Rapidly Changing World
Listening to podcasts are one of my favorite things to do these days. I started out listening to some soccer shows, then added a few shows about comic books to this weekly routine.
One of these podcasts Fanboy Radio had a writer who mentioned that no science fiction writer had ever foreseen the iPod. They told stories about far fetched hi-tech devices that have become a reality today, but no mention about a small personal device that could carry your music collection, photos and even movies. Yet most people have one these days. Mine never leaves my side.
It is great to have all your songs to listen to no matter where you go, but I do miss bringing a CD to work and then sharing it with friends after I heard it. You lose that with an iPod, as was mentioned on an episode of Word Balloon.
Of course, I could go back even further and say how much I miss vinyl records. There was nothing like going into record stores in the 70's and see racks of these fantastic sleeves with the large graphics. Some of these albums included posters that everyone your age had hanging up in their bedrooms. I love CDs, and even like the graphics, but they can't match a large record album cover with liner notes and photos of the band.
About 15 years ago I was giving away my record collection, when I looked at my infant daughter, and decided to keep a large chunk. It was just inconceivable to think that she would grow up not knowing how fantastic these things could be. She was 3 years old when The Beatles Anthology came out on TV, and she found the records. I helped her put one on the turn table, and we listened to the first side of Magical Mystery Tour for about 2 months. She was amazed to learn that more songs could heard if the record was flipped over. She would argue about how records were better than CDs because they had bigger pictures, booklets, and songs on the other side.
But vinyl scratches easily, isn't as portable, and even though they don't flip over, a CD still holds more songs. There were great things before the 80's, but there are still nice things that we have gotten since then. Such as a public library system that acts as a collective with all the other branches, new Star Trek series on TV (there where 3 showing at the same time in the 90's), and you can find records that where out of print in the 70's on CD for eight bucks.
Not bad!
