Stupid, stupid hardware

I don't like hardware, never have.

Software has a certain elegance, it's all ones and zeros, on or off. If it works, then it's because of precisely laid out code. If it doesn't work, then it's all the fault of the programmer.

Or at least that's the theory. In practice, it's never quite that simple. Leaving aside the fact that beyond a certain level of complication software is extremely unpredictable, unless you're working at an incredibly low level, your software depends on other software to work properly. Your software calls other software, which calls other software which eventually works its way down the chain to some software which actually interacts with the hardware.

And the hardware is the problem. Hardware is real life. It's not on or off, it's usually in some fuzzy in between state. Computers work by taking this fuzzy inbetweenness and forcing it to extremes that can substitute for 1 and 0. So that -3 Volts = 0 and +3 Volts = 1 (for instance). If the voltage is actually 2.9V then that's probably a 1 and heck, it's close enough.

But, as you can see, hardware doesn't work in that clean, mathematical, pure state that software does, where every answer flows from the rules of the system and everything is (theoretically) predictable.

As a side note, due to non-functioning middleware (middleware is everything between your code and the computer. When I tell the computer to do something, all the layers that the command passes through before it gets to the hardware are middleware), I was once made very aware of how complex and teetering the world around us is, where everything we do depends on so many complex interactions outside of our control.

For example, when you buy a burger, imagine how many steps have to be gone through to get all the ingredients from every place around the world together in that place ready to give you that burger. How many things can go wrong at each step? How many people have to fulfil some kind of function? Isn't it amazing that any burgers ever end up at McDonald's at all?

Anyway, hardware. I spent 10 minutes under my desk today trying to work out why white noise was coming out of my speakers (I have a nice set of surround speakers, which allow me to pinpoint perfectly the person trying to shoot me in the back while playing Counterstrike, just in time to spin round and get shot in the front instead). I tried adjusting the volume on the PC - the fuzz stayed constant. I tried adjusting the volume on the speaker box - the fuzz stayed constant. I tried unplugging the speakers from the PC - the fuzz stayed constant. Finally, I looked around at all the mess of wires lying across the floor under my desk and unplugged the power cable for my Archos Jukebox, and moved the power cables from off of the speaker cables.

And the fuzz vanished. See, you'd never guess that was the problem, would you?

Representing calamity

I got a comics order in this morning. Just the usual montly selection, full of fun, frolics and the usual obscenities.

Oh, and the two 9-11 volumes.

I dithered over buying them, not sure what anthologies of other people's feelings would add to my own. Eventually the list of authors carried me over the brink and I added them to my order.

And they're pretty much what I expected - a mixture of the unquestioningly patriotic and the thought provoking, single page images and winding stories, big picture observations and personal moments.

Generally it's the personal reminisces that get to me, the intimate moments that made me empathise with somebody, bring some emotions to the fore.

Which isn't to say that Neil Gaiman's thoughts on meaning and answers aren't good, or that Alan Moore doesn't bring his usual intelligence to bear on the trouble of telling one pile of rubble from another.

But it's definitely the small moments of terror, relief, pain and joy that bring out my emotional side.

The morning after

I was up until 2:30 last night. Erin had to get a proposal off (so that the council will give the film she's working on some money) by fax this morning by 9:30, (having been only asked for it yesterday afternoon), so she came in at 9-ish, took a 20 minute break to eat with me and then got back into it.

At 2:00 she finally got it all together, all 20 pages of it (a list of everyone working on the film, along with their experience, a breakdown of eveything they planned to spend money on, with justifications for each one and the actual film publicity document, thankfully already written) and started printing it off, so I wandered through and help sort things into piles, and generally try to keep her going.

And then at 6:45 she got up so that she could be in Edinburgh at 8:45 to fax it through, meet someone from the film at 9:30 and go to an interview at 11:00. I got to go back to sleep (well, except for waking back up at 9 and 10 and 11 for various disturbances).

The interview was baffling to Erin for a variety of reasons, partially lack of sleep, but mostly down to the sheer 'blah'-ness of the questions "describe a problem you've overcome", "what was a project you're proud of?", "When have you successfully used teamwork?". She feels miserable about the fact that she sees generic people give generic answers and walk into generic jobs like this, but as much as she tries, she just can't be generic.

Personally, I'm hoping that the film production work and journalism offers a route into something more permanent. That's where she wants to be, and she's slowly getting there, but the process is totally soul-destroying.