Life is riddled with a procession of minor impediments

[Peter Wolf]

Where does the technology go next after Blu-Ray ?0

Once a format has reached the level of BluRay discs then there isnt really anywhere else for it to go.The capitalists will find some way to extract more cash from your pocket because its bigger and better than before.

So whats next a fully immersive holographic experience or films that you plug yourself into ?

Personally i couldnt give a toss as DVDs are adequate and its just more bits of plastic to spend money on thats pointless.

[vzzbux]

When VHS came out no one knew what was round the corner, so anything is possible.







V

[SmallBlueThing]

The thing about BluRay, is that it's patently a last-ditch effort on behalf of the "entertainment industry" to screw people out of the very last remnants of their cash, making them pay YET AGAIN for the same films they already have on VHS and DVD. The format has been squeezed into this theoretical gap between the last years of DVD and the onset of the download age. Within a few years, everyone will receive their media via download- tv, movies, music, the lot. We will store them in purpose built "entertainment libraries" (home-based hard drives, rebranded to create demand, with interfaces sold to us along the same lines as BluRay/ DVD is now, with the accent on the latest one being the most desirable.) It will be the hard drives, the interfaces and the screens we watch them on that will fullfll our need to physically "own" items- while our increasing reliance on limited physical storage space, as we exist in smaller and smaller dwellings, coupled with vague notions of them being "greener" (no plastics, etc) will make them the "must-have" of the second part of the 21st century.

BluRay is temporary, and will go the same way as the Laserdisc. Very, very quickly and very soon.

By that time, no one will be watching tv linearly- we'll all have content made available to us at the same time, and we'll download it whenever we like. There won't be any "tv schedules".

I'll still be printing out my weekly 2000AD though- and bagging it.

SBT

[TordelBack]

There won't be any "tv schedules".

A great post SBT, but I don't agree with this last bit - the hated internet phenomenon of posting "First!" when a web-cartoon or popular blog updates suggests to me that schedules will remain in the download age, even if only to mark the time at which a given download becomes available.  Eastenders fans, footie fans, Lotto junkies, all will still want to be there the moment something becomes available - and this point will probably represent a peak in downloads. 

[Roger Godpleton]

I made a hilarious joke on another thread and no one complimented me on it.

[Devons Daddy]

it will be all downloads next gen. thats almost certain.

as for life impediments,i forgot to charge my itouch!which resulted in a boring journey to work without a prog or a megazine in site!

[TordelBack]

as for life impediments,i forgot to charge my itouch!which resulted in a boring journey to work...

This truly is one of the horrors of the modern age. I drive work jeeps a lot during the day, and or reasons that escape me none of them have (working) radios, so I depend on my MP3 player for my fragile sanity - looking down and seeing that red battery indicator instills a feeling of near panic.

[Gavin_Leahy_Block]

A kid just called to the door selling aftershave and woke me up. He was very persistent and every time i tole him I wasn't interested he just lowered the price. I ended up putting the aftershave, that he had arranged in my hallway back into his bag and shutting the door. It's too early for this.

[Colin YNWA]

A kid just called to the door selling aftershave and woke me up. He was very persistent and every time i tole him I wasn't interested he just lowered the price. I ended up putting the aftershave, that he had arranged in my hallway back into his bag and shutting the door. It's too early for this.

What you let him get in!

[Mike Gloady]

If he'd started doing that sort of thing I think I'd have called the police and reported an intruder.  Watch him pack up his OWN shite in record time.

[Gavin_Leahy_Block]

What you let him get in!

I didn't. He was stood at the door and just started placing them inside at my feet. I was sleep deprived and slightly hungover so my reaction to him were slow.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

You should have shut the door and kept the goods that he had left for you as gifts

[Peter Wolf]

I would have allowed him a very generous 5 seconds to leave the premises or i would have physically removed him myself.

[House of Usher]

I think we're going to see a lot more of this sort of thing in the future: more pushy salespeople, more petty crime and more portfolio working whereby people put in hours and hours of preparation time and foot-slog for a measly few quid in return. At the moment it's the credit crunch recession that's forcing people (me included) into these pathetic niches of partial employment, but it won't end should the economy ever pick up.

If there ever is another boom, automation, digital communications and the search for efficiency savings will almost certainly mean a reduction in the size of the workforce, leaving a lot of people left out, trying to scratch a living from work that doesn't need to be done, or else supporting themselves through crime, annoying the rest of us and making our lives more difficult into the bargain.

[TordelBack]

This morning, I wasted my few hours off this week looking for a decent coat.  My current raincoat was secondhand to start with, and I've been wearing it for bike an bus commuting, long hours of fieldwork, hiking and sailing for 8 years now and it has more taped-up holes and tears than material (I call it 'breathable fabric'), so I thought that if I could choose a new one it would be a good sensible Christmas pressie from the wife in lean times.  Holy crap, am I out of step with reality.  Unless I wanted the plastic equivalent of a Fremen Stillsuit, or something on which I could actually pull the seams apart with a  yank (I feel no remorse, I was saving the next man a disappointment) , the damn things started at €200 - and went up.  The first one that I checked the price tag on was €340!  In the words of the Jerry Springer Musical, what the f**king f**king f**k.

And yet, the three outdoor shops I visited were full of staff, and full of customers, merrily consuming, so it's clearly me that's got the problem.   I've never spent €200 on an article of clothing in my life, suit I wore to my wedding included, and there's f**k all chance I'm going to start at the moment.  I expect a holiday, or a party, or game console or something for that kind of money - not a shagging coat.

Looks like I should have just grabbed a plastic sweatbox one from Lidl, and spent the morning with the kids.