"No one understand this machine completely"
"Sometimes things get so complicated that its behavior looks like magic."
So, one campaign launch day all the landing pages of the company that i work, gone offline. After 6 hours of talking with all the areas, all internal and external specialists, trying everything, including fighting and crying, we discovery that Amazon Web Services (AWS) had experienced a multi-hour outage. I had to go to twitter:
"The trick with working with technology is that after a certain point, all technology becomes magic. Then there is a problem, everyone is hitting things to see if it works."
A friend indicated "Overcomplicated". Thank you, it was a nice book to read.
The creation of complex systems is done by joining several other parts and other systems that are more basic or even as complex. This interaction between all parties generates expected results, but it also stops many processes from being clear and obvious. This means that if we need to change something, it is very difficult to identify where the change needs to be made, or, for example, how to solve a Bug. When a bug appears it shows that this connection relationship exists and is faulty. It is not a simple and isolated problem, but a sample that some of these connections are failing. In biology we use genetic errors, mutations, to better study how organisms work, for example flies with the Antennapedia mutation. Errors in gene replication and the visible differences are how we can learn about the functions of the genes. We need to look at technology bugs with a more naturalistic look.
<aside> đź’ˇ There are two ways to approach these problems:
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“This is clear from the following version of an old scientific joke. A dairy farmer, interested in increasing the milk yield of his cattle, brings in two consultants to help him: a biologist and a physicist. The biologist goes off and after a week comes back with a detailed report on what to do for each cow, depending on weather conditions, the size and type of the cow, and so forth. The report is over 300 pages long, but the farmer is assured that following the various procedures will result in an average increase in milk yields of about 3–5 percent. The physicist goes off and comes back three hours later, announcing a general and powerful solution to increase yields by over 50 percent. How so? asks the farmer. “Well,” replies the physicist, “first, you assume a spherical cow. . . .””
We need to learn to look at technology problems in a different light. The biological look at technology would be to look at small variations, small details can bring out much more complex interaction problems. The secret is to know how to balance what is a Physical thought (Generalize in an abstract way) and what is biological thought (look at the detail within the system). Looking at the order while not ignoring the rough edges. In the past, it was part of the scientific method to collect and catalog “bizarre”, today we don't see science like that, but the reality is that we learn a lot from the exceptions. But as we live in a society of specialists, who should look at these exceptional moments? Probably general practitioners. Generalists are probably the best suited to navigate between the physical and biological fields. More specifically professionals with a background in T, deep knowledge in one area and a breadth of knowledge in other areas, such as a data scientist for example, who uses computer and statistical knowledge to analyse information, regardless of the area. It is important to know that it is impossible to know everything, the systems are too complex, we need to change the approach. In general people when they encounter problems in complex systems respond with fear or almost religious reverence. But Technology is not perfect, it is a mass of joints and accretion, we must approach technology with humility and curiosity.