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October 30, 2004

You're my favourite waste of time.

First there was Bubbles. Then Squares. Horribly addictive.

In an age when even Lemmings can be redone in dynamic HTML, it's not suprising that early online games have evolved into something far, far better.

But the simplest ideas still seem to be the most fun.

Posted by Lloyd at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)

October 23, 2004

Uncertain doom.

Murphy's Law describes how accelerometers were installed upside-down because they could be, dooming the Genesis mission.

Titan Calling describes how the Cassini-Huygens mission risks failure by reusing communications equipment developed for use in near-Earth orbit, without considering the effects of Doppler shift on the received signal. To work around the Doppler shift problem and ensure communication, they've had to alter the physical trajectories of the spacecraft -- a major mission change.

The author of both articles is James Oberg. He's on a roll.

My approach to project management tends towards paranoia; what can go wrong, will go wrong, and you have to constantly ask what-if questions about things that are ostensibly outside your areas of concern. However, in the long-term, that's stressful and perhaps ultimately unsustainable by most. These articles provide insight into a world where most people just happily presume that others have done their job correctly, without sanity checks providing system-level oversight, and without sufficient overlap of areas of responsibility.

Still, we're only human.

Posted by Lloyd at 04:02 PM | Comments (0)

October 21, 2004

Ground control to mobile code.

I've spent the last eighteen months working on CLEO, the Cisco router in Low Earth Orbit.

I've previously mentioned the launch of the router into orbit.

I need a holiday.

Posted by Lloyd at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)

October 17, 2004

Life, observed.

Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker articles are fascinating reading.

(Now I know why I prefer tomato ketchup on my pasta.)

Posted by Lloyd at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)

October 16, 2004

Snickers, really.

I was encouraged to read Marathon Dan. I tried, but soon thought "I'd rather be reading MJ Hibbett."

So I did.

It just seemed a bit, well, "Ready! Set! Go... nowhere!"

(I was encouraged to promote Marathon Dan. Will this do?)

Posted by Lloyd at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)