As a kid I was always interested in tech, from an early age I have been hooked on videogames. From the ancient Atari 8600 and Intelevision to the Nintendo Entertainment System and eventually the Super Nintendo. I have been interested in computers and making videogames as a kid. I learned Basic on a Commodore 64 lab, and built very basic games.
One thing that I rely to learn about what was going on at the world of videogames was collecting magazines. My dad will take my brother and I to a magazine deposit that will get different magazines from the US. Titles like Electronic Gaming Monthly, GamePro and GameFan where the ones that hit this center every other week. I was there to buy them, until one day I took seriously the subscription slip that these magazines had, and I decided to send my 15 USD in an envelope to the US (being from Mexico it was a risk I wouldn't get anything).
After some months, I start getting the magazine, and I stayed with them for several years. I also subscribed to other type of magazines as I got older including Linux Journal and the Harvard Business Review. Reflecting on those times I wonder how many other kids my age were doing that. I come to realize that none of my friends ever did something like that.
I get that same feeling as I discovered the internet. For me it was a natural way to escape my hometown and the people in it and connect with people from around the world. To my surprise not many were doing that, and it wasn't the language as most of my friends spoke English. But only me and my querky liking of NY Hip-hop got me in touch with people from Sweden, Philippines, Malaysia, Romania and of course the US.
Meditating on things I did back in the days and I thought everyone was also doing, but looking back I was the only one that ever thought about makes me a bit curious. I would say normal curiosity drove me, I didn't had an agenda. Yes I did had a underlining desire to expand my knowledge but I think that is normal for most kids. But even as an adult I think that all this new tech like AI, Blockchain, Web3 is something that most people are looking at, just to realize I am all alone on that.
I wonder if subscribing to magazines was something you also did when you were a kid? Was the magazine from your local country or was it from the US? Did you came across to that idea or you saw someone else doing it?
