Goals:

1. Make it easy to use for easy to use for teachers
   • Sized to project nicely
   • Easy to configure
   • Bookmarks save settings
2. Make it realistic and fair
• randomly ends at any angle
• spin slows down gradually
• displays the selection accurately
• spins start off where the previous one ends
3. Make it fun
• History
• No ads
• Confetti Drop!

I started a Stable Diffusion server and installed a few plugins. AI has become much more accessible now thanks to the open source community. You can get the sense that it is creating an alternate dimension here. Indeed, this is an impressive technology, but is also downright scary!

I left Nutanix 10 months ago. When I was hired, I felt a lot of chance was taken on me. But looking back, it was the right place at the right time. The platform team needed someone that bridge hardware and software domains to provide much needed automation. This was what a significant chunk of what my career was built around. I ended up delivering a hardware test framework that enabled the team to increase the amount of hardware qualifications at an exponential rate while only scaling headcount linearly.

I also served as a lead for hardware escalations. I had to deal with tough industry issues like Spectre Meltdown, and DIMM quality issues. This improved my communication skills and in working closely with our support organization, developed an empathy for customer pain when they hit bugs. Facilitating communication between our vendors, our support organization, and the customer built a lot of bridges for me in the hardware space.

But I found myself at a crossroads. I have been doing hardware for many years, I started experiencing repitition and comfort. I needed a change. This was when I moved into management and was rewarded with the task of growing, and mentoring other engineers. Still, I felt the change was not enough. Looking forward, I had the feeling that if I stayed in my organization, I would be stuck doing hardware for the rest of my career. In the meantime, software stacks were changing from using VMs to containers, PaaS, IaC, Serverless, etc were all growing. In addition, AI/ML was starting to become more accessible. I felt I was missing out. I also felt these technologies were making my day-to-day hardware discussions irrelevant. No doubt, as a hardware engineer, I respect the challenges of delivering hardware. However, the pace of change in hardware has been slow, especially in enterprise, and on the software side it is no longer a worry for most companies.

Fast forward to today. I have recently been laid off by TrueNorth Technologies. Some would say that I got the short end of the stick. However, I was able to spend time going back to an IC role at Staff level to contribute all over the web development stack and experience using GCP, GKE, and GitHub Actions for build pipeline. I got to integrate Auth0, Stripe, Zendesk, and Courier. If I had stayed at Nutanix, I would not have been able explore so much in such a short amount of time. I was hoping this opportunity would allow me to get back into leadership again through growth. Unfortunately, things did not pan out that way, and the trucking industry was hit with high deisel prices and low delivery rates. This caused a lot of our customers to fold their businesses, and in the end, the company needed to run lean to get by.

I have been asked by former colleagues if I will return. While I will not completely shut the door on that, I will close it on going back to hardware. As with my previous job search, I know my resume does not shine with software expertise. It has prevented me from even being asked coding questions by engineers interviewing for manager positions. But I will need to be more assertive with the process and ensure the employers see me as talented software developer, hardware engineer and engineering manager. Hopefully this website is able to showcase some of that.

Just had a conversation with my son about him using the term “try hard”. If you don’t already know, this term is used when someone supposedly tries too hard. However, I’ve seen my oldest son use it in gaming to describe someone who is really out of his league and is kicking his butt. I didn’t mind it at the time. But tonight, my son used that term to describe another wrestler. It has now come to real life. I told him not to use that term. Use any other word but that one. He brushed it off like I was just an old man who didn’t understand. So I had to spell it more clear for him.

Every day I work. I work to support our family. Every day, I try hard at work. I don’t know anything else. So when you call someone else a “try hard” in a negative way, you are offending me as well. I try hard, and I am not ashamed of it. And I do not want my son contributing in any way to discount someone trying hard or worse, turning it into a negative thing.