I’ll send you to the link first so as not to spoil a very well-written post. Meet me back here for a short nostalgic waxing afterwards (if you want):

Brings back fond memories of the first time I travelled with my first-generation iPod in early 2002. Despite the fact that it had already been an entire Christmas season since the iPod had been introduced, the crack team of TSA scanners at LAX accosted me and demanded to know what the device was.

“It’s an iPod”

“A what?”

“It’s an MP3 player…”

Blank stares. I worry that they’re going to take my precious new baby and chuck it with the knives, scissors, and other Instruments of Destruction.™

I tried getting simpler: “It plays music… like a CD player, but without CDs.”

I had to show them my headphones and how they plugged in, as well as describe how one ‘puts music into it’ before they finally let me pass.

I always look back on that scene with a smile — within just a year or so, there would scarcely be anyone on Earth who hadn’t heard of an iPod.

(Link via MacNN.)

UPDATE: Also in MacBook Pro news, Steven Levy has discovered that the laptop is so thin, it might have gone out with the recycling:

(Via Daring Fireball.)