Memory and Perspective

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A fish doesn’t know it’s in water… until it is hanging in midair from a hook while being reeled in.

Sometimes you are so close to something that you lose all perspective… until something comes along to remind you, that is. Yup, there is suddenly that tap on the shoulder that reminds you where you’ve been, where you are and the amazing journey from one to the other.

This afternoon I had just one of those experiences. Let me explain.

I’m really excited that the new iPhone will be coming in a 32 GB variety. It will likely be a more than usable amount of storage space for my various kinds of media, apps, and, starting Friday, three megapixel pictures and video!!! The thing is, I’ve had a 32 GB iPod touch since the fall so having that much storage on my iPhone, while nice, did not seem so radical.

That’s when perspective came and tapped my shoulder.

I was cleaning out my closet trying to make some sense of the mess that I call a home studio,  when I came upon a well-loved memory stick that had seen a tremendous amount of use on one of my old digital point-and-shoot cameras. It doesn’t seem like that camera, and by extension that memory stick, were state-of-the-art all that long-ago. Moreover, I remember purchasing it. I was excited to replace the memory stick that shipped with the camera initially because this gave me  eight (8) times the storage! At the time, it was a hefty amount of space and it came at an even heftier cost. (I remember thinking to myself at the time, “I can’t believe I’m spending this much on a memory stick for my camera.”)

So here’s the perspective —

It would take 1000 of those 32 MB memory sticks to equal the capacity that will be available on my iPhone this Friday. Or for those of you who are visual learners — here is the perspective as image —

To match the capacity of my soon-to-arrive iPhone…

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…using my 32MG MemoryStick…

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…you would need this…

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From 32MB max storage to 32GB in your pocket in just a few years… amazing!

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About the Author

Dan Cohen
Having a father who was heavily involved in early laser and fiber-optical research, Dan grew up surrounded by technology and gadgets. Dan’s father brought home one of the very first video games when he was young and Dan remembers seeing a “pre-release” touchtone phone. (When he asked his father what the “#” and “*” buttons were his dad said, “Some day, far in the future, we’ll have some use for them.”) Technology seemed to be in Dan’s blood but at some point he took a different path and ended up in the clergy. His passion for technology and gadgets never left him. Dan is married to Raina Goldberg who is also an avid user of Apple products. They live in New Jersey with their golden doodle Nava.