The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Paying your own code debt

There's something kind of sad about spending several days extracting code I wrote for one company from code I wrote, while working at that company, for the company I now work for.

Then I gotta test it all...

Sensitivity

Yesterday I changed my Fitbit sleep monitor setting from "normal" to "sensitive." I got to bed last night at almost exactly the same time I went to bed Sunday night; and I got up this morning within 5 minutes of when I got up yesterday. But my Fitbit says I got 90 minutes less sleep last night. Here's Sunday night:

Here's last night:

This means either it's been overestimating my sleep, or last night it hugely underestimated it. Or, possibly, last night I just tossed and turned a lot more than usual.

I'll keep it on the "sensitive" setting for a week or so and compare it with how I feel in the morning. I definitely wanted to sleep in today, but it's also rainy and cold. More data is required.

Scanning for life-forms...

Astronomers have discovered compelling evidence of alien life on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko:

Evidence of alien life is "unequivocal" on the comet carrying the Philae probe through space, two leading astronomers have said.

[Astrobiologist] Chandra Wickramasinghe said: "What we're saying is that data coming from the comet seems to unequivocally, in my opinion, point to micro-organisms being involved in the formation of the icy structures, the preponderance of aromatic hydrocarbons, and the very dark surface.

"These are not easily explained in terms of pre-biotic chemistry.

"The dark material is being constantly replenished as it is boiled off by heat from the Sun. Something must be doing that at a fairly prolific rate."

Welcome to the future.

Chicago sunrise chart, 2015-2016

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart . (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx .)

Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight
2015
2 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:20 20:30 15:09
16 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:54
9 Aug 8pm sunset 05:53 20:00 14:07
16 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:50 13:50
29 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:13 19:30 13:16
14 Sep 6:30am sunrise 06:30 19:03 12:32
16 Sep 7pm sunset 06:32 18:59 12:27
23 Sep Equinox , 03:21 CDT 06:39 18:47 12:10
26 Sep 12-hour day 06:42 18:42 11:59
3 Oct 6:30pm sunset 06:50 18:30 11:39
12 Oct 7am sunrise 07:00 18:15 11:15
22 Oct 6pm sunset 07:11 17:59 10:48
31 Oct Latest sunrise until 1 Nov 2016
Latest sunset until Mar 6th
07:22 17:47 10:24
1 Nov Standard time returns
Earliest sunrise until Mar 2nd
06:23 16:46 10:22
7 Nov 6:30 sunrise 06:31 16:38 10:07
15 Nov 4:30pm sunset 06:40 16:30 9:49
2 Dec 7am sunrise 07:00 16:21 9:20
8 Dec Earliest sunset of the year 07:06 16:20 9:14
21 Dec Solstice , 22:48 CST 07:15 16:23 9:07
2016
4 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 28th 07:19 16:33 9:13
28 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:01 9:52
5 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:11 10:10
20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:40 17:30 10:49
27 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:30 17:39 11:08
12 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr 17th
Earliest sunset until Oct 24th
06:07 17:55 11:47
13 Mar Daylight saving time begins
Latest sunrise until Oct 16th
Earliest sunset until Sep 18th
07:05 18:56 11:50
16 Mar 7am sunrise, 7pm sunset
12-hour day
07:00 19:00 11:59
19 Mar Equinox 23:30 CDT 06:54 19:03 12:08
3 Apr 6:30am sunrise (again) 06:30 19:20 12:50
12 Apr 7:30pm sunset 06:15 19:30 13:15
22 Apr 6am sunrise 05:59 19:41 13:41
10 May 8pm sunset 05:35 20:00 14:24
15 May 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:05 14:35
14 Jun Earliest sunrise of the year 05:15 20:28 15:13
20 Jun Solstice 17:34 CDT
8:30pm sunset
05:16 20:30 15:14
26 Jun Latest sunset of the year 05:17 20:31 15:13

You can get sunrise information for your location at wx-now.com.

Marriage equality: the software side

Remy Porter at The Daily WTF points out the implementation issues with marriage equality:

In a landmark decision, the United States Supreme Court revised the business requirements and integrity constraints on the marriage relationship, removing some legacy constraints and essentially updating to better reflect the actual needs of their end users. This policy decision now has to be implemented in every state, county, town and hamlet across the country. Every change breaks somebody’s workflow, and this one is no exception.

In the end, this might not be changing requirements, as much as it might be poor assumptions. We’ve all seen articles like Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Time and Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names. The choices we make in writing software can reveal our own assumptions and biases, and it behooves us in the industry to keep that in mind when interpreting business requirements. @qntm explores that idea from a database design perspective, both before the Supreme Court’s decision, and after.

Porter's post got me thinking about data design for marriage licenses, and the bad designs I've had to implement because of politics.

Squish

As feared, last month was the wettest June on record in Illinois, and the second-wettest month of all time:

The statewide average precipitation for June 2015 in Illinois was 242.1 mm, based on available data through June 30. That is 135.4 mm above the average June precipitation, and the wettest June on record for Illinois.

In addition to being the wettest June on record, it is the second wettest month on record for Illinois. Only September 1926 was wetter at 244.4 mm – just 2.3 mm higher.

Meanwhile, in Chicago, it was the cloudiest June in all 122 years of records, in part because we're covered in Canadian wildfire smoke making everything a little hazy.

On the other hand, it got up to 35°C in London today—and they don't generally have air conditioning over there. Yow.