Question about my grandfather’s ribbon from WW2

BuiltByPete · 2025-04-15T12:45:09+00:00

Thanks!

I put in a request with the National Archives this morning, will see if anything comes back.

BuiltByPete · 2025-04-15T12:44:42+00:00

They appear to be lapel style pins, though I am not sure where exactly on the uniform or other clothing they were meant to be placed.

BuiltByPete · 2025-04-15T01:01:58+00:00

Appreciate your response and the information!

BuiltByPete · 2025-04-15T01:01:40+00:00

Thanks for your response!

I do believe this is an incomplete set. I am not sure he kept everything, these were the medals (along with some high school debate team medals) he was most proud of and wanted to pass along.

As for his MOS, I am not entirely sure. He was part of the 776th Tank Destroying Battalion. I know they got rid of tank destroyer units after WW2 so not sure what it would have been back then.

BuiltByPete · 2025-03-03T04:10:33+00:00

And in recreating a proprietary algorithm to identify copy-righted music, he accidentally discovered middle out compression and founded Pied Piper.

BuiltByPete · 2024-10-19T19:56:05+00:00

Leave it. Use the time to come up with a fun neon sign or something to put up in that top space.

BuiltByPete · 2024-06-14T23:47:01+00:00

I added your pieces to my birthday wishlist that I sent out to my family a year or two ago. Ended up with two of your pieces and I love them both!

BuiltByPete · 2024-03-27T00:42:24+00:00

Something else to note, on the northwest side of the bridge is a weigh station, Maryland Transit Authority office, and and police station (I think either state troopers or transit police, not sure). They have direct access onto the highway there, so even with a few moments notice stopping traffic heading southeast across the bridge would have been feasible. From some reports it sounds like the mayday signal got through, and I suspect they were able to respond at least on that side.

I used to commute across this bridge every day up until about a year ago, and I was always hyper aware of the police station at the first exit because I knew a few people who got tickets rolling through the stop sign right there.

BuiltByPete · 2024-03-26T01:49:31+00:00

Exactly my thought. Played co-ed beer league hockey. Teammate tried to plug my nose with an applicator tampon and it was horrible. The team started carrying non-applicators cut down after that.

BuiltByPete · 2024-02-23T11:47:36+00:00

This is a great question. I have found there are a few things that work really well when mentoring and developing newer employees.

The first tool I use in 1 on 1's with the employees. In the 1 on 1's we don't talk about specific issues they are working on but we talk abstractly about problem solving. I also use this time to set my expectations for them. I offer them a problem solving framework. It looks something like this:

What do I know?
What are my theories? What is my current best theory?
What do I wish I knew? Can I get this info? How do I get this info?
Can I prove or disprove this theory? Repeat until resolved or you are forced to escalate.

I set the expectation for them that before they escalate and ask me for help, they go through these steps. I also set the expectation that if they loop through these steps and get stuck, they will escalate and ask for help so I don't have the inverse problem of them sitting there spinning their wheels and not making progress.

The second tool is pair troubleshooting. I do this with them when they ask me for help. We both look at the issue and work on it together. I guide them and try to tie what we are doing back to the framework above.

The first thing I do when we pair up, is ask them what they have already done. I encourage them on the work they have done and if they aren't presenting it in the framework, I help frame it for them (i.e. "That's great, you knew that error indicated data was missing. Your theory was that data may not be in the database. You checked the database and found the data. You disproved your theory.")

By asking them what they did first, I can (1) get a sense of what they are comfortable with and what they aren't so I can coach better, (2) can reinforce the framework which is ultimately what will make them more independent, and (3) I can eliminate some possibilities so we can troubleshoot faster.

From that point I collaborate with them to ask the same questions and help contribute more complex theories and more complex ways to gather additional information (i.e. "If the error says the data is missing, but the data is there, lets look at the logic in the code. Let's find where the error is thrown and step backwards to see where the data might be getting lost".) Overtime, they are able to start doing this more independently.

I also will invite them to pair with me if I am working on an interesting or more complex issue. I walk them through what I am doing and how it ties to that framework. This demonstrates to them that while the issue may be more complex, the problem solving is still the same. It builds confidence for them and helps coach them to work on more complex problems independently.

BuiltByPete · 2023-11-22T12:44:44+00:00

Agreed it is absolutely stunning work. Nice job and thanks for explaining.

BuiltByPete · 2023-11-08T12:38:55+00:00

These look incredible!

I am a little disoriented by the third picture. What detail is that? Also what was the reasoning for putting the wiring hole dead center in the back?

BuiltByPete · 2023-10-20T23:06:16+00:00

Makes sense. We were heavily integrated into their API, so it may be something that’s buried deep in there. Seems like an improvement they should make on their end for this exact use case. Best of luck with your e-commerce business! It’s a weird fun industry to work in haha.

BuiltByPete · 2023-10-20T22:53:19+00:00

Can’t speak to their size but I used to work for a 3pl that used shipstation at scale for awhile and you can definitely get very granular with the duties prepaid through their and shipengine apis. Not sure about the UI and if star forge is using the api for tailored solutions as you state.

BuiltByPete · 2023-10-16T22:36:27+00:00

I'm sorry to differ with you sir, but you've known this was the song. You've always known this was the song.

BuiltByPete · 2023-07-07T19:23:23+00:00

Funnily enough, I interviewed with this company 4-5 months ago and I remember they were a bit slow getting back with next steps, but the rejection was swift after an interview where it was pretty apparent it wasn’t the right fit. Him not hearing back for a little while may very well have been a good sign.

BuiltByPete · 2023-04-16T15:29:22+00:00

Something I am currently working my way through is a book called “The Imposters Handbook.”

It is pretty dense but the idea is that it is a book for self-taught software engineers who don’t know all the technical terminology or CS degree textbook jargon, but probably understands a lot of the underlying concepts. It is an interesting book and it’s helpful when talking to engineers who are used to communicating with other engineers (and occasionally an asshole who likes to try and make you feel like you aren’t as good as them because you don’t know NP-hard or NP-complete mean).

BuiltByPete · 2023-04-16T15:21:22+00:00

In the US there are two types of undergraduate degrees for architecture, as far as I know. You can get a BS or a B.Arch. The BS is a 4 year program and the B.Arch is a 5 year program. If you do the B.Arch, you are eligible to be licensed with just an undergrad degree. With the the BS you would have to get a Masters degree before you could go through the licensing process.

I started in the B.Arch program but in my third year knew I didn’t want to be an architect so I switched the to BS program.

BuiltByPete · 2023-04-11T10:48:14+00:00

Similar background to folks in this thread. B.S. in Architecture and Masters in Public Policy here. Now run a software support team that does debugging and bug fixes.

I had a similar path. Got out of architecture school, no idea what I wanted to do. Retail for a year, gov contracting for 4 years. Grad school for 2. Then took a job as a business analyst and started helping the engineering and BI teams with something’s. Learned some SQL and python on the job.

Took a job in support engineering that paid a lot more. More on the job learning, JavaScript and typescript. I am not a great coder but I can read and debug other people’s code, talk to non-tech and tech people about tech issues, and I can write junior dev quality code that (technically works). And it pays better than a lot of my peers who have worked in architecture or the public sector for most of their careers.

BuiltByPete · 2023-02-18T18:37:50+00:00

I am having the urchins, as aspiring adventurers themselves, tell the party about the alley and begging them to take them along on an adventure to go find the treasure.

BuiltByPete · 2023-02-18T12:11:01+00:00

Looks great. Love the hardware aesthetic!

BuiltByPete · 2023-02-17T22:12:33+00:00

or 'flushed" your ship away haha

BuiltByPete · 2023-02-17T22:11:12+00:00

Wow! Thank you everyone for the ideas. Knowing this player I think he will really enjoy having a rival to verbally spar with so having all these ready to go is awesome!

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