1 versus 3

Spin it however you want, the fact is we are doing three projects. The desired end results are three products out in the market some time next year.

Call it common chassis, fungibility, compatibility, reuse opportunity. Whatever. It does not change the amount of work I need to do, and that's three projects worth of workload.

To be generous, let's say it's 2.5 projects worth of workload, even though we need to specify which of the three clearly when we present our reports and assessments. Whatever.

Different mechanical engineers are assigned to work on different designs, but one thermal engineer for all three.

One thermal engineer (me), three projects, one deadline.

Funny it's the thermal engineer who found out from the deliverable from other functional teams that things don't fit.

Life would be easier if thermal assessment comes after the others are ready, instead of being the one who is running at the forefront, who has to keep updating and redoing the assessment as the information becomes available.

Set whatever deadline you want, disturb me at the end of the day as you like, it doesn't change the fact that thermal model generation and simulation takes time. Stressing me will not make it faster.

Probably slower instead.

Other |wretched workaholic| category entries.

Granted!

Received an email today informing me that one of the invention ideas approved for patent filing, and filed back in 2021, has finally been granted the patent.

This is the first time I received such email, so I happily shared the good news to a few close friends, saying finally I have a patent being granted.

Then out of curiosity I went and checked the tool that tracks our invention idea submission and patent filing status, and noticed there is in fact another filed patent already being granted.

I am positive I never received email informing me about patent granted prior to today, so I wonder if it's because the one I got notified today is filed in US while the other one that I wasn't notified is filed in Europe, hmm...

And interesting how the patent system in Europe works, besides one main body that oversees the whole Europe, the patent is also filed in countries like France, United Kingdom, et cetera. One patent filed in five different places.

Well, regardless, I now have two granted patents out of the four filed. I hope I will get plaques for them, that's actually what matter most for me.

Don't get me wrong, the award money is nice, but I care more about getting the plaque. Something solid and tangible to commemorate the achievement is a boon to people with goldfish memory.

Other |hyped up heads up| category entries.

如果…

如果被裁员了，应该做什么好呢？

草草算了算，拿得到的也不多，根本不能拿来做生意什么的。

是不是足够开个小贩档口都说不定那种。

更不用想可以退休养老。

这样的年龄了还要从头开始，只是想想就很累。

唉～ 烦。

随兴随想 |系列|

Rat race results

The Risk and Rally event in Diablo Immortal has ended a few days ago.

I did surprisingly well and managed to secure the second place among the other wizard players competing in the event.

Woot! Second place!

By the end of the event I was 20 points behind the player in the first place, meaning in four dungeon runs I was not in the same score group of the first place player. Basically that means I wasn't in the top three shortest time group in those four dungeon runs, but was in the top 4th to 20th shortest time group instead.

Like I mentioned in the previous blog entry, the playing field for the event was fairly, but not totally, even. The Pay to Win players still have advantages of one-shot killing everything including the bosses, and whatever useful benefits from the high level 5 stars legendary gems over a Free to Play player like me.

First place player, 5k Resonance.

The first place player has 5k Resonance and fully upgraded primary gears. The third place player has 4k Resonance, also with fully upgraded primary gears. Those Resonance levels at this time of the game life are only achievable by Pay to Win players.

Third place player, 4k Resonance.

Resonance is a multiplier for primary gears base attributes, namely damage and life. So higher Resonance means higher damage and life.

Playing since Diablo Immortal launched on PC as a Free to Play player, I currently have 1.5k Resonance. I think it's reasonable at this point of time for Free to Play player to get up to 2k Resonance, but that's just my guess.

My 1.5k Resonance.

So I think I have proudly represented the Free to Play players in this Risk and Rally event, sure feels good to beat a 4k Resonance player, probably many more players with higher Resonance than mine down the ranks but I only checked the top three.

Other |geeky gaming| category entries.

Power outage

Blackout around 16:00 hours today, sudden power outage without prior notice.

It's not just my condo, but surrounding area as well.

Nobody knows why, but someone must have reported because there were traffic police at the traffic light keeping order.

Went out for dinner and to pick up elder son from tuition, and when we came home, the TNB personnel was in the car right in front of us. After we passed security, we saw the worker talking on the mobile phone while unlocking the door to the TNB room that's within the condo compound.

And by the time we reached our unit, the power has come back on. So basically within five minutes of the TNB worker arriving, the issue was resolved.

Only thing is, it took TNB 3.5 hours to get here to fix a less than five minutes thing, probably just flip a switch or something, that caused power cut to the whole area.

Such horrible service, such appalling efficiency.

Other |runaway rants| category entries.

One more down, many more to go

Conducted two training classes to external customer on Monday and Tuesday, two hours session on each day.

That closed another one of those "extra" tasks that's not my core job but have to do for one reason or another.

This one wasn't so bad, because it's just knowledge sharing and it's about the things I am very familiar with.

Still need extra time and work to prepare the training material and extra time to conduct the classes. Not to mention I went on site purposely to conduct the classes, even though it's online session, because I don't want to be blamed for any internet issue, and commuting is always a big waste of time.

Well, many extra tasks besides the numerous tasks for core job. Oh, in fact also closed another miscellaneous thermal support task yesterday.

Work is never ending. Well, maybe when the company ends my employment.

Who knows, right?

Other |temperamental thoughts| category entries.

人心惶惶

公司又要大裁员，这几年有太多次大大小小的裁员，真的还有足够的人数来实践公司转型大计划吗？

又，不禁让人猜想，这几年的那么多次裁员后，自己这次是不是会被点中？

我是家里唯一的收入来源，我不能没有工作。

但这也不是我可以控制的事，所以除了烦，还是烦。

廉价打工仔的无奈和辛酸。

唉～

心语细述 |系列|