Category: work
-
Buying Parts
-
Slam Stick: dissected!
Woot! It sounds like a gadget I designed will be featured in next month’s EDN magazine (Prying Eyes column). This must be some kind of ironic career turning point: I landed a job by reverse-engineering other peoples’ stuff; now people reverse-engineer my stuff.
-
You are invited to participate in a research study. Afterward, there will be cake.
Heh… I’ve just completed NIH certification to administer human test protocols. I feel like that’s got to be worth a few mad scientist points. So, I’m working on this project at work involving research into new forms of computer interface peripherals. (No, not that one.) As part of the project, we are required to test…
-
Creepy government project…
Title: Virtual Dialogue Application for Families of Deployed Service Members Objective: To develop a highly interactive PC or web-based application to allow family members to verbally interact with “virtual” renditions of deployed Service Members. This RFP from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD09-H03) floated across my desk the other day. After reading the…
-
Fixing Dell Precision T3400 USB not working
This is an update to a previous rant about the mysterious Windows XP “Dee-Dunk” error (and the novel concept of presenting an “error message” when an error condition exists), possibly in conjunction with broken or intermittent USB functionality. This post is mainly for Googlers – my friends are more than welcome to skip it. I…
-
Daily Windows Rant
Error messages, people. Error messages. When an “error” occurs, it should be accompanied by an “error message”, which informs the user a) that an error did occur; b) what that error was. It does not even necessarily have to be understandable to mere mortals (although this would be really nice), because understanding it is the…
-
And these points of data make a beautiful line…
(and we’re out of beta, we’re releasing on time… Err… deliverable code freeze will happen monday morning, or wednesday afternoon (due date), or before 50% of the devices are sealed up for delivery with the code already on them, whichever comes before the last bug is found. [Especially if the bugs are discovered in hardware,…
-
smallfish@tech
So yeah, that particular work project just keeps getting better. Today I got this in my email from the manufacturer of a critical component, reaffirming my personal “If it’s not in-stock on Digikey, I do not specify it in my design” policy. […] The <display> is on hold. There are no technical reasons but it…
-
It’s a mean old bitch and it has stupid name, bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch
So, I got an email back today from a contractee, whereupon I learned: 1) A technology I created, which I envisioned as having significant pro-consumer subversive uses, will instead be used as a carrier for evil (“hey, can it collect usage data to sell to credit-card companies every time they use it? That would be…
-
On nomenclature (Soylent Green is… is..)
Ok, so, apparently in certain circles of defense parlance, you do not blow up people. Well, you do, but the correct euphemism is “soft targets” (as opposed to “hard targets”, such as tanks, buildings, etc.). Referring to soft targets as people is rather frowned upon. I managed to inadvertently silence a getting-out-of-hand meeting yesterday as…
-
Spinlock This: Less productive than reading slashdot all day! Film at 11.
1) Dude. Seriously. The display we’ll be designing into our gadget won’t be ready for 6 more months? You said it was ready a week ago, and that was two months ago. Our customer is crawling up my ass for the prototype we promised them in December. So you gave me this other one and…
-
Salesdouche game for a bored day
Today was one of those little icky days where, after the fun and mildly arty process of designing a set of boards, the next step was to spend all day in Excel sourcing parts and getting all their prices filled in (and ripping up parts of the design where the part had gone non-stock, etc.).…
-
Just another day, you and me in paradise
So, today I did this massive circuit board layout for our big Shaft Seal test fixture controller. All right, I mean, I really meant to. Honest. Oh, and got on about half the company’s shit lists within a few days. It’s not everyday you can piss off two entire departments by accident. Anyway, last Friday…
-
Code monkey get up get coffee; code monkey goto job
> DE wrote: > Anyone interested in having a fantasy ice hockey league. No money > involved, just for fun. Does this involve quests and dragons? My wizard’s hockey stick has a +5 against Canadians… — T. R. Myself etc etc Disclaimer: When said Canadians are vendors, said stick also deals +4 pissed-off EE damage…
-
The morning-after-vacation pill
And back home am I. The actual trip (complete with thousands of pictures of rocks :P) will be documented soonish. As previously mentioned during tonight’s game of telephone pictionary* at LE and crew’s house, I accomplished the following at work today: I wrote one line of code. And it was a #DEFINE. (Followed by a…
-
Do not look into laser with remaining eye
Hehe…From a Navy SBIR solicitation for an automatic sniper-warning system: This topic seeks technology that will provide a capability to detect a potential sniper at a distance. The technology needs to work autonomously, without having the user actively participate in the scan of the area. […] The most likely technology would be a laser or…
-
…and coming back
So, I get into work Monday morning, dive immediately for the coffee machine to get a pot started, and get allllmost fully seated at my desk when one of the Mechies calls up with “Tim, you’re here! Um…can I come over?”. These are some of those words you just love to hear, like when a…
-
Beat
Quick update: HAL, a friend and former college roommate from Back Home (or close), is going to be in Boston this weekend for a job interview on Friday. I’d like to drag him around the city a bit and introduce him to my friends. What are people doing this weekend? Looks like I have a…
-
Notes on Windows 2000 Server Edition…
Windows should not be used for servers. End of discussion. OSes which have a Registry should not be used for servers. OSes which can only be configured through a GUI should not be used for servers. Three guesses why I didn’t get jack done today, why the entire office has no website or email, and…
-
Bulk update & APG testing rant
It’s been one of those weeks… seasons. There has been simultaneously so much, and so little, to report. Work is kind of the same old; it seems as though I’ve been spending record numbers of hours there, and yet, getting not a damned thing done. As for personal life, not much to report there either,…