#bcny

Dad went to college to learn how to use computers back in the 70s — this was back when computers would take up whole rooms and you had to input commands with punch cards.

He brought home our first home computer in the late 90s; a chunky Compaq Presario that clicked like a bottle nose dolphin as it chugged along. The Compaq was mainly for his side hustle (a carpet cleaning business) and for me and my brothers to do our school work (the side hustle was helping to pay our school fees), but it quickly became my direct portal to the skateboarding article on Encarta and pokemon.com.

Dad’s main job was the night production manager for the Royal Gazette — a job he had for close to 40 years. He would often talk about how he missed the sound of a newsroom. The clacks and thunks of typewriters, the ringing of phones, the chaos of people coming together to make a paper every day. I couldn’t imagine how the Gazette could ever have been a loud place when I would visit him at work. It was deafeningly quiet! He would plop me in front of a computer to play Minesweeper and the only sounds you could hear were my mouse clicks.

Since Dad worked at night, he had a good chunk of hang time waiting for the paper to be ready to go to production. He would listen to internet radio stations, read interesting articles and forward dirty joke emails from his coworkers. When I left home for university my procrastinating study hours and his work hours would sync up. We would email each other links to cool music, videos, articles and, since I was old enough, the odd dirty joke email forward. But we mostly just chatted.

We started saying “I love you” over email

He was a great writer — he wrote just like he spoke — and both of our conversation styles lent themselves to the time delayed back and forth of email. I say something, you read it and think about it, you send a considered response back with a little something extra. Repeat.

We started saying “I love you” over email. We were always close, but we both had a hard time talking about our feelings especially when I was a teenager. Being apart, but still staying in touch over email gave us the space to feel comfortable saying we loved each other. We had no trouble saying it after that — it was one of the first things we said to each other when I could finally come home for Christmas in December 2022.

Tech is very expensive where I come from (about 30% more expensive than the US), so whenever I go home I roll up like Tech Santa with a bag full of laptops, tablets and phones. The Compaq Presario was long gone and Dad’s laptop had seen better days. Dad was a long time Windows user — he wrote his memoirs in Microsoft Word — so he was keen to stay on something familiar.

I got him a Surface Laptop 3. I walked him through setting up Windows 11. I arranged his bookmarks bar in Chrome so he could quickly access his email, Facebook, Youtube and, most importantly, his memoirs which we’d uploaded to Google Drive. He was so happy to have all of his stuff moved over to his new computer and relieved that his memoirs were properly backed up.

Going through his browser after he died was some of the most heartbreaking work I’ve ever done

After he passed away I helped my Mum with the gut wrenching task of cleaning up Dad’s digital life. I made sure she had access to his email and important logins so she could deal with closing accounts and adjusting billing names. I also memorialized his Facebook page to ensure it didn’t get hacked and start spamming friends and relatives with crypto scams.

Dad had several strokes leading up the internal bleeding and renal failure in May 2023. Honestly back in Christmas 2022 he had only recently recovered from his last stroke and he wasn’t quite himself. Going through his browser after he died was some of the most heartbreaking work I’ve ever done. The bookmarks bar that we had carefully set up together was riddled with duplicates — Facebook, Youtube, Google Drive over and over spilling out into a drop down menu. My Dad knew his way around computers. He had been using them since they took up a whole room. I knew some damage had been done after the strokes, although he was very good at hiding it and I don’t think I was ready to admit it at the time. But with him gone and looking into his computer, his window to the world, I couldn’t deny what I had known for at least a year. My Dad had strokes, my Dad had internal bleeding, my Dad was dying, my Dad was gone.

These things — computers, web browsers — they’re not just inert tools waiting to be picked up and used. The more you use them, the more they become a part of you and you of them. The laptop lid gets scratched, coffee is spilled onto the keyboard, cords become frayed, bookmarks get bundled up into folders to be forgotten, passwords get scribbled on sticky notes and then reset again, tabs sit open for months just in case, URLS and search queries are typed in repeatedly just because you’ve built up the muscle memory — facebook, youtube, google drive, pokemon.com.

We’re all about to be new at this again

A developer friend of mine once said to me, “the future is here and we’re all bad at it”. University level STEM students don’t know how file paths work, they don’t teach kids to type anymore and more and more jobs across a variety of fields require some degree of computer literacy. Everyone is expected to just know how to use computers, but as my Mum would say “I’ve never had a lesson!”. As we head into the next phase of computing — where you work with the computer instead of simply using the computer — much of your interactions will be through AI language models, but even the people building those don’t really know how they work. We’re all about to be new at this again — new at computers, new at web browsers, new at everything. Now more than ever, we’re all going to need some help. Hopefully that help comes from someone who understands what you’re going through, what you’re trying to get done and can meet you where you’re at.

What we’re building is so much more than just a portal to websites

On June 5 2023 I started a job that changed my life. I started working at the Browser Company of New York!

I help to build Arc, a product that I love, with some of the most talented, thoughtful and inspiring people I’ve ever met. I helped bring Arc to Windows, so people like my Dad could use this very special browser that feels like my home on the internet.

I truly feel like I’m doing the best work of my life and that’s because what we’re building is so much more than just a portal to websites. It’s where you do your work. It’s where you hang out with friends. It’s where you pirate anime, do your taxes and send emails to your Dad.

It’s where you live your life. As we continue to build I hope to be that human voice on the other side of the computer that helps you feel like Arc is for you, for your stuff, for your life. I want to help Arc feel like home. See you on the internet ✌️ Love you, Dad!