I’m a contractor, which means I don’t know how long they’ll keep renewing my contract, but that’s really the case for most work these days.

I’m doing desktop applications programming using Java Swing, which is a lot of fun, and I already had experience doing that kind of work. H&H makes several applications that can be downloaded and used to compose, say, an album, a greeting card, or a metal water bottle and then packages up the order and submits it over the internet for processing.

So we have stuff that allows you to drag and drop photos, crop them, organize them, etc. Think of it sort of as Adobe InDesign lite with the ability to order prints.

One thing I’ll say about this company is that they keep you busy. I haven’t had any time to work on outside projects since I started.

This means that in a few years Voyager will have left the solar system and be in the interstellar medium. Amazing.

He adds:

Imagine! It was launched before personal computers were everywhere, before cell phones, before the internet! But it was given a powerful boost by its rocket, and another by the two largest planets in the solar system as it swung by them. And now, in just a few more years, it will have left our nest forever.

It’s a good comment. There’s no good evidence for NASA hiding life, and Wickramasinghe has a tendency to cry wolf.

This came to mind because I noticed that Orange Roughy was on the menu at a local seafood place. No one should eat Orange Roughy. There’s no way to harvest it sustainably without it costing hundreds of dollars per pound, which is not what they were charging.

This underscores the need for universities to do R&D, and thus, not to be run like businesses whose clients are the students.