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Erik Gfesser

📍 Greater Chicago Area

Pro Bono: IEEE Chicago Section Statistician - Part 1

Over three years have past since my last post here on my pro bono efforts outside of the workplace. My latest pro bono contributions over the last few months have been working as Statistician for the IEEE Chicago section. The Statistician role is new for the section, and works within

Treadmill Maintenance: Control Board Replacement

A couple years ago, I wrote my first blog post in this treadmill maintenance series on how to replace the rear roller of my Smooth Fitness 5.25, which blew out a day before what was literally the end of my three-year warranty. It so happens that on Christmas Eve

New Book Review: "Infinite Shades of Grey"

New book review for Infinite Shades of Grey: Advanced Consulting, by Ian R. Hunter, 2012, reposted here: One of the best consulting texts from an in-the-trenches been-there-done-that perspective, unlike some other texts in this space that are often a bit too formulaic to provide practical advice to consultants or aspiring

Counterpoint: "Trojan Horse Consultants"

My first counterpoint blog post here, on a recent article entitled "A doctor's note for virulent consultants", provided a point-by-point rebuttle of why the author's arguments fall flat in the face of reality. In the words of the author, consultants are like viruses because

New Book Review: "Team Geek"

New book review forTeam Geek: A Software Developer's Guide to Working Well with Others, by Brian W. Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman, O'Reilly, 2012, reposted here: Arguably the best text on the software development process that focuses on the individual contributor within the context of a team.

New Book Review: "Playing to Win"

New book review for Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works, by A. G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin, Harvard Business Review Press, 2013, reposted here: The content of this book focuses on the transformation of Procter & Gamble (P&G) between 2000 and 2009, and discusses the approach

New Book Review: "R in Action"

New book review for R in Action: Data Analysis and Graphics with R, by Robert Kabacoff, Manning Publications, 2011, reposted here: Quite a few texts on R have entered the marketplace over the last few years, so my decision to go with this text about a year ago was based

Personal Reading List: 1Q2013

My personal reading list for January, February, and March 2013. Color Key: Special Notes, Currently Queued, Completed Reading. Updated throughout the Quarter. Core HTML5 Canvas: Graphics, Animation, and Game Development, by David Geary, Prentice Hall, 2012. By invitation from Amazon. Infinite Shades of Grey: Advanced Consulting, by Ian R. Hunter,

New Book Review: "Ethics of Big Data"

New book review for Ethics of Big Data: Balancing Risk and Innovation, by Kord Davis and Doug Patterson, O'Reilly, 2012, reposted here: A very much needed, extremely well written essay on what the authors call the "forcing function" of Big Data – a push to consider serious

Liquibase in the Enterprise: Part 5

A year has gone by since I last posted about Liquibase, an open source database change management tool that I exclaimed is "one of the best software development tools I have used in recent years" in my first post of the series. All of these posts continue to