On a recent family road trip I was reminded of an old joke about things that become a "boat anchor". It essentially referred to some item that was so old or so useless that it's only use was as a boat anchor.
While on a recent road trip my son commented that his iPod Touch was running low on juice, I said that he could charge it up when he got to grandma's. There was a moment of consternation and then a longer period of silence as we continued to drive along.
On the way to grandma's we stopped off to get the car washed and I looked back to find my son still playing his iPod Touch and I laughed when I saw that he had taken my netbook (backup computer) out of its pouch and was using it as a backup battery to his iPod Touch!
It really made me realize how quickly we have moved from a PC world to a hand held world, whether that be a smart-phone or an iPod. My once cherished Netbook is now nothing more than a boat anchor or in the case of my son's purposes a source of energy that makes it possible to keep using his iPod on a long road trip!
Thanks,
Ed
