Machines, Experiments, and Risks 機器、實驗與風險

I dreamed I was at a movie studio-like place with many wooden buildings resembling the American Wild West. Someone called me over, and it turned out to be Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. He was with a group of young people who had bought a massive coffee-making machine. It seemed like the machine was still experimental and was experiencing some issues.

In a corner of the studio was a two-story wooden building that looked like a temporary set, possibly built for filming. I went inside, and they explained the machine had problems—it was spraying hot water everywhere, which was quite dangerous. Inside the building were glass ornaments shaped like goldfish in red, orange, and white. The team hurriedly handed these ornaments to me, asking me to take them out to avoid them being damaged by the machine.

However, I thought to myself, "I already have my own glass ornaments—pink and blue floral ones—in my bag. Now they're handing me these goldfish ornaments without any proper packaging. How am I supposed to protect them? My own glass items are fragile too, and they could easily break."

They eventually gave me a plastic bag, but I thought, "A plastic bag isn’t suitable for this!" Carefully, I placed the goldfish ornaments in my bag, worrying the whole time that not only would their items break, but mine might too.

While the young team worked on the machine, I noticed they had spent a lot of money on the equipment for their experiments. I overheard them discussing the issues and how they needed to contact the manufacturer for repairs. I thought, "Why didn’t they do proper research before purchasing? Now they’re spending even more time and money fixing things." I felt these young people were too impulsive, diving into projects without proper planning.

Before they bought the machine, I had actually done various analyses and evaluations for them, including warning them about the potential risks to the glass ornaments. But they didn’t listen and insisted on going their own way. Now, with the experiment not going smoothly, the spraying water and potential explosions seemed inevitable. Handing me the ornaments without proper protection placed the responsibility on me, even though damage still seemed unavoidable.

As I walked away, I grew increasingly uneasy. I took the ornaments out of my bag, fearing they’d all shatter if I left them in there. Upon inspecting them, I found some of the goldfish ornaments had already cracked in half, and many petals of my glass flowers were broken. What a huge loss!

Later, I somehow ended up at my old friend John’s office—or rather, a large rented hotel room that felt more like an office. There, I saw a bald Chinese businessman. He and John were discussing business in Teochew, thinking I wouldn’t understand, but to their surprise, I did!

As I sat there, more of my old colleagues started showing up. I asked John what was going on, and he told me he had bought two machines and wanted me to take a look at integrating them. One was a transparent device resembling a large water filter. Water would go in, flow through pipes, and come out cleaner. The other machine was a large coffee maker, where water would circulate before producing a cup of coffee.

John explained that the machines were already connected and demonstrated them. I watched as water entered, flowed through the filter, and then into the coffee maker, eventually producing a cup of coffee. However, I noticed the mug only had half a cup of coffee and thought, "This machine has a high loss rate. A full cup of water went in, but only half a cup came out!"

John laughed and said, "No, I already poured half a cup into my own mug earlier. It does produce a full cup." I thought, "Oh, so the integration works. But still, using such a massive machine just to brew coffee doesn’t seem cost-effective." Then, I changed my perspective: "Maybe if it’s marketed as a novelty, no one would mind how big it is."

夢見我在一個像是拍電影的影城，那邊有許多像是美國西部的木造房子。有人喊我過去，原來是臉書老闆馬克祖柏格。他跟一群年輕人，買了一台超大型煮咖啡的機器。那個機器好像還在一個實驗的階段，目前碰到一些問題。

他在影城角落的一間兩層樓，看來像是倉庫的木造房子，感覺這是拍片用、臨時搭建的房子。

我走進去。他們那台機器有問題，會熱水亂噴，有點危險。裡面有一些紅色、橘色、白色金魚的玻璃飾品，他們團隊匆匆忙忙把飾品交給我，叫我拿出去，不要放在裡面。說馬克的機器這樣子亂噴熱水，會把飾品弄壞。

可是我心想：「我包包裡有自己的粉紅色、粉藍色小碎花玻璃飾品，你現在臨時要把金魚玻璃飾品交給我，又不給我盒子，那我要怎麼樣去保護它？」更何況我的東西也是玻璃的，這樣子很容易就破掉了。

後來他們給我一個塑膠袋，我心想「塑膠袋根本不好裝啊！」我小心翼翼的捧著金魚飾品，放在包包裡。我一直擔心這樣子搞，最後可能不只他們的東西碎掉，我的東西也會碎了。

我看這些年輕人就在裡面搞，好像他們花了很多錢買設備做實驗。我聽到他們在討論有什麼問題，要叫廠商修復。當時我還心想：「你們採購之前不先弄清楚，花了那麼多錢，現在還要叫廠商處理，不知道要搞到什麼時候。」總之我覺得這些年輕人，做事前都不先好好計劃再行動。

我記得在馬克跟那些年輕人要去採購那台機器前，其實我有先幫他們做過各種分析評估，而且包括可能會造成金魚玻璃飾品的損失。可是他們不聽，就是堅持他們年輕人的想法，一意孤行。

現在實驗過程好像不是很順利，可能還會有各種爆炸、液體亂噴，臨時把這些玻璃飾品交給我，也沒有任何保護的包裝，東西可能還是會破損，但責任就變成在我身上。

離開後我在路上走著，越想越不安。我從包包裡趕快拿出那些玻璃小飾品，我覺得如果繼續放在包包裡，他們全都要破了。拿出來看，有的金魚飾品已經裂成兩半，我的玻璃花許多花瓣也折碎了。天啊！這下真是損失慘重！

後來不知道為什麼，我來到老友 John 的辦公室。其實也不是辦公室，感覺有點像是他租了旅館的房間，可是這個房間很大。

我去到那邊，剛好看到一個光頭華人的生意人，他們用潮州話談事情，可能他們以為我聽不懂，可是沒想到我竟然聽得懂呢！

我進去，陸陸續續看到許多老同事進來。我問 John 有什麼事，他說他買了兩台機器，想要把它們整合起來，叫我來看看。

其中一台是透明的設備，看來像是大型濾水器，注入水後，水順著管道繞啊繞，就會出來更乾淨的水。另外一台機器就是大型咖啡機，水進去後，也是繞啊繞，然後就會煮出一杯咖啡。

John 想要把這兩台設備連接起來，應該是已經連起來了，他叫我過去看。我看到他啟動機器，心想：「這要小心，剛剛另外一個地方他們也是弄咖啡機的水，結果水到處亂噴，感覺他們整台機器好像要爆炸了，很危險。」

我看著 John 的這台機器，水進去，繞啊繞，然後進入咖啡機，又繞啊繞，就煮出一杯咖啡了。我看一下馬克杯裡面的咖啡只有半杯，心想這台設備耗損率還蠻高的，剛剛明明是一杯水進去，現在出來只有半杯咖啡。John 說沒有喔！他剛剛其實已經倒了半杯在他自己的馬克杯裡面，所以的確出來是一杯咖啡。

我心想：「喔！所以機器整合是可行的。只是煮杯咖啡要這麼大台機器，似乎不太符合成本效率。」我馬上轉個念：「也許把它當成一個噱頭來操作，就不會有人在乎它的體型這麼大了。」