Hacking:
That would require free time (ha!). :^(
Although I did post some random thoughts on the
"desktop"
article. All I can say about aaronl
is that he's clearly never been responsible for long-term
maintenance of a substantial, multi-OS, multi-compiler code
base. Or else he would know better.
Life:
Nancy's back went out over Thanksgiving, so I've been
doing double-duty lately. See above about no free time for
hacking ... Fortunately, she's starting to feel better.
Work:
Doing more engineering than IS work lately. Realization:
lots of controls engineering today is simply learning what
gadgets are avaliable and for how much. Remember, it's
science if you care about the theory, and engineering if you
care about doing it cheap. :^)
I think we're close to selecting a 3D-CAD program for the
mechanical designers. This is an area with no usable Free
software, so we're stuck with Windows for the forseeable
future. It's even making me consider converting us over to
Windows 2000, because it's the only Redmond OS that
supports both multi-processor systems and AGP graphics
cards.
Thoughts:
Tomorrow begins Advent. I suppose I'm some sort of
reactionary fanatic, but it irks me that we are already
being bombarded with Christmas commericalization, which will
crescendo to a frenzy on Dec. 25 and then drop to a whisper
-- exactly when Christmas really begins! Christmas
starts on Dec. 25 and continues the full twelve
days (yes, like the song) until Epiphany on Jan. 6. The
next few weeks are supposed to be a time when we
take a deep breath, slow down our lives a bit, and meditate
on The Meaning Of It All(tm) a touch more in preparation for
celebrating the birth of Christ. Instead, it will be nearly
impossible to squeeze a thought in edgewise over the
shopping din. It's positively diabolical, I tell you.
Oh, well. Nobody likes the people who point out that the
new millenium hasn't started yet, either.