Lessons / Part 3. Checking what an assistant tells you
19 A cause written on a chart is a hypothesis
A log chart that marks what happened and when, with causes kept as questions for the operator.
What people usually ask
Plot this reactor temperature log and annotate anything unusual.
What comes back
A chart with “feed interruption at 14:20” written beside a spike in the same type as the axis title, though nothing in the log says what happened at 14:20.
Ask this instead
Attached: temp_log.csv (timestamp, reactor temperature in C, one row every 10 s) and run_notes.txt (the operator's notes for the same shift).
Plot temperature against time. Then mark features on the chart, with no causes:
- A spike, step or drift gets a label with its start time, its duration and its size in C, nothing else.
- Below the chart, list every feature as a question for the operator, for example "What happened at 14:20? Temperature rose 6 C in 40 s and came back in 3 min."
- Events may come only from run_notes.txt, quoted word for word with the time the note gives. Where a note falls within 2 minutes of a feature, show the quote beside that feature and say the times match; do not say the note explains it.
- Do not name a cause anywhere: not in a label, not in the list, not in the title.
Attach: the log CSV and the operator’s run notes.
Why it works: a label with a time and a size records what was measured, and the cause stays a question until someone who was there answers it.
Drafted with Fable 5.1 from my notes; chosen and edited by me.