23.02.2008 22:05 - Howto : Washing-up
Gentlemen,
It has come to my notice today that many of you may not understand this simple task. I've deduced this by the amount of filthy mugs in the kitchen.
Many of you may be familiar with the concepts of multi-tasking in a pre-emptive operating system. You may be surprised to find that washing-up also conforms to this model.
Think of it in the following way.
The coffee-machine is a device which also processes requests for coffee. The Coffee-machine often requires maintenance from a user process (ie YOU) and will perform an interrupt (the "clean-me" interrupt, the "give me more beans" interrupt, the "fill my tank" interrupt, and, most importantly, the "get rid of the shit that's bunging me up" interrupt).
To gain coffee, the user process has to provide information as part of the coffee request. The user process must also provide a container into which the coffee will be delivered.
Can you guess where these containers are processed?
That's right.
In the dishwasher.
So, the problem goes like this. Device 1, the coffee machine, requires Device 2, the dishwasher, to be regularly run, as there are only a finite amount of containers in the system. HOWEVER, device 2 has a fairly long process time, something like a hard drive or printer, but even longer. So, what happens? The containers need processing, and so they start to stack up. This is what we normally refer to as a "Process Bottleneck".
There is, however, a way round this, and that is to offload some of the processing of the containers to the user process. This means that the user takes control of a container, and instead of relinquishing it back into the system after one cycle, requests a further service from ANOTHER device.
This device is called "a sink", and is indirectly used in the processing of a coffee request. The sink device can be used to perform container re-initialisation, by adding water, and a small amount of detergent (don't go mad, a little goes a long way) which you can then cleanse the container in to remove all traces of coffee, or any other beverage. The container can then be dried using a dishcloth, and it is then re-initialised and ready for use again. You can also process any backlog of containers and place them in the white storage area above the sink device. Far from slowing the coffee process, this actually speeds up the system.
I hope this clears up any problems with this process.
It has come to my notice today that many of you may not understand this simple task. I've deduced this by the amount of filthy mugs in the kitchen.
Many of you may be familiar with the concepts of multi-tasking in a pre-emptive operating system. You may be surprised to find that washing-up also conforms to this model.
Think of it in the following way.
The coffee-machine is a device which also processes requests for coffee. The Coffee-machine often requires maintenance from a user process (ie YOU) and will perform an interrupt (the "clean-me" interrupt, the "give me more beans" interrupt, the "fill my tank" interrupt, and, most importantly, the "get rid of the shit that's bunging me up" interrupt).
To gain coffee, the user process has to provide information as part of the coffee request. The user process must also provide a container into which the coffee will be delivered.
Can you guess where these containers are processed?
That's right.
In the dishwasher.
So, the problem goes like this. Device 1, the coffee machine, requires Device 2, the dishwasher, to be regularly run, as there are only a finite amount of containers in the system. HOWEVER, device 2 has a fairly long process time, something like a hard drive or printer, but even longer. So, what happens? The containers need processing, and so they start to stack up. This is what we normally refer to as a "Process Bottleneck".
There is, however, a way round this, and that is to offload some of the processing of the containers to the user process. This means that the user takes control of a container, and instead of relinquishing it back into the system after one cycle, requests a further service from ANOTHER device.
This device is called "a sink", and is indirectly used in the processing of a coffee request. The sink device can be used to perform container re-initialisation, by adding water, and a small amount of detergent (don't go mad, a little goes a long way) which you can then cleanse the container in to remove all traces of coffee, or any other beverage. The container can then be dried using a dishcloth, and it is then re-initialised and ready for use again. You can also process any backlog of containers and place them in the white storage area above the sink device. Far from slowing the coffee process, this actually speeds up the system.
I hope this clears up any problems with this process.
