Things my father has actually meant when he's said "download" that were evident based on context at the time:
* Note 1: I may, in fact, have dreamt my father asking me to "download the fish."
** Note 2: Deprecated, apparently.
I really hate computers. I loathe them. Hardware is never reliable enough, software is never easy enough. On one hand, this provides a lot of anger that drives me to expose all the bugs and flaws in software. In my younger and more vulnerable years, I thought that maybe by testing software I could help people get more enjoyment from the Great Tool That Is A Computer.
What a load of bullshit.
The craft of software testing is nothing more than an endless battle against the poor bastards who cram more power and memory into those accursed devices and the sons of bitches who decide to use that power and memory to create great shiny, spinney things that go PLING! and erase your hard drive. There is a circle of hell reserved for those people, and it is called Ring 0.
I really hate computers.
I used to tell people, when I was especially angry and frustrated, that I was going to quit my job and become a farmer. That was a fine plan, until some great, smiling bastard decided that computers could make our already overly-productive farms even more productive. I bet he raised corn. I hope he's sick of corn by now. He's probably got quite a lot of it. But there's no escaping the computer-controlled irrigation algorithms, the GPS-monitored crop rotation and fertilizer allotments, the laser-guided harvesters and the self-milking cows. So farming is right out.
What I've settled on as my new new career came to me in a flash of inspiration on the way home from a housewarming party. I'm going into a growth industry--full of anger, disappointment, and revenge. That's right: I'm going to be a florist.
A short parable in two acts:
Dad: "Hey Joe, can you take a look at my mobile phone? It gave me an error about not being able to charge."
Me: "Sure. When did you get the error?"
Dad: "Last night."
Me: "Okay."
(I proceed to test the charger, download manuals from Motorola, call Cingular tech support, call around to find replacement charger and batteries, etc.)
- Later That Same Evening -
Me: "I'm not sure what's wrong with it. I think you need a new charger and/or battery. There's a little corrosion on the charging contacts, so we could try cleaning them off."
Dad: "Well, they're probably corroded because I dropped the phone into the saltwater tank last night."
I think this is equivalent of filing a bunch of crashing bugs and then having my developer tell me, "oh, yeah, the code I checked in last night is total crap."
I need a vacation.
Anybody want to play bookmaker?
The EPA requires that industrial facilities that discharge water ensure that the water being output doesn't exceed a certain concentration of lead. This is a good idea. The problem is that there are conflicting lead standards, depending on various city, state, and federal guidelines.
We ran into an interesting conflict between these standards: the plastic recycling process here doesn't contribute any lead to the water we use. It contributes other chemicals, which we remove, but no lead. The water we use comes from the Westlake municipal water supply--i.e., the drinking water. Per EPA standards, the water we discharge contains too much lead. I'll give you a moment to consider that fact.
In the meantime, here is a picture of a tank:
Software engineering is hard, but software is hard in decidedly virtual ways. Sure, sometimes you’re limited by available people or available hardware, or you don’t have enough CAT5 or the right kind of RAM module, but software problems are generally solvable with a text editor, some caffeine, and patience.
Mechanical engineering is hard, and it is often hard in decidedly physical ways. There are usually wires and pipes and gears and pumps and things. Usually when a computer crashes, there’s a lot of cursing and angst. When something mechanical crashes, there’s also a lot of cursing and angst, but sometimes there is blood. And usually there is a mess to clean up.
Today there was quite a mess to clean up.
But first, a little background: the plastic recycling process that my dad and his partners are designing is what’s called a hydrogravity separation process. This is just a fancy way of saying that some things float and sink in solutions depending on the density of the solution, and if you can make the good stuff float and the bad stuff sink (or vice versa) you’re in pretty good shape. The whole process sounds pretty simple when you hear it explained—this stuff floats, so skim it off the top, and this stuff sinks, so scrape it off the bottom—but the devil is absolutely in the details.
One of the details is that of scale—it’s one thing to have a table-top demonstration of stuff floating and sinking, but when you go from table-top models to a 20,000 square-foot production facility, a lot of things get much, much more complicated. Take water, for instance. When you want to make a lot of stuff float or sink, you need a lot of water. Or a lot of solution. Or, in the case of the plastic recycling plant, you need a lot of both. So you get some big tanks to hold a lot of water or solution. Really big tanks.
I’d never given much thought to what 5,000 gallons of water looks like, but when you see a 5,000-gallon plastic tank, it’s an impressive sight. And when you see four such tanks standing next to each other, your first thought is usually something along the lines of “that’s a damn hell lot of water.” Because it is.
The thing about the tanks, though, is that once you’ve seen them and get over the fact that they hold a damn hell lot of water, you tend to forget about them. A lot of things can go wrong when you’re dealing with motors and pumps and driers and forklifts and propane and half-ton bags of scrap plastic and mixers and such. Things that spin and whir and grind and move are somewhat threatening, but tanks are deceptively innocuous. After all, they’re pretty passive things; they just stand there and hold water. Except when they don’t.
I mentioned that there was a mess to clean up today, right? And I’ve talked a bit about the tanks, right? So how many of you have guessed it was the tanks? Good guess. But hang on—it gets better (or worse, I suppose).
Continue reading "Catastrophe of atoms versus catastrophe of bits" »