So, taking Fri/Mon off for a long weekend with Nik (my son) here, and I want to have some TIME with him this visit. Couldn't get a block of time out from work (stoopid project) but by damned if I'm going to have another month w/o having time with him. Normal two-day weekends are no good; there are still things to be done around the house and with other projects; it just doesn't work out.
Four day weekends are not bad. I'll see how many I can make before he leaves at the end of the month.
As for my journal posting -- I'm not going to sweat the details; it's going to be erratic.
BIG THINGS happening end of year; I'm doing design and research work for a massive website rebuild (not entirely true; not a rebuild; a fresh build; new website under a different name; you'll see. I hope). Scare for a Cure is firing up big now. And I still have Make articles to write. Putting big Tesla on the back burner a bit. Undecided about Maker Faire, what I want to do there.
Last night we had a mostly-successful test on a low frequency resonant driver (big fat tube, whum-whum-whum-whum... neat stuff; like an infrasonic air horn). The compressed air driving it was too hissy and detracted from the effect. Going to try a different air source today, higher volume, lower pressure.
Cutting the new port hole in the pressure chamber (through Sono-tube, tough cardboard), I managed to run the tip of the X-Acto blade deep into the tip of my little finger (weird freak accident, really!). Bled like a stuck... stuck... Edwin! So I dripped all over my white sink and took pictures for color reference.
Blood is a tad more translucent than I thought, at least my blood is. And pretty bright, too.
I'm waiting for it to darken up and "scab" so I can take some "after" pics, then I'll have to clean out the sink.
It still bugs me, though, when movie blood looks like red food coloring in Karo (which it often is). Or when it is basically red tempera paint. Blood isn't red (except that it _is_ red, but not THAT red); blood isn't transparent (though it is a bit, just not like candy).
Ah well, the quest for perfect blood continues.
The Five Stages of Programming:
1. Denial
"My program doesn't suck, and this isn't my bug."
2. Anger
"You are an asshole for implying my program sucks, you can take this bug report and stuff it up your nose! If you would only use my interfaces properly, this wouldn't be happening."
3. Bargaining
"Look, I don't know where this bug is, but it's in a stupid feature; we cover the 80% use case just fine and the user is never going to use anyway. We should just remove the feature."
4. Depression
"My program is full of bugs and it totally sucks; I suck; everything sucks. I think I'll give up programming and go become a monk in a cave somewhere with no electricity."
5. Acceptance
"Yeah, my program sucks; all programs suck, it's their nature. However, they can still be useful. Let's find and fix the next bug, okay?"