Reporter: Where did you grow up, and what you were like as a kid?
记者：你在哪长大的？你小的时候是什 么样子的？
Omidya: I was born in Paris, France. I lived there until I was six years old actually, and I went to bilingual school as I was growing up during that period so I learned English. And at age six moved to the United States, moved to the east coast of the US, Washington, D.C. area, and grew up in the D.C. area actually through high school. I had a brief stint actually in Hawaii in junior high school, eighth and ninth grades. Then back to the Washington, D.C. area, college in Boston and then after college moved to California. The longest I was in one place was in college, four years. Before that it was the last three years of high school. Before that we were moving every two to three years. I wasn’t part of a military family, which is usually the cause of that. It just kind of happened.
奥米迪亚：我出生在法国巴黎。我6岁 之前一直住在那里，到了上学的年纪我 上了双语学校，所以我也会说英语。6 岁的时候我搬到了美国的东海岸，华盛 顿特区。在那里一直生活到高中阶段。 我有很短的一段时间是在夏威夷，是 在初中八九年级的时候。然后又回到了 华盛顿特区，在波士顿上大学，毕业之 后又去了加利福尼亚。我在一个地方待 得最长的时候是上大学的时候，待了4 年。那之前是高中的3年。那之前我们每两三年就换一个地方。我不是军眷， 军队家庭才经常搬迁。只是我们也是那 样而已。
Reporter: How did that affect you? All that moving around when you were growing up?
记者：这对你有什么影响？在你成长的 过程中一直在搬家o
Omidya: I didn’t really realize until we moved after ninth grade—which was my last year in Hawaii—that I had missed people. In eighth and ninth grade, I had finally started to make some close friends in school, and leaving after ninth grade was kind of tough. It was tough for me personally. Before that it was just what I knew. It was the way I was raised and it was fine. There weren’t a lot of kids around, and when I was younger I ended up hanging out with adults a lot more, because I had to. In retrospect I may have been cheated a little bit on the childhood side. I kind of grew up very quickly and became a little more mature more quickly than I see some of my relatives these days.
奥米迪亚：在我9年级搬家那次之前， 我并没有意识到这个问题——那是我在 夏威夷的最后一年，我想念一些人。八 年级和九年级的时候，我开始在学校里 结交了一些非常好的朋友，上完九年级 离开的时候很难过。对我个人 而言是很难过的。在那之前我 已经习惯了经常搬家的生活， 我就是这样被带大的，并且很 好的成长。我周围并没有很多 小朋友，在我很小的时候我就 跟大人打交道了，因为我别无 选择。回顾一下，我觉得自己 的童年可能或多或少地做弊了。 我似乎很快就长大了，而且比 我现在看到的一些孩子们还要 更快地走向了成熟。
Reporter: How would you describe yourself as a kid?
记者：你怎样来描述自己小时候的样 子？
Omidya: I was actually interested in gadgets, little electronic gadgets. Whether it was calculators一actually I remember early on going out shopping for a calculator— and this was when calculators were like $100，you know, I mean一and with my dad, I think. And so I was always fascinated by these little gadgets and I always managed to break them for one reason or another, of course, as kids do, and then I would take them apart and try to fix them, which I was never able to.
奥米迪亚：实际上，我对小装置很感兴 趣，小的电子装置。不管是不是计算器 ——事实上我还记得小时候去买过计算 器，那个时候计算器差不多要卖100美 元，我记得是跟我爸爸一起去的。所 以，我总是被这些小装置吸引，而且 我经常会出于各种各样的原因把他们拆 掉，当然，就像其他小孩子一样。然后 我就把它们拆开，然后试图修好它们， 但是我从来都没有成功过。
Reporter: Do you recall early influences in your life? Who was important to you?
记者：回想一下，什么对你的生活有影 响？谁是对你来说最重要的人？
Omidya: I think it’s both my mom and my dad. They were separated when I was two, I think, but my dad was always part of my life. I lived with my mom, but my dad was always around. I remember when I was younger spending weekends with my dad, who is a surgeon and a medical doctor, doing rounds with him. We would spend maybe 45 minutes in the car going from one hospital to the next and we’d have some great conversations. That’s one of my fond childhood memories.
奥米迪亚：我想应该是我的父母。在我 两岁的时候，他们就离婚了。但是我觉 得，爸爸永远是我生活的一部分。我跟 妈妈一起住，但是爸爸经常在身边。我 记得我小的时候跟爸爸一起过周末，他 是一位外科医生，也是一名医学博士， 我一直跟着他。我们经常开车45分钟 从一个医院到另一个，我们有过很多很 美好的对话。这是我很喜欢的童年回忆 之一.
Reporter: What did you talk about?
记者：你们都谈些什么？
Omidya: My dad still does have a fascinating kind of grasp of all things, and we'd talk about history and art. When I say conversation, that’s not quite accurate. It was mostly one way. Now that I’m older~I’m 33 now —I think if I was in his shoes Fd think,“This kid isn’t hearing anything Fm saying,” from my reaction. It，s funny now that I look back on it，it was a precious time for me.
奥米迪亚：我爸爸对事物有很好的掌控能力，我们经常谈关于历史和艺术的 话题。说是“谈话”，其实不是特别准 确。因为基本就只是单方面的说。现在我长大了--33岁了，我想我理解他了，他 对我的反应就是“这孩子根 本没听我说话。”现在回头 看的时候觉得很有意思，这 对我来说是一段珍贵的回 忆。
Reporter: Were you a good student?
记者：你是一个好学生吗？
Omidya: I was one of these guys that didn’t really study, so I don’t think I was a good student. I am very proud to say that I graduated from Tufts University with better than a 3.0 average. It was actually 3.0T. During my entire four years there at Tufts my GPA improved every single semester, which gives you an idea of where I started. No, I was not a good student.
奥米迪亚：我是那种基本不学习的学生，所以我并不认为自己是一 个好学生。我很骄傲自己从托弗斯大学 毕业，而自己的成绩要高于平均的3.0， 确切的说是3.01。在我四年大学生活 中，我的平均分数每个学期都有提高， 这样你就可以看出我的起点了。不，我 不是好学生。
Reporter:Werethereany subjects you were particularly interested in? Any books that influenced or were important to you?
记者：你对哪个科目特别感兴趣呢？有 没有什么书给你带来很大的影响或者对你来说很重要？
Omidya: I’ve been asked before, “Who are your heroes?” and these types of questions. I always find it hard to identify a single person or a single book or this sort of thing. I’ve always been forward looking. I was raised with the notion that you can do pretty much anything you want. You’re able to accomplish anything you set out to accomplish. I was given a sense of confidence and I never really felt the need to~or I’ve never had the benefit, I should probably say—of being inspired by outside heroes.
奥米迪亚：以前有人问过我：“谁是你 心目中的英雄？”以及很多类似的问题。 我总是觉得很难找出一个人或者一本书 或者这类的东西。我一直在寻找。从小 到大我都被灌输这样的理念，你可以做 很多你想做的事情。你可以完成任何你 给自己设定的任务。我被培养出了自信 心，我从没觉得自己需要一个外界的英 雄来激励自己——或者我应该说，我从 来没有这样的经历。
Reporter: But early on you were interested in gadgets, including computers. How did this manifest itself?
记者：但是之前你对小装置包括电脑感 兴趣。你对这怎么解释？
Omidya: I‘ve always been into the gadgets and I guess when I first saw a computer—I’m trying to think if it was third—it might have been third grade. It was pretty early on actually and it was an early TRS-80, you know, Radio Shack. Kind of the original Radio Shack TRS-80 computer, 4K of memory. I think this one had the 4K or the 8K expansion module, which was like as big as a desk, you know, and learned how to program Basic on it. And I used to actually cut gym and sneak into the computer room—which wasn’t really a room, it was a closet where they kept the computer between classes一 and played on the computer.
奥米迪亚：我一直研究小装置，我猜想 我第一次看到计算机的时候——我想它 是不是第三，它可能是第三阶段。那是 很早的时候，是早期的TRS-80，你知 道吧，Radio Shack。就是类似于原始 的Radio Shack TRS-80计算机。它的内 存是4K，它有一个4K到8K的扩展模 块，像一个桌子一样大，学习如何编 程。我在体育课的时候逃课偷偷溜进电 脑房——实际上并不是一个房间，就是 两个班之间像一个小壁橱一样的地方， 用来放电脑——我在那里玩电脑。
Reporter: Did you pass gym?
记者：那体育考试通过了吗？
Omidya: Good question. I don’t know if I failed gym or not. I don’t think I failed.
奥米迪亚：好问题。我也不知道我的体 育成绩是否及格了。我想应该及格了。
Reporter: It sounds like even then you were kind of entrepreneurial.
记者：听起来，那个时候你就很有企业 家的气质了。
Omidya: I always kind of just went ahead and tried things and one of the things I learned later~you know, more kind of professionally—is that a lot of people don’t just go ahead and try things. They’ll have an idea and they’ll say—they’ll convince themselves or other people will convince them that it can’t be done. You know, one or the other. Actually I think that the first is even more dangerous and more serious. It’s convincing yourself that it can’t be done. And I never learned that for some reason, so I just kind of had this naive approach to~well, gee, you know, why not. I，ll just go ahead and do it.
奥米迪亚：我经常会提前做一些事情， 提前尝试我之后会学到的东西一你知 道，有点更专业性，很多人并不会提前 去作一些尝试。他们会有一个想法，会 说——他们会被自己或者别人说服，认 为这是不可能实现的。你知道，不是这个就是那个。事实上，我认为前者更危 险、更严重。就是你说服自己你的想法 是行不通的。由于某些原因，我并没有 这样的概念，所以，我就是用这样有点 幼稚的方法一嗯，你知道，为什么不 呢。我会尝试去做一下。
Reporter: We’ve read that early in high school that you wrote a program to print catalogue cards at six bucks an hour. Was that your start?
记者：你早期在高中的时候写过印刷目 录卡片的程序，每个小时6美元。那是 你事业的开始吗？
Omidya: That was my professional debut. Six bucks an hour. And it’s funny too, thinking about it, because it was using computer technology to print out library cards for the card catalogue. And so all it was, was a program to just format. You know, somebody would type in the information and it would format it the way the librarian wanted, so they could put the cards into the card catalogue. So this is incredibly basic computer technology. This is no database there. No search engine, nothing like that. But yeah, six dollars an hour. And also, at that time I also worked on the software to help schedule classes, which was key. This was in high school at tenth or 11th grade, I think, when I was working on that, and I resisted the temptation to put in some code in there to make sure I never had classes on Friday, because I wouldn’t have been able to get away with it, but I thought about it.
奧米迪亚：那是我的专业技能的处女 作。每个小时6美元。想起来也很有 趣。因为那是用电脑技术去给卡片目录 印刷图书卡片，就是排版程序而已。你 知道，有些人输入一些数据，就会像图 书管理人员希望的那样排版，这样他们 就可以把这些卡片放入卡片目录了。所 以这是令人难以置信的基础电脑技术。 没有数据库。没有搜索引擎，没有任何 类似的东西。但是，是的，每个小时6 美元。同时，那时我还做软件帮忙做课 表，这很关键。那时我是高中10年级 或是11年级，正在编课表。我禁受住 了诱惑，没有通过一些编码的操作来保 证自己星期五的时候不用上课，我不能 那样做，但我那样想过。
Reporter: Was there ever any doubt in your mind that computer science was what you wanted to do?
记者：你对自己想要从事计算机科学这 个行业有过任何的怀疑吗？
Omidya: I always wanted to be involved with computers. My original kind of career choice, what I thought I was going to do was more computer engineering, which was, I thought—you know, figure out the hardware and the software and combine the two to learn about computers. When I got to college at Tufts I was accepted into the engineering school to do an electrical engineering and computer engineering program. I learned quickly there in my first semester~actually my second—well, I learned very quickly that the engineering program was a little bit too rigorous for me, and I took a class. I took a chemistry class, and I think that was second semester of freshman year，because it was required for the engineering program, taking chemistry. I had no interest in chemistry. And I had worked—I worked so hard for that class trying to understand what was going on and study for the test and everything, and did so poorly. I remember for the mid-term I had studied harder than I had for anything else and got 25 out of 100 on the test. And it was at that point I said, “You know what, this is kind of ridiculous.” So I transferred out of the engineering college and went to liberal arts and just did the pure computer science.
奥米迪亚：我一直想跟计算机打交道。 从我最初的职业规划来看，我认为我更 有可能成为一名电脑工程师，我认为， 你知道，把软件和硬件结合在一起，弄 明白计算机。在托弗斯大学上学的时候 我曾被选去工程学院，做一个电机工程和一个计算机工程程序。第一个学期 我学得很快一事实上是我的第二个学 期，嗯，我很快明白了工程程序对我来 说有一点过于缜密了，我参加了一个课 程。我参加了一个化学课，我认为那是 对于新生来说的第二个学期，因为工程 程序要求掌握化 学课的内容。我 对化学一点都不 感兴趣。那门课 我很用功，努力理解到底是怎么 一回事，努力学 习通过考试，但 是结果学得并不 怎么样。我记得 期中考试的时候，我从来没有那么认真 过，但是只得了 25分，100分满分。所 以那时我说：“你知道的，这也太可笑 了。”所以我就离开了工程学院，开始 学习自由艺术，只做计算机科学。
Reporter: What else do you recall from college in terms of influences and life changing experiences or ideas?
记者：你大学时代的回忆中，还有什么 影响或者改变你人生的经历或者想法？
Omidya: When I was in college I taught myself how to program the Macintosh. A big foundation actually for that was a class. It was actually—so it wasn’t completely self-taught—it was a C programming class called “Data Structures.” It was the big kind of the “weed-out” class for the computer science program. I learned how to program C. A great, great professor. Probably one of the best I’ve ever had, and a couple of things stem from that story.
奥米迪亚：我在大学的时候自学了如何 为苹果机编程，很多的基础部分实际上 是一门课程。事实上那是一门C语言编 程课，叫做“数据结构”——所以不能 算是完全自学的。它是计算机科学程序 的一门“剔除”类课。我学会了如何编 写C语言。老师是一位超级厉害的教 授，或许是我遇见过的最好的教授，给 我留下了很多回忆。