Learning about switches
February 5th, 2006 | by jg3 |My brother, when a child, always took his toys apart. Mine occasionally broke, but it never really occurred to me to explore something by taking it apart until one day when I heard my mother complaining to someone about my brother’s disassembly tendency. As for me I’d broken stuff before, and I’d explored the innards of toys, rocks, bugs, and other things in my world by smashing them or disassembling them but not so much with the hope or intent to put it back together. I wasn’t destructive. No, on the other hand I put stuff together. Legos, Lincon Logs, erector sets, chemistry sets, little electrical circuitry boards and toys of assembly were what I remember having lots of fun with.
So today as I’m doing some electrical work in the kitchen of my house, looking at the qualitative and quantative difference between the new hardware and what it is replacing, seeing the wires and insulation that have probably only been examined closely by a handfull of people ever, and I begin to feel like I’m learning the old school ways by examining their work and seing the difference. I realize this little box of copper and brass and dust and fabric-insulated wiring is just a part of my house and I’m learning how it works by taking it apart.
Then it occurs to me that my brother now runs a significant portion of what many businesses and people who smile at you from behind computer terminals all day call “the network”. So, the next time you’re trying to get a refund on your credit card and a young woman with a huge plastic name tag cautiously apologizes to you and tells you that she cannot make your transaction because “the network is down” just think .. it just might be my brother taking it apart to figure it all out.
Filed under: House, Real Life
2 Responses to “Learning about switches”
By davis on Feb 5, 2006 | Reply
The act of taking apart things is not bad at all. It is a sing of intelligence, of wanna know how it works. It means your left side of the brain is developed (more than the average human) and there is some enhanced logical awareness inside the brain.
You talk about network… imagine the network of white and grey matter in the brain… far more complex that the computer network permitting communication (or lack of it) between people around the world.
Do I make sense? I don’t know… I need to hit the bed and now mister French E
By mijoy on Feb 5, 2006 | Reply
Ah, but Gill is evenly right AND left brained! Don’t take too many things apart, you may get lopsided. :)