The Rules

The Rules

It’s true, I watch a lot of TV; I have several Tb of movies and TV series on my server and frequently watch old series alongside new. This is great, I love having the choice and the ability to switch between one universe of lore and another on the spot. I frequently do this and with a whole bunch of different series. The problem is with the rules.

In Star Trek (as an example), faster than light travel is possible; there is sound in space and you can travel through time. However, in Person of Interest you cannot do any of these things, but there are two massive supercomputers watching your every move and trying to determine your destiny. Move over to Supernatural and none of these things is true, but demons exist and fairy tales are more real than the newspaper.

These rules are all very well and good, nothing wrong with any of them, and with a healthy amount of suspension of disbelief one can easily follow these universes. But when one switches between the different programs it can take a second to switch mind-sets. This just occurred to me (not for the first time): I was switching between Person of Interest (new episodes out now) and season 2 of Supernatural.  In the opening scene of this particular episode of Supernatural, you are confronted with a man who has ordered wood from the same place that he always does for building projects, but the wood has bowed and is unusable.

No big issue there, right? A bad batch of wood from a normal supplier. Unless, of course, you’ve just been watching Person of Interest. In which case the evil supercomputer has changed the order or interfered with the delivery in some way, just as it did in the previous episode. Oh, wait. Nope, wrong rules. No big supercomputers in this one. And those three stoutly gentlemen constructing houses are the three little pigs. Right. Gotchya.

Now I’m usually pretty quick on the uptake - I’m not particularly tired at present - but it still took me a second or two to kick back into the rules of the new program. This is not the first time that I have experienced this phenomenon, and I would put money on the fact that you have experienced it as well.

You may not have even noticed it at the time, but take the opportunity to think back now. You’ve just finished watching the latest James Bond or the most recent Fast and the Furious movie. It’s late, and the roads are clear because you saw an 8.30 showing. Did you ever feel like you could totally take that corner just a little faster than you normally do? In fact, you’re quite sure you could drift that wet piece of road if you wanted to - I mean you won’t because that would be silly, but just a little faster couldn’t hurt, right?

Perhaps this is why we tell stories, set the rules of a universe so that we can do the things that we are quite sure we could do, but would never try. Perhaps we just enjoy the fantasy of becoming someone else for a little bit, seeing the world through their eyes for a time. Perhaps it’s just me.

It’s true that when I was shown my first movie, I cried at the end. I was 4, give me a break. I cried not because the movie was sad or my favourite character had died; I cried because the world had ended. I cried because this magical place that I had inhabited for a few short hours had ceased to be. This started my lifelong obsession with movies and TV. I’m actually on the second episode of this particular piece of writing.

But at the end of the day, I love the rules, I love seeing them explored, seeing the boundaries reached and pushed against. I love seeing them run into new rules and finding the limits of them. Is this just me? Is this true of all fans, or is this true of all humans?

Perhaps I just enjoy my media too much.

NAH

What ever became of the CD

All sorts of computer errors are now turning up. You'd be surprised to know the number of doctors who claim they are treating pregnant men. 
            Isaac Asimov

What ever became of the CD? The humble compact disc, the one that changed the very nature of the way we listen to music, the merging of data and music, the almighty shift between analogue and digital.

Now 700MB of information is barely enough to watch a TV episode; CDs are heavy, bulky and costly. Who wants to have a physical copy that can be scratched, broken or smashed? What use is an album that at most could contain 15 analogue songs or a mere 230 in digital format?

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the CD has gone the way of the tape that proceeded it or the vinyl record before that… no, wait, scratch that last one…

The CD is obsolete, with its spinning motor that required physical movement and sucked the batteries dry, the extra skip protection that you could turn on but at the cost of perhaps a song of listening time.

But why mourn the CD? Surely the fact that technology continues to march forward at such pace that in a little over 20 years we have eliminated not only the CD but its successor(s), the DVD, laser disc and minidisc?

Well sure, I can now fit entire movies on my phone and access my e-mail and digital calendar from the middle of nowhere, but by the same measure my father’s records lasted him over 30 years. His heavy copper-filled stereo would still be running (had I not ruined it) {I was a teenager; leave me alone :P}. But I have to buy a new phone every two years to keep up. I must constantly update apps and spend my data on upgrades that I see no real difference from just to remain safe.

If you have ever been to my house you will have seen my wall of computer history. It contains items from the history of modern technology dating back as far the humble 2½ inch “floppy” disk. I used to have what was called a laundry drive but was silly and threw it out in my younger years. The reason that I bring this up is to emphasise just how much technology has changed even within my relatively short lifetime. But I have talked to people online (younger than myself) who do not know even the function of this technology. The now infamous save icon used in Microsoft Word has remained a pictorial representation of the floppy disc for as long as I can remember, and yet as newer generations of people have come to use the program, the relationship between the item and the representation has been lost.

The point then is not the lament of the CD, nor of the once important Horse and Buggy, but rather a eulogy of the knowledge and skill associated with the previous technology, that those who specialised in the older ways are now shunned and ridiculed, ostracised and stripped of their income for merely continuing in the way in which they had been taught, for practicing their craft to the best of their abilities.

We as a society have become impatient, narrow minded, and intolerant. Not, as some would have you believe, of things like gender issues, sexuality or race; we have long been intolerant of those and are as a whole becoming less so (but that is for another time). Rather, we have lost respect for the old, the long-suffering and the specialist, preferring instead to embrace the next best thing, the faster, more efficient and better-looking option no matter what other costs we may incur as a result.

So, when you purchase your next Samsung, or piece of fruit, remember that there is an importance in the old, in the tried and true, and in the traditional. That just because we can change something doesn’t me that we should change it. That progress for the sake of greed will not always yield the outcome desired. And that if we forget the mistakes of the past, we may end up electing another Hitler…

Snobbery

Snobbery

I’m going to see the new Marvel movie on Monday, namely Captain America: Civil War. As is the case with these new releases, I like to refresh my mind with previous instalments. Now my wife would argue that my memory, when it comes to movies, needs no refresher course, but nonetheless.

So I’m watching through the Iron Man series before my last movie: Ant Man. But alas my transition between Iron Man 3 and Ant Man involves a drop from glorious 1080p to a meagre SD (Standard Definition.)

Now, I tried. I honestly did. But I just couldn’t do it. And my 100/20 fibre connection was sitting right there…

And so it is with a sad rattle of the keys that I must label myself a snob. It’s sad, but it seems that I have inadvertently entered a class of people hated by many for different reasons. But upon reflection, this is not the only area of my life to which this moniker applies, because it also seems that I have become a snob regarding live performances.

This particular snobbery came about due to a very unfortunate performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. You see, my wife had never seen the musical in question, but her mother had an old recording from when her high school had done a selection of songs. I thought it high time to educate her, having been brought up on such things. Thus we found ourselves going along to a local performance of the show. Now, know and understand, dear reader, that Joseph was written for high schools – it was designed to be simple, to be played by high school bands and sung by those with high school talents. So when we attended the local level production, generally considered to be, at least, a few steps above that of high school, and found that the music was simply played from a recording, that the actors were bad and that the singing was off key, I was, needless to say, rather disappointed.

After this I made a decision: I would not see a musical production unless it was at least at a national level, preferably an international one.

Now, if this were not bad enough, I am also fond of rather high-end foods. Not all the time, not even most of the time, but when I go out I like to buy off the higher end of the menu, again much to the chagrin of my wife.

Interestingly, I do not, as many men do, have this ‘problem’ when it comes to cars. Many of my friends will tell you that my car is filthy, both inside and out. So I am not an all-around snob, but nonetheless the snobbiness pervades. It pervades in interesting and varied ways, almost contradictory in some cases. This is especially true in the area of language. As previously mentioned, I have quite a memory when it comes to certain things: quotes from movies and words spoken, for example. Entire albums of songs and the music that goes along with them. But I do not have a memory for the spelling of words; I legitimately forget what my wife has told me not 5 minutes previous and am unable to do much more than put dates directly into my calendar lest I forget.

So all of this has caused me to think a bit. Is snobbery a bad thing in the grand scheme of things, or should we consider the benefits of it? Does it push us to be better people by only accepting the best from others, and do we then push ourselves further?

I never wish to have other people experience that awful performance of Joseph, so I do my utter best every time I operate a sound desk. I dislike the brutal shift between HD and SD so much that I always try and use the best equipment available to me so that others will not feel the pain that I do, even if they are unaware of it.

So, perhaps being a snob is not such a bad thing, so long as you take it and use that repulsion of the mediocre to push yourself and make yourself better than the thing you dislike.

Be a Snob, and be proud.