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Showing posts from May 28, 2006

Hello 800mg ibuprofen

I'm not big on taking pills and drugs just for the hell of it. So when the doc diagnosed my incredibly sore heels yesterday as having achilles tendonitis, he presribed me 800mg ibuprofen tablets 3 times a day. That's a shitload of ibuprofen. The thing is, within 30 minutes of taking the first one this morning, I was able to walk far more smoothly than I've been doing in the past few days. And now - mid-afternoon - I'm walking with no visible limp at all. Amazing. So whether the ibuprofen is numbing the pain (which would be a first for me as painkillers typically have no effect on me), or whether the anti-inflamatory aspect of them has taken the swelling out of my achilles tendons, I don't know. What I do know is it's a lot less painful to walk now.

The cellphone backlash.

I read an interesting article a couple of days ago about cellphone companies believing they need to add more content, more gadgets and more features to cellphones in order to sell them. Problem is, for a growing percentage of consumers, me included, that's the last thing we want. ( Original story ) See, the thing is - and stop me if this sounds odd - to prompt me to buy a cellphone, it would need two basic features. 1. It should be cheap - any contract should be $9 a month or less and give me a couple of thousand minutes. By the time all the US taxes and fees get added on, that will still be over $20 a month. 2. And this is the kicker - it should be a phone. Now I know that sounds weird. But believe it or not, I could give a flying fuck about ringtones, colour screens, bazillions of menus, shitty cameras, poorly designed organisers and awful text messaging. I want a phone and nothing else. So I guess industry is in trouble with people like me then, because the more shit they add t

That noise? That was the MPAA having an orgasm,

And so another distribution site bites the dust. Swedish authorities raided thepiratebay today. The MPAA and RIAA are ecstatic, barely able to get out their standard line of propaganda between frantic sessions of masturbation. Apparently, the demise of Suprnova, Napster, Kazaa etc has taught these morons nothing. So thepiratebay has gone. So what? There'll be ten new sites to fill the gap. I'll still be able to download UK TV programs to watch here in America. Perhaps the MPAA should try another tack. They keep banging on about low attendance and terrible box office numbers, but as the recent record opening weekends has proved, that's complete bollocks. Instead of continuing to miss the point and blame online downloads for the perceived demise of the box office, they should enforce cellphone blockers and bouncers in cinemas instead. The cellphone blockers would free us from the blight of cellphones, and the bouncers could be used to throw out the usual collection of incon

Welcome, new employee

Cool I've got my new security badge and my welcome pack from RCI today. The welcome pack contains a funky little chrome key fob in the shape of a Boeing 747. That's probably more recognition of an employee than we ever got from E&S :-)

A productive day

After a lot of cursing and swearing yesterday, I finally managed to finish cutting my 6 inch hole in the tile ceiling of our downstairs shower. Once again the guy who built this house didn't do anything by halves. A layer of tile, then slate, then metal mesh, then plaster, then wood. So at last we have a flush-fitting light in the downstairs shower - no more nutting yourself on the old glass nipple that was in there. And this afternoon I succeeded in setting up our wired print server on our network so now we've been able to move the printers out of the way into the family room. Sweet. I also got a bounceback from my new email account at Rockwell Collins just now - I guess the servers aren't quite working yet :-)

So what of those of us who are left?

So what of those of us who survived the Jim massacre and are left to move on to RCI? Some people (espcially on the Yahoo message boards) consider us stupid to still be here in the light of Jim's utter incompetence. I see it differently. In spite of all the damage he did to E&S, there is still a market for simulation whether he believes it or not. I still have a lot of pride in my job and what I do, and most of those of us left here are the same. I enjoy working on the projects I work on, and I enjoy working with the people I work with (with 2 notable exceptions). Believe it or not I get a sense of satisfaction when I see a new story about an aircraft in crisis that landed safely with no undercarriage or with an engine on fire. Why? Because chances are that pilot trained for that scenario on a system we built, that I contributed to. I get satisfaction believing that in some small way, what I do for simulation contributed to the safety of the passengers on that aircraft. That