Happy Halloween

[Tad Carlucci]

A long, long, Long, LONG time ago, back before there was an Internet, back when computers filled entire buildings, back before they became small enough to actually fit in your living room (and, boy, did I dream of THAT!), and decades before they were small enough to sit out on my lap as I sit on my rocking chair enjoying a fine Autumn morning out on the porch, I got into computers.

Back them, my parents, well, my mother, had a very hard time understanding it.

My family's business it METAL. They turn big, useless chunks of the stuff into smaller, highly useful bits which makes THINGS. Things you all use. Steering wheels for your cats, the plastic cases for your telephones. REAL stuff. Stuff you can hold in your hand!

And here I come and start making stuff which isn't real! How can I POSSIBLY expect to survive? Who would ever want something which really only exists in your mind?

Now, decades later, one would see that those 'unreal' things people like me made turned out to be important and effect real lives every day.

But, still, we see comments like above.

What is 'unreal' about KittyCatS, or Second Life?

Because some insist upon calling it 'a game' and feel it has no value?

But, really, who are they to say?

It's not up to anyone else to decide.

Who's to say. Maybe, decades from now, when you look back you'll realize that Second Life and KittyCatS was the start of something.

So could we all just agree that even though some might not presently see value in what we choose to do, we all have a right to do it and we don't need mothers telling us to get a real job simply because they don't see the value we do?