Obsolescence on Steroids

When I got the laptop I'm typing on, I was the envy of my newsroom. It still seems pretty slick to me: it's an IBM T42 with an Intel Pentium chip that runs Windows XP. But last week, one of my AU interactive journalism classmates, Mark Heckathorn, forbodingly informed me: "Looks like you're going to need a new computer."

A check with the folks at the university's "hub," the office that handles computer issues for the Communications Department confirmed Mark's assessment. My trusty companion doesn't have enough RAM to do video editing. Already, in the extra course I'm taking with Brigid Maher, I'm seeing other limitations: Second Life seems to run in slow motion. Like some of us journalists, my little IBM just doesn't seem to be made for video.

This makes me sad. All my life I've had a problem with anthropomorthizing objects that I own (I gave away a car I owned because I wasn't using it as much when I moved back to DC from California and was worried it might be lonely). And nothing is more personal to a journalist than the keyboard she types on.

It also makes me wonder about how we deal with the obsolete in a world where technological chances are moving at such lightning speed. Will we one day be overwhelmed with computer junkyards? Where do pentium chips and lithium batteries go to die? And what are the environmental hazards of burying them??