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Point of failure.

“Oh yeah,” I said, “that’s the single point of failure.”

They both stared back at me, blankly.

“What?” asked Neile.

I looked over at Mike. He raised both hands in a sign of surrender. “You lost me too.”

I sat there, dumbfounded at a sudden inability to communicate. I could have summarized the essential points of “reliable system design”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_point_of_failure, explaining that a Single Point of Failure (or SPOF) is simply a point in any system where the entire system collapses or ceases to critically function if that one point fails. The router on HoneyRock’s network is an SPOF. Your heart is an SPOF. The brake system on your speeding car is an SPOF. The exhaust vent on the Death Star is an SPOF. I could have explained all this, but I didn’t.

Instead, I said “Nevermind.” The conversation carried on.

I find myself encountering situations like this quite often in my job. Especially when people ask me, “So, what did you do today?” When I’m feeling more valiant, I pick the easiest thing to explain, use metaphor and everyday language, gloss over it, and still receive the same response: glassy stare, blank smile, and “Oh, okay.” Most days I speak in vague generalities, enough to fulfill the rote mechanisms of community, and we both go on with our days.

Occasionally, I don’t hold back. Last month, when the new file server was levitating, spinning its head and vomiting all over the place, I let loose on poor Lina when she stopped by my office to ask how things were going. To her credit, she listened to everything I had to say and offered me words of encouragement. It got me through the day with my sanity, but I still felt sorry for her.

All the same though, there is no replacement for having a detailed, technical conversation with someone–talking shop. Last week, while the camp’s Internet connection was down and I scrambled to find the problem (the SPOF turned out to be our service provider), Tim stopped by to see how things were going. Tim preceded me in this position and knows the network nearly as well as I do. Before long we were trading ideas back and forth in excited frenzy. We carried the conversation on through dinner, Tim frantically scratching out diagrams on napkins. Compare this to most of my other conversations of the day:

“Is the internet up yet?”

“Nope.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Don’t know.”

Paul Ford nicely sums up these feelings and frustrations in a “recent essay/NPR commentary”:http://www.ftrain.com/Gallivespians.html of his:

bq. Why are so many of the things I love so embarrassing? Computer programming, science fiction, blogging-every one of my passions is something to sneer at. You’re supposed to not care, to just do the things you love and ignore public censure-but who doesn’t know better than that? When I discovered computers, I used to hide the manuals, so that no one could see. From the age of 12, I knew it was better to be a cipher, invisible to my peers, with no obvious preferences, than to be known as a boy who loved fractals. The alternative was beatings, and spitballs. Now, when I meet strangers, I talk about anything but websites and sci-fi. I keep the topics urbane. Art, serious film, well-reviewed books.

Like him, this failure to communicate my own passions to the average other extends to many areas of my life–writing, reading, computers, even my own faith. There are gaps of context and knowledge and experience that I just don’t know how to bridge, and so I end up just feeling foolish, even though I know I shouldn’t.

I suppose that’s why my writings in this space tend toward the technical and idea-oriented, rather than “here’s what I did today and here’s what’s going on in my life.” I can live my “normal” life just fine outside this office, away from this computer screen, but the inner life needs to get outside now and then and stretch its legs, because it’s very cramped inside my head.

So, those of you my readers who often scratch your heads when I ramble on about things, when you have the time, please, read through these things and follow the links that I give, and maybe learn a bit about what’s inside my head. It’s really not all that complicated, just often obscure and esoteric. Shoot me an email or a comment, ask me questions, let me know what you think. I’d love to explain it to someone who actually would like to learn about it. And if you happen to be one of those who know exactly what I’m talking about, let’s talk shop sometime, okay?

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