Wednesday 25 August 2010

Slowing down at work

    With three days left at my current employer I should be pretty free of stress, but sadly it isn't working that way. The two customers I spend most time dealing with have both succumbed to the lethargy of high summer and don't seem to have got it that after Friday I'll be gone and though my colleague will be able to service my software they won't any more have direct access to the person who wrote it. So several things that really need to be done before I leave seem to be slipping by the wayside. I know on Friday they'll panic and I'll be expected to do a week's work in an afternoon. On top of that my wife's work has become liable to floods in heavy rain due to a blocked drain, so she's very stressed, spending her time glued to the BBC Weather service looking out for showers.
     As a result the level to which my GD has been annoying me has ramped up over the last few days, to the extent that last night I found myself unable to sleep despite having taken my sleep medication. A very weird sensation, the feeling of drugged sleepiness while simultaneously staying unable to succumb to it.
    So I'm not fit for much, back to being barely awake and girl fogged. It'll pass, but meanwhile it's extremely annoying.
    Fortunately I've been finding some time to play amid the fog. The image above is a QR code. If you're not familiar with them, it's a two-dimensional barcode. I'm interested in them at the moment because they are a quick and convenient way for someone like me to convey a piece of information to a mobile phone, the phone owner simply points their camera at the QR code and their scanning software automatically picks up the information.
    So I've been playing with Google Image Chart Editor and the Zxing QR code generator to explore the format. My application needs to pass a location to the phone user, something which should be easy but has slight annoyances (iPhones and Android phones behave slightly differently, for the curious).
    When I found myself scanning the barcodes on my groceries to see what information they contained I knew it was time to stop. Tesco tinned tomatoes, for the truly curious, are 000436408451. Fascinating!

3 comments:

  1. Ah it's your website address. I like to scan books and save the ISBN so that I can buy them on like.

    Having your mind fighting against a sleeping medication is one of the most horrible feelings I know. It's like someone holding your head underwater or smothering you with your pillow. I hope you feel better soon.

    Rachel XXX

    P.S. My verificaion word us "holychip"! All venerate the fried potato.

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  2. They are slightly compelling, aren't they.

    I was wondering how long it would be before someone scanned it. I toyed with the idea of encoding something else into it but couldn't think of anything worth encoding.

    With luck tonight I'll sleep properly. One has to live in hope! :)

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