Tech is a Black Box
In this awesome article , Jean-Baptiste “JBQ” Quéru asks a seemingly simple question: “You just went to the Google home page. Simple, isn't it? What just actually happened?” A whole lot of technologies came together, actually! There’s the browser, which uses protocols like HTTP and HTML. Don’t know how those work? Let’s move on. Then there’s the networking stuff like DNS, TCP, IP and Wifi. Don’t know them either? Ok, how about the PC/tablet/phone on which you viewed it: do you understand how an operating system, a graphics driver or screen painter works? I didn’t think so. But we never worry about all that, because as Quéru says: “For non-technologists, this is all a black box. That is a great success of technology: all those layers of complexity are entirely hidden and people can use them without even knowing that they exist at all.” Of course, many do try to learn (at least parts of things). It is said that we try to understand new stuff that is complicated by using ...