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IN
1969
,
when
I
was
eight
years
old
,
my
family
went
on
a
crosscountry
trip
to
see
Disneyland
.
It
was
an
quest
.
And
once
we
got
there
,
I
was
just
in
awe
of
the
place
.
It
was
the
coolest
I'd
ever
been
in
.
As
I
stood
in
line
?
Two
decades
later
,
when
I
got
my
PhD
in
science
from
Carnegie
Mellon
,
I
thought
that
made
me
infinitely
qualified
to
do
anything
,
so
I
dashed
off
my
letters
of
to
Walt
Disney
Imagineering
.
And
they
sent
me
some
of
the
nicest
go
-
to
-
hell
letters
I'd
ever
received
.
They
said
they
had
reviewed
my
,
and
they
did
not
have
"
any
positions
which
require
your
particular
.
"
Nothing
?
This
is
a
company
famous
for
hiring
of
people
to
sweep
the
streets
!
?
So
that
was
a
setback
.
But
I
kept
my
in
mind
:
The
brick
walls
are
there
for
a
reason
.
They're
not
there
to
keep
us
out
.
The
brick
walls
are
there
to
give
us
a
chance
to
show
how
badly
we
want
.
Fast
-
forward
to
1995
.
I'd
become
a
at
the
University
of
Virginia
,
and
I'd
helped
build
a
system
called
"
Virtual
Reality
on
Five
Dollars
a
Day
.
"
This
was
at
a
time
when
virtual
reality
were
insisting
they'd
need
a
half
-
million
dollars
to
do
anything
.
And
my
colleagues
and
I
did
our
own
little
version
of
the
Hewlett
-
Packard
garage
thing
and
hacked
together
a
-
virtual
reality
system
.