Phones break. Firefox OS phones break too (for now). This breaking usually leaves behind visible trails that reveal what caused the initial break. In physical terms, if something hits your window it will leave cracks that will be different based on whether the object was a golfball or a brick. If you are lucky, you may have a security camera that happened to take pictures of the window-smashing object.

However, when software cracks it usually will automatically repair the damage. On phones, this is as simple as restarting the app or rebooting the phone, and users do it all the time. To make matters worse, the security camera that might have recorded whatever broke the phone suffers from short-term memory loss. When the phone is connected to a computer, debugging tools interface with the security camera (the logs), but phones can not be connected to a computer 24/7.

My first project this summer has been creating a way to yank the tape out of the security camera before it gets erased and throw it into the digital equivalent of two VHSs, a rats nest of cables, and a sketchy understanding of the FBI anti-piracy warning. It has been an exercise in weird device implementations, waiting for code review, and cursing NetScape.

In conclusion, timezones are evil, virtual devices are horrible, and interning is fun.