Another brief departure today since I would rather watch Monday Night Football than think real hard. Last Tuesday, I took my car in for service because it was starting very rough in the cold weather, and for probably the first time ever, I actually understand what they did to fix it. Let me be very clear about one thing: I know very, very little about cars. I understand the basics of an engine from a physics standpoint, and I have rudimentary knowledge of things like how brakes work and so on, but I've never tried to fix a car, and frankly, I think it's in my best interest that I do not attempt to become a "car" guy. If I started to learn about cars, I would have to know absolutely everything about cars. I would spend a lot of time obsessively tweaking cars that I own, and I don't have time or mindspace for any of that.

However, I do understand computers, and in many cases, hardware. That's why I was pleased to read the diagnosis (I'm paraphrasing): "Tech determined that firmware version for [unknown car thing] was version 1.07 which is known to cause misfire condition. Computer showed newer version from July 06, which was installed and should correct condition and hopefully cold start issues." So they upgraded the software to hopefully fix the problem. This I understand.

As cars become more software-oriented, especially in electric or hybrid cars that are mostly "drive-by-wire", where doing things like pushing the brake actually controls a signal to the computer rather than physically controlling a friction creating device, I may actually start to be able to fix cars simply because they have become computers. This brings up a larger idea for me, that of the people with computer skills becoming kind of "universal mechanics". As everything in our lives becomes a computer, from cable boxes to refrigerators to cars, anyone with some knowledge of operating systems and networking should in be able to fix a certain portion of the things that go wrong with these devices. I think it may end up giving a certain power to these skills that will make them valuable in a way that the ability to write once was for the ruling classes, only hopefully, more widely attainable.