Perfect

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I don’t know who needs to hear this.

You’re not perfect. I’m definitely not perfect. And that’s okay.

All right, so I know exactly who needs to hear that. And that’s me, here behind the eyes. Because I’m really upset at myself for this last week and then this weekend…

Why you ask? Well, because nothing went according to plan. Mostly the “nothing” hinged on adventures in publishing. I somehow managed to delete the typeset version of No Man’s Land Vol. 1 just before I realized I had a typo.

Then I reconstituted the dedication and the Acknowledgements by copying it from my downloaded Amazon file because I had a total brain glitch and forgot I had the epub I uploaded and could use calibre to convert it. (blah.)

Then Amazon rejected both uploads. I’m hoping that’s the reason. It also rejected Witchfinder, but I think that was because it’s just too long. I’ll be implementing two volumes of it (It’s about 110k words shorter than NML) sometime this week, after I fix NML. So I’m hoping its complaints about metadata are because Amazon decided I was stealing… my own book.

Anyway, this type of thing makes me insane, and I keep reiterating till solved. So, I’ve been driving myself insane, and unable to write much of anything, which means not sleeping really well.

It wasn’t till today that Fuzzy pointed out to me that I could use my epub file to reconstitute the book. At any rate, I have to redo the cover, because we got a printed arc, and some things are just wrong.

And I’m very angry at myself. Only, there is a glimmer of a thought I shouldn’t be, because I’m not perfect, but more importantly, I can’t be expected to be perfect. It doesn’t matter how much I’d like to be.

And things around me aren’t perfect either. Because that is the nature of life, basically. I mean, if Amazon were perfect none of this would have happened.

After 62 almost 63 years, too, you’d think I was aware of my own idiosyncrasies like the tendency to get obsessed with peculiar bits of the process. But no. It comes as a surprise and annoyance every time.

BUT enough about me: the point is that this is all of us. None of us is perfect. None of us does things perfectly. And everything is equally messed up. And everyone is.

Perfect would be nice. But it’s not within reach, and hey, it would probably be boring after a while.

So.

Do the best you can. Yes, even right now, when things are more messed up than usual and we have a job and a half if we don’t want to leave everything broken for our kids.

Do the best you can. And don’t give up. When it all comes apart, make your guts into a new heart and go back in.

No one gives prizes for trying. But in this imperfect world an imperfect result is sometimes amazing enough.

So, go on, go try.

And I will too.

It’s a new week, and a new chance at doing the things that need to be done.

Get to it.

129 thoughts on “Perfect”

  1. “Perfect would be nice. But it’s not within reach, and hey, it would probably bet BE boring after a while.”

    There, now it’s correct.

    Liked by 2 people

  2. One of the early lessons of Infantry is that one must plan, and that I includes planning for the plan to fail.

    Plan

    Alternate Plan

    Oh Sh!t Plan

    Everything Went To Heck Plan

    Four deep. Yup.

    Plans don’t survive contact with the enemy. Mine often don’t survive days ending in Y, etc.

    You can boost your morale with having a bunch of grab on the fly things you can do as filler. “At least I got the dishes done while waiting for the delivery.” “Well, the hundred rounds I loaded while on hold will cover the next match.

    Part of keeping young soldiers out of trouble is keeping them busy. If we stopped for ant significant delay, I was cleaning my weapon, change socks, re-taping my gear, touching up camo, -anything-.

    Thus always got stuff done, and seldom got grabbed to go scrub trashcans.

    It carried over into IT work. I have a pile of to-do items. Some are intended as “when stuck” busy items. Let’s me move something to “done” even during a train wreck.

    Depressurizes most days. “Well, at least I got X done.”

    Lest I go nuts, because my barren field of ….. never mind. Wrong board for that quip.

    (grin)

    Keep on keeping on. Embrace the suck! If this place didn’t suck, would we even be here?

    (Grin)

    Then I stubbornly find Joy amidst the brown-storm.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Likewise. A retired coworker was always amazed at how I would focus on something positive for the day, even if it was just “Well, at least this doesn’t suck as bad as Day ‘X’ !!” Someone ‘higher up’ would do something to hose that plan for the day? It must be one that ends in Y! and Laugh!! Because if you don’t laugh, you might feel like crying, and it generally just isn’t worth that. Sometimes cry for the folks we lost, but at least we DID get to know them!

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Plus, when you eventually locate the sadist who was screwing things up deliberately, you will know that your laughter was -highly- annoying the whole time.

        Liked by 3 people

    2. The biggest reason for not allowing military members to have weapons in garrison (aka on base in normal day to day activities) is because they are young males (mostly), easily bored if not working 110% of the time, and love to play with rocks, sharp objects, and things that go boom.

      Most people would never believe the number of times each year some sailor, soldier, airman ‘drops’ a firearm or ‘accidently’ discharges one while playing quick draw, baton twirling, or just pretending to shoot a chipmunk while there’s a round in the damn chamber, and puts a high velocity lead suppository through a portion of their anatomy, their buddy’s anatomy, the guard shack, the HMMWV, the dorm walls, the base commander’s cat, or just have it going who-knows-where.

      Liked by 5 people

        1. Back in the stone age (seriously the class was taken at an event center at a local HS), age 12, I took hunter safety. Given by county Sheriffs and state game officers. Three, 3 hour sessions, during one week. First hour -ish were handling firearms classifications safely, and why it mattered. Then we, youth (parents were encouraged to stay for entire class) were split into two groups. Group A brought an unloaded firearm the next session, group B brought one the third and final session. Load firearm, one carried unsafely, or aimed incorrectly, was an auto fail.

          If you brought the type of rifle (which I did) where showing it with lever open, hammer back, as the safest way to carry it (i.e. dad’s Winchester 30-30), then you had to safely show 100% empty. Work the lever show nothing ejecting, nothing in chamber to cycle through to be ejected, then prove the “safety” could be engaged, all with it pointing a safe direction. Note a safety on that Winchester is to put down the hammer all the way (cannot let it slam down), then pull it half back till it clicks. Something that is a two handed (thumb) effort for me even today, let alone for the slight (not full growth) 12 year old girl I was then.

          The above took about an hour of the 3 hours each night (original “how to carry”, carry in check, and lay the firearms along the wall). The final hour was the written test, the remaining 5 hours were true horror stories after horror story of what could happen if any of the firearm handling rules were broken. Oh the test? Guardians were encouraged to take the test, with a comment that very often the youth did better. True or not? IDK, both dad an I got a 110% (bonus questions).

          Dad even had a story to contribute. Uncle J still hasn’t forgiven Aunt J for that accidental shooting, 60 years ago, even though no one died, but it sure messed up elk hunting that season (horror of horrors). (Hiking game trail, rifle went off. Problems: Round in the chamber, really not recommended. Safety got jostled off (switch on her rifle), probably by brush. Not quite pointed safely, either bad luck with rock ricochet pointing to ground, or direct, unknown exactly. Round broke uncle’s leg.)

          Liked by 2 people

          1. In addition to the 4 Rules, there’s one that everyone should keep in mind: Safeties are mechanical devices and cannot be trusted; they fail, even in “triply-safe” 1911s. The only truly safe weapon is a verified-unloaded one that hasn’t left your sight. And even then, don’t trust it.

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            1. “only truly safe weapon is a verified-unloaded one that hasn’t left your sight. And even then, don’t trust it.“

              –

              Yes. One of the reasons why the only handgun I handle is my SW EZ because the other same type I cannot check to clear. I can pull the magazines, but I cannot clear the chamber regardless of the reason why it needs to be cleared. Not under range or normal conditions. I have not been able to do so. Yes, keeping the firearm aimed properly, and finger off the trigger, but still. I mean if the fire arms hadn’t been lost in the boat accident …

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      2. Whizz poor training.

        11B school, we had the weapons out much of the time, with neither blanks nor ammo. Stupid weapon handling was -not- tolerated.

        Ditto my unit. no tolerance for eff eff games with weapons.

        Handing the offender an extra-heavy pink/orange rubber weapon to haul around 24-7 while they re-learn proper handling is one option.

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    3. ok, I’m going to have to abscond with this:

      It carried over into IT work. I have a pile of to-do items. Some are intended as “when stuck” busy items. Let’s me move something to “done” even during a train wreck

      Because i find myself fat, far to often “spinning my wheels” at work and feeling like I’ve accomplished little to nothing at the end of the day.

      Sometimes, and call me crazy, I wish I had MORE servers to manage and maintain. Not likely to happen though, considering we’re trying to cut our cloud bill and my database servers are not the cheapest in our environment.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I don’t mind remoting into our corporate servers. Lord knows I have to go through 3 different login processes, including authentication call back, to do so. But I’m dismayed by how much data and applications they’ve moved, and continue to move, to cloud storage. They’re already past the point where they can operate if the internet goes down, or the hosting sites are destroyed or compromised. None of them have a clue just what AI brings to hacker’s toolboxes. It’s getting to the point your healthcare and financial data may as well be on the front page of your favorite news site.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. At this point the applications we’re in charge of are entirely “cloudy,” so if the internet for the facility goes down?

          Yep, we’re down and can’t reach our servers (we’re currently VMs in the cloud) unless we can get our hands on some cellular mifis. Which doesn’t help the REST of the facility and user-base.

          As for hackers, HOPEFULLY AzureGov is a bit more secure than Azure Commercial. Hopefully (and way, way above my paygrade!)

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      2. parking lot: As you think of a to-do, park it. Prevents forgetting ideas just because you have no time to evaluate. No due date, just notions.

        to-do: Things you want to get done, enough to add a due-by date or a schedule, or “as opportunity occurs”.

        success list: Things to do today to feel successful.

        doing: Working on this item, (should only be a few, or best one).

        done: Things done recently, easily review.

        archive: Things done previously, search to find. (not visible on the kanban board).

        Opportunities:

        “walk the datacenter” – checks, sounds, secure?

        “walk the data closets”

        “un-eff the tool drawer”

        cable management cleanup

        monitor/alert tuning

        other items that need done, but no particular day or order.

        etc

        The key is , write the tasks down, so you dont forget, and learn the art of juggling them. And, never sweat the “parking lot”. (because it can get huge)

        Liked by 1 person

          1. Fun is not what I call it when the hand grenade dropped short, three things happen, first you say it, shit!, then you duck, then you do it, generally speaking it all happens at the same time.

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  3. If ever you fall

    while running your race

    If your plans have backfired

    leaving egg on your face

    Perfection is yours

    the example – your cat:

    Tell the onlookers

    “I meant to do that!”

    Liked by 5 people

        1. That’s a great one!

          People have commented, “Hey, Cain actually is nearly as good as his legends, great skills and tactics, etc.” And yes, but that’s not the point. This is what it feels like in his head, where he’s convinced he only gets through by bluffing, blind luck, and hiding behind the nearest solid object until the noise stops.

          …AKA taking cover. Which is what sane people do.

          Liked by 2 people

          2. Ah, the great Ciaiphas Cain debate!

            I have heard someone argue that he started out as what he describes himself as, and grew into a hero, and never realized it.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. The very first short story Cain’s in, where he meets Jurgen, it’s clear that he Did Not Want to get shot at and/or eaten, and when combat breaks out near him, he does panic and run for it.

              Which would be an executable offense.

              But then Jurgen’s trapped and about to be overrun by swarming horrors… and Cain goes back for him. The ugly, stinky, uncouth soldier no one in the 12th liked. (For reasons that become clear a few stories later.)

              Cain says it’s to keep his image, and his own head from the chopping block if someone found out he was a coward. But still. He could have kept running. He could have found another excuse. He went back for Jurgen instead.

              …And then he got covered in praise for “uncovering a Tyranid flanking maneuver” (which, yes, he did, even if only by running into it) and felt like he didn’t deserve any of it. And was terrified the Colonel of the regiment would blow his story at any moment.

              Thus, I suspect, was born a massive Imposter Syndrome.

              Liked by 1 person

  4. Since I started publishing on Kindle at 67 with nowhere near the energy and creativity of most of the rest of you or your readers, Ms. Sarah, I wish you would stop reminding me there’s a lot of RHW (really hard work) involved. Mind you, I’m more allergic to getting cancer or needing intensive dental care than HW; but you have, heretofore, made it look like herding cats, where one of my previous employers claimed we were experts.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_MaJDK3VNE

    Liked by 4 people

      2. I believe that long version was aired on the Superbowl in 2000 (so says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Herders) reading the Wikipedia article they used late 90’s CGI combined with 50-60 cat performers (and several actors as Catboys). I remember seeing it in a Superbowl party where 5-6 of us were software types. We were all practically rolling on the floor (literally in at least one case) and laughing really hard while the rest of the folks were looking a bit puzzled. Given we were in New England and neither of the teams in the game were of interest to us it was the highlight of that Superbowl.

        Liked by 3 people

        2. “Superbowl party where 5-6 of us were software types“

          –

          I was the only software type. No one else could figure out why it was so funny. Cute, because all cat people, but not funny.

          Not superbowl party. Commercial fest. Only game I “watched” any season. Unfortunately the commercials have declined over the last few years.

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      1. This was January 2000 peak of the Internet boom. EDS was pretty big in those days, clearly as they sprung for 60 seconds on the Superbowl. EDS’ founder and long time CEO H, Ross Perot had run for president twice in ’96 and ’92 (and taking a large share of the independent vote have been part of the reason Clinton won in 1992) so he and by association EDS were well known. At least in the Software world at that time they were well known (if not universally understood). Herding cats had of course been a long time analogy for trying to direct/lead software engineers; I’d heard it commonly used back in the early ’80s.

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  5. There was only one perfect person and He was born two thousand years ago. [Grin]

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    2. When one of the cousins was putting on airs, Grandmother Red would glare down at us and say, “There was only one perfect person, and remember what happened to him.” Meaning “You’re not perfect—now go be useful and quit bragging.”

      Liked by 4 people

  6. Perfect is probably boring as hell after more than a few minutes.

    Perfect is the enemy of Good.

    Good enough is what manages to get me through most days.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. I had a similar, but much less important, existential crisis over technology not doing what I wanted it to do this past weekend. Maybe there’s more afoot than our own mistakes. I’m blaming the gremlins inside “the Internet” (whatever that really is) for both of our troubles.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. LOL.

    I don’t have words for my thoughts, because I am still fresh off of an explanation attempt at a related thingy.

    (I definitely have some issues with perfection, and fear. My coping mechanisms have coping mechanisms. Sometimes I am stopping myself, or making progress significantly slower, for a reason. If it proves to be a valid reason, sometimes it takes a long and uncertain chunk of work to fix things so that I can move.)

    Liked by 1 person

        1. Wellllll … come to think of it, her wings do seem to be sprouting from her left arm. That is pretty ominous. Maybe that’s why people in the Bible were always terrified of angels.

          Or maybe the AI is just stupid. But what are the odds of that?

          Liked by 1 person

          1. And her lips are strangely large, exactly as if she were using lip fillers, which of course a perfect being wouldn’t need to do.

            This is likely an effect from all the selfies in the learning model from actresses with lip filler, or people using filters to increase their lip size. (Searches online. Yes, there are such apps.)

            Liked by 1 person

              1. I think people in the entertainment industry think it makes women look sexier. It might appeal to some people, but the “duck lip” phenomenon is odd.

                Then again, if you’re surrounded by people with a certain look, you acclimate to it. That’s my theory as to why so many quite attractive actresses have plastic surgery at young ages.

                Liked by 1 person

    2. Time for LaTeX whataboutism!

      I was just reading about how a single command can significantly change the output in that.

      (Omitting, of course that I was researching an intentional and wanted change. LaTeX has some advantages in being relatively reproducible and reversable compared to word. )

      (Word is not my favorite toolchain, but sometimes I make peace with using it. But, for images, for a lot of formatting, and for equations I prefer LaTeX to Word. Then I also slightly prefer libre office Writer to MS office Word. Except when I am only doing headers and footers, in which case I prefer the Word of a few years ago. )

      Anyhow, I am sure that if I was using desktop publishing toolchains more often, I would become at least as fussy and opinionated about those.

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    4. LibreOffice is the same way by default… but you can change the default. In the options, go to LibreOffice Writer -> Formatting Aids and you can change how images behave. The default is either “Anchor to paragraph” or “Anchor to character”, and either one means that images behave kind of unintuitively, just like they behave in Word. They are positioned on the page, and then text flows around them in ways that you can control but that don’t make much intuitive sense.

      BUT… choose “As character” and then suddenly the image is considered *part of the paragraph* and treated just like it was a (rather large) character in the text. Which is what you want 80-90% of the time. So in LibreOffice, you can make that the default, and then choose the “Anchor” options for those rare times when you actually want the image to sit unmoving on the page and have text flow around it (large graphs or pie charts are the only scenarios that come to my mind, almost any other scenario you want the “As character” option).

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      1. The lack of a Normal View in LibreOffice Writer (inherited from OpenOffice’s Bug 4914) makes the program completely unusable for me – and apparently for many others who are not LibreOffice users for this very reason. It’s a CRITICAL! NEED TO HAVE!! FEATURE!!! and its lack is a Dead Norwegian Blue Parrot show-stopper and deal-killer. (And no, “web view” and “hide white space” are not acceptable substitutes.)

        It’s a bug of severity level “causes program to shut down and become uninstalled from my hard drive.”

        Worse, the general programmer mentality seems to be that if this is a problem, it’s a problem with the user’s (luser’s) wetware – that they are Going About Writing The Wrong Way.

        More generally, Windows may be Satanic, but Unix is Lovecraftian.

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  12. Yeah, I spent four plus hours the other evening looking for a sixty dollar purchase. My time limit should have been set more like half an hour and then order it again. I mean, that’s far less than I ever get out of the grocery store for these days, and my day job rate is, well, more than that. T

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  13. Flaws and imperfections measure the distance between desire and reality, not the thing itself. It is, perfectly, what it is, whether or not I desire it to be that way.

    (mantra for practicing obnoxious cello passages over and over again, because the reps are the only thing that make it better)

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      1. Just got this season’s chorus music. “Ok, Ok, not bad, done it twice, sorta not bad, poor basses … Oh, I’m gonna have ta woodshed the heck outta this one!”

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  14. Do not try to deceive us. Your loyal readers have always known you are perfect. Your weak excuse about the book does not fly……..good try tho……..

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  15. Not only would perfection become boring after a while, but perfect people would likely be very annoying. (not that imperfect ones are any better in many cases)

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  17. Who decides what is perfect? There is no absolute standard for individual perfectionism, by this I mean your own life. Add to this a “perfect” life of no mistakes at all is incredibly fragile. It takes but a single misstep for it all to come crashing down.

    I do not admire the perfect. I pity them. Their paltry struggles are simply a delay of the inevitable. All beings fail in their attempts, at least sometimes, assuming they do not have depressingly short lives. Instead, I look up to those who have failed countless times- and still got up to try again. That stubborn will it takes to bull through failure after failure after failure, chasing that one bright shining success is rare. But it should be less so.

    Yes, there are consequences for failure. It’s a bloody good thing there are! Consequences mean risk. Some risks must be taken. Children need to be taught out of risk taking behaviors, because it is not natural to the human condition to try and avoid all risk, as some do these days. But the consequences of failure are a patient teacher. As many times as it takes, as much as a man can stomach, the consequences of failure will teach.

    It is on us to discern the lessons. Some are very simple. Remember to eat regularly, sleep the same, and do basic maintenance on your body. Your body’s health affects your mind. Your mind is where your attitude, feelings, logic, plans, and consciousness reside. So caring for your body improves your life in all aspects. Yet so few of us do.

    Without failure we would be useless people. Full of hollow confidence, empty of true drive and purpose, only to be filled by the urging and manipulation of others. When other people try to shield you from the results, thus the lessons, of failure that should tell you what they aim to be. And what they intend you to be as well.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. If it makes you feel any better, I discovered this past week that ebook 2 in one of my older series had the text from book 1 in it. Not sure how long that had been a thing. Managed to get it sorted in about 24 hours, but since I’d also botched my timesheet at day job, it was a pretty alarming 24 hrs.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. As some wise guy (wiser than me) used to say, “the perfect is the enemy of the done..” Done is not perfect, but it is complete. Completeness can (and nearly always will) have errors in it. But does it work? Heck yes it does. Learning how to stop when you get to the end is what gets a lot of those with perfectionist tendencies.

      I’m still working on that one.

      Liked by 1 person

          1. And then there’s dev teams that use the “Gamm Test” methodology: “Send it to the users and let them find the bugs for us for free!!!”

            Liked by 1 person

              1. My last job did that. Very select clientele. But it was eye opening for new clients when they realized that. I mean, hey, they didn’t have to wait for the next “official” release for any fix and most “new” changes. As long as the change didn’t impact interface changes. Interface changes caused incompatibility changes. This was very much something that users noticed and appreciated.

                Unintended incompatibility changes are bad. They happened but they were very much planned.

                Liked by 1 person

              1. This implies that Beth actually gets around to FIXING said bugs that are found (and often fixed by the modding community). But yeah, AAA game companies do that. A lot.

                One the one side is: there’s umpteen bajillion hardware/software setups, we CAN’T test all of those!

                On the other side is, well, reality as experienced by the consumer. The same bug happening on umpteen bajillion machines running eleventy different kinds and versions of O/S? If we give you the fix, will you actually nut up and FIX it? Thus far has been a lot of nope, though a few tiny yerps.

                Liked by 1 person

                1. Bethesda: Fixing bugs is what the modders are for.

                  Given that they’ve been using the exact same engine for over a decade now (and it’s showing its age), you would think that the bugs would be relatively under control. But apparently not…

                  Liked by 2 people

                  1. Most of the bugs I’ve seen documented in the various pages of the Elder Scrolls wiki aren’t bugs in the engine, they’re bugs in the logic for the quests and such. I.e. bugs that would still exist even if the engine were perfect.

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      3. Yes! Perfection is the enemy of good enough. All of what I designed (as chemist playing engineer) were one-of-a-kind prototypes built in our own machine shop and instrument shop (with which I maintained a close rapport [often they had better ideas that I had]). There was one quiet Friday afternoon that the idle head machinist and I designed and built a small, water-cooled probe to inject particles into a 700C gas stream to replace an elegant design by one of our engineers that did everything but work. It was an ugly creature of odd sized tubing with welded and Swagelok fittings. tubing. Worked fine for years until I forgot to turn the cooling water on one day.

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        1. OTOH, the good is the enemy of the perfect. I have been unable to get quite simple fixes in because people insisted it was good enough.

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          1. After 20 years in software development, testing, and QA, I’m pretty well convinced there is no such thing as a ‘simple fix’.

            In computers, Murphy moves at the speed of light.

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            1. there are many simple fixes. Put in a check whether a value is NULL. Add a where clause to eliminate bad data. Turn a NULL string into an empty string.

              “Why isn’t this report running?” “You entered some bad data. I can check for that.” “Oh no I’ll just correct the data.” “Why isn’t this report running?” “You entered some bad data. I can check for that.” “Oh no I’ll just correct the data.” “Why isn’t this report running?” “You entered some bad data. I can check for that.” “Oh no I’ll just correct the data.” “Why isn’t this report running?” “You entered some bad data. I can check for that.” “Oh no I’ll just correct the data.” “Why isn’t this report running?” “You entered some bad data. I can check for that.” “Oh no I’ll just correct the data.” “Why isn’t this report running?” “You entered some bad data. I can check for that.” “Oh no I’ll just correct the data.”

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              1. Another brilliant and often not used concept. Doing simple checks on the input data! Long ago, we had a newbie programmer write a relatively simple program. In the input dialog was to enter one of five or so choice (like A, B, C, D, E). I was given it to try (break). Broke like a Xmas tree ornament. He had never considered (or checked) that any key but one of the choices would be pressed, multiple keys pressed, or if a correct choice was entered in lower case. Produced weird and wonderful C error messages.

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                    1. Running some complex test queries (outer join, IIRC), I once got an error message including approximately ‘you should never see this error’. Printed that out, emailed the test query to the developer, and went to sit on the edge of his desk.

                      So, Ed, I say, tell me about this error message …

                      Defensive programming is seldom wasted effort.

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                    2. I once saw a comment “Switch this flag to turn the flagging ON.” Notice it doesn’t tell you which way is ON.

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                    3. Way back we had a PDP-8I running crystallographic programs. The code was binary coded decimal (on paper tape). Needing to see the source code, I ran it through another 8I that would convert it to assembly language. Lo and behold, there were comments in the program. The best one was in an intricate section of coding where the programmer noted: “You are not expected to understand the following”.

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                    4. Way back when (late ’90s, OMG it has been 25+ years) I added a comment into a C file (not as intense as binary/assembly) a series of comments that detailed the code a balanced sort file, called B* Sort (look it up) using a buffer. Listed the structures for the key buffers, how it worked, then how and why the logic was “broken” if on initial load presorted data file was noted (quite common). Why? Because of limited storage resources. Not something that ever happened (theory) running app on a PC. But happened regularly on the target device. Complaint? Index file, with same number of records, but fewer actual “characters” (not really because empty buffers were “characters”) was bigger than the downloaded text file. Oh the results were the same on PC as the target device, but the app didn’t crash on the PC, where app would crash on the device.

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                    5. Yes, if you feed already sorted input to a binary tree sort, all the records form a single chain on one ‘side’. If your algorithm is recursive, you can easily overflow the stack when the same data in ‘random’ order would be just fine.

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                    6. “feed already sorted input to a binary tree sort, all the records form a single chain on one ‘side’“

                      –

                      Yes.

                      Plus if you use a buffer to store the keys, and address links, the 1024 byte buffers are 1/2 full, or less (depending on how the keys break), when the key file is finished building. Know how many records, how big the biggest key is going to be (plus storage size for *addresses) and the key file size can be calculated.

                      (*) I forget exactly, it has been 25 years since I’ve worked with it. The reason I documented the whole thing is not because someone else was going to have to figure it out later. While true the real reason was it gave ME a road map the next time I had to dive into that code. Code was my responsibility but did not originate with me. The coder who did “put it together” pulled off the internet and “made it work”. Translation: Had no clue how it worked. Yes, there were bugs that were intermediate.

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                3. Came in one morning at my first job to discover the president had called an all hands because one of our larger customers had his 87 year old Southern Baptist grandmother helping out in the office (Biggest Tom’s vending machine operator in Vicksburg MS). They had an early 6 station server running Novell Netware, and it was her job to come in and follow the instructions to make the weekly backup. No one knows what sequence she hit, but when she got the message in red letters 2 inches high “You fucked up, didn’t you?”, calls were made all the way to Ireland. Found out that some intern was given the job of writing the tape backup interface.

                  Never put anything on the screen you wouldn’t want your mother to see.

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                  1. A friend when a geology grad student had an older fossilized prof in the dept. One instrument the prof frequently employed would verbally ask: “User password?”. Some grad student altered the code to ask: “Loser password?”.

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              2. “there are many simple fixes. Put in a check whether a value is NULL. Add a where clause to eliminate bad data. Turn a NULL string into an empty string.”

                Run the regression test suite to be sure you didn’t break something.

                Merge your fix with the code someone else just uploaded that changes your module while you were working on it, and run the suite again.

                Get some level of management approval to move the change from development/testing to production. Or, worse, to the release candidate that will go to 10,000 customers.

                Update the documentation.

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                1. I have actually had fixes in the can, tested by other developers, when they were shot down by the customer “oh no we’ll just fix the data.”

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            2. Sorry. Incomplete. In computer software, Murphy moves at warp speed, faster than the speed of light.

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      4. Back in the 80s I worked with a guy who could not let anything go until it was perfect. Yep, he never finished anything, poor sod. He also drove everyone crazy. This was Civil Service, Dept. of the Army, and the PTB hired him because of his impressive resume. Two years at Honeywell, 18 months at Boeing, a year or so at McDonnell-Douglas….they learned after they hired him it was because that’s how long people could stand him.

        Eventually, after two demotions (yeah, I know the joke about getting fired from Civil Service, but getting busted from a GS-12 to a 9 also takes exceptional talent), they found uses for his quirks. Things like putting him in charge of getting data out of contractors. He’d just call them, every day, day in and day out, asking for the data until they gave up and gave it to him.

        God rest his soul. It’s easier to be charitable, now.

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  20. I wonder if being perfect in an imperfect universe would be more annoying by far than being imperfect in an imperfect universe?

    At least we are all in the same predicament this way.

    Can you imagine looking around and thinking, “If everyone would just…”

    That way madness lies.

    Look at the Dems. And they just think they’re perfect.

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  21. Here I’m reminded of a certain “Twilight Zone” episode.

    “No, this is the other place, the one where you win every time.”

    Perfection is aspirational, is sometimes achievable. For some of us, it’s exactly what ought to happen, especially if we’re good at imagining things into sort-of-being (like writing prose or programs). But if you got it too much, or too reliably, or too easily… maybe not such a good thing for you, after all?

    (“Hi there, I’m Willie Pete, and I’m here to help you avoid perfection!” Yes, this is my second try at this comment.)

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  22. There are 24 hours in a day. That includes today and tomorrow. There is more time than I think to get X done, if I just start work and stop fretting about “I don’t have time!!!”. I’ve gotten a lot of stuff for Day Job done, to the point that with two more things off the list, I’m good through the end of the month (creating documents and making copies of them). Yet on Thursday of last week I was sweating bullets about getting it all done.

    Can’t do it all today? It’s done but not perfect. It’s done, or it is started and you can finish tomorrow. Breathe. It will get done. Breathe.

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  23. Totally Unrelated Comment from Peoples Republic of Portland:

    Went to Powell’s Bookstore in disguise. Am amazed to report that there were both Sarah and Dan books on the shelves. I purloined 2 of them that had apparently been on the shelves for over a dozen years, which did not amaze me. Cost 3 bucks. I have pictures.

    Amazingly no one sneered at my choices at cashier. If they only knew.

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      1. I got 2 of your old PB. The “date acquired “ was pencilled in on inside page. I figured if I didn’t take them they would be there another decade. I saw the real Dan’s anthologies on their digital index but didn’t chase them down.

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  24. I guess I’m the one who needed to hear this today.

    I’m to the point in the story I’m writing where I’m starting to get scared about getting it done enough to need a proofreader, cover-maker, and *all the things.* And I don’t even know what are all the things. I just figured I’d reach out here when the time came, to ask for help.

    I think mostly if we just keep going, “stay the course,” and do what we think we need to be doing, things will be as OK as they can be.

    I don’t know what else to say, it just feels like there’s a lot more that could be said. Hugs to everyone here who’s been an encouragement and source of great humor over the years I’ve been visiting.

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    2. Take a deep breath. You make checklists, you find more things that need to get done, you make more checklists. Eventually it all gets done. We’ll help.

      The lists of “what you need to do to set up for publication” on Amazon KDP pages are also very helpful!

      (Curretly 41 K into the rough draft of White Cat’s Bluff….)

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    3. My dear Madame Leicester. Chillax, young lady. ~:D

      My latest book, Secret Empire: I read through it, used the Amazon book making thing to do all the headings and chapters etc. and pushed SEND.

      I took a picture of the moon with my phone, added text and a little spaceship with Adobe Express, the free on-line one, and pushed SEND.

      Compared with my first book, which I sweated blood over and worked off-and-on for literally 20 years, Secret Empire is selling about the same. I have dozens of sales.

      Compared to my second book, Angels Incorporated, which has a “real” cover made by a Real Artist who goes to art school and everything (and it is pretty good, to my eye anyway), the picture of the moon I took with my phone and threw together on-line is doing… about 10% lower. No difference, really.

      Marketing? I posted it on Sarah’s Sunday book-booster. So, pretty good result from one mention at According to Hoyt. (Go Sarah go!)

      Otherwise, I am riding my motorcycle like a damn-fool teenager, and fiddling around making stuff in my barn. Sometimes I even write. I am content with what is dealt by The Almighty Amazon Algorithm and I do not sweat the small stuff.

      Phantom says write exactly what you want to, when you want to, and push SEND when you’re done. Let the chips fall where they may. Brag to everyone how your new book kicks @$$, that’s the important part. ~:D

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      1. Thank you so much for the note.

        I imagine you on an Indian, cruising through the winding mountain pass roads at a ridiculous speed. :)

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        1. Rural Ontario on a GS 900. You got the ridiculous speed part right. ~:D I’m such a delinquent…

          Can one old geezer keep up with the street-squids on an adventure bike? Yes! Old age and treachery will always defeat a dumb punk on a GSXR 650 with a square back tire.

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  25. None of us are perfect, and yet we always hold ourselves to the standards of perfection we know we can’t reach and chastise ourselves when we fail to reach them.

    Except slackers, they suck and just don’t care, Narcissists’ blame everyone else for their own mistakes.

    I guess we will do anything to not be a slacker or Narcissists’, even blame ourselves for what is not our failures. Humanity, go figure.

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  26. I have to hold onto perfect because the only way I can keep myself motivated is by having my Inner Drill Sergeant (who makes Gunny Hartman look tame and chill) screaming at me that perfection is not enough.

    …the new medication helps. Most of the time.

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  27. “…because nothing went according to plan.”

    We plan and the Gods laugh. Just this Friday I had my bacon saved –twice– by the kindness of sharp-eyed strangers. I’ll not mention the details, let’s just say that deleting your typeset version pales in comparison. Pales, I say. I felt the Wing of Doom brush me. But, disaster averted. Whew.

    So, Tuesday now, I’m finally starting recover my dignity. Sh1t happens. Sometimes you CAN’T REMEMBER that thing that is so very important to remember. It happens. It happens to me all the time, I must admit. I am distractable. Being stern with myself avails nothing, for distractions abound. A bird flies by and I forget my keys.

    I deal with it by planning for failure. What are you going to do when you’ve locked yourself out of the house AGAIN? You go get that key you hid last time, because you knew your freaking brain was going to fail you. What about when you lose your sunglasses AGAIN?! Don’t have expensive sunglasses, because you’re going to lose them. Because that’s just how it is.

    Back up everything five ways, and try not to have a melt-down when your brain inevitably drops the ball. Just say “thanks, stupid brain” and clean up.

    Nobody’s perfect. Some of us are a lot less perfect than others, we have to be pretty crafty to even manage basic day-to-day functionality.

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  28. I had a plan. it was rejected by the committee, I revised the plan, it was rejected by the committee, I shot the committee and went to go back to the first plan only to find that the committee has usurped my plan and patented it as their own. Now I need to come up with a plan on where to bury the bodies. I had a plan…

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