13 November 2013

More Tech Magic

Monday night and Tuesday morning, our computer networks are not happy.  Some computers have LAN access but not Internet access.  Some can't used the shared printer but can use the Internet.  Some have access to e-mail but not Internet browser functionality.  The voice mail system is whacked.  Several critical websites we tried to access from machines with Internet access were down.

Like any other sensible business, we try the usual (rebooting, plugging and unplugging, etc.), and then when that fails, we call our tech guy.  The moment the tech guy walks into our office suite, suddenly, everything works just fine!  Five minutes earlier it was all a mess, as it has been for the previous twelve hours or so.  He hadn't actually done anything yet.  Just opened the front door.  And, magically, it all worked again.

We've long known that technology is indistinguishable from magic if it is sufficiently advanced.  But, quite frankly, nobody had worked out corollaries like the one illustrated above when that proposition was written.

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