we saw Once wrote that software is eating the world. From our point of view, what’s really happening is that the software creates its own world and invites us to eat there.
These days, we’re lighting up other worlds – for real Placeinstead of spooky space Summoned by software. Take our local hardware store for example. The sights, sounds of real machines, and advanced tools still seem exciting. We get into the whirring music of the key duplicator. We turn to the man in the vestment of the big pocket for advice. We smell the divine smell of oiled metal, dusty cardboard, evaporated varnish, PVC fumes and fertilizer bags with leaking seams. We imagined everything it would take to build this world: thousands of years of trial and error, oceans of sweat, millions of tons of earth’s matter mined, refined, and industrialized so that we humans could enjoy a greater variety of self-tapping than there is. The deck screws are stars in the Andromeda galaxy. what species, We believe that.
Of course, our definition of “hardware” extends beyond the plumbing department.We apply the term to any matter behind our (increasingly immaterial) reality – any object capable of changing Skillknowledge about how to do something, translates to logo, its discourse. Hardware moves the planet. Hardware shapes molecules. Hardware sends electrons around the world and into our fingertips. Software can still create worlds for itself, even convincing us that the world of bits is all that matters. But, deep down in our being, we will always crave atoms.
In this special WIRED bundle, we’ve collected stories to answer that longing—stories about cameras, cars, computers, and the insides of the chips that form their foundations. Whether those stories come to you via ink molecules on processed wood fibers, layers of LEDs on a screen, or electromagnetic pulses through speaker coils, we hope you’ll fall in love with the beauty and possibilities of your hardware. again.
