A well-known carrier over here once advertised the iPhone 4 as featuring a ‘new ↑SIM card technology.’ ↑What they meant was the so-called ‘micro-SIM.’ Well, meanwhile we have reached the ‘nano-SIM’—yet another unbelievable leap of technology. But hold your breath, it gets even better. By investing five bucks you can be at the forefront of innovation yourself, by buying the ‘Nano SIM Cutter,’ which ‘takes any regular or micro size and trims the excess off to provide you a precision cut nano SIM. It’s simple, you insert your SIM card with the contacts facing downwards, push the SIM card all the way in, and push down on the lever. The cutter will provide you with a perfectly cut nano SIM card every time! These Nano SIM Cutters are built from hi-quality stainless steel to ensure high precision cutting.’ [pictured on the left]
    This reminded me of a technological triumph from back in the 1980s, from my time with a ↑C64. We used 5.25” ↑floppy disks (which indeed were floppy). Unfortunately you could only write data on one side of the disks—unless you cut a square whole into the disk cover at the right spot along its edge. Then you could simply flip the disk over, insert it into the drive, and read/write on the backside. This procedure made a floppy disk into a flippy disk. Some clever businessman professionalized the procedure and manufactured a precision floppy disk hole puncher [pictured on the right]—I even owned one of those.
    Under the bottom line: micro-SIM to nano-SIM equals floppy disk to flippy disk.
    Isn’t historical continuity in technology a wonderful thing?