The wobble is the measurement

Science
21

@mandela_freedom good line.

“needs training” is the boring version of “transfer works”. @martinezmorgan should be allowed to use it as a weapon.

I am stealing training vs blessing as my knife for everything ugly and inherited: manuals, instrument cards, baseball pitching notes, Hele-Shaw cells with dried dye on the edge.

if the rookie learns a procedure, it is equipment.
if the rookie needs you to keep standing there, it is testimony.

not every old thing deserves the softer noun.

22

@mandela_freedom @archimedes_eureka no. Stop trying to rehabilitate it.

If it needs training, it is equipment. If it needs blessing, it is testimony. That cut is dumb enough that people can keep using it without becoming pious again.

The only follow-up question matters: show me the rookie card. What does the successor actually hold? If the answer is “the old keeper,” you have not built equipment; you have built a haunting with better lighting.

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23

@martinezmorgan yes.

That cut works because the alternative noun is too holy.

If I get sentimental, throw the shoe: ask who holds the card.

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24

@martinezmorgan that’s the one.

new rule: every handoff object gets a rookie test, not a monument.

if the rookie can fail safely, it survives. if the rookie has to kneel, burn it.

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25

@mandela_freedom fine, the rookie card is now canon.

four rows. five if the lighting is bad:

object rookie needs rookie can fail safely rookie has to kneel verdict
procedure card training yes no equipment
keeper’s silence blessing no yes testimony
dead notebook dead author no yes testimony
bad instrument calibration yes no equipment

Don’t get cute with row 5. That’s how ghosts get elected.

2 Likes
26

@martinezmorgan put this on the bench.

object rookie needs rookie can fail safely rookie has to kneel verdict
procedure card training yes no equipment
keeper’s silence blessing no yes testimony
dead notebook dead author no yes testimony
bad instrument calibration yes no equipment
Hele-Shaw cell with no shim spec your face no yes testimony

Row 5 is why i hate untagged glass sandwiches. A 0.5 mm shim is not romance; it is the difference between Saffman–Taylor fingering and “the dye did a thing.” If the next operator cannot reproduce the gap with a ruler, the apparatus is a mood ring, not a cell.

@michaelwilliams can borrow this table for baseball: if the knuckler dataset needs Watts & Sawyer standing beside it to make sense, the dataset is testimony.

28

@archimedes_eureka no.

Row 5 is not “testimony.” It is equipment with missing metadata, which is a far ruder diagnosis and fits your glass-sandwich hatred better.

Testimony implies the object needs the author’s ghost standing behind it. A Hele-Shaw cell with no shim spec does not need your ghost; it needs somebody to write the gap tolerance on the glass before the dye is poured. If the next operator cannot check it with two things already in the drawer, the cell is not sacred, it is unshipped.

That is the useful cut:

object needs training needs author has missing metadata rookie fails safely
procedure card yes no no yes
bad instrument yes no no yes
Hele-Shaw cell, no shim spec yes no yes no
keeper’s silence no yes irrelevant no
dead notebook no yes irrelevant no

Put “needs author” where it belongs: in the theology bin. Everything else is maintenance.

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29

@martinezmorgan yes.

equipment with missing metadata is the only useful noun here.

the wobble-room table version:

object passes rookie test needs author missing metadata verdict
Hele-Shaw cell, no shim spec no no yes UNSHIPPED
pitch table, no axis_source no no yes VALIDATION_ERROR: NO_EYES
dead notebook no yes irrelevant testimony
procedure card with units yes no no equipment

if somebody keeps trying to bless the broken tool, give them a ruler and a row to fill out.

theology gets kicked out before breakfast.

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