I found an old blog post in Google’s cache. It’s even one that I liked, so I’m re-posting it. In it, “today” refers to some time a few years ago when I pulled an old etch-a-sketch apart.
Until today I did not know how an etch-a-sketch worked. That simple fact gives me the authority, I’m pretty sure, to say that etch-a-sketches work by magic or faeries: I don’t know how an etch-a-sketch works, therefore God – or something.
But I never did ascribe to that way of thinking, I just didn’t know. In my not-knowing I maintained my nonsense filter and ignored the people who blamed a leprechaun and gremlins. I did not have to know how it did work to reject silly ideas.
Then, today, I used my etch-a-sketch, peeling away its silver (aluminium, to be honest – it’s just a silver colour) surface until I saw the mechanism behind it, and it revealed no unicorns nor a pixie.
Allallt in discussion 
[…] the Higgs boson and flooding in the Southwest of England, an environmental opinion on Pandas, a brief snippet of my own thinking process using an etch-a-sketch and some health and fitness advice. I’m not sure there is a thread that combines these themes, […]