Funny story

This is a little rant about the project that I have been working on for the past little while, the same project that sent me to Asia twice last year. I am not working on it much any more because it was a complete and total disorganized disaster. The people in charge here have been working on the project by themselves with it closely tucked into their shirt.

This is how bad it was. When I was in Asia one of the clients asked me a question about the requirements for a single module. I looked at her and scratched my head because I did not even know what that module was and what it was responsible for. Thats how bad it was.

Back to the present. Its January 9th, the project "super visor" (I prefer to call him the "ruiner") came up with a list of things that needed to be done by the 15th and given to the client which would close off this portion and allow the company to get paid. [Have I mentioned that because the "ruiner" is not allowing anyone else to help out on some parts the project is already 7 months late?] Which is fine, whatever. It was 4 business days that they gave us to work on things. On the list were about 22 items. I had 5 items that I needed to do. There was some programming and some reports that I needed to create/fix and then give to the client. Which is fine, I had created about 12 reports for the client already so I was familiar with what needed to be done and the software.

I worked my ass off doing all of the things that I had on the list and getting them done. Hell, I even finished by morning of the 14th.

We had a meeting yesterday to go over everything. It was the 21st and there are still 11 items on the list that aren't even started! Like wtf? How does that happen? Here I was working hard for nothing. How can the company be satisfied with the way this project is going when nothing gets done at all? We promise the client something and then don't deliver? Its no wonder the guy who is over there now has called/emailed the boss with complaints from the clients because nothing is as its supposed to be.

The best point of all. This isn't really our fault. Well not completely. This project is based upon a features document which outlines all of the components of the project, it should have never been signed. When the project was awarded, they didn't really know what they wanted. They only knew that they wanted a system to help streamline their business processes.

Fine.

They have a webmapping component. The document states that they required the ability to print from the web both graphical and textual information on A4 paper. Great. It already does that. Now that they've had time to think about it, they want the web mapping to print based on a template and started yelling for that. If they had of told us 6 months ago about this, then it would be different.

Do you know how hard it is to complete something when someone keeps giving you new stuff to add on top of it?

Agony

For the first time in well over a week and a half I'm in utter agony because of my stupid foot.

It doesn't matter what I do with my foot, whether its up or down, turned slightly to the right or angled a little towards the ceiling. It just hurts and makes me uncomfortable.

How does it (my foot) expect me to get through the rest of the day when I'm unable to concentrate as it throbs to the beat of its own drum. I've even popped a few advil today (since that was the perscription that the Doctors gave me.) but that doesn't seem to help much at all?

I'm left with only a few choices:

1. Donate my foot do science a-la Saw.
2. Beg and plead with my muscles and tendons to give me just a little bit of a break.
3. Ignore it and hope it gets better. I've been doing that alot lately and it doesn't help.

Now that I think about it, I have been a little bad recently. Since this past weekend I haven't been wearing my brace at all while I'm at work, driving, or taking the dog for a walk. That might have something to do with it.

Whoops, my bad.

Made in Canada = Illegal in Canada?

I first heard the above from Urban Ichthyosapien in their blog which has much to do about the wrong doings in Canada politics. (Such as the DMCA that I was bitching about earlier.) Watch it and tell me why Canadians can't buy a car thats built in their own country because its illegal. The selling point of the car: it has ZERO emissions. Here

On again, off again, on again ...

Listening to: Hanzel und Gretyl - L'Experience des Dificultes Technique | Nine Inch Nails - Love is Not Enough (Live)

I just wish I'd make up my mind sometimes.

It looks as though my migration away from Windows is going to be happening again. And its all thanks to my wonderful laptop.

Don't get me wrong I love my laptop I think its a fantastic piece of machinery. I've never had a computer as good as the one that I have now, but there seems to be some interference.

I noticed last night while I was working that my mp3s tend to skip and stutter sometimes. You never come between a geek and his music, thats sacrilege.

At first I thought it was due to bad sound quality or faulty songs. As a test I put one of the offending songs into each of my mp3 players on my computer (of which I have 5) and it played with the same stuttering results. Test one passed.

I then copied the song to my MP3 player where upon the song played perfectly without any problem what so ever. Test two failed.

After doing some quality research (5 minutes on Google) I discovered that I'm not the only one encountering this problem. There are loads of other people with my particular laptop who are experiencing similar problems. The most common problem was the microphone from the webcam was interfering with the sound. So, I disabled it.

No better. Test three failed.

Other times it was because of old / out-dated drivers. I uninstalled and reinstalled drivers for my soundcard.

No better. Test four failed.

All the time I was buzzing around the internet trying to see what the problem was. Then someone casually mentioned that they had solved the problem by changing some settings in their *wireless* settings.

Could it be true, could my wireless intenet be causing all of the headaches that I've been having with my MP3s. (I've been re-ripping *tons* of songs.)

As a test, I flicked off the wireless internet and started up my test song.

Played flawlessly. Test five passed.

More swearing ensued.

And then I rejoiced as it has finally given me a reason to install Linux for good.

I've been quietly sitting back and looking at the world lately when suddenly out of nowhere, here & here.

Let me summarize.

For years I have been proud to be living in Canada for the simple fact that I can walk into anyones house and make a copy of one of their CDs and have it be perfectly legal. The same goes for file sharing, I could obtain obscure songs from artists that have only printed 200 copies of a vinyl record pressed in Estonia and not worry.

Now, it turns out that the tide might be changing. The “Industry” minister wants to implement and update the copyright policies within Canada. What was the point of this? Who called for it?

The RIAA and MPAA.

The new laws that he wants to implement are in the best interest of the INDUSTRY and not of the consumers. These laws protect the media conglomerates that own most of the music that we buy; the companies that have profits close to $2 or $3 billion a year.

The part that gets me is that its going to be illegal for me to rip a song from a CD that I own. They are going to attempt to make me buy the digital version of the song to put onto my iPod. Fuck them.

The only thing that the DMCA will establish, and look at the US for guidance, its going to turn the average consumer into a Pirate. When in actuality they should be concentrating on finding ways to stop the people who distribute albums and movies before they're released.

I have this fear that some day soon there are going to be 20,000 lawsuits of fans in Canada for breaking the law and infringing on copyright. But then again they might try to make it mandatory for us to install software on our computers that would inhibit our ability to do illegal things.

There is no law you can put in place, no locks on media that you can install that will not be broken. Hell, they already broke the code in HD-DVD's to copy them, I think it took them a week to crack.

Oh, by the way, if there are any of you out there who want to be the next “Weird Al” Yankovich... you're screwed. They're removing the Parody clause meaning its going to be illegal to create a parody song and post it somewhere. Doesn't matter whether you're selling it or giving it away for free.

I think I'm going to move to Sweeden.