Archives 2005

We (VexTech) do contract programming, and generally I try to bill to the minute, just for those minutes actually spent on the project. It keeps me focused on the needs of the project when working at home.

Unfortunately, today, I had at least an hour, maybe two, where I forgot to record time, mostly because ...

Just finished the first successful test of the Asterisk install. I'm actually using a VoIP account over on our client's network as an inbound communications channel and connecting via a PSTN (regular telephone network) phone to the box sitting next to me. The Asterisk box is behind a NAT-ing firewall configured to trigger an opening ...

Spent the rest of yesterday and all of today so far learning Asterisk (starting with the Asterisk The Future of Telephony book). It's more for our new venture, but it may come in handy for upcoming iterations of the VoIP project.

Probably start into experiments this evening. Yum, experiments.

Took a few hours off to hit the Toronto Philosophy group meeting. Good discussion focused primarily on the question of morality (and the sources thereof). Interesting set of sources, from culturally-inculcated objective idealism through utilitarianism and a sort of Lockian or Randian relativism.

Anyway, quite worth the trip down. Next meeting is the third Wednesday ...

We're pretty much down to deployment and testing tickets for the VoIP project soft launch. There's still a few legal-requirement tickets as well, but the basic code is all there. I'm starting to feel that impulse to draw a line and consider the project's first iteration well and truly finished.

Unfortunately, I haven't pulled in ...

There's a point in a project where everything that's left is either not a priority, or so messy and ugly that you just don't want to tackle it until you have a better spec. I think I'm almost there for the VoIP project. There's a few big-ugly items (such as 9-1-1 location-data verification and a ...

How many years have I danced alone
To rhythms, rhymes and dreams
Giving over hope to wandering notes

Great bird of fire, you once moved with me
Dazzling lights across smiling eyes
Strong bodies sliding softly 'cross the floor

Dark winters' solitude crept between us
Bodies cooling and fading to cracked stone
Softly falling snow ...

Oh, how trivial a bit of work it was. I just added a numarray-based array FormatHandler to OpenGL-ctypes. It seems to work fine, though I don't have any non-trivial numarray-using code with which to test it. The difference between the Numpy and numarray code is trivial, other than the imports the modules are identical (including ...

Michelle cancelled for the Plasticised People exhibit, so I spent the day at the library. Nothing really exciting that way, picked up a new book to read and a "Pocket Magritte" to flip through.

Magritte is one of those painters I feel ambivalent about; some of his work is playing with interesting ideas, but for ...

I had completely forgotten that Michelle and I had agreed to go to the Plasticised People exhibit tomorrow to sketch. So much for my plans to get huge amounts of writing done.

Not much else to report, basically the whole day was spent on phone conferences. Not the most productive day in the world, but ...