The post title is a quote from Firefly, by the young female ship’s mechanic, Kaylee. It’s exactly how I feel about computers.

A car, particularly the engine, is a complex system, just like a computer and its software. They have both evolved quite a bit from their origins, but they follow the same basic principles established when they were first invented.

This may come as a shock to some of you, but I am a computer guy. I do enjoy a bit of car repair, and I find that most of the systems in a car are not all that hard to comprehend. I wonder how many experienced car mechanics have a similar love and skill with computers (beyond playing games and surfing the internet).

An interesting realization:  In both cars and computers, sometimes the reason for a particular design choice is “Because that’s the way we’ve done it for the past 40 years.”