Nessism - To Measure Is to Know

[cowboyup3371]

Ed, please take this with the humor intended in my mind and with all due respect and admiration but I hate you . Those five little words in your signature block have become the bane of my existence yet are so critical to everything we do on these machines as well as our regular lives. Your words haunt me daily when I question whether I want to do something yet they are the first things I hear when I'm at work checking on a medical network, in the wood shop building out a project, or working on the bikes. In fact, despite reading several posts that the valve clearances don't really change on the Bandit, I just had to tear into the bike and found out yep, didn't need to do it. Yet, now I KNOW it's good for several thousand more miles.

Thank you very much for putting that in your signature block and for those who may not yet have seen it, please follow his five little words. Three short days to properly clean carburetors or checking the valve clearances when you first get a new to you bike can be very daunting yet you'll KNOW they are good for miles upon miles of fun rides. Even the tire pressure checks we should regularly do can seem pointless at times yet it's better to KNOW for sure your tires won't be the reason you didn't make it home after that long trip. Take the extra few minutes to VERIFY everything is good before you just write it off as unimportant. You never know, it could very well have been the actual cause of the problem.

And just to be clear Ed, thank you very much for making me miserable.

[grcamna2]

Ed, please take this with the humor intended in my mind and with all due respect and admiration but I hate you . Those five little words in your signature block have become the bane of my existence yet are so critical to everything we do on these machines as well as our regular lives. Your words haunt me daily when I question whether I want to do something yet they are the first things I hear when I'm at work checking on a medical network, in the wood shop building out a project, or working on the bikes. In fact, despite reading several posts that the valve clearances don't really change on the Bandit, I just had to tear into the bike and found out yep, didn't need to do it. Yet, now I KNOW it's good for several thousand more miles.

Thank you very much for putting that in your signature block and for those who may not yet have seen it, please follow his five little words. Three short days to properly clean carburetors or checking the valve clearances when you first get a new to you bike can be very daunting yet you'll KNOW they are good for miles upon miles of fun rides. Even the tire pressure checks we should regularly do can seem pointless at times yet it's better to KNOW for sure your tires won't be the reason you didn't make it home after that long trip. Take the extra few minutes to VERIFY everything is good before you just write it off as unimportant. You never know, it could very well have been the actual cause of the problem.

And just to be clear Ed, thank you very much for making me miserable.

Agreed,especially when it comes to checking both tire pressures(I check them in the early morning hours just about when the sun comes up,ideally)and can vastly improve the performance of the bike and make the tires last for the full duration.

[Brendan W]

Seconded. Of all the sigs on all the forums that one keeps popping up in my head when I am on the point of 'diagnosing' something.
Ed shouldn't get all the blame........
“I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.”
― William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin

[RichDesmond]

The flip side to that saying is this:

Not everything that can be measured matters, and not everything that matters can be measured.

With the corollary:

Bad metrics drive bad behavior.

Just to keep things in perspective.

[DaveR]

Good thread CB. Nessism has been directly responsible for my buying of a multimeter, digital caliper and a proper tire pressure gauge.
I have also trotted out the ''to measure is to know'' several times. It makes me sound smarter.

[Nessism]

The flip side to that saying is this:

Not everything that can be measured matters, and not everything that matters can be measured.

With the corollary:

Bad metrics drive bad behavior.

Just to keep things in perspective.

You've been spending too much time in the Vortex Rich.

[RichDesmond]

You've been spending too much time in the Vortex Rich.

LOL, no, just a lot of years in software, dealing with some members of management that kept trying new methods of measuring programmers productivity. They measured the crap out of stuff, and none of it mattered

[xkaes]

I'm a big fan of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", but sometimes you don't know that it's broke -- and the last place you want to find it out is at highway speed.

The "Proficient Motorcycling" books reminded me how important it is to check things out first -- kinda like "Measure twice, Cut once".

And members of this Forum, both old and new, constantly remind me of the importance of systematic diagnosis as opposed to replacing everything that is suspect -- then you'll never know what was "broke".

[Brendan W]

LOL, no, just a lot of years in software, dealing with some members of management that kept trying new methods of measuring programmers productivity. They measured the crap out of stuff, and none of it mattered

A dinghy racer got separated from the race track in poor vis and after half an hour happened on a fishing boat in a clearing in the fog.
Where am I he called.
Fifty yards behind me.
You're in IT aren't you?
Why do you say that?
You gave an answer that is useless.
You're in management?
How did you know?
You don't know where you are nor where you're going and it's my fault!

[argonsagas]

A dinghy racer got separated from the race track in poor vis and after half an hour happened on a fishing boat in a clearing in the fog.
Where am I he called.
Fifty yards behind me.
You're in IT aren't you?
Why do you say that?
You gave an answer that is useless.
You're in management?
How did you know?
You don't know where you are nor where you're going and it's my fault!

I rather like that one!




I agree with the principle of measuring, but with a small caveat: for some things imagination is more important than measurements.

To explain: an idea has to take shape and develop to a considerable extent before physical measuring can take place, and then, quite often, imagination is needed to make it work.