A problem is easy to fix

I was reading an electronics trade magazine recently and one of the articles really hit home. The magazine, EDN (I think it used to be called Electronics Design News), has a regular feature called Tales from the Cube. They are stories about interesting problems that readers have had and their solutions to the problems. All in one page. The article I read that got me to write this was called "All fail down" and it was about an electronic product that failed in areas that are dry (that is, they had low humidity - not that they restricted alcoholic beverages). This is usually a sign that static build-up is getting from the case of the device to the electronics and this causes the a malfunction. The writer of the article was brought in as a consultant and he'd seen things like this before but as he looked over the design of the product and offered suggestions, the engineers would just say, "We already tried that. We've tried everything." He puzzled over it for a long time until he realized that the company's engineers had tried each one of the fixes and then removed it to try the next fix. So, our consultant hero realized that there was really more than one problem that had the same result. When he applied all six of the fixes at once, everything worked. Then it was time to remove the fixes to see which ones were needed to solve this problem and it turned out that only two of the six fixes were needed to solve the problem. But the fact that it was two problems was what made this such a tough thing to solve.

This is what I've seen in my work, too. Usually, fixing one problem is fairly simple. It's when you have two or more problems that interact that you have a real problem. I recently found and fixed a problem in our products that appeared to be one problem but turned out to be two things that weren't really mistakes - most of the time. I was called in because one of our devices failed to run because our software couldn't read information from it correctly. It looked like a bug in our software. But when I tracked it down, it turned out that the information in our device was incorrect. But when the hardware guys loaded a new copy of that information into the device, it continued to fail. How did our devices ever work? The same information worked when loaded into brand new devices. It turned out that the information was slightly wrong but it didn't matter when it was loaded into a brand new device. But when it was loaded into a device that had some other slightly wrong information in it (from a power glitch or mishandling), it failed. The original information was never meant to be used in anything but a brand new unit. It took the interacting problems of the slight error in the original information, the unit that failed in a certain way and the using of the original information in the wrong circumstance to cause the problem.

These kinds of problems are what keep engineers up at night. And it is the solving of these kinds of problems that gives engineering the satisfaction that makes it exciting to come to work each day.

I'm sorry if this was boring. I'm working on trying to get more stories on engineering into this blog. After all, I call it "Adventures in Engineering". I want to make the explanations understandable by non-engineers but detailed enough to give the real story. It's not easy but I will be a better engineer if I can balance these two things.

February does not bring an end to winter

We had some more snow on Tuesday and into Wednesday. I didn't get out for my walk on Wednesday but I did get out today. It certainly is lovely but it's cold and the wind is picking up. Here is a picture showing that, although the snow was light, we continue to get thawing and freezing cycles that allow the snow to build up on the trees making them bend. As with all the pictures in my blog, just click on it to get a larger view.

Notice that there are no footsteps in the snow here. I was the first to pass this way today. I find it exciting to be the first one to walk a path. I think it makes me feel like I'm one of the intrepid people who first explored our country and opened it up to the others. Of course, I'm nothing like those guys and I'm one of the "others". I take my exploring and suffering in half hour doses. I take hardship for, at most, a week at a time. I enjoy getting back to my warm house and eating the delicious food my wife prepares. I like my easy life too much to be a real explorer.

Almost made the Third Mistake

I've read lots of stories about people in peril. They get caught in a flash flood or they see a car barreling down on them. Perhaps they are in a burning building or they see a dog running at them ready to attack. It seems that whenever you hear these stories, the people who survive tell about having to make decisions many times during the experience and if they'd made the wrong decisions, they wouldn't have lived to tell the story. Well, my experience today wasn't nearly that dramatic but I could have gotten myself into a mess.

We've been having dramatic changes in temperature recently where we get snow one day then warm weather the next. But there has not been enough warmth to completely melt the snow and it has been freezing at night. So, there is a lot of ice around. I went out for my walk in the woods today and noticed that the paths were icy. I made the first mistake: I ignored the bad conditions and went anyway.

As I walked, I slipped and nearly fell many times. Also, I found myself in mud in a few places and that was treacherous, too. I wasn't really able to enjoy my walk like I normally do because I had to look at the ground the entire time. This led, partly, to my making the second mistake: I assumed the conditions would get better up ahead.

I stopped from time to time to see if there was anything worth a picture but the woods were completely silent. No birds, no rustling in the underbrush to indicate squirrels or chipmunks were around. I kept going. Then, it finally dawned on me that I was close to making the third mistake: I was going to have to go back through all the mess I had already walked through.

I stopped and decided not to make that third mistake. I took a picture of the path ahead of me (the top picture) and on my way back, took a close-up of the path I had come through to get to this point (the bottom picture to the left). That was enough excitement for me. It felt good to get back on solid footing and into a warm office. The birds will be coming back to the woods soon enough and the path will be much easier to walk.

Walking is free exercise

I had one of those moments tonight that annoy me. After work, I was running a little late to get into the post office before they closed. I normally don't look for a parking spot as close as possible to where I'm going. I don't mind walking and actually like getting a little extra exercise by parking away from the building I'm going to. But tonight, every second mattered as I was trying to get to the post office before they closed. I didn't make it because I had to park too far away.

There is a health club in the same building as the post office. All the spots close to the building were taken up by the people who joined the health club as their New Year's resolution. Isn't it strange that people who are going to the health club for exercise have to take all the parking spots as close to the building as possible? This is why they need to join a club to get exercise - they're not capable of getting their own exercise. They wouldn't need the health club as much if they would change their lifestyle a little bit. Park a little further away from buildings. Take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator. Lay off the snacks. But they'd rather spend money to get their exercise.

A sad day for history and sports

It's January 23 and as usual, I checked the This Day in History site to see some events that happened on this day in the past. The site divides up the events into categories like General Interest, Crime, the Civil War and Sports. Usually in Sports, it's something from baseball, American football, soccer (football to the rest of the world), basketball or cycling. In other words, a real sport. The entry for today was in wrestling. Not collegiate wrestling or even high school wrestling but professional wrestling. The World Wrestling Federation (as it was called then). The headline is "Hulk Hogan beats Iron Sheik to first WWF title".

I'm sorry but this is not sport. It is entertainment (to some). They even changed the name to World Wrestling Entertainment to reflect that fact. Yes, I know, the men and women who "compete" in the WWE are in very good shape. They are athletic. I could not do what they do. But the same could be said for acrobats. The same could be said for the Harlem Globetrotters. We don't see Globetrotter scores listed in the sports pages. The acrobats are entertainers and so are the men and women of the WWE. The members of the WWE do not compete. They act out stories where the "winner" is known ahead of time. Mr. Hogan is listed for something that the owners of the WWE had decided before January 23, 1984.

So, I was angry with the This Day in History folks. Then I turn to the Sports Illustrated site and see a heading for "Jan 23: Historic Sports Moments" and what does it list [you will probably have to hit "Next" a couple of times to get to it]? "Hulk Hogan beats The Iron Sheik to become World Wrestling Federation champion for the first time. The victory marked the start of the "Rock 'n Wrestling" era." Good grief.

The Day After

Yesterday was inauguration day. I was hoping to watch some of the historic events on TV and our company graciously allowed us to see some of it on our breaks (it was streamed into some of our conference rooms via the Internet and shown on screens with projectors) but we had somewhat of an emergency in the Software Department and I was limited to seeing only some of the preparations leading up to the swearing in and a few minutes of Mr. Obama's speech. I got to see replays of a lot of the action on the news last night and I read the full text of the speech on the Internet. I've read a few reports about the inauguration, too. I do feel that yesterday's inauguration was a historic event. Both because Mr. Obama is the first African-American President and because he takes office under such bad conditions. That's why I title this article, "The Day After". It was nice to see and read about the pomp and excitement of yesterday. It was heartening to see such an intelligent and motivated man become our President. It was thrilling to see the size and enthusiasm of the crowds. But today, the day after, the real work begins.

We're in a real financial crisis. We are in two wars - in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our country is at odds with many other powerful countries in the world. The Middle East is in one of its swings on the "troubling" end of the scale (where the "good" side of the scale seems to top out at "all the countries' armies are within their own borders") as Israel has withdrawn from Gaza after fighting with Hamas over their sending rockets into Israel. India and Pakistan are accusing each other of wanting to go to war because India accuses Pakistan of allowing terrorists to attack Mumbai. While Mr. Obama's speech stressed the need for everyone to pull together to help get through these problems, I worry that people in this country have been forced into a state of subservience to the government's running of everything.

Isn't that ironic? The party in power for the last eight years is the party that wants smaller government. Yet, they tore into anyone who questioned them. They refused to account for their actions. They acted like they knew what was best for us and we could just butt out. They felt they didn't have to answer to anyone. I don't think (at least I hope) this is not the attitude of the entire party. I think it was just the people who were in charge for the last eight years. They are gone. Can we learn to all get involved in our national concerns again? It is going to be a long, hard road.

In a way, I think we have Mr. Bush and his people to thank for Mr. Obama being the new President. If the Bush years had not been as wrenching and painful, perhaps the voters would not have been as willing to elect the first African-American President. If the Bush administration had not been as arrogant and unable to meet problems head on, would the voters have been as willing to elect a man with as little elected office experience as Mr. Obama? I'm not sure. All I know is thatthere has been a welcome change. I am hopeful. I now feel we have a thoughtful man as President. I now feel that we have a man who knows how to make decisions after getting all the facts instead of Mr. Bush who always seemed to have his mind made up before any decision. Mr. Bush talked as if his single mindedness was a virtue. Mr. Bush acted as if "sticking to his principles" and not changing his mind were ethical conduct. As for me, I'm glad we have a leader who, when the situation changes or the facts point in a different direction, has the ability to change course. You don't keep the steering wheel in one position when the road ahead is a curve.

I just realized the other day that Barack Obama is the first President in my lifetime who is younger than me. I'm 57 (soon to be 58) and he is 47. How did he gets so much done with ten fewer years to do it? I could say that about a lot of young people but this is an exceptional case. I have a hard time organizing my desk but this young guy is now the most powerful man in the world. I wish you well, Barack Obama. The hopes of the entire country (and perhaps much of the World) are with you but our hopes are also depending on you.

Get used to it

One of the blogs that I read every day is Just Thinking... written by Earl Pomerantz. He is a real writer (as opposed to what I attempt here). His blog has been in my "Other Blogs" list for a while but I haven't written about it until today. His article today is entitled, "Conversation Stoppers". It's very good and the comments are good, too. As a matter of fact, make sure you take the time to not only read Earl's article but to look at the fifth comment (posted by "A. Buck Short" at 9:31 AM on January 19) for some really funny situations that leave a lot to your imagination.

But the reason I'm writing is that, as usual, reading Earl's article reminded me of a conversation stopper in my own life. As a husband, I sometimes disappoint my wife. It's only natural. We can't all be perfect and she realizes this. Most of the time, when I realize that I've caused her to feel badly, I'll go to her with a look as close to our hound dog Charlie as possible and apologize and she'll make me feel better by being understanding and saying, "That's OK."

But if I've done something really stupid or, to her thinking, indefensible, she will say, "Well, I've just gotten used to it." Wow. I have nothing to say after that. But then, nothing more needs to be said. Actually, after that, it's better that I don't say anything because I'm just going to get into more trouble. I know then that I've crossed the line. I then know exactly how she feels and that I'd better get my act together.