Knowledge is Free

Chapter 5 Knowledge is Free

"Just leave it here, thank you, you can go now."

Evelyn's words brought Ethan back to his senses.

Seeing the long, slender fingers tapping on the table, he understood and placed the tray in front of her, saying with a smile, "Oh, Evelyn, isn't there any possibility of reconciliation between us?"

"no."

Evelyn answered decisively, took a sip of clam chowder, and the salty and savory taste made her squint.

"Ethan, you know you've disappointed me?"

As she stirred the soup, she said, "Although our family makes a living by farming, and our annual income is determined by God, and we suffer losses in case of extreme weather, it doesn't mean that our family is short of money. Over the years, Thomas has accumulated a lot of wealth."

"Besides, our family is different from other foster families, right? Linda is your aunt, and Thomas is your uncle. They treated you like their own son since they couldn't have children. They never thought of kicking you out of the family after you came of age."

"Without financial pressure, I really don't understand why you're in such a hurry to make money? Don't you know time is precious? Don't you know Thomas's biggest wish is for us to leave the orchard? Although he kept saying that if we didn't want to leave, we could stay with him and watch the orchard! But at the same time, when we wanted to pay for SAT tutoring, he didn't even hesitate to hand over the money!"

"Ding-dong!"

At this point, Evelyn forcefully slammed the spoon into the bowl.

The metal struck the ceramic, producing a crisp sound.

Ethan's nostalgic words prompted him to drag a stool over and sit down next to Evelyn.

He reached out and helped her break off the Dungeness crab's legs, saying, "Evelyn, have you ever heard this saying? Age isn't the real standard for judging whether someone is mature. To know if someone is mature, you have to look at their mind."

"I was very impetuous and self-centered before, which caused you a lot of disappointment and regret, and I apologize for that. I don't ask you to forgive me, but I want you to know that I can understand your good intentions now."

Evelyn turned her head, her brow furrowed, and stared blankly at Ethan.

Ethan then handed her the crab leg that had been broken open.

Evelyn's pupils contracted at the sight of his handsome, smiling face.

After staring at each other for a few seconds, Evelyn finally accepted the crab leg that Ethan offered.

As she took a big bite, she asked in a muffled voice, "How much money did Miluohua compensate you?"

"Seven months' salary plus one week's pay."

"So that's over two thousand?"

Evelyn did a quick calculation and asked, "What are your plans for the next step?"

"I know I still have the opportunity to study, but my SAT score has expired."

While SAT scores don't have a explicitly stated expiration date, most universities require applicants to submit scores from within the last two years. Ethan's scores were obtained three years ago, therefore, many schools no longer accept them.

"You can take the test again. I can teach you anything you've forgotten," Evelyn said. "If you'd like."

"Thank you." Ethan nodded in thanks, and at the same time, he helped Evelyn pry open the Dungeness crab's shell. "Although I don't want to upset you anymore, I still want to say that studying isn't very helpful for me right now."

"Oh...Sh..."

Evelyn immediately lowered her hands and gave Ethan a disappointed look.

Before she could utter a curse, Ethan spoke with a slight smile, "Okay! Evelyn! I know you're in a hurry, but don't rush. There's a reason I'm saying this."

"The field I'm interested in right now, like yours, is engineering. But engineering is currently receiving a lot of... well... how should I put it? Is it discrimination? Or looking down on me? I don't know what word to use here, but I know how to describe it..."

"To give you an example, take Milrova, where I just worked. Whenever engineering students came to apply, they would basically write on their resumes that they were well-versed in the magazine 'Popular Electronics' and had successfully replicated many electronic devices based on its contents."

"I think you're more qualified to talk about this than I am, right?"

Ethan smiled at Evelyn.

At the same time, his finger pointed to the magazine Evelyn had just been reading.

Those calm words were like an invisible hand, quietly soothing the anger on the girl's face.

That confident smile, however, was like a fog, causing the girl's brown eyes to open in inquiry, as if they were magnifying glasses, trying to see the boy clearly.

After a moment, the girl, who hadn't noticed anything amiss, sighed and shook her head with a smile.

Then he grabbed a California roll and started munching on it.

This situation made Ethan snap his fingers in his mind.

Because he knew that he had taken the right first step.

In fact, after learning that he had traveled to America in 1975, Ethan began to think about how to get a share of the pie in the technology field.

At first, he also thought about going to university to systematically learn science and practical skills.

But after he prepared for this and collected relevant information, he discovered a startling fact.

In this era, knowledge and the future in America are different; they don't seem to be confined to schools!

When the original owner of the body, Mirova, got up every year to recruit electronics engineers, the first thing they looked at was not the applicants' academic qualifications, but whether their resumes mentioned the magazine "Popular Electronics". If they did, they would invite them for an interview; if not, they would then look at their academic qualifications.

This bizarre situation surprised Ethan.

Because he simply couldn't understand why the credibility of university diplomas wasn't as high as that of a magazine.

But after he got his hands on a copy of Popular Electronics magazine and quickly flipped through it...

The content on it made him cry!

Because that magazine contained an article about how to make a portable radio with three transistors!

Although it is only three pages long, it shows readers how to combine two 2N170 NPN transistors and one 2N107 PNP transistor to make a radio kit!

If readers follow the circuit diagram above, they can build a radio that can receive signals from all short-wire antennas in one night!

Just looking at this is already outrageous.

But what happened next was even more outrageous.

With a little more time, readers can also make an amplifier using alligator clips to receive broadcast signals from even further away.

For receiving medium-wave signals, tools such as magnetic rings and ferrite-bonded antennas can be used for adjustment and searching...

When Ethan finished reading the magazine, he became the subject of a meme in later generations.

An old man on the subway is looking at his phone.

Holy crap! What the hell is this?!

For a moment, Ethan even wondered if the place he had landed in was actually America!

As someone who has studied, lived, and worked in America, he knows better than anyone how valuable professional books are in America!

Otherwise, Amazon wouldn't have been able to start out by selling books.

When evil capitalists assign an exorbitant price to knowledge, what they want to do is block the upward mobility of the masses.

In this context, how could America in the 1950s and 60s have such a good teaching atmosphere?

Is it possible to publish knowledge about radio and related fields in popular magazines?

This is absolutely outrageous! Opening the door for his dad is just outrageous!

really!

The lighthouse before the devastating earthquake in the East—that was the real lighthouse!

Just as Ethan was overjoyed with his discovery and was preparing to copy some things from the magazine, he discovered that many things were not something he could simply copy at will.

For example, he couldn't distinguish between NPN transistors and PNP transistors.

Having not been born into a science background, and having completely forgotten high school physics before his transmigration, he had no idea what the IB and IC electric current generation process was, let alone what a superheterodyne circuit was.

When Ethan realized that even copying the answers might not be enough, he truly regretted that he had studied finance in his past life.

The biggest use of this thing is really for talking to liberal arts students about science, and vice versa.

Let's chat!

He was even more puzzled as to why he didn't have a cheat code like ChatGPT4.0.

Fortunately, there was an engineering student by the side of the original owner of the body.

Ethan's older sister, Evelyn, is a top student in computer science at Stanford University's School of Engineering.

More importantly, she had been interested in radio since she was a teenager.

To this end, Thomas subscribed to Popular Electronics for her in 1966, and also spent a lot of money to complete the subscriptions for the magazines that had not been published before. When Evelyn wanted to try it out, he let her take apart the television set and assemble it into a projector.

When this fact came to light, Ethan didn't bother with self-study anymore! He immediately focused his attention on the other party!

Judging from the current situation, this girl is not as irritable as she appears.

After finishing a California roll and drinking a few sips of clam chowder, Evelyn wiped her mouth after eating the Dungeness crab brain.

"Ethan."

"uh-huh?"

"I know what you're thinking."

"What?"

"You must have some idea that involves electronics and computers, and since you don't know how, you want me to do it for you."

Evelyn said definitively, "Don't try to deny it. We've known each other for almost twenty years. Do you remember back in high school? You asked me to make you a walkie-talkie, about the size of your palm, just so you could hide it and scare people!"

After Ethan stopped pretending when he saw me stick my butt out, he knew exactly what kind of poop I was doing.

He shrugged and said, "Yeah~ Looks like nothing can be hidden from you."

"Hmph!" Ethan's admission earned him a glare from Evelyn.

She stared at the boy she had grown up with for a few seconds, then sighed. "Fine, I give up. I really can't argue with you! Your temper is like a bull's; only God knows how to get you to change course! So... tell me your idea. What do you want to do this time? I'll do it for you."

"Oh, this is really great! Evelyn, I love you!" Evelyn's concession made Ethan grin from ear to ear.

That's why he came here, so he turned his gaze and began searching.

When he saw a copy of Popular Electronics on Evelyn's bookshelf with the date January 1975 printed on it, he immediately pulled it out.

Upon discovering a square machine on top, with the code name Altair 8800 in the upper left corner, he pointed at it and laughed, saying, "Could you even make something like this?"

"???"

This question caused Evelyn to frown.

The next second, after catching the smile in Ethan's eyes, she realized she had been tricked and immediately grabbed the Dungeness Crab shell and smashed it hard at the boy.

"Oh, Ethan! You did this on purpose, didn't you? Get out of here!"

Note: ① The real-world influence of *Popular Electronics* magazine was even more exaggerated than I described. Almost every engineer from the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s subscribed to it, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and 2004 Nobel Prize laureate in Physics David Gross. The radio making mentioned in the article refers to the May 1960 issue.

(End of this chapter)