As I walked through the door after a hard day at Microsoft, my teenage daughter handed me a ten dollar bill.
“Know what that means?” she said.
“Yeah, it means I can afford lunch at the cafeteria for the next two days. Three, if I get the soup.”
“No, silly, it means I successfully downloaded a music album off the Web. I had to use your credit card to pay for it, so the hammerbuck is to pay you back.”
“SAW-buck.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“How’d you get my credit card number?”
“I just signed on using your account. Mom said it was ok.”
“Remind me to thank her. Didn’t you need my password?”
“Yes. But I figured it was the same password you use for everything.”
“Young lady, I do NOT use the same password for everything. I work for the largest software company in the world, and that would be irresponsible. I’ve got all my passwords, the case sensitivity, the special characters, all locked away right up here,” I said, tapping my receding hairline. It kind of hurt.
“I know you do, Dad. So let’s just say I guessed and got it right.”
“Lucky guess.”
“The first time.”
“Enough.”
“It wasn’t even hard.”
“I said enough! So what kind of music did you want so bad that you couldn’t wait for me to get home?”
“It’s Relient K, a contemporary Christian group.”
“Sounds ok. But I could have picked up the CD for you at the store on the way home.”
“But why, Dad? This is so much easier. All we have to do is download the album and burn it to a CD. In fact, the license says we can burn up to five CDs from one download.”
“Five?”
“Right. That saves money. Remember when you bought two of those Engelbert Humperdinck CDs so you could have one at the office and one at home?”
“Hey, not so loud there with the Engelbert…”
“It’s part of the fallout over the Napster thing a few years ago,” she said. “After the court battle, a few big companies like Microsoft and Apple swooped in and decided to profit from music sales off the Web, and now there’s kind of a format war going on between Microsoft with Windows Media files and Apple’s M4P files. Microsoft and Apple going at it. Just like in the old days!”
“Ok,” I said, somewhat flustered, but determined to set the tenth grader straight. “First of all, ‘the old days’ are what some of us refer to as ‘the Reagan administration.’ They weren’t that long ago. Secondly, weren’t you about nine when the Napster lawsuit was going on? How do you know about that?”
“I just finished a school report on it.”
“And what did you conclude?”
“Only that we’re becoming a more digital society, particularly with entertainment. You are aware that, just over the past few years, things have changed quite a bit.”
“Yes, I’m aware. I do write a weekly column about these things, you know.”
“I know about the column, Dad. Anyway, one reason I’m glad you’re with Microsoft is that Bill Gates keeps talking about making everyone’s life easier through digital technology. Not just music, but photos, movies, TV shows…why, just last week in Las Vegas he was showing Conan O’Brien how you can carry around movies and TV shows and do things like download Relient K off the Web.”
“Well, I’ve heard we’re going in that direction, and I’m glad Billg is in the middle of it. That can only be good for the stock price.”
“Oh, Dad. Can’t you see beyond the stock price? This is about changing the way we see and hear practically everything in our lives.”
“I understand. But until the change happens, I have bills to pay. In fact, you should care about the stock as well if you ever want to go to college. How do you think I’ll be paying for my half of your college bill?”
“What do you mean your ‘half’?”
“Just what I said. Your mother and I have decided that it will help build your character if we pay for half of your college bill and you pay for the other half.”
“I see…what’s that in your hand?”
“The ten bucks you just gave me.”
“Can I have it back? We’ll call it my allowance for this week.”
“Starting a college fund?”
“Something like that.”
I gave her back the money and she headed for her room, her Fortress of Solitude. I’m not too concerned about her ability to come up with half the tuition. After all, college is three years away, and if she saves her weekly allowances and babysitting money, she should have a decent down payment by then.
And who knows? Maybe in three years, the digital revolution will have permeated our colleges and universities to enable “ubiquitous learning,” where you download a professor’s lecture to your portable media player and watch it at your convenience. It could wipe out the classroom concept and make higher education less expensive and more accessible.
In the meantime, I decided to enhance my own digital education by buying yet another copy of the Engelbert album, this time by downloading it from the Web.
Hey, I can always use one for the car.