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(#106) MORROW:
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The computer is a tool that emulates other tools. A Swiss army knife with a million blades. When great-grandpa Homo Habilis picked up a handy rock and banged on another rock to make a rock that was better suited to sharpening a stick so that he could kill something more efficiently, he set all his grandchildren on the path toward the dark and doubtful future in which we now reside. You look at that rock and it's hard to see any points about that rock that's different from any other rock. You look at a computer and it doesn't immediately recommend itself to you. What's it for? You look at a jackknife and pick it up, and after a moment's messing with it and probably cutting your thumb, you say, "Yeah. I know just what I could do with this." And off you go to do that good old Neanderthal trick of getting dinner without becoming dinner yourself. But a computer? It doesn't look like anything. You could shake it and poke at it and it would remain as mute as the Sphinx. You don't know what it's good for by just looking at it. It's a really fancy tool, something like your brain. Full circle. |