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The Dog Collar Incident

Cary Millsap Weekly Newsletter The Dog Collar Incident This week’s article is about an important lesson my dog taught me. My family moved to an 80-acre farm when I was about 7 years old. My parents raised catfish as a side gig. Living on a fish farm gave me an opportunity to become a bounty hunter. My Dad paid me 25¢ for every cottonmouth water moccasin I killed. Cottonmouths are big black snakes that eat just… See more › Tuesday Zoom Each Tuesday at 10:30am CDT (3:30pm UTC), I host a weekly...

4 days ago • 1 min read

Cary Millsap Weekly Newsletter Our Next Step Is Happening Now In an article I wrote last October, called “25 Years, One Job,” I derived my next two professional goals: Harvest what we’ve sown. Make a lasting mark upon the world. Writing that article made it clear that I needed to pivot. My small company wasn’t likely to help me accomplish either goal. So, with encouragement from my family and my only employee, Jeff Holt, I decided that the best way to optimize our situation would be for Jeff...

11 days ago • 1 min read

A Cure for Writer’s Block Having written three articles now about getting unstuck, this week I've written an article specifically about getting unstuck when writing. A Cure for Writer’s Block Ever get stuck writing a technical report or a presentation about a project? I’ve got a process that can help. It’s not the only way, but it’s my way. I’ll list, then elucidate. Here’s the list: And now the elucidating: See more › Tuesday Zoom Each Tuesday at 10:30am CDT (3:30pm UTC), I host a weekly...

18 days ago • 1 min read

Getting Unstuck: the Junk Room Problem Here’s my third and final story about getting unstuck. On Being Stuck, Part 3 Ever have to clean up a “junk room”? One of these rooms that has disorganized itself out of control, and it needs fixing? I’m not naturally very good at junk-room–style problems. I love to fix things, but sometimes I feel overwhelmed by projects that have, let’s call it, “too many variables.” I can get stuck… See more › Tuesday Zoom Each Tuesday at 10:30am CDT (3:30pm UTC), I...

25 days ago • 1 min read

More about Getting Unstuck Here’s my second story (of three planned) about being stuck and getting unstuck. On Being Stuck, Part 2 In “On Being Stuck, Part 1,” I wrote about how my friend Henry helped me finish by master’s thesis. Here’s another story for you. A few months ago, I shared the story of the little 1:8 scale Wasp aircraft engine model that I built, which won an award. In my article about the contest, called “A… See more › Tuesday Zoom Each Tuesday at 10:30am CDT (3:30pm UTC), I...

about 1 month ago • 1 min read

Ever Get Stuck? Ever get stuck? Writing, maybe? Or that project you keep putting off? This is a story that might help. On Being Stuck, Part 1 In mid-1987, I was in trouble. Not real, actual trouble, but deadline trouble. I was supposed to be making great gains on my master’s thesis, but I wasn’t. In fact I was stuck. “Software Testing Strategies for Automatic Test Data Generators” was going nowhere. I don’t today remember exactly what the pressure was, but I… See more › Tuesday Zoom Each...

about 1 month ago • 1 min read

On the Value of Mistakes Don't let the baseball stuff in the preview fool you. This is an article about resilience. On the Value of Mistakes It’s baseball season. (!) I miss getting to watch my son play, but my colleague Jeff’s son is a junior in high school, and I can still watch him. He’s a pitcher. Yesterday, he threw four innings and did great. Allowed just one earned run. In case you don’t study baseball, let me sum it… See more › Tuesday Zoom (US Time Change) Each Tuesday at 10:30am...

about 2 months ago • 1 min read

Compound Interest This week's article is about a behavior that can make your life better. Compound Interest This article is inspired by a confluence of events, some of which happened. First, I don’t think Einstein ever said this quote that follows. However, someone said he did, and I derived inspiration from it nevertheless: The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest. —Albert Einstein (only not really) He did actually say… See more › Tuesday Zoom Each Tuesday at 10:30am...

about 2 months ago • 1 min read

Workbench 9.4 This week's article is about the newest version of Method R Workbench, which we released Wednesday. Yesterday, we released Method R Workbench 9.4.1.0. This article is a tour of some of the 50 new application behavior changes. Command History Scrolling In Workbench 9.3, it was a pain to try to find a given report in the output pane. For example, do this: 1. Run the “Time by line range” action upon a 1,000-line trace file, with 1- as the range. The output will be 1,000 lines. 2....

2 months ago • 1 min read

Awesome (!) App of the Day Usually I just complain about stuff. This week, I have a commendation. A few weeks ago, the door to our back yard stopped closing. When we’d swing it shut, the latch bolt wouldn’t do its spring-loaded retraction thing. It would hit the strike plate, not retract, and the door would bounce open defiantly. We could still close the door by turning the knob, but we’re not conditioned… See more › Tuesday Zoom Each Tuesday at 10:30am Central US Time (16:30 UTC), I host a...

2 months ago • 1 min read
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