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.

More Pepsi Math

Ok, so, a day or so ago, I noted that Pepsi's math seemed to be off on their nutrition labels. I had purchased a 16oz. bottle of Mtn. Dew. The nutrition information (hah!) label on the back of the bottle states that the figures are based on an 8oz serving size. However, Pepsi is kind enough with their bottles to include a "how much in this bottle" column on their nutrition information panel. The 16oz. bottle had indicated that there was 230 calories. Given that 16oz is, exactly, twice as much as the 8oz benchmark, it seemed odd that Pepsi would say that there other than (exactly) twice the number of calories in the 16oz bottle than one
Today, I was handed a 20oz bottle of Mtn. Dew. Due to the math peculiarities on the prior bottle of Mtn. Dew, I decided to run the numbers on this on. Again, this bottle had an 8oz serving size column and a "how much in this bottle column". As with the prior 16oz bottle, the listed serving size was 8oz. Pepsi lists the calorie count for the 20oz as being 290. Now, 8 doesn't divide evenly into 20, but 4 divides evenly into both 8 and 20. So, I decided to halve the calorie count in the 8oz serving size to get a calorie count of 55cal per 4oz serving. There would be five such 4oz servings in a 20oz bottle. One would expect that 20oz bottle to yield 275 calories (55cal/serving * 5 servings). Pepsi's own notations on the nutrition panel indicate "2.5 servings per bottle". Doing the math using their figures, again, produces 275 calories (110 * 2.5).
So, either their calories/8oz serving size metric is wrong or there's some undocumented calories in the soda. Either way, it makes one wonder what the point is of putting labels on if the information on said labels is wrong? I could almost understand the errors (or undocumented calories) if the error percentages were identical. However, the error differentials are not identical. So, "what gives".
I mean, it's not that I really care. I'm still going to drink the damned thing, any way. It just bothers me. I really need to stop looking at things. The world's a much less vexing place when you simply fail to notice discrepancies and inconsistencies.