Jalaj P. Jha Technical & Miscellaneous Ramblings

Small issues are not just to be ignored!

Here is an interesting piece of story I came across recently.

The Pontiac Division of General Motors received a complaint:

‘This is the second time I have written to you, and I don’t blame you for not answering me, because I sounded crazy, but it is a fact that we have a tradition in our family of Ice-Cream for dessert after dinner each night, but the kind of ice cream varies so, every night, after we’ve eaten, the whole family votes on which kind of ice cream we should have and I drive down to the store to get it. It’s also a fact that I recently purchased a new Pontiac and since then my trips to the store have created a problem.

You see, every time I buy a vanilla ice cream, when I start back from the store my car won’t start. If I get any other kind of ice cream, the car starts just fine. I want you to know I’m serious about this question, no matter how silly it sounds “What is there about a Pontiac that makes it not start when I get vanilla ice cream, and easy to start whenever I get any other kind?”

The Pontiac President was understandably skeptical about the letter, but sent an Engineer to check it out anyway.

The latter was surprised to be greeted by a successful, obviously well educated man in a fine neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time, so the two hopped into the car and drove to the ice cream store. It was vanilla ice cream that night and, sure enough, after they came back to the car, it wouldn’t start.

The Engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, they got chocolate. The car started. The second night, he got strawberry. The car started. The third night he ordered vanilla. The car failed to start.

Now the engineer, being a logical man, refused to believe that this man’s car was allergic to vanilla ice cream. He arranged, therefore, to continue his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem. And toward this end he began to take notes: He jotted down all sorts of data: time of day, type of gas uses, time to drive back and forth etc.

In a short time, he had a clue: the man took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavor. Why? The answer was in the layout of the store. Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pickup. All the other flavors were kept in the back of the store at a different counter where it took considerably longer to checkout.

Now, the question for the Engineer was why the car wouldn’t start when it took less time. Time was now the problem – not the vanilla ice cream!!!! The engineer quickly came up with the answer: “vapor lock”.

It was happening every night; but the extra time taken to get the other flavors allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapor lock to dissipate.

Even crazy looking problems are sometimes real

So, the problem that seemed to be attached to the ice cream flavor was a problem actually in the car, Just ignoring the reported problem could have meant inability to trace the actual problem. This is just a funny example that many might not even consider to be real. But reading this reminded me of a non-fiction book ‘The Cuckoo's Egg’ by Cliff Stoll which I had started reading in 2006 but could not complete it due to job switching. I looked for it and and started reading again from scratch and am already finished reading more than half of the book that too in just a single day.

Cliff Stoll, an astronomer, employed as a Systems Administrator is asked to look into a $0.75 difference in accounting. 75  cents! an amount that could well be ignored!! At the end of day it comes out that someone had actually used computing power but successfully skipped paying the due amount $0.75. Now the amount was small but problem worth noting was that the guy was logged in as an administrator, an administrator no one knew, using an account no one created. Page by page new facts come up. What looked like searching for a high school student messing with networks end up grabbing cross-country spy looking for confidential military documents. Note that this is a real story. Here is the link to the first chapter of the book.