Voice of the DBA

Category: Uncategorized

  • Daily Coping 7 Mar 2023

    Today’s coping tip is give positive comments to as many people as possible today.

    On a travel day, I made an effort here. Those are always better for me, when I see a lot of people and can brighten their days.

    • Thanking the bus driver at the airport
    • Greeting the cashier at my favorite restaurant kindly
    • Complementing the flight attendants on their look and service
    • Chatting with the Uber driver and expressing gratitude for recommendations
    • Taking a few minutes with the hotel receptionist
    • Being positive and thanking a waiter at a restaurant

    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 Tesla Dashcam

    I was driving home from the mountains recently and witnessed an accident. I have proof.

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

    The Dashcam

    The Tesla Model Y (and all models) has a number of cameras built into the system. This is recording all the time, and if you use the USB they give you (or buy another), you have the clips saved for the future. I bought a USB drive, and it’s been in the car recording when I drive. I sometimes use it when parking, but often not since that drains the battery as the car can’t sleep.

    While driving home, I was slowing as I came to a red light. I saw two cars cross in front, getting ready to turn left in front of me. One accelerated, right in front of a car coming from my left.

    The car going South, from my left, likely didn’t see the turning car as there were two cars stacked up to turn. The result is below, with a collision.

    I haven’t been contacted by the police or insurance as of yet, but if they call, I’ve got video.

    I like that this is built in. With modern cars having all sorts of computer tech in there, and cameras relatively cheap, I’d really expect that more manufacturers would put these in their offerings in the next few years. Or insurance companies would ask for them.

    One annoying thing is the UI in the Tesla for viewing these is really slow to read the SSD and pull them up. Grabbing this out of the car and plugging into my computer let me pull off the video in a minute or two.

    The hard part then is remembering to put the SSD back into the car 😉

  • Daily Coping 13 Dec 2022

    Today’s coping tip is to contact someone you can’t be with to see how they are.

    Maybe the one thing the pandemic did for me is make me think about other people more. More people and more often.

    I’ve been randomly contacting people for a few years. Often people I’d expect to see at some point during the year, but knowing I wouldn’t. It’s been good to chat and share a few messages.

    A couple weeks ago I found some old pictures from the past of various people. I sent them over in a message to say hi, remember a time we were together and check in on how they were doing. It was a fun few minutes out of my day.

    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.

  • Using Telsa Dog Mode

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

    It’s summer in Colorado. Actually, it’s a hot summer, with quite a few days approaching 100F. While I tend to work at home, the other day I was working remotely between a few doctor’s appointments. At various times I was in and out of coffee shops, or even working in my car. The latter is convenient when I have a meetings and need a quieter space than a coffee shop.

    While I was working at one point, the climate controls turned off. Not a big deal, but I decided I wanted to avoid this, so I turned on Dog mode. This is a change to the car software Tesla added a year or so before I bought mine. This allows the car to control the climate, which makes it safe to leave a pet in the car.

    I’ve used it a few times with our dogs when we’ve been running errands and we want to be sure they’re safe, and a cracked window might not be comfortable enough, especially on 90F+ days.

    I used it for myself, and it worked well. I didn’t get the message on the screen, but it did keep the car at a comfortable temperature. I’ve also had a few friends note they enable this when running errands so the car doesn’t get too hot (or cold) in between stops.

    I might start doing this when I got to the gym in the summer, just to keep the temperature a little more even.

    One more thing I love about my Tesla.

    A short video of this is on my channel.