[techtalk] Re; biscuit jack

[Lothan]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: techtalk-admin at linuxchix.org
> [mailto:techtalk-admin at linuxchix.org]On Behalf Of Wood, Mary
> Sent: Monday, May 07, 2001 2:26 PM
> To: 'techtalk at linuxchix.org'
> Subject: [techtalk] Re; biscuit jack
>
>
> lothan at newsguy.com 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!