Dual Differentiation Design

I did this design for a small insurance company but all company-identifiable information is removed from the diagrams. The Dual Differentiation Model uses two abstract factories to create a matrix of differentiated functions. The first factory supplies differentiated business objects or "state". The second factory supplies differentiated services, processes which manipulate the business objects. This design has high flexibility with only two points of control. Well, three if you count the security Aspects.

Assumptions - Business objects have shared functionality of 90%+ and processes are 90%+ similiar. If differentiation for objects or process was more than 20%, I'd re-think this design. It's more complex than most of my previous designs but far more powerful. The original goal was a structure to accomodate the on-going discovery of unknown and new business rules. In retrospect, I believe the trade-off of complexity for flexibility is positive.

I used aspects for the security and logging which worked well. The aspects use the Data Access Object to enforce Read/Write/Create/Delete access on each table so the class structure isn't degraded with extraneous code and the aspect code is simple, easy to maintain. A few security exception cases (2 or 3% of requirements) didn't fit well into the aspect security model because they required selective access to groups of elements in lists, or created large result sets. The database is normalized with a 1:1 mapping of table to business object and an associated extended attributes table to support subclassing of each business object. The Business Process Model executes sequences of abstract service signatures which the Web Service Registry resolves to concrete services.

Two points of central control means a finite number of test cases. It would be easy to code recursive unit tests for all combinations of business objects against all possible business process. Okay, it wouldn't be an absolutely exhaustive test but it would probably catch over 50% of all functional bugs with little testing effort.

This application runs in a company-wide protocol adapter pattern. Incoming data is translated into a standard internal format (usually a superset of an existing industry standard) and later exported back into external formats. Essentially, the ETL layer of web services returns translated business domain objects which are used with the standard application web services.

I may code a small web-based example of this design and host it for demonstration purposes.

Flatline

Calculated Risk has made fairly accurate predictions during this Housing Crash. His latest entry about demographics suggests that the crash will deepen for two more years, after which the general real estate market will flatline for several years. There may be a small rebound in two years but I doubt it will be sustained or significant.

I doubt if most citizens grasp the cold logic of this prediction due to persistent conditioning that "real estate always goes up". Well, it didn't go up in Japan from 1990 to 2005, fifteen years of successive declines. A long-term flatline in real estate has major implications for the general economy and tax income for Federal & State governments, which translates directly into pension, social security and medicare payments.

The State Of The Art

Sometimes I do interviews with technicians masquarading as architects, such as this recent interview question - "Name the most important aspects of software". Me being me, I replied that Design Patterns were more important than language, syntax or operating system. My interrogator scoffed, "Well, if you really understand the fundamentals of data encapsulation, you don't need design patterns". And it slowly dawned on me that the interview was more about a young man's ego than about my fit for a job.

Meatloaf and hot chocolate at Hector's in Kirkland and as I often do, I'm wondering why restaurants run so much better than IT shops. Well-run restaurants don't cater to employee ego because managers know the true value of their employees. IT shops, OTOH, often cater to Prima Donna anti-pattern, sometimes because of mangerial ignorance, sometimes because of the mismatch of skill levels and sometimes for legacy reasons.

Restaurants don't do it. At least, not as often. Perhaps I should liken higher-level IT positions to chefs and do an investigation.

Abstractions, concepts, evaluations and direction are more important than software APIs. Differentiation, transaction costs, design patterns, environment, resources, quantifying value and price of information, the half-life of information, inter-system impedance, inter-organizational impedance... these are the important things that very few people have defined, extrapolated and applied to Information Technology.

The Dom-Unique series is my first stab at re-ordering elements and concepts into an organic methodology, although I doubt if anyone can see that.

Many people have chipped away at my faith but a few people have restored it. George has taken an enormous personal hit in his life and career but he bears his cross far better than I do. I stayed at his condo in Ft. Lauderdale for several days, he sincerely wanted to me stay longer and just being there, with him, talking our common background and experiences meant a lot.

Marri's been a help. Insightful. She's flawed in a strange way, but she's very perceptive. I wish I could determine if she is Dominique's mentor, or perhaps she is Dominique's employer. She may even be Dominique, and the woman I believe to be Dominique is only a figurehead? Clearly they know each other. Clearly they converse about me. And clearly I am dealing with two separate women, I realize that now. But why? Why so many unfinished references and hints and comments? Why such disjointed conversations? But they're still welcome, she piques my interest and reassures me that some level of perception and thought endure.

Off to play pool.

Riots

I don't know the timeline but the odds are good that riots will break out in major cities. The Housing Crash, accelerating again, may bottom in 2009. The Rodney King riots occurred about 1/2 into the 1991-1995 crash. My best guess is that riots will be most likely around the summer of 2008, with summer 2009 my next best guess.

There will probably be a significant rise in suicides over the next three years.
The murder rate may rise in tandem with suicides.

We've entered the The Set Of the Pivot Point, the period prior to the projected Pivot Point years of 2009-2012 when small changes can magnify into major trends during the Pivot Point. If a person, a group, an organization, wanted to effect social change, now is the time to seed the memes.

Things I know - The Anarchocapitalists are wrong. Their arguments appear rational but their flaw is Ego. The Free Marketeers are wrong. The current boom is based more on temporary cost differentials and monetary manipulations than "comparative advantage" from globalism. In general, altruistic systems beat selfish systems. In certain environments, sub-optimum systems can seem superior for periods of time.

Things I suspect - The real price of real estate has to fall. At a macro level, the price of information has peaked which means that IT-related companies have peaked. The dollar will wane as its influence falls everywhere but in North America. The Age Of Infinite Paper will end and the surviving paper will be backed by precious metals or a market basket of weighted commodities. Food and energy prices will rise faster than inflation while real estate, bonds and durable good prices will trail inflation.

Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold
It's always summer, I'll never get cold
I'll never get hungry, I'll never get old and gray
I can see the shadows wandering off somewhere
I won't make it home

But...
I really don't care.

Disinterested Third Parties

I have strange traffic today. New IPs from Lacey, WA and Bellevue, WA, both on the RSS feed. Somebody, probably around Denver International Airport, took an unusual interest in Dom-Unique, among other oddities.

Information has value, I think that's a well-established fact. But the lack of information can have value, too. In court, you may face trial by a "jury of your peers", people with similar contextual information and alignment, but there's also a premium on "unbiased" jurors.

Consider the rating agencies like Moody's or Standard & Poor. They traffic in information, yet it's a special, sterilized information. The societal value in "disinterested third parties" who make impartial judgements is a unique feature of American society. In this Information Age, shouldn't it be possible to quantify that value? The U.S. dollar is still the world's reserve currency because of trust and belief in impartial actors within our government. That trust may be misplaced but momentum remains, despite our subprime mortgage poisoning of the world banking system.

What if we could measure the net value of impartial action? I could probably model it at a small scale using altruism as a substitute and generate rough numbers. And that small model could probably be extrapolated to a national scale.

A future project that's been floating around my mind. I'm fairly sure it's possible but I need an epiphany to move it forward.

Green

I have green urine, listed as possible symptom of the antibiotic Metronidazole.
I feel weak today, but better.

Marri gave me another insight this week.
She said, "I thought it was ego but now I think you're just compelled to tell the truth".

Compelled to tell the truth.
Yes, to a greater extent than most.

And what is my great epiphany today? That I need to write up "abstract design principles". For instance, I'd like to define a quantitative vocabulary for general principles. Variability. What exactly is variability? Differentiation can be viewed as a sub-class of variability. It's an important concept in design that no one talks about it much. The fad for memorizing temporary software APIs is maddening and I rarely interview with anyone that understands abstract concepts of design, despite various titles like "architect".

Variability has at least two dimensions - variance in amplitude, variance over time. Differentiation is a structured variance. Variance with explicit purpose which I can measure in amplitude; class hierarchy and subclass depth in software, for instance.

But my real epiphany today was about variability. If variability is constrained at the lowest level of design, at the foundation, then small changes are leveraged into greater control of variability in rest of the structure. For the past few years, I find myself pushing more control into database structures and less into code. This is why. Controlling variance at the database foundation produces (or can produce) more predictable and less complex software overall because complexity is multiplicative. But our imagination tends to be additive, which underestimates final complexity.

It's a variation of Nate's Mythical Man Month Methodology.
Constrain variability at the bottom and top of the structure and impedance-match the team size and toolset to the project scope.

I've decided what I want to be when I grow up.
A rival to Christopher Alexander!

Variety

I waffled between the chicken tortilla soup and the beef bourguignonne. Beef won. And as I ate, I wondered why we seek variety. The easy answer is "variety is the spice of life!" but that doesn't answer "why?".

Beef bourguignonne, beef stew, yankee pot roast, steak and potatoes, shephard's pie.

Why do we create complexity?
Why do we seek to create variety?
Why do we combine the same elements with minor variations, over and over again?

I suppose a biologist would say that it's encoded in our genes, that complex life conquers diverse environments and changing conditions through biodiversity, a bell curve distribution of genetic heteroeneity. And that makes sense at a macro-level, at the gestaltic level beyond our individual desires. But why do we seek variety in food, or sex, or work?

There's wheat bread, or breadsticks, croissants, crackers, pie shells, doughnuts, hundreds of doughnut styles, Krispy Kremes. Why? For many years I was perfectly happy to eat a McDonald's quarter pounder, night after night. To work day after day. To play Xevious hour after hour. My appreciation (or perhaps my need!) for variety was low.

Now it is high.

Why?

Will I know before I die?

And now for a slice of... apple pie.

Intelligence, Perception & Effort

Intelligence, Perception & Effort can sometimes masquarade as each other, the primary difference being that intelligence is static, experience can change perception and effort is most malleable of all.

I increasingly view Ego as an alchemic chameleon, a hidden but universal influence which masquarades as many other entities. How would you detect it? Well, how would I detect intelligence, perception or effort? By testing along the axis of their greatest difference... by how they yield to time and will.

The Paper Mirage of "Global Finance" and "central banking" has developed interesting cracks in the past few weeks, as I suspected it would. Short-term rates continue rising. Paper, money and value can sometimes masquarade as each other. How could you detect the difference? Knowing the difference could be valuable but seeing past today's imposed globalist mindset requires perception, and possibly intelligence and effort as well. The era of Paper is drawing to a close. Institutions tied to paper will follow the trendline in proportion to their dependence.

There's value in my Dom-Unique series. I should get back to it, expand it, finish it. And I should work at parsing out the various manifestations of Ego in the Free Marketeer mentality. The Buddhists may have a valid argument.

Coincidences

Yesterday was my sister's birthday.
She died on Sept 12, 1991.

She was diagnosed with spinal cancer in 1985 and she's the main reason that I went back to college. I promised God that I'd set my life straight if he let her live and he did for six more years. Luckily I'm not religiouis, ho ho but I completed my first degree in 1989 with a 3.9 GPA anyway. We shared an apartment in Reseda, CA. for over year while I worked third-shift at Teradyne and attended college during the day and she finished her bachelor's degree to start student teaching.

Staying in Los Angeles for an additional year was one of my better life decisions and I never regretted that extra year with her.

What a strange night it was.
The drive back from Portland.
The pool games.
The Kirkland police.
And the unexpected appearance of the Monsignor at the Central.

I don't believe much in coincidence these days.
Wheels within wheels?
I am exactly what I appear to be, a quasi-sentient bull in the social china shop.
It's just my nature to break stuff.

I really do believe that I love her.
It's not about anything else.

Portland Redux

In Portland again and it's more crowded than it was in 2004. Rock Bottom is packed. To be average is to be boring. To be exceptional is to be flawed. Many pretty girls here and I use the term "girls" purposely. Gad, why can't I connect with anyone? It's like viewing art which is technically proficient but lifeless.

Where.
Is.
The.
Emotional.
Draw?

Why do you PT Girls / Onhangers still come around here? What on earth do you think you'll get out of my site? Is it just curiosity? Yes, you. The Citigroup login. The lawyer's office in Seattle. Whoever that is in Ohio. The Google Viewer subscribers. And the untraceable AOL logins, of course.

What clues are here? Did SHE call me? I can't tell if it's HER but I know whoever calls me is familiar to Dominique; so many items align with her in conversation but then so many don't. It's perplexing but I suspect that it's meant to be. Today she said, "I have so many things unfinished. I know that YOU know that feeling, too".

Twice she's mentioned that she'd like to beat me.
I'd prefer a whip.
So quit trying to beat me and BEAT ME already!

What IS it with the irrational freakage?
I just don't get it.

What do I want to do most that I haven't? Well, I'd like to surpass my previous success with the ASPEN project. I've been trying for ten years and I sort of matched it at Saleslogix if you balance out notoriety, money and geographical distribution.

What else? Sex. I'd really like to have some satisfying sex before I die. Seems increasingly unlikely, though, unless I hire prostitutes but I hate spending money.

I know what I'd like... I'd like to find a group of people who think like I do. Or at least appreciate me for who I am. Hah, even more unlikely than good sex, yes?! The Malaise lives on, now entering its fourth year.

Just In Case

I decided I should write up thoughts for The Post-Mortem. I don't feel right. Maybe it's a virus. Maybe it's stress. My life has been exceptionally stressful for the past four years. Perhaps I'll be okay, perhaps not. At the least, I think the world owes me a peaceful death because I worked too hard, I was too conscientious and I didn't get a reasonable return on my time and effort. I find Americans increasingly ignorant, arrogant and intrinsically dishonest, although they deceive themselves well. I often wonder if I was like that. Perhaps I am now and I also deceive myself?

A great thing about my parents was their ethical consistentcy. They didn't weigh the costs and benefits of their actions, they did what they thought was right, despite the effort and cost.

In Miami I stayed briefly with a fellow like me. George is my age, with a similar background, similar experiences and it was a relief to find someone who could confirm my suspicions that things are very wrong in this culture. It wasn't like this twenty years ago. The younger generations are too cold and calculating, too quick to deceive, with too much focus on money and not enough introspection on self or group.

Perhaps it's a consequence of the current credit cycle combined with fanatical worship of "free market" mentality. Unlike previous generations (so far), the Federal Reserve has managed to sustain this cycle past its natural endpoint.

What else do I want on my tombstone? My brother is a suprisingly good father to his kids. I might be dead right now if it wasn't for my parents and him. I was always kinked, never sexually molested (although I'd sure dig on it right now). The United States was a great country which is in the process of going sour. Most non-Americans can see it, most Americans can't.

I wish I had fallen in love once. I thought I did a couple of times but I'm sceptical about it now. I thought about dissing a few duplicitious bumpkins by name but I discovered that I don't care enough. My dad was exceptional in most ways, I was lucky to have him. My mom did her best, she raised us to be extremely conscientious, hard-working, fair and honest but today's Americans abhor honesty and gorge on envy. Plus she adopted two bad apples that weren't her fault, one died and one went criminal.

What else do I want to do? I've travelled quite a bit but travel within the US doesn't excite me. I'd do an overseas gig if I could, that might be worthwhile. I'd like to see Australia, perhaps South Africa, maybe some of South America and I often thought of permanent expatriation to Costa Rica, Austalia or Argentina. If it becomes possible, I'll probably do it.

I'd like more sex but I don't want involvement. Or, I do want involvement but of a certain type, not this weird haphazard come-n-go, guilty, short-term involvement that passes for romance today. I wish I could solve the on-going mystery of the Poison Temple girls, their irrational reactions & games, why they interest me so much, why they keep drawing me back in with strange games. I wish I understood This Thing. I can't make heads of tails of it. Why? Why the hidden messages? Why the freakage? And now the latest wrinkle of HER calling ME. Why? I now know that Dominique is a fiction, I did a background check on her name. Is she a composite identity of several women?

I just don't get it.

Good things about the current era - ATM machines, cell phones that keep accurate time.

Maybe I'll die in my sleep.
I can think of worse things.

There She Goes

There she goes
There she goes again
Racing through my brain
And I just can't contain
This feeling that remains"

- from I Married An Ax Murderer

I'm in Vegas.

She Called Me

She called me. We've been talking for several months but she was someone else. Something changed. For some reason she felt the need to drop hints, to escalate obviousness until I finally twigged that it was HER.

She suggested a meeting with her friend; a blonde, movie producer in Hollywood with some emotional issues. My mind blanched and my self talked to me -

"What?"
"What did she just say?"
"That's... that's a description of... HER"
"Is this a coincidence?"
"Does they know each other?"

I blinked twice, my mind did a rollback and replayed the conversation a few more times. She kept talking and as her clues grew easier, my disbelief grew faster. She was a cobra hypnotizing her prey and I couldn't think, I couldn't react properly.

Why is it like this? This is new situation for me. I feel like I'm stuck to flypaper, I can't move forward, I can't escape and I can't be sure how much is my imagination. And of what is real, I can't be sure how much is from her or from me.

I understand bits and pieces.
Parts of her heart, pieces of my motivation.
But I don't understand the situation, how it happened, why it continues, how to solve it or what I should do.

King Charles Cavalier Spaniel

My brother has a new puppy, a King Charles Cavalier spaniel, four months old. He's hilarious. He runs up to me, The Newest Thing in his world, splays his paws out and watches me intently. If I step forward, he hops sidewise and back. If I step back, he jumps forward, cocking his head from left and right, barking once or twice, short and sharp.

Now he wants to play tug-of-war with a short rope.

I haven't seen a puppy in ages.

Bellevue is covered with sky cranes, the manager at The Parlor claims there's sixteen new buildings going up. Shocking. But the Central hasn't changed.

And my newest revelation, sparked by this post and this post is that static, tiered economies create associated sets of morality. Systems of economic mobility tend to create a singular morality which is encompassing and less self-serving for its proponents.

Etta's

I like Seattle, sitting downtown on the waterfront. It's cool and calm and green, blue waves with whitecaps and an astonishing variety of people milling around Pike's Market.

This city brings me back to life.
It's large enough to be interesting.
It's small enough to be livable.
Many of the residents are educated and interesting, and some of them are even human as opposed to two-dimensional teevee-based caricatures.

People weren't designed to live in deserts.