I Fell Behind
Somehow I find myself in the unenviable position of being completely out of date. My cell phone sucks and is around 3 years old, our main TV is a bulky CRT, we don’t have any HD gear (other than a multiswitch), my fastest computer is more than 3 years old with a single core CPU, and our digital camera is absolutely pathetic. I think my laptop is about five or six years old.
I’d like to upgrade to an XBox 360, but that seems really expensive…particularly if I want games. And what’s the point of a 360 without a TV upgrade? Which makes me think…why get a new TV if my DVR is the old standard def model? Better upgrade that, too. But the signal isn’t HD…I guess I need a new satellite dish. Can you say ka-ching?
I’d like a digital HD camcorder (are they even called camcorders any more?), but my computer is too old and slow to edit HD movies. And then I’d need massive amounts of new hard drive space, followed by equal amounts of backup capability. $$$$
Tech Envy
This all started with my brother’s wedding a few days ago. I noticed all of his 22 year old friends had cutting edge phones, cameras, etc. I thought…what the hell happened to me? I’m not exactly old, I make decent money, and I WORK IN HIGH TECH. Shouldn’t I have more gear than these guys?
But when I start shopping, all I see are limitations. Maybe I know too much about what goes on behind the curtain? I see locked-down phones with artificial limitations imposed by carriers, accompanied by super-high rates. “Upgrading” my phone to a plan with unlimited data is literally a 100% increase in my already sky-high monthly bill. I see DRM…incompatibility…monthly fees…proprietary everything.
In the end, the more I know about tech…the less I want this crap. It’s all just too damn expensive, too closed, too complex, and too shitty.
I’ll wait just a few more years, because surely it can only get better. Then…maybe, just maybe — I’ll upgrade everything at once.
Wouldn’t that be a fun shopping trip?
Camcorders are a waste of time and money. Unless you’re really gifted in the creativity department people need to face up to the fact that nobody is going to spend the time watching their movies; they take way too much time to sit through. And they really are boring. The only people who will watch your movies are your parents watching movies of their grandkids.
But you can always upgrade your computer. Have some fun (or fear and excitement if you screw things up) and build your own.
The Wii is outselling the other consoles. I happen to like the cute games that are part of the Nintendo franchise (Mario, et. al.)
After observing many gadgets’ slow descent into clunkiness I no longer lust after the new hotness so much. Plus, my excitement about a new purchase is mostly consumer-joy and the thing itself eventually reveals that it never warranted such expectation.
If you upgrade your computer, don’t buy more than 4GB of memory unless you want to “upgrade” to Vista x64 or Ubuntu 64. Then you will be introduced to 64-bit hell.
When you can buy 2 sticks of DDR-2 800 2GB for $90, 8GB is within reach.
I build my own computers. NewEgg is awesome.
I’m right there with you bother. I’ll go with you on the shopping trip and help you load the van. Oh.. wait.. you still own a minivan? We all drive “crossovers” now..
My 1994 Sony CRT keeps on chugging. I keep hoping to sneak HD into the house via a laptop that plays 720p DVDs.
“brother”, not “bother”. Instead a spell checker, how about a “context checker”. If it finds 100,000 instances of “with you brother”, but 0 of “with you bother”, it higlights. the text. Patent time..
Hmm…I guess this is probably not the place to talk about how I’m thinking about replacing my 61″ 720p DLP HDTV. Well, I need another HDMI port for the Playstation3 I’m using as a Blu-ray disk player. All right, I’ll go ponder on that elsewhere…
I almost came to the same conclusion, then I looked at my ’stuff’ and found everyone still watched the TV, everyone still listened to the hifi, no one still used the camcorder, the computers were just fine and my 4 year old camera still took great pictures….
Actually, you’ve found the great Policy for those in the know: Use what you have for as long as it lasts, then replace it with the newest of the newest and use that until it falls apart again. On average, you’ll be average-to-quite savvy, can uphold the old (…!) *real hacker* attitude of (pretending to!!!) doing the most wonderful things on old clunky hardware, and not needing the newest gadget whilst using only 0.0001% of the potential functionality of that.
If you’d jump on any the latest bandwagon, chances are that 9 out of 10 of those bandwagons are dead ends and you’ll lose your tech prowess for certain — new toys come with crappy instructions; RTFM won’t help. Learn/hack to use, then use for a long time…
[OK, now try to find a telex to send this to some paper editor...]
All your stuff is 3 years old? And you talk about it like it’s archaic? My computer is about that old, and it’s working just fine. It’s way faster than I need. Multi-core means one more core to sit idle 99% of the time. More than a gig means most of the RAM is idle at any given time, unless you are a heavy gamer, digital photo/video editor/creator, or Vista user.
“In the end, the more I know about tech…the less I want this crap. It’s all just too damn expensive, too closed, too complex, and too shitty.”
Right on. I’m totally with you there.
lmao @ Brad and your comment about bother vs. brother. In an attempt to pick nits, check “higlights”.
But a context checker is a neat idea. And patents on software are silly.
@Bob – “All your stuff is 3 years old?”
What blog did you read? Because I did not say that. Do you work for CNN?
And I find it amusing you mention “…unless you are a…digital photo/video editor/creator…” which is pretty much EXACTLY THE POINT. If I were to upgrade other components in my tech arsenal (like my camcorder or even a multi-megapixel camera), that would cascade down to the PC, because then I’d need enhanced editing capabilities with a faster CPU, more drive space, etc.
I was with you for a long time then Two TV’s blew up so I replaced them with HD’s. I had to go get the HD cable converter to go with them, thats an extra twenty a month for what boils down to a lousy picture on all but a few channels and the channels I actually get in HD don’t look that much better than the standard TV. The movie studios came up with this junk just to cram copy protection down my throat and sell me old movies in a new format. But I’m not gonna buy that until My DVD player breaks.