By way of introduction to “Chocolate Chips and Biscuit Bytes” you must understand the role of a router in computer networks.
Remember that the Internet is a high speed data pathway that interconnects millions of computers. Data (bits and bytes of information) must move from one computer to another. A router is a specialized computer that receives packets of data and sends them along the Internet on the fastest route to their destination. The millions of routers along the Internet make sure that data broken up into data packets originate at one computer and arrive intact and in order at the destination computer.
Cisco Systems is the largest and most well known producer of routers for the Internet.
Now, “Chocolate Chips and Biscuit Bytes”…a true story:
My husband, Frank, is among other things a computer programmer. He is a physician who can write computer code which has enabled him to design medical care related software. His avocation has brought computers into our daily life.
Recently, someone asked Frank if our children were computer enthusiasts. He thought about the question and replied that the children are just accustomed to using the computer as an everyday appliance. They use the computer as effortlessly and frequently as most of us use the telephone.
The children do use the computer for a variety of activities. Our son will spend an hour winning the World Cup on computer soccer and our daughter tends a cadre of virtual Catz and Dogz. When the children need to do research for a school project they will use the Internet as a primary information resource. When we plan a trip they will search out details of our destination on the net before we pack.
When my daughter, Emma, visits my office she draws computer pictures and leaves the icon on my Windows desktop. I double click on “Annie” and in the middle of a frantic day I can view Emma’s cubism representation of her guinea pig in yellow and black with a bright pink nose.
The computer also magnifies the generation gap in our family. Recently, my parents came to visit and although they recognize the computer facade they have no inkling about how it works. Before going out to dinner one evening they wanted to turn off the computer in the game room next to their bedroom. My mother asked our son for directions to turn it off. Instead of simple instructions to flip a switch, Cabell recited five steps to safely shut down the computer from Microsoft Windows. My exasperated mother sent him to do it himself.
While my husband provides our children with the high tech mathematics skills, I counter-balance with hands-on baking and gardening which are my strengths.
One Saturday we were heavy duty into a practical life lesson right up my alley. Emma stood at one end of the kitchen counter spooning vanilla pudding into a pyrex bowl to cover a layer of bananas and vanilla wafers for banana pudding. Cabell was at the other end of the counter stirring together brown sugar, granulated sugar, salt and flour into his own recipe of homemade brownies. I was making English muffin bread and Frank was washing dishes.
We were a crowd in the kitchen and things really heated up when Cabell turned on the double boiler to melt chocolate chips and marshmallows. I had just left Cabell stirring his melting chocolate and whizzed by Emma to provide another banana, when I had to return to the Kitchenaid to add more flour to the bread dough. Cabell left his double boiler to check his sugar mixture just when steam started to roll out from the bottom pan. Frank turned around to check the stove and Emma almost ran into him trying to throw away her banana peel. Cabell came scooting back over to the double boiler and I left my bread and came around to join the crowd clumped around the melting chocolate.
When the steam let up and Cabell finished stirring his chocolate he looked up to me and asked, “Where’s the Cisco?”
I stared at him, puzzled for a moment. “The Cisco?”, I asked. I glanced around the kitchen. It was true that it was chaotic with three cooks in the kitchen and ingredients strewn about on various corners of the counter. It was quite possibly true a good router would help us work more smoothly, more efficiently. Perhaps we would feel more connected. My thoughts were interrupted by Cabell shaking my arm. “You know, the Cisco. The white stuff you put in the biscuits. I need some for my brownies.”
“Oh, you mean the Crisco,” I said smiling, “You’re looking for the Crisco, but, you know, I think all you need is butter in your brownies.”
Someday, misnomer aside, I can imagine that we will be fully integrated. My Kitchenaid mixer will be more or less powerful based on the baud rate of the rotary beater. Cabell will ask for a 10 which will be a double boiler in binary code. I’ll pull out the can of Cisco and we really will be able to take bytes out of our biscuits.
At school, the teacher will ask, “Name an electronic machine that can perform complex calculations and can process large amounts of information in the wink of an eye with impeccable accuracy,” and the children will have to think seriously about the answer: My computer or my mother- hmmm.
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