The Cut 1:1

I had friends and students write down questions on bits of paper, and I put them into a hat, hoping that if not random, it could at least have the traditional markings of the random, the other options being dice, straws, or plinko. The first question is... almost totally illegible, which seems proper, but if I can see through the rather nasty smudge it seems to say "not talking... want to." Fair enough.
The first order of business, then, is an introduction to communicative barriers. Traditionally, we would probably start with transmitter, channel, and receiver problems, and perhaps noise (interference) problems somewhere in the middle. The problem of course, is that we can hear our own voice for seconds on either side of the speaking quite distinctly, the echoes only fading off slowly on either side and being confused into other voices, and that this same echo concentration characterizes the receiver (as well, arguably, as the channel). That is to say, there is nothing to transmit that is not already coming back along the same channel just as it is being sent.
The other day I was getting on the bus, and behind me was a preoccupied Black gentleman digging for change for the bus ticket as an apparently drunk woman fidgeted and stomped about behind him. After a few seconds, of course, she began shouting obscenities at him, and he turned around and asked "Are you talking to me?"
"Yes, I'm talking to ME! I am talking to meee," she spat back at him, paid, and threw herself down in a seat, still muttering. "Me, me, I'm talking to me," frothing a little, more from what seemed to have been beer than from the talking.
So, is there a barrier here on the bus? Clearly not. For once, in stating the constitution of a barrier, she spoke in clean parallel to the several that were probably her most frequent configurations thereof. For once, the transmission model makes perfect sense.
And on that note, I will return.