Mike Macgirvin
Diary and Other Rantings
Beyond Silicon Valley
   
Saturday, Jul 26 2008, 12:23 am
Jun 06, 1968
How does it work?

How does a radio work? A television set? And most importantly, a guitar amplifier? These questions sent me to the library where at age 12, I just needed to know. My mind was opened to an entire new world of electrons, and circuitry, and Ohm's law. This was different than taking apart mechanical things where you could see how they worked by the way they fit together. Instead, you had to just understand what each of the parts did to these invisible things called electrons, and from there imagine how they all connected together to make it work. To make things work was a mental process, not a mechanical one. 

The world was rapidly changing from one based on physical function to one based on imagination. This was especially evident here in the suburbs of San Francisco in the months following the Summer of Love. 

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linux: the choice of a GNU generation
(ksh@cis.ufl.edu put this on Tshirts in '93)