Step by step!

Today, I hit myself while I was sleeping. I used to roll on my bed when I'm sleeping, and my desk is right next to my bed. This morning when I rolled toward the desk, I was still almost unconscious. I don’t understand why I would bang my head toward the corner of the desk so hard. All of a sudden I regained my consciousness because it really hurt a lot. When I looked in the mirror later, I could see the red bruise on my forehead was so visible. FML.

A few weeks ago, a professor working for that Journal I'm currently working for talked to me about the user ids of journal submission system. Those ids were ridiculously long, which made no sense since we didn't even have so many users. He asked if there was a way to make them reasonably smaller. I didn’t do anything about it until a few days ago. After an investigation, I simply shortened those ids. It didn't seem a big deal to me so I just mentioned it to all the staff in a meeting later. Nor did I notice any serious concern among them about this update, except that Duane raised a few questions. It didn't even seem necessary to bring up the fact that I also did a backup and things can always be restored in a second if they do not like it.

However, after the meeting, Duane said to me very seriously, "Haibin, I have a few words for you that you may look out in future." He said when I told them I made that change, he uttered an "ah-oh" in his head. He noticed Kathy had a similar "ah-oh" in her expression as well (why didn't I see that). Duane kindly explained, for them this might cause some inconvenience because they always tried to look for users according to user ids. Now they were all changed, it might take them some time to adjust. Moreover, they had no idea what would happen to users after this update. Questions would naturally occur to them like "will the users still be able to log into the system after this change?", "will they notice this change?" Duane said this was a big adaptation for them, I should have discussed and consulted with Kathy before I made it, and I should also have told them I did some backup beforehand, otherwise they would not have felt obligated to accept this situation and refrained any doubts or questions cause there was nothing they can do about it now.

So apparently I made a mistake of miscommunication. The problem is as a developer, I should have considered the problem more from the point of user requirement, and communicated more with users. Duane is obviously much more considerate than I am, I'm sure those questions in the meeting he asked were mainly meant to help me clarify my actions to others.

Even though I understand my problem now, it is not over yet. After that update, something weird happened. No manuscripts were uploaded whatsoever, and no new users were registered, either. This is rare in the whole history, because this journal is a very famous one that receives submissions all the time. But this time, no manuscripts were submitted for almost 10 days. Nobody knows what is the problem. Inevitably I would be suspected for the unapproved modification. But again, they can't say it for sure. So Tracy sent me an email, but only asking me to check the system and database. I sensed her suspicion, and made a quick check through all possible problems. I had to keep myself away from the center of the heat. But no problems were found at all.

To be sure, I made some more tests last Friday, and sent an email to Tracy, stating that as far as I know, there is nothing wrong with the system. I also indicated that if users were experiencing difficulties with the system, they would have contacted via email or phone calls.

After that email, I took a deep breath to shake off the pressure. But anxiety hit me again: am I telling her she should not suspect me any more? Shouldn't I have handled it in a more considerate, subtle way?

前年11月中旬开始下雪，去年10月底，今年10月中就开始了。

I'm still enjoying autumn, but winter already comes.

Every time the sun reappears after a shower, I would like to go out and check if there is a rainbow. Today I got a little luck.

Still quite interested in photographing fireflies. This time I tried my luck in Spring Creek Park. With my technique improved, I am happy I can get some better shots.



I have to say these fireflies look quite different from those I saw in Tudek park, not only from their color, but also the way they fly.



I also tried my luck again in Tudek Park yesterday night.



This time most of them were taken around this road.





Played with my flashlight along the road, leading to an interesting track of light.