When an incoming freshman at Harvard enters her room in the Yard for the first time, she’s greeted with a little scrap of history meant to kindle her awe at her place in the college’s legacy. On her bed will sit an envelope containing a list of names and years of graduation of all the people who have ever inhabited her room.

It’s a little like that scene in Dead Poets’ Society where Robin Williams creeps around among a group of his students murmuring, “Caaaaarpe,” while they stare at a photograph of their forebears. But it produces its intended effect. Those students who will room with the ghosts of JFK and Oliver Wendell Holmes will mention this fact in conversation for the rest of their lives. And even the lists without famous names will convey a powerful message: It wasn’t so long ago that these ancients, who graduated before you were ever born, were in this very room, feeling these same feelings you are now.

I thought of this as I was thinking of another milestone that shaped my freshman year: my introduction to Napster. Although I was as awed as anyone else by the fact of being able to download any song, instantly, for free, it wasn’t long before another element of the service made it a killer app.
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