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A PLAY ON DATA

by Tom Cantrell

Start ı Oops ı Once More, With Feeling ı Optical Options ı Have It Your, and Our, Way ı Lesson Learned ı Sources and PDF

Iıll admit Iım not well organized. For example, despite sporadic and fitful efforts to arrange my paper files, theyıve pretty much evolved into a LIFO stack. I open the file cabinet drawer, cram the latest piece of paper in at the front, and close the drawer, with the understanding that any future recovery will devolve to a linear search.

If I ever change my messy ways (in my next life perhaps), one thing I want to set up is a pundit-busting gotcha file.

How many times have you seen a quote from some guru along the lines of "In five years, the XYZ frubblewumpus will dominate the market"? Often Iım quite sure that the prediction is wrong. But, Iım equally certain that thereıs no way Iım going to keep track of the prediction or remember to revisit the matter in five years. What I need is a nicely organized chronological file arranged by the year I should check back.

For example, consider this gem from the pages of Circuit Cellar way back in 1993 that read, "Sonyıs new MiniDisc promises to revolutionize portable audio in much the same way the CD did to home stereos." Busted!

The good news is that the Circuit Cellar archive on CD solves my filing problem. The entire history of the magazine fits on a few CDs shoved in a drawer that even I can keep track of. The bad news is that it means the easiest pundit to bust for a flaky prediction is yours truly. And yes, you guessed it, Iım the one who went too far out on a limb in my article "Audio RxıSkippy CDs? Tangled Tapes? Call an MD" (Circuit Cellar 34), which covered Sonyıs introduction of their MiniDisc.

Here it is almost a decade passed and I donıt have a MiniDisc. I donıt know anyone who has one. There are not racks of MiniDisc titles down at the music-mart. MiniDisc is a zombie, still shuffling the dark, back pages of Sonyıs web site, but for all practical purposes, dead.

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