Today at work, the security club had a lockpick intro/practice session. I picked a disembodied lock with two pins! I poked at one with four and one with six. Mr. Zune said that the one with four was actually harder than the one with six. He also mentioned that it was actually sort of amazing that he'd left his alma mater without picking up lockpicking skills. Since he wears the brass rat, that is sort of amazing. In addition to the various locks, they had a tabletop stunt door with a knob, a deadbolt, and a chain. I learned that my long hair and typical braid is good for having an excuse to have hairpins on me at any given time, given their utility in shimming carelessly-locked handcuffs.

Lunch involved Purple getting asked geopolitical questions by some of his buddies, and him holding forth a bit. He's generally sensible on the topic, it seems.

As my manager warned me might happen, dev work on my database has halted. At least we have a bit, or something?

I keep discovering horrible usability problems with various bits of the new helpdesk system. Today's shenanigans went a little off-script.

( Consent and the helpdesk guy. )

I hadn't gotten to sleep until nearly 5am last night. Purple gave me a few helpful suggestions by way of commiseration, which included a brief digression on milk substitutes for the lactose intolerant, and their likely effectiveness as a sleep aid.

Somehow it went from "hey, I might get out of here early!" to "oh god it's fuckin' late", but at least Purple found the bug he was looking for! At some point I must ask him whether it really does make sense to park where he does, but tonight was not that night. Purple did earn a "Best $NAME" due to some wisecrack. Also, even if the Randomizer were huggy in the absence of my manager, would I even want hugs from him? (No.)

I'm due an early-morning email presence to round people up for Second Thursday (reprise) (which is actually this Friday) and then I can finish setting up the meetings for next week's research participants. Whee!