It is 2014. I am sitting on the floor, sewing a D-ring to a hat so I can hang it from a carabiner on my purse. Ethereal music fills the air, coming from a dainty slab of electronics the size of a thin paperback book; this device has no physical connection to either the far-off server it’s pulling the music from, or to the speakers hidden in the corners of the room.
It is 1979. I am sitting on the floor, reading one of my father’s issues of “Audio” magazine. Music fills the air, coming from an assortment of electronics that become a significant component of the room’s decor: speakers almost as tall as me support a shelf of record albums and several black boxes larger and thicker than any book I own. A rat’s nest of wires hides behind this furniture, connecting it all.
People disappointed that they didn’t get the future they wanted or expected seem to have missed the surprising future they actually got.