As a kid I played on an Atari 400.....

When I entered college I got a a top of the line personal computer- It was a top of the line kick ass machine! Get a load of its stats... 33MHz processor, a 1200 baud dial up modem, and get this: A HUGE 30 MEGABYTE HARD DRIVE!!!!

I am now writing this on a piece of shit out dated computer that has a 600 MHz processor, a cable modem, and a 30 GIGABYTE hard drive.

Now I like to think I am aware of the cutting edge of technology, but about 2 years ago I gave a talk to a company on the mainland- essentially trying to convince them to build a laser for astronomy. I had a nice power point presentation, but it was (thanks to the wonders of microsoft) about a 40 megabyte file for 20 slides.

After my presentation several people wanted a copy of my presentation, I said "well, I can try to email it to you, but it is 40 megabytes - can your email accept a 40 meg file?"

One guy reached into his pocket and pulled out his key chain and said "its ok, I have one of these!"

I looked at it and my heart sank... I just realized that the poor man was mentally retarded... I thought about pulling out my keys and saying "aww how cute! See, I have keys too!!!"

He said " I think I have about a hundred megabytes left on this" as he showed me a plastic stick that was about 2 inches by 1/2 inch he plugged it into my laptop and downloaded 40 megs in short order...

about half a dozen others did the same- it was like a silicon gang bang!

It was the first time I had seen or heard of a memory stick...

Last week I bought a memory stick that had 10 times the memory of my first personal computer- cost me pocket change... in a decade or so I will probably be able to carry around the library of congress in my pocket. I am thinking about getting a new computer, my 4 year old piece of shit still has more disk space than I could ever use... and it has useful programs written by companies that no longer exist that I dont want to lose...If I wait a few years I could probably get a 10 GHz computer to browse the web with and do word processing- These are interesting times!