This iPod Touch that I've gotten is actually changing my life. It is making me think about how I spend my time, and that is because it has freed up a substantial amount.
I am no longer in the CD burning business, and my iTunes playlists can now be larger than 13 or 14 songs. I just bring my Touch to the Transporter and plug it in. There's nothing quite like having 98 different De La Soul songs immediately at your fingertips. I am no longer using the Treo for its Treo-ness. And I think I am realizing of how little use carrying around 6500 contacts are as compared to 12 short films and 500 photographs.
To all you Mac people. I apologize. I get it. Finally.
The most important thing our computers do for us is keep rich media handy. But they never really have, until now. The simple idea of having notes handy is good. I have a list of things to get at the store, my list of favorite wines, exactly which Indian dishes I actually like on the rare occasions I eat Indian. But that's just the beginning. I'd much rather have clips from movies that help me explain things I'm always eager to explain, like what surface computing ought to look like (The Island). Or my son playing volleyball, or my daughter explaining her concept of the Universe.
All this is not in a database. It's the way I've organized my own mind, which is richer in links, and besides I already know my own keywords. I've been writing a blog for five years and they're all here. All of my blogs, I'll have and then some. I'll have my history just as soon as I can get the right editing tools to convert what needs converting.
I've been down the Apple path before, but now that it's Unix and Intel based, I'm a great deal more confident in it. For my own home, I'm glad all of the non-industrial goofiness of the Apple of the 90s appears to be gone. User friendly is one thing, user stupid I cannot abide. I'd much rather have something inelegant and complicated that is robust and powerful than something designed for my ease which accomplishes little. While I expect to keep my Wintel boxen around, it will be pleasant to keep my media in Apple.
But what brings me to this break is the fact that now podcasts are genuinely useful and interesting to me now, despite the fact that I might have used them with my Treo. But the ease of browing iTunes has led me to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, and I'm enjoying it immensely. I am pleased to find that History has the same effect on him as it does on me - it liberates me from the tyranny of the present and gives me friends through time who consider those things I do - or have acted in such a way as to provide and example to me the lightens my burden.
I started this last year for the first time with Dr. Larry Arnn provided through Hugh Hewitt and continued through 2007 to add a little Shakespeare to my DVD collection. The greatest of these classics I have found in 'A Man for All Seasons'. And while I still got my fill of action and adventure, I did manage to keep a mature balance. Still it must be said that the new executive gig took over my mind and gave me relatively little respite for undertaking a heavier diet of serious reading. But one consistency has become my dissatisfaction for the arcanities of programming and configuring systems which suits my new admiration for the Mac just fine. Maybe, perhaps just maybe I'm beginning to age well.
So this morning I've downloaded and listened to two audio chapters from Plato's Republic which I have found very entertaining. It prompted me to take a long walk just listening.
In Carlin, especially in his descriptions of WW1 and of the life of Churchill, I am finding the perfect companion for my mind which has become weary of the horse race punditry of this election season. I have gotten only a small bit of consolation in being a Conservative by adjusting my level of concern for the inevitable winner of this contest by noting what little difference it should ultimately mean for one who cares little for government such as I should be. And yet it is tiresome to hear the fever of ordinarily calm men when they describe the faults of the candidates they oppose. Whatever government we get might be just wrong, or wrongish. While I retain some of my humor, I cannot find pleasure in perverse irony and snark. I cannot manage to take it all lightly. And so the rescue of historical perspective is welcome.
I'd also welcome some catalogue of books worthy of my attention. Histories, I'd imagine. But nothing from the iTunes catalog seems to be anything less than fabulous. Howard Zinn and Thomas Friedman dominate the charts, and even though I'd like Imperial Grunts by Kaplan, it's still just a little bit too close. Perhaps it's time to revisit UCLA.
In either case, I'm bound to change the way I think this year by spending more time communicating visually and more time reading the classics (or having them read to me by professionals). I will be rearranging my mind.
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