Welcome to Tales from the jar side, the Kousen IT newsletter, for the week of February 28 to March 7, 2021. This week I had no actual training classes, a highly unusual situation that won’t happen again until at least Memorial Day.
Java Faker
The developers who manage the Spring framework came out with a new tutorial this week, entitled Spring Boot with Kotlin and RSocket. The tutorial creates a chat application that uses Spring WebFlux with Kotlin coroutines, manages persistence using R2DBC with an H2 database, adds Kotlin extension functions and implements tests, and more. All of that is right up my alley, other than the RSocket part, so I dug in.
I’ll probably say more about it in coming weeks, but one of the libraries they used for testing was new to me. For their sample messages they used Java Faker, which apparently is a port of a similar gem from Ruby and an existing library in Perl as well. It’s all about generating fake data in the form of strings.
What I like about it is that in addition to creating random names, addresses, credit card numbers, or even weather reports, it also contains classes that generate astronomical satellite names, superhero identities, and even Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy quotes:
@Test
fun `Marvin quote from Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy`() {
val faker: Faker = Faker.instance()
val hhg = faker.hitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy()
println(hhg.marvinQuote())
}
In the comedy science fiction series of books, the (sadly mediocre) movie, and the awesome radio plays, Marvin is a small, depressed robot who is eminently quotable. Here’s one of my favorites. As I recall from the books, it was in response to a rhetorical question, “What are we supposed to do with a manically depressed robot?”
You think you've got problems? What are you supposed to do if you are a manically depressed robot? No, don't try to answer that. I'm fifty thousand times more intelligent than you and even I don't know the answer. It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level.
I love this little library. I have no idea where I’ll use it yet, but I’m sure I’ll think of something.
Help Your Boss Help You
This week I’ve been cleaning up several of the chapters in my upcoming book, which is tentatively scheduled to come out in beta form next week. My goal is that the released beta will be only slightly different from the completed text. With that in mind, I completed the chapter I’ve been thinking of as “miscellaneous” but has the actual title Dealing with Special Cases. It currently contains the following sections:
The Flat Organization, which talks about how the term flat is used as a badge of pride, but often means a low regard for managerial skills. Those tasks still need to get done anyway, but without the respect or compensation that often comes from that work. Also, the flat part doesn’t scale.
Working Remotely (really? What possibly brought that on?). There are lots of books on that now, but my focus is on how the techniques I recommend for dealing with managers rely on periodic interactions, so you need to arrange for those, whether they be in person, by video, or otherwise.
The Micro-manager. Like so many people, I’ve lived through that situation, and I talk about how you can’t fix it (because you’re not the reason for it), but that it does eventually repair itself, though it may take a while.
The Tragedy of Human Resources, which points out that HR exists to keep the company out of trouble, whether that be legal or public relations, and that even though there are good people everywhere, HR often just wants conflicts to go away.
Older employees Working For Younger Managers, like I would know anything about that. :)
Truly Unethical Managers. That’s not a fun section, but it’s important to deal with that situation when it arises.
I’ve already discussed a few of those in this newsletter, and more will come later.
I also put together a preface, which has a guide to the various chapters and some info on my own background, as well as other information. I don’t really like talking about myself that much (this newsletter excepted), but this is the sort of book where it might prove important for readers to know where my own experiences come from and how they affect any biases I may show.
I still have to finish the chapter on the two messages to send to your boss: “I got this” and “I got your back”. I also have to add a concluding chapter that puts everything together. It looks like both of those will be completed after the beta comes out, but the rest of the book should be ready.
Poor little bunny! Poor little wabbit!
Like so many people, I’m paying for too many streaming services at the moment. I’ve been spending most of my time on one of them in particular, however, which isn’t the one I expected: HBO Max.
HBO Max comes with my Comcast cable subscription, so that’s good, though it does make it harder to eventually cut the cord. But it has a lot of movies and shows I like. These days my wife and I are re-watching the upgraded HD version of Babylon 5, steadily working our way through the series. I’m impressed by the improved graphics, and there are so many wonderful scenes especially between Londo and G’Kar.
The HBO Max subscription also includes virtually all of the Looney Tunes cartoons, which means I recently re-watched one of the the greatest cartoons ever made: What’s Opera, Doc?, featuring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd and set to the music of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung. Made in 1957, directed by the immortal Chuck Jones and voiced by Mel Blanc, it’s simply a work of genius.
(If you have HBO Max, it’s Looney Tunes, S22 E16. Go watch it again. I’ll wait.)
For those who don’t have it available, and even for those who do, here is the complete text of the cartoon, which admittedly loses something without the music:
Elmer: Be very quiet! I’m hunting wabbits. Elmer: Wabbit twacks! Elmer: Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit!
Bugs: Kill the wabbit?
(If you didn’t sing along to that part, I’m not sure we can be friends any more.)
Elmer: Yoh hoh toh ho! Yoh hoh toh ho! Yoh hoh toh ho! Yoh hoh! Bugs: O mighty warrior of great fighting stock, might I inquire to ask, eh [eats carrot], What’s up, Doc? Elmer: I’m going to kill the wabbit! Bugs: O mighty hunter, 'twill be quite a task. How will you do it, might I inquire to ahsk? Elmer: I will do it with my spear and magic helmet! Bugs: Your spear and magic helmet? Elmer: Spear and magic helmet! Bugs: Magic helmet? Elmer: Magic helmet! Bugs (skeptical): Magic helmet. Elmer: Yes, magic helmet, and I’ll give you a sample!
[thunder and lightning]
Bugs: Bye! Elmer: That was the wabbit!
[Bugs in drag, because of course he is, riding the cutest horse ever]
Elmer: Oh, Brunhilde, you’re so lovely! Bugs: Yes I know it. I can’t help it. Elmer: Oh, Brunhilde, be my love!
[lots of dancing]
Elmer: Return my love! A longing burns deep inside me. Bugs: Return my love. I want you always beside me. Elmer: A love like ours must be Bugs: Made for you and for me Together: Return, won’t you return my love? For my love is yours!
[Bugs’ helmet falls off and he runs away]
Elmer: I’ll kill the wabbit! Arise storms! North winds blow! South winds blow! Typhoons, hurricanes, earthquakes! SMOG! Elmer: Flash lightning, strike the wabbit!
[Lots of lightning and thunder. Bugs lies beneath a drooping flower, water dripping on him]
Elmer: Oh, what have I done? I’ve killed the wabbit! Poor little bunny! Poor little wabbit!
[crying as he carries Bugs away]
Bugs: Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?
Did I just re-watch it again, with subtitles on, pausing so I could write down all the lyrics? Of course I did. Did I get choked up during the “poor wittle bunny” section? No comment.
When I was an undergrad at MIT, the Lecture Series Committee invited Chuck Jones to visit. He brought lots of cartoons and lots of stories, and included this one. I can assure you that the memory of a packed room of nearly 1000 MIT students all singing “Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit!” at the top of their lungs still makes me smile all these years later.
(The year before I got there they brought in Mel Blanc. He was famous for playing a cartoon with the sound off and doing all the voices live. From what I heard, it was awesome.)
I’ve had the music from that cartoon going through my head for the past two days. Now maybe you can have it, too. You’re welcome.
For the record, Baseball Bugs is S11 E2, Long-Haired Hare is S14 E15, Rabbit of Seville is S15 E20, Rabbit Seasoning is S17 E7, Duck Amuck is S18 E6, and the great Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century is S18 E11. Enjoy.
COVID Update
In Connecticut, my age group became eligible for the COVID vaccine on Monday, March 1. I fought with the associated VAMS website all morning, to no avail. In the afternoon, however, my wife noticed that a friend of ours said vaccines were available at the Wesleyan University health center, which is about 30 minutes away.
(Btw, that’s the furthest I’ve driven in about a year.)
I looked but didn’t find anything. Then on a whim I refreshed the page, and suddenly a whole week of 10-minute appointments showed up. I grabbed one for the following morning.
As it turned out, the process used a drive-through system, with lots of cones and National Guards people indicating where to go. The nurse I met was friendly and kind and very, very young. Sigh. I got the Pfizer vaccine, which means my second dose is scheduled for about three weeks from now.
I had no side effects to speak of, though I kept waiting to see if I could suddenly connect via Bluetooth to my Windows Surface Pro tablet. Maybe it takes the nanoparticles connecting me to Bill Gates longer to work if you’re a Java developer.
You can follow that thread if you want, but I mostly just told you what it says.
Meme Watch: What Is X, But Y Persevering?
My wife and I watched all of WandaVision, whose series finale was this week. I’ll just say that it was typical Marvel, in that it had lots of misdirection, threads that went nowhere, odd plot choices, and fantastic acting and special effects.
The most memorable line in the entire series came during episode eight, when Vision is comforting Wanda about the loss of so many people near and dear to her.
It’s a great line. But this is 2021, and virtually anything can become a meme on the internet. That line led to a few imaginative tweets:
I wanted to make a joke similar to “what is that meme, but a way to force us to learn to spell persevering,” but I couldn’t quite come up with the right phrasing. Maybe I missed my moment. I guess I should have persevere — never mind.
As a reminder, you can see all my upcoming training courses on the O’Reilly Learning Platform here and all the upcoming NFJS Virtual Workshops here.
Last week:
No training classes.
Lots of writing on Help Your Boss Help You.
More laser eye stuff, but while it cost me all day Friday, the experience was manageable enough.
Hey, I got my first (Pfizer) vaccination!
This week:
Managing Your Manager, on the O’Reilly Learning Platform. My book is going to miss being available for this class by a matter of days. Sigh.
What’s New In Java, same. The newest Java version, Java 16, comes out on March 16 (what an amazing coincidence), but I can talk about a lot of what’s in it now.
Happy birthday to me on March 12 🎂. To celebrate, my wife is getting her first vaccination that day.
