I'm a nerd, always have been and always will be. I enjoy listening to things like this live D&D game.
I've listened to all the previous games these guys have played and they
make the act of playing D&D seem like the fun it can be. I played
it when I was younger, unfortunately with people who were more in to how
much they could kick monster arse than how much fun you could have
playing the scenario. Also add in the fact that I was made the dungeon
master a lot of the time and with my broad imagination it didn't turn
out so well. Still this is the kind of thing that I enjoy.
This is part of who I am. I enjoy seeing, if you take the unrealism for
granted, where this kind of setup can take people to. The way they
react to situations the clearly are impossible in the real world but in
your imagination and with no real consequences to yourself other than
you might have to reroll a new character (and even then you may not need
to). It allows you to try something that you would never even think of
doing in the real world and just play with it. I find myself letting
lose much more in these kind of situations that I normally do.
It allows me to express things that just get in the way in real life. I
don't get angry about things. It is something that baffles some people
when they interact with me. I really don't see the point since it does
nothing to fix the situation that could make you angry. I don't confront
people either since people will rarely actually rationally deal with
the confrontation. It might make me seem like a meek uncaring coward but
I don't care what people think about me in general (other than my wife
and she knows me). I do what I need to do to make sure I look after the
ones I love and don't give a damn about anybody else.
Still it is nice once in a while to simply act out in ways that I don't
in real life. To just mess about with characters and places that simply
don't exist other than in someone's imagination or a piece of software.
Just because you shouldn't do something in real life doesn't mean you
shouldn't explore it to understand it. Trying out something new is fun
every now and then.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
Blah today
Really nothing but work work work so far today. Not even really a chance to not go flat out. Normally I can gently break myself in to work with getting here early and work up a steam so I can be productive most of the morning and then wind down before I leave. Today though there is so much to do and very little enthusiasm to do it. Not sure why although admittedly a lot of it is boring technical documentation, which although required, it exceedingly dull and not my strong point.
Also got paid again today and then looked on in horror at how many bills seem to have lined themselves up to come at the same time. Not a lot of discretionary spending until I get paid again in two weeks (something that seemed strange when we first moved here compared to the UK but now is actually quite handy) but enough to buy all the food, petrol and other odds and ends we need.
Wondering what to do now, really don't feel like working but too many people around to slack off too much and I can't leave without getting lots of people wondering where I am. Time to find something on my todo list to do maybe or some other way of passing time while looking like I am working.
Also got paid again today and then looked on in horror at how many bills seem to have lined themselves up to come at the same time. Not a lot of discretionary spending until I get paid again in two weeks (something that seemed strange when we first moved here compared to the UK but now is actually quite handy) but enough to buy all the food, petrol and other odds and ends we need.
Wondering what to do now, really don't feel like working but too many people around to slack off too much and I can't leave without getting lots of people wondering where I am. Time to find something on my todo list to do maybe or some other way of passing time while looking like I am working.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Mixed stuff
A strange mix of stuff today. Last night it seems I found out I have the power to influence TV shows. Remember the other day I complained about at least having a sliver of realism in TV? It seems my complaint about one show where the main character wears impractical high heels to crime scenes was taken care of. The character actually wore sensible shoes, and I suspect sensing that viewers were noticing it, specifically pointed out this fact. Now I just need to use my power to get TV around to just being the kind of programs my wife and I like to watch with the people we like to watch.
The other side of the mixed stuff is the news I saw when I got to work today. An announcement from one of our VPs that an employee has died. He was someone that has worked here for 18 years, just a little bit longer than me. He worked in another department I don't interact with much but I knew of him and would nod hello if we passed by walking around. It is always slightly unnerving when you hear news like that, someone who was around you and in your part of the world is simply gone. He was an older guy and not in the best of physical shapes but still sad news. Oh and whomever taught grammar to the VP that sent out the notice about death ought to be shot. The notice starts with "It was a great deal of sadness that I must inform you all". I mean seriously, did he even try reading that back?
Anyway, back off to work and working on my todo list seeing what I can get done.
The other side of the mixed stuff is the news I saw when I got to work today. An announcement from one of our VPs that an employee has died. He was someone that has worked here for 18 years, just a little bit longer than me. He worked in another department I don't interact with much but I knew of him and would nod hello if we passed by walking around. It is always slightly unnerving when you hear news like that, someone who was around you and in your part of the world is simply gone. He was an older guy and not in the best of physical shapes but still sad news. Oh and whomever taught grammar to the VP that sent out the notice about death ought to be shot. The notice starts with "It was a great deal of sadness that I must inform you all". I mean seriously, did he even try reading that back?
Anyway, back off to work and working on my todo list seeing what I can get done.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Stop being clever other people
Yet again I've come across something that makes me wonder why I can't do something like that. Following the Lego blog I do I see some pretty good constructions that people have done. This particular one though I enjoyed a lot.
How cool is that. A whole bunch of claptraps made from Lego. It intersects both my videogame interest (with a game I really enjoy) and my Lego interest. Yet I see this and wonder why couldn't I do that. I just don't think of things like this. I like following exact instructions and coming out with a nice looking final object but having the imagination to do this just eludes me. Le sigh.
Bias
I saw a discussion online about a tech job the other day. The discussion centered around the fact that someone, being 35 years old, was turned down for the job due to "not being young enough to have the drive and enthusiasm for the job". Basically using their age as an excuse for them not being slave driven and working all hours. A stupid thing to do since the only way to succeed long term is treat your employees respectfully and not run them in to the ground in a couple of years so they leave for somewhere else.
It does bring up another point though. When did 35 become old? People work until they are in the 60s. That person has another 30 years of work ahead of them, almost as much time as they have been alive. Considering most people that make hiring decisions (i.e. like me) are near that age it is amazing how often people are discarded for being "too old". When I chose someone to work here I look at how good they are at the job, not how old they are. We've hired people in their 50s and they've turned out great. Quite a few of the ones we hired in their 20s haven't (not that I had much say in those hiring choices).
An area where this kind of age bias is even more prevalent is for actors and actresses. Mostly for actresses. It is amazing how often on a TV show you will see some actress written off and then a younger person brought in. Ostensibly it is for money reasons but quite often you have to wonder if the creators didn't consider the person to be getting too old. You do see exceptions every so often which is nice, since actresses do actually get better with age and don't look like knackered old hags once they pass 30. Take one person who got a regular job on a show we watch. Sela Ward got a part on CSI:NY a while ago, replacing Melina Kanakaredes. Despite being almost 10 years older she actually looks better in my opinion and is a better actress. More often though the part would have been given to some 20 something bimbo with no actual acting ability. To punctuate my point lets take a look at a couple of photos of Sela.
This woman turned 55 this year yet she still looks great. Reading up on some stuff about her she got turned down for a part at 39 because she was considered too old. People really are idiots when it comes to age, even when thinking about people their own age they always consider them too old or too young. It is a strange form of cognitive dissonance.
Anyway, I just wanted people to think a bit more about someone's age. Or maybe consider it less of an important factor when catagorising people or trying to judge them. About the only thing age affects is you get more experience as you get older (ok, maybe your body starts to creak and fall apart a bit more as well).
It does bring up another point though. When did 35 become old? People work until they are in the 60s. That person has another 30 years of work ahead of them, almost as much time as they have been alive. Considering most people that make hiring decisions (i.e. like me) are near that age it is amazing how often people are discarded for being "too old". When I chose someone to work here I look at how good they are at the job, not how old they are. We've hired people in their 50s and they've turned out great. Quite a few of the ones we hired in their 20s haven't (not that I had much say in those hiring choices).
An area where this kind of age bias is even more prevalent is for actors and actresses. Mostly for actresses. It is amazing how often on a TV show you will see some actress written off and then a younger person brought in. Ostensibly it is for money reasons but quite often you have to wonder if the creators didn't consider the person to be getting too old. You do see exceptions every so often which is nice, since actresses do actually get better with age and don't look like knackered old hags once they pass 30. Take one person who got a regular job on a show we watch. Sela Ward got a part on CSI:NY a while ago, replacing Melina Kanakaredes. Despite being almost 10 years older she actually looks better in my opinion and is a better actress. More often though the part would have been given to some 20 something bimbo with no actual acting ability. To punctuate my point lets take a look at a couple of photos of Sela.
Anyway, I just wanted people to think a bit more about someone's age. Or maybe consider it less of an important factor when catagorising people or trying to judge them. About the only thing age affects is you get more experience as you get older (ok, maybe your body starts to creak and fall apart a bit more as well).
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Where did all these people come from?
If there is one thing I don't like about the last few months of the year it is what happens to the roads on my commute to and from work. Once summer is "over" and the kids go back to school the roads around here seem to be at their busiest they are all year. This year particularly it seems to be getting mental. Add to that the generally crap drivers (doing 55mph in the middle lane with cars swarming around to get past you is not a good idea) and it adds up to a lot of traffic.
This week especially seems to be bad. Normally I rarely slow down below the speed limit when driving to work since I go in early enough. This week though I only seem to be able to do the speed limit half of the time. The rest is spent slowing down and speeding up as too many people do the wrong thing on the road and don't leave enough room for each other or don't let other people merge or dozens of other stupid things. Considering 48 of the 52 miles I do on my commute are on the freeway I should be doing a fair clip, especially at 5am in the morning.
I can only take all this traffic as a good sign I suppose. If more people are driving to work then things might be picking back up a bit. If that is so then things for me might actually pick up a bit more and we can move on with our lives and get out of our house and do more of what we want to do.
Now if only other people on the road were more considerate of other drivers around them we might actually get somewhere.
This week especially seems to be bad. Normally I rarely slow down below the speed limit when driving to work since I go in early enough. This week though I only seem to be able to do the speed limit half of the time. The rest is spent slowing down and speeding up as too many people do the wrong thing on the road and don't leave enough room for each other or don't let other people merge or dozens of other stupid things. Considering 48 of the 52 miles I do on my commute are on the freeway I should be doing a fair clip, especially at 5am in the morning.
I can only take all this traffic as a good sign I suppose. If more people are driving to work then things might be picking back up a bit. If that is so then things for me might actually pick up a bit more and we can move on with our lives and get out of our house and do more of what we want to do.
Now if only other people on the road were more considerate of other drivers around them we might actually get somewhere.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Bits and bytes are hard
Today has been about one thing at work. Fixing a single customer issue for a very important customer to us. Some would say our most important customer. It has taken me and the other most senior engineer here all day to find the issue. We pored over Megs of core file data and thousands of lines of code. The final issue? A single line of code that used the wrong length value that caused us to write a single byte too many that caused some memory corruption that then caused a later crash.
All this since someone didn't understand how to manipulate single bits and bytes. When you get down to it that is all that computers do, they fiddle with single 1s or 0s. Most programming is so abstracted though a lot of programmers forget this. However in my line of work, when you are touching the exact bits and bytes that get written to the literal piece of wire, you need to get everything exactly right in the right place and the right order.
This issue was a fundamental failure to understand that. They assumed that the length that was passed to them was the correct length. They didn't use the calculated length of something that was right there for them to use. This low level stuff seems to be something that people fail to get nowadays. It is barely taught to new computer type peeps and getting it right is still vitally important.
I suppose the one good thing about this is that I'll always have good job security out of this stuff. Now I just need to use this as leverage with my bosses for more pay and time off :) .
All this since someone didn't understand how to manipulate single bits and bytes. When you get down to it that is all that computers do, they fiddle with single 1s or 0s. Most programming is so abstracted though a lot of programmers forget this. However in my line of work, when you are touching the exact bits and bytes that get written to the literal piece of wire, you need to get everything exactly right in the right place and the right order.
This issue was a fundamental failure to understand that. They assumed that the length that was passed to them was the correct length. They didn't use the calculated length of something that was right there for them to use. This low level stuff seems to be something that people fail to get nowadays. It is barely taught to new computer type peeps and getting it right is still vitally important.
I suppose the one good thing about this is that I'll always have good job security out of this stuff. Now I just need to use this as leverage with my bosses for more pay and time off :) .
Friday, October 21, 2011
Unrealistic
My wife and I have been watching quite a bit of TV recently. What with being ill, there actually being a lot of new TV on we want to watch and my general being knackered after getting home from work it has been the best thing to do. Clearly a lot of TV is not meant to be realistic but a lot of it is set in reality. Also a lot of it is done with "pretty" people rather than normal looking people since they can be better to look at for long periods of time.
Anyway, my point is, even with these being "pretty" people (can't think of a better phrase so that will have to do) they are dressed up, made up and generally styled in ways that are utterly unrealistic. I can point out so many examples of this that I have seen in just the last week. Take a scene where a pretty well endowed woman is going to bed with her boyfriend. When she lies down in bed it looks like there are two freaking mountains in bed, any normal woman would not have that. The only way for that to happen would be if she was wearing a very supportive bra, which by all accounts would be really uncomfortable to wear in bed. You can also see this in any crime program where they have a female body on a slab covered by a sheet. There are quite often two huge protuberances under the sheet, that simply doesn't happen unless there is some form of artificial support going on.
Then there was the case the other night of a woman in a dress that would simple fall off her without a lot of sellotape being applied. She was moving around, leaning at various angles and generally acting normally. The dress however didn't budge an inch. On any other person in the real world it would be falling off and shifting around ending up looking a mess.
Then we have other things on crime shows where people turn up in silly high heels with perfect dresses and end up clean as anything. Even one scene the other night where it was an arson scene and everybody looked completely clean, not a speck of dirt anywhere.
I won't go in to more detail, including the fact that all men wear the same boring shirt and trousers combination seemingly. Surely female viewers want a bit more variety in dress of any handsome men they come across. I know my wife never complains when suitably BDU dressed men run around.
The overall point here is that there should be some semblance of normalcy and reality in the program. Don't make it this silly pristine world in which nothing is ever out of place or doesn't look like it would in a perfect stationary photograph. Make it nice to look it but don't take it to extremes.
Anyway, my point is, even with these being "pretty" people (can't think of a better phrase so that will have to do) they are dressed up, made up and generally styled in ways that are utterly unrealistic. I can point out so many examples of this that I have seen in just the last week. Take a scene where a pretty well endowed woman is going to bed with her boyfriend. When she lies down in bed it looks like there are two freaking mountains in bed, any normal woman would not have that. The only way for that to happen would be if she was wearing a very supportive bra, which by all accounts would be really uncomfortable to wear in bed. You can also see this in any crime program where they have a female body on a slab covered by a sheet. There are quite often two huge protuberances under the sheet, that simply doesn't happen unless there is some form of artificial support going on.
Then there was the case the other night of a woman in a dress that would simple fall off her without a lot of sellotape being applied. She was moving around, leaning at various angles and generally acting normally. The dress however didn't budge an inch. On any other person in the real world it would be falling off and shifting around ending up looking a mess.
Then we have other things on crime shows where people turn up in silly high heels with perfect dresses and end up clean as anything. Even one scene the other night where it was an arson scene and everybody looked completely clean, not a speck of dirt anywhere.
I won't go in to more detail, including the fact that all men wear the same boring shirt and trousers combination seemingly. Surely female viewers want a bit more variety in dress of any handsome men they come across. I know my wife never complains when suitably BDU dressed men run around.
The overall point here is that there should be some semblance of normalcy and reality in the program. Don't make it this silly pristine world in which nothing is ever out of place or doesn't look like it would in a perfect stationary photograph. Make it nice to look it but don't take it to extremes.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Being organised
Yesterday went better than it could have gone. My wife had an ophthalmologist appointment in the morning, the doctors office being near my work office, so she came in to work with me. That meant getting her out of bed at 4:30 am as well. Normally the cats do quite well at waking her up and getting her up some time after I leave for work but this was getting up with me and on the road. We got out the door on time and had a normal enough drive to work.
The appointment itself was at 8:30 and we got to the doctors by 8 and went inside at 8:15. It was then we found out that they had been trying to contact us. We changed our phone line a few months back and we contacted all of my wife's doctors to tell them the new number. Despite this they still tried to call the old number. When that didn't work they sent a letter, which actually turned up later that day, after the appointment. Anyway, the point is they wanted to move the appointment to the afternoon since my wife's doctor would not be there until then. We didn't want to hang around until later that day so they got her to see a different doctor that morning and we got out on time.
The point of this all. They could have been a lot more organised. After being told of the new phone number they didn't use it or seem to have a record of it. Then when they sent the letter they didn't send it in time or fast enough. It can't be that hard to make sure appointments moving is notified to the actual patients. It has happened before with them where they rescheduled an appointment and didn't even tell us. It is kind of frustrating that what should be the simple side of medical practices is what is messed up the most. Get your shit together people.
In other more happier news, this trailer for Uncharted 3 makes me a happy geek. Can't wait for it to turn up. The last one was soooo good they had better try and top it.
The appointment itself was at 8:30 and we got to the doctors by 8 and went inside at 8:15. It was then we found out that they had been trying to contact us. We changed our phone line a few months back and we contacted all of my wife's doctors to tell them the new number. Despite this they still tried to call the old number. When that didn't work they sent a letter, which actually turned up later that day, after the appointment. Anyway, the point is they wanted to move the appointment to the afternoon since my wife's doctor would not be there until then. We didn't want to hang around until later that day so they got her to see a different doctor that morning and we got out on time.
The point of this all. They could have been a lot more organised. After being told of the new phone number they didn't use it or seem to have a record of it. Then when they sent the letter they didn't send it in time or fast enough. It can't be that hard to make sure appointments moving is notified to the actual patients. It has happened before with them where they rescheduled an appointment and didn't even tell us. It is kind of frustrating that what should be the simple side of medical practices is what is messed up the most. Get your shit together people.
In other more happier news, this trailer for Uncharted 3 makes me a happy geek. Can't wait for it to turn up. The last one was soooo good they had better try and top it.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Getting ridiculous
I have an iPhone. A lot of people do. They are very good phones that a lot of people use for uses other than being an actual phone. A lot of other phone manufacturers have spent a lot of time trying to one up Apple in specs or design. Most have failed, some come close. Then there are those that decide to go to extremes. The iPhone is a 3.5 inch diagonal screen, it gives you enough screen to see things properly without being too large or too small. Just take a look at this promo shot for a new phone though. It is close to 5 inches diagonal. Granted it is being used by a small person but still.
That is just silly. It is even bigger than the original brick mobile phones. You may as well hold an iPad up to your face to try and use it as a phone. It just makes me laugh.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Kind of scary
Something just came to mind about the weekend my wife and I just spent away in the caravan. It was spent in Fresno, just because we wanted to explore the Zoo there and get away. The town itself is pretty boring, the ultimate definition of the US block system. Every single road was either north south or east west. Within an hour I knew my way around the whole town near enough. The number of times we actually went down a road that didn't go straight I could count on one hand.
Anyway, that isn't the point I just thought of. The point is the number of people we saw there that were shall we say "large". As in they could stand to lose a bit of weight. My wife and I are just about the right weight, not perfect but within a normal range. So many people we saw there were way beyond what they should be. A lot of it may be down to the food available to eat but it just seems even more out of whack than what we see in the town we live in and the surrounding area.
It scares me to be honest. So many of these people are going to end up with health problems and being less productive members of society (not that a lot of them could be said to be productive now that is). You start to worry about the long term prospects of humanity if so many of them are like this.
The other scary part of it all? The downright scary way they dressed. Skin tight, belly baring, midrift exposing clothes do not suite you if you do not have a normal figure. People need to learn this. It is not fashionable or attractive. Sure I'm not great but yikes.
Oh, one more thing. My wife and I had a conversation, in English, whilst paying at a shop checkout. We were then asked, again in English, what language we were speaking..... Scary again.
Anyway, that isn't the point I just thought of. The point is the number of people we saw there that were shall we say "large". As in they could stand to lose a bit of weight. My wife and I are just about the right weight, not perfect but within a normal range. So many people we saw there were way beyond what they should be. A lot of it may be down to the food available to eat but it just seems even more out of whack than what we see in the town we live in and the surrounding area.
It scares me to be honest. So many of these people are going to end up with health problems and being less productive members of society (not that a lot of them could be said to be productive now that is). You start to worry about the long term prospects of humanity if so many of them are like this.
The other scary part of it all? The downright scary way they dressed. Skin tight, belly baring, midrift exposing clothes do not suite you if you do not have a normal figure. People need to learn this. It is not fashionable or attractive. Sure I'm not great but yikes.
Oh, one more thing. My wife and I had a conversation, in English, whilst paying at a shop checkout. We were then asked, again in English, what language we were speaking..... Scary again.
Lots of balls
There are a few different ways of taking that phrase. The first is the obvious literal one that my wife did yesterday. She made lots and lots and lots of delicious meatballs. We had some for dinner last night and they were totally yummy. She made so many though we have like 9 bags of meatballs in sauce in the freezer and then another dozen or more meatballs ready for other uses. As I said lots of balls.
There is another way to take this phrase as well. As in how brave my wife is some days. Take the day she went out on a lake in a wobbly canoe at night (a fear of hers being on water in the dark) and doing that while wearing sunglasses since her glasses had been lost. That took a lot of balls in the non literal sense.
Then you have the final sense. In that lack of what my wife has. Those people who refuse to deal with something, they slink away and try to do an ostrich impression. By ignoring and avoiding the obvious they have a lot of balls. As in the sarcastic lot of balls way, failing to deal with something and by doing so being a coward.
Anyway, today's lesson in the way to take phrase is now over. So is another blog post by me. Who would have though I had so many posts in me?
There is another way to take this phrase as well. As in how brave my wife is some days. Take the day she went out on a lake in a wobbly canoe at night (a fear of hers being on water in the dark) and doing that while wearing sunglasses since her glasses had been lost. That took a lot of balls in the non literal sense.
Then you have the final sense. In that lack of what my wife has. Those people who refuse to deal with something, they slink away and try to do an ostrich impression. By ignoring and avoiding the obvious they have a lot of balls. As in the sarcastic lot of balls way, failing to deal with something and by doing so being a coward.
Anyway, today's lesson in the way to take phrase is now over. So is another blog post by me. Who would have though I had so many posts in me?
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Follow the rules
IOS5 has featured prominently in my wife and Is current plans. We both have iPhones and so updated them yesterday. For me so far I've not had any problems and everything is working as it was before or better. My wife is mostly the same with a couple of notable exceptions.
Firstly it seems a couple of games she is playing did something they were not meant to. This meant that she lost all progress she had made in the game and they were back to their initial state as if you had just gotten and played the game. One of these games it is especially annoying since she had spent real money on getting progress in the game and it is all lost.
The reason this happened? The programmers of the games did something Apple specifically told them not to. They stored the game save data somewhere which wasn't guaranteed to always be there. Why they did this I don't know but I could guess. However it doesn't change the basic point. They should have followed the rules Apple gave for interacting with their software.
It is pretty simple in my line of work. You can get a piece of software to work. You can also get it to work while following the rules. If you do something outside those rules and happen to find some behaviour that just happens to work you really shouldn't do it. This situation here demonstrates exactly why because that behind the scenes stuff that just happens to work could change to where it doesn't work. The end result if people get annoyed with your software and stop using it.
Too many software problems that people run across are not actually the result of programming errors. A lot are I admit but quite a lot are also people taking short cuts with something the basically works. However once you start to prod and poke it and change the assumptions it runs on behind the scenes things break.
Just a little note to all those IOS programmers out there. Please follow the rules despite what you may think there are pretty much always reasons. If you do and something breaks you can then at least have a foot to stand on when getting Apple to fix their shit as it were.
Firstly it seems a couple of games she is playing did something they were not meant to. This meant that she lost all progress she had made in the game and they were back to their initial state as if you had just gotten and played the game. One of these games it is especially annoying since she had spent real money on getting progress in the game and it is all lost.
The reason this happened? The programmers of the games did something Apple specifically told them not to. They stored the game save data somewhere which wasn't guaranteed to always be there. Why they did this I don't know but I could guess. However it doesn't change the basic point. They should have followed the rules Apple gave for interacting with their software.
It is pretty simple in my line of work. You can get a piece of software to work. You can also get it to work while following the rules. If you do something outside those rules and happen to find some behaviour that just happens to work you really shouldn't do it. This situation here demonstrates exactly why because that behind the scenes stuff that just happens to work could change to where it doesn't work. The end result if people get annoyed with your software and stop using it.
Too many software problems that people run across are not actually the result of programming errors. A lot are I admit but quite a lot are also people taking short cuts with something the basically works. However once you start to prod and poke it and change the assumptions it runs on behind the scenes things break.
Just a little note to all those IOS programmers out there. Please follow the rules despite what you may think there are pretty much always reasons. If you do and something breaks you can then at least have a foot to stand on when getting Apple to fix their shit as it were.
Today
A few things about today:-
- It is the day that 14 years ago my wife and I moved from the UK to the US.
- One half of the two guys that invented the programming language that I've used most of my career (or at least a derivation of it) died today. Dennis Ritchie invented the C language and large parts of the UNIX operating system. He was 70.
- My favourite actress Kate Walsh is 44 today.
- Wikipedia seems overly concerned with plane crashes when listing historical things that happened today.
- Apparently Margaret Thatcher, one of my least favourite women, was also born today.
- I started working as a temporary employee of the company I am still at around about today 18 years ago (I forget the exact date).
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Falling apart
Got back in to work today after 2 days off sick. It seems a few different things fell apart without me and I had to spend all morning sorting them out. So much so that I couldn't do important blogging for my numerous (hmmm, I might actually be down to 2) readers, one of which is my wonderful (and still sick) wife. With her more compromised health, even though we caught what must be the same cold at the same time, she is still fighting it. I have a slight nasal blockage but otherwise I'm fine now. Now my wife just needs to get better by this weekend so we can go away for a couple of nights in the caravan.
I don't have much time right now but I just wanted to put something here so people know I am still alive (those that potentially care, again it looks like I have only 2 readers now anyway :| ). I need to get finished up here so I can get back home and be wife nurse maid.
Oh, one more thing. Someone showed me the Avengers film trailer today. Yay, looks too cool (at least for a geek like me, I suspect my wife will hate it).
I don't have much time right now but I just wanted to put something here so people know I am still alive (those that potentially care, again it looks like I have only 2 readers now anyway :| ). I need to get finished up here so I can get back home and be wife nurse maid.
Oh, one more thing. Someone showed me the Avengers film trailer today. Yay, looks too cool (at least for a geek like me, I suspect my wife will hate it).
Monday, October 10, 2011
Namesake
The past few days this blog has been living up to its namesake. Both me and my wife have come down with a cold, this one seemingly wanting to hang out in the sinuses and cause pain that way. My wife is getting worse headaches than me and I'm getting more snot sniffles but we basically came down at almost the exact same time with the same cold. To whomever gave it to us (probably somebody at work but you never know) thank you very much for the time off work :| .
Lego featured again today as we spent my free Lego monies from buying so much Lego. We are also trying to find the pieces to build a couple of custom builds but ordering directly from Lego is painful since they don't have everything available which made for a frustrating hour trying to find the right pieces in the right colour and failing in the end. We did manage to get the right pieces for a nice Lego polar bear but the website is having problems and we can't check out. Grrrr.
My wife is having real snappy anger issues at the moment, no particular cause, she just feels angry. More than likely this is an effect of coming off her medication and it is annoying her a lot, especially since it makes her partially angry about getting angry. Kind of a vicious cycle at the moment she is trying her best to get through and I'm trying my best to not find ways of irritating her.
Hurrah, just randomly tried the order and it went through. Finally. Now we just need to wait the god knows how long for the order to turn up since it is a custom order of pieces and not a kit.
Anyway, trying to find something to do now so that we don't both feel too crappy. All we have managed to do is laze around, watch TV, slob on the internet and for me play games. Anything more is too strenuous since we both really don't have much energy for anything at the moment. Your body really does take energy away from "living" as it were to try and fight illness. Leaves you really incapable of doing much else which is annoying since there are chores to do but we both really aren't up to it at the moment. I think some more TV watching might be in order now, although not too loudly so we don't cause headache problems.
Lego featured again today as we spent my free Lego monies from buying so much Lego. We are also trying to find the pieces to build a couple of custom builds but ordering directly from Lego is painful since they don't have everything available which made for a frustrating hour trying to find the right pieces in the right colour and failing in the end. We did manage to get the right pieces for a nice Lego polar bear but the website is having problems and we can't check out. Grrrr.
My wife is having real snappy anger issues at the moment, no particular cause, she just feels angry. More than likely this is an effect of coming off her medication and it is annoying her a lot, especially since it makes her partially angry about getting angry. Kind of a vicious cycle at the moment she is trying her best to get through and I'm trying my best to not find ways of irritating her.
Hurrah, just randomly tried the order and it went through. Finally. Now we just need to wait the god knows how long for the order to turn up since it is a custom order of pieces and not a kit.
Anyway, trying to find something to do now so that we don't both feel too crappy. All we have managed to do is laze around, watch TV, slob on the internet and for me play games. Anything more is too strenuous since we both really don't have much energy for anything at the moment. Your body really does take energy away from "living" as it were to try and fight illness. Leaves you really incapable of doing much else which is annoying since there are chores to do but we both really aren't up to it at the moment. I think some more TV watching might be in order now, although not too loudly so we don't cause headache problems.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Time for blogging
Finally have some time to blog today, a reasonably busy morning when I get in today. Even though I get in early there are still people working in other timezones that need my help on something. Today it was two different people in India and another on the east coast that wanted me to quickly interview a contractor to see if she would be useful to us.
It also doesn't help right now that we have the final two big features in the next release we are putting out (in less than two months no less) being checked in today after getting through acceptance testing. That is another couple of large chunks of code being added that need to be functional tested in 4 weeks and then kicked out the door. Then comes the release with my big feature which I'm not furiously coding up so we can get it out early next year. Work around here is proceeding at a rapid pace so we can get this company back to a position where it is making money again. It is hard work to say the least.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make when I started this blog post is trying to find the time to write something on this blog. I use this blog as a way to write down what I've done, what I think about something or to try and work out my thoughts in a way that I find easier than talking about it.
Not much interesting to say in this blog post other than talking about blogging in of itself. Oh, also I should mention I started playing Dead Island the other night and so far it is fun. Running around bashing and slicing up zombies is very fun, especially when you start breaking their bones or slicing off limbs and then see them run up to you and flail at you armless. It is worth checking out just to see how the combat is even if the story so far is kind of nonsensical and silly (then again it is a zombie outbreak game so what do you expect).
It also doesn't help right now that we have the final two big features in the next release we are putting out (in less than two months no less) being checked in today after getting through acceptance testing. That is another couple of large chunks of code being added that need to be functional tested in 4 weeks and then kicked out the door. Then comes the release with my big feature which I'm not furiously coding up so we can get it out early next year. Work around here is proceeding at a rapid pace so we can get this company back to a position where it is making money again. It is hard work to say the least.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make when I started this blog post is trying to find the time to write something on this blog. I use this blog as a way to write down what I've done, what I think about something or to try and work out my thoughts in a way that I find easier than talking about it.
Not much interesting to say in this blog post other than talking about blogging in of itself. Oh, also I should mention I started playing Dead Island the other night and so far it is fun. Running around bashing and slicing up zombies is very fun, especially when you start breaking their bones or slicing off limbs and then see them run up to you and flail at you armless. It is worth checking out just to see how the combat is even if the story so far is kind of nonsensical and silly (then again it is a zombie outbreak game so what do you expect).
Thursday, October 6, 2011
What would I do?
A thought occurred to me yesterday after hearing the news that Steve Jobs had died. He was 56 when he died. I got to thinking what would I do with my life if I knew I was going to die at 56? I'm 40 now so that is only 16 years. Not a huge amount of time if you think about it in the scale of a normal persons life.
The scary thing is I really don't know what I would do with my life other than be with my wife. There is nothing I really want to do, nothing I really want to see and nowhere I really want to explore. I would be perfectly happy with just being at home with my wife all of that time. I suspect that would annoy the hell out of my wife with me being under her feet all the time.
In one way that says to me that I have what I want, being with my wife but on the other hand that says I never want anything more for my life so what different things are there to look forward to. Kind of strange when you think about it too much but that is kind of what I've been doing. It is also weird that this person passing away is what made me think about it, possibly because he isn't that far away from me age wise (really) and works in a physical and logical area very similar to what I do. It also doesn't help that he was incredibly successful at it where as I basically make a decent living at it.
Still, something to think about. What would I do with my time if I knew I only had that much left?
The scary thing is I really don't know what I would do with my life other than be with my wife. There is nothing I really want to do, nothing I really want to see and nowhere I really want to explore. I would be perfectly happy with just being at home with my wife all of that time. I suspect that would annoy the hell out of my wife with me being under her feet all the time.
In one way that says to me that I have what I want, being with my wife but on the other hand that says I never want anything more for my life so what different things are there to look forward to. Kind of strange when you think about it too much but that is kind of what I've been doing. It is also weird that this person passing away is what made me think about it, possibly because he isn't that far away from me age wise (really) and works in a physical and logical area very similar to what I do. It also doesn't help that he was incredibly successful at it where as I basically make a decent living at it.
Still, something to think about. What would I do with my time if I knew I only had that much left?
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
That was easy
Spent a grand total of 10 minutes at our biometric appointment today. We actually managed to get out before our actual appointment time. We went in, filled in a small form and then my wife didn't actually get to sit down again, she went straight through to get her fingerprints done. I followed a couple of minutes later. What the other people in there were doing just sitting around I don't know but it was actually quite simple. Now if only the rest of the process is that simple.
So what do you do after something nice and easy. Why go shopping of course. We looked around at a couple of things, found some nice stuff for my wife, including another cute hat for her to wear. A hat I somehow thought was a chicken until my wife pointed out it was actually a penguin. How I confused that I don't know, something about orange beaks. All in all though we got quite a few different things including some nice smelling stuff to try and cover up what sometimes seems like the eternal stink of cat crap (with 4 cats it can get busy in the litter boxes).
Work has been quiet today, just a couple of boring conference calls where I finally managed to get people to see a problem as it was and not waffle around and get all confused with something simple. Kind of frustrating since the calls were at two different times of the day which meant shopping was interrupted.
A good thing today though is yummy milk shakes, which I attempted to make and my wife had to recover slightly when it was too runny. Unfortunately we managed to break our blender in the process which could have allowed another shopping opportunity but was foiled by finding a spare part to replace the broken bit for much cheaper. Another recovery my wife managed to make within the space of 5 minutes after recovering the shakes.
Off now to try and kick a cat up the arse since Boots seems to be especially whiny today and I want him to stop annoying my wife.
So what do you do after something nice and easy. Why go shopping of course. We looked around at a couple of things, found some nice stuff for my wife, including another cute hat for her to wear. A hat I somehow thought was a chicken until my wife pointed out it was actually a penguin. How I confused that I don't know, something about orange beaks. All in all though we got quite a few different things including some nice smelling stuff to try and cover up what sometimes seems like the eternal stink of cat crap (with 4 cats it can get busy in the litter boxes).
Work has been quiet today, just a couple of boring conference calls where I finally managed to get people to see a problem as it was and not waffle around and get all confused with something simple. Kind of frustrating since the calls were at two different times of the day which meant shopping was interrupted.
A good thing today though is yummy milk shakes, which I attempted to make and my wife had to recover slightly when it was too runny. Unfortunately we managed to break our blender in the process which could have allowed another shopping opportunity but was foiled by finding a spare part to replace the broken bit for much cheaper. Another recovery my wife managed to make within the space of 5 minutes after recovering the shakes.
Off now to try and kick a cat up the arse since Boots seems to be especially whiny today and I want him to stop annoying my wife.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
400 already
Something I just noticed. 400 blog posts, this being 401. Quite a few, mostly rambling rubbish, for a guy that doesn't really express himself much. In person I really am very quiet and never say much at all. I usually feel that there is very little worth saying and what I do say I mean (unless I'm being sarcastic of course :-) ). When I talk to my wife I tell her what I feel is important, like the fact that I love her. That is a fact.
On this blog though I tend to waffle on more than I normally do, so considering what I say on here you must figure I never have much to say and only talk about a few topics. Imagine how thrilling talking to me is :| . Also to give you an idea of how long it takes me to just write this simple thing I've been thinking about what to write here for almost 40 minutes now.
Yeah, my brain really doesn't work that well in that way. I have no idea why it just does. Yet I can look at a piece of code and see it working, work out how things flow and what could potentially cause a problem. All that from just seeing it let alone watching it run in real time. I sometimes wonder if my brain worked another way whether I could still do the job I do. Or why my brain ended up like this. Was it born like this and I gravitated to what I do or was it shaped by what I did when I was younger which was shaped by people around me? Whatever the answer I don't think I can change how I think despite the problems it causes me sometimes.
Well, this post has gone in an unexpected direction. Pondering on how my mind works and how I wish it worked differently so I could express myself to my wife better. Then wondering if it did that if I could not support us with what I do. Also would it change what I find enjoyable to do? So many questions and directions to go in thought wise and no way to find all the answers. Frustrating. Maybe that is why I stick with what I can see the answer to, knowing that I can work out everything I need to with what I understand is nice. Things that are hard for me to understand I avoid it seems. Hence my reticence with dealing with feelings I think, I never understood them, even my own ones.
Time for me to go think about what I do enjoy for a bit then. Wife boobs it is.
On this blog though I tend to waffle on more than I normally do, so considering what I say on here you must figure I never have much to say and only talk about a few topics. Imagine how thrilling talking to me is :| . Also to give you an idea of how long it takes me to just write this simple thing I've been thinking about what to write here for almost 40 minutes now.
Yeah, my brain really doesn't work that well in that way. I have no idea why it just does. Yet I can look at a piece of code and see it working, work out how things flow and what could potentially cause a problem. All that from just seeing it let alone watching it run in real time. I sometimes wonder if my brain worked another way whether I could still do the job I do. Or why my brain ended up like this. Was it born like this and I gravitated to what I do or was it shaped by what I did when I was younger which was shaped by people around me? Whatever the answer I don't think I can change how I think despite the problems it causes me sometimes.
Well, this post has gone in an unexpected direction. Pondering on how my mind works and how I wish it worked differently so I could express myself to my wife better. Then wondering if it did that if I could not support us with what I do. Also would it change what I find enjoyable to do? So many questions and directions to go in thought wise and no way to find all the answers. Frustrating. Maybe that is why I stick with what I can see the answer to, knowing that I can work out everything I need to with what I understand is nice. Things that are hard for me to understand I avoid it seems. Hence my reticence with dealing with feelings I think, I never understood them, even my own ones.
Time for me to go think about what I do enjoy for a bit then. Wife boobs it is.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Getting an itch
I have an itch to try something new. Something new in the videogame world that is. Replaying what I have is fun, especially with something like Borderlands. But then I get in to the mood to look for something a little different. There has been a pretty much never ending supply of something new over my life. Some may say they are all the same but each game does something new each time. Not all of them do it well or come with some downside to what they do that makes it less enjoyable.
It may be the setting, the story, the new gameplay technique, the advance in visuals that was often the case in the past (less so now) or just something so completely different and/or bonkers that it hasn't been seen before (hello Katamari Darmacy). There is always something coming out that is the product of people far more creative than me. I've written before about being creative, I do it in logical ways, these people though come up with complete worlds and stories to tell in those worlds and make something that is fun to do while this story takes place. I will never grow tired of seeing what people come up with and living through the game.
Anyway, the point I'm saying is that I'm getting that feeling again. The feeling I need to see something new or different. The need to explore the imagination of a group of people and reward them for it by buying a game. I'm just glad I'm able to actually buy these games now, unlike when I was a wee lad and buying a game was something that only happened a couple of times a year. One advantage to getting older it seems.
It may be the setting, the story, the new gameplay technique, the advance in visuals that was often the case in the past (less so now) or just something so completely different and/or bonkers that it hasn't been seen before (hello Katamari Darmacy). There is always something coming out that is the product of people far more creative than me. I've written before about being creative, I do it in logical ways, these people though come up with complete worlds and stories to tell in those worlds and make something that is fun to do while this story takes place. I will never grow tired of seeing what people come up with and living through the game.
Anyway, the point I'm saying is that I'm getting that feeling again. The feeling I need to see something new or different. The need to explore the imagination of a group of people and reward them for it by buying a game. I'm just glad I'm able to actually buy these games now, unlike when I was a wee lad and buying a game was something that only happened a couple of times a year. One advantage to getting older it seems.
I could spend lots
Finally got to get in to the new Lego shop near me this weekend. Since it was opening weekend the shop was actually making people queue to get in which really sucked. Especially considering the number of screaming kids there were. However once we did get in it was good to see that they had every Lego set currently available being sold there which of course lead to me buying a couple of big ones.
The first is this VW Camper Van which I built this weekend. It turned out really well with a lot of small details including nice things like a lava lamp and reclining seat/bed thing. It is very cool how much detail you can put in to Lego models with a bit of careful building. I'm not sure I'd ever get that good at creating them but the act of building them is so much fun to me (even if in my old age I get achy by the time I finish these larger ones). I had so much fun building this I didn't notice the hours go by as I did it.
The other set I got was a big one of Tower Bridge that is for Christmas so I don't get to build it yet. It has over 4000 pieces though, lots of them small and fiddly so I'm looking forward to the challenge of getting it all together.
Anyway, despite buying these two large sets I could spend a lot more on Lego if I set my mind to it. However there are more important things to spend our money on though, most notably my wife since I love getting her things. I think the Lego buying may have to hold off for a bit until we have room to put all of them, either that or I disassemble some for others (which might be a good idea, give me an excuse to build them again :-) ).
As for the rest of the weekend, it was spent doing usual things and trying to console my wife who is going through the worst of her medication withdrawal symptoms. It should start to wane now over the next few weeks so I hope by the end of it she is back to feeling normal and free of the pain, dizziness and downright hallucinations. Sometimes it seems that medication that is meant to help does more harm than good in the long run but once she is off this one she will be better.
Not much else to report. Looking forward to seeing how some of the games coming out over the next month or so turn out. I'm not sure there will be anything I'll be surprised by this year but you never know. Hopefully everything I'm looking forward to turns out well and doesn't have some unexpected thing in it that makes it disappointing.
Anyway, back to work now. Need to get this day over and done with so I can get back home to be with my wife and look after her some more. Need to keep her well since we have our biometric appointment soon for the citizenship application. I want her to get through that stress free.
The first is this VW Camper Van which I built this weekend. It turned out really well with a lot of small details including nice things like a lava lamp and reclining seat/bed thing. It is very cool how much detail you can put in to Lego models with a bit of careful building. I'm not sure I'd ever get that good at creating them but the act of building them is so much fun to me (even if in my old age I get achy by the time I finish these larger ones). I had so much fun building this I didn't notice the hours go by as I did it.
The other set I got was a big one of Tower Bridge that is for Christmas so I don't get to build it yet. It has over 4000 pieces though, lots of them small and fiddly so I'm looking forward to the challenge of getting it all together.
Anyway, despite buying these two large sets I could spend a lot more on Lego if I set my mind to it. However there are more important things to spend our money on though, most notably my wife since I love getting her things. I think the Lego buying may have to hold off for a bit until we have room to put all of them, either that or I disassemble some for others (which might be a good idea, give me an excuse to build them again :-) ).
As for the rest of the weekend, it was spent doing usual things and trying to console my wife who is going through the worst of her medication withdrawal symptoms. It should start to wane now over the next few weeks so I hope by the end of it she is back to feeling normal and free of the pain, dizziness and downright hallucinations. Sometimes it seems that medication that is meant to help does more harm than good in the long run but once she is off this one she will be better.
Not much else to report. Looking forward to seeing how some of the games coming out over the next month or so turn out. I'm not sure there will be anything I'll be surprised by this year but you never know. Hopefully everything I'm looking forward to turns out well and doesn't have some unexpected thing in it that makes it disappointing.
Anyway, back to work now. Need to get this day over and done with so I can get back home to be with my wife and look after her some more. Need to keep her well since we have our biometric appointment soon for the citizenship application. I want her to get through that stress free.
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