
Giving up my iPod for a Walkman - fiaz
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8117619.stm
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blang
I actually used a Walkman couple months back. I was traveling by bus during a
baseball game and wanted to listen to the play by play, which was on an AM
station. Good thing I had my circa 1990 Walkman with AM tuner collecting dust
in the back of a closet. Worked like a charm.

~~~
kyro
Yeah, the fact that most mobile devices these days lack radio functionality is
something that's always baffled me, especially now that some phones are being
equipped with TV tuners.

~~~
jrg
The experience of listening to FM radio on a portable radio with a small
aerial, is not good.

I tried once, with my then phone's FM radio, to listen to my usual BBC station
on my 25 minute commute train journey. I gave up (too many tunnels, bridges,
cuttings, with poor or no signal), and went back to my MP3s. I certainly
wouldn't want to try TV!

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jncraton
_I'm relieved that the majority of technological advancement happened before I
was born_

Maybe, but there is a lot of technology advancement still happening.

~~~
quizbiz
_the majority of technological advancement_

Aren't technological advancement, by nature, always advancing/evolving?
Something isn't right about that phrase. At one point in time, railway was a
technology. Rail still is am evolving technology. I don't think we will stop
developing, even if for now, its increasingly software rather than hardware.

~~~
wlievens
Yeah. That's like the number fifteen million saying, man am I glad most of the
numbers came before me. It doesn't make sense.

Unless you interpret this as a warning on the short time humanity has left or
something, which is not what I think was meant.

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parenthesis
Sony still sells cassette Walkmen:

<http://www.sony.co.uk/product/paw-cassette-walkman>

I don't use a portable music player very often — I prefer to think during the
periods I am at large in the world and not 'doing' anything — but when I do, I
use my late-90s-'vintage' Walkman.

I don't want to listen to tracks in a random order. The order of the movements
of a symphony is part of the music; the order of the pieces on an album is
part of the album. I can't listen to thousands of pieces of music during one
excursion. I find the crap-quality-ness of cassette pleasant and that of MP3
et al. unpleasant.

Of course, the iPod does have its benefits, for example, helping to secure the
medium-term health of Apple, and thus of the Mac and OS X.

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diN0bot
plus, no drm or big brother.

it's super easy to burn tapes/cd's and give them to people. i don't have an
ipod, but i hear that everytime it gets plugged into a computer it synchs with
itunes, so you can't just give a friend some songs. is that true? i remember
parties where the music sources were people bringing different tapes and cd's
--in this age would everyone have to bring an ipod, or can you still transfer
music across machines (to say nothing of different types of machines)?

~~~
vizard
Not sure about iPod but many players like the cowon iaudio or sandisk sansa
series act just like USB drives. So you just drag and drop songs to or from
any computer so its easy to share songs with friends.

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SamAtt
Are we really this desperate for news fodder? With all that's going on in
technology is this the best use of the BBC's time and resources? Because the
kid seems pretty intelligent and while reading I kept thinking "If you're
going to have this kid write an article aren't there topics that would be more
interesting for him to write about? Like how he thinks the future of
technology will turn out or what's the most significant technology he uses on
a daily basis?"

Instead we get insights like this (which the BBC actually chooses to
highlight)

Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn't is
"shuffle", where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function
that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an
impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it
randomly - effective, if a little laboured.

Wow. If I'm ever stuck on a desert island with only a walkman and am jonesing
for shuffled music I'll now know what to do.

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chaosmachine
On the other hand, the author is 13. It's a novelty piece, not an attempt at
serious news.

~~~
wglb
I wonder. None of the 13-year-olds that I know or knew would be anywhere in
the same zip code (or postal code) as the word "plethora".

~~~
mquander
Nor would any of them dump their iPhones for Walkmen, I wager. I wrote about
like that kid does when I was 13 years old.

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MattF
I'm about to be a dad, and I've been pondering this topic for a while now. Is
my kid missing out on the rapid evolution I experienced? Or was that just the
tip of the iceberg?

How am I ever going to explain the awesomeness that was getting my first dual
tape deck?

~~~
dan_the_welder
I had to explain the awesomeness of auto reverse the other day. Made me a
little sad.

