Why It Took Me a Minimum of 74 Steps to Build a Simple TV Stand

I recently built this TV stand for a spare TV:

Well, that's not quite the final product. The fact is, that there was a major design flaw, which I will explain below.

At a high-level, the process of building it could be broken down into these four steps:
The high-level list of the process was this:

1. Decide to build a TV stand out of wood.
2. Cut the pieces of wood.
3. Screw the pieces of wood together.
4. Attach the stand to the TV.

The fact of the matter, was that in reality, there were many more than four steps in building the stand. In fact, when I wrote them down there were 74 steps.

The point of this post, is that in designing and building something to its final form, there are often an huge number of steps to get to the end that you never considered when you started the project. There's a process you go through of thinking, designing, building, fixing mistakes in the design, fixing mistakes in the building. Most of the time, things don't go as expected and/or you haven't thought through everything that was needed to be successful.

This can apply to many things designed and built including: a software application, a work of fiction, or in this case a simple TV stand made of a few pieces of wood.

The Only Purpose of this Post is to Help People Reflash Their Nexus 7 Tablets

(You probably don't want to read this unless you care about reflashing your 2012 Nexus 7 tablet from Android 5.0 (Lollipop) back to a release that make the tablet usable. After a few missteps I was able to reflash it, and the point of this post is for help others deal with the problems I had while reflashing on a single website, instead of the multiple ones I needed to solve the issues I had.)

How can you tell if you have a light saber or a heavy saber? (How to Entertain Children #1)

For my son Liam's tenth birthday party, his chosen theme was a mashup of Star Wars, Star Trek and Dr. Who. Here's the invitation my wife sent out:

IMAGINE IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ON THE T.A.R.D.I.S. TO A GALAXY FAR, FAR, AWAY AND BOLDLY GO WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE....

The Doctor (10th one of course), Captain Picard, and Yoda request your presence at the celebration of Liam turning 10!  

Please drop your children off for a scavenger hunt and birthday treats.

Gifts are welcome but not required. Daleks, Klingons, and storm troopers will be turned away.

WHAT: Liam Rudoff is turning 10!

WHEN: Saturday, February 7, 2015, 1:30 pm - 4:00 pm

WHERE: Gallifrey....no, wait……Alderaan…oh, that won’t work either…Okay…our house 

We promise to have your children returned to this time period and universe by the time you come to pick them up.