Tales from the fubar cafe

So, Blu-Ray has won the next format war with HD-DVD.

You may be struggling to have given even the tiniest spit which of these so-called next formats won. Unless you’re a suit at Sony, a home cinema enthusiast or the sort of person who suffers such cognitive dissonance over their purchase choices that they feel the need to attack the opinions of anyone who purchased differently to them (Mac v. PC flame war anyone?) you may not even have known there was a format war going on.

We’re told that this is great news for consumers. Notice we’re not people or even customers, just consumers.

I’m not sure how this is great news. Blu-ray players and discs are still hugely overpriced and while they will come down it will happen over the same sort of period it took DVD’s to become cheap and accessible. That leaves people to decide at what price point they want to jump on the new bandwagon, presuming of course they’ve already purchased a huge new HD screen.

In the meantime we’ll see the studios using exactly the same marketing techniques they did with releasing films on DVD, in an effort to get us to re-buy films we already had on video.

Then again, remember the last big next format war, between mini disc and DCC (digital compact cassette). No? That’s because both formats are dead, blown into the weeds by the mp3 download explosion.

Movie and TV downloads anyone?

Luxury carmaker Porsche is to challenge plans to increase London’s congestion charge to £25-a-day for some vehicles.

Its going to be difficult to see this as other than a classic example of selfish capitalism. Its also a classic example of shooting yourself in the foot.

Seriously Porsche, where do you expect to garner support and sympathy for your push for a judicial review of the congestion charge scheme changes? Are you rushing to the defence of an oppressed minority who will have their rights and liberties curtailed by the increase in the charge for the most polluting vehicles?

Or are you defending the selfish interests of a group who are best placed to pay an increased charge under the principle of “polluter pays”?

If Porsche had been serious about their claims that the congestion charge increase was unjust and that it would have had a very limited effect on CO2 emissions, if they really wanted to effect a reversal in the changes, then they would have been best served by the regularly used PR technique of creating/funding a pressure and action group, perhaps even with the support of other manufacturers.

This go it alone approach is doomed to failure, or rather they will not achieve their stated aims of reversing the congestion charge changes. What they will achieve is a lot of free publicity on a topic that will endear themselves to their base and may even lead to a few extra sales. PR can be “good” like that.

Lets be clear about one thing. Porsche is a corporation and corporations exist for only 2 reasons - to reduce costs and increase profits, thereby increasing the returns for their shareholders. Corporations are not designed to care, except when something threatens their 2 aims.

Corporations only care about rights and ethical behaviour when they are forced to by legislation. As it currently stands, vehicle manufacturers are going to have to reduce the CO2 emissions of the vehicles they produce under new EU guidelines or pay heavy penalties. Reduce, or polluter pays - is there really that much wrong with that principle?

Quote of the day for me from the excellent unclutterer blog.

Never let anything cross the threshold of your home unless it’s something that you know you need or that you know you will love and cherish for a long time to come.

That’s damn good advice, especially if you use it with the 30 day rule.

1. See something you want? Don’t buy it on impulse, write it down on a list.

2. Review the list in 30 days. Still really want it? Go ahead then.

Its amazing what this can save you from buying.

It also saves you from the clutches of advertising.

Save money on the world’s thinnest notebook, the MacBook Air.

Buy a bigger envelope.

Watching Our big fairtrade adventure at the moment.

A group of children on a journey of discovery to India with a basic question, surely it should be possible to make a fairtrade shirt for their school uniform?

It looks like they’re having quite the trip, as they talk to locals on a train and realise the locals earn less in a year than they get in pocket money.

Time for the first advert break, right after finding out that the average wage is 483 pounds a year. First up, the new Jaguar. Then we’ve got Jersey talking about “Perfect retail therapy.”

What’s perfect retail therapy for children working 13 hour days making clothes for only 50p?

Have a look at the link for the programme, but I’d suggest using Firefox with the excellent AdBlock Plus plug in.

That way, you won’t see any adverts.

This is brilliant.

Well designed, uses less resources in making and moving and its a fantastically simple way to live.

Might be fantastic, until they say how much it costs. “Designer” price perhaps? Please no, please don’t let it fall down at the final hurdle.

“The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.” - Mother Teresa

Love. A basic human need.

Greed. A base human emotion.

Put them together and what do you get? Hooray, its Valentine’s day.

Valentine’s day, where we are bombarded by the message that the more you buy something for someone, the more you must love them. Don’t buy a card, buy  a big card! Don’t buy a small bunch of flowers, buy lots of bunches! Don’t go out to a quiet, simple restaurant, go out to a very expensive restaurant! Bigger, better, more, more, more!

Can’t afford all that? Well how can you say you love someone, you’d better put it on credit and quick. Go on, borrow from tomorrow and spend it up, don’t think that what you might be being told is wrong.

How’s that checklist coming? Did you get a huge card? Lots of flowers, preferably delivered to your place of work so lots of people can see how “loved” you are and your existence can be validated through stuff? Chocolates? Restaurant? Jewellery? I bet you can’t wait until you see that bitch from accounts that you hate but for some reason stop to talk to so that you can brag about how much debt someone had to put themselves into so you can feel self-superior how much you are loved.

Hold on, did the bitch from accounts get even more than you got? Damn, you better report back and make it clear you need another present soon, don’t stop to think that you might be being lied to, or even more likely that you’ve both fallen for the lies of “the man.”

Don’t have someone to put yourself in debt for? Don’t have even a little card dropping on your mat? Quite clearly you’re a human sub-species and not even worthy to be on the planet, but don’t worry! You can make yourself loveable for next year, get out there now and spend a lot of money on yourself buying items that will make you desirable.

Ah, the sweet, sweet song of love. A rose by any other name really would smell as sweet (as long as that rose was part of a bunch of at least a dozen and sold at a huge premium just because of one day and how we’re tricked into falling for it.)

Really lost for words.

This is why Microsoft buying Yahoo would not be a good idea.

Tales from the fubar café is back, in a slightly altered form. You can find out more in the pages, including all the old posts from the Greenbelt 2007 moblog.

Anyone coming for a coffee?