Well, it’s been “over two weeks”:http://www.sensoryoutput.com/archives/2004/09/13/new-ipod-soon/ since I ordered (and paid for, argh!) my iPod from my university bookstore. They have an awful reputation of taking weeks to order and get Apple products, regardless of how new or strained Apple’s supply of said product is at the moment. They had better call me soon to say that it has been received, or I might just enter into a music-deprived state of withdrawal.

I finally received a copy of DiskWarrior 3.0 to fix my external FireWire hard drive which contains my 50+ GB of music. It worked perfectly, repairing the “directory” which is a catalog (the term I have normally heard used) of the files on the disc. Whew. Because data backup of 50 GB is nearly impossible without a huge stack of CDs or even 10+ DVD-Rs, I am afraid of what might happen to that hard drive. When you are skirting the edges of technological marvel, though, by purchasing and filling 200 GB disks, the only solution is to buy *two* of those marvels. Unfortunately, buying two of the latest and greatest is not cheap and far beyond my current means a busy student. Plus, I am right smack in the middle of applying to medical school ($$$). Risky? Maybe, but I do not have any other choice (beyond giving up music, which I will never entertain).

In summary, I have music available on my computer but not to take with me where I please. Soon, the bookstore promises, soon.

A while back, I reported that “my iPod was egregiously stolen(O, human beings)”:http://www.sensoryoutput.com/archives/2004/08/11/o-human-beings/ from me. In a torrent of emotion, I virtually screamed out on this site, “O, the humanity!

!(alignright)http://www.sensoryoutput.com/wp-images/postings/news_ipod.jpg(New iPod on Newsweek Cover)!:http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5457432/site/newsweek/ If you are not already up to speed on the iPod, “Newsweek’s cover story next week”:http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3032542/site/newsweek/ speaks of a brand-new iPod (dubbed 4G by many). The full article, “iPod Nation”:http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5457432/site/newsweek/ is to arrive on newsstands tomorrow. “Supposedly”:http://www.thinksecret.com/news/newipods.html, Apple is to formally announce the iPod revision in some “unique venue,” but I am uncertain along with the rest of the web as to whether Newsweek counts as unique. Personally, I believe that Apple will find something with a little more public kick and spice to allow all iPodders to revel in the new, sleeker models.

“Think Secret”:http://www.thinksecret.com/ has “detailed the specs”:http://www.thinksecret.com/news/newipods3.html: the upper echelon topping out at 40 GB but receiving a whopping 20% decrease in price, ringing in at $399! The next step down, the 20 GB, also saw a $100 price reduction for a result of just $299. Quite impressive coming from Apple, who has always prided themselves as the __haute couture__ of the computer industry and always charging the higher price for that descriptor (much to the chagrin of many users).

The new iPod has a refined interface for in hardware and software, complete with an iPod-mini style scroll wheel and a reorganization of menus and a few new software features like multiple On-the-Go playlists. Also, the battery capacity has been increased 50% to give you a full 12 hours of music-filled enjoyment and the hardware engineers have shaved off 1 mm in thickness. All of these differences with the last generation may seem modest in their own right, but when combined together, Apple has created a better product at a more attractive price that is going to kill “the”:http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/dj?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs “competition”:http://www.sonystyle.com/ during the next holiday season. Already, the product recognition seems to be off the charts, with the tell-tale signs of white earbud headphones showing up everywhere (from the Newsweek article):

bq. Steve Jobs noticed something earlier this year in New York City. “I was on Madison,” says Apple’s CEO, “and it was, like, on every block, there was someone with white headphones, and I thought, ‘Oh, my God, it’s starting to happen’.” Jonathan Ive, the company’s design guru, had a similar experience in London: “On the streets and coming out of the tubes, you’d see people fiddling with it.” And Victor Katch, a 59-year-old professor of kinesiology at the University of Michigan, saw it in Ann Arbor. “When you walk across campus, the ratio seems as high as 2 out of 3 people,” he says.

This sort of self-marketing where the simple presence of the product produces envy in non-iPodders and sheer glee by fellow owners can only be to Apple’s benefit. And it has. “Apple’s 3rd quarter numbers”:http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/jul/14results.html were astounding, and the bottom line was heavily influenced by none other than the iPod.

Given this site’s name, I think I need to expand on my personal interpretation of my senses and their effect on me. Most people seem to pay little attention to the nuances of sensory input: sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste. I relish them all. I especially enjoy the opportunity to tease apart the layers of a particular smell, wade through the cacophony of sound from an orchestra to pick out a single clarinet, or delicately inspect an object’s features and surface with my hands. I’m sorry to use a cliché, but people need to stop and smell the roses, so to speak.

Today, I would like to speak about how closely tied senses are to memory. “Well, duh!” you mutter sarcastically. Senses are indeed how we perceive events that our brains eventually encode. Clearly, though, our brains do not encode each sense’s input at the time of an event. In fact, depending on the circumstances, our mind might focus on a sight or color if one were lost in the woods, single out the chlorine scent at a pool, or remember the sound of honking cars in a traffic jam. With each person, our experience is unique. The experts say that despite our rather weak olfaction capabilities, “smell is the most closely linked to memory”:http://www.cf.ac.uk/biosi/staff/jacob/teaching/sensory/olfact1.html and to the recall of such.

As I mentioned, however, not every person is alike. Sound (in particular, music) has woven a rich fabric in my memory, closely associating melodies, classical movements, nuanced harmonies with events, people, and in particular, sights. I, for one, am not in the least surprised that sight and sound are so closely linked in my mind, as visual indicators are most often what you and I experience upon memory recall. I never cease to be amazed at the ease with which memories are triggered by sound. I love it! Recalling a particular day, a drive in the car, a sad moment: music accompanies so many memories. A mechanism clicks in my mind and a wave of euphoria overcomes me as images pass through me, set to music that was playing at the time. My strongest memories always come with music attached.

Well, that’s interesting, but why? Why not smell, like most other people? Actually, training. I had the opportunity to take fourteen years of piano lessons, playing in recitals and competitions. Clearly, by exercising my use of this sense in a repetitive fashion, I was able to increase the interconnectedness of the part of my brain responsible for understanding and interpreting sound as music (the temporal lobe, specifically the secondary auditory cortex). Areas very near here are also thought to be responsible for short-term memory or “working memory”:http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/working-memory. Interesting.

The vastness of the human mind and our capacity to store the complex variables our environment provides is astounding. Do not take it for granted and enjoy/focus on the nuances it provides. Also, try expanding one of your senses.