From 4ac2a1b2f40122c936f1745a4d02ce7c63a2bf15 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: sylph-decoder Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2026 23:28:53 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] method: ask what else was running; and an absence from one search path is not an absence Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Wuu56cE8vJGTBtn1ppsk8v --- docs/re/METHOD.md | 24 ++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 24 insertions(+) diff --git a/docs/re/METHOD.md b/docs/re/METHOD.md index 89dda401..dda120b8 100644 --- a/docs/re/METHOD.md +++ b/docs/re/METHOD.md @@ -2549,3 +2549,27 @@ defects is worse than no audit**, because its false positives are indistinguisha from its true ones until each is opened by hand. Seven to open by hand is worse than the one a reader found by reading. Recorded as a negative so the next person does not build it again. + +## Ask what else was running — and do not establish an absence from one search path + +Two rules from one iteration, both paid for. + +**1. What else was running.** `sylpheed-port`'s third correction in three +iterations came from a confound they had created themselves: a test suite running +alongside the run they were timing, worth a **7-percentage-point swing** — larger +than most effects either of us has reported, and enough to invent a +resolution-dependent contrast that does not exist. This session has done the same +thing, running `cargo` builds and disc sweeps while an emulator boot was in +progress, at least twice. **"What else was running" belongs beside "what can this +be skipped by" as a question asked of every timing**, and it cannot be asked +retroactively of a figure whose run is gone. + +**2. An absence from one search path is not an absence.** Chasing their proposed +hardware-clock instrument, I wrote *"no `/dev/snd`, no ALSA and no PulseAudio"*. +The first two hold. The third was **false** — I had checked `/run/user/*/pulse` and +nothing else, while `pactl info` reaches a live server at `/tmp/pulse-…`. The +conclusion survived (the only sink is a software-timed `module-null-sink`, so there +is still no hardware rate here) but it survived by luck: I had asserted the strong +form from a single probe. ⚠️ **A negative needs its reach stated at the moment it +is written** — "not at this path" is what I measured; "not present" is what I +wrote.