While “driving” today, an idea dawned upon me. I use the term “driving” loosely since traveling under 15mph could hardly be considered driving at all in any reasonable sense of the word. Whilst enjoying a traffic jam today on 495 it took me about one hour to traverse 10 miles. If you’re good at math, this will tell you I was going about 10mph. If you’re bad at math, it’s more like 8mph. Don’t ask why, I don’t make the rules. Anyhow, I was on the phone with Seth to keep from falling asleep and it dawned on me “I could really use some coffee right now. Like, wicked”. So Seth and I discussed the options of mobile coffee distribution for just such an occasion.
The first idea was a mobile coffee truck, like those mobile food trucks/kiosks that you see in New York City that serve salty pretzels or oily sausages of some dreadful origin. They would be permitted to drive in the breakdown lane since they were providing a service to all. Who can argue with that? another option would be to add a separate coffee lane for these trucks to drive in. Clearly these vehicles are of such importance as to demand the extra infrastructure.
The second (and far cooler) idea would be much better for the distribution aspect fo mobile coffee delivery. A semitruck would be dispatched to the traffic jam location, carrying a number of men on bicycles. This throng of espresso warriors would drive into the gridlock and maneuver between cars to get to the needy folks. One or two would have an espresso machine on their backs. The others would carry battery packs being constantly charged by those cool rear wheel generators that your parents bikes had to power the headlight. Upon reaching a needy soul, they would all yell “LET OUR POWERS COMBINE!”, and they would merge into a Voltron-like host of coffee dispensing righteousness. The battery bikes would plug into the espresso bike, and out would churn the delicious coffee. Then they would revert into their much more mobile decentralized form to get to the next customer.
Clearly this has to come to pass. I see no way around it.
w00t. Put in my 2 weeks. I actually felt bad… her voice wouldn;t stop crackling for like 5 minutes. she was so close to crying =/. As much of a pain in the ass as this place is, and as many issues as I’ve had with Bob, I don’t like leaving her in the position I’m going to be leaving her in. She’s going to spawn in april, and it takes at least 1 month to get a new trainee. Then another 4-6 months to train someone to the point that they’re autonomous. To boot, this isn’t monkey work.. it requires a good amount of analytical skill, so it’s not like they can just recruit John Q. Random from the temp agency and be done with it. So she’s going to be all alone here until she leaves in April, then they’ll be rotating people in from Chicago probably until she gets back. Then she’ll be alone again for a while.
As much as I’d like that to be a pleasant thought, I feel a little bad. meh. had to be done.
Demi-w00t =/.
PS – fun fact: this is the only job I’ve ever quit. I’ve only ever been laid off, had a contract expire, or had to leave for school before.
Bob is in a mood today. She’s redmarking my report into a bloodbath. …asking why I don’t include this or that comment (which we have never included in any reports ever), and telling me where to put arrows to indicate defects (I avoid pointing out too many blatantly obvious defects). Seriously… I use HER reports as templates to avoid this sort of thing. It’s going to feel soooooooo good when she comes up and tells me it’s time for my yearly review, and I get to tell her “Yeah well…”
preemptive w00t
I had this crazy idea that I’d quit my job today. WTF, right? It’s a monday… I’m bored… What could go wrong?
I’m “manufacturing” data again. The difference between manufacturing data and collecting data is, of course, that manufactured data has been “coaxed” in some way to make it look like you want it to. It looks “just like real data” and often we do this for the benefit of the customer, but it rubs me the wrong way on a fundamental level.
Basically, there’s a defect in these parts. I know it’s there. I can see indirect evidence of it through one of our other scanning techniques. For whatever reason, the part construction makes the echoes look really weird in this area, so it doesn’t “look” like a defect. To anyone with just a brief lesson on how this technology works, it looks like a defect-free area. The echoes I mention are waves on an oscilloscope. Generally, waves with positive amplitude are a good area, and areas with negative amplitude echoes are defects. The machine takes these waves and turns them into pixels to create an image one pixel at a time as the machine scans over the parts. However, the polarity detection in these things is crap. so if you have a waveform of an area that has a big negative lobe with a moderate positive trailing lobe, it detects it as positive.
So, what I’ve been asked to do is play with the gates (the limits set on the oscilloscope for where the machine reads data from) and “shave off” the trailing positive lobe. This will make the area look like a defect. I have no question that it is a defect, but I still think it’s wrong to do this. Presenting modified data to laypeople is wrong… even if it is to help them better understand it.
So here I go again violating my scientific integrity for this company. I’ll say it again… yay for leaving.
In other news, Bob’s boss (who is actually a really cool guy) is getting lunch for us. Free food is ALWAYS acceptable.
Bob bitched at me yesterday for leaving 30 minutes early. as I was walking out the door… “So, you going to make up some time later in the week?”
O_o
O_o
Seriously, I had no idea what to say. None. I was totally and completely without words. After working november and december at 10-12 hours a day every day, and only getting paid for 40 hours, I was so utterly dumbfounded that she’d spew bowels of her lungs. Short memory eh?
Yay for leaving.
Got ze job. w00t! I accepted a verbal offer today. the guy hadn’t even seen my resumee yet. he’s hiring me pretty much on reccommendation alone. sucker! er… I mean… yeah. I sent him my resumee today so he can see about squeezing more pay out of HR for me. I’ll be getting a formal offer letter in the mail by friday at which point I’ll be putting in my two weeks here at Sonoscan. I’ll be potentially starting the 21st. the pay is well above what I make here, and it looks to be a kickass crew. unfortunately I’ll be working nights for a while, but I’ve been assured that would be for 6 months at the most. There’s lots of other stuff to move up into here, and the company isn’t going to go under any time soon *cough*Diagenics*cough*Germans*cough*.
I’m quite pleased right now. this takes a load of stress off my mind.
As a side note, apparently the decision to hire me was made before I was even interviewed and was based off Dan0’s recommendation… and from readin my livejournal O_o. it turns out I’m just the kind of unstable nutjob that the rest of the people there are, and they figured I’d fit in well. WTF? my livejournal helped me get hired? Normally I’d say something like “these guys have no idea what they’re in for…” but apparently they DO. suckers!!! er.. I mean..
mmm… Big Kat.
Ok, I’m going to spam my friends list. if you look back in my posts you’ll see I NEVER do this, so don’t whine at me plz =D. I almost never even post memes or polls. and I even use LJ-cuts for pics. go me.
http://www.FreeMiniMacs.com/?r=14691122
Clicky that. Even if you don’t want it, just do it anyways. it takes like 5 minutes. sign up for the free camera offer thingy. it costs $1. after 10 or so days, just cancel and you won;t get charged a thing past the one dollar, and you get to keep the free shitty digicam (that is worth maybe one dollar). Use it to take pics in the rain or something. I want a mac to play with and I was bored at work today.
more on that job I mentioned…
‘m interviewing today with Dan0’s boss. Over beer. At the local microbrew watering hole. how the hell cool is that? I’d be working some peon level network monitoring position. Which is totally cool with me. From what I gather, it’s not trained-monkey work. So I’m really more of a “skilled peon”. It pays more than I make now, is closer to home, will be less stressful (by default), and there’s room for advancement (more so than the 2-man operation I’m at now). I hope it all goes well. especially after last week’s visit to Sonoscan HQ, I really do not want to work here anymore. and if the nature of my interview foreshadows the general coolness of this workplace, I will be very happy.
It has occured to me that computers/networking is where I’m going to end up. This comes with a tinge of dismay since I spent 4 years getting a degree in physics. It’s not that I just want to make the bigger paycheck… I actually enjoy networking stuff. I spend all day playing with my box. ok… that sounds wrong. but still.. I’m SSH’d into my server all day just to mess with this or that. I like that sort of thing. I’d really like to get into network security. we’ll see how that all goes. I’m fine with being a peon for now. “work work”.
In other news, I spent the entire weekend playing WoW (again). I’m getting sucked into it O__O. Evil vortex of pixelated pacification. MUST LEVEL UP!!1 RAWR!!
Hey all. Still alive and kicking here in Chicago. Today is my last day, and I’ll be hapy toget back. It sees that last time I was out here I had a better time. I think I must have forgotten how much it sucks to sit around alone in a hotel room all night. I went out with some of the guys from the local chapter of NASIOC last night and that was cool. great crowd. But monday through wednesday night sucked. I was looking forward to this trip because I dig having someone else aapy for my room, car, and food all week. but seriously, I hate being couped up by myself with nowhere to go and no intaw3b to keep me entertained. I hate TV. I finished my book. anyways.. whine whine.
I miss driving my car (even my crappy CRX is better than my rental minivan). I miss eating at home instead of shoddy restaurants with shitty service that my company takes me out to. I miss being in my room at the end of the day. I miss reesey… but that’s no different than normal =P.
anyways… enough IggWhining. I need to get back to work for another couple hours. Then flight. My saving grace is that I have an interview on Monday… hopefully no more Sonoscan soon. more on that later.
I apoligize for the scatterbrained flavor of this entry. I’ve had to do it across 3 sittings using lynx as my browser (text only, for non-geeks). I’ve had enough of this place. get me the fsck out of here.
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