Andrew,

If ever there was a reason to own a TiVo, you've got it. No way to predict
when you'll get called. You don't mention that you own one - if you don't, you
owe it to yourself to give it a try...

PS I hope this authenticated comments system isn't going to force me to verify
my email address a second time. Speaking of which, you never displayed (or
responded to - *sniff*) my last comment - are you planning on displaying these
comments on your 'blog anytime? And I still want to see archives. Bitch,
complain, bitch, complain...

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Well friends, sorry for the absence. I'm just now getting over a cold from
hell. Colds suck. My wife is right, by the way -- men are babies when it comes
to being sick. Well, so what. Women are babies when it comes to lifting couches
& refrigerators. (admittedly, I know a few pretty handy with an axe) Congrats
to my friends at National Semiconductor here in Portland.
http://www.forbes.com/home/2003/03/31/cx_ah_0331tentech.html -- If this uses
what I think it does, they worked really hard on this stuff. I hate linking to
Forbes, but its their article, so fair is fair. What an ending! I finally got
to see the 3rd watch end of season show from last year. I missed it then
because (ironically enough) I was out doing fire stuff. Whatever it was then I
don't recall now. Probably a false alarm or something. If you've never watched,
they do a pretty good job on the fire stuff showing how it really works. Of
course they over dramatize a lot, and of course the real thing is usually less
cinematic (a real fire would be terrible film inside, because you can't see
anything). My point is, they clearly spend a lot of time with experts. A lot of
what ends up seems like it come right from a b.s. session where someone says
"hey, remember that time.." or else "you know, when we train on extrication,
they warn us....." Its kinda cool to see those stories played out. In
volunteer land up here where we have one traffic light and about 15 thousand
people to look out for, its a bit more laid back most of the time. Except when
its not. Some Domino tips and some real code later this week, I swear. I'm
planning to update the hash function in the tool I talked about before with
something a bit less perfect but way faster. For my own purpose, it'll be fine.