Project Journal - Week Four
6/25/04
Nothing worth writing home about. I got even less done today than I did yesterday. *sigh* I might try coming in tomorrow and seeing what I can get done. We'll see.
I dislike unproductive days.
6/24/04
Spectacularly unexciting today. In order to be able to play with Aristo, I've got to have a Windows machine all to myself. All the machines in the lab are usually in use. So, since I'm going to need a laptop to run him anyway, when I get downstairs for the experiment, I figured I'd see if Cindy couldn't scrounge one up for me. Sure, no problem, Bill could bring her old laptop from home.
Right. Meanwhile, six hours later, almost at the end of the day, still no Bill. *sigh* So Cindy tried to find me Robert's old laptop. That sort of worked. I had to send out an email to the lab as a whole to get it, and it's down in computing services getting a once-over to make sure everything works, but eventually I'll have it. I hope. Then I'll have to download a couple of programs so I can use the interface to make Aristo go, but eventually... eventually.....
Poked around a little at my website. It would be nice if the times could write themselves to a file, so that's what I spent the day looking at, but it might be more complicated than it's worth. Still, gives me something to do while I can't play with the 'bot.
I don't like this feeling of time slipping away from me. I only have about six more weeks left, one of which will be spent in California for the conference. That's five more weekends in which to run this silly thing. I need to get stuff going! I will have a date for this to happen by the end of next week if it is at all within my power to do so. That date might have to be the weekend before I leave for the conference, sadly enough. *sigh* Some days I wish I had someone else helping me on this. Ah well. Working by myself just means I get all of the credit. All of the blame as well, but I choose not to focus on that. *nods firmly*
(later) Okay. I got the laptop to secure shell into Aristo. Fecking awesome. However, there's something with the Xserver I don't think I'm doing quite right. I'll ask Burchan about it tomorrow. I didn't do much, but I did get the laptop and I did get it going. Tomorrow I'll do my damndest to get Aristo rolling around from this machine. *nods firmly* It will happen!
Goals for tomorrow: Get Aristo rolling around. Get wireless for this machine. Take Aristo downstairs and get him moving back and forth amongst the people. Maybe play with my website some more, maybe not. Make sure the website works on Firefox.
6/23/04
I was inspired by Cindy today. Earlier this week she'd cut all the vines off of this one plant that's growing here in the lab. The leaves had some sort of weird thing growing on them, or they were infected, or something, and so she chopped them all off. She'd tried other things, but nothing worked. Time for a fresh start, a clean slate.
So I took the page that had been giving me trouble and wiped it clean. Then I went back and recoded it line by line, stopping at every point along the way to make sure it still worked.
And now it does.
I still need to test it to see if it'll work on a Windows machine, and I still need to change some things about the site, but the cookie gets set and gets read on Camino like a breeze. For the entire website, too, not just the three pages I was practicing with. Fills me with all sorts of happy. IT WORKS! HUZZAH!
Also, I got to play with Burchan's 'bot today. I rolled Aristo down the hall and into Lewis' lab using nothing but the laser readouts as my "eyes." It was exciting. I think Lewis is happy to see his little brother there. *nods firmly*
Goals for tomorrow: Polish up the webpage. Play with Aristo. Get a sense of when I can start to go downstairs and play with Aristo in the space. Figure out what all I'll need for that. Maybe start on getting the space reserved?
6/22/04
Adventures in JavaScriptLand! Part 18923623482:
When I came in to work today, I was all gung-ho for getting the code on the proper page to work. So I opened up Dreamweaver and I opened up Camino and I... wait, I thought to myself. I should make sure the code from yesterday that I'd finally made work hasn't somehow randomly died in the night. There shouldn't be any real reason for it NOT to work. But I'll check anyway, just to be paranoid.
Yup. Sure did fail.
The problem this time was easily solved, but it absolutely pisses me off. There is NO REASON why it should have worked yesterday but failed today. NONE. This clinches it - most code going bad is the programmer's fault, but this time, I have proof that it is not my fault. Nope. The code itself is psychotic.
Jim helped me out some, though. Oh, and I found out that, while Lewis may not be up and running any time soon, there's another robot I can use floating about on this floor. Burchan's got a 'bot that I can use, and will start working with tomorrow, I hope. With any luck, I'll be downstairs playing with this robot and starting to figure out when I'll need the rooms. So much has been pushed aside, waiting for Lewis. Tomorrow it might get to start happening. Rock on!
6/21/04
Well, the code that used to work has magically stopped working. *sigh* I don't know what to do. I wasn't sure this code work in the first place, so I was excited when it did. Now it doesn't, and I'm back to square one. *shakes head* There's got to be a way to make this work, but hell if I know what it is.
Yet. Hell if I know what it is yet. Also hell if I'm going to let this thing win.
I continue to make progress in the strangest ways. I got the sample page to work, with Jim's help, but the regular page continues to elude my grasp. I'll see what I can do tomorrow.
Goals for tomorrow: Same as always - JavaScript, psychology paperwork, see if Lewis is ready. *sigh* This is starting to get old.