From the Lunatic: The First Time a Machine Answered Me
November 15, 2026. This is a piece of Ranting with a Lunatic, and here is the setup. Yesterday evening, November 14, 2026, I was being interviewed about my own history, the long version, and the questions worked their way back to the beginning. Not to a job. Not to a company. To a kitchen, and a kid, and the first time a machine ever answered me back. Here is what I said, in my own words. "The first time a machine answered me back was Eliza probably. Actually, you know what? It was probably the Commodore 64 sitting in my kitchen. I was about 11 maybe 10 or 11. Maybe 12, but no older. And I was trying to figure out how to use the modem because I had gotten the computer like two weeks before and we never could figure out the modem. We thought it was broken. But it wasn't broken though, was it? I just didn't know how to use it. So I figured out how to use it. I plugged it in, turned it on, did my first ATDT and dialed into a bulletin board system. And that was magical to ...