The Blog of Harald

vapour lock isn’t really the right term, but I can’t think of a better fluid-dynamics term right now.

In the sudden torrential snowfall this afternoon, I got stuck south of an intersection for about 20 minutes, unable to move. The traffic lights were synchronized, which works for normal traffic flow, but with the snow everyone was going slowly. The net result was that:

* when the light was red to me, there was space north of the intersection for cars, but that space was quickly filled by people turning from the cross street.
* by the time the light was green to me, there was no space left on the north side of the intersection. In fact, there was no space *in* the intersection, because the turning traffic was consistently filling the intersection. So I was stuck, along with everyone else.

I finally gave up, turned around, drove all the way around the block, and came at the intersection again from the cross street :). After which I encountered another roadblock; York Mills eastbound was closed at Don Mills, because cars could not make it up the hill.

It took me 1:45 to get from my office to the school…

“Episode One”:http://www.shadowunit.org/breathe.html of “Shadow Unit”:http://www.shadowunit.org/ is up. In case you were actually thinking of getting work done today…

SCI-FI Wire “announced today”:http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=3&id=48610 that AFI has picked a “Top 50” list of science fiction movies. I’ve taken their list and bolded the ones I’ve seen. I have -18- 16 movies to see to catch up!

* A.I. Artificial Intelligence
* *Alien*
* *Altered States*
* *The Andromeda Strain*
* *Back to the Future*
* The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms
* *Blade Runner*
* Children of Men
* A Clockwork Orange
* *Close Encounters of the Third Kind*
* *Cocoon*
* *Contact*
* *The Day the Earth Stood Still*
* Destination Moon
* *E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial*
* *Escape From New York*
* Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
* Fantastic Voyage
* *The Fly (1986)*
* *Forbidden Planet*
* Frankenstein (1931)
* The Incredible Shrinking Man
* *Independence Day*
* Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
* The Invisible Man (1933)
* It Came From Outer Space
* *Jurassic Park*
* *Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome*
* *The Matrix*
* *Men in Black*
* *Minority Report*
* *Planet of the Apes (1968)*
* *Repo Man*
* *RoboCop*
* Rollerball (1975)
* *Silent Running* (one of my favourites)
* *Soylent Green*
* *Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan*
* *Star Wars: Episode IV–A New Hope*
* *Starman*
* *The Stepford Wives (1975)*
* *Terminator 2: Judgment Day*
* Them!
* The Thing From Another World
* *The Time Machine (1960)*
* *Total Recall*
* *Tron*
* *2001: A Space Odyssey*
* *The War of the Worlds (1953)*
* Westworld

after a long drought, I added another country to my “419 spam list”:http://blog.cfrq.net/chk/archives/2004/11/07/nigerian-fraud-countries/ : Iran!

The entire development team here in Toronto has been “WFRed”, HP’s fancy term for “your job no longer exists, thanks for playing”. (To be fair, HP’s process is actually quite generous; they offer everyone lots of time to try to find another job inside HP, resume services, interview skills training, and so on).

I’ve been asked to stay on, because my job has always been customer facing, and they need someone with that experience to help with the transition. I’ve always joked that I’d be the last one let go; I didn’t actually believe it though! Anyway, for a lot of different reasons, I’ve decided to accept. So while everyone else is out looking for work now, I’ll be looking for work in November.

It’s going to be a lonely 9 months. On the plus side, I don’t have to start commuting to Mississauga every day! I’ll have the ever so challenging “three flights of stairs” commute…

From the site:

bq. We are looking to push the envelope of episodic television by offering Season Two of Firefly in a groundbreaking new format. Each episode (or the entire season) would be made available for purchase in Standard or Hi-Definition.

Head over there and fill out a survey. And while you’re at it, check out “Sanctuary”:http://www.sanctuaryforall.com/ , a show that was developed first on the web, and has now been picked up as a 13-episode series by the SCI-FI Channel. Anything is possible…

I predict that there will be six more weeks of winter…