In one of his Discworld novels Terry Pratchett said if you give a dwarf some simple tools they can make anything. Because with simple tools you can make complex tools and with complex tools you can make more complex tools until you have some incredibly complicated and specialized tools that will get you just about anything.
I’ve noticed that the same can be said about most people in prison. These guys have pretty much nothing, but they can manage to turn it into something pretty impressive. Let’s say, for example, you have a cord, a paper clip, and a pair of scissors. From that you can create a rather rudimentary soldering iron/ cigarette lighter. And with that you can now start working on electronics, say, building a tattoo gun, or rewiring a DVD drive to be a DVD player for your TV.
I also think that prisoners and dwarves have a lot in common considering both have this odd aversion to light and windows. I always have to turn the lights on whenever I walk into a room, even if it’s full of people. I never have sorted that out. Personally, I can’t stand to sit in a semi-gloom of an institutional building, but they seem to like it. I guess you have to take your happiness where you can get it.
So, the next time you see a heavily tattooed man linking in the sun with weird bits of wire in his bag, you might not trust him with your wallet, but he can fix your tv with nothing.
Ninja_Master | 08-Oct-07 at 11:08 am | Permalink
This is very interesting. Did you know that there is actually a museum in Alcatraz where they put the tools the prisoners used to try and escape on display? And the mythbusters have also gotten salsa banned from prisons as they found a way to use it to corrode the steel bars on cells.
jeff | 08-Oct-07 at 1:15 pm | Permalink
Those damned Mythbuster busybodies spoil everything!
Amanda | 09-Oct-07 at 11:22 pm | Permalink
Curse you, Jamie! You’ve ruined my plans, and my life.