What do we have here?
Two computers who won’t talk to each other, yet they are side by side. 2 1/2 inches separate them. One has a file that is needed by the other, but ne’er the twain shall meet, right?
If it wasn’t for the fact that one file needs to pass from one to the other, it wouldn’t even matter just where they are in time in space – what links them, and makes that distance appear, is a common task that requires both to communicate.
But hey! There’s help at hand. Both are connected to the Internet. So we can send our file to the third party server. Which lives in California, on this occasion, and happens to be 5456 miles (8781 km) (4741 nautical miles) from where the two computers are sitting near London, 2 1/2 inches apart from each other.
So the file travels 5456 miles (8781 km) (4741 nautical miles) as one computer uploads it to the server, and then 5456 miles (8781 km) (4741 nautical miles) back again as the second computer downloads it from the third party location.
Now, the task has been accomplished; the journey is at an end.
And the moral of the tail?
In this case, the shortest distance between two points which were 2 1/2 inches apart, turned out to be 10,912 MILES.
And that is either a useful neurological NLP metaphor, or just simply, the story of my life …