Big Screen
Posted: Tue 15 October, 2013 Filed under: Domestic, People, Technology, Television 3 Comments »An email went round work yesterday, that Costco have a 65″ TV on a special deal for £2,000. (I don’t know why we get these emails, but hey ho)
I’m just gobsmacked by that. A 65-inch screen – that’s nearly five-and-a-half feet of diagonal screen-size!
I honestly don’t get the desire/need for these super-large screens. Admittedly some of that is due to the fact I live in a tiny house where something that size would take up about two-thirds of the available wall space, but I still don’t get the appeal, the way that TVs now seem to dominate living space.
I used to have a big-ass wide-screen TV, although that was pre-flatscreens, and was a huge lump of Sony Trinitron that took two people to lift it. Even that though was only about a 36 or 38″ screen – this advertised one would be nearly twice that in size.
Fair play, other people seem to want TVs this size – it’s just not something I aspire to own, and I can certainly think of many better things to spend £2,000 on.
If you’ve ever driven past an area of high-density low cost housing, in the dark, and looked in, you’ll know who buys these TVs and why. When I see the purchasers trying to get their purchases into a rusty Fiesta in Costco car-parks, I always smile to myself.
I’ve done many, many, home visits to families of pre-schoolers with special needs: no toys or books in the house, but fuck-off huge telly and all the add-ons.
Not that I’m stereotyping, of course 😉
On that subject ( children with no books ) did you see the Lecture given by Neil Gaiman recently on that, as well as closing libraries etc. Illuminating stuff.
I didn’t, but I am already converted (and have the proof from my own ‘action research’ with schools in the past).
In *my* county (largely True Blue) NO libraries have been closed. Their opening hours were cut a little, in line with numbers of visits made to them, but all the very rural and mobile libraries continue. And they continue to buy new books and there have been no increased or new charges.
Just depends where local authorities choose to put their pennies.
From talking to one of my Patchy Ladies whose daughter is a senior librarian elsewhere, many of the areas that have made the most sweeping cuts to libraries are the poorest. I’d say that shows that the elected members (often red coloured) in the areas where libraries are most essential seem to value literacy less.
Which does tend to back up my assertion about books cf huge TVs in homes…
Was in Costco earlier: 3 huge TVs (not 65″ though) being forced into cars that were worth much less than the TV (and as a driver of a 13 year old car, I am not making any comment there – but our largest TV is only 32″, and I wish they still made good quality ones smaller).