An electronic pulse is sent out

“And then it happened… a door opened to a world… rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict’s veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought… a board is found.”

These are the words, as i first read them, quite some time ago. It has probably been eight years. Even though they were originally written half a year before i was born, for me, these words, along with the rest of The Conscience of a Hacker defined the beginning of an era, and the beginning of my explorations in the world of the electron and the switch. Having grown up alongside the rapid raise of this era, and having been able to see the emergence of this technology, from exactly the perspective that is mine, is something I value dearly. Not because my perspective is extraordinary in any way, but simply due to the fact that my perspective was one unclouded of the prejudices all too often anchored in adulthood. It was a perspective of exploration and tinkering, motivated only by a creative interest, never by the prospect of financial gain, fame, self-propagation or other kinds of illusory gems, diffusely reflected from the depths of hitherto uncharted seas. Those of us unconstrained by, or simply unknowing of such incentives, were able to see this technology as it really is: A mesmerizing sea composed of millions upon millions of memetic jewels.

Strangely, though probably every cell in my body has been replaced, and most of what I consider me has changed greatly, The Conscience of a Hacker has stayed with me trough these eight years. Sometimes near the surface, in my conscious, sometimes deeply buried, but still ever present. Amazing, the human ability to absorb largely advanced concepts and distill them to the purest essence, to re-create them from the most miniscule quantums of existence, and to effortlessly balance an immesurable number of these components into the ever-changing symbiosis we know as consciousness.