I hate "fixing" something when I can neither fully explain why it was broken nor why the "fix" works.

On my technical blog, I recently went through how I worked around what seemed to be brokenness in Linux's routing. I'd done a fair amount of digging around to try to solve my problem. I even asked questions on some forum sites (to no avail). Eventually, with enough persistence, I cobbled together a solution.

Unfortunately, that wasn't quite enough for me. I mean, I had an observed behavior I was trying to surmount, but, hadn't had the tools to really tear it apart. So, I was treating symptoms rather than finding a cure. I hate that approach to problem solving.

So, today, since I had some time, I broke down and tried to see what was really going on under the covers. I wanted to sort out the root-cause of the symptoms I'd addressed. So, I downloaded tcpdump and tried to watch my packet flows both with and without the "fix" in place.

Even with what should be the right analysis tools in place to see the problem, it wasn't any more enlightening. The error I expected to see wasn't there. Worse, there wasn't really any alternate error in its place. Fucking. Maddening.

I still have the urge to track it down further (yeah, OCD!), even though I know that it's mostly wasted effort. I mean, the issue I ran into shouldn't happen in production situations, and, even if it did, I've documented the "fix" for it. I just don't like not knowing why it was broken or why my "fix" works.

Gah... I'd be ill-suited for work in medicine or other theoretical scientific endeavors.

Not All Ounces Are Created Equal

So, today, I was telecommuting. I was working on a "how to use NetApp Fibrechannel Storage With RedHat Multipathing" document. As I usually do when telecommuting, I had the TV on to make background noise. At one point, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire came on.

As far as gameshows go, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is not the most horrible of the bunch. Certainly, it's far better than the ferret-level intelligence required for Wheel of Fortune and less trailer parkish than Let's Make a Deal. Still, the show's a dumbed-down version of the same show that came from England.

Even dumbed-down, there's certain standards that one really should maintain. I mean, if you're going to ask a question - I don't care how hard or easy it is - you should expect a correct answer. More, the answer that you're asking for should be correct.

Today, I had the pain of seeing really poor writing and fact-checking at play. The question asked was something along the lines of, "If a man weighs 150lbs and gold's market price is $1000 an ounce, how much would the man be worth if he were composed entirely of gold?" The answer they wanted (and got) from the contestant was $2.4Mn. Now, that answer would be correct, if gold were measured in the same units that body weight is measured in. However, that is simply not the case. Gold is measured in troy ounces (ozt.). Body weight is measured in avoirdupois ounces (oz.). Ok, typically body weight (in the US) is measured in "pounds" but, that's neither here nor there - it's the underlying conversions that are material to this question.

A quick search shows that, one pound of body weight equates to 16 avoirdupois ounces (or 16oz). Whereas, one pound of body weight equates to roughly 14.583 troy ounces (or, 14.583ozt). That means that the 150lb man would be 2400oz. and 2187.5ozt. (or thereabouts). As previously established, gold is measured in ozt, not oz. Therefore, the calculation should have been $1000/ozt * 2187.5ozt to get a value of $2.187Mn, not the $2.4Mn that was offered as an answer option.

Grr... Sloppy (and, yes, I didn't worry about the significance of my numbers when I placed decimals and did my rounding - sue me).

Math Skrilz: Pepsi Can Haz

Dear Pepsi:

I may be wrong, but 230 is not twice 110. Today I bought a 16oz bottle of Mt. Dew. As is often my want, I looked at the nutrition label (soda and nutrition???). Your bottles are kind enough to define the  FDA and caloric numbers base both on a standard baseline and as occurs at the purchased dosage.

I've tried Mt. Dew in 16oz., 20oz. and 1l. sizes. The baseline nutritional information always is based on 8oz serving (what the fuck is up with that, by the way). However, in reading the column for a 16oz dosage, your numbers seem to be off. 16oz is twice 8oz. Therefore, all of the numbers should simply be ${BASELINE} x 2; somehow, instead of the expected 220Kcal, your bottle lists 230Kcal as the associated caloric intake. Is this some kind of "new math"?