John McMillan Jr. wrote:
> : ...Now the question for the engineer was why the car wouldn't start
> : when it took less time. Once time became 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.
> :
> : Moral of the story: even insane-looking problems are sometimes real.
> :
John:
I realize at on level this is meant as a joke
To the engineer there is an even more important lesson to be learned.
Make sure that you understand the symptoms and their route causes. Many
times we make the error of treating a symptom "car will not start when
vanilla ice cream is purchased" therefore the car is allergic to vanilla
ice cream.
Instead of understanding the reason for the symptom - vapor lock.
I had a challenge about 9 years ago where the solution for a part
pulling of
a bar was to hold it tighter. Actual reason the part came off the bar
was that the bar rotated when pulled so that the part to be pealed off
the pins, it never once actually tore off the pins. Solution was to
change shoes for the bar so the bar rotated to prevent pealing the part
off.
Niel Leon - CDS,inc
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jun 05 2001 - 22:46:17 EEST