Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

  • Daily Coping 12 Sep 2022

    Today’s coping tip is to forgive yourself when things go wrong.

    A theme of being better to myself, starting with last Thur and Fri.

    What’s gone wrong for me? I was working on some ranch chores, setting up a new gate opener. Some hard, physical digging, but also some planning and preparation. I also had to buy a few things, and in the process of the work, I mis-aligned one set of brackets and had to replace them. I had trouble with the digging and had to change tactics and re-do some work. I also chopped an underground wire, which I had to replace.

    All of this made the process take longer, and also meant we manually opened and closed the gate for awhile. Getting out of a car in bad weather to do so is really annoying. I was annoyed with myself for inconveniencing myself and others, and making simple mistakes.

    However, I’ve learned that this isn’t my full time job. I will make mistakes. I need to be ready to deal with them without getting upset or beating myself up. I tried to forgive myself and overall that helped, but not completely.

    Something I need to work on more.

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQL Server Central newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

  • The Redgate 100

    The Redgate 100 is a list of 100 people that are influential in the database world in a number of categories.I made the list in a few places, which is pretty cool.

    Redgate 100 Social individual influencers (35)

    Disclosure: I do work for Redgate as an advocate, and I helped with some discussion of the list and nominations. I didn’t pick the list, vote, or make decisions.

    This is a marketing effort, as are many of the “best of” awards and notices you see out there. In many case, those are often paid placement, as I’ve been offered the chance to be on those lists if I paid a fee. I always decline, or at least to date I have.

    In this case, Redgate are in the business of database software and tools. We sell them, but we also support a lot of community efforts as well as are constantly researching to better understand what people need and want. Sometimes we build products in those areas, sometimes we just publish research results.

    In any case, I thought this was a pretty neat idea and a great list. You can read about the selection process, which doesn’t tell a lot, other than they took some nominations, calculated some score based on what people do in the community.

    While Kathi, Grant, and I work for Redgate and are on the list, part of the reason why we work for Redgate is that we do a lot in and for the community. I could say the same for Kendra who used to work for us, and if we’d have done this list before we were hired, I think we’d have been on it anyway.

    This doesn’t imply that everyone who is an influential database professional is on the list. With 100 slots, there were decisions and choices, and there are some experts and incredibly valuable community people who didn’t make the list.

    Thanks to all of the people who blog, speak, volunteer, and otherwise help drive the database professional industry forward.

    It’s an honor, and I hope Redgate continues to do this in the future.

  • Summon in the Tesla FSD

    This is part of a series that covers my experience with a Tesla Model Y.

    One of the features that came with my FSD subscription was Summon. This allows you to move the car from the mobile app without being in the car. I decided to test this a few times and see what happens. I ran these tests:

    • Coming out of the garage – failure
    • Backing out of a parking space at the gym – failure
    • Crossing the parking lot at the doctor – mostly OK
    • Summon to target in the gym parking lot – mixed
    • Summon to me in the gym parking lot – works

    I’ve described the experiences below.

    Garage

    When I first subscribed, I drove home and parked the car short of coming into the garage. I walked into the garage and selected the forward arrow. The car drove very slowly into the garage, with lots of minor adjustments left and right. Not sure I loved that.

    In the video of my testing, I tried to get the car to come out of the garage. It would wake up and start for an inch, and then stop. I think the right corner of the garage made the car nervous, and it didn’t quite believe it could back straight up. I didn’t test the come to me or come to target.

    In a Parking Lot

    I had tried this at a doctor’s office once, and stood in the middle of a parking lot, away from other cars. When I pressed come to target, the car backed up, turning out of a parking spot and then drove forward to me, though past me to a spot marked on the map. I’m not quite sure how a “target” is picked, but since I could have stopped the car near me, I wasn’t too worried.

    Later I went to the large, mostly empty parking lot at my gym and did some other testing. Two tests couldn’t get the car to back out of the parking space, and I’m not sure why. No other cars around, so it was strange.

    When I backed in, I could get the car to drive to me, though only with selecting “Come to Me”. The “Come to target” again picked a weird spot. Actually across a couple parking spots.

    Summary

    During a month of having FSD, I never really had a time when I wanted to summon the car. Of course, in Colorado in the summer, it rains rarely, and I’m not one to be worried about a little rain on the few days we have some. I also don’t quite know when I find it useful. Maybe if someone parks too close to let me get in or park.

    The feature worked OK, though not great. Certainly not enough, or not consistently enough, for me to want to pay for this.

    I made a video of my tests that you can check out.

  • Daily Coping 9 Sep 2022

    Today’s coping tip is to let go of self-criticism and speak to yourself kindly.

    This tip follows on nicely from yesterday’s tip, just the other side of that one. I wanted to criticize myself recently for not having a bit more content prepped before my vacation. I was gone for 8 days, and while I had content scheduled for the time away, and for a day after I returned, I didn’t have any beyond that, which puts me in a bit of a crunch.

    My career at SQL Server Central is running the site like a newspaper, which means things scheduled out a week or two in advance. Trying to pull content together a day or two before it’s needed is hard. It is also very stressful. I returned from vacation with 2 days of things, but not 4 or more, which meant that I needed to do some editing for articles and some writing for editorials.

    Some weeks editorials flow and I can write 3, 4 or more. Others I struggle to produce one. I returned from vacation with 3 days to write an editorial or two (hopefully more) and relieve the stress.

    I started to chastise myself for not having 1 or 2 more prepared for the next week and then stopped. That wasn’t helpful, and instead I decided to tell myself that I’ll come up with something interesting to say and just set aside some time to start writing.

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQL Server Central newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.