2024-04-20 Sunday - Next Laptop Candidates

Option #1: 

MSI Titan 18H"
(with most of my wish list configuration options (only missing RAID 1, with 2x 4TB SSD)

• https://www.msi.com/Laptop/Titan-18-HX-A14VX
• https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16834156588 
  
• https://www.amazon.com/MSI-Titan-Computer-i9-14900HX-Thunderbolt/dp/B0CY9RV1J9
•  MSI Titan 18 HX 18" 
• 120Hz 4K 18" UHD mini LED display, 3840 x 2400, HDR 1000, 100% DCI-P3
• Intel Core i9-14900HX 24-Core (8P+16E, 2.20-5.8 GHz, 14th gen HX-series, "Raptor Lake")
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, 16 GB GDDR6
• 128GB DDR5 RAM (32 GB x 4)
• 4 TB (2 TB x 2) NVMe Gen4x4 SSD [KM: Would upgrade to 4 TB x 2, RAID 1]
  
• WiFi 7
• LAN: Killer E3100G
• WLAN: Killer WiFi 7 BE1750
• Bluetooth 5.4
• USB: 3 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
• Card Reader: SD7.0
• Thunderbolt: 2 x Thunderbolt 4 w/ DP (1 also with PD3.1)
  
• HDMI: 1 x HDMI 2.1
• Ethernet: 1 x RJ-45 (2.5Gbps)
• Audio Ports: 1 x Headphone/Microphone Combo Jack 
• Speaker: Sound by Dynaudio, 4x2W Speakers 2W x2W Woofer
• Keyboard: Cherry Mechanical KB SteelSeries per-Key RGB (99 Key)
• Touchpad: Seamless EGB Haptic Touchpad
• Webcam: IR FHD w/shutter 
• Power adapter: 400-watt AC Adapter
•  Battery: 4 cell (99.9Whr) Li-Ion
• Windows 11 Pro 64-bit
  
• 7.93 pounds 
• Dimensions: 15.9 x 12.08 x 1.26 inches
• Strange that it says 15.9
  

 

 

[image source: Amazon.com]

 

Option #2:

EXCaliberPC [2024] MSI Raider 18 HX

• https://www.amazon.com/EXCaliberPC-Raider-18-HX-A14VHG-268US/dp/B0D17YRRSF/
• A14VHG-268 US Pro Extreme 
• Intel Core i9-14900HX
• 128GB DDR5 RAM, 
• Hard Drive: 8TB (2x 4TB) Samsung 990 PRO NVMe SSD (Seq. Read 7450MB/s, Seq. Write 6900MB/s) 
  
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, 
• 18" UHD+ 120Hz Mini LED
• Windows 11 Pro

 

Option #3:

 EXCaliberPC [2023] MSI Titan GT77HX 

• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTM3M282/
• 13VH-046US (i9-13980HX)
• 128GB RAM
•  8TB (2x 4TB) WD Black SN850X NVMe SSD (Seq. Read 7300MB/s, Seq. Write 6600MB/s) 
  
• RTX 4080 12GB
• 17.3" 4K UHD
• Windows 11 Pro)

 

2024-04-17 Wednesday - Health Effects of Overwork

[image credit: anykeep on pixabay.com]

 

 This blog post is a placeholder for organizing citations of articles and medical research reports on the effects of overwork (e.g., working more than 40+, 50+, 55+ hours per week - on a sustained basis). 

General articles:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_overtime
• "Employees who work overtime hours experience numerous mental, physical, and social effects. In a landmark study, the World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization estimated that over 745,000 people died from ischemic heart disease or stroke in 2016 as a result of having worked 55 hours or more per week."
• "... those working long hours (55 hours or more per week) were at 40% higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation compared to those working a standard 35-40 hour-week"
  
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoshi
3.  

Professional research: 

1. Long working hours and burnout in health care workers: Non-linear dose-response relationship and the effect mediated by sleeping hours—A cross-sectional study (2021-05-06, Journal of Occupational Health)
• https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1348-9585.12228
• https://doi.org/10.1002/1348-9585.12228
2. Impact of work schedules of senior resident physicians on patient and resident physician safety: nationwide, prospective cohort study (2002-2007, 2014-2017, Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, Departments of Medicine and Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA)
   
• "...exceeding 48 weekly work hours or working shifts of extended duration endangers even experienced (ie, PGY2+) resident physicians and their patients."
• "Working more than 48 hours per week was associated with an increased risk of self-reported medical errors, preventable adverse events, and fatal preventable adverse events as well as near miss crashes, occupational exposures, percutaneous injuries, and attentional failures (all P<0.001)."
• "Working between 60 and 70 hours per week was associated with a more than twice the risk of a medical error (odds ratio 2.36, 95% confidence interval 2.01 to 2.78) and almost three times the risk of preventable adverse events (2.93, 2.04 to 4.23) and fatal preventable adverse events (2.75, 1.23 to 6.12)"
• "Working one or more shifts of extended duration in a month while averaging no more than 80 weekly work hours was associated with an 84% increased risk of medical errors (1.84, 1.66 to 2.03), a 51% increased risk of preventable adverse events (1.51, 1.20 to 1.90), and an 85% increased risk of fatal preventable adverse events (1.85, 1.05 to 3.26). Similarly, working one or more shifts of extended duration in a month while averaging no more than 80 weekly work hours also increased the risk of near miss crashes (1.47, 1.32 to 1.63) and occupational exposures (1.17, 1.02 to 1.33)."
  
• https://bmjmedicine.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000320 
• https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjmed-2022-000320
3. At-Risk Work Hours Among U.S. Physicians and Other U.S. Workers (American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Volume 65, Issue 4, October 2023, Pages 568-578)
• "Systematic reviews by the WHO have shown an increased risk of morbidity and mortality related to ischemic heart disease and stroke among individuals working an average of ≥55 hours/week."
• "The relationship between work hours, well-being, and health outcomes is complex. At least 2 pathways—a physiological stress response pathway (e.g., autonomic nervous system, immune function, hypertension, arrhythmia risk) and a behavioral stress response pathway (e.g., alcohol use, unhealthy diet, tobacco use, physical inactivity, impaired sleep)—may contribute to morbidity and mortality associated with long work hours."
• "risk of burnout increases by approximately 2% for each 1 additional hour worked each week"
• "recent studies have found that working ≥55 hours/week is associated with an increased risk of ischemic heart disease and stroke."
  
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749379723001666
• https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2023.03.020
4. 
   

 

 

Current backlog of additional links to review: 

• https://hbr.org/2015/08/the-research-is-clear-long-hours-backfire-for-people-and-for-companies
• https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article/67/5/377/3859790
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8642716/ 
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8977802/
  
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6617405/
• https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-031-30492-7_12 
  
• https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(21)00189-7/fulltext
  
• https://www.who.int/news/item/17-05-2021-long-working-hours-increasing-deaths-from-heart-disease-and-stroke-who-ilo
  
• https://health.clevelandclinic.org/effects-of-working-too-much 
• https://www.healthline.com/health/working-too-much-health-effects
  
• https://news.yahoo.com/heres-happens-brain-body-more-185822070.html
  

 

 

 

 

2024-04-11 Thursday - Book Review: Cracking the Data Science Interview

[image source: Amazon.com]

 

Cracking the Data Science Interview: Unlock insider tips from industry experts to master the data science field (Feb 29th, 2024)
https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Data-Science-Interview-industry/dp/1805120506/

 
by Leondra R Gonzalez (Senior Data & Applied Scientist, Microsoft), and Aaren Stubberfield (Data Scientist, Microsoft)

[Link to my review on Amazon]

Review Title:
Packed with valuable guidance: A balanced survey of Data Science with great breadth and depth

Review thoughts:

• It is difficult for most authors to strike the necessary balance when writing a book that covers so much ground - but this book achieves this quite well.
• This book is well written - and earns the accolade I reserve for just a few books: Crisp!
• The content is very well structured
• The authors approach to teaching is actionable - with concrete skill building examples.
• This book provides a good outline for helping people identifying gaps in their skills/knowledge
• There are great suggestions for the reader to further explore various topics (versus overburdening the focused goals of the book)
• Chapter-3 is a fast paced introduction to Python - and provides concise examples to gives the reader immediate skills in writing Python code.
• One of the most important techniques the book teaches is covered in the section "Applying scenario-based storytelling".
• Chapter-9's coverage of Feature Engineering is noteworthy for being well done in conveying the concepts with easy to understand examples.  
• The illustrations are very nicely done.
• code examples are concise, focused, and well explained.
• The "when to use" and companion "tips" sections are very nice touches - that help the reader understand not just the WHAT and HOW, but also the WHY.
• The "Assessment" and companion "Answer" sections are a great teaching technique to challenge the reader - and provide immediate guidance to clarify/correct any potential misunderstandings.
• In Part-3, the discussion of "Assumptions", "Common Pitfalls", and the associated "Implement Example" entries - ARE WORTH THE PRICE OF THE BOOK ALONE.
• Any manager or developer - will benefit from using this book's broad survey of topics - to expand their understanding of Data Science concepts and techniques.
• As an architect, I learned quite a bit of useful Data Science concepts/techniques by working my way through this book.
• If someone carefully worked their way through the full contents of this book - I believe they would have a good foundation established in preparing for a Data Science interview.

Suggestions for the next edition:

• Create a "Data Science Awesome Jobs Board List" GitHub repository, as a companion to the book.
• Add a new chapter to discuss common anti-patterns in data science.
• Performance trade-offs/considerations would also be some very important information to perhaps consider adding in a next edition.
• An Appendix of Suggested Reading/Books might be helpful (for example, in chapter-3, p-59, while text mining and NLP are noted as outside of the scope of the book - it is an important area of Data Science - and it would be helpful for the next edition to include some suggested books on topics that are designated outside of the book's scope).
• On page-331, it would be helpful to also mention the recent open source fork of Terraform - OpenTofu.

There is one critical caution missing in "Part 3: Exploring Artificial Intelligence", "Chapter-11 Building Networks with Deep Learning" (for example, on page-317, in the section: "Introducing GenAI and LLMs"):
Any discussion of GenAI __MUST__ caution on the very real risks of hallucination and confabulation.
 

2024-03-05 Tuesday - Professional Services Consulting - Utilization Rates

[image credit: kolyaeg on pixabay.com]

 
In the world of Professional Services Consulting, I learned some interesting heuristics, several decades ago, that have stood the test of time.

(these are based on long-term sustainable planning models...)

If you build the financial model for your practice around an assumption of a utilization rate of:
 

60%: Your firm has a good chance to survive & thrive - even in the lean times. You won't make as much money - and you won't be able to pay your personnel top rates. But you will have the advantage of long-term continuity - while others disappear.

70%: Your firm will experience wider swings in unplanned reductions-in-force. This will impact morale, training costs, client satisfaction, and retention.

80%+: You'll be able to pay your personnel higher rates, and provide a lot of nice benefits - but your firm will experience increased levels of staff turn-over, and burn-out. Decreased retention will affect morale. Increased client account churn will damage the bottom line. In the lean times, your company will be decimated by reductions-in-force.

95%+: You are on the highway to hell. You are in the "sweatshop" business (or, indentured servitude). 🤣

110%+: Your business model is fundamentally based on abuse of your personnel.

2024-02-29 Thursday - Research Papers - Composing Words Like Music

[image credit: niekverlaan on pixabay.com]

Burning the midnight oil tonight, to put the finishing touches on a client research paper.

Research skills - honed over decades - allowing me to quickly develop deep insights into a new subject-matter area, surveying relevant domain literature, assembling analysis of the choices, alternatives, pros and cons, developing an understanding of the forces/constraints that touch on both the business and technical aspects, highlighting the key issues/considerations - and summarizing the information succinctly so that an executive can make a decision.

It is something like a duality of both composing & performing a piece of music. There is an art to creating a balance, a symmetry, and composing the threads of different movements - into a piece of work that hits just the right notes.

 

2024-02-25 Sunday - Understanding Quantum Technologies 2023, Sixth Edition

 Understanding Quantum Technologies 2023, Sixth edition (1,366 pages)

• https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.15352
• https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2111/2111.15352.pdf 
• https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2111.15352

"Understanding Quantum Technologies 2023 is a creative-commons ebook that provides a unique 360 degrees overview of quantum technologies from science and technology to geopolitical and societal issues. It covers quantum physics history, quantum physics 101, gate-based quantum computing, quantum computing engineering (including quantum error corrections and quantum computing energetics), quantum computing hardware (all qubit types, including quantum annealing and quantum simulation paradigms, history, science, research, implementation and vendors), quantum enabling technologies (cryogenics, control electronics, photonics, components fabs, raw materials), unconventional computing (potential alternatives to quantum and classical computing), quantum telecommunications and cryptography, quantum sensing, quantum computing algorithms, software development tools and use cases, quantum technologies around the world, quantum technologies societal impact and even quantum fake sciences. The main audience are computer science engineers, developers and IT specialists as well as quantum scientists and students who want to acquire a global view of how quantum technologies work, and particularly quantum computing. This version is an update to the 2022 and 2021 editions published respectively in October 2022 and October 2021. An update log is provided at the end of the book."

2024-02-24 Saturday - Interop 2024 Dashboard

Interop 2024 Dashboard

VERY Interesting - compare the compatibility score differences between Stable and Experimental

https://wpt.fyi/interop-2024

 

Stable scores (2024-02-24)

source: https://wpt.fyi/interop-2024

 

Experimental scores (2024-02-24)

 

source: https://wpt.fyi/interop-2024