The end of spin

I've had the sneaking hunch for some time that the DVD is fast becoming obsolete, along with the CD-ROM, cassette tapes, VHS and the phonograph record. Fuel was added to this when I started my new life as a Long Island Railroad commuter two weeks ago. My wife checked me out something from her library - a device called a "Playaway." It is an audio book on an ipod-like device that is devoted to that single title. No moving parts. Just hit the play button every morning and it picks up where it left off on the 5:19 train the night before. For the record, my initial book was "Marley and Me."

Nine years ago when we first opened the Arnold Bernhard library, our reference desk was famous for a box of floppy disks which were freely distributed to students who forgot theirs. It was not a unique experience to hear from a student holding up a floppy disk, saying "My whole semester's project is on this, and now I'm getting an error message." By the time I left, floppies had disappeared in favor of flash drives carried on keychains or worn around the neck. They may fail someday too, but I haven't heard about it. While I'm at it, I should throw in a plug for my favorite future improvement in computers: get rid of hard disks. When a computer boots up today, it does the same thing that it did in the 1980's - checks the hard drive, loads a number of processes, and finally lets you do something. The main difference is that the number of processes has increased exponentially. I've never heard anything that explained to me why a computer can't start up like an Ipod: power it up and it's ready to work.

Ipods are an insidious system. My Nano has done something that would have seemed impossible a year or so ago - it has moved me into the world of Apple. For decades I have taunted my Mac-loving friends - "Buy a real computer." Now Apple is becoming a surprisingly large part of my life. I hardly ever buy CDs any more - just go to the ITunes store and pick out a song or even a whole album. When I found out that my new library is not outfitting me with a laptop, I made the plunge - ordered a Macintosh notebook. It's on its way. The first day it went from Shanghai to Anchorage and then to Indianapolis. The second day it went to Newark, and there it has sat all day. After sitting in Newark the entire weekend, the message changed two minutes after I left for my train on Monday. The laptop is on Long Island and the truck is on the way to my house. Way to go, FedEx.