{"id":1167,"date":"2006-10-24T06:51:02","date_gmt":"2006-10-24T11:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/ipod-the-cpi\/"},"modified":"2006-10-24T06:51:02","modified_gmt":"2006-10-24T11:51:02","slug":"ipod-the-cpi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/ipod-the-cpi","title":{"rendered":"iPod & the CPI"},"content":{"rendered":"

The iPod turned 5 years old yesterday. Russell Roberts at Cafe Hayek has a neat observation on how improvements over that span<\/a> are pretty much beyond the pale of the Consumer Price Index, which people can contort to tell us that we’re much worse off than we were in, say, the year of my birth.<\/p>\n

I find that argument to be BS; I’d rather live today with half of what I currently earn than be making twice what I make now but be stuck in 1971.<\/p>\n

Of coure, there’s nostalgia and then there’s figuring out what was actually different “back then,” and maybe better. Reading Bob Dylan’s memoirs, I was struck by how, as a youth, he searched for folk records in the nieghborhoods and cities of his home state (Minnesota). It reminded me of how Robert Crumb would go door-to-door in black neighborhoods in Philadelphia, trying to find old records. Similarly, my comic-book cohorts can easily recount stories of visiting flea markets and comic shops in small towns to search for elusive issues.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, those sorts of things are easily findable, either for sale or theft (in the case of a music download). The effort required to get every recording by, say, Robert Johnson, is almost nil, and it got me to wondering if that’s somehow depriving artists of a “necessary trial.” Is it too easy for us?<\/p>\n

I guess this parallels with how Tarantino developed his aesthetic while working in a video store, as opposed to those directors and critics of a generation before who had to seek out art-house cinema in big cities and college towns.<\/p>\n

But I’m rambling. Anyway: happy birthday, iPod! Someday you’ll be able to accommodate my 30,000-song library!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The iPod turned 5 years old yesterday. Russell Roberts at Cafe Hayek has a neat observation on how improvements over that span are pretty much beyond the pale of the Consumer Price Index, which people can contort to tell us that we’re much worse off than we were in, say, the year of my birth. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “iPod & the CPI”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-big-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-iP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1234,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/getting-better-all-the-time","url_meta":{"origin":1167,"position":0},"title":"Getting better all the time","author":"Gil","date":"December 6, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday, my dad picked up a new iPod. He called me to ask what sort of video files it can play. I wasn't sure -- outside of the movies and videos you can buy at the iTune store -- because I haven't bought a new iPod since July 2004. It's\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1489,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/backdating-option","url_meta":{"origin":1167,"position":1},"title":"Backdating Option","author":"Gil","date":"May 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I hit a nearby Apple Store after work yesterday to pick up a pair of iPod Nanos. I'm using them as giveaway incentives for a couple of surveys we run at my magazine. While I was at the counter, a strange transaction took place nearby. 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It.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4759,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/man-out-of-time-music","url_meta":{"origin":1167,"position":5},"title":"Man Out Of Time: Music","author":"Gil","date":"December 31, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Introduction | Music | Movies | Comics | Sports | Books I think music is the one field where \"the decade\" really is a delineator. I try not to extrapolate broader trends from my own experience, but this is one case where I think I'm just part of the new\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/music"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00005N8CQ","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}