Saturday, December 11, 2004

projects

I was going to take my "birthday off" on Monday, but changed already, because they need me to do some stuff on Monday morning. Going to have dinner with my relatives tomorrow. Jasper says Clarissa is still the one.

Will be flying to Los Angeles on Christmas day. The politics of having a boss and having a "boss of the boss" has had some effects. The other branch in the department wants to loan my services and apparently my boss said OK but not her boss. But really, they've certainly got people who can do the job in that branch, especially with the recent arrival of Benjamin (gz should know him, he was from Cornell).

Haven't got to talk to Benjamin much; he's probably somewhat of a linux guru, was describing how in "grid computing" you can put a bunch of computers on gigabit ethernet and as a result have a few gigabytes of RAM that can be shared by all the computers, which probably works out to as much RAM as you can possibly need, depending on how many people are using the computers. Said something about needing an OS like linux; Windows probably can't cut it.

I'm close to rebuilding the linux kernel. I've done the config, now reading through the documentation for make-kpkg to make sure I don't screw up too majorly. If the goes well, the next major task would be to make sure my sound system works, but more importantly, I want my USB devices to work. And the most critical of these devices is my Iomega external CD-writer, but it might be that there's no linux driver for it... at least officially it seems like there isn't.

Oh, a POSB branch got (successfully) robbed by a guy with a knife. Heard the news on the radio last night in the car going to dinner (a branch "celebration") at Goodwood Hotel (buffet). The desserts were delicious. Especially the chocolate cake. It was ridiculously yummy.

I can quite safely say that my first programming project is a resounding success. My bosses love me for it, and they want to put it up for an award with a maximum monetary award of $500. Unfortunately, the money won't go directly to me, at any rate. But it's things like these that pay for dinners like those.

In my next project, I think I will be stealing credit for launching a project that was developed something like 4 years ago but for some reason or other is still stillborn.

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

untitled

Jasper says the NASA pillow is a hoax, it's no better than an ordinary pillow. Seems he's all set up with his laptop. Christmas is coming! (I'll be in LA.)

i am a bottle of blood & tears
when i lie down
the tears flow
though the blood should spill instead