Irrational By Design

Compared to the average person I would probably rank as a pretty experienced computer user. This unfortunately means (and that’s not Windows specific) that I am often expected to take irrational actions in order to produce the desired outcome. Lately, more often than not, the desired outcome falls under the label "Troubleshoot a Digital Misfortune".

There is a small problem with semantics here, as the concept of Expected Irrational Behavior that Leads to a Desired Outcome is a self-destructing concept. Have many people repeat any behavior often enough for long enough and in the end it will be considered rational... Or maybe not? I don’t know. I am confused here...

To make matters even worse, obviously any of these irrational behaviors is really only seemingly irrational. Somewhere under the hood there is a good reason why it works, but as far as I am concerned as long as we don’t know that reason the behavior remains irrational. And even when we know the reasons, all too often we get the "this behavior is by design" disclaimer. It should really say that "this behavior is by irrational design".

So this seemingly irrational behavior can only be considered rational because the design of the software is irrational. As soon as we get a better design such behavior will be considered irrational once again... Or at least I HOPE SO!!!

Take for instance the latest Microsoft updates that I got for my workstation.

I have the auto-update setting set to download and then ask me before installing, just in case I don’t want to install some update. Yeah I am a control freak, I know... So yesterday afternoon Windows kindly asked and I as usual accepted the updates. But then something started to seem wrong... Download completed but "Preparing for installation" was taking awfully long.

After 6 hours in the preparing state I decide to bravely Stop Installation and reboot the computer and retry. Now just think for a moment... This course of action entitled "Reboot and Retry", or RnR for short, sometimes in the past used to be irrational behavior. But not any more. Evolution in action!

Tough luck though. The updates continued to fail with the same error code. It was late so I decided to go to bed and retry the next morning, who knows maybe there is an intermittent problem with the update servers. So next morning I retried and failed, so I took the next rational step which is to search for the error code on the Internet. There was not much useful information, and definitely nothing about what the error code actually meant. Some people however suggested that when they got this error, if they would try directly on the Windows Update web site they could get the updates installed.

Now, that’s another fine specimen of irrationality. Why on earth should the updates succeed through the update web site? Does the OS have two distinct mechanisms at its core for installing updates? I would not think so… Anyway, it’s probably a slight change in some execution path that causes the OS to accidentally bypass the bug. Most of the time we accidentally hit on bugs, but we might as well accidentally bypass them :-P That’s how computers work, man...

So I thought I would give the update web site a try. I make my way through the Vista menus and find the Windows Update shortcut. Alas, it took me to the same screen that you get to if you go through Control Panel ==> Check for Updates.
Of course, being an experienced computer user, I had to retry pressing “Install”. Irrational behavior but you never know! Heck, Windows behaved rationally this time. So I clicked and it once again failed to install the updates. I don’t know about you, but I would rather have a rational and deterministic operating system so strangely enough I was glad it didn't work.

So by now I was pretty stuck, looking at my monitor in utter dumbfoundednessization. Many hours had passed and I had rebooted twice, so the problem was not something intermittent. The update servers are most likely ruled out for the same reason, plus the fact that the updates were already downloaded and it was installation that was failing. My web searches had yielded no useful results, so what was I supposed to do now?

And there and then, while I was irrationally trying to recall the URL of Windows Update so I can type it in directly to the browser... there and then... in an unprecedented display of irrational behavior I clicked the Install button once again...

BINGO! The updates installed!!! No, I am not on too much diet coke, it actually worked...

Haha, but I lied. Don’t get me wrong, it sure worked. I lied about it being an "unprecedented" display. I do that thing quite often I hate to admit... because heck... sometimes it just works!!!

So now we have yet another irrational concept: "Retrying an action while no apparent changes have been made to the environment that might warrant a different outcome".

If I am not mistaken that very concept is the actual definition of insanity as these find gentlemen seem to agree:

Albert Einstein
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Stephen F. Lynch
I am told that the clinical definition of insanity is the tenancy to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results.

Wow64, not only a control freak but also clinically insane!

But I am afraid I have no other option left. I’d rather be clinically insane AND have my problems solved rather than be clinically insane BECAUSE my problems are unsolved :-P

Have Fun!
Dimitris Staikos

Comments

[papadi.pip.verisignlabs.com]

I loved the first part of your post! I'ver never thought about it this way. Indeed the phrase "behavior is by design" is so often abused! Especially when us developers produce complex software.
However... if you see it from the user's perspective, maybe doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results can be considered insane. But if you see it from the machine perspective, one could consider it intelligent. Especially if after some iterrations it worked!