The Winds of Obsolescence
Most of the computers that I have been using on campus do not have a floppy drive, something that presents a real problem when I need to save my work for another day. In the past, I've e-mailed my assignments to myself through the internet, using internet mail as free storage device. Normally, this technique works pretty well, except I have to spend about five to ten minutes formatting my paper as the email systems not only take out bold, italics, and indentations, but do not even pretend to consider such things like margins or font. When you're an English major and are required to use strict MLA formatting, these picky things become important. While I may not remember the finer points of Husserl's concepts of phenomenology as it relates to criticism, I will always remember basic MLA formatting right until the day I, euphemistically speaking, slip from this mortal coil.
Consequently, I bought myself a jump drive aka flash drive, aka thumb drive, aka usb drive for forty bucks. Probably not a bargain, but a full twenty dollars cheaper than the college bookstore. When initially shopping around for a solution to my storage problem, I was confused by the constellation of names this thing had. (New technology has always had a problem with names, I suppose. Apparently, as a result of the invention of the telegraph and telegram, it was popular to refer to your autograph as an autogram. Not quite the same problem, but close enough to demonstrate the potential for confusion.) I call it a jump drive, as that is what it calls itself when it is plugged into a computer. Not wanting to be insensitive to my drive's preferences, I stick with jump drive.
Actually, I've had the drive for a couple of weeks now, but because my home computer is lamentably obsolete, I wasn't able to use it properly until today. Now, I have a sense of freedom that comes with the knowledge that I will not be subject to an internet connection for the retrieval of my papers. I know this is not a major milestone for most people, yet I humbly give thanks to all that is holy for this small grace proffered by the wizards of technology.