175 salad dressings in my supermarket, 我这家超市有175种各式色拉调料，

if you don't count the 10 extra-virgin olive oils and 12 balsamic vinegars 还没算上10种不同牌子的特级初榨橄榄油和12种Balsamic葡萄醋任你选购，

you could buy to make a very large number of your own salad dressings, in the off-chance that none of the 175 the store has on offer suit you. 如果碰巧那175种色拉酱都不和你的口味，你就可以用它们调出另一大批你自己的色拉酱。

So this is what the supermarket is like. 你看，这就是超级市场的样子。

And then you go to the consumer electronics store to set up a stereo system -- speakers, CD player, tape player, tuner, amplifier 然后你转身出来到一家家用电器店去配置一套立体音响系统--音箱啦，CD机啦，磁带机，收音机，放大器，

and in this one single consumer electronics store, there are that many stereo systems. 就这么一家家用电器店里，立体音响系统就多得数不清。

We can construct six-and-a-half-million different stereo systems out of the components that are on offer in one store. 用这家店的组件你可以配出近650万种各种组合的立体音响系统来。

You've got to admit that's a lot of choice. In other domains -- the world of communications. 你没法不承认这可是不小的一堆选择吧。换个行业，说说通讯。

There was a time, when I was a boy, when you could get any kind of telephone service you wanted, as long as it came from Ma Bell. 我还是孩子那会儿，你要想接通电话服务，那就得去玛贝尔公司，只此一家。

You rented your phone. You didn't buy it. One consequence of that, by the way, is that the phone never broke. 你不用买，只需去租一架电话机回来。通常情况是，那电话用到死都不会坏。

And those days are gone. We now have an almost unlimited variety of phones, especially in the world of cell phones. 那种日子早已一去不返了。如今我们几乎有无穷无尽的电话品种，尤其是手机。

These are cell phones of the future. My favorite is the middle one -- the MP3 player, nose hair trimmer, and creme brulee torch. 这些都是未来的手机。其中我最津津乐道的是中间那款--带着MP3播放机，鼻毛剪和法式焦糖布丁的喷火枪。

And if by some chance you haven't seen that in your store yet, you can rest assured that one day soon, you will. 如果你还没在你家旁边的商店里见过的话，不必担心，用不了多久你就会看到的。

And what this does is it leads people to walk into their stores asking this question. 这事的结果是，人们跑到商店里问:

And do you know what the answer to this question now is? The answer is "no." 你们有没有一款不带这么多功能的？你想,回答会是什么？回答是“没有”。

It is not possible to buy a cell phone that doesn't do too much. 如今你已经不可能买到一款不干那么多事的手机了。