is the view from the bottom when you take a normal shot






Here you can see all the stairs, it's nice to walk all over the structure, you get nice views of the city.


 

If for some reason, you can't take the stairs, there is an elevator as well. The thing you see in the middle in the pic below is where the elevator travels

Here is a pic I took of people on the top of the Vessel, it was very windy yesterday, I stayed on the one below the top



I took a picture of these path trains