My square eyes are now widescreen

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1656749]

A quick definition for the non-technology-minded:
If you're watching it on iPlayer or via any website, or via Video On Demand, then you're streaming. If you download a file to your computer to watch whenever you feel like it then you're downloading.
Oh, and VHS tapes, for the purposes of this poll, count as shiny disks. You are also banished back to the Second Millenium.

Comments

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

"I can't help but feel that people don't always like having all the choice."

True - this is a well-known thing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice:_Why_More_Is_Less . I like it myself - it gives me more opportunity *not* to do things.

I'll explain. When I moved to Manchester to go to university, from a very small town, suddenly there were a lot more opportunities to *do* things. If someone who did one single I'd quite liked once had ever played the town where I grew up, I'd have been excited about it for weeks beforehand, but now I could go out pretty much every night and see someone whose music I'd bought. So I only went to those gigs I *really* wanted to go to. The same with music. As a teenager, growing up with scarce music, I would buy *every* record I might conceivably ever want to listen to, because I wouldn't know if I'd ever see it again and I couldn't pick and choose anyway - hence I have dozens of charity-shop Johnny Cash albums and so on.

Whereas now, I know that should I ever want to listen to Johnny Cash singing Christmas songs, I can hear it with two clicks, so I save my money and time for the things I actually care about, or the few things that are still scarce (things that are too unpopular to torrent, generally).

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

I think it's awesome to be able to get at exactly what you want, when you want it, with very little hassle. Once you're there then there's normally links to other things that other people have thought are similarly great and you can click on forever. I guess I was thinking too much in the sense of unlimited options and no filtering, which would never be the case.