It's all magic

Here's a little piece that's everywhere about another Microsoft op-sys security vulnerability that requires immediate attention. Frankly it's to be expected, and makes me think about cars -- at a theoretical level. Like this:

There was a time when I was young that a car: internal combustion engine and other assorted mechanical parts, was a relatively simple proposition. True, there were many parts, but each one was merely a part of the overall machine. It worked mechanically and so a mechanic or any other testosterone-filled teenager with Camero-lust could figure out how to pull the whole thing apart and put it back together -- fixed or otherwise. You could drop a bowling ball into the engine compartment of a GTO and it would hit pavement unimpeded. Today, the engine area (now smaller) is crammed full of bits and pieces, sensors and onboard computer equipment, with only a limited portion of those many, many integral parts operating mechanically. It is, in short, impossible for anybody but a trained technician to understandable and tinker in this system.

"WTF does this have to do with Microsoft?" you ask. Well . . . nothing. But, nobody understands their operating system either. Only those relatively few geeks techies that code and do other assorted software-y stuff. Upshot: we really don't know what's what, or why's why. We have to rely on these magi to keep us safe and working properly: just like we have to take our $40,000 sedan to an automotive shop -- often the dealer -- rather than pissing with it in the backyard (were one so inclined).

And that, my friend, is magic. Just like the Mayan high priests or the clerics of early and middle Christianity. Nobody can escape it. The whole thing is a complex, self-organizing and continually-mutating, adaptive system that everybody has to ride in. Be flexible.

Posted by Grayson at February 11, 2004 08:01 AM