Of steaks, kids, and hacking

      "He's got the mind of a hacker," Mr. Hughes (my hubby) says. I turn. Iain, our 8-year-old autistic child, is standing on top of the desk in front of the wall-mounted air conditioning unit, using a flashlight to peer into its inner recesses while he turns it off and on. He's chattering to himself all the while, making little high-pitched squealing sounds, blocking out, I suppose, the rest of the world so that he can concentrate on the problem of, "Where is that cold air coming from" and "How can it be used for world domination?" or whatever is going on in that mysterious mind of his.
     Anything can be hacked, Mr. Hughes says. His (broad) definition of hacking: to look at a system and try to break it, find out how it works, improve it.
     Medicine, then, is all about hacking the human body. Yes, even down to the "breaking" part of it, (ever watched a surgery?) although normally, Nature and/or Bad Choices do the "breaking" part.
     Steak can be hacked, too. :)
     School can be hacked.
     It would be nice if we could figure out how to hack the political process to solve our problems, but if someone does, it won't be me. I'm not clever enough.
     Anyway, back to my son and his efforts to hack into the air conditioner. What does he do after peering into the front of the air conditioner? He does what any good hacker would do. After examining the front, he goes around to the back. To see if there is a door. Or buttons to fiddle with, or cold air coming out of that part, too, or a key, or.... He goes outside, into the backyard, and finding the backside of the air conditioner too high in the air for inspection, acquires some helps. First, an upturned bucket. Too tippy. (I hear a squeal of anger). Then, a little chair. Last of all, a stick for poking and prodding. That's our boy.
     Speaking of which, I ought to go and see how his hacking is getting along. Motherhood is all about hacking childhood, right?
     After that, I've got a steak to hack. (Recipe/instructions in another blog.)