A flight inches away from a crash
There are situations where years of experience and instinct kicks in.
It was just another day at Heathrow when a scheduled British Airways flight came in to land on Jan 31 2022.
The video on Twitter shows how things could have gone bad very quickly.
The plane appears to make a smooth touchdown and the rear wheels touch the ground.
Then, the airplane sways and tilts and one of the wings nearly scrapes the ground.
Whoever was on that plane would have known what 'close shave' really meant.
The plane had flown directly into 92 mph gusts from Storm Corrie, and it was tossing the plane around in unpredictable directions.
In those split seconds when the plane was on the ground, the pilot would have had only moments to make a decision.
Work against the tilt and attempt to control a beast that was essentially beyond anyone's grasp.
Thankfully, he manages to balance the plane and with only a few hundred feet of the runway left, he makes the choice that proved to be right.
Abort the landing and take off to come back a second time.
On its return, the plane made an uneventful landing and passengers escaped unscathed. But the few short seconds when the plane touched down for the first time and then tilted would have been terrifying for all those on board.
Every touchdown brings with it a sense of relief but the video captures how close the plane and the passengers were to disaster.
If the wing had clipped the ground, getting aloft again would have been next to impossible.
Instinct is honed from years of experience. Whether it is navigating markets or flying planes.
Teachers introduced imposition over 2000 years ago
Archeologists have made a startling discovery. What happens in classrooms has barely changed.
From inscriptions on ancient pottery, they found that children were repeating the same exercise several times over.
It was probably as humiliating for the child then as it is now.
We've acquired a great deal of knowledge but some of the earliest techniques have persisted, if archeologists have got their theory right.
There are instances of a 'bird alphabet' with words beginning from the names of the birds.
But the methods deployed in the classroom are in line with happens today. Introduce a concept and get those who couldn't understand to write it down several times over.
Writing itself was much harder. The letters had to be pressed into clay tablets with blunt and pointed 'pencils' or sticks dipped in ink.
Tablets have completely changed since then. Touch enabled and a lot more to explore.
Then, they were pieces of mud on which children could scrawl lists of months, numbers, arithmetic problems and grammar exercises.
The devices on which children are taught have transformed. The classrooms are well-equipped and even the administration of schools has become vastly more efficient.
But in one respect, the transfer of knowledge and how we teach children, it looks like we're stuck in a repeating loop.
If the experience of school for children has remained where it was thousands of years ago, maybe that's where more work should be done.
However, it has not been a priority for centuries, so don't hold your breath for this generation or the next!
We're working around the edges, not on how children absorb and understand concepts.
Low tech sometimes works better than smart
Everything 'smart' needs electricity.
That's the fatal flaw no 'smart' implementation can overcome.
Electric blankets, for example, do not work in a power shutdown. You're not only miserable, you're stuck with no alternatives.
Only a few reading this would be familiar with a hot water bottle.
I haven't seen it for decades now. But in early childhood, it was a familiar sight.
It looked weird - a floppy thick rubber container. Hot water was poured into it and then the mouth was sealed. The water inside remained hot for hours. And it was tucked behind the back or on the stomach under the bedcovers. The warmth would spread slowly and it actually worked quite well.
It was technology invented hundreds of years ago when home heating was unheard of. Battling the cold was always a tough proposition.
The rubber hot water bottles were a familiar sight in most homes. Families would buy them in fairly large numbers and they would be tucked away and out of sight most of the time. Every time it cooled beyond a point, all you needed was a refill, ready in minutes.
Yes, there were problems when the threads stopped working to seal the water inside or when it sprung a leak. But these were built to be hardy and for years of use.
No planned obsolescence or upgrades.
There's no way of course, that anyone today would consider using them. Too laborious and time-consuming, they would sneer.
Granted that it does not work as well as 'smart' gadgets today. Maybe that's the point. We've got greater efficiency and comfort by sacrificing longevity.
And that's exactly what the world wants right now.