Hacker News Reader

Drills are used sporadically. If a drill was used intermittently it would be on most of the time and occasionally off.

> If a drill was used intermittently it would be on most of the time and occasionally off.

But when the wipers in my car are set to intermittent, they are off most of time and ocassionally off.

I’m fairly sure ‘sporadic’ indicates random/unpredictable timing while ‘intermittent’ has a predictable pattern.

I get sporadic phone calls about intermittent issues with some system or other that I take care of out there in the world.

(I wish there were a pattern to any of it, since it's often very difficult to fix things that are usually working fine.)

No. Sporatic means the occasional presence of something. Intermittent means the occasional absence of something.