9. Will It go round in circles
“The only thing that I’d rather own than Windows is English, because then I could charge you two hundred and forty-nine dollars for the right to speak it.” – Scott McNealy
At the turn of the twentieth century, Buffalo was a booming city, well known for the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, which occurred from May to November of that year. This World’s Fair took place in the eighth largest city in the nation, which had a population of about 350,000. Lauren Belfer wrote a novel about the time in her 1999 novel, City Of Light.
Edward Holmes was born in England in July 1818. His brother Britain was born in March 1823 in Madrid, New York. Seventeen years later the Holmes family arrived in Lancaster, a town east of Buffalo. Soon after they established the E. & B. Holmes Washboard Factory. Barrels were used to ship liquor, flour, sugar, grain, wine, meats and tobacco. The Holmes Brothers discovered a better way for producing the barrels. They didn’t stop there as they created equipment and machinery that enhanced the lives of people not only in Western New York, but also across the country. These inventions enabled the area to flourish. By the late 1800s, they owned more than 60 patents.
At times there were challenges, but when a fired destroyed one of their buildings, it was rebuilt and they stayed in business. For roughly 150 years, the E. & B. Holmes Machinery Company thrived, helping shaping the world in which we live. With their ingenuity, these pioneers of industry made the city of Buffalo what it became.
In the early 1900s, the second top producer of agricultural steamrollers was the Buffalo Pitts Company, even if wasn’t known by that appellation. Harold McCormack, the chief stockholder of the leader in the field, worked with Charles Olmstead, who was an aeronautical engineer for this Buffalo corporation. Eight decades earlier, Harold’s father, Cyrus, brought his reaping machine to the industrial world in Virginia. Three years later, John Pitts and his brother Hiram developed a treadmill threshing machine. John built a company called the Buffalo Pitts Company.
The technological advances of Cyrus and the Pitts brought about the settlement of the Midwest. Eventually the Buffalo Pitts Company created other machines such as the double engine traction machine, with many of their products reaching Australia and South America. Their creations could be found in any area having roads or where grain grew. The company changed names and existed for a century, contributing to technological progress and made work easier for many people.
If you have a personal computer you’ve seen that small annoying circle that keeps going around and around, both clockwise and counter clockwise. At times you’ll be waiting for a response for longer than you care too, and then see the words, not responding. This is a great observation and my reply is no xxxx Sherlock.
This happens many times with most computers, especially when a program or system is looping. A simple report does that when a read of a file has to be done repeatedly. As you might expect, that’s called a loop, but exiting from the loop is required; otherwise the program will be stuck and run until someone intervenes. Some might call that runaway logic or a runaround, but the program isn’t going anywhere.
I’ve often seen something similar to this in systems and on the Internet. How many times have you searched for a web site and are blessed with a list of possibilities, even if you entered the exact name of that site? Going to any of those there brings you to another list and clicking on them gets you to the first list. You’ve come around to where you were before.
I had a duplicate credit / debit card sent for the joint owner of my checking account. The pin was to arrive in a few days. I had two options to activate the card, online or by phone to an activation number. Neither choice gave me a chance for help if there was a problem. Surely, both couldn’t fail could they? You know the answer. I opted for the workaround by calling the establishment who sent the card and they took care of it. The card was ready to use. Both the web site and phone authorization has or had cockroaches or worst. My head was spinning.
Which is worst, going around in circles or snail and turtle technology that drives users crazy on their ERD, laptops and desktops as they check email or search the web? I’ll relate the time my friend Lou and I tried to set up an investment account in chapter 11. This isn’t the only case of difficulties with technology. In chapter 1 I pointed out all the ways to talk to the help desk which many times doesn’t provide answers. In each case, you’re faced with someone who knows nothing to another that believes he knows everything as he never stops talking. It’s no wonder that you have to be on hold so long when phoning. I can’t think of another name for the process except runaround or going around in circles.
I hate to pick on Amy – actually I don’t mind at all, because she really doesn’t provide answers. Here is the solution to the pill dilemma of a few chapters ago. If you divide the tablets into four on each side of the scale, you’ll need three weighings, so you can’t solve the problem with two. So why not place three pills on each side of the scale. If they balance, it means that the poison pill is one of the two remaining, so just put one each on the scale and now you have the poison one. However, if the three versus three check results in one side weighing more than the other, you know that the poison pill is on the side with the heavier tablets. From those three take any two and place them on the scale. If one weighs more than the other, you have the culprit. If they weigh the same, the poison thing is the pill that wasn’t placed on the scale. You found the undesirable pill in a mere two weighings.
If you feel that you could never come up with this solution, just consider that the balance scale needs either one, two, three or four on each side. There are no other possibilities. Choosing four won’t work as we have seen, but neither will one or two pills per side, so you have to put three on each side. At this point you might get stuck, but you’re on your way to the poison pill as described above. You’ll be pleasantly surprised that you have the answer to what seems like an impossible situation. An old Chinese proverb offers: If we don’t change direction, we are likely to end up exactly where we’re headed. Another is, If we do what we’ve always done, we’ll get what we’ve always gotten.
Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris was first seen on Broadway in the late 1960s. If you’re familiar with the musical revue, you know the song, “Marathon”. It brings to mind traveling roads for hours and always returning to a spot where you’d been. All you wanted to do was go home. I saw the production of Jacques Brel in Binghamton a few years after it premiered in New York City. It’s on film as well.
Many songs have been written about going around and around – especially men who don’t ask for directions. Sometimes that’s what it feels like with technology. From the album, Music is my life, the title of the chapter is that of a 1972 song by the late keyboardist, William Everett Billy Preston. It was his first number one hit.