I love the creative use of metaphors (well, who doesn’t) and the other day I stumbled across these two little gems from Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon (p. 515, 516; an amazing read, btw). They describe how the invention of radar affected a certain German U-boat:
In the age of sonar, Bischoff’s U-boat was a rat in a dark, cluttered, infinite cellar, hiding from a man who had neither torch nor lantern: only two rocks that could spark when banged together. Bischoff sank a lot of ships in those days.
… (after the invention of radar) …
His U-boat is no longer a rat in a dark cellar. Now it is a wingless horsefly dragging itself across an immaculate tablecloth in the streaming light of the afternoon sun.
BANG! One dead horsefly!