Lost in Translaton...

From an engineering standpoint, I do have an appreciation for the science behind modern communication technologies. I understand how the TDMA and CDMA cellular networks operate, as well as the principles behind packet switching and circuit switching for data and telecommunications. I know how TCP/IP works, both its intent and design basis. And I have a vague recollection of the OSI model describing a philosophy for transmitting and receiving messages in a reliable manner. Heck, I can calculate the length of an antenna required for a given frequency spectrum and the power required to broadcast the transmission over a given distance.

But the thing that's baffling about communication is not the technology, but rather the human aspect of it all - how we translate our thoughts into words and vice versa. Slapping a packet scanner on a network will ensure that errors in transmission will be detected, but what about errors in the translation process? And that's the scary thing, cos' it's so very possible for me to be all excited about a prospect, only for the received message to be interpreted as indifference.

An analysis will pinpoint the root causes of this failure as:
(1) the wrong signal (or a mixed signal) being sent, or
(2) the correct signal being sent AND being interpreted wrongly or
(3) there being some corruption of the signal along the way or
(4) a possible combination of these.

So what's the way forward? The logical thing to do is to attempt to improve what I have control over, namely (1) and to some extent (3). And I'll agree that there are times when I'm not coming across clearly cos' sometimes even I can't make sense of what I'm thinking. And, further to that, sometimes even the best of thoughts are somehow manifested as awkward gestures and speech. So how do I fix that? Well then that’s just it - cos' for a very long time now, this engineer has been trying to figure that one out.