The Street Finds Its Own Uses For Things

William Gibson said that in Burning Chrome, first published in the July 1982 issue of Omni. I miss the old print version to the point of keeping an eye open for them in ephemera piles at swap meets. We practiced that phrase long before hearing it. Most of us didn’t see it first in Omni. We had to wait until his 1986 compilation of the same name hit the bookstores, but it wasn’t a revelation; rather an affirmation of what we instinctively knew. The phone company was not thinking of model railroad geeks when they dumped those old stepper switches at Eli Heffron’s scrap yard. Ham Radio operators have traditionally used surplus and salvaged military and consumer electronics to build their rigs. We still “dumpster dive,” but it now involves intercepting obtainium at the day job before it hits the bottom of the e-cycle gaylord box in the warehouse. After a few months your workshop starts looking like the beginnings of Dog Solitude. It’s a good thing. You never know when you might have to scratch that hacking itch.