Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Law Of Conservation Of Software Building Time

Used to be that what gave time during software engineering to be on Usenet was the compiling time. Now thanks to Eclipse's blazingly fast on-demand compiling of J2ME the moment I save a file, I don't have those breaks anymore. Now I have time for web checks during the time it takes to push the damn program on to the phone.

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Apple Owns Me

The account I made for song-shopping on iTunes, the one with my credit card and address already filled in, is actually also a full Apple store account name, with which I can shop for hardware without ever having to fill in a form or pull out a wallet. I know this because an iPod Shuffle + armband is on its slow, slow, slow way to me now, and when ordering it, the store told me the account name I tried to create for this store -- I have a system for names based on the website so they are all distinct on different shops, but easily remembered by me -- was already in use. I was confused because I had never ordered from the Apple store before, how could I have an account? The only transaction I had had was when shopping on iTunes...I tried that  password and there I went. All form fields filled in. All I needed to do was click "Buy! Give Apple Your Money! Succumb To The Whiteness And Beauty! It Is So Easy, FJ!!"

Unless I breathe in resolve every time I go to that site, I am doomed.

And I don't even need mac hardware. My home is fully stocked CPU wise, and my laptop couldn't drive even their lowly 20" LCD screen if it tried.

Ashen

Finally finished Ashen on the QD. Which is good, because my colleagues who had procured the unit and game for actual performance testing were starting to come by my desk more and more frequently wondering when they could have it back for their actual work.

I'll miss it. My first FPS I played to an actual conclusion. Such elation when I saw the finishing sequence. I couldn't believe I was at the end. I could run forever without getting tired, shoot big guns, jump all over the place, and always start over, and then I actually finished the Boss clear out. And this after having been stuck at level 3 for weeks on end.

Friday, January 07, 2005

Material Science

A friend told me his partner got new lenses in his eyes. I believe those are plastic. I think they were inserted under the cornea by cutting an opening and sliding them in, and stitching that cut back closed secures them, but I may have that wrong (don't they need to attach muscles to the lens?). Meanwhile Bucky of Bucky & Jim will probably need new corneas because his own is getting bumpy on the lens area. Dead people will be donating those. The part that is malforming will be sliced off, and the donated patch will be fastened by stitching the gelatinous mass of his cornea to the gelatinous mass of the donated cornea. I find that this can be stitched to be amazing.

I should look up why lenses can be fabricated, but corneas have to be donated.