[TheForge] stonehenge

[Andrew Vida]

GRAF wrote:
> The ability to think simply or probably more accurately in a linear 
> fashion is an art, for the most part, long lost in this culture.
> It seems the more education the less linear the thought process.
> 
> Complexity becomes compulsive.

	Interesting statement.  I must agree.  Rube Goldberg is alive and well. 
  My life at Bell Labs demonstrated to me the compulsive nature you 
speak of.  I never saw any group of people with less ability to arrive 
at direct solutions than the ones I worked with.  I was one of the few 
people without a PhD in physics or electrical engineering, yet I often 
coughed up the answers they were unable to find.  We were once working 
on network recovery for the ACCUNET T1.5 network.  All manner of 
elaborate algorithms and procedures were considered.  Finally one day in 
a meeting I suggested they simply remap the CLFI to the CLLI from a 
facility in the Reserve 1.5 network  (usually idle) and make that the 
customer's new link.  The network is healed within 5 seconds of the 
aging point of the alarm.  At first they balked... too simple... would 
never work.... impossible to do...  yeah, OK... that's why it became the 
fast recovery method.  Simplicity doesn't occur to people like this - 
they are used to complexity and showing the world how smart they are.
> 
> Tis a gift to be simple....

	Tis the gift to be free...