Algorithms: who are they?

Algorithm sounds to me like a word that has conspiracy and intrigue written all over it. It seems to have gotten its rebirth after laying dormant for many years in Silicon Valley where the computer that rules over all its subjects needed a new word for “a recipe on how to build something.” This know it all contraptions called the computer got its start about 200 miles north of Parkfield, California. Their electric home to everything born out of technology must be where algorithms got its rebirth for who could possibly settle for a word as dry and common that we all of lesser stature and use daily is the word “recipe” so it follows that a cookbook is just a collection of algorithms. 

       With your imagination you will find me sitting in my dentist “chair of pain” where my childhood days still hold sway in my mind, that there would be a fair amount of pain that I had to look forward to. But like a lot of other dreaded practices of old like vaccinations with what looked like a needle that you could use as a straw to drink a coke with. And the dental machine with its maze of cable’s and wheels that spun a drill at a speed that I could almost count the revolution with my naked eye as it gouged out a cavity with Novocaine to deaden only some of the pain. 

             Now, my dreaded trips to the dentist office have resurfaced. The doctor's assistant has just finished preparing me for my meeting with Dr. Implant who will be along shortly. As I waited my eyes began to scan the room for something to read when I noticed a sign on the wall in front of me. It said, algorithm for treating a heart attack which made me a little nervous, wondering if this was a common event? Feeling a little guilty for getting out of Dr. Implants chair I wanted to read up close to what might have been for the doctor’s eyes only. As I read what to me was a recipe on how to care for somebody who was having a heart attack. I think the attack would most likely happen after the patient sees the giant pliers that the doctor is going to use to pull a throbbing tooth from somebody’s jaw bone. 

          The click of the door announced that my dentist had arrived to tell me how much of a year’s wages he was going to extract from my wallet to install a tooth implant. In spite of the cost this new way to keep a person eating, drinking and talking is light years ahead of false teeth. I had to have this tooth. I think my dentist knows this and charges accordingly. But first I had to ask him if I was correct in thinking that an algorithm was nothing more than a recipe about how to do something. His answer “doesn’t it sound more assuring that I’m using an algorithm to save your life instead of a recipe which sounds more like someone who is getting ready to bake a cake.” I had to agree that words can soothe anxiety or words that can start panic. So I guess the point of my trip to my dentist besides getting a tooth implant was to uncover the fact that fancy Silicone Valley words still can’t change the fact that a “recipe by any other word is still a recipe” which leads me to say this blog is all a case of using an algorithm to entertain some and irritate others. 

                                       See Ya, 

                             Jack