> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Wood, Mary
> Sent: Monday, May 07, 2001 2:26 PM
> To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
> Subject: [techtalk] Re; biscuit jack
>
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] muses...
>
> > I just wanna know which marketeer came up with the nondescript
> > term "biscuit jack" for a simple surface-mount phone jack. It
> > doesn't look anything like a biscuit to me. Sounds rather similar
> > to those "neoprene high energy impact devices" the US military
> > purchased for a grand each instead of going to the local hardware
> > store and purchasing a garden variety hammer for five bucks. :-)
>
> Well, I decided when I first started tinkering in this industry that
> back in the day, there was a conversation between inventors that went
> something like this:
>
> "Dick, I predict that computers and technology -- and most importantly,
> we computer/technology geeks -- will rule the world someday."
>
> "Yes Jane, but the trick is to keep the power for ourselves."
>
> "I know, how about we give all the parts and devices really
> complex, scary, or meaningless names? That way, people will think
> our jobs are way harder than they are and they will be in awe of us."
>
> "Good idea! Plus, with all those technobabble terms, we can pretend
> we're on Star Trek while we work."
>
> And so it was. "Pictures on a screen" became "Graphical User
> Interface," "surface mount phone jack" became "biscuit jack," and
> so on. Knowledge is power. Be careful with whom you share power.
LOL! I suspect there is far more truth in this than I want to admit. One of
the first tasks I undertook when I became a technical editor for a computer
magazine (almost another lifetime ago) was to rid all of the publications of
those nasty three letter acronyms and other archaic terminology (aka
technobabble).
> By the way, the job went fine today ... on my end. While the help
> desk and I went back over everything to determine why the LAN couldn't
> see the world and vice versa, I started looking at the router.
> Though it wasn't part of my task and I don't know jack about Cisco
> routers, I put my problem-solving skills into action found that MCI
> Worldcom had miswired the thing when they installed it. To top that
> off, there was a typo on MCI's end and they had remotely configured
> the wrong store. So at least I went away happy that the extra 2
> hours spent on site was due to MCI's incompetence and not only did
> I do everything right, I caught *their* error. Whoo-hoo!
Congratulations! I'm glad to hear everything went so well. I know just
enough about network wiring to be dangerous. ;-) Just be glad you were
working with MCI Worldcom instead of US West.
> - Mary; suddenly feeling very networky for a hardware geek!
_______________________________________________
techtalk mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/techtalk
