- Using a computer is like driving a car: the technology of the interface allows you near total ignorance of how things work.
- I adore driving, and am still afraid to open the hood. Even now, if you want to teach me car part terms beyond "bumper", "steering wheel" and "rearview mirror", I would probably put my fingers in my ears and sing the Star Spangled Banner. I was like this with other things too, for most of my life.
- It reminded me of when I used to see people who could figure things out that I couldn't (like the kid during a school video project who could set up a VCR to record sound correctly even when the cables made it less than obvious). Here's the worst thing about me: I would peevishly make them help me, and tell myself meanwhile that I was better than them for not needing to know such things. Is this what it's like to be very, very wealthy?
- Being a good troubleshooter is the result of all kinds of intellectual successes working together: being patient, thinking logically, the dull-flush of trial and error, refusing to personify the problem, cultivating intuition.
From impulsive and in many ways stubbornly anti-learning, to a teacher. That's me.