Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

The Why Axis

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Recently I mentioned how my development efforts are going to be focused on quality as opposed to gizmos. I wanted to offer a specific example today, Sunday, one of the seven working days of the week.

For those of you who use SlopeCharts in intraday mode (that is, minute bars), you may have noticed that the x-axis has been, ever since the creation of the product, an embarrassing train wreck:

garbage
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Ladders and Mountains

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The roofline on my house is very steeply-pitched, and I have an unusually tall house. Therefore, it’s extremely hazardous to do any work up there.

Just about the only time someone successfully did so was, years ago, when I hired some professional Christmas light installers to festoon my entire roofline with white lights. It makes for a very cool effect, but because it cost me so much, I decided to leave them up there forever. (At the risk of coming off as gauche, I want to be clear that you wouldn’t even notice the lights unless they were on).

That was years ago, though, and the bulbs were incandescent, and as such, they started to burn out, one by one. It would cost me about $400 (at least) to hire someone to come out and replace even one of those bulbs, since it was so high up, so – – thrifty soul that I am – – I invested $300 in a very tall ladder, figuring that it would last forever and I could use it for other things in the future.

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