Third World Writer

Well, that’s over.

I just came from fixing a bug in my system. A few months ago my Logic and Reasoning Module (LRM) reported a discrepancy, owing to a conflict with the Emotions and Desires Module (EDM). This discrepancy messed with my system’s energy configuration, setting Drive and Inspiration levels dangerously low, almost triggering the Enditall sequence.

The LRM’s conflict with the EDM was no small thing. It seems the EDM was not programmed with a failsafe for extreme inputs, so that absurdly large quantities of unexpected data can cause it to overload. Apparently, overloading the EDM causes the LRM to shut down, or suspend temporarily, exacerbating the situation. Note that the LRM is needed to balance the EDM, so either the EDM needed a failsafe, or the LRM needed to be robust enough to balance the overloaded EDM. (Although frankly, I think the EDM should have been developed in a manner that prevents overload situations.)

The fix I implemented is still being tested, so I’m not entirely sure it will work. But for the most part the EDM input has been controlled, to some extent, so the LRM is able to manage the EDM’s processing. So far the LRM has resumed making Sense.

As for the circumstances that led to the EDM’s overload, I’m running a number of scenarios through the LRM to diagnose the cause. It’s been approximately a decade since such dangerous levels of EDM activity have been observed, back when the LRM was still being developed, so the LRM hasn’t been yet configured to mitigate such instances. With this recent recurrence, perhaps I can upgrade the LRM accordingly. I’ll have to check.

For the meantime, I’m glad that’s over. I’ve executed the recovery sequence, which will take a while to complete, but by next year Frank_v2.0 should be up and running again. Until then I’m limiting input to the EDM while tweaking what I can of the LRM, while once in a while purging the cache with less energy-intensive modules like flash_games and facebook_apps. It’s tedious work, but crap like this needs doing.

Damn bugs.