Desperately seeking a decent battery caddy

I want a battery caddy. I know initially it seems like a bizarre thing to want, or maybe it is difficult to even determine what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks I’m talking about.

I have several items in my office that take AA or AAA batteries (for example, my Wireless Keyboard, Magic Trackpad and QC15s).

When one of the devices gets a low battery, I run scrambling for fresh batteries. Sometimes I end up with batteries that were charged long ago, and they either don’t work out of the gate or they last for a very short period of time. So I start charging them again while I grab more. On multiple occasions it’s taken me several tries before I have success, and then the noise of chargers running around me is unsettling.

Yes this is partly due to my own inability to organize “stuff” – and in fact I do have a Tupperware container where I keep freshly charged batteries. But this system has a weakness: there is no inherent organization; it is just a pile. Every time I grab batteries out of there, I may be grabbing the newest batteries I’ve charged, and the ones that have been waiting the longest to be re-used get to stay idle once again. I am sure I am burning out one set of batteries and completely wasting several other sets. While I am careful to only pair identical batteries together (I use both Rayovac Hybrids and Energizers of various mAh ratings, depending on when/where purchased), I do not keep track of which batteries were charged more recently than others.

Here is where a battery caddy would come in handy (well, two, but I’ll start with just one for AAs). It would function like a paper towel dispenser – you fill it up from the top, and the towels you put in first come out first, while the “newest” towels come out last. See, I knew I’d have some opportunity to use the concept of First-In First-Out FIFO)!

From http://www.flickr.com/photos/maisonbisson/3066135678/

So now imagine a container with similar functionality but the width of a battery. Ideally it would hold about 20-24 batteries (I’d produce a diagram but my Photoshop-fu is weak today). When I charge my first set of batteries, I slide them into the top and they drop to the bottom, ready to be used. I charge another set, and they go to the top, but won’t be used next. No more round-robin battery selection; three cheers for FIFO!

I’ve searched around but I can’t find anything like this. If you know of anything, please let me know! It’s not a huge deal, but it is a minor annoyance for which I have to think there should be a better solution. If you don’t know of anything, but would find such a thing useful, you can let me know that too. If I find something (or just create it myself), I’ll let you know!

Some help for Melody

One of my best friends, going back to grade school, was dealt a really big blow last week: his daughter Melody, who will turn 3 in May, was diagnosed with Leukemia (A.L.L.). Here are a couple of shots of Melody (and Jonathan) when we visited them over the Christmas break:

They are with her now at CHEO in Ottawa, staying at a Ronald McDonald house almost 4 hours from home, helping Melody go through chemotherapy and many other procedures and tests. A plea went out on facebook to help them out, and I wanted to try to help spread it a little further. If you’re on facebook, you can see the story here after logging in:

http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10151188536190454&id=752000453

I’ll repeat the information here for those not on facebook:

A message for Krista, Jon and Melody’s friends and family:

Like us, we imagine that the Shakell/Corbett family has been often on your mind as Melody undergoes treatment for leukemia at CHEO. Like us, we imagine that many of you are wondering what you can do to help support Krista, Jon and Melody. We know from our own experiences and those of friends, that staying at a hospital away from home with your child gets very expensive. There are fees for parking, meals, incidentals, etc., as well as the anticipated costs of lost income and travel.

With the family’s permission, we are posting here to suggest a virtual fundraiser where we would each make a donation of ever helpful cash to Krista and Jon. By doing this, we will each get to help in a small way, at a time when we all wish we could help so much.

It’s easy to send money online or via your smartphone. All you need is an email address (krista.m.corbett@gmail.com). You can use either an e-money transfer via your bank when logged into your accounts online, or you can send money via PayPal. PayPal is free and it’s easy to set up an account. For either method, Krista will get an email with instructions as to how to access the money you have sent.

We are each going to donate $25 directly to the family today, and hope you will consider doing the same.

Please “share” this post to help spread the word throughout Krista and Jon’s networks of many caring friends, including those who may not yet know about Melody’s illness.

Thank you,
Kate Rogers and Erin Rogers (friends of Krista)

We hope that you will find a way to give a little toward this family facing some really tough times. No amount is too small. If you’re not comfortable with the e-money transfer or with PayPal, we will be more than happy to collect paper checks and make sure they get to the family on your behalf. Or, if you want their mailing address, just let me know at aaron.bertrand@gmail.com.

The most interesting game of Words With Friends I’ve ever played

On New Years’ Day, Tim Ford (@sqlagentman) and I started a game of Words With Friends. The game started out innocently enough – I played ALTER. And then I thought, why not make this more fun? I consulted Tim and said, hey, let’s restrict ourselves to T-SQL keywords. (Those of you not from my SQL Server circles are probably shouting, “Nerd alert!” I won’t be offended if you move on.)

The rules were pretty simple:

1. Each word played must be a T-SQL keyword, DDL command, or a SQL Server-related concept.
2. “Side effect” words are ok, as long as at least one of the words fits (1).
3. Once a word fitting (1) is played, it can’t be changed to a non-key word. For example, USE could be changed to USER, but not to FUSE.

Tim was on board (no pun intended), and played SEED (as in IDENTITY). I played TEXT, and he played BIDS (probably about the only really questionable one all game, which expanded rule (1) to include concepts). Overall the following words were played, in no particular order:

SQL-related words					“Side effect” words
ALTER SEED TEXT BIDS READ GROW GO NEW NEW	LOB REAL HEAP FOR IF IF LIKE DO BY	OUT OR TOP TOP OUT TIME AS USE USER	TO INTO IS IS END NO SET IN OR		ED GEN OH LIS BED RE JAPE	AM RITZ IT ID QUEENS HI HE

That’s a pretty good ratio, I think. I might have missed some, and I certainly can’t recall all of the cases where IN became INTO, etc.

Tim kicked my ass, by a large margin. I also think it was my worst WWF score ever. The clear separation came when he played JAPE on a triple word score (the actual SQL-related word played was TOP). That one hurt. Shortly after, he played RITZ off of USE to make USER. Burned again.

Anyway, without further blabbering and nerdiness, here is the board at the end of the game. Click for iPad size:

So, the next time you’re playing Words With Friends against a fellow member of your #sqlfamily, think about playing with SQL keywords only (and feel free to make it more or less strict than Tim & I have).

Ok, off to start a second such game with Tim…

My first blog posts

Today, Denis Gobo (@DenisGobo) tagged me in Meme Monday. The topic: what is the first blog post you wrote, and when did you write it?

I have two answers.

 

My first personal blog post

I started blogging at aaronbertrand.com on October 27, 2002. My first post was just a basic intro, describing what I planned to do on the site – belittle people and share photos.

2002-10-27

This is my grandmother, who passed away in February.

She is, and will always be, missed quite dearly. This picture was taken at about 5:30 PM in 1997: the year I squeaked by with a degree, and moved from Ontario to Rhode Island. My only regret is not visiting more often while she was still with us, or that I was in such a rush to leave Canada in the first place.

I apologize. There are happier pictures to the left, kids. Some pages have captions, some don’t. It’s been hell enough to finally put all of these online; if you can’t figure out why a picture is funny, that the structure it depicts is the CN Tower, or what shade of orange that particular sunset is dominated by, I don’t think a caption would help you too much anyway.

In addition, I’m really sorry if you use a small monitor and can’t see all of the captions on larger pages but, well, I didn’t choose your monitor; you did. And if you use Netscape or some other piece of crap and have problems with these pages, well, I didn’t choose your browser, either.

I may get around to publishing rants here at some point. Occasionally I say some funny things, or so I’m led to believe, and if I can add a bit of humor to your day (because I know I’ve had days like the one you’re having), I’m more than willing to do so. Usually these will be about driving experiences and run-ins with incredibly stupid or shallow people. I’d love to write about the fabulous interactions I have at work some days; however, some of my co-workers know of this site, and if word got around what I think of John or Jane Doe…

In any case, stay tuned. I’m not going to promise you a delivery date, but at the very least, you can come back every once in a while and browse the photographs.

I like to think that I’ve mellowed out a little bit since then, and I did continue sharing photos there until mid-2008 – after which I found that facebook was much easier. Unfortunately, I don’t have a straightforward way to re-publish all of the photos in a new location, but you can still get to them via this page.

 

My first sqlblog.com blog post

I was invited to participate on the sqlblog.com site at the end of 2006. This was shortly after I had sold aspfaq.com, where I didn’t blog about SQL Server per se, but I did write a lot of answers to frequently asked questions. The original intro blog post is here, but I will reproduce below for completeness:

Leaving aspfaq behind

You may or may not know that I was the primary author over at http://www.aspfaq.com/. Earlier in 2006, I allowed another entity to take on the web site and incorporate it into their grander scheme of IT resource sites. Unfortunately, their transition has been a little slower than I expected.

I did manage to post a couple of articles in September:

http://sqlserver2005.databases.aspfaq.com/how-do-i-mimic-sp-who2.html
How do I mimic sp_who2 with SQL Server 2005′s new dynamic management views?

http://sqlserver2005.databases.aspfaq.com/better-sp-who2.html
Can I create a more robust and flexible version of sp_who2 using SQL Server 2005′s DMVs?

But their content management system has either been broken or off-limits at various times since then. I have sent them bug reports and minor updates to several articles, but so far, these have been low on the list. I want to ensure that you all understand that I have faith in the new owners, and that they will pick up the slack once they get all their content management systems aligned.

In the meantime, I will be posting topics of interest to me here, as well as addendums to articles over at aspfaq. I have promised them that I will continue to promote the site and publish content, so don’t be surprised if something you see here suddenly becomes an article over there.

My first post with any substance will follow shortly; I have kept a running log of SQL 2000 and SQL 2005 builds and hotfixes that have been released since about mid-September.

As of today I have written 496 blog posts on sqlblog.com. I had no idea I was about to reach a significant milestone; I’ll have to do something special for post #500.

A few unrelated updates…

Kirby at 80%

Last month, I talked about Kirby’s car accident and initial recovery – I am happy to report that Kirby is doing very well, and is returning to a lot of his old ways. He’s been taking stairs almost as quickly as before, has been doing his head tilts more often, and is generally more alive. This morning he even crawled under the bed, something he hasn’t done since before the accident. We recently “handed down” a duvet for Kirby & Quigley to use on top of their doggy beds. A couple of shots:

 

Dell redeems themselves, a little

Last week, I talked about my horror story with Dell – they shipped me a dud, then refused to accept it as a return because I had it for longer than 21 days. After disputing the charges with my credit card and complaining to the Texas Better Business Bureau (mostly about going back on what they promised me the day I called support), Dell has reluctantly agreed to accept the computer as a return and process my refund. So, just a little advice – if you find yourself in a tough spot with Dell, you just need to play a little hardball. They rely on the fact that most people *won’t* fight back and will instead just accept that they are stuck with their computer. I can tell you that I would have had a lot of fun abusing their support policies if I had been forced to keep that doorstop. My mom is quite happy with her Mac, and I am confident that it will last her longer than the Dell would have – even if it wasn’t DOA. So if you’re thinking about a new computer, please think twice about a Dell desktop or laptop, and if you need any help convincing yourself to go Mac, feel free to contact me.

 

NHLPA kills realignment

And at the beginning of December, I talked about the proposed NHL realignment – which I thought was a done deal. The official statement from the NHLPA is, in technical terms, a smelly pile of crap. His two main reasons are:

• it may lead to more cumbersome travel for some teams
• playoffs are imbalanced because of different sized divisions

I just threw up in my mouth a little.

On the first point. These guys are making millions of dollars to play a sport two or three times a week, and a slightly different travel schedule is going to be noticeable? It’s not like they’re flying JetBlue, going through TSA, and paying baggage fees. Let’s say it means at the high end that a player spends 10 more hours on a charter jet over the course of a season. This really qualifies as undue hardship and unfair working conditions? I do not envy them – having done my fair share of travel over the past year and a half, I am not denying that travel is hard on these guys. But Bill Daly stresses that while there may be some teams today that have an easy schedule and would travel slightly more under realignment, most teams would actually travel less. Perhaps the NHL board should have worked harder to provide a sample schedule – hell, I could probably figure out how to do that. But the NHLPA should have reserved the right to reject the schedule, not the entire realignment concept, if it *did* in fact turn out to mean harder travel for the average player once an actual schedule was determined. Instead they threw out the baby, the bath water, and the entire house.

And on the second point. To a degree I understand – 6 divisions of 5 teams each means that every team has an equal opportunity to win *their division.* But should we really be fighting about whether the 5th-place team in a 7- or 8-team division should have a better chance of reaching the post-season? Shouldn’t we be more focused on bringing the best teams into the playoffs, than coddling the worst teams and finding a way to sneak them in? One of the things I hate most about the current playoff formats is that the conferences still make it unbalanced and there is plenty of inequity today. A team in the Western Conference might make the playoffs with 80 points while a team in the Eastern Conference doesn’t make it even though they had 90 points. And while it hasn’t happened, you *could* have a situation where the winner of a division finished with less points than the 8th-place team in their conference. How craptacular would that be? I like the proposed format better, but what I would really like to see is that playoff seeding is judged based on overall league performance. I shouldn’t be seeded 3rd because I won my crappy division but finished in 6th or 7th place in the conference. Fehr says that the new playoff format would be inequitable but I think there is already plenty of inequity today – this would by no means be worse, it would just be different.

It’s funny that Fehr makes statements about “drawbacks” that are quite ambiguous and could be argued both ways, but completely ignores touching on things that make realignment so plausible. The two that stand out to me:

• Every team would play every team at least once in each other’s building. This season the Stanley Cup Final re-match only occurs once, in Boston. That game happens to be going on right now. So Vancouver fans don’t get to see the Stanley Cup Champions this season. Which is probably better for the city in the event that they lost the game, but that’s a different story. There are plenty of other cases – for example, some teams won’t see Sidney Crosby OR Alex Ovechkin this year. And that’s a real shame for fans of the NHL that are interested in more than just seeing their own team on skates.

• Teams like Detroit would play more games in their own time zone, which means they would have a better impact on their fan base. Since they are in the Western Conference, most of their games are against Western Conference teams, almost all of which are in the Pacific time zone. Detroit is in the Eastern time zone, which means 7:30 away games actually start at 10:30 local time. How many kids today do you think get to watch an average Red Wings away game?

I could probably talk about this all day. But there’s a great match-up on TV right now that, because of the current haphazard alignment and schedule, will only happen once this year.

A sad case of poor customer support

In November we bought a Dell for my mother, against my better judgment. The computer was a Christmas gift, and we ordered it in November to be sure I had it before I drove home for the holidays. It was ordered on November 17th, and it arrived at my house late on November 30th.

On Christmas Day, we plugged the computer in and pressed the power button. Nothing. Tried different power cords, a different outlet, even a different room, and still nothing. A green light on the back of the computer came on while plugged in, but the rest of the computer would not turn on.

So, during Christmas dinner, I found myself on the phone with Dell’s support department, who – after an hour of tech support questions for the brain dead (are you sure the computer is plugged in? are you really sure?) – told me they would need to send someone on-site to replace the power supply and motherboard. I guess this happens a lot. However, because of the remote location, it wouldn’t be until long after I had returned home. I wanted to be there when it was “fixed” so I asked if there were any other options; their reply: well, you can call this 1-800 number to return it, but they’re not open today.

Based on this information, the day after Christmas, I went and bought my mom a Mac mini. Amazingly, when I turned it on, it worked!

I called Dell today to arrange for a return of their D.O.A. computer, and they said sorry, regardless of what tech support told you on the 25th, you’re S.O.L. because you’re outside of the 21-day return window. Seriously? You shipped me a computer that didn’t work, and now you won’t take it back?

While yes, I am outside the 21-day window, they need to honor what their support department told me on Christmas Day. Who made no mention, by the way, of the 21-day policy (which, I believe them, is buried 20 pages deep into the terms & conditions screen, in 4-point font). They also need to at least make an effort to understand the circumstances: I wasn’t using the computer for 25 days and suddenly it crapped out; I pulled it out of the box and it wouldn’t turn on. The return policy should start the moment I open the box, not the moment they take my money.

I’ve complained to the Texas BBB and have also filed a dispute with my credit card company.

If neither of those avenues work, I will be making very extensive use of the extended support I bought. Once they replace the power supply and motherboard (and whatever else is required to make this P.O.S. work), every other day I’ll insist that it won’t turn on. When the tech arrives I’ll conveniently mention that I unplugged the power supply or forgot to plug the computer in or removed the RAM. Maybe eventually they’ll realize that they should have refunded my money in the first place.

More importantly, I will never, ever, ever buy a Dell again. And as far and wide as I can stretch, I will never let anyone I know buy a Dell either. I should have known better, as the three previous Dell desktops I’ve owned lasted less than a year. Fool me four times, shame on me? Anyway, thanks Dell, way to be a reputable company, standing behind your product and treating your customers so well.

A quick update on Kirby’s progress

Just wanted to give a quick update on Kirby. He came home on Saturday night – much to the delight of Quigley, who had been rather lethargic in his absence. A few pics (click any for slightly larger):

Yes, Quigley still looks kind of lethargic, but I think he understands, to some extent, that Kirby is not well and does not need to be wired for sound. Kirby, too, seems to be starting to understand his limitations. We believe he over-exerted himself the first couple of days and is now giving us better indication that he wants our help eating, going outside, etc.

The 80-90% recovery is a long way off, and I haven’t really slept since he came home; I’ll spare you from the reasons. But this morning, after arguably his roughest night yet, he made his trademark head tilt a few times. If you haven’t seen this, you really need to. I will try to post some video evidence soon. Seeing him display this behavior in his current condition is definitely uplifting.

I want to send out a very heartfelt thanks to everyone who has had Kirby in their thoughts. The outpouring of love and support from friends, family, co-workers and the SQL community (a.k.a. #SQLFamily) has been overwhelming and greatly appreciated! I can only hope that we never have to repay the favor, at least not specifically.

The (abridged) tale of a beagle

Who couldn't love these sad eyes?

Meet Kirby.

Kirby is a 6-year old beagle in the Bertrand home. As a puppy, he was rescued from an abusive home in Tennessee. He’s had some socialization and other personality issues with strangers and certain dog breeds, but anyone who’s met him more than once knows that he is a loving animal and warms up quite quickly.

I finally figured out how to combine YouTube and WordPress. Here is a video of Kirby and Nicole playing the other night (there is another one at the bottom of the post of Kirby dreaming during Monday Night Football). I can’t wait until we have this Kirby back.

After about a year, sensing that he needed some non-human companionship, I procured Kirby a makeshift brother: Quigley, a beagle puppy rescued from Kentucky, who was found abandoned in the woods, no tags, starving to death. For the first good portion of their time together they were okay friends, fighting over food occasionally, normal dog stuff.

Then the trip to New Hampshire happened. Nicole and I rented a house in the mountains, just for a weekend, and brought the dogs. The first morning, I brought the dogs outside with me to do their business. No leashes, just walked right beside them and then walked them back inside. A couple of hours later I was taking a shower, and Nicole decided to do the same thing. They got the scent of something (I said they were beagles, right?) and they were gone. We searched the woods for them until it got dark, at which point we were just as likely to get lost. Never mind freeze to death : at its coldest, the thermometer went to 8°F. Helpless, we hung a couple of our shirts out on the deck, hoping our scent would lure them back (without luring bears or other less desirable animals). I fully believed that the dogs couldn’t have survived the night – either the cold got them, or some animal. At right around the 24 hour mark, my cell phone rang. A local number. I was ecstatic to hear that the person on the other end had one of our dogs in the garage (this turned out to be Quigley), and could see Kirby lurking at a safe distance. (Both of our cell numbers are listed on their collars.) They were in rough shape but alive. On the drive home they were huddled together on the back seat like Siamese twins, which I imagine they must have done for warmth throughout the night. And they’ve been similarly inseparable ever since.

Flash forward to yesterday afternoon. I let the boys out into the yard. As soon as I opened the door, they went absolutely nuts. I looked around to see what was going on, and there was a rafter of wild turkeys just on the other side of the fence. I grabbed my phone to text Nicole, because we had never seen wild turkeys in this neighborhood before. I looked back up, and saw the dogs running on the other side of the fence – in a matter of seconds they had dug their way out and were chasing the turkeys. Note that I have never said our beagles were smart. So, I chased after them, which proved futile after only about 5 minutes. They were gone. I ran back to the house, jumped in the car, and trawled the neighborhood beyond the woods behind us, which is where they usually end up when they’ve broken out of jail. I stopped at the end of the nearest cul-de-sac, killed the engine, and listened. Usually if they’re on the prowl, you can gradually hone in on them because they sound like, well, a pack of hunting beagles. But for good reason, I saw them before I heard them.

Kirby was lying down in a backyard, by some bizarre coincidence not 40 feet from where I had arbitrarily decided to park. I called to him but he didn’t respond. I jumped out of the car and ran over. Quigley was there too, marching laps in a tight circle around his big brother. When I reached them, my heart absolutely sank. Kirby’s face was bloodied, and he seemed unwilling or unable to move. One of his hind legs was curled up under him in a position that could only be described as uncomfortable. I was hesitant to try and move him, but for lack of a dog airlift approaching, I didn’t really have a choice. I bundled him up in my arms and ordered Quigley to follow us. I laid Kirby down in the back seat of the car, ushered Quigley in behind him, and sped to Ocean State Veterinary Hospital in Warwick.

I can’t even come close to describing that drive to you. I’ve driven from North Bay, Ontario (yes, the one near the Arctic Circle) to places as far away as Atlanta, Georgia. At least 3 times a year, I make the 12-hour trek home over a long weekend. But yesterday’s 30-minute drive was easily the longest in my life, even though I took a few liberties with speed that I don’t think I’ve taken in a decade. Kirby was making gut-wrenching noises that I had never heard before, and all I could do was wish that there was something I could do.

I got to the hospital and they took some initial X-Rays. A couple of broken ribs, but otherwise he seemed ok. They asked me what happened, and I said I wasn’t sure, I didn’t see it. We went back and forth about whether he was hit by a car, attacked by the turkeys, attacked by the jerk dog they leave tied up on a chain all day in that other neighborhood, or possibly some combination – since there seemed to be evidence of each. They took some more X-Rays from different angles and raised their estimate of two broken ribs to five. Serious lung trauma, possible pelvic and forearm issues, difficulty breathing, and signs of pain that were obvious to everyone in the hospital. Things were not looking good at all, and I was expecting to have to make the ultimate choice.

I remember quite vividly the few times I’ve cried as an adult. When my grandmother passed away. When Wayne Gretzky retired. And then yesterday. It really is quite amazing how “human” a pet can become, how tightly woven into your life, and how much you can care about an animal that someone else decided deserved to be beaten or abandoned.

As it turns out, barring any complications that may be revealed through further testing (they can’t test thoroughly yet because of the pain), Kirby’s ribs should heal in about 6-8 weeks, and his life should return to relative normalcy. He is under 24/7 hospitalization right now, and I feel much better about his prognosis than I did a mere 16 hours ago. I can’t visit with him until noon, and I feel pretty useless in the meantime. In fact I’m a little worried that Quigley is traumatized by the whole thing, even though he escaped the entire incident unscathed – he seems quite lethargic and perhaps confused that his brother isn’t around.

Don’t worry, Quigley. Kirby is coming home.

UPDATE 2011-12-09 3:10 PM EST

Nicole and I visited Kirby at the hospital at lunch. It’s quite unbearable seeing the pain he’s in, but the doctor is confident that it will subside and that he will have a good chance at a full recovery, so we have to stay positive.

Nicole took a great shot of me trying to comfort him, though there really isn’t a whole lot we can do:

We brought one of my T-shirts to mix in with his bedding. I hope this gives him at least a faint sense of our presence, because even though we can’t be in the hospital with him all day long, our hearts are certainly there with him.

There’s definitely an issue with his left hind leg (though X-Rays are negative), and he hasn’t been able to urinate yet without the catheter (they suspect potential bladder rupture). Though they do admit that some of these things could just be symptoms of the pain caused by the 5 fractured ribs.

Stupid turkeys.

Testing video embedding:

An open letter to my fellow bloggers

Please turn comment moderation off.

A few weeks ago, I left a comment correcting a Microsoft Tech Evangelist’s blog post, where a suggestion was made to unnecessarily expose a surface area of SQL Server. My comment suggested that the surface area didn’t need to be exposed, but it was not published immediately (the blog comments are moderated). I let this go for a few days, then I saw a new comment saying something along the lines of, “Great post, thanks man!” So I e-mailed the author directly, and he admitted that he should fix the suggestion. He did, kind of – I still find it ambiguous. My comment remains unpublished, so readers may still be unintentionally misled into believing that the specific surface area needs to be exposed to take advantage of the other technology he was evangelizing.

On Sunday I left a comment on another Microsoft blog, and it has yet to appear. This one is a lot more benign, but the point is the same – if the blogger is too busy to moderate comments, why is there a comments feature at all? How many comments are sitting in this person’s “approve” queue? An issue with blog posts is they get stale very fast. If a reader has a relevant point to make, and you don’t publish the comment until a week later, what good is it? Most of your readers are not checking back day after day to see if anyone has left a comment. I’m not sure about your RSS reader but I have enough in the unread queue that I’m not spending a lot of time doting over 0ld items.

Moderation kind of goes against the point of allowing comments on your blog in the first place. So why do people moderate?

1. SPAM
   Let’s be completely honest here – nobody cares about the spam. Do you not trust your readers’ ability to ignore an enticing but obvious link for a fake Rolex or Gucci bag? Besides, your spam filter should be worrying about that, not you. So a few spam comments get through – who cares? So a few hundred spam comments get through – ok, time to get a better spam filter? I know some folks (e.g. @AndyLeonard | blog) are adamant that they will never let links to questionable sites get picked up by spiders and be indirectly linked to their own site. Again that goes back to having a better spam-trap in the first place, but I know some can’t control this. For anyone who can, use Akimset and keep it up to date. Even if some spam comes through and someone clicks on it before you delete it – do you really think the reader is going to blame you?
2. Sensitivity
   I understand that some people are overly sensitive and don’t want to risk their readers seeing a negative or corrective comment. I try to treat blogging like public speaking. You can’t put duct tape over a heckler’s mouth, so why are you doing it to your readers? If someone asks a question and you don’t know the answer, or brings up a point that you disagree with, this is an opportunity for dialog – one of the whole reasons you’re part of the community, right? Maybe another reader has the answer. Maybe another reader wants to hear why you have a different opinion. You don’t necessarily need to be the first responder. We don’t all have to agree, and we don’t all have to be perfect. This is not the Borg.
3. Damage Control
   I suppose there are some cases where you want to prevent competitors or would-be-saboteurs from saying really negative things on your blog. But I think that falls under #2. Haters are going to hate, and you should rely on your readers to be able to distinguish between nonsense and legitimate criticism. If someone is being a real you-know-what, I think deleting the comment after the fact (or better yet masking the dirty words) is still better than moderating – even if they’re doing it anonymously. If they’ve attached a name to it, now you have quasi-permanent evidence of their behavior.
4. Keeping Your Private Business Private
   One colleague I talked to has received offers for work on their blog, and this is the sole reason they moderate. I can understand that. However, there is probably some fault on both sides here – if you are a contractor openly looking for work, your prospective clients should already know a better way to contact you than through a comment on your public blog. And, quite frankly, they should know better.

I’d be interested to hear other reasons for moderating. I know that I have already convinced at least one fellow SQL family member to stop moderating comments, and I’d like to convince you too! I’m not asking you to be on standby 24/7, serving as your readers’ Q & A host. You don’t even have to respond to the questions and comments if you don’t want. I just feel it’s unfair to your readers to suppress comments for days, stifling the conversation and preventing other readers from seeing those comments (even if you’re too busy to read them). Some of you moderate but are still really good about turning it around quickly – however you will be leaving your readers hanging when you take a vacation, get sick, or have a power or ISP outage.

NHL realignment : Hell yes!

I’m very excited about the realignment of the NHL. Let me tell you what has changed, and then I’ll tell you why I think this is going to be good for everyone.

Currently, the NHL is divided up into two conferences of 15 teams each; each conference has three divisions with 5 teams each. Each team plays more games against teams in its own division than against teams outside of the division but in the same conference, and teams in the same conference more than teams in the other conference.

During the regular season, this isn’t so bad – some new rivalries have sprung up that wouldn’t have otherwise if certain teams weren’t suddenly playing each other more often. On the other hand, there are all kinds of issues with travel and time zones. For example, because Atlanta moved to Winnipeg, but are still in the Southeast division of the Eastern Conference, they’re constantly traveling to play east coast teams (and east coast teams are constantly traveling to them). Even worse off are teams like Detroit, who play in the Western Conference but are in the Eastern time zone – this has a dramatic impact on their fans because, since most of their away games are against Western Conference teams, and most Western teams are in Mountain or Pacific time, a good portion of their games start at 10:30 local time. So what ends up happening? Kids can’t watch because they’re in bed, and adults can’t watch because they need to get up in the morning. The same is true in the opposite direction – when the LA Kings are visiting teams like Detroit, game time is 4:30 (or 5:00 in some cases). Fans can’t watch these games either because, well, what time does the average person in LA get home on a weekday? Of course this isn’t completely avoidable unless there are teams you don’t play at all – but the *majority* of your games should be in your own time zone or no more than one time zone away. And finally, there are some match-ups that won’t happen at all. For example, Boston does not play in Vancouver this year, and several other cities won’t see the Stanley Cup Champions either.

To put it visually, here is a map showing the wackiness that is the conference / division geography as it stands today (click for larger):

There are seven teams in the Western Conference that lie east of Winnipeg, which is in the Eastern Conference! I wonder if their fans feel more or less slighted than Detroit about their time zone issues and game start times. At least the commute in Winnipeg is nowhere near as suicidal as it is in SoCal!

Come playoff time, at least since the current conference seeding was established in 1994, each division leader automatically makes the playoffs, then the next best 5 teams in the conference. This means that an entire division could, theoretically, send all 5 of its teams to the playoffs, while the two other divisions in that conference send only three representatives in total (two division leaders and then one other). Similar things have happened in the NFL wildcard in recent years, and it’s a shame to see, let’s say, an 11-5 team in a hard division not make the playoffs, only because, let’s say, an 8-8 team won their crappy division. In the NHL this has meant that instead of the old days, where the Bruins and Canadiens typically meet in the early rounds, the Bruins have played teams like Carolina and Washington. Still good teams, no doubt, but in a lot of cases it makes for less spirited playoffs. At least from this fan’s perspective.

A Realigned NHL

It only took about an hour for the Board of Governors to approve the new conference alignment, and once you dig into it, it is quite clear why there were few, if any, objections. There are now four conferences with either 7 or 8 teams each. Teams will play a large portion of their games against those other 6 or 7 teams. And, like today, they will play fewer games against teams outside of their conference. It is yet to be established whether “out of conference” will apply equally to the other three conferences, or whether they will be split into two western and two eastern conferences.

Geography alone makes this a much more sensible layout. While teams will still travel well out of their time zone at various points in the year, they are aiming for only once in each team’s city in the other conference, and I think twice in each team’s city in the same conference (but outside the division). It’s late here and I don’t have my textbook full of schedule builders’ algorithms, but I’m hoping it will still make sense in an 82- or maybe 84-game season. The fact that every team will play in every other team’s building at least once means more exposure of more superstars to each team’s fan base – this can’t be a bad thing.

Compared to the bizarre geographical layout depicted above, here is what the new breakdown looks like (click for larger):

For the playoffs, the top four teams from each conference will make it. The chance still exists, of course, that a mediocre team in a crappy conference could make the playoffs, while an excellent team in a much more challenging conference does not. But since there are more teams fighting for each set of four spots, it isn’t as likely that an entire conference will be made up of complacent teams. And to be honest, I really don’t see a weak conference here.

I think this is more fair overall – both to the teams in terms of travel time, and to the fans in terms of time zones and game starts. Though some teams are going to find their new division alignment quite challenging – I wonder how hard it will be for the Islanders and Devils to make it out of Conference D, never mind the Leafs in Conference C. I guess we’ll see next season.

What happens after the second round, when each of the four conferences has a champion, is another thing that remains to be seen. I have to think that, based on travel alone, they would lean toward pairing conference A & B together, and C & D together. That late into the playoffs it’s going to be impossible to avoid the time zone problems in at least one of the series.

On the Lighter Side

I really hope they go back to naming the divisions/conferences something meaningful. Atlantic and Southeast are boring even when they are accurate, but they made absolutely no sense when they weren’t. I really miss the Adams, Patrick, Smythe, and Norris divisions, and the Clarence Campbell and Prince of Wales conferences, because they meant something other than finger-pointing on a map. Granted, Wikipedia and others report that conference/division naming based on geography is better for dumb people, and the league is in fact moving back toward regional alignment (the earlier eastern/western division names were removed because they were no longer aligned regionally). That aside, here’s what I suggest:

Conference A
Anaheim, Calgary, Colorado, Edmonton, LA, Phoenix, San Jose, Vancouver

Let’s call this the Gretzky Division. Why? Because most of The Great One’s legendary career was spent here.

Conference B
Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Minnesota, Nashville, St. Louis, Winnipeg

I’m going with the Howe Division here, though Bobby Hull gets a seriously honorable mention.

Conference C
Boston, Buffalo, Florida, Montreal, Ottawa, Tampa Bay, Toronto

This one is easy: the Orr Division. The sentimental part of me wants to nominate the late Tim Horton, and certainly not because I like that chain’s coffee.

Conference D
Carolina, New Jersey, both New York teams, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Washington

Here I’ll have to say it is the Clarke Division. I would go with Lemieux (Mario, not Claude) but I still don’t the NHL is too fond of him for his draft day stunt.

And Even Lighter

The balancing of the conferences leaves me wondering… with only 7 teams in each of the east coast conferences, could there be a strategy to leave room for returning franchises? I would love to see a return of both the Quebec Nordiques and the Hartford Whalers.

Winnipeg is certainly making a good case that hockey has recovered enough to once again support these teams even in small markets. Especially in cities that are missing their former and only major league team across all sports. Even though my heart is with the Bruins, I would love to wear a Mike Liut, Ron Francis or Peter Stastny jersey again.

Conclusion

It’s clear that I see all positives here. But what do you think about the realignment? Would love to hear your thoughts, who your team is, and where you are located.