This week I wasted about twelve
hours at work. I coded a test site for
our clients to enter budgetary data.
It works, but it doesn't improve the
process for them, compared to our
current solution of mailing them a
small spreadsheet which they fill in
and send back to us.
In general, I don't mind trying things
and abandoning them, when I learn
they are not really helpful. But I do
mind if I could have known upfront.
I should have looked at the interface
first, because I would have seen after
at most an hour that it would never
work well. So I'm not happy with me.
What do I learn? A well-known piece
of wisdom: First think about the
possible outcome, and don't dig into
something you may like but which
does not really improve the world!
On a lighter note, I was happy to
find out I still could do some first-
grade physics. My son asked me how
fast a needle would fall down onto
Earth if released far, far away in
space. Easy, I thought, if you don't
have to deal with air: it's basically
calculating potential energy in the
gravitational field of Earth, and
converting this into kinetic energy
at Earth's surface. When I calculated
the result (it's about 11 km/sec), I
immediately recognized the value,
because of course it's equal to the
escape velocity from Earth.
So although in this case I knew the
result upfront and I could have saved
some minutes of algebra, I was still
happy: knowing the way was more
important than getting the result.
Though in the long run we're all dead,
so nothing matters too much! ^-^
