An e-Sign of the Times

Yesterday was a travel day. It was only two flights, but there were far too many airport shuttles, and way too much sitting around.

In the waiting area at LAX, I couldn’t help noticing how just about everyone was hooked up to some sort of electronic device. Most of them were talking on cell phones, texting, or playing games to pass the time. Several were reading – but from Kindles or other e-readers.

Aside from a couple who were reading from old-fashioned print newspapers, I only spotted one other person reading from a traditional print-format publication. Ironically, he was reading Wired, the magazine that's all about e-communication.

And then, later the news, with the day's final irony: Steve Jobs, the man who had initiated so much of this, had died.

Even if his devices mostly seem to start with an ‘i’, he certainly did a lot to extend the bounds of our physical world to the one we inhabit now, a decidedly e-world.