Week 21, 2000 ,Svenson

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22-05 to 28-05

MM-cxxxxiii     Monday

2000-05-22

Rain and drizzle in the morning but the rest of the day is dry. That is dry but grey with the temperature rising from 9 to about 17°C.

I narrowly escaped a, minor, accident this morning, in Baarlo, a village just before Venlo.
I was slowing down from 90Km/h (56) to about 60Km (37) while the oncoming trafic, mostly trucks was picking up speed probably also going at 60km/h. Suddenly on of the ongoing trucks loses the running surface of a tire (probably a badly refurbished tire).
It remains intact and runs, bouncing and wiggling, parallel to the truck. Straight at me. I brake shortly, see that it bounces to my left and I can swerve, accelerating madly just in time to miss it by a whisker. In my rear mirror I see it bounce against the truck and back on the road where it hits the car just behind me. Both car and tire had slowed enough so there were no injuries.

There is nothing like a near miss to sharpen ones attention.

I worked on the validations problem. It's a bigger change than I expected so I don't get it finished as planned (hey Tom).
Ronny called in, he is staying home ill today and tomorrow. Wednesday to Friday he should be off on a course (he'll try to make) so he won't be in till next week. That means I can push the validations problem back a bit, he needs to do some changes for it as well, and I can pick up the problem of pre calculating freight costs. That must be finished by the end of the month (last month but who is looking) so with a little luck I can get it done only a little bit late (hey Tom, again).

In the news

The personnel of GB (the biggest supermarket chain in Belgium) went on strike. Last year they got a profit-sharing bonus (based on the profits of the previous year). This year they didn't get the bonus so they go on strike demanding their profit-sharing bonus. Only the GB made a (small) loss during 1999.
(I would say let them share the loss!)

MM-cxxxxiv     Tuesday

2000-05-23

I saw the last of the rain at about six but it remained grey until about noon. Later it became sunny with the mercury rising to 20°C.

I picked up the freight pre-calculation problem. As it is now the freight has to be calculated by hand and entered as an administrative item. This is prone to errors and omissions. The most straightforward way to add it more automated (well fully automated) is by preparing a new type of 'condition'. Before we can add a new type of condition we have to find out how the current conditions work.
I spent about the whole day at it and I am still largely clue less.

Science

Researchers at the Max Plank institution (Germany) have discovered how to make silicon structures better heat conductors. By making the whole object from a single isotope (ex SI28 ) they could get a thermal conductivity increase of 60% at room temperature (and even 240% at about -150°C). Chips are made of silicon and, with this technique could be made to transfer their heat faster which could lead to higher clock speeds without overheating.

Science-2

It is found, in an American study, that more people die after a liposuction treatment than after a trafic accident. About 20 of 100.000 people who had liposuction die after it while only 16.4 of people who have a trafic accident die form it. The deaths are probably caused by side effects of Lidocaïn. This is used as a local (subcutaneous) anesthetic but its side effects and interaction with other drugs is still poorly understood.

Finely chopped chives, mixed with soft cheese and added to salads is an excellent means in the battle against cholesterol. And it does add more to the taste than the typical mayonnaise.

And American and a French builder bet on who can build the fastest.
After a month the American faxes "Just ten days to go and we are finished."
The French faxes back "Just ten forms to complete and we can begin."
()

MM-cxxxxv     Wednesday

2000-05-24

For a change it is dry in the morning and raining in the afternoon. But Grey all day with a temperature variation from 12 to 15°C (and back).

After slogging it out with the programs I have a reasonable idea of how the order calculation handles conditions and where I should add some code to get the shipping charges calculated. I even started at implementing it in a prototype. I am not going to change the real thing if I don't know the feasibility of my proposal.

And then the Progress boys hit a problem. Last week (Tuesday) I created five files for them and Wilbert added them to the database schema for TOS. Now when they try to use them they get an object synchronization error on two files. The other three have no problem.
This is a problem for Wilbert but he has a week off right now. Ronny, who does the development in Progress knows the schema and database setup as well but he was ill Monday and Yesterday and now he is on a course till Friday. So they ask me. I do get help from Tom, who should be (and is) able to fall in for Wilbert. After synchronizing a few times and even deleting and rebuilding the schema both on the AS/400 as on the NT side the problem still remains.
I think the problem has nothing to do with what the message implies because all five files were created and added to the schema at the same time. Yet on two we get an error while the others behave normally.

Lots of time lost and while I did learn a few things nothing got solved.

No time for news or science. Heck, not even for reading daynotes. I didn't leave before half past six (home at 20h15) with still a bunch of unread mail in my inbox.

MM-cxxxxvi     Thursday

2000-05-25

Starting off with a grey rainy morning at 15°C. The afternoon however turns out as it should, dry and sunny if not yet bright with 20°C on the clock.

I got halfway trough the condition adaptation. It is now possible to define conditions, on header or line level that are based on weights. The calculation already recognizes these. I just have to add the weight counting.
Now is this a weight watcher program or what?

In the news

The Mexican government has canceled its order for the P90 sub machine guns. As I mentioned a weeks ago they ordered these for their police force but our government did a classical do-don't-do-don't grant on the export license. Now finally the export was granted. Mexico however canceled the order because of all the delays. And guess what? Some politicians think this is a good case.

MM-cxxxxvii     Friday

2000-05-26

Normal night temperatures again (10°C). No rain but an abundance of greyness until somewhere around noon. The afternoon we get sunshine and clouds (not grey but rather white) with temperatures clocking up to 20°C.

Wow. I finished the conditions adaptation that I started yesterday, tested it. And it ran, first time, without problems. Correctly calculation the transport costs and putting them on the order and, later on the invoice. And I find no faults or side effects. Side effects are my specialty, I always have them, so I expected something to be broken. I didn't find anything so now I don't trust the program.

The problem we had on Wednesday with two of the new files. We did some re-synchronization that didn't help. We even did a total rebuild of the schema, first on the AS/400, then on the NT followed by yet another synchronization. All to no avail. In the end they created the files on the NT itself as a temporal solution.
Now they get the same problem on some other files. These aren't new files and they work when accessing them from TeleSales. Something is screwed in the schema but we nor they know what.
Monday both Wilbert and Ronny are back. Hehe, they will have a go at it.

No news (due to lack of time).

MM-cxxxxviii     Saturday

2000-05-27

For most of the day we had 'unsettled' weather. With lots of big clouds being driven by by a strong wind. The result was that most of the day we had five minutes sunshine alternating with five minutes of threatening rain. It did remain dry and the temperature got from 9°C to 18°C.

Shopping but again nothing computerish.

I did spend some hours searching for money. Well, not really searching for money, I have enough of that, but rather searching among all the paper around here for bank slips and declarations. I am not interested in money, I leave all managing of it to my father, he knows what and how to that. I earn a bit more than I spend so after a time it starts to accumulate on my normal bank account. A normal bank account doesn't return a big percentage so from time to time my father urges me to transfer it to a savings account. Now he had found some sort of bonds he wanted me to buy but how much? So he ask me how much I have got.
Oh dear, I dunno, ....I think I have got a little less than Bill Gates but how much?

Money, phew. If you have it it troubles you and if you don't have it it is a problem too.

I start to understand the 'everything must be free' people. If everything is free you can abandon money and all our problems will be solved. Now, if I just have to convince the grocery store and the people at the petrol station.

MM-cil     Sunday

2000-05-28

It's 10°C with rain and a fairly strong wind in the morning. The rain varies trough the day from light over heavy all the way to torrential. With a few bright sunny periods interspersed. The wind became stronger throughout the day with peaks of over a 100Km/h (over 60Mph).

Happy running in the rain. Only the wind is a bit less enjoyable.

The news is almost exclusively about storm damage with lots of tree blown down and even a few people killed and several people injured. Lots of out door events have been canceled or restricted with lots of tents and stalls being blown over.

I did mow the lawn in between the showers but rested most of the day.