the elegance of the ipod nano

2022.05.11
Daring Fireball reported on the farewell of the iPod Touch. I remember being blown away by how slender the first generation was - like Gruber says, it was hot on the heels of the first iPhone, but the thinness of the iPhone-minus-the-phone-part was a glimpse of the future of Apple form factors: in 2007 it was astonishing that a capable web browser could work on the thing.

Of course this closes the door on the iPod in general. I write about getting one in 2004 - ripping my supply of CDs into my own library actually kept me stuck with Apple ever since. (And I still don't quite get the appeal of streaming... owning music, but selecting it by the single song, is musical nirvana to me.)

But my favorite was the iPod Nano I bought in 2007:

It was such a perfect minimalist piece of hardware... just thick enough to fit a headphone jack, that terrifically satisfying scrollwheel, and a nice little screen to help with navigation.

Every once in a while I get the urge to try to be less online, go back to the less-connected time before the iPhone, maybe go back to the simplicity of a PalmPilot... But at the very least my pockets would be full of an iPod, a camera, a PDA, a regular cellphone... not to mention needing a GPS for my car...so just wishful thinking.
Thinking about how the Bible's Numbers 5:11-31 provides instructions for abortion (albeit I case in case of suspected infidelity). And that Matthew 5:17-19, Luke 16:17, and John 7:19 refute the idea of NT stuff just putting aside the old law. (And there are other Bible versus supporting the idea of life showing up later via breath, and/or after being knit together in a womb, not this moment of fertilization or conception non-sense as a measure for personhood.)

Of course, I'm not gifted with faith myself and lean towards the agnostic, and I know we live in a culture that has many different religious traditions. If as a culture we can't tell folks they must sign up as organ donors, because bodily autonomy is that important, then we can't force a woman to accept a clump of cells as something worthy of taking over her body for the better part of a year. It is none of your business, you are not a hero by making this decision for them.