Wires.
I read recently that the combined length of the wires used in the manufacture of the new Airbus (the double-decker monster that makes a 757 look like a child's plaything) reached a grand total of something in the order of 500 thousand miles. Now, even accounting for the mass of circuitry that must be needed to let the captain know if the wing's about to fall off, and that needed to power the TV screens, that's a heck of a lot of wiring.
Which led me to thinking about connections. Train connections, even (please noooo...) bus connections, connections between people, connections between wires. In the same way that just one failure in the connections in the mass of wiring in the Airbus could have catastrophic consequences (Business Class could miss out on freshly ground coffee again), connections play a vital role in our day-to-day lives. Which, I suppose, is why we moan and gripe so much when they fail. That day the bus gets held up in a traffic jam, meaning we miss our next bus and arrive at work late for the meeting. When the trains all curl up and die because somewhere near Putney a small leaf has had the temerity to fall within 100 miles of the track, causing us to miss our best friend's wedding.
So imagine, dear reader, my frustration having spent the last six hours trying to persuade four differently colour-coded wires to connect to their opposite numbers, in a game called "Set Up The Equipment To Do A Day-Long Experiment." You'd have thought it would be simple, but through admitting this, you reveal yourself to be anything but an experimental scientist. For our equipment is notoriously unreliable.
Let's hope the Airbus is somewhat less temperamental.
I read recently that the combined length of the wires used in the manufacture of the new Airbus (the double-decker monster that makes a 757 look like a child's plaything) reached a grand total of something in the order of 500 thousand miles. Now, even accounting for the mass of circuitry that must be needed to let the captain know if the wing's about to fall off, and that needed to power the TV screens, that's a heck of a lot of wiring.
Which led me to thinking about connections. Train connections, even (please noooo...) bus connections, connections between people, connections between wires. In the same way that just one failure in the connections in the mass of wiring in the Airbus could have catastrophic consequences (Business Class could miss out on freshly ground coffee again), connections play a vital role in our day-to-day lives. Which, I suppose, is why we moan and gripe so much when they fail. That day the bus gets held up in a traffic jam, meaning we miss our next bus and arrive at work late for the meeting. When the trains all curl up and die because somewhere near Putney a small leaf has had the temerity to fall within 100 miles of the track, causing us to miss our best friend's wedding.
So imagine, dear reader, my frustration having spent the last six hours trying to persuade four differently colour-coded wires to connect to their opposite numbers, in a game called "Set Up The Equipment To Do A Day-Long Experiment." You'd have thought it would be simple, but through admitting this, you reveal yourself to be anything but an experimental scientist. For our equipment is notoriously unreliable.
Let's hope the Airbus is somewhat less temperamental.
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