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Is Logical Data Modeling Dead?
One of the most clichéd blogging tricks is to declare something popular as dead. These click bait, desperate posts are popular among click-focused bloggers, but not for me. Yet here I am, writing an "is dead" post. Today, this is about sharing my responses on-going social media posts. They go something like this:
OP: No one loves my data models any more.
Responses: Data modeling is dead. Or…data models aren't agile. Or…data models died with the waterfalls. Or…only I know how to do data models and all of you are doing it wrong, which is why they just look dead.
I bet I've read that sort of conversation at least a hundred times, first on mailing lists, then on forums, now on social media. It has been an ongoing battle for modelers since data models and dirt were discovered…invented…developed.
I think our issues around the love for data modeling, and logical data models specifically, is that we try to make these different types of models be different tasks. They aren't. In fact, there are many types, many goals, and many points of view about data modeling. So as good modelers, we should first seek to understand what everyone in the discussion means by that term. And what do you know, even this fact is contentious. More on that in another post.
I do logical data modeling when I'm physical modeling. I don't draw a whole lot of attention to it – it's just how modeling is done on my projects.
Data Modeling is Dead Discussion
One current example of this discussion is taking place right now over on LinkedIn. Abhilash Gandhi posted:
During one of my project, when I raised some red flags for not having Logical Data Model, I was bombarded with comments – "Why do we need LDM"? "Are you kidding"? "What a waste of time!". The project was Data Warehouse with number of subject areas; possibility of number of data marts.
I have put myself into trouble by trying to enforce best practices for Data Modeling, Data Definitions, Naming Standards, etc. My question, am I asking or trying to do what may be obsolete or not necessary? Appreciate your comments.
There are responses that primarily back up the original poster's feelings of being unneeded on modern development projects. Then I added another view point:
I'll play Devil's advocate here and say that we Data Architects have also lost touch with the primary way the products of our data modeling efforts will be used. There are indeed all kinds of uses, but producing physical models is the next step in most. And we have lost the physical skills to work on the physical side. Because we let this happen, we also have failed to make physical models useful for teams who need them.
We just keep telling the builders how much they should love our logical models, but have failed to make the results of logical modeling useful to them.
I've talked about this in many of my presentations, webinars (sorry about the autoplay, it's a sin, I know) and data modeling blog posts. It's difficult to keep up with what's happening in the modern data platform world. So most of us just haven't. It's not that we need to be DBAs or developers. We should, though, have a literacy level of the features and approaches to implementing our data models for production use. Why? I addressed that as well. Below is an edited version of my response:
We Don't All Have to Love Logical Data Modeling
First of all, the majority of IT professionals do not need to love an LDM. They don't even need to need them. The focus of the LDM is the business steward/owner (and if i had my way, the customer, too). But we've screwed up how we think of data models as artefacts that are "something done on an IT project". Sure, that's how almost all funding gets done for modeling, and it's broken. But it's also the fact of life for the relatively immature world of data modeling.
We literally beat developers and project managers with our logical data modeling, then ask them "why don't you want us to produce data models?" We use extortion to get our beautiful logical data models done, then sit back an wonder why everyone sits at another lunch table.
I don't waste time or resources trying to get devs, DBAs or network admins to love the LDMs. When was the last time you loved the enterprise-wide AD architecture? The network topology? The data centre blueprints and HVAC diagrams?
Data Models form the infrastructure of the data architecture, as do conceptual models and all the models made that would fill the upper rows of the Zachman Framework. We don't force the HVAC guys to wait to plan out their systems until a single IT application project comes along to fund that work. We do it when we need a full plan for a data centre. Or a network. Or a security framework.
But here we are, trying to whip together an application with no models. So we tell everyone to stop everything while we build an LDM. That's what's killing us. Yes, we need to do it. But we don't have to do it in a complete waterfall method. I tell people I'm doing a data model. then I work on both an LDM and the PDM at the same time. The LDM I use to drive data requirements from business owners, the PDM to start to make it actually work in the target infrastructure. Yes, I LDM more at first, but I'm still doing both at the same time. Yes, the PDM looks an awful lot like the LDM at first.
Stop Yelling at the Clouds
The real risks we take is sounding like old men yelling at the clouds when we insist on working and talking like it is 1980 all over again. I do iterative data modeling. I'm agile. I know it's more work for me. I'd love to have the luxury of spending six months embedded with the end users coming up with a perfect and lovely logical data model. But that's not the project I've been assigned to. It's not the team I'm on. To work against the team is a demand that no data modeling be done and that database and data integration be done by non-data professionals. You can stand on your side of the cubicle wall, screaming about how LDMs are more important, or you can work with the data-driving modeling skills you have to make it work.
When I'm modeling, I'm working with the business team drawing out more clarity of their business rules and requirements. I am on #TeamData and #TeamBusiness. When the business sees you representing their interests, often to a hostile third party implementer, they will move mountains for you. This is the secret to getting CDMs, LDMs, and PDMs done on modern development projects. Just do them as part of your toolkit. I would prefer to data model completely separately from everyone else. I don't see that happening on most projects.
The #TeamData Sweet Spot
My sweet spot is to get to the point where the DBAs, Devs, QA analysts and Project Managers are saying "hey, do you have those database printouts ready to go with DDL we just delivered? And do you have the user ones, as well?" I don't care what they call them. I just want them to call them. At that point, I know I'm also on #TeamIT.
The key to getting people to at least appreciate logical data models is to just do them as part of whatever modeling effort you are working on. Don't say "stop". Just model on. Demonstrate, don't tell your teams where the business requirements are written down, where they live. Then demonstrate how that leads to beautiful physical models as well.
Logical Data Modeling isn't dead. But we modelers need to stop treating it like it's a weapon. Long Live Logical!
Thanks to Jeff Smith (@thatjeffsmith | blog ) for pointing out the original post.
You're Doing it Wrong: Generalizations about Generalizations
I have a couple of presentations where I describe how generalized data modeling can offer both benefits and unacceptable costs. In my Data Modeling Contentious Issues presentation, the one where we vote via sticky notes, we debate the trade-offs of generalization in a data model and database design. In 5 Classic Data Modeling Mistakes, I talk about over-generalization.
Over the last 20 some years (and there's more "some" there than ever before), I've noticed a trend towards more generalized data models. The means that instead of having a box for almost every noun in our business, we have concepts that have categories. Drawing examples from the ARTS Data Model, instead of having entities for:
- Purchase Order
- Shipping Notice
- Receipt
- Invoice
- etc
…we have one entity for InventoryControlDocument that has a DocumentType instance of Purchase order, Shipping Notice, Receipt, Invoice, etc.
See what we did there? We took metadata that was on the diagram as separate boxes and turned them into rows in a table in the database. This is brilliant, in some form, because it means when the business comes up with a new type of document we don't have to create a new entity and a new table to represent that new concept. We just add a row to the DocumentType table and we're done. Well, not exactly…we probably still have to update code to process that new type…and maybe add a new user interface for that…and determine what attributes of InventoryControlDocument apply to that document type so that the code can enforce the business rules.
Ah! See what we did there this time? We moved responsibility for managing data integrity from the data architect to the coders. Sometimes that's great and sometimes, well, it just doesn't happen.
So my primary reason to raise generalization as an issue is that sometimes data architects apply these patterns but don't bother to apply the governance of those rules to the resulting systems. Just because you engineered a requirement from a table to a row does not mean it is no longer your responsibility. I've even seen architects become so enamoured with moving the work from their plate to another's that they have generalized the heck out of everything while leaving the data quality responsibility up to someone else. That someone else typically is not measured or compensated for data integrity, either.
Sometimes data architects apply these patterns but don't bother to apply the governance of those rules to the resulting systems
Alec Sharp has written a few blog posts on Generalizations. These posts have some great examples of his 5 Ways to Go Wrong with Generalisation. I especially like his use of the term literalism since I never seem to get the word specificity out when I'm speaking. I recommend you check out his 5 reasons, since I agree with all of them.
1 – Failure to generalize, a.k.a. literalism
2 – Generalizing too much
3 – Generalizing too soon
4 – Confusing subtypes with roles, states, or other multi-valued characteristics
5 – Applying subtyping to the wrong entity.
By the way, Len Silverston and Paul Agnew talk about levels of generalization in their The Data Model Resource Book, Vol 3: Universal Patterns for Data Modeling book (affiliate link). Generalization isn't just a yes/no position. Every data model structure you architect has a level of generalization.
Every data model structure you architect has a level of generalization.
I'm wondering how many of you who have used a higher level of generalization and what you've done to ensure that the metadata you transformed into data still has integrity?
Leave your recommendations in the comments.
Update: I updated the link to Alec's blog post. Do head over there to read his points on generalization.
Join Me at Enterprise Data World and Save $200 + $200
I've been attending Enterprise Data World for more than 15 years. This event, focused on data architectures, data management, data modeling data governance and other great enterprise-class methods is part technical training and part revival for data professionals. It's just that good.
This year the big bash is being held in Austin, TX, a thriving tech-oriented community, 27-April to 1 May. And this year's theme is "The Transformation to Data-Driven Business Starts Here."
And right now there's a $200 Early Bird Discount going…plus if you use coupon code "DATACHICK" you can save $200 more on a multi-day registration or fifty bucks on a one day pass. There. I just saved you $400. And no, I get no kickbacks with this discount code. I don't need them. I need you to be at this event, sharing your knowledge and meeting other data professionals. I need you to be part of the community of data professionals.
Top 10 Reasons You Need to Go to EDW 2014
- Data is HOT HOT HOT. I deemed 2013 The Year of Data and I see no signs that organizations are going to back to software-is-everything thinking. 2014 is still going to be a year full of data. There's even an executive, invitation-only CDOvision even co-located.
- Not Just Bullet Points. There are over 20 hours of scheduled networking events for you to chat with other data-curious people. Chatting with other data professionals is my favourite part of this event. Bring your business cards…er… .vcs contact file.
- Lots of Expertise. Not just data celebrities, but also other data professionals with thousands of hours of hands-on experiences, sharing their use cases around data. And not just data modeling. Big Data. Analytics. Methods. Tools. Open Data. Governance. NoSQL. SQL. RDBMS. Fun.
- Certifications. You can take advantage of the Pay-Only-If-You-Pass option for the CDMP on-site certification testing.
- Workshops. I'm doing a half day tutorial on Driving Development Projects with Enterprise Data Models. I'll be talking about how data models fit within real-life, practical, get-stuff-done development projects. No ivory towers here.
- SIGs. There are special interest groups on data modeling products, industries and methods. You can meet people just like you an share your tips and tricks for data lovin. I will be leading the ER/Studio SIG.
- Ice Cream. This conference has a tradition of the ice cream break on the exhibit floor. Nice ice cream, even.
- Austin. Austin is one of the more vibrant cities in Texas. So cool, it even has a Stevie Ray Vaughan statue. Museums, Theatres, indoor golf, clubs. There's a reason why SxSW is held here.
- Vendors. Yes, we love them, too. Meet the product teams of the makers of the tools you use every day. Or meet new teams and ask for a demo. They are good people.
- Love Your Data. There's no better way to show your love than to network with other data professionals and learn from industry leaders.
Come learn how to help your organization love data better. You might even see me in a lightning talk holding a martini. Or taking impromptu pics of @data_model and other data professionals. Or debating data management strategy with people from around the globe. In other words, talking data. With people who love their data. Join us.
Stuff Their Databases Say
If you've been to one of my "Stuff Your Database Says" sessions, you know I collect photos of how my data is messed up by information systems.
Many of my frequent flyer friends can confirm that integration between airlines, even alliance partners, is plagued with problems.
Here's today's boarding pass. I call this my "secret international alias".
Big Challenges in Data Modeling–Data Model Governance
Join me and an excellent panel of industry experts in discussing the state of Data Modeling Governance. No, not Data Governance, but Data Modeling Governance. This free webinar is Thursday, 23 May at 2 PM EDT. While the formal part starts at 2 PM, you are free to join us 15 minutes before as we prepare for the event. You can even post your Data Modeling Governance questions then so that we can answer them
We data architects spend a great deal of time advocating for organizations to treat their data as an asset. We champion the efforts to set up stewardship programs and data governance councils. We insist that data conform to enterprise naming and modeling standards. We enforce data policies, measure data quality, report deficiencies and track anomalies. But do we follow our own advice when it comes to managing "our" data – metadata and data models?
In this webinar, we'll be tackling the questions of:
- Do you have budget (money and time) to govern the data modeling environment?
- How can we get the resources we need to properly govern our data models?
- Who sets permissions and manages them?
- When does data modeling by email work?
- Are data modeling artefacts part of the production systems operations?
- Are there multiple data modeling tools in your environment? For the right reasons?
- Are we loving our data models as much as our data?
- …plus more.
My panellists this week have a great deal of experience in working on a variety of enterprise environments:
- Anne Marie Smith, Ph.D. is an Information Management professional and consultant with broad experience across industries. She has exceptional, demonstrated skills in business requirements gathering and analysis, data governance and stewardship, data architecture, data and process modeling, strategic data management, meta data management, data quality management, master data management, data warehouse planning and design, project management, and information systems methodology development.
- David Loshin is the President of Knowledge Integrity, Inc, (www.knowledge-integrity.com), a consulting company focusing on customized information management solutions including information quality consulting and training, business intelligence, metadata, and data standards management. David is among Knowledge Integrity's recognized experts in information management.
- Pete Stiglich is a Senior Healthcare Data Architect at Perficient. He has over 25 years IT experience having worked in Enterprise Data Architecture, Data Management, Data Modeling (Conceptual, Logical, Physical, Dimensional, Data Vault, EDW), Data Quality, DW/BI, MDM, Metadata Management, Data Quality, and Database Administration (DBA)
- You! I always consider the audience as the first panellist in a webinar. We have a open, engaging webinar configuration where attendees can chat with each other and ask questions to the panel.
You'll need to pre-register, but it's fast and free. Bring your questions, comments, snark and observations. See you Thursday.
Oh, and if you are late reading this and the webinar has already happened: no worries. We record every event and post it to the Dataversity website. You'll miss all the great chatter in the chat room, though.
Why Data Privacy Breaches Aren't Just about the Data
Some people believe that in an age of Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter, we should give up all our expectations of privacy. While I agree that I've been shocked by the amount of personal information that people share (sometimes even how much I share), I still believe that organizations need to have the right technologies, policies and training in place to protect abuse of personal and sensitive data.
In a wilful privacy breach in 2011, a clerk at British Columbia's insurance bureau (ICBC) accessed customer data in order to intimidate employees of another organization. One of the victims has launched legal proceedings against ICBC for failing to have suitable data protections in place. ICBC is a sort of universal automobile insurance organization in BC – everyone who wants a driver's license there must get their insurance via this organization, so their data collection covers most adult BC residents.
Annette Oliver isn't just worried about sensitive information being made public, but about how that data was used to terrorize her family and co-workers.
Annette Oliver alleges in her lawsuit that her husband's van was torched on April 17, 2011, at about 2 a.m., which police believe was an arson.
Then on June 1, 2011, Oliver claims, she was at home when she heard three loud bangs at about 5 a.m. and discovered three bullet holes in the front of her house.
Oliver says her husband and two daughters were home at the time.
This wasn't an isolated case: others had their cars burned and homes shot.
Three months later, on Dec. 14, 2011, the RCMP revealed the investigation had found a link to an ICBC employee, who allegedly accessed personal information of 65 people, including 13 identified as victims who were targeted.
ICBC said at the time the employee under investigation was a woman who had been at ICBC for 15 years before she was fired in August 2011
It appears from the lawsuit that ICBC did not use monitoring technologies to monitor access. Or that they weren't using them correctly. I'm always surprised by organizations that steward customer data and don't do much to properly care for that data. We'll see in the end whether or not ICBC had suitable protections.
Myths about Data Protection
- Data privacy breaches don't really hurt people. This one makes me mad. Even something less physically harmful like having their identities stolen can cause years of trouble for your customers, not to mention great financial harm. But data breaches can and do physically harm people.
- Data privacy is about secrecy. No, data privacy protection is about controlling the usage of data for only the reasons for which it was collected. Among other things.
- If the data is available elsewhere, it doesn't need to be protect in our database. No, IT professionals still have a duty to protect personal and sensitive data in their care.
- Data wants to be free, so we shouldn't control how it's used within the organizations. Yeah? My cats want to be free, too. And we still don't let them outside.
- Data protection is just a technology issue. Data protection is just a training issue. Data protection requires technological, process and people-based solutions.
- Encryption is all we need to do. No, because if people can read the data or download it, it's not encrypted any more. Encryption helps when people walk away with the data. But people who use the data don't see encrypted data.
- Data privacy requirements can be applied after the system goes into production. This one drives me crazy. Data protection requires effort at all phases of a project. There architectural, design, development, deployment and maintenance components to be addressed. There are policy and procedures to be developed. There is monitoring and alerting to be practiced.
You know my mantra. Love your data because it's not really yours. You have a professional duty to ensure it's safe.
Read the full story at Metronews
Justice Institute employee sues ICBC for privacy breach that allegedly led to her vehicle torched, bullets fired at home
Utah Health Department – Yet Another Flashdrive FAIL (YAFF)
I think we need to have an industry acronym now that this seems to happen every week. My proposals:
- Yet Another USB Breach (YAUB)
- Blame A Thumbdrive (BLAT)
- Yet Another Flashdrive Fail (YAFF)
I like the YAFF one best, so I'm going with that, even though the #FAIL really isn't in the hardware, but in the abuse of policy and hardware to cause a data breach.
This week's YAFF announcement comes again from Utah, where a contractor with access to sensitive health data lost a USB flash drive somewhere between Salt Lake City, Denver, and Washington, DC.
What's different about this news story is that we get more insight as to why that data was on a portable device. And it's just as I prognosticated in a previous post: the contractor was frustrated with an infrastructure issues.
The contractor, Goold Health Systems, handles Medicaid pharmacy transactions for the Health Department.Department spokesman Tom Hudachko said the GHS employee, identified only as a woman from Denver, was having trouble with an Internet connection Thursday while trying to upload the data to a server. The employee saved the personal information to an unencrypted USB memory stick and left the Health Department with the device. The employee lost the stick sometime in the following days while traveling between Salt Lake City, Denver and Washington, D.C.
(emphasis mine)
via Utah health department reports another data breach | NewsOK.com.
The contractor lost her job over this.
People Forget Policy When They Are Frustrated or Stressed
I once found a QA contractor cursing at his computer because he was having trouble sending a large file via his Hotmail account. I offered to help. When he showed me what he was doing I just about had a heart attack. He had been trying to send our offshore contractor a copy of a production database backup. This backup contained names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card information (no, the legacy system shouldn't have been storing this information, but it did), SSNs, Driver's license numbers and other forms of ID. It was an identity theft treasure chest of awesome.
When I asked him why he was trying email this information to our offshore contractor he said he was frustrated that corporate email system would not let him email such a large file.
He told me the only reason he did this was that he had to get the bug logged and fixed before the weekend because he had plans to be away. He also forgot that production data was never supposed to leave the building. I'm not sure he ever really felt that what he was doing was wrong, or had any idea why emailing sensitive data was wrong.
The other shock I got was that it was a production DBA who had given him the backup. When I asked the DBA why he did this without even asking what it was for, he said "I was really busy and didn't have time."
I wonder just how many times this scenario plays out every day in offices around the world.
Love your data, even when you are stressed. Especially when you are stressed.
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Books that make good audiobooks
1. American Gods– Neil Gaiman. Read by an ensemble cast, with different voices for different characters, this is beautifully done. Shadow's voice sounds especially right, though all of them are terrific.
2. All Things Bright and Beautiful James Herriot. All of James Herriot's writing is read beautifully, by Christopher Timothy, who played Herriot in the TV series based on the books. I love his slightly gravelly British accent, and how he changes his voice subtly for the Yorkshire farmers. Recommending this book in particular, because it has the bit with the Raynes Ghost, and that cracks me up every time I listen to it. The entire series is good, though.
3. A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, as read byPatrick Stewart. Of course, Patrick Stewart could read a carburetor repair manual and I'd love it. What a voice.
4. The Red Pyramid– Rick Riordan I love this because the way the voices are set up serves the story beautifully. It's a YA adventure about Egyptian gods, as told by two narrators, a brother and sister. There are two voices reading, and they're both excellently cast for the characters. Sequel's great, as well.
5. An Irish Country Village and An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor. Because I'm a sucker for old-fashioned village doctors and men reading with Irish accents.
6. Seamus Heaney reading his own translation of Beowulf. I just got my hands on this, so haven't given it a really proper listen. Heaney has a lovely voice… but the way the reading is produced, there are echoes and synthesizer chords that make the poem sound exceedingly spooky and ominous.
7. It's short, but I love Neil Gaiman's reading of his children's story, The Wolves In The Walls. Read aloud, the language of it stands out, like a poem.
8. Shel Silverstein's readings of A Light In the Attic and Where The Sidewalk Ends. He cracks himself up. It's delightful!
I have vague memories of The Just So Stories on audiobook, and Robin Williams reading Pecos Bill aloud on cassette tape. I wonder if those made it to CD, as I'd love to track them down.
Hm, no women on my list. Go figure!
Richard permalinkDecember 15, 2011 5:51 am
Ensemble cast reading Chuck Palahniuk's "Rant" is a masterpiece.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Challenge
The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming an integral part of human lives, which spans consumers, the public sector and the industrial sector. It's the concept of a creating a smarter world where systems with local computing power are connected in order to share data and information – anywhere, anytime. IoT includes everything from smart homes, smart cities, smart cars, mobile devices, healthcare and even connected toys. It's very appealing since it offers convenience for consumers, and improved efficiency, safety, and productivity for industrial and government operations. Gartner forecasts that 4.9 billion connected things will be in use in 2015, up 30% from 2014, and will reach 25 billion by 2020.
With all this connectivity and convenience, comes a big question: How do we manage network security for these IoT systems? IoT is bound to be one of the main sources of headaches for CSOs in the upcoming years. There are many challenges associated with implementation of IoT technologies: cloud computing, mobile connectivity, big data, cyber security and others. But the most essential challenge is to safeguard such a complex, heterogeneous environment. With billions of devices connected to the system, there are now billions more potential intrusion points for cyber threats – in other words: increased attack surface and vulnerability.
Furthermore, once everything is connected via the internet (e.g., a car computer connected to the enterprise network to share data), a breach into the system immediately puts the entire enterprise network and data at risk. There are so many IoT devices out there, that safeguarding all end-points is just not feasible - enterprises must ensure that they have the right policy and tools to secure their network.
One of the most efficient methods to strengthen network security is to orchestrate all security controls throughout the entire network. The first and most basic approach is to ensure that perimeter protection is synced with all firewalls controlling external connectivity (north-south). The next imperative need is a well-defined network segmentation policy to restrict malware lateral movement (east-west). Both the perimeter and the internal security controls (on physical and cloud platforms) must be orchestrated to maximize security, preventing intrusion, and effectively containing vulnerabilities when detected.
The Solution
Tufin Orchestration Suite's Unified Security Policy empowers network and IT security teams to effectively cope with the IoT and manage network segmentation through a central zone-based security policy which can be applied over the entire network and across all platforms--physical and hybrid cloud environments.
- Tufin's Unified Security Policy empowers network and IT security teams to effectively cope with the IoT and manage network segmentation
- Central zone-based security policy can be applied over the entire network, across all platforms
- Orchestrating all security controls throughout enterprise networks strengthens network security in today's complex, heterogeneous IT environments--across physical and hybrid cloud platforms


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He Leads
The charge nurse greeted me as I walked in. She was supposed to leave early and that was why there was a change of schedule. She had me replace her as the charge nurse when she left. The night was chaotic even at the Clinic. But it became manageable. I had learned to continue to trust and give everything to the Lord. Unscheduled sick calls kept coming one after another. Doctor's orders were piled up. But the other nurse and I just kept working, doing what we had to do. Every hospital return was seen. All unscheduled sick call's issues were addressed. The orders were down to only a few charts.
I was surprised that the oxygen concentrator was not taken cared of for 2 inmates that were housed in a special medical unit. As soon as the charge nurse left, I made it a priority to check on those 2 inmates and had gathered the equipments I needed for their use. I found the long tubing that could be connected to the machine so they could walk around their cell without being deprived of the needed oxygen. Except there was no connector to the nasal cannula that they used to be able to breathe the oxygen. I always had a scissor in my pocket and working now for years, nurses just have to learn to improvise. That moment was nothing unusual. So, I tried to cut the end of the cannula's tubing and it did fit right into the long tubing connector. [I was thanking the Lord!!! I knew that I didn't need to worry about anything knowing He was in control].
Ever changing schedules….way like our plans in our lives. We don't have that control. Plans do change. If we are not committing each of our plans with God, there is always that gnawing fear. Fear of unknown. Fear of "what if's?" God truly doesn't need much from us to accomplish His plan for our lives. It's the opposite. We are the ones who need Him and definitely will not make it without Him. Any situations or plans that do not go the way we want them to go seem to paralyze us knowing we are limited with our capabilities. But with God, His power and might will help us see the way out. Through prayers, they help us focus on Him instead of the problems. After all, there is no problem or trial bigger than the mighty God we serve. So, glory be to God! And thank you for your prayers….
By the way, the Intake Nurse [which was supposed to be me] was overwhelmed and had to open many charts for those inmates who had medical or mental health issues. She was just so fatigued that she requested if she could be at the Clinic tonight. [Please pray for us working in the jail. Many inmates are now sicker than before].
"A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." ~ Proverbs 16:9
"And now the Sovereign Lord and his Spirit have sent me this message: "The Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, says: I am the Lord your God, Who teaches you what is good and leads you along the paths you should follow." - Isaiah 48:17
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Born to bring life4 weeks ago
Motherhood: A Humble Grace1 month ago
What I Learned This Summer 20194 months ago
Hatred or Love5 months ago
The Promise Is His Presence5 months ago
VISUAL OF A METAPHOR6 months ago
Working with My Dad8 months ago
THE GOD WHO SEES9 months ago
My Choice for Women's Day10 months ago
Change and Growth.2 years ago
Dancing With Dad3 years ago
HAPPY NEW YEAR!4 years ago
Summoned Home4 years ago
God's Creation and Healing4 years ago
No More January Blues4 years ago
Pressure5 years ago
URGENT PRAYER REQUEST!7 years ago
At Work7 years ago
Pondering...8 years ago
Sweetness11 years ago
The Attacker (5/15/09)
The sun was just peeking from the Eastern skies.
Out in the prison's yard, some huge Sheriff's buses were illuminated by the soft glow coming from the lights all over from the tall lamp posts. Their engines were turned on, warming up, before the buses would take the inmates to the different courts where they would have their trials.
Orange-uniformed men were lined up in pairs, joined together with handcuffs and chained, forming a long line. They already had their breakfast and had their morning medications prior to going to courts. Some were fidgeting, as they waited to board those buses.
All of a sudden, all hell broke loose! Two men were engaged in a fight, using weapons they made secretly for a while. Deputies called for help on the radio, both for custody back-up and medical staff, as well.
When the air was cleared and the other inmates were secured, one man was down on the floor. He sustained multiple gashes but two of them were deep. One cut was vertically etched from his left ear going down to the jaw line. The other dangerous cut was horizontal on his left neck, close to the jugular vein. Pool of blood dripped all over the floor. Holding his bleeding neck, he was pointing at the other inmate few feet away, being guarded by the other deputies.
The other man being accused was not hurt. There were no lacerations nor any other signs of trauma. He was obviously very agitated as he was being questioned by those deputies, while the medical staff started treating the other man on the floor. They cleaned the wounds and controlled the bleeding. That man was sent to the nearby hospital.
When the investigation was finalized, it turned out to be that the "downed man who was accusing the other inmate" was the attacker and the other one who didn't have injury was the one attacked. The deputies found out that it was the second attempt to attack the unhurt man. Both attacks on him failed. He was well-prepared after the first attempt on him, that when the second attempt was done, he was able to defend himself and ended up injuring his attacker severely.
[Source: NLT Bible ]:
We also have an "accuser of the brethren." Satan and his army of demons are the enemies of God and of everything good.
"Because God's children are human beings – made of flesh and blood – Jesus also became flesh and blood by being born in human form. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the Devil, who had the power of death." –Hebrews 2:14
Because of what Jesus had done [dying on the cross], we, who live in constant fear of death shouldn't be afraid anymore. Jesus had freed us from that fear so we can live for Him. When we belong to God, we know that death is only the portal that leads into "eternal life". ["Thank You Lord!].
Paul warned us, too that we also battle against the evil forces of Satan, who is a vicious fighter. But to be able to withstand their attacks, we must depend on God's strength and use every piece of His armor. We face an army whose goal is to defeat Christ's church. When we believe in Christ, they become our enemies. They will try any device to turn us away from the Lord.
Fear not! For God has provided His supernatural power to defeat Satan and his army, through His Holy Spirit within us. So, arm yourselves with God's armor.
Let us be strong in the Lord's mighty power. Let's put on His whole armor to resist the enemy's attacks: put on the sturdy belt of truth and the body armor of God's righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News, so that we are well-prepared. We will need faith in every battle as our shield to stop the fiery arrows aimed by Satan and his army. Let us put on salvation as our helmet, not forgetting the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Let's pray at all times, on every occasion in the power of the Holy Spirit. We must stay alert and be persistent in our prayers for all Christians everywhere. [Ephesians 6:10-18].


text:
Join Seán Duggan for an in-depth discussion in this video Combining multiple clips in one shot using layer masks, part of Photoshop: Creative Video Compositing (2014).
One of the ways to make simple composites of multiple clips is to use layer masks to determine where each video is visible on the screen. For this project, we'll take different video clips and use layer mask to collage them together and create a split screen effect. So my layered file here, I have four video layers. Let's just take a quick look at them. We have light switch, a light bulb, solar panel, and a windmill. The first thing I want to do is work with some timing issues on the light bulb and the light switch, so I'm just going to turn off the eye icons for the windmill and the solar panel and I'm going to move them off to the side.
So let's just move the solar panel over here, and we'll move the windmill off there, because we don't really need those yet. And I'm going to move the light bulb out of the way, and what I want to do now is use the play head here and just kind of scrub through until we get the finger reaching in to turn the light switch on. And I want to get right to the point where the switch goes down. So I'm using the arrow keys to go frame by frame through the timeline here. This is the left or right arrow keys to go one frame at a time.
And you can turn that on, or ensure that that is turned on by coming to the fly out menu for the timeline panel and just choosing Enable Timeline Shortcut Keys. So, that's right where I want it. I'm going to bring the light bulb layer back right about there and the light bulb doesn't turn on for a while. So let me just trim the end of this clip to right where the light bulb comes on, right about there I think, now I'll move that into position. So right now, we have this to where boom, the light bulb comes right on, that's exactly that I want. And that comes on right at about the three second mark here, just a little over three seconds, so I'm going to let it go in maybe about another second and a half, and then I'm going to bring in the solar panels.
Turn the eye icon on so we can see them, and I just want to trim this clip here because the solar panel is kind of rotating around, or rather the camera view is rotating around. So I want to get to something right about like there, bring that back into position. So now I want to create a layer mask for the solar panel layer, so it is only visible on the right hand side of the image. So I still want to see the light bulb over here on the left, but I want to see the solar panels over on the right.
So what I'm going to do, is get my rectangular marquee tool, and I'm just going to kind of eyeball a selection of the right half of the image like that. Turn on that layer. Make sure it's active in the layers panel, and come down and click the add layer mask icon at the bottom of the layers panel. So now I have a layer mask attached to this solar panel layer. And we have the light switch come on. And then we have this come on. This is really nice because the flare from the sun comes right in on the edge there. We see those really nice little rainbow color blends.
Okay. So far so good. And next, what I'm going to do is just trim this a little bit more, I think, and bring that in. Okay. Now we're going to bring the windmill in. And we'll position this pretty close. I don't want any of the clips to lag too long meaning, you know, I don't want them to be on screen for a long time. I want them to switch pretty quickly. And I'm going to turn that windmill layer on so we can see it. And what I want to do is, I want to move the windmill over, because I want to have the windmill replace the solar panel.
So I'll get the move tool, and I'll just drag this over to the right. I'm going to hold down my Shift key as I drag that and that will constrain that motion to a horizontal so it's not going to kind of move up and down. Okay, so now I want to add a layer mask. I essentially need the exact same layer mask as I have on the solar panel there. So here's a great trick for copying a layer mask from one layer to another. I'm going to hold down the Option key on Mac, or the Alt key on Windows, and just click and drag that up there, and that's going to copy that mask. Alright, see how that looks there.
And that looks pretty good. Now, look at that. I have seen that before. See that flashing there? Now, let's explain a couple things. First you see this blue line here. This blue line is the RAM preview. With video, Photoshop has to load the video data in, in order to preview it and so sometimes on complicated projects, you might see some jumpiness and some uneven playback until it's loaded in the RAM preview. But we have the RAM preview loaded in here. And even if I play this, we're going to run into this jumpy stuff here.
And the reason for that, and I have no idea why this is true, but after a lot of hair pulling and testing and assistance from colleagues, I figured it out. It's because on this layer here, we moved it over to the side. Let me just temporarily turn that layer mask off and turn all of the other things off. And here's another glitch you should know about. Why are we not seeing the windmill layer? It's because the play head is not currently on the windmill layer. So let's move that over and now suddenly we can see it.
So I moved it over, I've got a bunch of transparency here, and I have this mask that is linked there. Well, the fix for this, believe it or not, is unlinking the mask. That will cause that jumpy playback to go away. So to unlink the mask in this case, and again, this is only the case when you have a layer where you've moved it over and it's not filling the entire frame. We're just going to click on the chain link icon between the layer thumbnail and the mask to unlink it, and now let's check this out.
And now it previews as we expect. So again, I have no reason why that is the case, but that's the fix there. Alright, let's just preview this here, real quick. Light switch goes on, solar panel comes in, timing there is a little bit slow and then we've got the windmill. So this has been a really simple example. But it illustrates quite effectively the central role the layer masks play in any type of compositing, whether you're using still images or video.
And as a bonus along the way, we ran into a couple of little technical glitches that I was able to give you solutions for, so hopefully, if you run into those on your own, you'll know how to handle those. We'll be working with layer masks throughout the course and in later projects, we'll explore more advanced masking techniques to create more intricate composites.
- What is video compositing?
- Using layer masks
- Applying movement and transformations with keyframes
- Using Smart Objects to perform nondestructive edits
- Animating a layer mask and layer effects
- Using blend modes to create composites
- Creating custom transitions
- Shooting video for composites


text:
Its very easy to grumble about things sometimes (the fact that we just got a heatwave coming into October and its making me hot and bothered, having to walk three flights of stairs to my office or maybe just general house and life stresses). But sometimes its good to just sit back and think about all the good things you have in life and that are making you happy right now.
Here are ten things that are making me happy this week :
1, feeling my baby wriggle around in my tummy and respond to my touch
2, when my boyfriend will sing songs and replace most words with my name
3, our cats being big sillies (evidence above)
4, looking at baby books and day dreaming about reading them to our baby
5, when we switch off the TV and listen to music we love or had forgotten until that minute
6, breakfast in bed (even if i ruin the surprise by getting up and going to have a shower)
7, almost being late for the morning train because we both had to stop to play with the kitten we saw in our street
8, decaf coffee (its nice to be able to drink one hot drink as tea still makes me sick)
9, when my boyfriend talks about the things him and our son are going to do in the future (mainly involve making up songs about mummy, playing silly games and dancing like fools)
10, getting surprise letters in the post


text:
Earlier this year, Twitter released Flight, an event-driven web application framework.
Back then, I remarked:
My thoughts on Twitter Flight: Simple, clean way of decoupling your JavaScript into pub/sub components, but I wonder about maintainability..
Only to never return to it.
I'm a sucker for all things simple, decoupling, and JavaScript, so it's rather surprising I didn't do anything more with it. There was always something I liked about my initial review of Flight, so I finally had the urge to revisit.
It also gave me a chance to use as many cheezy puns as possible with regards to airplanes... and who doesn't love airplanes?
Flight is a lightweight, component-based JavaScript framework that maps behavior to DOM nodes.
With Flight, you build components.
Think of these components as modules that wrap the behavior of your UI and/or data elements. However, you don't handle these components directly. Rather, components expose events and consume events from other components. In other words, components do not talk to each other directly. Components are completely decoupled and Flight handles the pub/sub communication between them.
Neat, eh?
In case you're wondering, Flight does offer mixins - shared functionality between components.
Flight Generator
In this example, I'm opting to use the Flight Generator to get off the ground, quickly. [Play Laugh Track]
Flight Generator allows you to generate application and component scaffolding for your Flight application - it requires Node.js and Git to be installed.
I'm choosing to use Node here, but you could port these pieces of code to whatever web platform gives you the warm fuzzies.
First, install Flight Generator and generate the scaffolding for your
npm install -g generator-flight
mkdir flight-app && cd $_
yo flight <app-name>
We're going to keep things simple.
Let's create a simple 'application' that has a textbox and a label. And, as you type in the textbox, it'll update the label. I know, I know, I was wearing my creative cap today.
yo flight:component input
yo flight:component output
This will generate the scaffolding for two components that you'll find in
app/js/components. That leaves us with the task of simply filling in the details.
Flight requires an AMD implementation. I prefer require.js, but you may opt for something else. When you create a module, you'll have to export a Flight component module,
flight/lib/component. These components come with the baked-in, basic functionality and event handling that we're about to look at. I want to emphasize that the components below are just scratching the surface when it comes to the Flight API. There's much more to discover, but this is just a blog post to get us out of the gate.
Input Component
Our input component will have the task of detecting a
keyup event thereby triggering the
inputChange event passing the current value of the binding node,
this.$node.val(), to subscribers of the event (in our case, our output component).
define(function (require) {
'use strict';
var defineComponent = require('flight/lib/component');
return defineComponent(input);
function input() {
this.onKeyup = function () {
this.trigger('inputChange', {
val: this.$node.val()
this.after('initialize', function () {
this.on('keyup', this.onKeyup);
Output Component
Our output component will have the task of detecting an
inputChange event which will subsequently update the text of its binding node with the incoming value,
data.val. Unlike the input component, which was only listening for the
keyup event from its binding node, the output component will listen for
inputChange from any DOM element within
define(function (require) {
'use strict';
var defineComponent = require('flight/lib/component');
return defineComponent(output);
function output() {
this.onInputChange = function (e, data) {
this.after('initialize', function () {
this.on(document, 'inputChange', this.onInputChange);
Initialize Component
Our final piece of the puzzle is to bind, or
attachTo, our components to DOM elements - also known as their binding node in the context of Flight. You do so by specifying a
selector and here we're using an
id for both.
define(function (require) {
'use strict';
var input = require('component/input'),
output = require('component/output');
return initialize;
function initialize() {
index.html that is generated by the Flight Generator and add in the necessary DOM elements to get our example working.

Test Flight

<form role="form">

<input id="input" type="text" class="form-control"/>

Finally, create an HTTP wrapper and
node app it!
var connect = require('connect');
I think it's alive!
On Arrival
Twitter Flight is a simple framework that lives by Separation of Concerns. You build a component and bind it to a DOM element. Components work independently of each other via publication and subscription to component events. Flight doesn't attempt to do anything with routing, templating, rendering or kitchen sinking - and it's fine with that.
In a world filled with YAJMVL™ (Yet Another JavaScript MV Library - Angular, Backbone, Ember and Knockout, etc.), Twitter Flight offers something of an alternative.
If you like simple, decoupling, JavaScript and vanilla ice cream - I think you might find Flight to be an attractive alternative.


text:
Amway held it's 2nd business Building Seminar of 2010 in Johnstown House Hotel today Sunday March 7th – This was a fantastic event with some great speakers and a product display. One unique feature of these Amway events in Ireland is the ticket price and what happens to the funds. Tickets are €5 i.e. five euro per ABOship. ABOs enter their name, ABO number and nominate a local children's charity – during the seminar a draw takes place and the chosen ABO will get to present the funds to the chosen charity.
Back to the speakers we had a new 21% telling us how they did it and Pat Stranney teaching on how to get started and to close the evening we had executive diamond Jackie Gulick on rewards and lifestle.
We also had Andy Smith General Manager & Director, Amway UK and RoI speaking on company updates etc.
All this in a little town just outside Dublin in the Republic of Ireland – what a way to spend a Sunday afternoon.


text:
Please note that I cannot guarantee that the Severed MC books will be co-signed by K T Fisher. Please assume when ordering that they are only signed by me.
Payment will be taken at the time you place the order as these are special pre-order only prices. Your book will be available to collect at the signing you have indicated above.
If you are unable to attend the signing for any reason please contact me and postage will be charged at cost.
All pre-orders will include a special swag gift from the author.