Hm. I seem to be prolific with the papers as of late. They're not going to prestigious journals, though; at least they are refereed. Ah, well.

Oddly, it's easier to submit a paper at Cadence than it was at Neolinear. At Cadence, I just need my manager's signoff. At Neolinear, I needed all the managers in the food chain up through and including the CEO plus the CTO to signoff.

The abstract I just submitted is titled Integrating Mathematica with OpenAccess for Advanced Circuit Analysis, for the International Cadence Usergroup conference in September. Yeah, not exactly light bedtime reading. :-)

In the span of a couple hours, I've gone from having a lot of interesting stuff on my plate to having almost no job responsibilities. Amazing. :-(

Why they don't just lay me off... I'm not sure. Hrm... perhaps that will happen during the round of layoffs for this quarter. Still, it would be cheaper to get rid of me before the acquisition completes. Ah, well; it's not exactly in my interest to point this out...

I started looking for other jobs within Cadence, but it's hard to tell what departments will still exist. Most of the jobs are in India and China, anyway.

Ah, Shirles (a friend from Caltech who's always smiling and full of energy and is one of those folks who brightens any room she walks into) just pointed me to the Nokia N-Gage QD gamedeck/phone/electronic device with a multiple-personality disorder. She was responsible for usability engineering on it... it all looks quite the cool! Makes me curious to fiddle with it when it comes out.

I have a great idea. Let's forget anything we know about the process of debugging software and just focus on the end result: making Dave's life miserable.

It's too easy to just debug using the latest build. Instead, let's start a session and leave it running for a few days. Then, while the program is still running, let's uninstall parts of it, overwrite some of the internal libraries and configuration files from a newer build (because newer is better, right?), and, hell, why not run an electromagnet around the hard drive a few times for good measure.

Then, when the whole thing comes crashing down, file a bug against Dave, point him to a core file which he doesn't have read permission on, and claim that his software is lousy.



Yeah, this Monday is shaping up real well...

I just realised... I haven't the foggiest what my new job title means. I'm a "Member of the Consulting Staff." Umm... ooookay.

Does this mean I can show up, uninvited, to various meetings, tell people stuff they already know, and then charge them unseemly amounts of money? "The fundamental problem in your department is a failure to economize on leveraging your synergies across all platforms. That'll be $500,000."

Not that that wouldn't be cool. At least the money part. But somehow I'm doubting that's what I'll actually get to do.

Cadence to Acquire Neolinear; Neolinear Technology to Accelerate Design Cycle and Enhance Silicon Yield

Yep, so I'm going to be working for Cadence effective April 16th.

Lots of changes at work today. Huge changes. Unfortunately, I cannot post them here (yet).

However, I can say that:

• I still have a job.
• I will not have to relocate.
• The amount of money resulting from this is more than what I had feared, but not as much as I had hoped.
• The golden handcuffs have been taken off...
• ... and replaced by golden leg irons. :-P

Still trying to figure out what this all means. Also trying to slog though the hundreds of pages of legal documents that have been thrown my way.

One casualty: Kanga Design Automation will be put on hold indefinitely. Maybe some other time.

American Science & Surplus is going to be my undoing.

[Edit: deleted, sorry. Can't reveal this anymore.]

Another system failure

Apparently, New York City's 911 system was down for a few hours [NY Times] on Friday night. The cause? Apparently, an engineer changing phone numbers for a bank accidentally changed the phone number for the dispatch center instead (the numbers were similar). Oops.

A similar thing happened to Pittsburgh a few years ago. The cause there? They added an overlay area code (which, ironically, has never been used) to the 412/724 area codes. FCC rules state that, when this happens, the affected area has to switch to ten digit dialing (where you always have to dial the area code, even if you are calling to the same area code). Nobody reprogrammed the 911 system to use the ten digit system; when they shut off the seven digit system, it could no longer relay the calls.

Both failures were caused by changed to systems outside of the scope of the basic 911 system. This illustrates why it's hard to make good systems (especially software systems): the interdependencies cause failures to propagate rapidly.

If only we could make this work at the federal level...

Brace yourself. I've found a government that (gasp!) works!

For whatever archaic reasons, Pennsylvania does not collect income taxes for municipalities, i.e., the 3% I pay to the Commonwealth stays at the Commonwealth level. This means that most Pennsylvania residents end up filing at least three separate tax returns: federal, state, and local.

Now, Tamara and I moved from Pittsburgh to McCandless last year, which complicates things a bit. Between us, there are five returns: federal, state, Pittsburgh, and one each for McCandless (which does not have a married-filing-jointly status). Pittsburgh, though, loves to be annoying; to get off their tax list, you have to take a form to your local tax collector, who has to certify that you're a resident in their municipality and that you've paid $X in taxes, blah blah blah.

Furthermore, Tamara's W-2 forms were strangely incorrect with regard to her salary while in Pittsburgh vs. McCandless.

Anyway, I brought all of this to the town hall today to see what they could make of it. First, everyone there was friendly and helpful. That's just weird to begin with. Second, they have their crap together. The lady who certified the form for Pittsburgh was able to look everything up and signed it on the spot -- no waiting!

Finally, they took our McCandless forms and proceeded to check them for me while I was there! They pointed out that I used the wrong figure for one spot and redid the calculations for me! It ended up not making a difference in the end, but they took the time to explain why they wanted the different number (state vs. Social Security wages).

Wow.

I need to find a way to work effectively while getting only 2-3 hours of sleep each night.

No, no. Speed, heroin, etc., are not good long-term solutions, and the point is to get more work done, not less; I need my faculties for that to happen...

YES!

Three hour meeting scheduled.

In at 1:00, out at 1:45.

Yes!

I've been looking at some of the odder things you can import from China.

Cartoon umbrellas
Unique solar-powered garden lights
Unbranded video equipment -- just slap your logo on
Injection molding equipment
Manhole covers

Some interesting stuff there... very inexpensive, but you have to order in quantities of 1000.

1. Work hard on project.

2. Write paper; have it accepted at conference.

3. Get the following from upper management:

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 16:58:31 -0500
From: Jim Cappucci
Organization: Neolinear, Inc.
To: Dave Cuthbert
CC: Tom Beckley , Glen Clark , Elias Fallon
Subject: Re: OpenAccess conference

Dave and Elias,
Tom and I discussed this and don't think there is enough of a benefit to warrant you two going to the conference. Bodgan can relay any necessary information.

Jim

Asshole.

Yeah! Paper is done! It's going to be submitted to this conference.

Hm... now, if only I can get the powers that be to actually send me to this conference...

Ugh. The water heater broke yesterday, prompting an emergency run to Home Depot.

$630 and 24 hours later, I'm still sans hot water. I called Home Depot. It took 75 minutes to get a hold of someone. Turns out they forgot to call the installer yesterday. I was tempted to cancel the order and go get one from Lowe's and install it myself, but I wasn't sure that it would fit into my CR-V and apparently both the manufacturer and the county frown on non-professional installations (the former by making it difficult to make warranty claims, the latter by sending an inspector to your house).

I am quite annoyed by the county's $15 water heater permit. If this were a disposal or environmental impact fee, I could understand; but, no, I'm paying the installer for disposal of the old heater separately. If the county ran the water, sewer, or gas systems, I could also understand; they're somewhat responsible for making sure that I don't incorrectly hook up a utility line and cause a dangerous situation. But, no; this is purely a "we're going to tax this because we can" tax. Kind of like the city of Pittsburgh and its 50% (!) parking tax.

I did manage a bath by taking the largest pots I had, including and especially the 5 gallon stew pot, and running pots of hot water upstairs to the bath. Baths are always a good thing. Never pass up the opportunity to take a nice bath.

Heh. Drudge report headline: Summer Stripes?

Also: Three-headed frogs: cool freak of nature, or signs that the water isn't safe to drink?

I am starting to gather the items I need for my laboratory. I'm getting a logic analyzer with a 500 MHz sampling card, and trying to get both an analog and a digital oscilloscope.

I'm not currently winning the digital scope. I might bid higher (or even hit eBay's "buy it now" price), but (a) I'm not sure how well that scope works, and the "as-is" bit is a tad worrisome, (b) the scope doesn't come with any probes (and 500 MHz probes are not cheap), and (c) I've used that model of scope before and found its interface a bit unintuitive. On (c), I prefer scopes that have separate knobs for controlling vertical and horizontal gains and offsets; having to navigate a menu and whirl the single knob around can be annoying.

Ah, well. At least I'll be able to get a lot done with the analog scope (if I win it) and logic analyzer. If only I could win the lottery or stumble upon a bag of gold; the LeCroy WaveRunner 6200 is like the Nimbus 2000 of electrical engineers. Sadly, the WR6200 runs more than $100,000. Expensive toy, neh?

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."