The Robot's Thoughts

I'm up late because I worked out late, and in an effort to shorten the recovery time (it was chest day) I took one of those "Speed Stacker" drinks that contains way too much caffeine. Imagine if someone made a "dietary supplment" with a philosophy of "We will show you what's up, RedBull".

Wide awake.

Had another wonderful car surprise today. The battery just up and died. I managed to jumpstart my car and take it into the shop, but I'm getting that "this is less than 100% reliable" feeling. But its still my girl, and until its 100% paid off free and clear, its all I've got. I live so close to work that I should seriously consider just walking to work. Consider it when the massive cold front finally fades away and we get some nice spring weather.

And walking to work might make sense since
there is talk that gasoline might make it to $4/gal this summer.

Makes taking that road trip to the outer banks that much more painful on the wallet.

There is some sweet news to rejoice about, however, and that is a
Battlestar Galactica mod called "Beyond the Red Line".
It uses the Freespace 2 engine, which was open sourced and is widely regarded as the "best" or "most fun" space sim engine. It was also known back in its heyday as having the most innovative eye candy, and yet, still be playable without having perform crazy amounts of hardware upgrades. The Open Source Engine hasn't apparently been left to linger, either. Its been upgraded to take advantage of the newer features of GPUs. Its almost impossible to play without a keyboard that has a full numeric pad, or a joystick. That's your first and only warning. The life of a viper pilot is not for the feint of heart.

Here's another fun fact coming at you from Consumerist.com. Corporate profits are up 106%. Average CEO pay is up 298% and the average corporate wage slave is only seeing a 4.5% growth in what he brings home. Yes, people talk about how engineers are "better off" starting out in college compared to someone who graduates with an English degree and starts selling life insurance.

The irony is we're smart enough to do math and realize we're being nickel and dime'd to death. The unintended consequence is that engineers aren't putting down roots. They're not investing in skills like interpersonal communication that will help team building. They're learning the next set of resume keywords that will shift them to their next position and next pay grade.

Or worse, we're just going to law school.

Its a sad thing, and its simply an unintended consequence of "bottom line" policies. When pay and benefits really only look great for a year or two from a company before you start looking to split, loyalty to the people that sign your pay checks is a thing of the past.


I guess I can see the value of becoming your own employer.

Speaking of employment, a friend of mine recently committed a cardinal sin. He's been looking for a job that uses his engineering degree and has had no success. I knew some people that were hiring, and was hounding him to apply for the entry level positions posted on the company's website. But since he didn't pick up the phone when he was signed into Xbox Live (as was I) I've decided to just let the guy sink or swim on his own.

So let this be a life-lesson. If you sign into xbox live, and your phone immediately rings, its probably someone wanting to play co-op crackdown or gears of war. Don't disapoint.