I was in the locker room of my gym this afternoon. A man in his early sixties (just a few years older than me) was desperately searching for his cell phone.
I felt sorry for him. I helped him out by checking the area immediately around his locker.
This story had a happy ending. His phone, it turned out, was in his gym bag all the time.
The two of us got to talking about how those damn cell phones have become yet one more thing that a person needs to keep track of.
We were both old enough to remember when a man only had to keep track of his wallet and his keys. Life was so much simpler back then.
But nowadays, the loss of a cell phone can be just as life-changing as the loss of either a wallet or keys/car fob. So you had better not lose or misplace it.
In 1985, no one had to worry about losing their cell phone or having their email hacked. Cybercrime did not exist. Nor did the many neuroses associated with social media.
I don’t plan to abandon my iPhone anytime soon. But it’s worth noting: twenty-first-century technology enslaves us as much as it frees us. There was a time, not so long ago, when we happily did without all of it.
My primary social media goal for 2026 is to build up my YouTube presence and extend my reach there. In preparation, I’ve been doing some research into the dreaded YouTube algorithm.
One of the trends that YouTube is responding to is the tendency toward watching online videos on smart TVs like the Sony Bravia.
This means that YouTube now favors “reclinable” videos: i.e., videos that a person would want to watch for an extended period of time, on a big screen, from the comfort of their living room.
This dovetails with the maturation of the platform. If you think that YouTube is just for young folks, then you must be living in 2006. My dad, now in his late 70s, has become a YouTube enthusiast over the past few years. He’s retired, and he has plenty of time to watch videos.
But my dad has no interest in accessing YouTube on an iPhone, even though he owns one. My dad has a big 80-inch Sony Bravia in his living room. That’s where he watches YouTube.
To me, this makes a lot of sense. I have never understood the obsession with watching videos on a tiny smartphone screen. Yes, I can understand why you might do this incidentally, if you’re stuck in an airport or waiting for your appointment at the dentist’s office. But even the screen of my MacBook provides a much better viewing experience than the largest, most expensive smartphone. Certain kinds of videos, moreover (my dad watches a lot of travelogues) simply can’t be appreciated on a tiny cellphone screen.
The smart TV, not the phone, is the wave of the video consumption future. If you make videos for YouTube, take this into consideration when planning your content.
As I posted last week, I decided to change my Internet service from Spectrum to a local Cincinnati-based vendor. My dad is also discontinuing his use of Spectrum, and I’ve been helping him with his changeover details.
Tuesday I called Spectrum to cancel my service. I thought this would be straightforward. I was wrong.
You can’t simply cancel. Spectrum has set up a system whereby you have to answer twenty minutes worth of questions, and endure repetitive sales pitches from a representative who is obviously compelled by management directive.
If you don’t go for the Spectrum sales pitches, Spectrum resorts to scare tactics. Did I know, I was asked, that the company I’d chosen to replace Spectrum would probably damage my utilities when burying the fiberoptics cable? And what about their poor customer service? Wouldn’t I rather cancel my new service and go back to Spectrum?
No, I repeatedly said, and the questions were rephrased to me in a slightly different way.
Needless to say, this all became quite frustrating. But you can’t simply hang up—or your service will never get canceled. It’s the perfect Catch-22.
After going through all that, I thought: what the heck is going on here? I did some research, and it seems that Spectrum has lost around 117,000 residential customers in the second quarter of 2025.
The company’s real problems began last year, when the end of the COVID-era Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) ended government subsidies for low-income households. My guess is that Spectrum then decided to raise rates on its other residential customers. That caused the company to lose even more users.
The CEO of Charter Spectrum, Christopher Winfrey, enjoyed a total compensation package of $89.1 million in 2023.
Last year that was downgraded to a measly $5.75 million because of the Spectrum debacle. So Winfrey is now working for near starvation wages, as he struggles to undo the damage that he and his management team have wrought. (Don’t worry, though—Winfrey’s package still includes personal use of a corporate airplane.)
But Spectrum is not going to have me and my dad as customers. Not even if Christopher Winfrey personally calls me and offers the use of his private jet. (Okay—I might consider if Spectrum throws in the use of Winfrey’s corporate jet. But that’s the only way they’re getting me back.)
-ET
THE EAVESDROPPER
Three of your coworkers are planning a murder. Will you stop them, or become their next victim?
I vaguely remember the TRS-80 Pocket Computer. Introduced in 1980, this little device was manufactured and marketed by the Tandy Corporation/Radio Shack. (Every shopping mall in the 1980s had a Radio Shack.) Science fiction author Isaac Asimov appeared in a series of marketing spots for the gadget.
1980 Radio Shack ad featuring the TRS-80 Pocket Computer and Isaac Asimov
I didn’t own a TRS-80 Pocket Computer, however. The MSRP was $169.95. In present-day money, that’s about $670—the cost of a base-model iPhone.
And of course, the TRS-80 Pocket Computer had a minimal functionality when compared to an iPhone. It couldn’t make phone calls, play music, or take photos. It couldn’t surf the Internet—which didn’t yet exist, anyway.
The TRS-80 Pocket Computer was programmable in BASIC (which couldn’t do much for the average consumer). Other than that, it was basically a glorified pocket calculator.
Herein lies an important realization about 1980s tech: it was very expensive, and it didn’t do much. Even if you could afford it, you usually concluded that you could do without it.
Escape is one of the few rock albums with no duds. Every song is good—if you like Journey’s style of music.
But the best song on the album, perhaps, is “Don’t Stop Believin’”. It is a great song because it is simultaneously specific and universal.
We wonder about the small town girl, and the city boy “born and raised in South Detroit.” What compelled each of them to take “the midnight train going anywhere”?
And at the same time, the song is vague enough that we can each apply it to our individual stories. “Whoa, the movie never ends. It goes on and on and on and on.” My movie has gone on for 44 years since I first heard this song, and counting.
For years, this song instantly took me back to the 1981-2 school year, and the adolescent I was at that time. The song can still do that.
But then a few years ago, I watched The Sopranos from start to finish. (I was about a decade behind everyone else in doing this…the story of my life.) Then, for a long time, I would see the final, iconic scene of The Sopranos when I heard, “Don’t Stop Believin’”.
Most recently, I have discovered First to Eleven’s interpretation of the song. (First to Eleven is a very talented cover band based in Erie, Pennsylvania.)
None of the members of First to Eleven was even born when I heard “Don’t Stop Believin’” for the first time, back in 1981. (They are all very young.) And yet, their music video, and lead vocalist Audra Miller’s performance, put yet another spin on the song for me.
And some people worry—or hope—that AI will replace serious musicians? They base this on the fact (for example) that AI can now reassemble good music into mediocre music. (See my recent post about The Velvet Sundown.)
AI will never be good for anything but mediocrity. Only a human imagination could have come up with “Don’t Stop Believin’” almost half a century ago. And it took human imagination to come up with all these reimaginings of the song since then.
Members of my generation lived to see plenty of changes in the ways popular music is consumed. We were born in the golden age of the vinyl album. As adults, many of us are learning to cope with streaming music services.
Throughout most of the 1980s, the audio cassette tape was the most popular means of buying music and listening to it. When I see nostalgic Facebook posts about physical music media from the 1980s, the cassette tape is most often the subject.
But there was another musical format that was already dying out as the 1980s began, but which was actually quite good, by the standards of the time. I’m talking about the venerable 8-track tape.
The 8-track was a plastic cartridge that had dimensions of 5.25 x 4 x 0.8 inches. Like the audio cassette, the 8-track contained a magnetic tape. But unlike the audio cassette, the 8-track was much less prone to kinking and tangling.
The 8-track was actually 1960s technology. The 8-track took off in the middle of that decade, when auto manufacturers began offering 8-track players as factory-installed options in new vehicles. Throughout the 1970s, 8-track players were popular options on new cars. 8-tracks were further popularized by subscription music services like Columbia House.
Columbia House magazine ad from the 1970s
I purchased my first home stereo system for my bedroom in 1982, with money I had saved from my grass-cutting job. I bought it at Sears, which was one of the best places to buy mid-level home audio equipment at that time. The stereo included an AM/FM radio, a turntable for vinyl records, a cassette deck, and an 8-track player.
I quickly discovered that I liked the 8-track format the best, because of its relatively compact size and ease of use. That spring I bought 8-track versions of Foreigner 4, Styx’s Paradise Theater, and the Eagles Live album. All of these produced good sound (again, by the standards of that era), and none of them ever jammed or tangled. I was convinced that I had found my musical format.
It has often been my destiny to jump on a trend just as it is nearing its end. Little did I know that my beloved 8-track was already in steep decline.
8-track sales in the USA peaked in 1978, and began falling after that. The culprit was the slightly more compact, but far more error-prone audio cassette. This was the format that all the retailers were suddenly pushing. By the early 1980s, cassette players were also replacing 8-track players in cars.
I would like to say that I yielded to the march of technological progress, but this wouldn’t be truly accurate. The audio cassette, invented in 1963, was slightly older technology than the 8-track.
I did, however, yield to the march of commercial trends, simply because I had no choice. Nineteen-eighty-three was the year that retailers began phasing out 8-tracks in stores. You could still purchase them from subscription services, but they were disappearing from the shelves of mall record stores and general merchandisers like K-Mart. By early 1984, the venerable 8-track had completely vanished.
In recent years, there has been a movement to resurrect the vinyl record. I’ve noticed no similar trend aimed at bringing back the 8-track. At this point, in the early- to mid-2020s, I may be the only person left on the planet who still fondly remembers this bygone musical medium.
