Old Goat
Administrator
Ohm Lord, bless our wet wicks, steady our mixing hands, and deliver us from the most expensive sentence in the workshop:
“I’ll remember what’s in that.”
Congregation, no you bloody won’t.
You went into the kitchen for scissors yesterday and returned with cheese. Let us be realistic about the capabilities of the archive.
Reading the old Bible, I keep noticing Elric’s notebook. While Thaddeus is improving history until it bears no resemblance to events, Elric writes things down. Actual things. The sort that become inconvenient when somebody announces he has always been right.
A notebook. Apparently the most dangerous object in the Church.
Which brings us to today’s illustration. This is a parable from the pulpit, before anyone starts searching the manuscript for a missing chapter.
A Dripmonk creates a magnificent custard.
Not merely acceptable custard. The sort that makes a man stop mid-sentence and look suspiciously at his own bottle.
He has achieved it, congregation. The elusive juice. The Bottle of Faith has delivered.
“Write it down,” says a sensible voice.
“No need,” says the Dripmonk. “I know exactly what I did.”
He puts the bottle beside three others.
One is yesterday’s custard. One is tomorrow’s experiment. One is a liquid whose identity has already departed this earthly realm.
They are all amber.
They all have black caps.
One bears the inscription “NEW”, which would have been useful had the word been accompanied by a date, a recipe, or evidence that it referred to the contents rather than the bottle.
Three weeks pass.
The magnificent custard runs out.
The Dripmonk opens his recipe file and discovers a document called FINAL.
Then FINAL2.
Then FINAL_REAL.
Then FINAL_REAL_USE_THIS_ONE.
The last was modified before the first.
This is interpreted as a miracle.
He reconstructs the recipe from memory. Adds a little more vanilla. Changes the cream because the original bottle is empty. Replaces the cotton. Moves to another atomiser. Adjusts the power.
The result tastes wrong.
Clearly, something mysterious has happened to custard.
An emergency gathering of Foglords is called. Seventeen theories are proposed. Someone blames the weather. Someone blames a manufacturer. Someone recommends adding sweetener because apparently every flavour problem is a sugar shortage wearing a false moustache.
The Dripmonk adds sweetener.
Now it tastes wrong and sweeter.
At considerable expense, the congregation establishes a Commission for the Recovery of the Original Custard. It requires a chairman, embroidered robes and a commemorative bottle opener.
A quiet member asks whether anyone recorded the original recipe.
The meeting becomes hostile.
Right. Enough ceremony.
Your memory is a witness. It is a bloody useless filing system.
Before you mix, save the recipe with a version number. Record the exact concentrates and brands, their percentages, the intended finished volume, nicotine strength and PG/VG ratio. Keep the calculator’s ingredient amounts with it. Write down the mixing date.
Label the actual bottle so it leads back to that record. A name, version, date and nicotine strength are considerably more helpful than “THE GOOD ONE”. Keep accurate hazard information and suitable child-resistant storage; a witty label does not replace either.
When testing, record the hardware and settings too. If you want to know what a recipe change did, keep the testing setup consistent and change one thing at a time. Keep some of the original as your comparison where practical.
Write “needs testing” when it needs testing. Write “I changed the cream” when you changed the cream. Do not quietly improve the record afterwards until your failed experiment becomes an unexplained injustice.
And an unidentified bottle stays out of your atomiser. Do not identify unknown contents or nicotine strength by tasting them. Separate it from usable supplies and get appropriate disposal advice if its identity cannot be established reliably.
There is nothing glamorous about any of this. Nobody has ever unveiled a spreadsheet to thunderous applause.
But being able to remake a good recipe beats spending a fortnight interrogating four identical bottles like a detective who has misplaced the crime.
Elric had the right idea. Write down what happened while you still know what happened.
Then future you can spend his evening enjoying the juice instead of founding a denomination over missing vanilla.
Thou shalt label the bottle before thy certainty evaporates.
A-ohm.
“I’ll remember what’s in that.”
Congregation, no you bloody won’t.
You went into the kitchen for scissors yesterday and returned with cheese. Let us be realistic about the capabilities of the archive.
Reading the old Bible, I keep noticing Elric’s notebook. While Thaddeus is improving history until it bears no resemblance to events, Elric writes things down. Actual things. The sort that become inconvenient when somebody announces he has always been right.
A notebook. Apparently the most dangerous object in the Church.
Which brings us to today’s illustration. This is a parable from the pulpit, before anyone starts searching the manuscript for a missing chapter.
A Dripmonk creates a magnificent custard.
Not merely acceptable custard. The sort that makes a man stop mid-sentence and look suspiciously at his own bottle.
He has achieved it, congregation. The elusive juice. The Bottle of Faith has delivered.
“Write it down,” says a sensible voice.
“No need,” says the Dripmonk. “I know exactly what I did.”
He puts the bottle beside three others.
One is yesterday’s custard. One is tomorrow’s experiment. One is a liquid whose identity has already departed this earthly realm.
They are all amber.
They all have black caps.
One bears the inscription “NEW”, which would have been useful had the word been accompanied by a date, a recipe, or evidence that it referred to the contents rather than the bottle.
Three weeks pass.
The magnificent custard runs out.
The Dripmonk opens his recipe file and discovers a document called FINAL.
Then FINAL2.
Then FINAL_REAL.
Then FINAL_REAL_USE_THIS_ONE.
The last was modified before the first.
This is interpreted as a miracle.
He reconstructs the recipe from memory. Adds a little more vanilla. Changes the cream because the original bottle is empty. Replaces the cotton. Moves to another atomiser. Adjusts the power.
The result tastes wrong.
Clearly, something mysterious has happened to custard.
An emergency gathering of Foglords is called. Seventeen theories are proposed. Someone blames the weather. Someone blames a manufacturer. Someone recommends adding sweetener because apparently every flavour problem is a sugar shortage wearing a false moustache.
The Dripmonk adds sweetener.
Now it tastes wrong and sweeter.
At considerable expense, the congregation establishes a Commission for the Recovery of the Original Custard. It requires a chairman, embroidered robes and a commemorative bottle opener.
A quiet member asks whether anyone recorded the original recipe.
The meeting becomes hostile.
Right. Enough ceremony.
Your memory is a witness. It is a bloody useless filing system.
Before you mix, save the recipe with a version number. Record the exact concentrates and brands, their percentages, the intended finished volume, nicotine strength and PG/VG ratio. Keep the calculator’s ingredient amounts with it. Write down the mixing date.
Label the actual bottle so it leads back to that record. A name, version, date and nicotine strength are considerably more helpful than “THE GOOD ONE”. Keep accurate hazard information and suitable child-resistant storage; a witty label does not replace either.
When testing, record the hardware and settings too. If you want to know what a recipe change did, keep the testing setup consistent and change one thing at a time. Keep some of the original as your comparison where practical.
Write “needs testing” when it needs testing. Write “I changed the cream” when you changed the cream. Do not quietly improve the record afterwards until your failed experiment becomes an unexplained injustice.
And an unidentified bottle stays out of your atomiser. Do not identify unknown contents or nicotine strength by tasting them. Separate it from usable supplies and get appropriate disposal advice if its identity cannot be established reliably.
There is nothing glamorous about any of this. Nobody has ever unveiled a spreadsheet to thunderous applause.
But being able to remake a good recipe beats spending a fortnight interrogating four identical bottles like a detective who has misplaced the crime.
Elric had the right idea. Write down what happened while you still know what happened.
Then future you can spend his evening enjoying the juice instead of founding a denomination over missing vanilla.
Thou shalt label the bottle before thy certainty evaporates.
A-ohm.