I was browsing the comments for BTE part 1's first broadcast on Dave…

[tombow]

..interestingly at least 3 people proclaim something along the lines of “get used to this, Dwarf will NEVER be an audience sitcom again, TV has changed too much. If you think Dwarf will ever be a traditional sitcom again, you don’t understand the modern TV landscape”. I wonder how silly those people feel now.

[Warbodog]

I love reading old reaction/discussion threads and seeing people’s confident, wrong opinions preserved for posterity, and the weird details they obsess over that would then be collectively forgotten. Like how Matt Smith’s bow tie colour will be the key to understanding Doctor Who series six, mark my words.

[Plastic Percy]

I still like reading comments from 2010 about how the next Doctor Who will definitely be a black man – Chiwetel Ejiofor most likely – and how that fact already annoys them. They never even saw the Lady Doctor Who coming.

[Pete Part Three]

>They never even saw the Lady Doctor Who coming.

Fingers crossed for the season finale.

[tombow]

I remember my Dad smugly telling me the Harry Potter film series would never last to the end. “do you really think people are going to sit through 7 of these? no one will know what Harry Potter is in a couple of years.”

[bloodteller]

They’re still doing Harry Potter films aren’t they? I saw a commercial for one on the TV a while ago, where Eddie Redmayne was playing the main character, staring at people and running around being really annoying. It makes you wonder how long they’re going to keep making these movies

Harry Potter-The Next Generation

[Dave]

Whatever, whatever happened to old Eddie?

[tombow]

A couple of days ago I wanted to read Rhys Ifan’s notorious anti comic book fan rant that he gave at comic con, and I ended up reading an old thread on a marvel message board from just before his turn as the Lizard in Amazing Spider Man came out, and these fans were listing ridiculously lurid “classic” things that the Lizard has done in the comic, and saying it won’t be the real lizard unless he eats a bunch of people and spits their bones out, etc.

[Lily]

>Harry Potter-The Next Generation

I’m going to be one of those awful Potter people. It’s more The Previous Generations, as the latest films are set in the late 20’s.

Remember all the kids that grew up with Harry Potter are now mid-20s with disposable income. They’re going to be milking this cash-cow for a while yet.

[International Debris]

Ha, it was only last year I was saying on Cookdandbombd that there’s no way in hell Bradley Walsh would be a Doctor Who companion.

[Ben Saunders]

I was one of those kids who grew up with Harry Potter and loved it. Read the books, watched the films and played the games dozens of times. But then the final book came out and it was so… boring. Like 500 pages of inconsequential camping that went on forever. As soon as they started talking about those goblins who run the banks I put down the book and never returned to it, finishing the series with movies instead, which were pretty mediocre from Goblet onwards, and since then the franchise has been pretty much dead in the water to me. Amazing how little I care now when I read Phoenix like 9 times.

[Ben Saunders]

The rumours of a Walsh companion started circulating the internet long before it was ever accounced, and I remember we all thought it was a joke. Still can’t quite believe it myself.

[Mr-Stabby]

I think the best all round internet forum thread claiming something was going to be a failure was on Macrumors.com when they announced the original Apple iPod. The entire thread was full of people proudly proclaiming that this was Apple’s biggest mistake as MP3 players were already saturated in the market and the iPod would bankrupt Apple. What little they knew!

[International Debris]

Mate of mine went on a Twitter rant about how YouTube had changed its layout to be more suitable for tablets or something, and how it was stupid because tablets were just a fad that would be gone in a couple of years. This was in about 2012.

[bloodteller]

>I was one of those kids who grew up with Harry Potter and loved it. Read the books, watched the films and played the games dozens of times. But then the final book came out and it was so… boring. Like 500 pages of inconsequential camping that went on forever. As soon as they started talking about those goblins who run the banks I put down the book and never returned to it, finishing the series with movies instead, which were pretty mediocre from Goblet onwards, and since then the franchise has been pretty much dead in the water to me. Amazing how little I care now when I read Phoenix like 9 times.

I read some of the books when I was younger, and a couple of years ago I played Philosopher’s Stone on PS1. I remember I gave up on the books at around Phoenix, when Harry starts moping around a lot and eating loads of shepherd’s pies and using italics every other sentence. It just became a chore to read at that point tbh

[Ben Saunders]

>and how it was stupid because tablets were just a fad that would be gone in a couple of years
Well he was right, wasn’t he? Only one person I know in real life still uses a tablet and we all gently bully her for it.

[Ben Saunders]

Philosopher’s Stone on PS1 was killer, that game is so atmospheric, thanks to its dainty PS1 graphics, sound design and its almost complete lack of ambient music, which really works for some reason, whereas in other games having no music would be boring. What an experience.

[tombow]

HP books 4 and 5 were the best for me, they were the ones that got me hooked into the series and emotionally involved. Before that, they had just been a fun read.

[Ben Saunders]

I think I re-read Phoenix the most, followed by Goblet, so I would agree, although I remember being genuinely intrigued by the mysteries of who the Half-Blood Prince and R.A.B were.

[Warbodog]

The only Potter I’ve read/seen is the first book when I was 12. I was roped into reading all the children’s books that were up for the Carnegie Medal that year for school. I didn’t think much of it and it didn’t even win, losing out to Tim Bowler’s ‘River Boy’ which was my favourite of the batch too. I was confused when it became fucking massive.

[Ben Saunders]

Escapism innit. Plus it’s pretty broadly an interesting world with lots of cool concepts and locations etc. Can’t imagine still being obsessed with it into your twenties but to be fair I’m sure many Potter fans would say the same about Red Dwarf

[GlenTokyo]

Loads of people use tablets. Apple, Samsung and MS ship hundreds of millions of the things, it’s just that phones are better so the cheap android tablet market has dried up outside of your Mum playing a crossword game on it or whatever.

Artistic professionals on the move is the new market for tablets. The fact that most laptops are also truly awful despite being £500 will probably help tablet sales too going forward.

Harry Potter wise, I read the Chamber of Secrets and played the PS1 games but I discovered early on that I don’t really like reading stories, even when I was young. If I read fiction it was just Adrian Mole really. Never thought it would go away though, I mean, if you lived through it you know how humongous it was.

Stuff like that just simmers down, doesn’t disappear.

[bloodteller]

I’ve never seen the point in tablets, they’re basically just like annoyingly massive cellphones. What’s the point? You may as well just get a laptop computer, since those are a similar size and also actually good

[Lily]

Not everyone has the good eyesight and fine motor control to use a phone. Tablets are really popular in the older generation as you get all the cool stuff of a phone, but at a size that’s more useable for them. They can still sit on the sofa and shitpost on Facebook while watching corrie on the telly. While possible with a laptop, a tablet is still easier to hold while sitting.

[Dave]

I got mine mainly because I read a lot of digital comics, and they’re crap on a laptop, desktop or phone.

[International Debris]

You may as well just get a laptop computer, since those are a similar size and also actually good

They’re very different things. Tablets are much easier to use and perfect for certain apps.

I know quite a few musicians who use them for synth apps. It’s true that sales HAVE dropped in a way that wasn’t originally predicted, but that’s only because people are using absurdly large smartphones these days. The mobile, app-based touchscreen market is still booming, which is really what my friend was saying wouldn’t be around, demanding everything remain desktop-focused.

[tombow]

I have a couple of kindle fire tablets and I really like them, I like playing retro games, reading ebooks and going online in places like coffee shops with them. I have a laptop and phone, I just find the Fire a nice size/good usability for those purposes.

[GlenTokyo]

Your average laptop these days is absolutely dog shit though. Lenovo, HP, Toshiba especially should be ashamed. £400-500 gets you a flimsy, slow, paperweight basically.

[Ben Saunders]

I got an HP two years ago for £400 and it’s still doing fairly well for itself so idk. Can run any game you like, provided you turn all the settings down to “2001 PS2 game”

[bloodteller]

I got my laptop for £105 from CeX. It’s quite good and can run any game I want, but there’s barely any storage space on it so I have to have USBs and stuff

[International Debris]

I gave up on cheap laptops ages ago and ended up with a Macbook Pro which hasn’t let me down once (until I spilled beer on it, but then the insurance bought me a new one).

[GlenTokyo]

I’ve had 2 £400 ish laptops in the last year or so, the HP one was so awful that I sold it 2 months later for £150, it was useless, and the other is an Asus which I have still but its use is severely restricted. Basically office and 8 bit emulators for me, I wanted to use it for some light creative stuff but it’s just too slow.

My 8 year old Acer with an AMD Athlon CPU was honestly quicker. Maybe it’s the bloatware, I don’t know, but I definitely won’t be buying another laptop new.

[Ben Saunders]

Macbooks would be good if they weren’t so shite, aye. I’ve had one for over a year now to work on music stuff, but I wish Logic ran on Windows so I could get rid of it. Mac OS still makes me heave every time I have to use it; you’d think you’d get used to it after a year, but no. And I can’t get rid of my Windows laptop and just go whole hog on the Mac experience, because the Mac won’t run any of the three games I play. Shitemare.

[Ben Saunders]

I’m aware you can get laptops with both Windows and MacOS on it, but this setup works just well enough for me to not want to even think about getting into all that. I tried it before but I have the wrong sort of CPU to run both/any virtualisation.

[GlenTokyo]

I’ve used Macs with bootcamp and Windows 10 and I actually really liked it. Can’t argue with the build quality and screen of macs (suppose you pay for it though) but I can’t get on with anything but Windows tbh

[International Debris]

It’s funny, I used to really hate Mac OS but within a matter of weeks of using it as my own computer I got completely used to it. I always used keyboard shortcuts on Windows and after around 20 years of that I’m still not 100% on all of them here (I’m still pressing enter for open file and it trying to rename it, who the fuck thought of that?!), but the overall experience I’m finding far, far less tedious than using Windows. I’ve also had maybe two OS errors in the past few years, as opposed to Windows when I’d get errors or crashes on at least a semi-regular basis.

[GlenTokyo]

I’m sure I could learn to get used to it but I’m pretty limited to Windows for CAD software.

If I had the money I’d have a MacBook Pro for Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere etc and a Windows PC for CAD and VR.

[Warbodog]

Tablets are specifically good for doing art too. That’s why we’ve got one, even if it’s mainly used as the TV. I’ve bought the cheapest laptop in the shop all my adult life and they do everything I need until I break them after five years. I’m pretty lo-fi though, don’t have a phone.

[Lily]

My main computer is a laptop, but I took the plunge and spent £900 on an MSI. It’s 3 years old now, but is still bloody brilliant and can run all the latest games at ‘high’ settings.

Budget laptops are awful things, they give the impression of being flexible when half the time they can barely summon the power to run a browser with more than 3 tabs.

[Author]

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