Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

The personal computer, the laptop computer, the home computer, the netbook – whatever title we use, they have all become the personal Google machine, i.e., the window into the knowledge of mankind.

I live in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C. Tony Kornheiser, one of those guys on ESPN’s “PTI,”  has a local radio show. He does a lot of commercials on local radio. A phrase he often uses in his radio commercials is:

look it up on your personal Google machine

Kornheiser may be  kidding. I am not sure as I often can’t tell when he is kidding and when he is being insightful.

I think Kornheiser is being quite insightful on this one. The personal computer has become the personal Google machine.

The personal computer, the Mac, the Linux box, the whatever, has become a window to search the content of mankind. The knowledge, the facts, the trivia, the disgust, the glory – they are all out there on the Internet. The search engine, epitomized by Google, is the window to all that stuff.

• Crunch numbers?
• Program?
• Write?

Those are such archaic uses for the personal computer. The personal Google machine? Yes, that is what the inexpensive computer is.