BUFFER

October 14th, 2019

Tinkered Thinking has once again incurred some unfortunate technical difficulties.  There was a big fat 3,000 word episode ready, but that’ll be shifted to the next day.

This highlights a need that was partly addressed with a couple episodes in the past few weeks.  Last month Tinkered Thinking embarked on an experiment to stay on time for a full month in order to eradicate the possibility of a late episode.  This habit-formation experiment was a big success. 

However:

Such a change does not protect against unforeseen circumstances like the technical problems with failing recording equipment that has now put Tinkered Thinking behind once again.

What’s needed is a buffer.  A cache of episodes that are preloaded that can auto-release when production delays come about due to unforeseen circumstances.

Come to think of it, this whole issue of staying on time is a bit like managing finances.

A late episode is like going into debt. 

Staying on-time is like living from paycheck to paycheck.

Having a buffer, or a cache of episodes that are ready ahead of schedule is like having savings in the bank.

This has been a minor aim of Tinkered Thinking since the beginning and there have been stretches of days and weeks when this buffer existed but now it has come into full focus and the need to build this buffer is front and center. 

Tinkered Thinking will embark on another experiment and aim to produce two episodes a day for a month.  This will create a 30 episode buffer which will not only protect against unforeseen circumstances, but it’ll also allow for total hands-off vacations.  Though… the last 500 and some odd days have not produced much desire for such a vacation.  Then again, who knows how thinking might evolve with a bit of a break.  We’ll see, but in the meantime, there is some sprinting to do.  This experiment will start with the beginning of next month, and naturally, there’ll be a follow-up episode to report on the process and result.