Month: November 2022

Zeros And Ones

Zeros And Ones

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If you’ve never heard of Benford’s Law, it’s worth reading about this nifty statistical fact. The gist is that for certain types of data sets, the frequency of the leading digit follows a predictable pattern (with 1 being the most frequent by far). I decided to put it to the test by analyzing the total view counts for each post on this blog.

Leading DigitActual RatePredicted Rate
131.3%30.1%
227.7%17.6%
317.5%12.5%
47.8%9.7%
55.4%7.9%
62.4%6.7%
71.2%5.8%
84.2%5.1%
92.4%4.6%

I guess that’s why they call it a law, because the actual digit rates match up pretty well.

Speaking of which, apparently I also have a thing for named laws. If you do too, the article is worth it for this side note:

The fact that things are often named for someone who didn’t discover it first is common. In fact, there is a name for this, Stigler’s Law of Eponymy. It was proposed by the American statistics professor Stephen Stigler in 1980 when he wrote that no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. In an ironic twist, Stigler acknowledged that the American sociologist Robert Merton had previously discovered “Stigler’s Law”.

End Of An Era

End Of An Era

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Frederick Brooks died last week. He was a giant of the software industry, and deserves wider recognition for his contributions. Start by reading the New York Times article linked above, then grab a copy of The Mythical Man-Month. Few works have moved me so profoundly, at least if you measure by number of times I reference them (which, incidentally, is roughly how Google’s PageRank works).

Rest in peace, Mr Brooks. I’m thankful for you, and I’m sure you won’t be forgotten by those who build our castles in the air.

Adventures With APIs

Adventures With APIs

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I’ve written before about the advantages of knowing how to dig around in DevTools to reverse engineer website interfaces. This week I’ve had three further instances of doing this work to good effect.

The Friendly Skies

Firstly, I travel a lot, enough that I now have Executive Platinum status on American Airlines. This means I’m first in line for complimentary upgrades, but only if there are seats available. So I wanted an easy way to go straight to a complete seat map to look at availability without needing to go through a full search on the website. Turns out there’s a magic URL that does just that, and all you need to do is pass it some parameters. So I present to you, a quick and dirty seat map lookup form. Give it a try!

While that’s cool, I wondered if I could make it simpler by leveraging a flight data API like the one from FlightLabs. That was pretty straightforward as well. Though I couldn’t embed it in WordPress, I did script it up in Python for your enjoyment. Just pass it a flight number, and it’ll do the rest. Neat!

Shake It Off

This week Taylor Swift tour tickets went on sale, and needless to say it broke Ticketmaster, despite their best attempts to add friction via pre-registration to enter a lottery to win a code to join a queue to enter a room to maybe get lucky enough to click fast enough to buy tickets. Sadly I was unsuccessful at securing seats despite dozens attempts across several days. But I did learn something about the API Ticketmaster used to check queue status, so all was not lost.

When I first joined the queue, the following was displayed:

Of course I was curious: how many more than 2000 people were there… 5000? 25000? A million? So I opened up DevTools, and took a look at the calls coming back from the server to check status. Lo and behold, there was a wealth of info in an easily digested JSON block:

Wouldn’t it have been helpful to display that information to the user? At least the exact users in line, and the expected service time value. No idea why it wasn’t shown, other than Ticketmaster not being known as a terribly customer obsessed company.

Automating ******** Across ****

The final example can’t speak of publicly other to say my penchant for automation will save my employer a sizable amount of money. In these uncertain economic times, that’s always a good thing.

You Are Not Alone

You Are Not Alone

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Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

It’s been a strange season for tech work, with the boom of the last few years (decades even?) feeling like it’s coming to a screeching halt. A lot of people suddenly finding themselves out of a job, wondering what’s next.

While I’m relieved not to have been affected this time, I’ve been laid off before, and I remember the feeling of helplessness. Of wondering if I should have known better or cut and run before things got bad. And most of all (though it took me some time to name it): loneliness. All the relationships I’d built up at the workplace, while not my best friends, were a large part of my social life, and to have them ripped away with no warning took quite a toll.

For those in that boat right now, know that it’s not your fault. Really, it’s not your fault. Take it from someone who’s been there (on both sides of the table): it’s not your fault. Take time to acknowledge your feelings. And while I can’t promise you that something better is just over the horizon, there might be! And that is an encouraging thought.

Kindness Trumps Rightness

Kindness Trumps Rightness

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Regularly I’ll hear people claim “I don’t care what anyone says about me.” While I appreciate the sentiment of confidence such a statement is intended to communicate, I believe it’s unhelpful, for several reasons.

First, I don’t believe it’s possible. Humans are social creatures, and much of our mental software is set up to be concerned with our standing with other people. Some of us perhaps more so than others can set that aside at times, but no one can turn it off completely.

Second, living with disregard for others’ perspectives on your own life and actions deprives you of valuable wisdom. Of course one shouldn’t take all opinions equally, and one must discern how to synthesize the input of others with your own evaluations. But more data is rarely a bad thing. Listen, then decide.

Most importantly, however, is that knowing how those you come in contact with feel about you is a healthy way to measure if you’re having a positive influence on them. At the end of the day I want every person I interact with to come away feeling that their lives are better for having known me. That’s more valuable than pretty much any other measure of impact I can imagine, and it’s true both personally and professionally. Absolutely nothing is more important to your career than being kind. Not education. Not skill. Not drive. Nothing.

So yes, I care what everyone says about me. And you should too.