elliott937 wrote:
Since there was a discussion earlier today about a new Window's OS required a member here to purchase a new video card, so I felt compelled to my fellow members to share some thoughts about ... maybe we don't have to toss our hardware into a landfill if it, and its software, serves us well.
Let me share more 'food for thought', coming from my own students, and from my regularly listening to a radio station from London. Here it is:
Remember how, who, sales people? marketing departments? All those people?? Remember how we were "told" to toss all our vinyl records into the trash? DVD and BluRay movies? Compact Discs? And along with those pieces of 'software' (e.g. LP records, movie discs, and CDs), also toss CD players into the landfills, along with DVD/BluRay players, turntables/cartridges, etc. We were ""told"" toss all this into the trash and join the "new era of media"?? Remember that over the past 10 or 20 years?
In all fairness, I must say there are some advantages of being able to access a movie or digital book, literally, anywhere. But, all that stuff we were "told" to toss in the landfill?
Well, here is a reality update. My college students are purchasing LP records every day of the week, and turntables too. They've been doing this for more than the past ten years I've been teaching. Audiophile magazine shows ads for dozens and dozens of turntables and cartridges, some with shocking prices. Turntables and LP records are not gone or even going away ... they are on their way back, and doing quite well. As I listen to my favorite radio station from London, I'm hearing the artist there are insisting that their new music recordings must be delivered not only on the (1)Internet as downloads, but are insisting they they are also made available as (2) CDs and (3)LP records. I'm even hearing the there is a market for cassette recordings. I'm shocked to hear that, but apparently in middle European cities, they are available there.
So, my fellow members, don't be pushed so easily with the philosophy of "toss away everything you own, and replace it with what sales people say we should be purchasing".
I thought you'd like to know, I thought you 'should know' about how LP records and turntables are very much alive. And after studying this typic of Dynamic Range, for anyone who would like to experience Concert Hall Realism in their own home, the only media to deliver that is a compact disc.
I thought you would like to know all this.
Since there was a discussion earlier today about a... (
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It's true that there is a market for vinyl records. Audiophiles feel they have a better sound than digital recordings, just as some people love to take film photos. But, it doesn't follow that we should hoard any and every media that has ever existed, or hang on to ancient computers and peripherals that still work, when obviously superior replacements exist. So, I have no 8-tracks, no 5-1/4" or 3-1/2" floppy disks, no 16 MB SD cards, no landline phones, rotary or touchtone, no Sony memory sticks. If there were ribbons and drivers that worked, I suppose dot-matrix printers could still be used, but who'd want to? Cameras that use obsolete media are gone, too. The Sony Mavica is a collector's item, but how many of us are still using it as our go-to camera?
So, I'm very glad that some consumer products, like vinyl records, can be saved from the landfill, and I hope that, when people discard products, they do so in a way that there's a chance for recycling. But, my house is too small to keep all the products that are obsolete or obsolescent.