Saturday, December 31, 2011

The art of disappearing

Hey all,

[Warning: I was a bit upset when I wrote this it's just a thing I feel strongly about so you may encounter grammatical and spelling errors]

This is gonna be a short and passionate post about something I feel needs to be saved. In our present world a lot of things take precedence one of the major thing is simplifying. Making things for easier for us or at least having us do less. Less is more. Sometimes less is worse. Sometimes technology is a double-edged sword.

Books and Magazines - With technology that's out now reading actual books is becoming more and more rare (I believe in general reading is more rare especially among minority and young groups). It's obvious how obvious? Look at our world places like Borders closed out as well as many independently owned bookstores. Point is why go to the book store when I can just download it all to my E-reader. Even Barnes and Noble the top dog (for now) is still having issues. It's future is still uncertain now and even more at risk in the future. Here is the problem I have with E-readers first off it's mechanical and machines eventually break down or need repairs. What if your internet goes out? Oops no downloading for you but me? I'll take my book and be on my merry way to a porch or windowsill enjoy a read for a few hours. Books can be destroyed too and they do get brittle over time. But it's like an antique you see it's age in the pages...the story can tell it's own story. I can leave a legacy with my book; Here you go son I read this when I was little.....Now I might have to say: Here you go son this is my old Nook......lol what? Point is my son is gonna loose out on the experience of physically having the book something that was personal to me and perhaps him. waste wise my book can be recycled but your plastic and metal? It takes more money to recycle plastics and metals. Tom also made a great case for magazines and books (in my opinion) with information reaching people in an instant magazines are becoming obsolete the same can be said for books leaked illegally on the internet.

Games - A recent article on IGN left me speechless...in it the author implies gamers don't wanna go to the store and pick up a game. His alternative: instantly downloading games into our consoles. I also read the comments of the article and I can firmly say not all of us see it that way. Again it's the commodity going to the store and picking up the game (and Often talking to fellow gamers) is just as part of the fun as when you first pop in the disk. Do I want less and more substantial patches into my games? Yes. Do I want to download my games? No. It goes onto the same way I feel about books nothing beats having the book and in my opinion nothing beats having that disk and case...especially collector's editions. Also this instant download option also kills another thing.....bonus items I can tell you now I rather have a physical game world map than a virtual item within the game. Don't believe me? Well that's your prerogative....(Looks at my 4 game maps of Skyrim, Cyrodiil, Morrowind, Mournhold, and Shivering Isles as well as my Pokemon figurines and stylus)

You can agree with me or disagree point is...what will you think when in 50 years from now none of these things exist anymore.

Until next time your friend,
Alric Ravensinger

3 comments:

  1. I LOVE the feeling of opening a new game package and starting it up for the first time. Downloading just takes away that feeling. Nostalgia...

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  2. I don't think that things like books, newspapers, games, magazines, etc. will ever vanish completely. Look at vinyls! My parents still own LPs from as far back as the 60s (even though they were just kids then). They held onto them for all this time, and we just got a converter a few years ago so we can actually play them again.

    Now in the music industry (particularly indie) vinyl is making a comeback. People like the tactile nature of a real album. It's interesting and out of the ordinary and so they're drawn to it.

    The same thing I see happening with cameras. Digital photography has mostly taken over, but people still use film cameras, either as a filter for their digital, or as a contrast to it.

    People are sentimental. They like to hold onto the past.

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  3. There's nothing more solid than a book telling a Kindle, "I don't need to be plugged in to be used. Good luck in the post-hurricane craze!"

    Scholars and academia have suggested (and rooted) the idea that there's no such thing as a "closed system," where a generator is its own consumer. For example, the silly idea of placing one windmill behind the other and connecting them so that the energy generated from the first powers the one behind it to rotate (thus, blowing wind into the first). Because electricity is a limited and generated resource, I doubt that "fast and" easy will reign when there are people who can't afford to maintain a generator.

    Heck, a book is more durable than an electronic device designed for reading. I could toss my backpack o'textbooks (instead of a backpack o'Kindles) anywhere I want, and I'd still be able to read the text. Look around and see that paper documents, advertisements, and materials still exist. I have no fear for what's to come later on, my friend~

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