Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The Old is New Again

A legal immigrant who will die due to lack of money and will to take care of his failing kidneys.

The alarming number of sick calls from hospital workers this flu season.

The nasty fuss; the monkey-suit mask, gown, and gloves we have to wear to avoid spreading a simple virus.

Bankruptcies due to health care costs, even for those with good insurance coverage.

Fine coffee.

Applied technology. Medical equipment, and home entertainment.

Let's start with the last. I "had to" get a new laptop. Over the years I have accumulated a sizable collection of music on compact discs. My spouse abhors these due to the shelf space they occupy. Now I can download hundreds and hundreds of them onto my computer and Ipod. Wirelessly I can beam the music into my hi-fi system. (I am not fond of the sound derived from those little in-ear headphones; even the pricey ones.) Now I have more room on the shelves for books! at least until Spousie gets me a Kindle or other such book-reader. I can also carry nearly all of my music with me on the Ipod.

In hindsight, it's really not all that different from the little transistor radio I used to take to the beach when I was young so I could listen to Hey Jude while I read Vonnegut and sunned myself.

Interestingly, the latest-generation new Ipod Nano features the addition of FM radio.

What?! No AM radio?!

4 comments:

Marc said...

If you want to add even more music to your collection, go to Amazon, and they have a free song of the day, an album of the day (priced .99 to 4.99), and then they have the monthly 50 albums for $5 each - good 'til the end of each moth. I've been expanding my collection through them at an alarming rate...

Word Verification: imile -- it's the mile traveled while listening to itunes.

wstachour said...

I've been all about getting my music transferred to the computer now for several years. I just got a new one (with a 500GB drive), on which I think I can put my entire CD collection. I've spent the last week putting things on steadily, and I'm now hovering around 30,000 tracks or so. I LOVE the idea of having so much available at one's fingertips!

But I envy your ability to beam your music to a stereo. I'm not there yet.

Marc said...

I just picked up an AirPort Express, which allows you to send my music to my stereo - or anywhere else in the house I plug it in. It's nice living in the future!

Word Verification: nedis -- contraction of "need this"

Northwoods Baby said...

Ooh, Kindle! I no longer have a ginormous pile of books next to my bed because they're all crammed into my sweet little unit. Highly recommend.

Thanks for the heads up on AMZN's SOTD, Marc! All I need is more tunes, but hey, it's not taking up shelf space.