It's amazing to think about what kind of world he'll grow up in. Will he think of CDs in the same way we think of vinyl records?

Cripes, considering the kid is only hours old, it's likely he'll think of MP3's the same way we think of vinyl records.

(Fast forward X years in little Samuel's life...)

Samuel: "Hey, look at this old piece of junk my dad gave to me when he cleaned out his garage!"
Friend: "Whoa. What is it?"
S: "He told me it's some kind of music player."
F: "Music Player?"
S: "Yeah, evidently, before the RIAA took over the world, it was legal to play your own music wherever and whenever you wanted."
F: "You mean instead of having songs from carefully-selected, commercially-successful artists pumped directly into your brain?"
S: "Exactly. Dad says that you could buy 'Compact Discs' in 'music stores' and put the music data inside this metal box."
F: "Really? With any type of music you wanted to?"
S: "That's what he tells me."
F: "Wow... How did people choose their own music without the RIAA to tell them what's good and what's not?
S: "I dunno... Dad says that people just picked music that they liked, but I really don't know how people decided what they liked and what they didn't."
F: "So that's all it did? Played music? In a box that big?"
S: "Well.. He also said something about some kind of primitive games and programs and crap that could run on it, but it all seemed kinda lame to me. He kept going on and on about this program he wrote that could beam 'playlists' or something to some kind of antique handheld computer. It sounds like he was really into it."
F: "Wow. Your dad must have been a real nerd."
S: "Yeah, pretty much."
F: "So who invented it?"
S: "I dunno, Dad says it was invented by some crazy British dudes."
F: "British dudes?"
S: "Yeah, you know, the people who lived in New Texas before the U.S. took it over? They were called the British."
F: "Oh, you mean, the ones who drink tea all the time and have the funny accents and can't spell anything right."
S: "Yep, that's them. Well they used to have their own country."
F: "Ahh... Okay. So this music player, computer thing was invented in New Texas, but before it was called New Texas."
S: "Yeah. Dad says that America used to get all their cool things from the 'British', including their music, but this thing never really caught on in America."
F: "Well then why did he like it so much?"
S: "Well, apparently it was too far ahead of its time, and nobody wanted to buy it... Not enough people understood it to make it profitable. So my dad and a bunch of his fellow geeks kinda held onto theirs as long as they could. It all sounds like some kinda cult to me. They would spend all sorts of money modifying them, fixing them up, writing all kinds of goofy programs for them... This one completely insane dude devoted like years of his life to maintaining some kind of online manual for it... Crazy stuff."
F: "Wow. All that hassle just to listen to music."
S: "Yeah, unreal, isn't it?"
F: "Oh well. I'm glad I don't have to choose my own music anymore."
S: "Me too. What a piece of junk."
F: "I know... Let's go blow it up."
S: "All right!"


(I'm truly sorry for the ridiculous satire above, but I'm less than 48 hours away from handing in my final project paper for my Masters degree, and I really needed a study break.)