News:

Testimonial: "Yeah, wasn't expecting it. Near shat myself."

Main Menu

A Few Notes on an Inconvenient Universe, part V

Started by The Good Reverend Roger, May 08, 2014, 04:19:31 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

The Good Reverend Roger

"Trying something over and over again and expecting different results is one definition of insanity."
- Dr Albert Einstien

Okay, so you had this plan, right?  This idea.  It was going to fix a problem or increase efficiency or lower the bottom line.  But when you implimented the plan, it didn't work.  So you do MORE of the same plan, HARDER, and...

STOP.

If your plan doesn't work because you messed up the execution, go ahead and try it again.  But if your plan didn't work because the plan doesn't allow for the way the universe works, then you should probably choke it down, scrap the plan, and start over.

Example:  Where I work, they have a machine designed to chop compacted product up.  This product is basically sapphire, and in the state we're handling it, it has a Mohs hardness of 9.  The steel blades in the machine have a Mohs hardness of 5.5.  A softer material will always be worn away by a harder material far more quickly than the harder material will wear.  In this case, the steel will not wear the sapphire at all, and the sapphire eats the steel very quickly.  This not only damages the machine, it also introduces iron and chrome into the product, which is unacceptable.  For 2 years now, the engineers have been putting harder and harder blades in the machine.  440C stainless steel, etc.  The hardest steel they've managed is just above a 6.  Still softer than the sapphire.

IN SHORT:  They are replacing a part that doesn't work with another part that can't work for the same reason.

And when this sort of thing happens, and you look at the problem and the people still bashing their heads against the wall, and maybe you say "Perhaps we should try a completely different approach", they get pissed.  REALLY pissed.  Because you've now given them the choice between continuing to smash their heads against the wall and admitting that their idea didn't work, which is the same as admitting they were wrong.  And let me tell you, brothers and sisters, they will KILL YOU before they do that.

Are you those people, friends?  I bet you are.  Most people are...It's just easier to see other people do it.  When YOU'RE doing it, the rest of us assholes don't understand that This Damn Thing would work, if everyone would just get on board and STOP OBSTRUCTING YOU.  It is at that point when you have dropped back onto your knuckles and started making monkey noises.

"I've never minded shitting my pants, so long as someone's paying the invoice."
- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, in his book The Lean Years

Now, if you're being PAID to smash a client's or a boss's head against the wall in a futile attempt to get the universe to make an exception for you, and he won't listen to reason, then SHUT UP.  The client or the boss wants it HIS way, not the universe's way, and the universe isn't signing your paycheck.  Working for stupid people - even working for humans - does have its advantages.  Like backing up the Titanic for another run at the iceberg, and getting paid for it.  There's a certain glory in that.

And hell, it's not like you're responsible for making shit work, right?  That's what THEY are for...The engineers who know it all, the pointy-headed boss who wants reality to adjust to him, the client who wants it done THEIR WAY (get it in writing, though).  THEY are the "brains" of the operation (har har!), you're just the hands.  Smile, do it their way, and then shake that ass in the smoking ruins, like James Brown taught ya.

OR KILL ME.


" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO


P3nT4gR4m

Holy fuckballs. I was going to say "I can't believe the part about the steel v's saphhires" but the truth is, I can believe it.

Still a fucking amazing example of the effect, tho! You truly are blessed* to be near it.





*for a given definition of "blessed"

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on May 08, 2014, 04:43:57 PM
Holy fuckballs. I was going to say "I can't believe the part about the steel v's saphhires" but the truth is, I can believe it.

Still a fucking amazing example of the effect, tho! You truly are blessed* to be near it.





*for a given definition of "blessed"

It's like I'm taking crazy pills.

But I AM blessed.  I get paid to dumb shit, and I ALSO get paid to make dumb people angry.  And then do more dumb shit.

" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

 :lulz:

Bravo!

We Americans love the "Do it harder!" method of Success™. I'm pretty sure we learned it from the British.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 08, 2014, 04:50:37 PM
:lulz:

Bravo!

We Americans love the "Do it harder!" method of Success™. I'm pretty sure we learned it from the British.

We still haven't perfected the "get rich and THEN die in weird ways" thing, though.  So the mother country still has the edge.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 08, 2014, 04:46:13 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on May 08, 2014, 04:43:57 PM
Holy fuckballs. I was going to say "I can't believe the part about the steel v's saphhires" but the truth is, I can believe it.

Still a fucking amazing example of the effect, tho! You truly are blessed* to be near it.





*for a given definition of "blessed"

It's like I'm taking crazy pills.

But I AM blessed.  I get paid to dumb shit, and I ALSO get paid to make dumb people angry.  And then do more dumb shit.



It can make you rage or it can cause a zen-like detachment and a good old belly laugh. Like I said on the other one - I feel familiar with the headspace, if not the meatspace.

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on May 08, 2014, 04:53:57 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 08, 2014, 04:46:13 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on May 08, 2014, 04:43:57 PM
Holy fuckballs. I was going to say "I can't believe the part about the steel v's saphhires" but the truth is, I can believe it.

Still a fucking amazing example of the effect, tho! You truly are blessed* to be near it.





*for a given definition of "blessed"

It's like I'm taking crazy pills.

But I AM blessed.  I get paid to dumb shit, and I ALSO get paid to make dumb people angry.  And then do more dumb shit.



It can make you rage or it can cause a zen-like detachment and a good old belly laugh. Like I said on the other one - I feel familiar with the headspace, if not the meatspace.

Yeah, it really depends on my mood.  It either makes me fucking nuts, or I giggle like a damn school girl.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

P3nT4gR4m

Going by the steel machine story, you either need a few more pills or find it much harder to breathe than me  :lulz:

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on May 08, 2014, 05:00:31 PM
Going by the steel machine story, you either need a few more pills or find it much harder to breathe than me  :lulz:

Well, we haven't actually got any air up here.

The steel blades thing was actually one of my finer moments.  I got a cheap laugh, and the heathens were shamed.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

East Coast Hustle

I feel like this series has achieved a flawless victory.
Rabid Colostomy Hole Jammer of the Coming Apocalypse™

The Devil is in the details; God is in the nuance.


Some yahoo yelled at me, saying 'GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH', and I thought, "I'm feeling generous today.  Why not BOTH?"

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 08, 2014, 04:53:23 PM
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 08, 2014, 04:50:37 PM
:lulz:

Bravo!

We Americans love the "Do it harder!" method of Success™. I'm pretty sure we learned it from the British.

We still haven't perfected the "get rich and THEN die in weird ways" thing, though.  So the mother country still has the edge.

Yeah, for some reason it's mostly our poor people who die in weird and inventive ways.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: East Coast Hustle on May 08, 2014, 05:16:46 PM
I feel like this series has achieved a flawless victory.

Thanks.  There's not much new material in it, but 2-5 were mostly written for projects outside of PD (fliers, etc).  I am feeling the need to actually DO stuff again.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Ben Shapiro


Anna Mae Bollocks

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 08, 2014, 04:46:13 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on May 08, 2014, 04:43:57 PM
Holy fuckballs. I was going to say "I can't believe the part about the steel v's saphhires" but the truth is, I can believe it.

Still a fucking amazing example of the effect, tho! You truly are blessed* to be near it.





*for a given definition of "blessed"

It's like I'm taking crazy pills.

But I AM blessed.  I get paid to dumb shit, and I ALSO get paid to make dumb people angry.  And then do more dumb shit.



Yes. There's a certain beauty in that.  :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
Scantily-Clad Inspector of Gigantic and Unnecessary Cashews, Texas Division