Saturday, January 28, 2012

The more you can adjust things, the more you can screw them up

Tweaking is for the experienced, for those who don't really need what is being tweaked all that much; or for those who have enough time and money on their hands to fix things (or have a professional fix things) when they inevitably screw them up.

General rule of thumb for almost everything...
The more things there are to adjust on a rig, the more things that:

  1. Can be misadjusted
  2. Can drift out of adjustment
  3. Will go wrong

This can also be expressed as "there more there is to tweak, the more there is to fuck up".
It's not that you don't want adjustability; it's just that the more adjustable something is, the more you're going to need to adjust it... pretty much universally.

It doesn't matter what it is; guns, cars, stereo equipment, cameras, airplanes, motorcycles, bikes... anything mechanical, electrical, or in any way technical; the more there is to adjust, the more there is to screw up.

That's why stuff for amateurs usually offers limited adjustable bits, and limited ranges of adjustment; while stuff for professionals usually makes as much adjustable, with as wide a range of adjustment, as possible.

Professionals have the time, knowledge, and experience to adjust things properly, and monitor their adjustments. Amateurs don't, unless they are expert amateurs at that particular thing.

Admittedly, some expert amateurs are actually better at whatever thing they're expert at, than the professionals. Professionals often don't have the time or energy to explore the outer limits and weird capabilities or fringes of the thing they are working in, focusing mostly on their day to day work.

However, becoming an expert amateur requires even more time, effort, training, education, money, and resources than doing something professionally (and you don't generally get paid for it).

So, if you're not prepared to take the time, money, and effort to become either a professional, or an expert amateur at something, DON'T FUCK WITH IT.

Thank you, that is all.