NeoCell 4.0 -- our product which does the actual layout of a chip -- is supposed to go into alpha next week.

Right now, large parts of it aren't even building, let alone running.

Meanwhile, I'm supposed to test my module and make sure that the tool can understand my output, and my module can understand the tool's output.

Multiple choice: What's wrong with this scenario?
  (a) Milestones such as "alpha," "beta," etc., are arbitrary dates and do not reflect the maturity of the software.
  (b) Nightly builds don't work, and none of the developers care.
  (c) Dave is expected to test against vaporware.
  (d) Dave agreed to work for these morons.

Ok, Dave, calm down. You just need to hold on until your stock options become liquid. Then you can do serious work on Kanga Design Automation. Please, please, let that be days or weeks, not months or years.

Step 1: Open your iTunes/MusicMatch/MediaPlayer/whatever you use to play MP3s.
Step 2: Put all of your music on random.
Step 3: Write down the first fifteen songs it plays, no matter how embarrassing.

1. Sound bites from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - "Heads."
2. Sound bites from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - "Heads."
3. Sound bites from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - "Heads."
4. Sound bites from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - "Heads."
5. Sound bites from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - "Heads."
6. Sound bites from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - "Heads."
7. Sound bites from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - "Heads."
8. Sound bites from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - "Heads."
9. Sound bites from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - "Heads."
10. Sound bites from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - "Heads."
11. Sound bites from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - "Heads."
12. Sound bites from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - "Heads."
13. Sound bites from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - "Heads."
14. Sound bites from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - "Heads."
15. Sound bites from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - "Heads."

New glasses are always good. Things are suddenly sharper again.

Oh, and my new glasses have a magnetic sunshade attachment. They make me look a bit like Tom Quinn in MI-5. No, I didn't pick them for that reason (I actually had the people at the shop pick them out for me).

One of the tires on my CR-V was looking a bit suspicious, so Tam and I used her Civic to get to work. Ah, excellent choice. On my way to get the glasses and lunch, it was so nice out I drove with the windows down and sunroof open, zipping along the roads and highways (which I can't exactly do in the CR-V). It's 60°F here today, and clear! In February! Yet there is still snow on the ground.

Very odd.

As for work... nothing to report. We're in limbo.

Thought for the day

In a lifetime, one will have his hopes dashed many times by others with malevolent intent.

Those who, in spite of this, persist in the pursuit of realising their hopes are the true lovers, geniuses, dreamers, and madmen.

I finally got so fed up with Sprint that I went and bought a new cell phone today on the Verizon network. It's shinier, has a much stronger connection, and I could talk to my parents for an hour on it without the battery level dropping noticably. I'm amazed that they were able to add processing power and lower power consumption.

Santa Barbara trip this past weekend, for a college friend's wedding reception (the wedding took place back around New Years, in Israel, which many -- myself included -- were unable to attend). I saw a lot of people from college whom I hadn't seen in years. It was quite a bit of fun, though far too short a visit (~36 hours) considering the travel time (~20 hours).

The travel time was grossly extended because our connecting flight to Chicago was delayed by a few hours, which put our Chicago-to-LA flight out of whack and bumped us off our LA-to-SB shuttle bus reservation. As Tamara can attest, I'm not a fun person to travel with when I am (a) sleep deprived and (b) annoyed at (my perceived) incompetence/unfriendliness of the airline staff.

Work is busy, as usual. Still no real clue as to what the heck is going on, but the rumours are flying. A few of us are in on a betting pool regarding when we'll be acquired, for how much, and some of the terms.

My bank now lets me click on a check number and see a scan of the front and back of each check I've written. That's quite cool.

's meme:
The Top 10 Things I Would Buy If I Did Not Need To Worry About Money

By which I do not mean what I would by if I had a million dollars. Because a million dollars gets smaller and smaller everyday (mentally, at least) and the amount of money you think you need to stay comfortable gets larger and larger. Also, with the endowment of a million or two million or three million dollars, you feel (or at least one feels) as if the money should be used toward something grand - a house, a charity, a life. I am suggesting that, more or less, your life continues as it is. Perhaps, yes, you stop this foolishness with school or work and you find your dream job. But I'm also suggesting that what Not Needing Money means, in this particular case, is that you no longer need to worry about rent. You can buy the name brand orange juice. You can call a cab home from the bar.

1. Window coverings for the house.
2. An extra monitor for work.
3. Electronics lab equipment so I could do all the random geeky stuff I used to sneak into the labs in the subbasement of Steele to do.
4. A snow plow attachment for my CRV. Then I'd go around plowing random roads and such when it snows. Uh, just because.
5. Lots of candles, tea, and Tim Tams to send to various people (you know who you are).
6. Dim sum every week. I wouldn't have thought of it, but others have mentioned it, and I like the idea.
7. A good chunk of Amazon's inventory.
8. The various paperwork filings needed to get kanga-da.org off the ground.
9. Ice skates. It's been far too long.
10. Gymnastics equipment for Tam.

The latest threat matrix:

al-Gebra

     At New York's Kennedy Airport today, an individual, later
discovered to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to
board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set
square, and a calculator. Attorney General John Ashcroft believes
the man is a member of the notorious al-Gebra movement. He is being
charged with carrying weapons of math instruction.
     Al-gebra is a very fearsome cult, indeed. They desire average
solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on a tangent
in a search of absolute value. They consist of quite shadowy
figures, with names like "x" and "y," and although they are
frequently referred to as "unknowns," we know they really belong to
a common denominator and are part of the axis of medieval with
coordinates in every country. As the great Greek philanderer
Isosceles used to say, there are 3 sides to every angle, and if God
had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, he would
have given us more fingers and toes.
     Therefore, I'm extremely grateful that our government has given us
a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who
are so willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. These
statistic bastards love to inflict plane on every sphere of
influence. Under the circumferences, it's time we differentiated
their root, made our point, and drew the line.
     Remember, these weapons of math instruction have the potential to
decimal everything in their math on a scale never before seen unless
we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random
facts of vertex. As our Great Leader would say, "Read my ellipse."
Here is one principle he is uncertainty of---though they continue to
multiply, their days are numbered and the hypotenuse will tighten
around their necks.

Yeah, definitely getting bought. We have a guy examining our source code today. We *never* allow outsiders to see our source code.