Tonights festivities mostly consisted of shaving the cat's ass-fur.
The cat did not approve. We spent a short time attacking his hind quarters with a comb, scissors, and the electric nippers, and got a good double-handful of cat fur off his his nether parts. We quit when he started hissing at us... but made good progress! Our style has improved over last year.
Looking at the cat, you can't tell we did anything at all. That cat is, I swear, entirely composed of fur.
Forgot to mention that I bottled the final sweet cherry cider the other night. I'm also working on tidying some labels up too, just started though.
Did more wiring on the control console. Note to self: don't buy crimp connectors locally; The 3M crimps from Mouser are superior in every way, including price.
Work is aggravating, but I can't really talk about work because everything I do is a secret. Ah well.
I just sent in a detailed, 13-page book proposal to McGraw-Hill. My initial query generated a good enthusiastic response from my editor, so this proposal may clinch the deal.
Clearly, I'm insane. But, this could be a good book, even better then my previous five.
Some tendon-y thing in my left elbow region hurts when I reach or grip with my left hand. Has been for months now. Best guess is one of the many variations on tendinitis. I am definitely not enjoying the experience. I'll complain to the doctor May 6 or whenever I scheduled that checkup.
Over the weekend, I assembled seven of the eight octants in my cold-forged toroid Tesla toploid. What a ludicrous project! But fun. Next up, #8, clean up the connecting angles and put them all together.
Sunday was filled with collecting parts and wiring up a control panel for my Flipside art, and still it's not done. But it is very shiny. Wiring switches and junk is slow damned work. Today I ordered a truckload of new crimp connectors, because I'm tired of getting raped by the hardware stores and their stupid pricing schemes. Plus, I got the switch body for the E-Stop switch that came with out a switch body. Grrrr.
Today was first test day at work, hectic and annoying. Tonight, I wrote the book proposal. Now, I sleep.
Goodness, is it Tuesday night already? And bedtime even.
Well, the weekend was full, as usual, though much of the fullness was welding class. Cut that short to do a market survey thingy, earned some spare cash so that's good. In class, got to play with a TIG, and that was very cool! Now I want one.
A bunch of pictures and videos of my projects (in progress) can be found below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j8empHrUVc
http://www.simreal.com/content/FlamePillar
http://www.simreal.com/content/TeslaCoil
http://www.simreal.com/content/RadioTower
I need somebody! Or a couple of bodies...
The great and compassionate Oliana0 mentioned that my community of friends would be a good resource to tap, to help out with Flipside.
There is one thing that I would like some help with (most of what I do, it would be hard to delegate).
I need a covered space in my back/side yard to store my propane tanks.
I have four #20 tanks at about 12" diameter (and short, and stackable), and will have two #100 tanks at about 16" diameter (and tall, and not stackable).
You are not supposed to store propane tanks in an enclosed space, and since I installed that cat door in my garage I've taken to closing the big door all the way... making that enclosed.
You also aren't supposed to store these things out in the open (though I suppose you CAN, since people DO), since overpressure from high temperatures and direct exposure to sunlight can be bad.. plus, UV and Rain conspire to age things faster than desired.
So a leaky garden shed, a roofed enclosure, something... where I can store my dangerous tanks.
My untuned Tesla (how the HECK do I tune it? Adjust and pray? Voodoo?) will throw about two feet of spark in its current configuration.
My variac claims to be a 5-Amp device but I'm running it at, through a clever change in fuse, at 10-Amps. Hey, it's short pulses!
And still, I blow the fuse solid if I ramp the coil up too much. Not just melt, but BLOW, like, vaporized copper all inside the fuse tube.
Which is kinda neat.
I also saw a spark in the volt meter on the variac once, so I'm thinking I'm getting hella noise back up the line. I need to test and/or filter that.
As for Sparky the Spare Cat... he's gone. Haven't seem him at all in over a week, maybe two now. I miss him. A long hair grey cat with white toes (called "Frenchy" for his/her French manicure) is eating the cat food, slowly, timidly.
I'm about to put in an order for propane fittings and hoses, valves, and to pick up a propane tank... and to top up all my other tanks. This all is going to cost me a chunk of change! Sure, a nine dollar connecting hose is no big deal, but when you need nine of them...
Ah well, such is the price of mad science.
Yayyy! An hour of futzing around with the Tesla, checking various thises and thatses, and I get a POWERFUL suspicion that my feedback is working against me.
So, I swap the feedback wires.
Bzap! Yayyy! A tiny little spark! I turn a know and... bzap! A spark with a different tone!
Oh yeah.
Mmmhmm.
Yeah, it's from a kit. Yeah, it's not so complex. But I am still very excited to be making high voltage.
Oh yeah. Heheheh.
It is, I think, resonating at about twice the frequency I expected (I'll tap the feedback and find out for sure), so I'll have to futz around with this.
With proper tuning, I should be able to get some good sparks, though!
And with bad tuning, hell, I still get sparks.
This is great! I needed a success right about now.
There's a thought out there that I do ten times as much stuff as most people do... and there may be some merit to that. Though, in my own head, I seem to do about half as much as I think I should be able to.
This weekend I started up, in welding class, the steel donut project (13" outer diameter, 4" minor diameter). It should be... interesting!
After that, I burned a half hour in napping, and at four or so went on to do... something? Well dang, now I don't remember. I was going to talk about what I _actually_ did this weekend and now my mind is a blank over the sequence!
Sunday, I know I mowed and edges the front and side lawns, but those are pretty small tasks, just taking an hour. Did some shopping for parts and with Marla, ate out, a couple nice hours in the world.
I cut the parts for the radio tower, and rolled the brackets into nice round shapes. Next up I have to heat-bend the tabs, and weld on the uprights. Easy!
I assembled the Tesla and carried it to the shop. I also put away a raft of crap that had tumbled out into the living room, and packaged up a bunch of boxes. Before THAT, I did measurements on the primary and secondary LC networks in the Tesla, and came up with an approximate resonant frequency of 190kHz, which corresponds roughly with expectations. However, my signal generator has a horrible blind spot above 175 and below about 50 on its dial... meaning, the 190kHz range is really really hard to work in.
Plugging in the Tesla on Saturday... nothing. Not a glimmer of life. So I'll have to open it up some and debug it further.
That's the story of my life right now... debugging things that should be working.
The new Variac I bought didn't work, for example, when I tested it Saturday. I took it apart... no, I TRIED to take it apart, but a critical set screw was broken. Cheap Chinese crap, you know? So, got a screw removing device, drilled out the knob around the setscrew (that was in crooked, so hard to access), drilled a small hole in the setscrew, and then cranked it out. Tada! A 5-minute task expanded into an hour!
Then, take apart the variac to discover that whomever built it had weird ideas about lubrication. The thick, sticky grease you find covering Chinese import tools? Yeah? Well, it doesn't work very well when used to lubricate a moving part (the contact in the variac that must drift up and down to track the coil).
Cleaned, lubricated with REAL oil, re-assembled, and it's better than new. Literally.
I watched a Luc Besson movie on Saturday, burning a couple of hours there, and it was fun! "District B13" -- a good action movie with some fun Parkour, and a buddy-antibuddy-buddy thing going on, in a dystopian future France. It was also transparently political/social, but I forgave it that clumsiness because it was also very pretty.
I did sketch up the pneumo/propane networks I need for my Flipside shows, and started hunting down parts for those. Parts! I swear, it's like pulling toenails, finding the right parts sometimes.
What I _hoped_ to do was get a working Tesla (and WOULD HAVE if it had worked; this guy made a few design decisions I feel were ill-chosen, and I'm sure one of those is causing the grief). I hoped to assemble at least part of my second Ruben's Tube (got parts, no assembly). I hoped to do a fire test of the Fire Pillar (which really isn't a pillar, but more of a tripod). Hoped to finish a bracelet with lights for Marla (got parts, though). Had a vague hope of experimenting with an interesting sound resonator, but not even!
So, ten times? No. Maybe twice. And yet still half or less of what I had hoped for.
I think that, overall, I am pushing forward on too many projects this year, with deadlines that are too aggressive (I wanted to have a big splash at Flipside), and as a result, am just getting bogged down. That, and five hours of class, plus an hour of travel, on Saturdays is a huge hit.
So overall, this Jan-May experiment, not a success. I'll reset in June.
Yesterday I popped open on of my ginger ciders, the mild one, it's not bad...
Tonight, the spicy cider, oh yeah! That's an AWESOME ginger cider, I'm tempted to not even bring it and hord it for myself. Mmmm mm mm tasty.
And.
Alcoholic. Gotta be worth, maybe, 2-3 beers of buzz in one of those.
BOTH ciders have fizz now! It took a month or more, but they carbonated. Not too heavy, but definite. Very very nice.
Maybe tomorrow I'll try the sahara cherry.
The new cherry cider is doing... absolutely nothing in the secondary. It fermenged with a bang, and the stopped.
Maybe I'll bottle it next week. I hope it turns out good.
Heinlein. Not Herbert.
Clearly, I need a vacation.
We Humans love to think we are different from the "lesser" animals. Yup, we go on and on about "soul" and "symbolic manipulation" and "tools" and "language".
What is interesting, however, is that I have yet to see any study that shows any real difference between us and the other species.
There are gradations, of course. We use tools WAY better than any other animal. We use a more complex language (but other animals _do_ communicate, and even lie). Hard to say if animals use symbols in any way like we do, but bees perform interesting abstract dances to represent flight paths (so I hear). As for soul? Well, as soon as someone devises a test for this, let me know.
Animals have feelings, both emotional and physical (of course). They remember (and in the case of Parrots, they can keep a grudge for _ages_). The look forward to the future.
Heck, some animals both communicate better and have a richer mental and emotional life than do tiny humans!
So really, what does it mean to be human?
And then, take your garden variety human and... take away part of their mind. Put a railroad spike through their brain. Or give them a stroke. Take away a part of their body... remove their hands in a war, lop off their legs. Still human?
In some ways, who we are is an accumulation of our memories and experiences; our identity based on a continuous chain of existence, recorded in our minds. Damage a piece of your brain and this chain is snapped; nothing new gets added. What are you then?
Take a child who is just four cells big. What is this? It is a small speck of potential! But what if it grows into a baby with no brain? Or a person who is genetically scrambled, making them behave or function far below the mean?
Human?
Or, the person who is brilliant, who soars above the rest of the madding crowd to achievements that most of us can only imagine? Still human? Are all of these "humans" the "same"?
We are very attached to our humanity, and defend it vigorously. But to what end? Does it serve us well to set ourselves high on this pedestal and to look down all all other creatures as inferior? Then, we can enslave them, breed them, torture them in animal fights or for "sport", eat them, do whatever we like to them without it impinging on our conscience.
In fact, history has shown us repeatedly that groups of people can easily consider other groups of people to be inferior, to be "just animals" or "the enemy", based on any slight trick of the moment; their color, their tribe, their religion, anything. And from this trick of the mind, they can justify any type of abuse.
Some cultures or subgroups have moved in a direction to treating animals as equals. Others still consume the tasty critters but do so in ways that honor them and minimize their suffering.
I eat animals, and I love to do so. I have killed chickens with my own hands, and have contracted to have a cow slaughtered in our driveway (in a trailer, it turns out, and not in the open), so that my step-kids at the time would realize that meat comes from life. We should be aware of this. I also did these things so that I would know, deep down, that yes, I am a predator and that these foods I buy and eat so lightly from the store carry a heavy price to the creatures providing them.
In spite of my predatory nature I would not slaughter and eat another person. Nor a monkey. Nor a dolphin. Perhaps it is hypocritical, but I prefer not to consume anything that is "close to me" in terms of its internal life.
Pigs are known as vicious, filthy animals. And yet, I've had pot-belly pigs and they are amazing creatures with fascinating personalities. Big pigs, the kind we eat? I have no idea, but I do know someone who won't eat them because she feels they are too smart to be treated as food.
Maybe it is this ability to reflect on things, to consider things in the abstract, to _identify_ with all manner of entities, that makes us human. I doubt a cat feels badly when it is torturing a mouse to death; but I know that I would feel very badly if I were to hunt and wound some creature so that it suffered badly before it could be killed. But how do _I_ feel when my cat is torturing am mouse? I try not to think about it.
I used a glue trap once, and caught a mouse. I will never do so again.
Some say that our ability to look into the future, and to reconstruct the past in symbols, is a gift from our background as hunters. We must be able to look at marks in the environment and deduce what has already happened, so that we can predict the future so we can kill and then eat. To hunt, we must predict; to predict, we must identify with our prey, and we must invent "time" so as to simulate this prey's actions into the future.
We use our minds to build up these pictures, these stories and progressions, so that we can hunt. We _have_ to use our minds, because our other senses are so poor; our smell, our vision, our hearing, even our limbs are slow and weak compared to many animals.
What came first, the ability to use our minds to make our lives easier hence providing a gateway for our other aspects to fade, or the loss of our skills necessitating the growth of our minds to compensate?
Take a human as they are now and go back in time 2,000 years. Yup, still human. We haven't changed much, really, in that span. 10,000, to the dawn of agriculture? Probably not a huge difference there either. Heck, Chinese written history covers a significant chunk of that. How far back do you go before we think "monkey" rather than "person"?
My favorite definition of humanity comes from Frank Herbert's book, "Dune", and the test of Gom Jabber. There are different interpretations out there but mine is that a Human has Choice and can choose to suffer in order to achieve a greater goal. An Animal is ruled by the moment, by reflex, and will respond in kind.
By this rule, how many of us are Human, and how many are just animals wearing a human shape? Just because we are born with potential and powerful tools of thought, doesn't mean we use them. In the neglect of these tools, do we also forfeit our humanity?
How do you fill _your_ life? How do you make your decisions? To what extent do the emotions of the present drive your actions?
Are you human? Or just wearing a human shape?
I don't think that most of us are really human. But then again, I'm not entirely convinced that "human" is such a great special club to be in, given our track record. I think we can do better.
To the religiously fundamental, all of this introspection is set aside with a simple "to be human is to have a soul," and much of their thinking can be replaced by rules handed down through history. When pondering the great patterns of nature and life, the miracles and the horrors, it all comes down to "such is the mysterious way of God".
This is passing the buck and answers nothing; it simply pushes the problem back one step (who made God? Why does God behave in these specific ways? Was God drunk when many of these creatures were made, or does God just have a creepy sense of humor?) to a point beyond which we are not allowed to ask questions. Because to question God is a sin. Because, umm, some guy said so. Right. So move along, son, nothing to see here, don't mind that man behind the curtain.
Further reading:
http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/030429.html
"The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil " by Philip Zombardo
"Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind" by V.S. Ramachandran
"I Am a Strange Loop" by Douglas R. Hofstadter
"Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn
"Dune" by Frank Herbert
"Family Evaluation: An Approach Based on Bowen Theory" by Michael E. Kerr and Murray Bowen
"Stranger in a Strange Land" by Frank Herbert
Okay, I dragged my tired, abused body off of the couch to siphon the new cherry cider over to the secondary. The siphoning doesn't take long, but before I can do that I have to mix up a boatload (er, bucketload) of sanitizer, clean my tools, clean the destination carboy, and continuously float and wipe all the cat hair off of everything... that has been in the closet all this time. Man. Cat hair. Fluffy, fluffy cats. And after, once I've siphoned cider all over the floor, there is MORE cleaning.
Anyway, I thiefed (thieved?) a sample out while it was siphoning, to check the gravity. Dang it, someone glued the hydrometer to the bottom of its tube again. Thief. Thief. Thief, float! Aha!
Unreadable, and WAY off the charts again (well below 1.000). The cider is really opaque this time and I can't see through it to the scale.
As I wander around exclaiming to Marla how opaque and bizarre this batch is, the secondary overflows. Oops!
I dribble some of the thieved cider into my shiny new vinometer (which needs a protective case, I fear for its safety) and read... 12%. Wowza! Oh, no, I read that backwards, that's probably 8%. Did it again and it emptied ENTIRELY. That's not right. Did it a third time to get 6%. Also, the particulates in the cider are probably messing up the reading.
I'll have to do some math and get a sanity check.
The final test -- a drink of it. Yes! It's alcoholic and reasonably sweet! Just like I wanted.
Hopefully, it will settle and do nice things in the secondary, and then off to the bottles.
Between now and then I need to formulate my carbonation strategy.
What does it mean to be a computer programmer? What are we doing when we program that computer?
I've been programming computers of one stripe or another since I was about 13 (giving me 30 years of experience, more now actually, ouch). In some ways, I am a very good programmer. In other ways, I still suck horribly. Daren, a co-worker of mine, put it the most eloquently: "All software sucks. Even the stuff I write." Daren, by the way, is a very smart, very capable programmer who simply recognizes the inherent limits of this field.
At the most basic level, "computer programming" is the process of breaking down some task into the steps (codes, literally, "a system of symbols used to represent assigned and often secret meanings") that a computing machine must take to perform that task.
Easy, right?
No. We've been programming computers, as a species, for what SEEMS like forever, but in actually is just a short blip of time. Frankly, in spite of all the techniques and methodologies and religions (yes, religions) of computer software development, there is still a large component of random luck and guesswork involved. We don't know what the heck we are doing.
I'm sure some folks are sputtering now, ready to defend their own fabulous skills and methodologies, demanding that I provide specific examples of our ignorance. How can I let such a sweeping statement stand?
Well, if we knew what we were doing, software development would be a more deterministic process. It's a rare (and usually boring) project that hits its time estimates the first time.
I _do_ know a few things that programming is _not_. For example, knowing the syntax and semantics of one or more computer codes (languages) does not make you a programmer (though you SHOULD know what I mean when I say "syntax and semantics").
Writing code that "works" is not programming. Sure, it looks like programming from the outside, but "works" is a fragile metric. I know one programmer who writes code that works, for certain liberal definitions of "work", but it is fragile and prone to stop "working" with the least provocation.
Writing clever, complicated code is very definitely not programming. Cleverness is a curse, and code that makes you go "wtf?" when you look at it is _not_ good code [1]. You should look at a piece of computer code and exclaim "well, duh!", as if someone just told you, in all seriousness, that water has zero calories, or the sky is blue.
Maybe good programming is just as Albert Einstein said: "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."
Another source of ugly incomprehensible code is the programmer's own ignorance (as opposed to cleverness). It's not necessarily the programmer's fault, it's just that some problems (e.g. most of the interesting ones, and often ones where you are working within or next to a poorly-documented system [2]) are not very well defined and the code and the understanding of the problem inch forward, hand in hand. This syndrome is the cause of some truly, amazingly bad code that I have written.
A good programmer, however, knows when his code has turned into garbage and will re-write it as soon as possible, redesigning the solution so that it is clear and comprehensible.
I spent most of my career in small teams where I got to live with the code through the entire life cycle. One thing I noticed, coming in to my current job at Big Technical Company, is that "clear and comprehensible" is in the eye of the beholder. Everyone's brain works differently, and the code you put into the computer matches the thought process between your ears. Sometimes it is painful to wedge someone else's code into your own brain.
So what is good programming? Writing good programs. And a good program? Is one that works, that is easily understood, that is robust against changes, that is a pleasure to use, and that is economically rewarding. Do we, as a species, as a profession, know how to make good programs reliably and predictably? In the immortal words of Robin Williams, "Fuck No!"
But all is not lost. There are some good tools out there, the crescent wrenches and screwdrivers of the profession. Object-oriented thinking. Patterns. This and that.
But programming is still more craft than engineering. And now I have to go to a meeting, so more random pedantry will have to wait for later.
Meetings, by the way, do not improve one's programming.
[1] There are exceptions, and times when you must be clever. Some 3D texture-mapping code I wrote once _had_ to be clever, to be able to run fast enough. Very small or very efficient code most sometimes be clever.
[2] Most engineers SUCK at documentation, and poorly-defined systems are the bane of my existence. Come on guys, if you can't communicate it, you don't understand it. Try again.
The cherry cider stopped bubbling sometime over the weekend, but with classes, scare cleanup, and taxes I haven't had time to move it to the secondary.
I'm dying to see how it tests and tastes! Maybe tomorrow. Or Thursday. Or something.
Work has been work, and projects have been stalled by Taxes.
Ugh.
But, because I spent OUT THE WAZOO on equipment for Simreal, I'm up for a decent refund (less than a grand, more than five hundred). So, good job, Edwin!
I just hope my weird spending spree in '07 doesn't spring an audit. Bah. I don't want to have to tap-dance my way through my crappy accounting.
Next up: clean up my Quicken so that account happens auto-magically.
Oh, and file the '07 simreal "no, I sold nothing in Texas" report.
Well, saw my Sunday Night Movie last night (it being Sunday Night), and while the movie was probably good but I couldn't really tell.
The audio synch was off. Not like bad-dubbing off ( I was watching it in the "original language" anyway, which was a mix of Mandarin and English it turns out, with English subtitles), but really really off.
I mean, the lips will move or a door will slam open; the scene will cut, and cut again, and maybe a second OR TWO later, the sounds play.
I mean, wtf?
What is funny is that this is from Tartan Asia Extreme which, in earlier videos, had fairly rough DVD programming. This DVD, though, was more slick, had blocked more of the control keys so you couldn't avoid the advertising, had more special features and stuff... really top-notch programming in there. And the movie itself was damaged beyond any repair internally. I guess they got a great programmer at the expense of, I dunno, an audio guy or any kind of quality control!
Suck.
I tried all three audio tracks (2.0, 5.1, and 5.2 DTS) to no effect.
So I'm a bit grumpy about the lack of a decent movie on my Sunday.
Five hours of class again, Saturday, while I did the final assembly (welding) and cleanup (grinding and sanding) on my thingy (the topper for the fire pillar).
It's very shiny now! But the teacher had me go outside to do this work... it's noisy and messy! And, as a consequence, I'm sunburned here and there. back of my neck and the backs of my arms. Very annoying! But I'm putting aloe stuff on it, and hopefully it will be better soon.
Right after class, we went to the lodge (Scare for a Cure's location) and threw an old room away. This wasn't built buy us, but was donated after some movie was done with it. A beautiful room! But heavy, and really just useful for a one-shot thing... so to the dump with it!
This took two trips and the rest of the day, and I discovered this evening that I hurt my right shoulder too. Did this, probably, because I was compensating form other pain in my connecting tissues... sucks getting old.
So, today, Sunday, was spent almost entirely in financial updating. Now, all three of my accounts are shiny and reconciled, and my taxes have been started. I'll finish them up during the week.
Had a brief interlude today for a Flipside meeting, and that was good.
Right now, I am trying to decide if/what size of amplifier I want to fill out my audio rack.
Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it's Friday... and even better, Even Friday is being held at Ruby. Oh man, a quiet evening of just hanging out with some of the best people in the universe is just what I need...
An interesting surprise last night... I had two "short" bottles of cider, one of the mild and one of the hot ginger, in the 'fridge from back when I tested the various ciders. You know, the other day.
Pop, fizz! Strong fizz in both. Was it because they were bottled last? Because of the ludicrous amount of head space in the bottles? Because of the extra month in the 'fridge?
Who knows!
The new cherry is still bubbling madly, and it smells lovely.
Now, back to the grind.
Grind, grind, grind...
Last night I mixed up a batch of what I hope will be sweet cherry cider. By morning, it seemed to not be bubbling, so I gave the lid a little poke and it exploded in bubbles! Blooboobobobobobobobobobobobooob..
... and settled down to a decent rate of bubble.
Tonight after work, it's bubbling it's little heart out! Oh yeah, them are some happy yeasty beasties.
Mmmmmm.
Once it slows, to the secondary with it! And then come bottling time? I think I'll have to add champagne yeast to this and all the others if I want fizz. I'm thinking that none of my ciders petered out due to lack of sugar, but instead just hit their maximum alcohol concentration.
My only concern is if I give it a much too robust of a yeast on bottling... will my bottles explode?
Okay, I _finally_ put together the last cider for this Flip season, with some changes from the previous recipe. I've had the parts sitting here for, I dunno, a week or two, but it's been hectic; or I've been slow; or something.
Stayed home from TaiChi tonight, felt puny (yeah yeah, it makes me feel better to go) but then later I was glad I held back because I got a good half hour of feeling downright sick; and then that faded.
Weird.
Anyway, for the new recipe, I doubled the sugars (up to 16 oz honey, 16 oz turbinado sugar, and 4 lbs of white cane), and swapped out a gallone of the cider for an additional half-gallon of black cherry and an additional half gallon of the raspberry-cranberry blend.
Upon tasting, it's SWEET. Dayum. Sweet sweet sweet, but with a complexity too.
Upon measuring, it's in the 1.070 gravity range... the same as the original! Apparently the cider I use is heavy, without having the same benefit of sugar as... sugar.
Grinding through the projects at home, I feel like I'm moving through a weird time distortion, everything going at half speed. I put my head down at 5:00 to do some soldering and look up to find it's 7:30. Damn!
So I did accounting in short order (much faster than expected, for a switch) and more this and that. Turns out one of my switches is the wrong kind, so I ordered more. I can still go back to debugging the tesla, though, just without that mode switch; only I have to do taxes, the LoTV board meeting, the Flipside meeting, and welding class. I'm thinking... not this weekend.
Yesterday at work, I had an interaction with a manger-type person who has authority over my project, but who in fact is only very peripherally involved in my aspect of it. And who makes decisions using a completely different criteria than I use, as best I can tell, and who I absolutely can not talk to -- it is like talking to an alien, a bug, a cockroach. Whenever he touches my project, I feel like he makes it suck more; and in no wise have I ever felt like what I was saying makes any difference at all. He asks me only for the form of it, but has already made up his mind; I always feel ambushed and abused afterwards, though he is unfailingly polite. It's like he walks into the project randomly, jerking the steering wheel and aiming me in a direction that feels wrong.
I hate it, and I get far too upset when trying to talk with him.