A Snitch in Thyme
Jan. 24th, 2002 08:47 pmI suspect most of us, at one time or another, have imagined what would happen if we gave a chemist the ingredients neccessary for baking a cake, and their chemical formulae, but no recipe. Oh, the hijinks that would certainly ensue!
Now alter the experiment: give an engineer an unthreaded sewing machine and tell him to make a pillowcase. About twenty minutes in, unnerved by comments to the effect of "if I just soldered another knob on here. . .," throw in an instruction manual. But because you have a sense of humor about all this, make sure it's the manual for a different model of machine, manufactured by a different company. Also, use German instead of English, because "steppstichnamaschine" is a better word.
Romie's solution time: 34 minutes and a bug bite.
Now alter the experiment: give an engineer an unthreaded sewing machine and tell him to make a pillowcase. About twenty minutes in, unnerved by comments to the effect of "if I just soldered another knob on here. . .," throw in an instruction manual. But because you have a sense of humor about all this, make sure it's the manual for a different model of machine, manufactured by a different company. Also, use German instead of English, because "steppstichnamaschine" is a better word.
Romie's solution time: 34 minutes and a bug bite.