It's Time to Give Up My Walkman for an iPod

Townhall.com ^ | November 26, 2015 | Jerry Rogers

[dschapin]

I don’t think it is primarily the left that dislikes black Friday pushing into Thanksgiving Day. I think it is a sad reflection on our society that so many people will rush out of (or skip altogether) sitting down with family and friends and being thankful for all that God has provided throughout the year. It is even more sad that what motivates them to do this is greed for getting more material possessions.

[publius911]

Why do robbers rob banks?

[blam]

"I'll finally replace my Walkman with one of these new-fangled iPod things. Happy Thanksgiving."

I bought three new Walkmans while they were still making them. I also bought a couple more used one at yard sales later. I have hundreds of cassette tapes that still 'work/sound' just fine. When I mentioned this at my weekly poker game, the younger players let out a howl.
(I could care less)

[AlaskaErik]

Welcome to the late 20th century!

[sauropod]

bfl

[VanDeKoik]

I call it “Restocking for Garage Sales Day”.

Most of the crap that gets bought ends up at yard sales next spring. Lots of it unused or used once.

[867V309]

The immediate answer lies in the thumbnail-sized computer chip found in my new bank card an EMV chip.

I got my brand new chipped card in August. Fraudulent charges were made on it 2 weeks ago. In 25 years with the same bank, I'd never had a fraudulent charge before.

[sauropod]

bfl

[VanShuyten]

As a birthday present one year, Mrs. VanShuyten bought a Walkman MP3 player for me and transferred my favorite albums and cassettes to it.

Love that woman.

[umgud]

[FlingWingFlyer]

Not necessarily. I’ve got a Sony Walkman iPod.

[FlingWingFlyer]

I gotta get me one of those! LOL!

[blam]

"Most of the crap that gets bought ends up at yard sales next spring. Lots of it unused or used once."

I bought an Apple iphone5 at a yard sale for $.25. The guy forgot his password and couldn't use it. A friend of mine I gave it to 'zeroed it out' and now uses it daily,

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Our bank sent us new cards with chips on them about 8 months ago after our card had been lost and was fraudulently used. I ran across my very first chip-enabled reader two weeks ago. I realized it was a chip-reader when the swipe didn’t work and the Home Depot person at the self-checkout came over to help. I was not impressed with the new reader; it looked like an amateurish garage job of assembling a prototype unit out of bits in the junk bucket and certainly wasn’t intuitive to use. I would have expected a sleek, 21st century design after all the time they’ve had to design and migrate to the new readers.

[Kaslin]

I used to have a walkman many years ago. I let my son talk me in to a LG pod or something like that, but I don’t have no use for it. He uses his all the time

[FunkyZero]

I had concerns about that. I got my new, replacement card in the mail about 6 months ago with the chip in it. I cut it up and threw it away. My current one doesn’t expire for another year so... at least I got another year out of it. If I’m forced to use one, I guess I can always drill a hole through it and just utilize the regular mag strip

[VanDeKoik]

I picked up one with a cracked screen, thinking it would make a cool iOS PDA, and got that same password thing.

One of these days I’ll have to commit to getting that fixed.

[867V309]

If I’m forced to use one, I guess I can always drill a hole through it and just utilize the regular mag strip

I frankly don't think the fraud committed on my account was because of the chip, but the chip sure didn't stop it.

Unless I'm mistaken, these chips are not RF chips which can be read remotely, but require physical contact with the card reader.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Crud. I just got mine, too. I’ll be extra vigilant, now. Grrrrrr!