Living with specialization in User Land

We live in a world of special knowledge applied to special things. I realized this on a recent cross-country road trip.

I crossed the U.S./Canada border on Interstate 5 listening to NPR’s Car Talk, Ray and Tom invoking laughter in the most stoic of listeners. A woman asked for advice before she traded her beloved 1985 Volkswagen Vanagon for a Subaru Forester. She was understandably reluctant to give up the many years of stories, adventures and dreams her family had shared driving across the land.

She asked about the engine and whether or not her husband could do most of the maintenance…