Honey, I shrunk...
September 29th 2006 22:01
Everything except the Plasma TV!
Strange but true, everything seems to be shrinking, computers, mp3 players, cars, houses, pets, everything except... TV's.
Is it a disturbing trend or simply adaptation as time goes by? If the theories of natural selection and whatnot are to be believed and this trend continues, we as humans will be little over three centimetres tall by the end of the millennium.
Why is it that we are constantly seeking out that which is tiny? Well, if you look at it in perspective you come to two conclusions. Firstly, jewellery is always small, diamonds, opals etc, yet we treasure them, is the fact that they are usually quite small have anything to do with why we are attracted to them? Another thing is In the past everything was huge. There were no iPod-esque mp3 players, people lugged around huge radios on their shoulders, there were cassette tapes instead of CD’s and don’t get me started on the encyclopaedia collections, now we simply have Encarta Encyclopaedia on a single DVD.
So now we have gotten really small, near microscopic size, shouldn’t we say ‘stop, that’s enough’? How long before small is too small? For instance tiny sized mobile phones are annoying as hell because you can lose those small buggers easily or the iPod nano which is bordering on unusable because of its tiny size, well for people with above average sized hands at least (naturally it will get smaller at some point down the line).
It is two things that attract us to the world of the tiny, one is convenience, and the other is, well, our natural affinity to that which is small. However when does the convenience part associated with its size be made redundant because of it being too small and we simply like the object more for the fact it’s small?
They already have the technology to put down 20 gigabytes of information on something the size of a twenty cent piece, 20 gigabytes was the storage capacity of the ‘bigger’ version of the first generation iPods. Are we going to have mp3 players the size of 20 cent pieces now? Oh wonderful.
Still, it isn’t so bad, I think in the future shrinking houses will be a great idea, homes could be far more space efficient if technology was smaller. Your computer could be the size of a DVD case and your monitor would work by projection onto a screen (or wall), your fridge could be integrated into your house directly, into a wall perhaps? Rooms could also change, imagine a bedroom that automatically transforms into a bathroom… well maybe not.
It can also save space in more conventional ways. You want to have a ping pong table at your place but not enough room? Well you can buy a videogame system that will mimic ping pong with the aid of a TV for instance (note, this already has the chance to come into fruition very soon).
Is it that as humans though we can’t stop following a trend even when it reaches the inane? Or are we by natural selection destined to shrink into nothingness?
If you have seen ‘Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie’ then perhaps you know of what Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) says of the portrait of Whistler's Mother. The first thing he says about it, as in praise for the portrait is that it’s big, “because if it was very small… microscopic, then hardly anyone would get to see it, which would be a tremendous shame”, or would it?
-References
*First image taken from http://www.neatorama.com/
Strange but true, everything seems to be shrinking, computers, mp3 players, cars, houses, pets, everything except... TV's.
Hey, it could happen
Why is it that we are constantly seeking out that which is tiny? Well, if you look at it in perspective you come to two conclusions. Firstly, jewellery is always small, diamonds, opals etc, yet we treasure them, is the fact that they are usually quite small have anything to do with why we are attracted to them? Another thing is In the past everything was huge. There were no iPod-esque mp3 players, people lugged around huge radios on their shoulders, there were cassette tapes instead of CD’s and don’t get me started on the encyclopaedia collections, now we simply have Encarta Encyclopaedia on a single DVD.
So now we have gotten really small, near microscopic size, shouldn’t we say ‘stop, that’s enough’? How long before small is too small? For instance tiny sized mobile phones are annoying as hell because you can lose those small buggers easily or the iPod nano which is bordering on unusable because of its tiny size, well for people with above average sized hands at least (naturally it will get smaller at some point down the line).
It is two things that attract us to the world of the tiny, one is convenience, and the other is, well, our natural affinity to that which is small. However when does the convenience part associated with its size be made redundant because of it being too small and we simply like the object more for the fact it’s small?
Too small for its own good?
Still, it isn’t so bad, I think in the future shrinking houses will be a great idea, homes could be far more space efficient if technology was smaller. Your computer could be the size of a DVD case and your monitor would work by projection onto a screen (or wall), your fridge could be integrated into your house directly, into a wall perhaps? Rooms could also change, imagine a bedroom that automatically transforms into a bathroom… well maybe not.
It can also save space in more conventional ways. You want to have a ping pong table at your place but not enough room? Well you can buy a videogame system that will mimic ping pong with the aid of a TV for instance (note, this already has the chance to come into fruition very soon).
Is it that as humans though we can’t stop following a trend even when it reaches the inane? Or are we by natural selection destined to shrink into nothingness?
If you have seen ‘Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie’ then perhaps you know of what Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) says of the portrait of Whistler's Mother. The first thing he says about it, as in praise for the portrait is that it’s big, “because if it was very small… microscopic, then hardly anyone would get to see it, which would be a tremendous shame”, or would it?
-References
*First image taken from http://www.neatorama.com/
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Comment by Cinico
Small Business Scope
That was a really well written post.
Comment by Damo
I remember something that I was tought in design.
Form follows function.
So if something is more functional smaller it will continue to develope that way.
However this theory falls appart when you look at older American cars. Bigger is better and you can't have too many fins.
Comment by Joy
Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
Damo, you are right, perhaps in the past people where more interested in dominating the roads in their spaceship looking vehicles instead of petrol prices...
Joy, I never knew they had an iPod shuffle v2. Well given the original pretty much was the be all end all they just shrinked it in v2 didn't they?