On Computer Glitches
Most of us who’ve been around computers
for a long time – let’s say 10+ years – are familiar with the
following: Your computer has been behaving like a champ, and one morning, you
sit down in front of the keyboard and discover that everything has turned to a
combination of suet and
cheese.
Nothing makes any sense, so
you start down the familiar trails of detecting what might have gone wrong. In
many cases, this takes hours upon hours, and when the glitch comes to light, you
are embarrassed to confess to yourself that
a. you hit the wrong key
or
b. you dumped the wrong software
or
c. you should never have let Uncle
Charlie check his email on your machine
or
d. you operated the machine while under
the influence and should have arrested yourself
or
e. you might just have taken a second
or two to read the damn manual (or download it
and read it, the more common situation
nowadays.
What’s far worse, far far worse, is the
realization that the solution was right there, fourteen inches from the end of
your nose, and you didn’t see it until you had raced around all the
well-trod “paths of fruitlessness.”
When you report this problem and its solution,
you never, repeat never, talk about the amount of time expended in the search
for the solution. Rather, one talks about the elegance of the solution, the
incredible (and nearly instantaneous) detective work required.
One never admits that one was like Miss Marple
lost in her own village, Poirot on a bender, or Lovejoy unable to identify an
east Anglian antique. As the probable villain in the cause, one chooses to be
the hero in the solution…easy when one works alone.
Or am I the only one who suffers from this
occasional affliction?
Something similar happened yesterday. I had a
new satellite dish installed last week. Because it’s still winter here,
the crew used a dish in a bucket of concrete as a stop-gap until the ground
thaws, and a permanent installation can be made. Worked like a champ, it
did…until yesterday morning.
I made sure the dish hadn’t blown over and
then began blaming myself, pretty much working through a through e above, just
in a slightly different context. After hours of looking at satellite azimuths
and transponder assignments, I was getting absolutely nowhere, and frustration
was mounting rapidly.
Time for a break, I thought, and I walked out to
the end of the drive for the mail. It was a pleasant day, and I noted that much
of the winter’s snow had melted as I came back to the house.
Ba-dum- bum!
The snow had melted, changing the position of the
dish, and throwing it out of alignment. Ten minutes and some compass work
later, the problem was solved. (OK, so it was thirty minutes – give me a
break, would you?)
Fifty years ago, I had a math teacher who
thrummed the following into our heads: “RTP,” he said. “Read
The Problem.” We generally got this when we couldn’t figure out how
to structure one of those algebra problems involving freight trains going from
Atown to Bville at certain rates of speed. “RTP” was good advice
then, and now, and thought I haven’t forgotten it, I occasionally believe
that it can be ignored on occasion. At my peril.
The teacher is gone, but the good advice remains.
I had let what I thought the problem was define my possible solutions. I
hadn’t read it with sufficient clarity to understand all of
it.
“RTP. Read The Problem.” Pass it
on.
Posted: Mon - November 24, 2003 at 04:45 PM