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Internal ToolsAt the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. |
   
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Tuesday, September 23, 1997
I was sorry to learn tonight that CarlQ, another journalist, was outed somehow. That, combined with life events, meant that he had to take down his journal. This is distressing. I enjoyed reading him, and he had said some nice things about me. Rats!
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I had a great time dancing last night at Gasworks Park. But we need more women! Fun as it was for me to have my choice of partners, I really need to do some recruiting. This is the reverse of the normal situation at social dance events. Usually there are more women than men! But we didn't let that stop us; the men just danced with each other during the couple dances.
Jon Newman brought his garlic guacamole to the picnic beforehand. He is not kidding about the garlic! but it was very tasty. He said he used about half what he normally puts in.
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All day yesterday I worked with help desk on the phone, and then with a tech (very cute!) that they sent over. What was the mystery that was making my PCs invisible on the net? The tech called his lead, and the lead above that. We joked that some of the things we did were like black magic: plugging directly into the wall instead of into the net hub, switching things around in the cable room, turning the machine off for an hour. The tech admitted that all that was left was the silver bullet: format and reinstall. I wasn't ready to take that step yet. No one could figure it out! So I sent mail again to the strike force that checks out setup problems on my product, and included the core product team. Finally we found someone who had experienced this phenomenon. They related it to debug libraries installed by an automated stress tool. When I uninstalled the tool, I was visible! This took up the entire day.
So this afternoon I worked with the very nice woman who runs the strike team, trying to narrow down the problem and identify what exactly was causing it. She complimented me on my patience and cooperation, but I was glad we had solved the problem! It seemed to be an interaction between the stress tool and an internal network administration tool. It hadn't been seen because most team members don't have the internal network tool, or don't share directories on their machines, or aren't running win95. I do like solving mysteries!
But my number one wish for the next OS: fast, fast reboot! Every time you make a change in the networking settings you need to reboot! This gets old.
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In an attempt to make life in our bay better, we had been promised long ago that they would install partitions between the desks. They finally did it last Friday! I would rather they had just left things as they were. The deficiencies of the situation cannot be remedied by such measures. The partitions have a very strange smell to them. Cigarette smoke, or mold, or something nasty. So I've been sniffing a lavender sachet given to me by a cow-orker from the Gardening CD project I worked on in 1995. Tomorrow I am going to bring in my basket of scented oils. Anything to mask this stench!
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So, I'll put off the discussion of my restaurant job till tomorrow. But I'd be very surprised if anyone reading this had had a similar job!
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