I'm-a gonna get a PhD for this?
Oct. 22nd, 2010 07:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charloweenToday, in my office (I have an office!), I spent most of the afternoon reading about remote controls (you know, for your TV!) and deciding that for my purposes, the VCR was probably the more significant technological change than the remote.
It was possible to change channels and/or volume pre-RCD ("remote control device", which sounds more academic than "zapper-thing"), the RCD just makes things easier. The VCR, on the other hand, made possible a totally different set of interactions.
It doesn't just represent a more convenient way to do something you'd been planning to do already (i.e. watch TV), it means that you can fit your TV-watching around your life, rather than always having to be parked in front of the set at a time chosen by some network exec. It also means you can fit shows into your life that you wouldn't otherwise been able to see (here I'm thinking of trading tapes with people overseas). (It did, however, come with its own RCD, thus heralding a multi-RCD universe and ensuring that everyone will, at some point in their life, point one at the wrong device and swear when "The [expletive deleted] thing isn't working.")
Therefore RCD = convenient, VCR = game-changer.
...what do you think?
It was possible to change channels and/or volume pre-RCD ("remote control device", which sounds more academic than "zapper-thing"), the RCD just makes things easier. The VCR, on the other hand, made possible a totally different set of interactions.
It doesn't just represent a more convenient way to do something you'd been planning to do already (i.e. watch TV), it means that you can fit your TV-watching around your life, rather than always having to be parked in front of the set at a time chosen by some network exec. It also means you can fit shows into your life that you wouldn't otherwise been able to see (here I'm thinking of trading tapes with people overseas). (It did, however, come with its own RCD, thus heralding a multi-RCD universe and ensuring that everyone will, at some point in their life, point one at the wrong device and swear when "The [expletive deleted] thing isn't working.")
Therefore RCD = convenient, VCR = game-changer.
...what do you think?
