My parents have started using BitTorrent to download and watch episodes of Friday Night Lights, since they’re unable to watch it live because of their reluctance to pay for anything other than basic cable. As occasionally happens with BitTorrent, the most recent episode they were trying to download became corrupted and refuses to play after the first three seconds. I found myself, therefore, in the position of having to explain this phenomenon to my mother by e-mail:
— It’s corrupted. You’ll just have to redownload it.
— What do you mean “it’s corrupted”?
— It got messed up while it was downloading. There’s nothing you can do about it.
— But, what do you mean, “corrupted”? Why did it happen?
— I don’t know. Just delete the file and try redownloading it.
It occurred to me, after a few more volleys, that explaining the inexplicable corruption of BitTorrent downloads to my parents must be a lot like the experience of Louis Pasteur trying to explain to the people of the 19th century how microscopic germs caused their milk and wine to go bad. Corruption just isn’t something we’re built to understand, unless we have a vast conceptual framework explaining, scientifically, the full chain of causality between a well-ordered bottle of milk/AVI of Friday Night Lights and curdling/a kernel panic.
“Mike, **WHY** does the hard drive fail?!?!?”
Sir, for me to explain that to you in full detail, you need to understand the fundamentals first and you’re still stymied by why applications disappear from the dock and get, as you say, ERASED!