Ale Tales - Festbier
All I want to drink are lagers, but good german style lagers are hard to come by in Vancouver. So, taking matters into my own hands I’ve started a journey to create a festbier. This recipe is beginning life as something between a marzen and munich lager. The intention is to let it drift over time, most likely however it will end life pretty close to a modern festbier: golden in color, 5.
Brew Day Standard Operating Procedures
I recently began utilizing standard operating procedures for my brew day: step-by-step instructions of everything I need to do on brew day from setting up and filling my kettle to cleaning it and putting it away. I recently started this practice after forgetting to treat my sparge water. While not a critical step to the brew day, it nonetheless highlighted that left to own devices I will inevitably forget steps. Apart from fixing my forgetfulness, having a written set of instructions has had two unexpected but welcome side effects: first, by having the mundane written down my mind is free to focus or wander as it pleases and second, it has sped up my brew day considerably.
Grainfather - Lessons Learned
This post documents a couple problems I’ve had with the Grainfather. I also document my attempts to overcome those problems. To be clear, the Grainfather is a slick homebrewing appliance that automates away a lot of the mundane work of brewing. I absolutely recommend one if you have some extra cash burning a hole in your wallet. It does come with its own sets of quirks though and these two are the primary quirks causing me most grief.
Back to Homebrewing
I have rekindled my love for homebrewing. I’m once again back in a house with space and I have room for all the toys and necessary equipment. In my giddiness I couldn’t help myself and purchased all new brewing equipment. As is common with hobbies I went completely overboard and upon receiving this last month’s credit card bill I felt a tad guilty. However, after a brew day under my belt and my first keg of Founders Breakfast Stout clone kegged and carbonated, I feel vindicated in my irresponsible purchase decisions.
I Aged Myself Out of Software Development
2021 will mark the year I aged myself out of software engineering roles. About a month ago, on a Sunday, during an on-call shift, I considered a priority I told myself was unacceptable: staying home during an on-call instead of taking my kids to their activities. Had I stayed home instead of taking my kids out, I would have sent my resignation letter the next day. I told myself I would.
Weekend Ravioli
I recently became addicted to making ravioli. My kids love butternut squash and mushroom ravioli and campaign for both every week. It only recently occurred to me that making ravioli was straight forward and if you ignore most of the disciplines of baking it is similar to making bread. This is my weekend ravioli recipe. I call it my weekend ravioli recipe because it takes a bit of time to make and is a bit of a mess.
Passive Analytics Collection - Methods
This post is a continuation of my previous post introducing a strategy for passive UI metrics collection. In that post, I highlighted why metrics collection is hard, how I see metrics collection commonly done in the wild, and outlined a strategy I think is superior from both a technical and business perspective. In this post I will demonstrate this strategy with a live demo and summarize the types of UI metrics commonly helpful when understanding how people use your software.
Our Daily Bread Recipe
My standard bread recipe is simple. It is simple because I make it during the week while juggling work, kids, and dinner. The primary requirement for this bread recipe is that the process is reproducible without maths. The second requirement is that the flour bill is flexible and the process constant. I want to swap any grain for any other without having to tweak hydration levels and the like. Meaning the hydration levels are high but not too high and specialty flours are low but not too low.
Passive Analytics Collection - A Strategy
I’ve come to learn that collecting application metrics is tricky to get right. Developer needs, product needs, design needs, and senior management needs differ. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to gathering and organizing those metrics. A consistent theme throughout my career has been that while we have the best intentions when collecting UI interaction data, we rarely provide the depth of data sufficient to answer critical business questions from product and design.
Standard Preferment
I’ve been experimenting with preferments lately using a poolish left to sit overnight and have determined that the quality of the bread, in nearly all aspects, is superior to the same bread made without one. Starting with the taste, it makes a much more complex flavor. I’m not sure how I would describe the taste difference, but it has a deeper taste than bread that hasn’t had time to develop. Working with the dough is also a lot easier.