I'm a late bloomer. I laid my hands on my first computer - a monochrome Macintosh when I was eight years old, in my old primary school.
My brother, whose former interests were motorcycles and photography, then got into computers and bought a 386, later a 486. He showed me what was cutting edge at the time - screensavers.
The screensavers he showed me were used as a demonstration of what the computer could do back then.
I only knew the machines as one thing - a possible tool to play games. I played Jane's simulation for the F-117 and the A-10. Also, Dune 2 and C&C 2: Red Alert as well as Doom.
In 1996, my father decided to buy a PC. It was a Pentium-S machine with 16MB of EDO RAM and 2GB hard disk drive. It also came with a 14.4kbps modem.
I had previously encountered more computers and my first programming language - LOGO - at school. Back in my school, we used to break into the computer room to play games and for some, to surf and print porn.
I was online in 1996 at home, with the full intention of looking for naked pictures of Shizuka from Doraemon. What I found were communities of people living there.
In 1999, I was in UM and a bunch of us went to MMU to access the high internet speeds. I spent a month there, not realising I was missing out on a special semester at UM, to watch anime.
This was also the first time I created a website. At 19. It had a main title, which had a reflection that shimmered because of a Java applet embedded. It had glowing buttons. In other word, the website was total crap.
I say I'm a late bloomer because today, I see 12-year-olds doing incredible things. Technology has advanced so much that within a mere handful of months, kids can make professional websites with all the functionalities that any business would require.
I have met tudung-clad makciks who run successful blog-shops online. Those who say blog-shops do not work, with their rudimentary free tools and amateurish coding, do not understand people.
You can look at global graphs charting the rise of e-commerce in terms of fashion, gadgets and books.
It's not how the thing looks - it's the functionality. Bottomline, is this shit useful? Does it cater to my needs? Function before form. Fuck Steve Jobs. Long may he be gone.
Reddit's design sucks and is too cluttered. But when they hold Q&A with anyone I have an interest in having a Q&A in, I willingly sift through their pile of shit to get at that thing I want.
Craigslist sucks, but people still go there.
The Internet is a Millennium Falcon, not a Star Destroyer. Things get fucked up, tools are used not for their intended purposes, and people are jerks and douchebags. They are also way smarter than anyone gives them credit for. Understand that.
The world is fast passing me by. But I am not worried. Tides will change and there is nothing any single person can do about it. There is no use worrying about the ocean.
My skill sets are hardly unique. But I am.
