One more night...
Feb. 15th, 2001 05:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgp...yeah, just one more night.
That tune keeps running through my mind as I prepare to go in for tonight's final shift for STS-98. Tomorrow, I have a physical scheduled at the NASA clinic early in the afternoon, and then I'm free until Sunday. I just have to remember to not eat anything after midnight; they expect me to show up fasted.
I finalized my order for the déjà vu software the other day, and the Airborne delivery left it on my doorstep this morning. I really didn't appreciate that, considering the package contains a dongle for the software, but it's done with and I have the device in my possession. The software is well built and helps increase translation productivity, without trying to actually do translations for you, but it is expensive, and the publisher goes to extraordinary lengths to copy-protect it.
After getting dressed, I went to pick up my glasses this morning, and am not really happy with the progressive lenses they cut for me, which combine distance viewing with reading glasses. The young thing who helped me swears it takes a couple of weeks to get used to, though, so I'm willing to give it a shot.
My only problem is that I proceeded to drop the glasses about an hour after putting them on, and wouldn't you know it: they made a precise two-point landing on unfinished concrete, said two points being on the lenses, thereby leaving a couple of pits in the surface of the center of each lens.
I went back to the store to see if they could somehow buff the pits out, but they say it can't be done (though I could ask for my one-time free lens replacement, which I declined). The pits are rather noticeable, so the store's reaction kind of left a poor taste in my mouth, but dropping the glasses was my fault, so I guess I don't have much of a basis to beef. In the final analysis, if the glasses don't do it for me, I have 30 days to take advantage of a money-back guarantee, and I'm at least 50% of the way toward asking for it right now.
To help take that bad taste out of my mouth, on the way home, I stopped at a place called Half Price Books, since they often have interesting buys on their foreign language shelf. No joy this time around, but right next to the language books, I spied a copy of the revised, expanded edition of The Codebreakers, by David Kahn, for $20, so I picked it up.
I've been trying to wrap my mind around a piece of software called SuperMemory. The name is a little hokey, maybe, but I've used the software for a couple of minor projects, including learning the Russian phonetic alphabet (Anna, Boris, Vladimir instead of Alpha, Bravo, Charlie) and a bunch of space-related terminology. Right now, I'm trying to find a better way of memorizing the part of Polonius in Hamlet than simply trying to repeat, repeat, and repeat until I'm blue in the face. (Though I must admit, ultimately, the repetition method works...though it is unpleasant.)
Ah, well. Off to some musing on the idea of a Web-based "memory palace," and then off to work.
Cheers...
That tune keeps running through my mind as I prepare to go in for tonight's final shift for STS-98. Tomorrow, I have a physical scheduled at the NASA clinic early in the afternoon, and then I'm free until Sunday. I just have to remember to not eat anything after midnight; they expect me to show up fasted.
I finalized my order for the déjà vu software the other day, and the Airborne delivery left it on my doorstep this morning. I really didn't appreciate that, considering the package contains a dongle for the software, but it's done with and I have the device in my possession. The software is well built and helps increase translation productivity, without trying to actually do translations for you, but it is expensive, and the publisher goes to extraordinary lengths to copy-protect it.
After getting dressed, I went to pick up my glasses this morning, and am not really happy with the progressive lenses they cut for me, which combine distance viewing with reading glasses. The young thing who helped me swears it takes a couple of weeks to get used to, though, so I'm willing to give it a shot.
My only problem is that I proceeded to drop the glasses about an hour after putting them on, and wouldn't you know it: they made a precise two-point landing on unfinished concrete, said two points being on the lenses, thereby leaving a couple of pits in the surface of the center of each lens.
I went back to the store to see if they could somehow buff the pits out, but they say it can't be done (though I could ask for my one-time free lens replacement, which I declined). The pits are rather noticeable, so the store's reaction kind of left a poor taste in my mouth, but dropping the glasses was my fault, so I guess I don't have much of a basis to beef. In the final analysis, if the glasses don't do it for me, I have 30 days to take advantage of a money-back guarantee, and I'm at least 50% of the way toward asking for it right now.
To help take that bad taste out of my mouth, on the way home, I stopped at a place called Half Price Books, since they often have interesting buys on their foreign language shelf. No joy this time around, but right next to the language books, I spied a copy of the revised, expanded edition of The Codebreakers, by David Kahn, for $20, so I picked it up.
I've been trying to wrap my mind around a piece of software called SuperMemory. The name is a little hokey, maybe, but I've used the software for a couple of minor projects, including learning the Russian phonetic alphabet (Anna, Boris, Vladimir instead of Alpha, Bravo, Charlie) and a bunch of space-related terminology. Right now, I'm trying to find a better way of memorizing the part of Polonius in Hamlet than simply trying to repeat, repeat, and repeat until I'm blue in the face. (Though I must admit, ultimately, the repetition method works...though it is unpleasant.)
Ah, well. Off to some musing on the idea of a Web-based "memory palace," and then off to work.
Cheers...
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no subject
Date: 2001-02-15 05:01 pm (UTC)On progressive lenses, keep in mind that there are a whole series of different types. Some have more narrow windows than others, and there are different progressions. My first one wasn't satisfactory, so I explained my problem to the optometrist and he suggested another type, which works just fine right off.
I suggest you not talk to an optometrist, rather than the counter girls. At the place I went (Pearle Vision - stupid place!) the counter people didn't know squat.
Dongles are hell
Date: 2001-02-15 09:11 pm (UTC)In short, the "engine" software that the expert system relied upon died quietly, without informing me that the dongle was to blame. All I (and the client) could tell was that my computer was awfully good at freezing up and doing nothing when I tried to run the software.
The aftermath of that experience took the cake. When I got back home, the software still did not work, so I called the software vendor, who proceeded to ask if I had put the dongle through an airport x-ray machine.
I had.
"Oh," said my contact, "that's probably the problem." He proceeded to explain that the problem was well understood, had been for some time, and that he'd be glad to send out a replacement dongle once he got our bad one.
I kind of choked on the part where he told me they bleeding well were aware that their dongles gave up the ghost when x-rayed, because apparently the only way I was going to find out this piece of intelligence, apparently, was to suffer the kind of mishap that I did.
That job with the potential client was a six-figure contract, too, if memory serves.
However, this software is just too good to ignore. Plus, the publisher has the capability of generating code sequences that will enable the software for various periods of time, which is how they allow people to test the software, and how they deal with dongle problems (rare, I am assured).
Cheers...