There comes a time...

There comes a time when you've got to give up all your pretentions about having a bunch of options when it comes to translating a term or a phrase. (The same general idea is probably applicable in other context, but I digress...)

That's what ultimately ended up happening with the tables I was translating. With some extra effort, I was able to track down a few troublesome abbreviations and terms, but in the end - particularly in the context of translating table entries and not sentences - the time came to drop back and punt.

As I was putting the finishing touches on that document, I got a call to edit another. Fortunately, the translator is pretty good, and the document was fairly short, so I did the job in fairly short order.

So, at this point in time, I have a load of jobs I have not yet invoiced (hint), one short job due Friday, and then the sociology translation is due the middle of next month. That kind of lead time puts it completely out of my mind for now. (I am reminded of a cartoon I saw taped up on the cash register at a print shop, which shows a fellow at the counter looking back at his boss and asking "How do I handle this, boss? It's not a 'rush' job." Another digression, forgive me...)

I also have a preliminary schedule (which I haven't looked at yet) that tells me when my Houston client would like me to work during the next ISS Shuttle flight in August. (Hey! That's about the time my sociology text is due!) Apparently, it's been proposed to put me on the planning shift, which historically spends its waking hours in the middle of the night, but these ISS flights have been funny, so I suppose I should go check the schedule. Pressure has been mounting for me to go down to Houston anyway, to take care of some business, so I guess I'll be traveling in August.

There... three to-do items materialized out of thin air just like that. Later.

Cheers...

What a schedule!

Ouch!

For the first few nights, starting on August 9, the planning shift for STS-105 is on console from about 11:30 pm to 7:30 am the next morning. (On August 9 proper, the times are 3:30 am to 11:30 am.) Then things settle down into a rhythm after docking on flight day 2, and the planners work from 8:30 pm to 5:30 am until August 19.

On the one hand: Ye gods.

On the other: It's only 10 days.

Cheers...

Tinker, tinker...

Drew had to go to Durango, so I asked him to stop by what passes for a computer store there. He picked up a thin 12-Vdc fan for $10 for me.

I just spent the last half hour or so "installing" it in a cassette case and jury-rigging it to the back of my VAIO, where it is held in place by a strip of Scotch tape and the grace of God.

Before installing the fan, I let the VAIO warm up. The unit's fan was not operating, and the plastic in the area of the CPU was not particularly hot, so I fired up Mozilla (the Windows version) and started surfing like crazy. (It was that or play around with a program I downloaded recently that emulates an Enigma machine... anything to pump instructions through the CPU.)

Oh, yeah. I bought a cheap Radio Shack thermometer with a thermocouple that's on the end of a 10-foot wire, intended to be mounted outside and let you know just how hot/cold/whatever it is in the Real World while you're safe in some temperate environment. I placed the thermocouple at the fan exhaust vent and measured a temperature of about 104 deg F.

The plastic over the CPU started getting hot, so I upended the machine and blew hard into the exhaust, which started the internal fan. Within 20 seconds, the thermometer was registering 127 deg F air coming out of the machine.

Leaving the thermocouple in place, I taped the fan/cassette in place and fired my creation up. It is powered by an old Xircom 12-Vdc power supply, with suitable "modifications" (i.e., I clipped off the plug that's supposed to go into some device, long lost, and spliced the end to the wires on the fan.)

Within 10 seconds, the temperature dropped to 113 deg F. In 10 more seconds (the thermometer's cycle time), the temperature had dropped to 106 deg F. Then 96.3 deg F, and eventually down to 83.3 deg F, where it is staying. The ambient air temperature in the room is 80 deg F, so the fan must be doing something, even though there are cracks around where the cassette meets the VAIO's case. After a few minutes, the plastic over the CPU is barely warm.

It's not a quiet unit, nor is it overly noisy (though I'm sure it would drive Galina nuts; she hates the sound of computer fans).

I still have to find that receipt. Circuit City says they can't (won't) issue me a replacement receipt. Another alternative is to write a really strongly worded note to Sony, seeing as I did send in a copy of the receipt when I mailed in my rebate stuff.

I'll probably doodle around with the design of this fan for a while. It'd be nice to have something a little quieter, not to mention a bit more sleek. What I have now would occasion comment, for sure, outside my office.

Time to put the Tom Edison hat back in the closet, though, for the night at least.

I finished Cryptonomicon yesterday. I enjoyed the book tremendously, even though at times I had to read it 3-4 pages at a time. Nothing came together until the last 100 pages or so (which I took at two sittings), and when the dust had lifted, all loose ends were tucked away nicely. Except for one, last heard of experiencing soreness in the knees.

Uncertainty is good.

Cheers...