Ones and Zeros

An old friend found this (below) and sent it to me. It's a great blast from the past: something I wrote when my brother in law Brian and Chris bought me Netscape and then welcomed me to the internet back in 1990. I had just begun writing for self amusement. It is my response to Brian's welcome to the internet missive which he ended, "Don't worry. It's only ones and zeros". I hope you get a laugh out of it.

Dearest Brian,

Thanx for your welcome. As you see, I finally got into my mail bag. In regard to it only being ones and zeros: Well, isn't that where all the trouble started in the first place? You start by messing with ones and zeros, but it doesn't stop there. Pretty soon you're hooked and you move on to harder numbers: Whole Numbers and Integers lead inevitably to Real and Irrational Numbers. And you wake up one day with your eyes bloodshot, your head spinning and a nasty case of bacterial scum on every surface in your mouth. That's when you realize: You're hooked on higher math. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and even geometry and algebra just won't do it for you anymore. It's been so long since you got a good math ya-ya that you think you're going into Trig. withdrawals. But you haven't hit bottom yet -- Noooo, NO. There's still room to dicker with the devil that's got your number(s). That's when you move on to Calculus and Jacobean Math. It's just a matter of years, maybe months before you can no longer hide your addiction from the world. By then you'll be sweating out those lonely nights alone. Now just doing math doesn't satisfy you. You've gotta know "what it's FOR". "What's it all MEAN?" you ask yourself. "What is it all any good for?"

After that moment, and you'll know when you've reached it because your perceptions twist and, suddenly, it's just not the same world anymore. Simultaneous equations are everywhere you turn. You're surrounded by a dynamic and fluctuating world of Chaos where everything affects everything else and YOU WANT TO QUANTIFY IT. Operational definitions that aren't quantifiable are meaningless! The addiction's run rampant and you begin using machines to help you develop equations to express the incredible mind-altered state through which you perceive the world. Soon you realize that other people's equations just aren't adequate to communicate your vision of the universe and you suspect that the only way out now, out of this nightmare of addiction to quantification, is to ride the Stephen Hawkings Express into certain oblivion or learn to program!

"Eureka!" you think. "Light at the end of the rabbit hole! There is a life in which a nasty numbers addiction is adaptive and beneficial. I can be a geek!" You start keeping time with geeks, looking to them for the confidence you need to take that first step and learn to program for yourself. You're scared, really terrified. After all, what if you fail? But those multiplying nights have become too long to endure alone, and one dreary evening you finally take that C++ manual down from the shelf and hesitantly turn the pages -- and that's when the FINAL irony comes. That's when you find out what a twisted lot mankind really is, because it's all just ones and zeros...

The headlines the next day read something like: "Twenty-Three Dead as Geek Goes Berserk in Suburban Library. Numbers Addiction Suspected".

So don't even TRY to pull ME into your dark, ugly sickness, Buster! Don't try to give me that "It's oooonly ones and zeros" crap because I KNOW the kind of codependence and treachery YOU'RE peddling, and I have SEEN the kind of pitiful and ineffectual lowlife YOU plan to make of me, you, YOU, GEEK!!!

Have a nice day...