I just did an interview where the company used “HireVue” (https://www.hirevue.com/) . . . one of those hiring tools where you do an interview but are recording video answers instead of talking to a person.
I was avoiding it like crazy thinking it was so impersonal and just didn’t feel real. But once I did it I actually really liked it and wish all the first interviews worked this way.
Here are a few reasons I liked it:
1) They present you with a question and you can look at it and think about it as long as you want. There is no awkward pause after someone asks you the question. You can read it as many times as you want to really form your thoughts.
2) Once you click record, you get a little timer that tells you how long you have gone. It limits your time so you really can’t ramble. That helps a ton!
3) As you answer . . . you can look at the question again! This means that while you are answering you can make sure you are sticking to the subject! That really really helps. I don’t like to admit it but sometimes I forget the original question and when I’m done with a thought I’m not sure if I answered the question and with a real person it’s not like you can be like Pam and ask “what was the question?”.
4) You can record your answer again but I never even used that feature . . . I was fine with whatever I said even if it wasn’t perfect. Hopefully they are understanding!
5) There was a coding challenge! Which is what made the the most nervous. I did the sample one and the answer was fairly easy so I was hopeful that the real one wouldn’t be that big a deal. It was a little bigger and took me like 20 minutes but I was totally fine with it and it was actually a fun challenge! DM me and I’ll share if you are interested. But anyway it was unlimited time and I just didn’t feel like I was making someone wait on me as I was looking up stuff and thinking and it was just SO MUCH BETTER than white boards or some shared VS Code thing that we used to do. It was in Python which I haven’t written in awhile. It was easy enough to just go look up how to define a function and do loops, etc. I think I legit did well at the challenge in that I thought through it myself, wrote some functions so the code looked clean, etc. I didn’t write test cases but whatever. I figured it out and didn’t just have some AI do it. And it’s been awhile since I wrote any Python but I knew it well enough to figure it out. That’s a good sign right?
6) The questions were really good and one of them was after the coding challenge . . . they asked about my approach to solving the problem so I just said “I don’t do a ton in Python so I had to look up how to make functions and for loops but once I did that I just kept making changes a little at a time checking for errors and fixing stuff as I went along . . it was actually fun!”
Anyway, I think I did well but who knows. Most importantly I won’t be afraid of doing a HireVue interview ever again!
Many years ago I got a regular Dyson vacuum that plugs into the wall (DC17 Asthma and Allergy). I have a registration email from Dyson I got on 5/20/2009. It still works. Over 15 years! All I have ever done to it is empty it and clean out the rollers of hair n stuff. It does “smell” in that it has that yucky vacuum cleaner smell whenever you use it but I just thought that’s how it was and if you wanted to avoid the stank you need to buy a new one ever few years. We don’t use it nearly as much as we should but it gets used often.
More recently I purchased a Dyson V8 Absolute SV10 which is a cordless vacuum. I figured that if it was easier, we would vacuum more! And the robot ones at the time just wouldn’t work for us. It was about $250 on a Black Friday sale on Nov 30, 2019 (I found a receipt from Paypal to Dyson direct!). Originally it was $450 and I even got some kit that was valued at about $60. Also got a V7 at the time and I imagine it was $150 or less. I just didn’t get why the V8 would be much better and I wanted to compare. Plus, my kid was at the age she would want to use one too. So why not have two! There were not really any serious competitors at the time and these were “the best” except for the latest and greatest from Dyson.
At first, we used them all the time! They were just so cool and easy to use and you didn’t have to drag around a cord and then roll it back up. I loved them and wanted to leave them out all the time so it was easy to get to them. After awhile, I lost the battle of leaving them out and my idea of where I wanted to mount the charging station (right in the front hall after you entered the house!) was DOA. “You are not supposed to leave the vacuum cleaner out!” I just didn’t get it and didn’t care what you were supposed to do. I wanted to do what was practical!
Eventually I put an outlet in the closet right across from where I wanted to mount it in the front hall and I shoved them in there to charge one day with the intention of eventually mounting the charging stand. I never mounted the charging stand. And over the next few years, whenever I wanted one it was dead. So I would plug it in and then go find old trusty and drag the cord around.
Over time, the closet gets more and more full of junk and it gets more difficult to get the vacuum let alone plug it in. But I would still try. One day I go in and they are both plugged in and neither of them work. What the hell?? Did I make a mistake? Looking back on the price I paid, I don’t think so. Even the cheap ones cost as much as I paid for these Dysons now and they lasted a few years at least. But once again I shut the closet and got out old trusty.
Today was different. The task as hand was to clean up the closet so I could get some more stuff in there. I take out the Dysons and sure enough, neither of them worked. The V7 goes on for a second and just turns off. The V8 goes on great but then it sorta pulses and acts all strange. For a few minutes, I thought about just putting them in the donate pile and making that the Christmas present I want this year. The also had the yucky vacuum smell so maybe it was time? Maybe the competition had caught up and I could just get a cheap Shark?
I looked at prices for a new one and the top rated one from Vacuum Wars (on youtube . . . so who knows if it’s real or just marketing) and it was nearly $700. Even #10 on the list was over $300. More than I paid for the Dyson! So maybe I should look at a robot one. Top rated was $1500. “Damn it. That’s too much. Maybe I can fix these.”
I figure with the V7, it’s probably the battery. I go look it up and an official one is nearly $100! The cheap ones on Amazon are around $40. I also see from some creators on youtube that you can just replace it with a DeWalt or Milwaukee battery. Okay NOW we are talking! Can I 3D print it? Hmmm. Maybe, but the top part is really thin and fragile. $20 isn’t bad for molded plastic and some metal prongs . . . let’s go for it!
With the V8, the small content creators said the pulsing was because it was clogged and they showed how to take apart and clean almost all of the Dysons cordless models. WOW. So easy. Basically, it all comes apart and most of the parts that come into contact with dirt you can easily clean with water and an old toothbrush. I could even clean the main brush area that was especially horrible because someone used it to clean up baking powder and parmesan cheese . . . . or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.
Right now it’s all drying but I’m sure it’ll work great. I’m going to mount that one in the closet right after this post! When the battery dies, I can always adapt it to other batteries. The downside to using drill batteries is you can’t charge it on the stands anymore but the upside is that I always have batteries fully charged and waiting anyway. And that’s only if it works. Still have to try that out with the V7. Otherwise Amazon is getting it back.
In the end, I don’t know if the Dysons are worth it. I don’t have any other vacuums to compare! I wish we could rely on “the internet” and “content creators” but everywhere you go that stuff has been gamed to sell products. Even when products are sent for free and that’s the only terms it’s only human to look at it favorably and your sense of if something is worth the money is all thrown off. Even Vacuum Wars . . . that buys all the products themselves . . . probably has bias too in that they have affiliate links and selling ANY vacuum is good for them so they are generally very favorable.
What I can say is that the battery operated Dysons from years ago seem solid and something that can last a long time with a little cleanup here and there. I with my old vacuum was as easy to take apart because it sure could use a cleaning! Maybe it is! But hopefully I use it less and less.
Also, the election was a disappointment. I don’t get it. But it seems pointless to post about it. Everyone is so divided and the results change nothing. The sides don’t even agree on basic truths let alone the bigger issues and the mechanism to solve them. Even a few days later I just want to avoid the news and stay heads down on ANYTHING else.
Once again I feel like I’m missing something. Lots of praise but I just don’t see this as a net positive. Here is a link.
“Today’s vote also makes clear that the Commission will exercise its authority over broadband in a narrowly tailored fashion— without rate regulation, tariffing, or unbundling—to foster continued innovation and investment”
Let me translate. We are going to create a bunch of rules that only a place like Cox will be able to follow and we are going to allow Cox to charge whatever they want for it.
Later on is a reference to “Safeguard National Security” and to me that translates as: “when competition that is funded by sources we don’t like we will revoke their ability to do business”. Again, I get National Security is important and we certainly don’t wany anyone spying on traffic . . . but we don’t want ANY of the ISP’s spying right? Not just the ones funded by China?
Maybe the positive thing is “Protect the Open Internet” but in the end the ISPs are going to get what they wanted anyway . . . the ability to CHARGE for an Open Internet.
Very strange to me to pick on a particular company using legislation. But so many people are happy about it including most of congress, Biden, Gruber, most of the hosts at All In. Just seems so strange to be agreeing with Sacks. Even a survey of close friends gets either a meh or a good. I think that if this app gives China a way to spy on Americans or tweak the algorithm in ways to influence Americans we should go up a level and hold Google and Apple responsible and making the kind of spying they are doing impossible. And make all companies share what goes into algorithms instead of banning one company. What am I missing?
For the last several years Heatsync Labs has held an event called HAXMAS where card holding members keep the lab open for at least 48 hours straight. The idea here is that with the lab open the public has time to MAKE the best Christmas gifts ever! Luis is the organizer of the event and takes on more than his share of hours.
Last year we had so much fun! As soon as the volunteer list opened I as I asked my 10 year old daughter and she jumped at the chance! She even surveyed her friends to see if they would be crazy enough to stay overnight in downtown Mesa and of course no one would. So that made it even more reasonable in her mind! 🙂
Spoiler alert: We had a fantastic time and will do it again next year!
We had a few different projects planned.
Individually addressable LED Graham Cracker house (our new tradition)
Finally put an E3D Revo Mini in a Prusa Mini that keeps clogging
Swap out dead battery from Razor Crazy Cart Shift with a battery from a drill
Finish up some outstanding “monthly box projects” that we get from Crunch Labs or the 3D printer focused ones we get from Alien3D.
Painting and jewelry and online design projects for Christmas gifts.
We brought ALOT of stuff to the lab. A Switch and a 50 inch TV. The crazy cart and the parts we needed to transform it. A bunch of Ridgid batteries and a charger. A bunch of Milwaukee 12 volt tools just in case! A box full of candy and other Graham Cracker decoration and creation stuff. Several bins with tools and strings and strings of LEDs. The Alien3D boxes. A broken 3D printer and the parts to fix it. Pillows and air mattresses and blankets to stay warm and take a nap. The wagon to carry some of it.
LED Graham Cracker house and Art projects
The one thing we DID NOT BRING was the half done LED Graham Cracker houses! We were already running late and didn’t have time to go back and get them. So cross that off the list!
Ems decided to work on designing decorations in Canva (using the iPad and iPen or whatever it’s called). She also painted and did some other crafts. She was so busy with that stuff and playing on the Switch that she stayed up all night and we even took the crazy cart over to Lost Dutchman and got breakfast and hot chocolate a bit past 7am.
Crazy Cart Drill Battery Replacement
When we arrived, there were several people there (the regulars!). I opened up the crazy cart to get to work and they couldn’t help but ask what was up. I showed them what I wanted to do with the battery from the drill. In true Heatsync fashion, they all jumped in with ideas and one of them figured it all out and even contributed the transistor we needed to make it work!
The first thing I noticed was that there were two 12 volt batteries wired in series so it was looking like my plan of adding an 18 volt battery using this adapter and dropping the voltage with this module was likely not going to work.
Ridged battery adapterVoltage drop module from Aliexpress
I tried the easy thing and just wired up the battery to the controller in place of the two dead 12 volt batteries and while it LOOKED and SOUNDED like it would work, alas, the controller was not sending the power to the motor. You could hear a clicking when you pressed the petal so it seems like the voltage was doing something but it wasn’t enough to engage the motor. Luckily, we were at Heatsync and David knew of an easy to hook up power supply where we could vary the voltage! So we connected that, set it to 24 volts, and boom, it worked! And it wasn’t even drawing that much power. Turns out the motor being used was really small compared to, say, an electric bike. We dropped the voltage to see when the controller would cut off power to the motor and it was around 19 volts. Damn! The easy route was dead.
We has SO MANY OPTIONS. Wire up 2 12 volt batteries from Milwaukee instead. Get a module to increase the voltage instead of decrease it. See if we could modify the controller (it was a simple looking board) to ignore it’s battery safety check since we didn’t need that. Wire in our own relay and replicate what the board was doing. And that’s just the beginning.
Luckily, Linwood was there and he had a brilliant idea . . . can we just use a simple high current transistor? Similar to what was already on the board?
The current control board did a few things. Charge the battery. Turn on the cart. Listen to feedback from the petal. The petal it turns out, was a bit more complicated. It had a simple switch like you might except but it also had a hall effect sensor that was sensing the magnetism of a bar magnet as it ran past the sensor as someone pressed the pedal further down. Luckily, it also had that simple switch. Now, instead of being able to vary the speed by varying the pressure on the pedal, you would instead have to pulse it on and off. Which is how most kids used it anyway!
Using some alligator clips (thanks again heatsync) we wired up the prototype. And it worked! We could turn on and off the motor with the pedal as long as we grounded the drain (which was common . . . it doesn’t take much voltage to activate the transistor). Hurray. We replaced the alligator clips with some wire nuts and set out to test how the transistor would fair under load. We knew it was fine with no resistance running for a few minutes but what if it was pushing around an 80 lbs kid?
Well, it went fine! Here is a picture of how it looked before the test with the old (on the top) and new parts (down below) in the picture.
Crazy Cart almost ready for a test
The transistor got warm but that was it . . . even after several minutes of running. Boom! Done! Thanks to Linwood for doing all the hard work and David and Nate for assisting! By then it was 10pm and I just spent some time soldering up the connections and replacing the wire nuts on all the connections except the battery.
3D printer fix fail
Next up was the 3D printer! The task was to replace a hot end that kept clogging (and was old . . had about 30 days of print time, so 720 hours) with an E3D Revo Micro using this guide. I printed the part I needed so all that was left was to take it apart and do it. This one was a huge failure. It was later at night and I didn’t pay attention and was twisting the hot end when I was twisting it on the new part and ended up ruining the spring. Hopefully I can just buy or make a replacement spring. The good news is I had another one ready and was able to replace it a few days later and since I did all that reading at HAXMAS it was a simple process.
E3D Revo Micro on a Prusa Mini doing the dino test.
Switch Sports
It was nice having a TV in the lab. We could play Christmas music, take a break and watch Youtube. And of course play Switch Sports. Ems and I were pretty even and I think we stopped playing when we were tied! Luis played too though it might have been too early to really get into it since it was 6am when he showed up.
Piano from Alien3d
I got this project back in October as my first Alien3D box. I had already printed out all the parts but dreaded doing the soldering of the 12 tiny buttons. And then all those wires! Heatsync was the perfect location to get me past the hump since I had whatever I needed right there. Soldering station with all the wire cutters and flush cuts I could imagine. I powered though and here is the result!
The piano and the print itself is cool. And it’s really cool that so little code can play these sound files off of an SD card. But it has a slow response and isn’t loud enough to be all that useful. Fun overall but a disappointing result. I think the M&M sorter from December will be way more fun!
Tours, Downtown Mesa, and the reindeer and sleigh
Several groups walked by and walked in. I welcomed at least 5 groups myself and I wasn’t he only one doing tours. Eric and Nate did some for sure too. Ems and I printed out over 25 reindeer and 10 sleighs to give away to people that showed up. We also brought in some flush cut so that people could “make something right there”. A few people did that and a few people just brought them home. Some people want you to sit there and show them step by step. I liked those prints because they are a bit of a challenge if you haven’t seen the final project . . . but that’s the point! Anyway, one thing we could have done better there is write up a sheet that explained it all . . . . not just to people that walked in but to other volunteers! Next time for sure.
Reindeer production (felt like a happy little elf making all these!)
One let down this year was there was nothing going on outside of Heatsync. Last year there were food vendors and little shops open around the Christmas tree and it was just cool to just walk around. This year there was nothing like that.
Conclusion
HAXMAS is super fun and I wish more people knew about it and showed up to make stuff. Of course, I’ve invested a ton of time in Heatsync and understand how it works, know people, and am able to be productive there. I thought at first it was “a privilege” but this is something I have earned by putting it the time and effort. I find it was worth it but I get how it can be intimidating to just anyone walking in. I do wish we could get more people to participate though. If you have ideas let me know!
