When I was a child, I had[1] a cassette player[2] of a type that would be immediately familiar to anyone over thirty, and possibly outside of the experience of anyone under 20. A flattish rectangular prism about half the size of a shoebox, it had a neat row of buttons that required some effort to depress: REC, REW, FF, PLAY, STOP, EJECT. For reasons I never questioned, the REC button would not … [Read more...]