I've been observing the introduction of HD-DVD and Blu-ray with some befuddlement, because I just can't convince myself that a new format is needed. Of course, I'm not a technodweeb kind of guy: as I noted recently, I have the same Sony Discman I've been using for over a decade, and I still have the same shelf stereo that I've been using for a year less than the Discman. I didn't get a DVD player until 2003. I'm not afraid of technology, but I never get this sense of urgency about it.
Anyway, here's an interesting article about HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Its tone is very skeptical.
The personal blog of author Kelly Sedinger, chronicling the adventures of one overalls-clad wanderer.
I'm always surprised, bemused, and befuddled at how the geniuses of high-tech seem to work so hard at solving problems which I didn't even know existed. I live in Japan and here the big thing is high-tech payment methods; one drags a card across a reader and the amount owed is debited. A step beyond this, I guess, has one sliding one's cellular phone across the reader. This is all very Flash-Gordony, but was cash really so difficult to use? Were credit cards and checks really so cumbersome that we needed to mobilize the forces of high-tech innovation to come up with an alternate means of parting us from our cash?
ReplyDeleteI guess that's the key, though. The most important thing for businesses to do in a capitalist world is to work out ever more attractive means of parting customers from their money. The quicker and easier it is to consume, the logic seems to run, the more quickly and easily people will consume, and that's what it's all about.
DVDs in their current incarnation look fine (and videos didn't look that bad). CDs sound great. Couldn't high-tech creativity be put to a lot better use than replacing these eminently servicable technologies?
Best,
David
Wow, you have a Discman? Lucky. I guess I will have to break down and buy one. My Walkman is sounding a little rough.
ReplyDelete