Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Digital Packrats

Posted by michael on from the delete-nothing dept.

meganthom writes "According to the BBC, Britons have been hoarding digital data, with many carrying the equivalent of 10 trucks of paper "weight" with them at all times. A survey by Toshiba found that 60% of Brits keep 1000-2000 music files on their portable electronic devices. Do increases in storage capacity appeal to some basic pack-rat nature?"

14 of 385 comments (clear)

  1. Short answer... by krymsin01 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yes. Particularly jpgs...

    --
    stuff
  2. What an obscure unit... by Lord_Slepnir · · Score: 4, Funny
    10 trucks of paper "weight"

    Can't they use a real unit? Like Library of Congresses? I'm getting a bit sick of all of these random units. Back in my day, my data had a densitey of 2.3 Library of Congresses per Hogs head, and that's the way we liked it!

    1. Re:What an obscure unit... by 91degrees · · Score: 1, Funny

      An area the size of wales.

    2. Re:What an obscure unit... by Insipid+Truculence · · Score: 2, Funny

      You know what really ticks me off? I mean, besides the whole hot grits thing. It's people who try to come up with a clever nick, and spell it wrong. How stupid can you be? You're going to be using this as a personal label, and you don't even take the time to spell it right?

    3. Re:What an obscure unit... by Cpt_Kirks · · Score: 4, Funny

      Actually, since the UK joined the Common Market, this old Imperial unit of measurement has been superseded by its metric equivalent, the Belgium .

      We do NOT use that type of language around here!

  3. To answer your question... by PTBNL · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...I have a copy of Come on Eileen on my iPod.

  4. 1000 to 2000 files makes you fat ! by DARKFORCE123 · · Score: 1, Funny

    It (the study) found that more than 60% kept 1,000 to 2,000 music files on their devices, making the UK "digitally fat".

    If 1,000 to 2,000 make yous fat ( loosening belt here) ...

    Gosh! I feel like I am going to explode!

  5. Only in Brits. by Linux_ho · · Score: 1, Funny

    Brits are all pack rats. Jeez, carrying around a truckload of paper? I have forty gigs of capacity, but I detest carrying around the equivalent of more than about a clipboard's worth of virtual paper. So I only use a small fraction of the available space. Anyway, I hate spending a lot of time choosing which music I'm going to play. Much better to limit my options and just play the same songs over and over again.

    --
    include $sig;
    1;
    1. Re:Only in Brits. by Lao-Tzu · · Score: 1, Funny

      +1, relatively subtle sarcasm.

    2. Re:Only in Brits. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Exactly right. The Brits save everything. Look at that Stonehenge thing. Thousands of years old, and the bloody Brits still haven't recycled it. The land, at least, could go for a strip mall or some kind of electronics superstore. Don't know what the big rocks would be useful for, but they're clever, in a primitive sort of way; I'm sure that they could think of something.

  6. Yes but, by Tibor+the+Hun · · Score: 1, Funny

    What good is a porn movie, one of the better ones to be sure, on a device that can't play it?

    --
    If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
  7. Yeah, kind of like my garage by theskipper · · Score: 2, Funny

    But at least I don't have to listen to Windows Explorer whine "So when are you planning on cleaning this mess up? This century would be nice."

  8. Sixty percent? by PeteDotNu · · Score: 1, Funny

    I refuse to believe that 60% of Brits even have a portable gubbins. Most are old ladies whose closest computer contact is putting a bag of peas on the conveyor belt for the checkout girl to scan.

    --
    My other processor is big-endian.
  9. doesn't that get heavy? by boomerny · · Score: 2, Funny

    1000-2000 songs? my powerbook starts to get heavy with just a few hundred tunes on there.