Re: Attention Experienced Professionals

"Kenneth Downs" <firstinit.lastname_at_lastnameplusfam.net> wrote in message news:5eppkc.sg1.ln_at_mercury.downsfam.net...
> Laconic2 wrote:
>
> >
> > "Kenneth Downs" <firstinit.lastname_at_lastnameplusfam.net> wrote in
message
> > news:ebfokc.dmf.ln_at_mercury.downsfam.net...
> >
> >> A colleague of mine and I had a certain approach to tough problems we
> > could
> >> not work out. I might start by saying, "I'm having trouble, maybe you
> >> can
> >> find my bug." Then I would begin explaining, and then say, "Oh, forget
> > it,
> >> I just figured it out."
> >>
> >> After awhile we dropped the part about helping, and would approach each
> >> other by saying, "I'm going to explain to you what I'm doing and figure
> > out
> >> a problem about halfway through the explanation..." The other would
> >> chuckle and patiently listen.
> >
> > A long, long time ago a programming team I was on discovered this
> > phenomenon. It happened so often that we made up a name for it. We
> > called it "the interactive wall". (as in, "I might as well be talking to
> > the
> > wall.") We never quite got to the point of actually talking to the
walls,
> > but...
>
> I feel a new theory coming on. It definitely would not have worked if you
> talked to the walls, because, because...
>
> OK, it is related to bogons. The reason you cannot figure out your
problem
> is that you have built up a huge bogus potential, like when you walk
across
> a carpet and pick up an electrical potential. All of that bogosity is
> keeping you from solving the problem.
>
> Now, going further, everyone knows that when programmers talk, a bunch of
> bogus nonsense comes out, so what you need to do is start talking, to shed
> this buildup. But the only known things that will absorb bogons are
> computers and other programmers. Certainly not inert walls (that's why
the
> walls don't work).
>
> So you go to another programmer. The programmer must remain quiet so that
> they will remain a bogon sink. If they talk, it doesn't work because of
> course then they are like a cathode instead of an anode.
>
> So as you discuss the situation, you get closer to the problem and
suddenly
> there is, like invisible lightning, a discharge of bogons to the victim
> (ooops, helper). Suddenly you can understand the problem, now that your
> mind is clear. The other person usually finds it slightly difficult to
get
> back to work, but they never realize or blame the shot of bogons they have
> received that is diffusing into the floor. Soon enough they can work
again
> and they dismiss the event.
>
> This also explains why you figure things out so much faster when you try
to
> explain the problem to a group of programmers, especially those
> significantly higher or lower than you on the chain-of-command (bogon
field
> strength is a measure of the absolute value of the delta(status) between
> you and the other person). Within seconds you have shot all of the bogons
> into the crowd and find yourself mumbling "don't see why that seemed like
> such a problem..." and of course you have just been taken down one
> big-sized peg in everyone's eyes.
>
>

IIRC, the formula for bogon dispersal rate is:

Bd = -1 * ( t / Pn )
where
Bd = bogons dispersed per second
Pn = number of programmers listening
t = time (seconds)

The problem is that the bogon accrual rate has never been determined. The starting number of bogons can only be surmised from observation after they have been dispersed to 0, assuming that the number of bogons must be zero to achieve information stasis. If it is >0, then all bets are off. This starts to get into quantum theory. Perhaps this is on the path to discovering the Unified Theory. Received on Mon Oct 18 2004 - 15:57:05 CEST