The lat­est Boston Globe story about the MBTA’s tran­si­tion to elec­tronic fare cards fea­tures a quote from Tom Parker, a man­ager for San Francisco’s BART ser­vice, about why it’s time to replace the sub­way token:

“Tokens are not very sophisticated.”

I’m thrilled to be part of this excit­ing new cen­tury, in which sim­ple, cheap, and ele­gant solu­tions are shunned for being insuf­fi­ciently complicated.