A Pirate Looks At Fifty-One

In November I turned fifty years old. In my short life I've seen the computer industry explode. My first computer was a total piece of shit Timex Sinclair that was a complete joke. Between then and when I got a "real" computer in 1986-a Mac Se Plus with a whopping 512k of memory-there were Trash 80's, Commodore 64's, and other toys that obviously pale in comparison to today's devices. When Microsoft introduced Windows, I didn't immediately switch over. Eventually, like a good chunk of the world, I did. I've gotten comfortable with the OS, but most of the creatives and coders I know use Macs.  Since I can comfortably put myself in neither category, I'm allowed some leeway.

Life, pre-Google, consisted of services like Compuserve and Prodigy and with search choices like Lycos.Yahoo is what I was using at the time. The web was not pretty in the late eighties and early nineties. It had very little graphic capability even with a T1 line.  YouTube would never had worked.

Eventually, I got turned on to Google. Since I had lived in the area-Google's original URL was google.stanford.edu-I figured these guys and girls weren't complete retards. I was right. I presently use most of their services. As for the privacy thing...well, the U.S. government knows more than a few things about me. I generally trust Stanford graduates and computer geeks.  The government? Their track record speaks for itself.

Posted via email from Pier 51