Ch..ch..ch..changes
By Shira | Jan 21, 08 07:22 PM
It's still hard to believe that Shirari Industries is my full-time gig. My days feel longer in the best possible way, and I fall asleep excited about the next morning.
We just got a new Mac Pro, and it's pretty awesome. My old iMac could barely run iPhoto without crashing, so with me working from home, it was definitely time to upgrade. The cats were almost as excited about opening the boxes as we were. So far, I'm a happy customer and I'm especially psyched about the new iApps. Unfortunately, I think I might have some major issues getting sound recording set up as there are Panther incompatibility issues with the MBox and the Oxygen8 - bummer!
Technology is weird. Somehow, no matter how incredible a device seems when it first comes out, it feels slow and useless only a few years later. Has the device degraded or have we, as individuals, just upgraded our expectations? I recently read Victor Papanek's 1972 book Design for the Real World. (He was a friend and colleague of Buckminster Fuller, developer of the geodesic dome.) The book presents an indictment of planned obsolescence, the notion that corporations purposefully perpetuate a disposable, commodity-driven culture by creating products that aren't built to last, and by always pushing the newest model while discontinuing support of older editions.
The moment I started up GarageBand on my new Mac and tried to record a song using my MBox, only to discover that the device is "not yet supported," Papanek popped into my head, and I felt a rush of guilt. Should I really be investing in more machinery that's probably going to end up in a landfill in a decade or sooner? At least I can console myself with the fact that my Samsung monitor had an Energy Star sticker on it and that Apple went a little greener in 2007.
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