(Not the same thing as yak-shaving--not at all.)
Because I have to work in two different worlds (namely, Linux and occasionally Windows, although not yet Apple's walled garden), I've saved myself a lot of cranium-brusing by investing in a KVM switch. This device allows you to toggle between multiple computers using the same monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
I had originally pulled apart my office for painting, then had to re-connect my main programming PC (Linux) to do some troubleshooting. The monitor remained blank. Due to the urgency, I bypassed the KVM switch for the duration, figuring I'd debug later. "Later" came tonight, when the monitor was still unresponsive. After verifying the spaghetti of cabling (and switching to another port, and testing another monitor), I hollered for Dennis to sanity-check for me. He did some poking and prodding, but couldn't find anything amiss.
So I dissembled the KVM wiring and again hooked the peripherals directly into the PC. Again, everything but the monitor seemed to come online. So back under the desk I dove, and discovered what both of us had missed--namely, that this particular model has not one, but two DVI (i.e. monitor ports). We'd been plugging things into the top one (supposedly interfaced with the motherboard, but not really) rather than bottom the one attached to a big, honkin' (like, early 1990s size) video card.
There's a folksy adage that goes, "When you find a dead man with hoof marks across him, look for a horse before you go looking for a zebra." I'd like to report that I learned this at my Grandma's knee. But the fact is that I picked it up from the only episode of Doogie Howser I can ever remember watching. Anyway, the logic is merely a variation on Occam's Razor. Problem is, we tend to scan for things top to bottom, and, well, why would you continue to look for something you've already found?
The experience illustrates why, despite it
being more or less the foundational to scientific reasoning, we can
still cut ourselves on Occam's Razor through laziness or
over-confidence. Because if the afore-mentioned dead guy is found on
the plains in Africa, the familiar assumptions become useless--even
counter-productive.
I suppose that's the point of the celebrated "Five
Whys" of the Toyota Production System: It forces debugging beyond the
immediate and superficial.
As it turns out, the KVM switch is still hosed. Naturally, I only learned this only after hooking up everything through it again. #mumblegrumblemumblegrumble But at least there was more certainty in the debugging this time around (verifying with a laptop whose video output the monitor likewise ignored). I'll ping Matt at BJW Electronics tomorrow to see whether repairs are even an option in this case. I fervently hope so, and not just because I dislike adding to the landfill: KVM switches are bloody expensive.
