Diversions Manifold

The last day at work before the holidays back in December 2022 was also my last day of work at the company that employed me. Officially, I'm on gardening leave, so still on the payroll (though magically off headcount), until the end of March. The justification for letting me go was the increasingly common one of needing to reduce overheads to try and return the business to at least a vaguely profitable level in Europe. Similarly to Ford's announcement in Europe , expertise (residing in just a few, but perhaps expensive, engineers) is being retrenched into other regions. I won't write more on company politics and strategies, as I'm not at liberty to do so, but I can talk about how it affects me. Nebulous ahead Quite clearly, I can't see clearly yet where my future lies. If I'm to stay in the region, which is what we as a family all want, then it's unlikely that I'll stay in the automotive industry: this feels like a blessing, and matches my own burgeoning

Heat There's been a heatwave and very little rain these last couple of weeks. The press that I read has been very focussed on the pernicious and systematic nature of these heatwaves, clearly linked to climate change driven by human emissions, mostly of carbon. The Economist had two articles about it:   Today's heatwaves are a warning of worse to come , and   The increase in simultaneous heatwaves   which clearly set out the current set of problems and challenges ahead. The Guardian, naturally, also contains warnings about the situation, including a typical piece from the inimitable George Monbiot:   This heatwave has eviscerated the idea that small changes can tackle extreme weather ; and an Opinion piece on the public perception of what needs to be done, and the almost impossibly political predicament we're in:   The Guardian view on public attitudes to the climate crisis: burning for change It's all just politics? Deciding to do things for the environment, and how fas

Now that I’ve completed my first full week back at work, I can confirm the suspicion I raised in my New Year’s post marking my return to blogging that the freedom and energy to write and blog that I discovered over the Christmas vacation have been severely reduced: Alongside the where ... it’s pertinent to ask, when would I write? Maybe blogging is principally something for the holidays, when I'm rested and have time to reflect and to write. On the plus side, I am writing about it here! The brain drain Why is work - the non-physical work that I do- so draining? What am I doing all day that consumes so much energy, despite mostly sitting about, typing and clicking? I’m involved in product development and launches, in technical support, in documentation and report writing, with many context and application switches throughout the day. The energy that I burn in these activities can’t be all that much by themselves. It’s the brain itself, I feel, that becomes tired and lethargic - mot

For a while during the initial phases of the first lockdown, there was some discussion about the prevention paradox , the risk that beneficial actions taken on a population basis will leave many individuals thinking: what’s the big deal, or, why should I pay that price?  A good summary of the prevention paradox is contained within this pre-Covid quote from the International Journal of Epidemiology (emphasis mine): ‘[the population strategy] offers only a small benefit to each individual, since most of them were going to be all right anyway, at least for many years. This leads to the prevention paradox: “A preventive measure which brings much benefit to the population [yet] offers little to each participating individual” … and thus there is poor motivation for the subject. … In mass prevention each individual has usually only a small expectation of benefit, and this small benefit can easily be outweighed by a small risk’ The first Covid lockdowns in Europe helped to slow the spread of

2+0+2+1 = 5 2+0 = 2*1... it's a symmetrical year! 2*0*... OK, I don't need to go further than that. 2/0/... : it's an infinite year! [[2^0]^2]^1] = 1 Two thousand and twenty one years since... wait: Two thousand? What, only two thousand? And twenty one, don't forget. Exciting. Happy New Year! Wishing you diversions manifold!

From  View from the EU: Britain 'taken over by gamblers, liars, clowns and their cheerleaders' , a view from Helene von Bismarck: “Populists depend on enemies, real or imagined, to legitimise their actions and deflect from their own shortcomings,” she said. If the EU has been the “enemy abroad” since 2016, it will steadily be replaced by “enemies within”: MPs, civil servants, judges, lawyers, experts, the BBC. Oversimplification, lack of nuance are greedily seen as ways of cutting the Gordian knot of complex debate and "getting things done". There are times and places for such methods, but not permanently in running a country.  Also, from John Crace in the same paper ( On Boris's big day, Tories kid themselves this is the deal they always wanted ) "He had united his party – if only temporarily – over Europe. So it was job done for Boris, as Brexit had mainly only been about divisions within his own party. "

Labour had a seemingly impossible decision to make regarding the Brexit trade deal vote in the House of Commons on Wednesday 30th December. Labour leader Keir Starmer is quoted as saying: “The choice before the house today is perfectly simple. Do we implement the treaty that has been agreed with the EU, or do we not? If we choose not to, the outcome is clear: we leave the transition period without a deal. Without a deal on security, on trade, on fisheries. Without protection for our manufacturing sector, for farming, for countless businesses. And without a foothold to build a future relationship with the EU.” To me, the words "perfectly simple" are rather disingenuous. Starmer tried to portray the judgement as a binary choice, whereby all other considerations are neglected. That can be seen as clear leadership; it can also be a sign of a leader uncomfortable with conflict.  Fortunately, there was some public debate on the day: [Stella] Creasy said in a statement on her websi

I’ve had this Diversions Manifold blog for coming up to a decade now and, as is typical for most blogs, I’ve come to it in spurts, let it lie dormant for long stretches, then returned enlightened, enthused and energised. (repeat the cycle) We’re sometime between Christmas 2020 and the New Year, and I’ve had time to wind down from work, to feel the gradual return of the energy and freedom of mind to actually start writing (and editing) things that are not work emails or documentation, test reports or goals and targets for 2021. So it’s time to review Diversions Manifold, to jot down what its purpose in life is, and to see where I might take it. Alongside the where to , it’s pertinent to ask, when would I write? Maybe blogging is principally something for the holidays, when I'm rested and have time to reflect and to write. But for 2021, I will try and maintain a more frequent cadence of writing here.  For that to happen, I need to restate (to myself) why I’m doing this (to myself),

The Brexit pre-mortem: BFMEA Of all the engineering tools that I have encountered, the one that spans the widest spectrum of respect and scorn, hope and despair is the FMEA , the Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. Developed by the US military and NASA and gradually adopted by the automotive industry from the 1970s onwards, it is intended to highlight things that could go wrong before they do; it's also a way of collecting and tracking the evidence (models, test reports, etc) that shows that the nuts and bolts have been proven before putting them on a rocket - or, indeed, jettisoning a country out of the European Union. At its heart, the FMEA is a "what if?" analysis. Other methods are available, like the Potential Problem Analysis from Kepner-Tregoe. But I'm automotive, and the FMEA is a requirement in our field, so I've sketched up how a BFMEA (Brexit Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) might have been constructed and eventually look like. W