7 ms·

Unless you exist in a state of wild over abundance and are very conscientious, most working infrastructure is always at a state of almost-disrepair. If I operat

by zwkrt 5y ago

Unless you exist in a state of wild over abundance and are very conscientious, most working infrastructure is always at a state of almost-disrepair. If I operate a machine shop and I have 4 partially-stripped screwdrivers, I might get a new one, but inevitably I will use it until it is as stripped as all the rest, and I don’t dare throw away a tool that is currently even in partially working condition since I might need it later if another driver breaks. This is true of every single thing in my shop, and the end result is a system that is robust to absolute failure but prone to constantly needing to be patched up. As far as I can tell this is a truism across all fields: farming, skilled trades, build systems, transportation infrastructure, housing…

999900000999 5y ago
You could also break something with your dull tools. This is why you can't just drive a car until it breaks, you get it checked out. Then again, cars are a private good. When it's your property vs our property you have more of an incentive to take care of it.
- WJW 5y ago
  Machine shops are also private goods and their owners have a lot of incentive to keep them working, so I don't think this example is very accurate. In any case the chance of breaking anything with a partially stripped screwdriver is pretty minimal.
  - 999900000999 5y ago
    If you don't know what you're doing you can strip a screw. Getting it out won't be fun.
    - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
      if you're at home, with no other tools, it could be painful. but in a shop unless you can't take it out using other means (pliers for example or a nut split remover), you can simply weld a bolt on the screw's head and use a wrench to unscrew it. or drill a hole through it after removing the head and use another screw to take out the moncone from the other side. Bad screws are more common than bad screwdrivers and even a brand new screwdriver could lead to the same result. as the original post said "If it breaks all the time, everybody is highly experienced at patching together new workarounds"
      - 999900000999 5y ago
        Let's just keep going off this hypothetical, it would still be a better idea to have working screwdrivers. All the steps you outlined risk damaging the part you're working on, or wasting time. Let's just say you only value your time as a mechanic at $30 an hour if getting that screw out takes you another 20 or 30 minutes, you would have been better off buying a $5 screw bit
        peoplefromibiza 5y ago
        not hypothetically speaking, it takes a couple of minutes but what the original post said it's not that you shouldn't buy a new screwdriver, but that it you know something will break, you learn how to fix it. if your brand new screwdriver ends up stripping that screw anyway and you don't know what to do next because you thought that it would never happen using a working screwdriver, well. you're screwed :) sometimes there are no good solutions, only bad solutions that's what keep things working. if everyone believed that spit and bailing wire was a no go, because they are bad solutions and there's a better one - there always is - (i.e. fixing the root cause, after having identified it) there would be no internet as we know it today.
ragingrobot 5y ago
Imagine you use that last screwdriver, and a job needs to get done, and your car won't start so you can't get a new one at a hardware store outside of walking or cycling distance. And now you're unable to repair a vital system. As I was writing that, I was just thinking of the recent Surfside collapse, what would would have happened if the regions data networks had gone down simultaneously (by chance). A major event two decades ago, cellular networks were overwhelmed and calls could not be made. I dare say we're more reliant on those networks today, as well as the Internet. Not that I would expect it to happen, but it was just a thought.
- convolvatron 5y ago
  if you have a file and a piece of round you have a screwdriver in whatever shape you need it to be.
ip26 5y ago
Are your mills in a similar state? I’m no machinist, but I would think it hard to stay in business when the means of production are constantly down for unplanned service. Screwdrivers are more of a consumable than a capital good.
- avgcorrection 5y ago
  They said “If I operate a machine shop”. So presumably just another programmer making up an analogy with insufficient background knowledge so that we can nitpick the details of it.
  - zemvpferreira 5y ago
    Presumably. Those statements would be insulting to most professional machinists, carpenters and others who take good care of the tools/infrastructure that provide their job and keeps their digits in place. To not speak of an actual industrial facility producing high-quality or high-volume items. In fact, so much care is put into infrastructure that most people/shops have lots of tools they have designed and built themselves at great expense to streamline their operations.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      I don't know why yo'd make arguments by analogy, which are flawed by default, on a topic you are not versed in
- fsckboy 5y ago
  machine shops are full of old mills. It's a capital item, you use it as long as you can to extract value, and they last a looong time.
joconde 5y ago
Software too, unless every small piece of it has a dedicated full-time maintainer. If there's an infinite stream of tasks incoming, why go improve something that fits the current use well?
AceyMan 5y ago
A corollary to this might be "a new part on the shelf is not truly 'better' than a 90% worn out one still in service." Having ready spares is great but I'm sure the HN crowd knows how much crib-death there is on new, replacement bits of all kinds. Until it's actually been run-in for a while how do you really know it's going to work when you unbox it to replace a truly dead piece? The upshot of this is' RAID-6' type designs are the most reliable in the real world since when one fails at least you are leaning on other parts that have been run-in and are past the leading edge of the bathtub curve.
- dylan604 5y ago
  >Having ready spares is great but I'm sure the HN crowd knows how much crib-death there is on new, replacement bits of all kinds. >Until it's actually been run-in for a while how do you really know it's going to work when you unbox it to replace a truly dead piece? We had the unfortunate experience of installing 4 new 16 bay chasis with brand new drives (10+ years ago now). We designated one of the 16s as hot spare for each chasis, plus had 2 cold spares for each as well. 72 brand new drives in total. All from the same batch of drives from the manufacture. Set them all up on a Friday and configured all for RAID5 (pre-RAID6 availability). Plan was to let them build and have some burn-in time over the weekend for possible Monday availability. Monday provided us with multiple drive failures in each chasis. Drive manufacturer confirmed a batch batch from whichever plant, replaced all and delivered larger sizes for replacements. Luckily, they failed during burn-in rather than 1 week after deploying.

by zwkrt 5y ago

999900000999 5y ago

You could also break something with your dull tools. This is why you can't just drive a car until it breaks, you get it checked out. Then again, cars are a private good. When it's your property vs our property you have more of an incentive to take care of it.

WJW 5y ago
Machine shops are also private goods and their owners have a lot of incentive to keep them working, so I don't think this example is very accurate. In any case the chance of breaking anything with a partially stripped screwdriver is pretty minimal.
- 999900000999 5y ago
  If you don't know what you're doing you can strip a screw. Getting it out won't be fun.
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    if you're at home, with no other tools, it could be painful. but in a shop unless you can't take it out using other means (pliers for example or a nut split remover), you can simply weld a bolt on the screw's head and use a wrench to unscrew it. or drill a hole through it after removing the head and use another screw to take out the moncone from the other side. Bad screws are more common than bad screwdrivers and even a brand new screwdriver could lead to the same result. as the original post said "If it breaks all the time, everybody is highly experienced at patching together new workarounds"
    - 999900000999 5y ago
      Let's just keep going off this hypothetical, it would still be a better idea to have working screwdrivers. All the steps you outlined risk damaging the part you're working on, or wasting time. Let's just say you only value your time as a mechanic at $30 an hour if getting that screw out takes you another 20 or 30 minutes, you would have been better off buying a $5 screw bit
      - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
        not hypothetically speaking, it takes a couple of minutes but what the original post said it's not that you shouldn't buy a new screwdriver, but that it you know something will break, you learn how to fix it. if your brand new screwdriver ends up stripping that screw anyway and you don't know what to do next because you thought that it would never happen using a working screwdriver, well. you're screwed :) sometimes there are no good solutions, only bad solutions that's what keep things working. if everyone believed that spit and bailing wire was a no go, because they are bad solutions and there's a better one - there always is - (i.e. fixing the root cause, after having identified it) there would be no internet as we know it today.

ragingrobot 5y ago

Imagine you use that last screwdriver, and a job needs to get done, and your car won't start so you can't get a new one at a hardware store outside of walking or cycling distance. And now you're unable to repair a vital system. As I was writing that, I was just thinking of the recent Surfside collapse, what would would have happened if the regions data networks had gone down simultaneously (by chance). A major event two decades ago, cellular networks were overwhelmed and calls could not be made. I dare say we're more reliant on those networks today, as well as the Internet. Not that I would expect it to happen, but it was just a thought.

convolvatron 5y ago
if you have a file and a piece of round you have a screwdriver in whatever shape you need it to be.

ip26 5y ago

Are your mills in a similar state? I’m no machinist, but I would think it hard to stay in business when the means of production are constantly down for unplanned service. Screwdrivers are more of a consumable than a capital good.

avgcorrection 5y ago
They said “If I operate a machine shop”. So presumably just another programmer making up an analogy with insufficient background knowledge so that we can nitpick the details of it.
- zemvpferreira 5y ago
  Presumably. Those statements would be insulting to most professional machinists, carpenters and others who take good care of the tools/infrastructure that provide their job and keeps their digits in place. To not speak of an actual industrial facility producing high-quality or high-volume items. In fact, so much care is put into infrastructure that most people/shops have lots of tools they have designed and built themselves at great expense to streamline their operations.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    I don't know why yo'd make arguments by analogy, which are flawed by default, on a topic you are not versed in
fsckboy 5y ago
machine shops are full of old mills. It's a capital item, you use it as long as you can to extract value, and they last a looong time.

joconde 5y ago

Software too, unless every small piece of it has a dedicated full-time maintainer. If there's an infinite stream of tasks incoming, why go improve something that fits the current use well?

AceyMan 5y ago

A corollary to this might be "a new part on the shelf is not truly 'better' than a 90% worn out one still in service." Having ready spares is great but I'm sure the HN crowd knows how much crib-death there is on new, replacement bits of all kinds. Until it's actually been run-in for a while how do you really know it's going to work when you unbox it to replace a truly dead piece? The upshot of this is' RAID-6' type designs are the most reliable in the real world since when one fails at least you are leaning on other parts that have been run-in and are past the leading edge of the bathtub curve.

dylan604 5y ago
>Having ready spares is great but I'm sure the HN crowd knows how much crib-death there is on new, replacement bits of all kinds. >Until it's actually been run-in for a while how do you really know it's going to work when you unbox it to replace a truly dead piece? We had the unfortunate experience of installing 4 new 16 bay chasis with brand new drives (10+ years ago now). We designated one of the 16s as hot spare for each chasis, plus had 2 cold spares for each as well. 72 brand new drives in total. All from the same batch of drives from the manufacture. Set them all up on a Friday and configured all for RAID5 (pre-RAID6 availability). Plan was to let them build and have some burn-in time over the weekend for possible Monday availability. Monday provided us with multiple drive failures in each chasis. Drive manufacturer confirmed a batch batch from whichever plant, replaced all and delivered larger sizes for replacements. Luckily, they failed during burn-in rather than 1 week after deploying.