Joshua Radin's Blog

Sony’s decision to end 3.5-inch disk production is just another signal that local storage media and platforms cannot be trusted with your precious data.
The history of data storage and backup is littered with the corpses of dead formats. Seven years ago I wrote about the beginning of the end of 3.5-inch floppy disks. At the time, it was still a popular portable storage medium, and I was derided as a heretic. Now, Sony has finally decided to stop making 3.5-inch floppy disks, which pretty much marks the end of the format.
It’s worth noting the demise of any popular format because it has a ripple effect on the technology world. In 2003, when Dell decided to stop putting 3.5-inch floppy drives in its computers, we were already seeing the proliferation and use of USB drives. Back then, they had capacities that, while many times greater than the best floppy disk, were still miles away from where they are now (these days, it’s not unusual to carry around a 4-GB USB drive).
Personally, I don’t know anyone who still uses 3.5-inch floppies, but I bet if I asked you or anyone else, you’d admit to still having a box or two stashed somewhere. Most are probably filled with data that you always promised yourself you’d migrate to another medium. You probably did the same thing with the old truly “floppy” 5.25-inch disks. That data is trapped on its obsolete format as well.
Perhaps that’s the real story today: Another once-popular format plays Dodo and we start worrying about what happens when there are no more drives available to read the medium.

The New York Yankees might be world champions of baseball, but are the Bronx Bombers the world champion in sports spending?
A new study ranked all the world’s professional sports teams by salary and, indeed, the Yankees came out on top globally. The United States is well-represented as well. Seven American teams are in the top 10, six of which qualified for the playoffs last year. In fact, nine of the teams on the list that qualified for the playoffs of their respective leagues. Maybe spending does matter.
The list is courtesy the Annual Review of Global Sports Strategies, as published by sportingintelligence.com. Dollar amount given is an approximation of the average annual salary of a first-team player on the team.