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 title: "Hanlon's Razor"
 tags: []
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 # Hanlon's Razor
 [Hanlon's razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor)
 > "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
 ## Etymology
 The identity of the eponymous Hanlon is uncertain.
 I find the attribution to Heinlein most compelling
 on account of I don't know how to pronounce Heinlein either.
 ## Trivia
 I first heard of Douglas Hubbard while reading the Wikipedia article for Hanlon's razor,
 which at the time featured a quote from [[hubbard_2020_failure]].
 Based on the quote alone I bought a copy.
@@ -9,27 +9,6 @@ up: "[[my-interests]]"
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 # Favorite Quotes
 ## About Tools
 > [!quote] John Culkin, commonly attributed to Marshall McLuhan
 > We shape our tools and, thereafter, our tools shape us.
 > [!quote] _[[thoreau_1854_walden|Walden]]_, Henry David Thoreau
 > Men have become the tools of their tools.
 > [!quote] Jeff Duntemann
 > A good tool improves the way you work.
 > A great tool improves the way you think.
 > [!quote] Alan Watts
 > We are sick with a fascination
 > for the useful tools of names and numbers,
 > of symbols, signs, conceptions, and ideas.
 > [!quote] Paul Arden
 > If you get stuck, draw with a different pen.
 > Change your tools; it may free your thinking.
 ## About Process Optimization
 ### "It Takes an Engineer to Build a Bridge that Barely Stands"
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 title: "Occam's Razor"
 tags: []
 ---
 # Occam's Razor
 > [!info] Also Known As
 > * the principle of parsimony
 > * the law of parsimony
 Recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements.
 Attributed to William of Ockham, 14th-century English philosopher and theologian.
 > _Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem_
 > ("Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity")
 > "Of two competing theories, the simpler explanation is to be preferred."
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 id: 2026-05-14T17:57:07-0400
 title: 2026-05-14 17:57:07
 tags: []
 daily: "[[2026-05-14]]"
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 # 2026-05-14 17:57:07
 In my years of using [[accubid|Accubid]] nearly every work day
 I've always longed for good analogies for using the wrong [[tools|tool]] for the job.
 I found one that could almost be said to be in common use:
 "Hitting a nail with the handle of the hammer"
 But the phrase is not ideal for my purpose.
 It suggests that the tool _can_ be used to achieve the objective,
 but that it is being used suboptimally.
 "Driving a screw with a hammer"
 which I came up with, though surely not for the first time,
 is more appropriate for Accubid and its use in [[construction-estimating]].
 It suggests the tool _can not_ be used to achieve the objective,
 but that it may be possible to use it to _mimic_ success.
 If you manage to drive a screw with a hammer
 you have still failed to use it as a fastener.
 Despite its name,
 Accubid is clearly not meant for bidding.
 Bidding requires an appreciation of uncertainty and risk
 that naive [[decrease-in-sigma|zero-sigma]] "estimating" does nothing to assist.
 Estimators have to do that part, _the important part_, in their head.
 It ought to be glaringly obvious to Trimble
 that their software is not being used as intended.
 The use of items to be budgetary of other item
 which are not known or not present in the database
 is perhaps universal,
 even though this false specificity is detrimental
 to both estimating and operations.
 Briefly sheathing [[hanlons-razor|Hanlon's razor]],
 I believe Trimble may be _deliberately avoiding_ respect for uncertainty, despite demand,
 because to support price uncertainty would call into question
 the utility of their biggest earners and up-sells.
 Tra-Ser is the industry gold standard you can't live without,
 but what good is a single price, which isn't even guaranteed for purchase _today_,
 compared to a range estimated for the lifetime of the project?
 If you believe we live in Trimble's fantasy world
 where you can buy out a bid BOM as-is
 then they can sell you a subscription for Spectrum, their ERP software.
 To really beat this analogy to death,
 Trimble is has a monopoly on hammers
 so they'd rather convince us we need a hammer
 than sell us the screwdriver we _do_ need.
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 id: 2026-05-14T19:16:23-0400
 title: 2026-05-14 19:16:23
 tags: []
 daily: "[[2026-05-14]]"
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 # 2026-05-14 19:16:23 
 After [[jared-defanti|Jared]] introduced me to
 [complex adaptive systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system)
 and [[2004_gribbin_deep-simplicity]]
 I told him about [[hubbard_2020_failure]]'s response
 to [[taleb_2001_fooled-by-randomness]]'s main thesis:
 That Taleb's warning not to draw conclusions from historical data
 is itself a conclusion based on historical data.
 Even though I butchered the retelling
 Jared laughed out loud,
 the way I did when reading the response for the first time.
 In the absence of reputable sources,
 belief in Taleb's pessimistic view of forecasting
 requires one to _want_ for it to be true.
 I think my laughter was nervous,
 nervous that a position seemed so compelling
 until reframed only slightly,
 at which point it became ridiculous to consider.
 ***
 I realize now that I totally misunderstood the direction Jared was going.
 The Google AI summary of _Deep Simplicity_ was this (emphasis added):
 > Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity by John Gribbin
 > explains chaos and complexity theory,
 > arguing that seemingly random, complex systems
 > (like weather or stock markets)
 > arise from simple, underlying laws,
 > _making the universe more orderly than it appears_.
 I skimmed the summary
 and misread the emphasized text
 as "making the universe appear more orderly than it is".
 I was primed to disagree because we had been talking about Taleb.
 It turns out Gribbin would disagree with Taleb too.
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 id: 2026-05-14T22:02:35-0400
 title: 2026-05-14 22:02:35
 tags: []
 daily: "[[2026-05-14]]"
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 # 2026-05-14 22:02:35
 Wringing the juice out of my hammered screw analogy from [[2026-05-14_17-57-07]],
 I've also been thinking about my reputation as "the [[ms-excel|Excel]] guy"
 which followed me from [[ace-electric-inc|Ace]].
 I sympathize, certainly the best tool for the job is the best one you have,
 but at some point in hammering screws
 you really have to just buck up and make the trip to Lowe's.
 > [!question]
 > You'd tell me if one of these notes affected your opinion of me,
 > wouldn't you?
 I can confidently say that every time I've watched someone do my job more efficiently[^1] than me
 I have immediately made efforts to incorporate their improvements into my process.
 Absent pressing personal matters or imminent retirement
 it's difficult to imagine how the pain of learning something new
 could outrank the pain that ought to come with knowing
 that more could be done with your limited time.
 Or, more compelling yet, in [[construction-estimating]],
 the pain of spending more time on a single project.
 I would do almost anything to be able to move on even just a day faster.
 [^1]: Not faster, that's easy. I'm slow as hell.
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 id: 2026-05-14T22:43:05-0400
 title: 2026-05-14 22:43:05
 tags: []
 daily: "[[2026-05-14]]"
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 # 2026-05-14 22:43:05
 I believe [[construction-estimating]] gets its fetish[^1] for **granularity**[^2]
 from its proximity to, and significant composition of,
 skilled trade workers, and their biased perception of the value of effort.
 [^1]: Fetish is the right word for it if you've ever heard the justifications.
    I'll say no more.
 [^2]: Granularity is a great word for it, I got it from [[jared-defanti|Jared]].
    I was calling it _precision_ before, but that's [laden](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/value-laden)
    with positive value
    where _granularity_ sounds as annoying as it is.
 Generalizing,
 if I can do some electrical task to the bare minimum standard in ten hours,
 then I can do it meticulously, with an appreciable increase in quality, in fifteen.
 Past fifteen hours there is literally nothing more that I can do
 that could be argued to add value to the result.
 Back to "bare minimum",
 the term has objective meaning in trade work.
 Absolute minimum quality is defined by governing codes.
 Contrast with estimating:
 I _can_ complete an estimate for a million dollar project in an hour.
 I could reasonably spend ten hours or a hundred on the same project.
 In estimating, minimum quality may be set by internal standards,
 but they may be bent or broken for the right job or the right customer.
 > [!summary]
 > In skilled trade work, the road ends after the "extra mile".
 > 
 > In estimating, you can't even tell when you're on the extra mile,
 > and after you pass it the shit just keeps going,
 > <small>and also we're paying for gas in this analogy.</small>
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 title: Tools
 tags: []
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 # Tools
 A tool is a _thing_ used to achieve an objective.
 Tools may be a physical object like a hand tool or power tool,
 a piece of [[software|application software]],
 a process, a technique,
 or something more conceptual like a way of thinking (paradigm).
 Tools may have multiple uses,
 some intended and some not.
 It is well understood that quality and efficiency suffer
 when one uses the wrong tool for the job.
 ## Quotes
 > [!quote] John Culkin, commonly attributed to Marshall McLuhan
 > We shape our tools and, thereafter, our tools shape us.
 > [!quote] _[[thoreau_1854_walden|Walden]]_, Henry David Thoreau
 > Men have become the tools of their tools.
 > [!quote] Jeff Duntemann
 > A good tool improves the way you work.
 > A great tool improves the way you think.
 > [!quote] Alan Watts
 > We are sick with a fascination
 > for the useful tools of names and numbers,
 > of symbols, signs, conceptions, and ideas.
 > [!quote] Paul Arden
 > If you get stuck, draw with a different pen.
 > Change your tools; it may free your thinking.