An Unexpected Package

Not, not in my linux distribution's package manager. That doesn't surprise me anymore. A note from the post office saying I have a package waiting for me, and would I please come pick it up. I do not remember ordering anything. I've just checked, and I don't have outstanding orders in places where I frequently shop. I note that Israel post packages carry a warning to not open unexpected packages, for security reasons. Guess I'll find out if it's a bomb in six hours, when the post office opens.

EDIT: A Firefox 4 beta team t-shirt. With a hand-written note, in Hebrew. Thank you to the local mozilla volunteer who mailed it, I hope you used company money. I only contributed two small patches, so thanks guys!

Lois McMaster Bujold's Cryoburn

On August 12th, LMB announced on her blog that Simon & Schuster updated their catalog to say that the hardcover will be available October 19th instead of November 2nd as previously announced. She did not provide a link but it was easy to find.

The publisher Baen still lists the book coming out November 2010. Amazon says they have them in stock, Oct 14th, "but may require an extra 1-2 days to process". Quoted price is $14.62 down from $25 MSRP (with free delivery in the US). Amazon.co.uk will only let one pre-order, for £13.29 which is (according to google) $21.05 USD, with free delivery in the UK. The Book Depository lists it as having $30 MSRP and will sell it for $22.50, free worldwide delivery. But still lists publication date as "02 November 2010". I've pre-ordered a while ago so I'm waiting for mine.

The eARC has been available at the usual copyright infringement locations since the beginning of August, when they became available on the publisher's site for $15.

LMB has allowed people to give out three copies in exchange for reviews. I paid for mine, so I don't feel obligated to write a review, but we'll see when I have the dead tree edition. Maybe I'll reread some of the previous books first. Does anyone want a copy? Yeah, I'm talking to myself.

EDIT: Just got an email from TBD stating "I am pleased to let you know that we have just received notification that your pre-ordered book has been made available by the publisher".

EDIT 2: Received, 2010-10-21.

Dreams

I had a dream, and in that dream a woman told me she wouldn't sleep with me because of my beard.

I don't know how true that is outside of my own head, but I think I'll shave off the beard and see what happens.

work and life musings

I remember when I was thirteen to fifteen I used to think I had no chance with girls because they grew up faster than boys and wanted older boyfriends. Some of them had boyfriends who were sixteen or even eighteen and you just couldn't compete with that. Last week I visited family, on the occasion of my twin cousins' fourteenth birthday. I didn't know they would have any guests and the guests didn't know non-immediate family would be there, so I found myself in a room with six fourteen year old girls, two of which were my cousins. The girls are very early stage young adults. I am a single financially solid adult guy. Short, with a full red beard and glasses. If fourteen year old me was in the room, he would think the girls would be all over themselves to be with me and would be disgusted by them, thinking I am much too old for them (which is obviously true). The thing is, they had about the same reaction to twenty three year old me as they would have (and similar girls had) to fourteen year old me. My ego may never recover.

On an unrelated note, another milestone at work, and I'm closer to pulling my own weight, though I'm not sure what to do with the life/work balance. It seems some people believe that in a startup, work is your life, and thus eliminate the issues entirely. You may engage in social activity or reading non-technical books as a way to "sleep on a problem", but that's about it. Other people separate their lives from their work. I find that commuting and sleep take up more hours from work than I have to spare, considering the workload and my effective work-speed, and I don't have any time available for "life", even if I had any. All I can do is talk to my mom during commutes, because she misses not seeing me all week. I started a facebook account, but that is not true substitute to real life.

What I need is a mobility solution and increasing work productivity by a factor of two. Also, it seems I still don't notice and/or understand what;s going on around me, people interacting - wise. Sometimes I think half my colleagues could be gay lovers and I wouldn't know.

Movie

So, yesterday the CEO rented a private showing of the Japanese horror movie "Battle Royal" for the entire company. I managed to stay detached and thus did not throw up. I avoided nightmares. But after I woke up I decided I won't be going to see any more movies he recommends, even if it's mandated company activity. I've read about it on wikipedia beforehand, but he said it was deep and all that stuff. Well, it either wasn't deep or it was too deep for me, because all I've seen is gore for the sake of gore. Maybe more psychology/narrative and less blood would've made it a great statement about the human condition, but as is, it's definitely not for general consumption.

New Year

I have received a pay slip for New Year's. It shows I've paid more income tax than my brutto salary in the IDF.

The codebase I'm working on is completely undocumented and has gone through enough iterations in a hurry that its original design is nowhere to be seen. I am supposed to figure a lot of stuff on my own and I'm not doing it fast enough. It is discouraging.

The elephant in the china shop is "equity" - the party line is everyone is equal and the same amount of effort is expected from everyone, but if things go well some will become very rich and the rest are just employees.

The CTO is not easy to get a long with - people agree that he's living in a dream world.

Microsoft XML serialization is a piece of shit.

Really need to think about that personal mobility solution.

Samsung SyncMaster 226BW

I bought it online, had it delivered by UPS next business day (50 NIS). Knock on my door at 08:40 - no phone calls or anything. Setup was very easy, probably thanks to the nvidia settings app that comes with their drivers. It's beautiful and bright. I did not calibrate it yet and did not even check what model panel is inside. 1720 NIS (~$436) vs. $310 at NewEgg before the $40 mail-in rebate.

Three weeks in

Over lunch told G. the meaning of T.'s phraze "ברחל בתך הקטנה" which is from Genesis 29:18 and means a contract so specific it cannot be misinterpreted (of course, in the story, the hero was still weaseled out of his bride and had to work for her seven more years). He listened and said "and I thought it was just like באמא שלך!". As T. would say: אלוהים אדירים! אתה מבין למה אני מתכוון?