His mom's way of grounding him was to take away whatever he was enjoying most: the game console, then the TV, then the radio, until all he had left was books. So he read the encyclopedia that summer.
In this Padded Room conversation, Modern Magician (David Bates) goes back to the beginning. A first PC built from parts headed for the trash, a GED that opened the door to tech jobs, and a habit of moving to wherever the next thing to learn was, including writing test software for the Mac side during the Antennagate era, by his account. He talks about the Special Olympics medals he learned to electroplate, a Valentine's Day gift printed from a favorite photo of the two of them, the two browser tools he built, MeshRx and Mat2Vert, and the inventory problem he wants someone to solve. He also gives his advice on using AI as a tool with your own hand in the output.