One of the pastimes of our final whole day in Kauai was an effort to reverse engineer some woven baskets we found either abandoned or washed up on our beach. Blaise and I exhibited
classic chimpanzee characteristics. I (center) rapidly reproduced the
model (top right). Blaise bumbled around for about ten times as long and eventually came up with a different method (closeup below), involving splitting the leaves. Anselm decided that Blaise's method was better, since it was more flexible (Blaise claimed it could be used for a football, or something). In fact it was more rigid, for better or for worse.
It is worth noting that Blaise's innovation was
necessitated by his inability to reconstruct the model; conversely, innovation on my part was
obviated by my ease in reconstructing the model. A deep truth to contemplate.
One of the pastimes of our final whole day in Kauai was an effort to reverse engineer some woven baskets we found either abandoned or washed up on our beach. Blaise and I exhibited classic chimpanzee characteristics. I (center) rapidly reproduced the 
model (top right). Blaise bumbled around for about ten times as long and eventually came up with a different method (closeup below), involving splitting the leaves. Anselm decided that Blaise's method was better, since it was more flexible (Blaise claimed it could be used for a football, or something). In fact it was more rigid, for better or for worse.
It is worth noting that Blaise's innovation was necessitated by his inability to reconstruct the model; conversely, innovation on my part was obviated by my ease in reconstructing the model. A deep truth to contemplate.
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