Techno geeks rejoice!
 

We may yet see the day where your girlfriend would rather browse Circuit City than try on shoes.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/0...eut/index.html

Well, duh....LOL Is everyone surprised we have brains?????

The overlooked point is that those devices are no longer high tech. They are now commodities with social appeal - just like shoes. It is not about intelligence. It is about keeping up with the peer - Carrie Bradshaw. It's about social status and the joy of being ahead. Same reason why so many want to sit higher in an SUV. SUVs are very popular among women only for that reason.

A DVD player is so much easier than programming a VCR. Does anyone record from tv's any more? I doubt it.

Even kitchen and laundry appliances are very high tech now and make easy work of housework. They are quiet, big, efficient, environmentally friendly.

Which means they are commodities. So dumbed down just like bread. Remember when bread was so complicated? All that grinding and mixing and baking. DVD is no longer high tech. It sells and is used just like bread. Just another commodity. And just like specialty breads sold in high end stores, DVD is a status symbol; especially when Carrie already has one.

There is nothing high tech about DVDs or plasma screens. They are now commodities. Even sold by Circuit City salesman who don't even know how electricity works. Just a commodity that brings social status.

So are diamonds.

Exactly. A commodity that could sell at many times less money if it were a free market. But hyped into a status symbol. Even Carrie Bradshaw's entire life was about getting that diamond. Commodity with social status.

Unfortunately, knowing this can take so much of the fun out of possessing that status symbol.

I'd say that's fortunate. The fewer diamonds bought from the cartel, the better.

I think faux diamonds are taking some of that market away. I don't think they are cubic zirconia, are they? glass?

Some high-end faux dimonds are compressed carbon that is usually just a lower grade than natural dimonds, although I'm pretty sure these are mostly bought up for industrial use. The majority you see are cubic zirconia and the really cheap stuff is glass.

One word: PVRs. And turn in your geek credentials. :-)

One way to identify fake diamonds - they are too pure. Natural diamonds have some impurities.

Not compressed, that's how "real" ones are made. The man made diamonds are made by vapor depositation and are better than "real" ones. ;)

Duh...TW covered that.:redface: Must learn to read to the end, first.

Moissanite is the new hawtness.

I want to know when washing machines will become complicated enough to interest men. Then they can stop acting too helpless to use them and start boasting about their new spin-wash down the pub.

Yes, gross generalisation. But I'd far rather have a diamond or a weekend away than a new TV anyway. Or go shoe shopping.