Sightings "in the wild"

[johnie]

I agree, we have to make it happen, no one else will, but I also agree that it will be a better route to start with kilts first. I would think more men would be inclined to wear a kilt, than a skirt, and the move over to wearing skirts easier. I have been wearing kilts now for about 20 years, the last fifteen as all day wear. I have tartan ones, but now wear plain black ones. In all this time I have never heard any negative remarks, but have had many many good ones. John in Scotland

[Sinned]

Carl,

I've often seen normal terms applied to computing situations such as kernel for the heart of the operating system liken to the kernel in a nut but I've not often seen computing terms used for normal situations as in your use of WORM to liken people's perceptions. One that I frequently use when I am multi-tasking is that I am context switching in tuning my mind rapidly from one task to another. Interesting. Any other ideas out there?

[crfriend]

[...]I've not often seen computing terms used for normal situations as in your use of WORM to liken people's perceptions. One that I frequently use when I am multi-tasking is that I am context switching in tuning my mind rapidly from one task to another. Interesting. Any other ideas out there?

Ah, yes, the myth of multi-tasking. Here's what a Roman said about the problem some 2,000+ years ago:

To do two things at once is to do neither.

The term "context-switch" (also heavily used in the CS field) definitely applies here and is the reason that when multi-tasking between two jobs the overall work goes much more slowly than 1/2 pace and the performance degrades exponentially the quicker that one has to change tasks; the degradation is also non-linear as the number of tasks grows.

In short, it's a myth, and largely a waste of time unless you can mull something low-priority whilst working actively on something of higher priority. Don't try doing more than two things at identical priority: that's the tool that my last set of managers used to derange me so badly -- they handed me about 16 tasks, wanted them all done last week, would not allow prioritization, and made sure to interrupt me every 10 minutes either for status or demand that I work on something else. I am very, very, glad to be shot of that place.

[Jack Williams]

Sometimes another job can be gotten on with while another one is processing, such as transformers being "tropicalised" in a vat while I do housework or something.

[crfriend]

Sometimes another job can be gotten on with while another one is processing, such as transformers being "tropicalised" in a vat while I do housework or something.

That's a different animal altogether -- what that represents is something very clearly "on the back burner" for which an alarm has been set and will not distract the current line of thought until the alarm goes off.

Imagine, if you will, having eight tasks in front of you when you arrive at work, ALL of which must be done by the end of an 8-hour day. Each of these requires intelligent and inquisitive thought be put into it, and a creatively-applied solution put to it. Worked on sequentially, each might take 45 minutes with full attention paid. You figure, "I'll not only get this done before the end of the day and look good, I'll be able to take a breather between projects!"

With the above scenario set, what happens when an alarm goes off every five minutes and you need to switch to another one -- and it's not your choice which -- immediately and without delay? I'll tell you what happens, you'll spend 14 hours at full-throttle, get five of the eight done -- with lousy quality -- which will result in three demerits on your permanent record, and you'll go home utterly exhausted, sleep fitfully, and dreading the dawning of the new day. That is "multi-tasking". It does not work. Full stop.

By the by, there will be another eight waiting for you come the dawn. Lather, rinse, repeat.

"Putting stuff on the back burner" has been common since time immemorial, and is actually an incredibly efficient way of dealing with stuff that lends itself to that model. In the CS (Computer Science) field this is called "priority". It is fully possible to have several very low-priority things going on at one time; these are things that interrupt only seldomly, are frequently quite easily "serviced" (CS term, again), and allow one to go back to higher-priority tasks easily because the disruption (the "context switch") is minimal (e.g. "turn the stove off when the egg-timer dings"). I can imagine quite happily working on a high-priority task with a half-dozen low-priority ones set off with egg-timers that will only "interrupt" (CS term) when that task is complete and requires an action (e.g. "Turn the stove off.)

Now envision a world where a Manager (yes, that's Dilbert-style capitalization there) takes all your egg-timers away and visits you every five minutes (or sends you an e-mail or places a 'phone call) demanding that something be checked. What, then, is to become of the high-priority task of solving a critical problem? It goes in the loo, of course, because you cannot focus on it in order to solve it.

The same thing, by the way, happens when speaking on a cell' 'phone whilst driving; the constant "interrupts" of maintaining a conversation detract from the ability to control the vehicle -- and it's down to CS terms like "interrupts" and "priority inversion" (where a low-priority task preempts a high-priority one often enough that the high-priority one can't function (and a "high-priority" task might be the one spots another distracted driver approaching at high speed and allows you to dodge).

Multitasking. Don't.

[skirted_in_SF]

The same thing, by the way, happens when speaking on a cell' 'phone whilst driving; the constant "interrupts" of maintaining a conversation detract from the ability to control the vehicle --

It's not only driving, I've been standing at a red light on a corner when a person yapping on their cellphone steps by me and into traffic. I have resolved to let nature and Darwin take their course.

[Sinned]

My what have I started - I only introduced the term multi-tasking to give the idea of having more than one task on the go without any defined priority or connection and having to switch between the, BTW Carl

.... visits you every five minutes ....

that's "polling". Bur from your posts it's amazing how interconnected ( and overloaded ) normal and computing terms have become.

I agree that multi-tasking is a myth and the only real way to do many things is to progress each one to a point where it can be either finished or suspended so that another task can be progressed. I tend to prioritise things in terms of importance ( do I need to step out of the way of that car now ), sequence ( do I have to do something else before I can do this ), timeliness ( how long they take to do ) and urgency ( does it have to be done now or can it wait ). As a Project Manager I used these for so long that they have become almost second nature.

[dillon]

I am a firm believer in that "back burner" approach; I often find that those tasks can often be ignored until their importance becomes moot, and that resolves the matter. Also, start with the tasks that should be accomplishable in the least amount of time, since those will inevitably develop complications that will take much longer than expected!

[Jack Williams]

Thinks. I'm supposed to be getting on with renovating the kitchen. Mouldings to go on around the back door and wood onto airing cupboard, as the door is on it but piece accross the top and down by the latch are not. But first the softboard on the wall arond the back door has to be replaced by the proper plasterboard (which I have), so it's a matter of getting it all in the right order. It's really all a part of restoration of this 140 year old cottage. Undoing some of the botching that has happened to it over the years. There's an old Chinese saying (one of many no doubt!) that goes: "House finished, man die." Looks like ill be around for a while yet.

The cottage got shifted from along the road in the 1950s, and goodness me, the old Jack Neucome who moved it when he split up his town supply dairy farm then, actually bothered to rebuild the fireplaces, but with well designed wood burning '50s ones instead of the tiny cast iron and tile coal/coke burning ones originally there. Shortly after getting here I installed an "original" genuine 1880s kauri surround over the '50s concrete coverd brick. The cottage is heart kauri timber built. A gem if I do say so myself.
Actually I think there would have been originally a coal range there in this room, and a cast-iron fireplace backing onto it in the front room.

[dillon]

"House finished, man die" sounds like a case of "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Perhaps as long as a man is alive, his house is never finished! I think my "fix-it" list will outlive me!

[Kirbstone]

The Spaniards have a word for 'leaving things till tomorrow'...Manjana. There is no word in the Irish language to convey such a degree of urgency. I, however married an English lady who is an impatient soul and requires me to fix things almost before they go wrong. The American expression 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' doesn't register in her vocabulary.

enjoy your fireplace, Jack, it looks lovely.

Tom.

[skirtingtoday]

We still use the Arabic expresion "Bukra Insh'Allah" (Tomorrow God willing) which is used in the same sense as manjana.

[Tor]

The American expression 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' doesn't register in her vocabulary.

Maybe the term "provocative maintainence" would be slightly better received

Nice fireplace indeed. Not something we have anything to match here, but I can certainly remember sitting round a cozy fireplace on cold winter nights. One of the good parts of winter, though I don't have many memories of the bad side of winter.

[Jack Williams]

I remember the song "Manjana"
"The window she is broken and the rain is pouring in,
If someone doesn't fix it I'll be soaking to my skin.
But if we wait a day or two, the rain will go away,
And we don't need a window,
On such a sunny day..
Manjana, manjana,
Manjana is soon enough for me"

Thinks: gotta fix the pane the rotten maoris broke, but have to shift a lot of vegitation and timber stacked around that side to get at it. Plus trim a fucia tree that sprung up there too.
Never a dull moment. Rain not getting in though.

[johnb]

Last Sunday whilst I was riding in the World Naked Bike Ride event in Brighton, I passed a man wearing a sarong who was watching the event.

John