Daily Coping 20 Jun 2022

Posted on June 20, 2022 by way0utwest

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral 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.

Today’s tip is to send a positive message to a friend who needs encouragement.

I get these sometimes from friends, and I love them. I also try to remember to do this.

I had a friend that had to go through a tough time with a family member being sick recently. Everything is fine, but I know the aftermath of this and trying to get back to normal is hard. I made it a point to reach out every day or two for a few days to check on them and just offer encouragement.

You could do that randomly as well, even if someone isn’t needing encouragement. Just let them know you are thinking of them.

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New in SQL Server 2022 – Generate_Series

Posted on June 20, 2022 by way0utwest

One of the new language features added in SQL Server 2022 is the GENERATE_SERIES function. This allows you to generate a 

SELECT * FROM GENERATE_SERIES(start=1, stop=7)

This gives me a simple sequence of numbers in a result set, with the column header, value.

2022-03-31 14_57_20-SQLQuery3.sql - ., 51433.sandbox (sa (80))_ - Microsoft SQL Server Management St

Let’s take this code from Dwain Camps article, Tally Tables in T-SQL:

DECLARE @S VARCHAR(8000) = 'Aarrrgggh!';

SELECT value, s

FROM

(
     -- Always choose the first element
     SELECT value=1, s=LEFT(@S, 1) UNION ALL
     -- Include each successive next element as long as it’s different than the prior
     SELECT value, CASE
         WHEN SUBSTRING(@S, value-1, 1) <> SUBSTRING(@S, value, 1)
         THEN SUBSTRING(@S, value, 1)
         -- Repeated characters are assigned NULL by the CASE
         END
     FROM GENERATE_SERIES(start=1, stop=100)
     WHERE value BETWEEN 2 AND LEN(@S)

) a

-- Now we filter out the repeated elements

WHERE s IS NOT NULL;

Now the original code has a CTE that generates the series, or tally table. I’ve replaced that with GENERATE_SERIES. The code works as expected, which in this case is to remove repeating characters.

2022-03-31 14_58_21-SQLQuery3.sql - ., 51433.sandbox (sa (80))_ - Microsoft SQL Server Management St

SQL Server 2022 is now out in preview and I’d urge you to give it a try. This is a neat new feature, and it does provide more standard code than the variety of ways I see people building tally tables.

I haven’t tested performance, but I am hoping it does as well as cross joining system tables or using a CTE.

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Tesla Power Use in Summer and Winter

Posted on June 17, 2022 by way0utwest

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

When I look at my top destinations in the Tesla, I find that home is the top one (327) and my gym is second (102). That seems about right as I go to the gym 3-4 days a week and usually run some other errand then.

2022-06-07 08_51_39-Drive Stats - Grafana — Mozilla Firefox

When we got the Tesla and started to drive a bit, I found myself enamored with the Energy usage screen. It tracks the last 30 miles (configurable) and gives you a range estimate. Here is a typical screen for me:

20210922_161212

This shows the energy usage as I drive, with the most recent mile on the right and the oldest (30th) on the left. I see the amount of watt hours used at that time and then an average. There’s also a solid horizontal line for the rated range.

For this 30 miles, I averaged 218Wh/mile, which is pretty good. You can see there are some high spikes in the 500Wh/mi range and some low ones. The green areas are where I actually recovered some energy back. This was at the lowest point leaving my house and heading West to Parker, CO, which is about 800 feet lower in elevation. I actually am generating power with the regenerative braking thanks to gravity.

The Gym Run

I go to the gym regularly, often 3-4 times a week. It’s an easy drive, and I’ve played the energy video game for years, trying to use the minimum amount of gas (Prius) or power (Tesla) on my trip there. I found this to be fun, and I’ve beaten my high (or low) score a few times.

With the Tesla, it’s been an interesting metric to see how much power I used in the summer and winter. I grabbed a few screen shots in the fall when the weather was warm and then again in the winter. Here’s what I learned.

Summer(ish)

Here’s a summer graph. This trip was a 72F day, so not too summer-ish, but warm. A pleasant day. The drive stats are:

  • 11.8mi
  • ~2% battery used downhill
  • 21 minutes
  • 133 Wh/mi downhill
  • 1.6kWh

The return home is as little different as I went to the grocery, but I had:

  • 9.8mi
  • ~4% battery used
  • 342 Wh/mi
  • 3.3kWh

This is reflected in my graph for the downhill. The arrow is about where I start from home and the end is the gym. Lots of downhill, though not all. I was trying to be careful here and managed to get my 30mi average down to 184Wh/mi.

20210922_142615

This was pretty good to me, though admittedly I don’t have any point of reference as this is my first electric car. In terms of cost, this still is about US$0.69 for the drive. As a point of comparison, the X5 would cost about a gallon of gas. Around US$3.20 back then. The Prius would have been US$1.47.

Winter

A similar trip, slightly longer, so I must have varied the route a bit, but I see this:

  • 12.0mi
  • ~3% battery
  • 228Wh/mi
  • 2.7kWh
  • 33F

The return:

  • 10.2mi
  • ~5% battery
  • 360Wh/mi
  • 3.7kWh
  • 28F

The temperature dropped here, and as you might have guessed, I was using the seat and car heaters.

What is interesting here is the downhill show 133Wh/mi in summer and 2.7 in winter, a significant change. The uphill has less of a difference ( 3.3 v 3.7kWh). Gravity is a bigger issue, I’m guessing. Maybe some battery conditioning on the downhill as well, but that’s still a factor.

The cost in winter is more like US$0.90. While the BMW is still in the 20-21 range in winter, the Prius dropped from 47-48mpg to 42mpg, so it also showed a bigger battery effect in cold weather.

Conclusions

I don’t quite know what to make of this, other than expect range to shorten in the winter and plan for more charging. In general, since I mostly charge at home and my daily trips never get close to the range limit, this doesn’t change anything for me. We will use more power in winter, but since we don’t have time of day (or year) cost changes, and we have solar power to somewhat stabilize the cost of power, I don’t worry about this affecting my life.

We have learned to cut off Sentry mode and also to charge a little more in cold weather if the car is sitting outside and unplugged. It’s not a big deal, but it is something to think about if you have an electric car in a cold climate. A little more forward thinking is needed in this paradigm.

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My Incredible Journey With Your Help

Posted on June 17, 2022 by way0utwest

At Techorama, I saw a keynote from Derek Martin of Microsoft. The talk was called Pain, Grief, Perseverance, and Technology, and it’s worth seeing if you can find it live or recorded. David talks about his growth in life from a young man to a Principal Program Manager at Microsoft, husband, and father of six or seven. All the while dealing with a mental illness and learning to ask for help and to manage his busy life.

It’s a great talk, though one I only lightly relate to. My life has been mostly easy and wonderful. Not always, but mostly. My problems are often minor ones. As I write this, I had surgery this morning to repair a painful ankle I’ve been dealing with for a few years. Things went smoothly and I expect rehab to be the same.

My challenge with this issue? Scheduling it when I had a hole in my schedule to get cut and then a follow up. As it is, I arrived home from Brussels yesterday with a little stress about the COVID test and airline delays in getting back. I now fly to Germany in 3 days and then come back next week to see the doctor. I know, life is hard for me. My wife “gets” to come along and help carry my bags on a trip to Europe.

Did I mention my life is amazing?

I’ve had a lot of success in my career. I’m not an expert on tuning like Grant or Erik. I don’t know all the ins and outs of Power BI like Patrick or the deep Azure tricks that Denny and Joey constantly amaze me with. I don’t make the great presentations that Brent does or the business success of Stacia or the impressive credentials of Dr. Holt. I’ve learned from all these people and more. They’ve been there to give me help, whether with a technical problem or guidance in some area of life.

I work hard. I’ve worked many weeks in my career and at my career beyond the standard 40, or even the common tech 50. I grind away at times, but I’ve also learned to say no and find balance. My wife and Andy remind me that babies aren’t dying because I take time off and that I need to take time off. Tjay provides the inspiration to do that more. I’ve learned to do that more as I age, balancing a busy work schedule with my coaching hobby. I’ve been lucky enough to work with some wonderful young ladies the last six years and travel with them to various cities to watch them compete, laugh, cheer, cry, and work as hard as I’ve ever worked at my career. In a sense, I have two amazing careers.

My kids are healthy and happy. I’m proud of their journeys through life as two of them work on careers and one grinds through university. They are strong and dependable. They find a better balance between work and life, but don’t shy away from work and are accountable and responsible. This week, they’re taking over the cooking for me and horse chores for my wife as we travel in Europe.

Again, life is wonderful here.

My Mom praises my work ethic in getting through college and finding jobs that grew my career because of my hard work, and the effort I made to build SQL Server Central with Andy and Brian and then sell it to Redgate. All true, but that’s not the whole story. I had luck in people giving me opportunities, supporting me, even helping with the workload at times. I had lots of opportunities, and I took advantage of them. I also had plenty of help.

I helped build something that Redgate and many of you have appreciated and used over the years. SQL Server Central, SQL Saturday, the Networking Dinner at the Pass Summit, and a few other things. However, you all helped me with those things. Many of you took a chance on posting a question or coming to the event. Plenty others of you participated with answers, articles, presentations, volunteer efforts, and more. You have helped me in my journey and I appreciate your efforts alongside my own.

We’ve been a team, and I thank you for being there alongside me.

I’m on an amazing journey in life, and I’m trying to enjoy more of it even as I keep busy at living it. My “problems” are first world ones, minor bumps on one a road I could never have imagined traveling when I was younger. I work hard, but I know many of you are there to help me often. Sometimes you help me when I don’t ask or think I need assistance.

You can find an amazing life for you. Work at life, work at your attitude, work at your balance, work at your skills, and work at asking for help. I, and many others, are also here to help you. We don’t achieve anything on our own, but we do work to find success. Remember there is always someone else willing to provide an assist when you need it. Sometimes we don’t even realize how others help us, but they do.

My life is perfect, thanks to us.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.

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