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Daily Dose of Curious
DAILY DOSE OF CURIOUS
Today's dose
A recurring note from the workshop. One thought, most days — about fixing things, building things, and the ways both of them teach you something you did not go looking for. Nothing here is a motivational quote. They are the things you end up believing after enough afternoons under a treadmill.
The drawer
These are distilled from writing already on this site: field notes, project write-ups, workshop entries and a decade of job sheets. Each one records internally which piece of work it grew out of, so the drawer stays honest rather than filling up with things that merely sound wise. The number on each card is its permanent identity — the order can change, the number does not.
Thoughts
One thought, most days.
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Daily Dose of Curious
The machines were never the interesting part. The people around them were.
031
Daily Dose of Curious
A path does not have to be straight to be going somewhere.
030
Daily Dose of Curious
Remove the obstacles and the team does the rest. Most of coaching is admin done thoughtfully.
029
Daily Dose of Curious
Write the note for the version of you that has forgotten everything. That one always turns up.
028
Daily Dose of Curious
A machine that behaves while you watch it is still broken. You are not the one it breaks for.
027
Daily Dose of Curious
If two machines in the same room fail the same week, stop looking at the machines.
025
Daily Dose of Curious
Craft is not a material. You can be careless with oak and meticulous with a config file.
024
Daily Dose of Curious
A supplier worth having is one you walk into with a problem instead of a part number.
023
Daily Dose of Curious
Site access is the longest part of most jobs and appears on no timesheet.
022
Daily Dose of Curious
There is no such thing as a quick look at a treadmill.
021
Daily Dose of Curious
The van is a workshop, a parts department, and a game of Tetris you are slowly losing.
020
Daily Dose of Curious
Kit you forget you are wearing was designed properly. Everything else comes off by lunchtime.
019
Daily Dose of Curious
Do not only fix what is in front of you. Ask what would have stopped it.
018
Daily Dose of Curious
The tool you reach for without looking is the one that was worth the money.
017
Daily Dose of Curious
Explaining it to somebody else is the exam. Everything before that was revision.
016
Daily Dose of Curious
Technology should leave you more capable, not more dependent. Those are not the same upgrade.
015
Daily Dose of Curious
Competence is a few thousand small mistakes, arranged in a useful order.
014
Daily Dose of Curious
Find the annoyance. Ask why it exists. Most good tools start there rather than with an idea.
013
Daily Dose of Curious
Curiosity is not a break from the work. On the good days it is the work.
012
Daily Dose of Curious
Fix the machine and leave the person no wiser and you have done half the job.
011
Daily Dose of Curious
A workshop with nothing half-finished on the bench is a showroom.
010
Daily Dose of Curious
Software forgives a wrong move. A rounded fastener does not, and it teaches a different kind of care.
009
Daily Dose of Curious
Clean it, look at it, oil it, put it back. Four minutes now or a morning later.
008
Daily Dose of Curious
Every shortcut is a letter to somebody who has to read it in six months.
007
Daily Dose of Curious
An engineer is only as good as the stock in the van and the hour they were given.
006
Daily Dose of Curious
Break it on purpose while you can still afford to. That is the cheapest lesson on offer.
005
Daily Dose of Curious
There is rarely one magic modification. There is usually a fourth attempt.
004
Daily Dose of Curious
Knowing that it works and knowing why it works are different jobs. Only one of them travels.
003
Daily Dose of Curious
The best engineers I have worked with ask more than they answer. That is not a gap in what they know.
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Daily Dose of Curious
A closed ticket and a solved problem are two different documents.
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Daily Dose of Curious
A part that might be faulty is a question, not a diagnosis.
How things work
How something actually works, in four stages.
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Daily Dose of Curious
HOW IT WORKS
How does a QR code still scan when part of it is missing?
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Daily Dose of Curious
HOW IT WORKS
How does contactless payment work without a battery?
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Daily Dose of Curious
HOW IT WORKS
How does a torque wrench know when to click?
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Daily Dose of Curious
HOW IT WORKS
How does a fuse protect a circuit?
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Daily Dose of Curious
HOW IT WORKS
How does a treadmill know how fast the belt is moving?
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Daily Dose of Curious
HOW IT WORKS
Why are the pairs in an Ethernet cable twisted?
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Daily Dose of Curious
HOW IT WORKS
How does ARP find a MAC address?
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Daily Dose of Curious
HOW IT WORKS
How does a switch know where to send a frame?
Workshop notes
A dry notice from a bench that has seen things.
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Daily Dose of Curious
WORKSHOP NOTE
SECOND OPINION — the same fault, described by somebody who has slept.
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Daily Dose of Curious
WORKSHOP NOTE
THE QUIET BENCH — this job on it, and nothing else. Rare, and worth it.
050
Daily Dose of Curious
WORKSHOP NOTE
SERVICE HISTORY — what somebody wrote down, which is not what happened.
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Daily Dose of Curious
WORKSHOP NOTE
SHIMS — proof that somebody measured. Eventually.
048
Daily Dose of Curious
WORKSHOP NOTE
ACCESS PANEL — four screws, three of which you can reach.
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Daily Dose of Curious
WORKSHOP NOTE
THE MANUAL — read in full exactly once, after the part went in backwards.
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Daily Dose of Curious
WORKSHOP NOTE
TEMPORARY REPAIR — load-bearing by Thursday.
045
Daily Dose of Curious
WORKSHOP NOTE
CALIBRATION — agreeing in writing which of your tools is lying.
044
Daily Dose of Curious
WORKSHOP NOTE
ROOT CAUSE — four hours in, and it costs eleven pence.
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Daily Dose of Curious
WORKSHOP NOTE
SPARE PARTS — the ones you kept are never the ones that fail.
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Daily Dose of Curious
WORKSHOP NOTE
INTERMITTENT FAULT — works perfectly, right up until you leave the building.
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Daily Dose of Curious
WORKSHOP NOTE