"Small service stations are running into a problem as gasoline marches toward $4 a gallon in the United States: Thousands of old-fashioned pumps can't register more than $3.99 on their spinning mechanical dials. The pumps, throwbacks to a bygone era on the American road, are difficult and expensive to upgrade, and replacing them is often out of the question for station owners who are still just scraping by. Many of the same pumps can only count up to $99.99 for the total sale, preventing owners of some sport utility vehicles, vans, trucks and other gas-guzzlers to fill their tanks all the way." [AP story at CNN.com]
I felt like I was inside a chapter of Thomas Friedman's book on globalization this morning. I had to place a phone call to find out how much interest was paid on a loan last year, for tax purposes. I was on hold for approximately ten minutes and then my call was answered by "Matt." Matt appeared, from his accent, to be a native of India and I could barely understand what he was saying to me. He had to put me on hold at least three times and finally after almost twenty-two minutes on the phone, I had what I needed.
Keeping It Real
in The New York Times Magazine by James Gleick, 6 January 2008
Why would someone pay over $21 million for a 1297 copy of the Magna Carta? Once, the document's power accrued from King John's words. Now, James Gleick believes that the value of the document lies largely in the story behind it, a phenomenon that science fiction author Philip K. Dick called historicity. Without history, the ball Bobby Thomson hit would be just a sphere of cowhide, and Princess Diana's spare wedding dress would be simply a confection of taffeta. Gleick hypothesizes that the very ubiquity of computerized copies of information may intensify our awe of the scarce and magical originals.
"The Zune is a complete, humiliating failure. Toshiba's Gigabeat player, for example, is far more versatile, it has none of the Zune's limitations, and Amazon sells the 30-gig model for 40 bucks less.
Throw in the Zune's tail-wagging relationship with music publishers, and it almost becomes important that you encourage people not to buy one.
The iPod owns 85 percent of the market because it deserves to. Apple consistently makes decisions that benefit the company, the users and the media publishers -- and they continue to innovatively expand the device's capabilities without sacrificing its simplicity." [Chicago Sun-Times]
For what it's worth, I have an iPod, which I've used pretty much daily since May and the only problem I've ever had with it was when I was prompted to upgrade the firmware (software on the iPod device itself) and then had a series of problems, which included having to reset the iPod and reload all the podcasts, audio books, and music which had resided on it. Apple issued a new version of the iTunes software (with little fanfare or acknowledgement of the apparently rampant user problems) and the issue was resolved. Now, I check the user forums of the Apple site before installing any upgrades. But I really do love my iPod. The set-up was incredibly simple, the packaging was nice (no horrible plastic packages to cut up your hands on), and it's so user friendly my two year old figured out how to use it. (Um, yeah, the door to my den was open and she made a beeline for it -- I found her with one earbud in, listening to a podcast. *giggle*) I was already using iTunes to purchase music, so it's been a good fit for me.
