Obsoletism

A few updates:
My computer's hard drive was toast as I suspected but this turned into really good news. Well, if you over look the fact that I no longer have my hard drive. I smartly bought AppleCare when I bought my computer (but stupidly forgot) so I was given a new hard drive (given, can you believe it?!?!) and whereas my old one was 80GB my new one is 160GB(it's the smallest they have). They also offered to completely reface the inside of my computer (new keyboard and mouse tracker thingy, which also fixes the outside edges that have been breaking off for a while now and new bezel which is what surrounds the screen) for FREE. I was literally speechless and thinking "what's the catch", I mean I basically got a brand new computer (if only they replaced my disc drive) for NOTHING. This is shocking like polar bear swimming. I urge anyone that buys a Mac to get AppleCare. You may not ever use it but if you ever need to you're really going to wish you had. It's a good thing that I have an external drive because I can pull everything over as of 2 months ago. Some stuff I'll have to start all over but most of it is like it never happened. Awesome.
Also I am finally at my knitting retreat, pictures will be posted and blogging will happen but I have to live it first. :)

What I really want to talk about is Obsoletism. I was listening to public radio today and they talked to Anna Jane Grossman who wrote an encyclopedia on it. They then talked to different people about what they missed that was obsolete. One of the most thought provoking was when a guy said that he made the motion to his son to roll down the window (like you used to have to do manually) and thought "he probably has no idea what I mean". I think it's an interesting new way to look at the world. Instead of bigger, better, faster, more it's smaller, simpler, and slower. I think often times we forget to look at what we leave behind in our rush to reach what's in our future of newness. I often think about what did Pioneer's think about when they had free time, as I'm sure it was a completely different mode of thinking. But I do know that we have a much simpler life where we have freed up enormous amounts of time to do things like blog.

Let's just take computers for example (they are kind of on my mind). I mean I remember when 1GB was unfathomable. Where people either didn't think about it or though "1GB, what would one possibly need that for?" Whereas they now make computers that have 1TB or even 2TB of storage space on them. When I bought my computer I thought 80GB would be plenty and now that's obsolete. I'm sure that even if I looked for one it would be hard, and people would think I was nuts. I also miss having opportunities to use/hone my imagination. It seems as though now so many times things are just cookie cuttered out. I remember always being told to entertain myself and not with a television. I remember helping pass that on to my little brother and sister when we would play hours of dress up, put on plays with playbills, and create imaginary places. I remember the first Atari, Nintendo, and Sega. I am interested to see how this generation of children that have grown up with them will be connected to the world of imagination and thinking outside the box.

I like knitting because it harkens back to a simpler time and while knitting is not obsolete it is definitely creative. It leaves you time to think and create and the general process hasn't changed a lot even though a lot of the fundamentals (what knitting needles and yarns are made out of) have. Okay off to knit and enjoy my weekend.