Welcome to Growing Up Geek, an ongoing feature where we take a look back at our youth and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. Today we have our very own Contributing Editor, Jesse Hicks.
I've never been one for nostalgia, but if I I had to choose a Proustian element from my geeky childhood -- a singular sense-memory that evokes a whole constellation of related feelings -- I'd pick the eerie keening of a 28.8 modem. That high, quavering sound, for me, conjurs up the earliest days of my geekdom, when computers were slow, landlines were king and the internet was young.
