Throughout humankind’s journey, we’ve often been led forward, or backward, by Tims and Als. Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor, the face of the beloved 1990s sitcom “Home Improvement,” was a thoughtless, inconsiderate, and calamity-prone doofus. Al Borland, his co-host of the show-within-a-show “Tool Time,” was the counterbalancing figure Tim required: wise, mature, empathetic, and an exceptionally skilled craftsman. In the 1800s, the Internet began with a Tim and an Al: the guy you know, Samuel F.B. Morse, and the guy you probably don't, Alfred Vail.
