[J. Strnad]

Now I'm worried about Slide Rule. Why isn't he showing up for meetings? Gosh, I hope he's okay.

There were visual, tactile and olfactory aspects to opening up a new vinyl LP and playing it. I loved the big cover art and the ritual of cleaning the disc with a brush before playing it. I loved the smooth mechanical movement of the tonearm and, as I went hifi, I loved moving it myself and gently placing it on the revolving surface of the record.

But I hated the crackles and pops and the storage space the records took up, and I love having so much more music available to me in a pocket-sized device, and I love the option of buying a single tune from an album if I so choose and all of the other benefits of downloading music. And the selection! Wow! No record store ever offered so much.

Ultimately, it's about the content. The other stuff...those other senses that are engaged...are sacrificed for content, price and ease of use.

Print will be around a long time yet for certain content, but things will never be as good for the print industry as they have been for the last couple of centuries.