Monday, April 6, 2009

Modern love, gold fish and megabytes

I thought I'd pass on a wonderful piece written in this Sunday's  New York Times, Modern Love commentaries. "Just One Swirl Around the Bowl" (Dan Barry) tells the tale of a a young daughter's dying gold fish and heart wrenching life parallels. It's worth the read so am sharing with you today.

In the same section of the Times was another piece of a totally different nature. The author, like me, is someone who seems to have been left behind in the increasingly swift changes experienced in the world of technology. Check out, Michael Winerip's "Aging by Megabyte" in Sunday's Times (Generation B) for a perspective on technology and its impact on every day life. It's true I e-mail and blog, but my wife sets it up and I do, what for me, is the easy part–write. Will all of our books be on Kindle in the future? Look what's happened to newspapers. If you don't know what Kindle is, join me in"aging by megabyte!"

2 comments:

Erick H said...

As I read “Aging by Megabyte” it made me think of my phone experience. Let me first say I have no qualms about admitting to the fact that I am a card carrying member of the digitally challenged. The young lady at the phone store showed me line after line of cell phones. A wonderful array of colorful phones, phones that opened, a few that didn’t. I was up front with her saying I didn’t need or want an I-Phone or Blackberry. Showing what I thought was an impressive knowledge of technology. I explained all I wanted was to call people. Being able to text people was not a priority in any way. She smiled and said she understood. After all that was all her grandfather wanted to do too. I’d been pegged. The geriatric specials came out of the drawer. The not so colorful or feature packed models. Phones with larger screens so I wouldn’t have to use the magnifying glass I had recently purchased. What made the sale though was the one with larger buttons because, as I felt the need to explain, my thumbs are fat.
Thank You for the links.
Erick H

Jim Heffernan said...

Hello Erick H. -- Ah, how familiar your experience sounds. I still haven't succumbed to getting a cell phone, but my wife has one and I witnessed her dealings with the clerk at the store. I've always maintained that my fingers are too fat, which is true. I'm not particularly overweight, but I've always had "ham" hands. Good for me -- keeps me out of the cell phone world. Frankly, I'm not that nuts about the landline world either. I'm a phonephobe, which has a nice ring to it (pun intended). -- Jim