Mamma Mia!

Strange, everything starts with a thought. Or not, as in this case it was a CD that we played in the car of a friend that we used last week to go for a day trip to Iligan. So my thought came from something I heard, from something someone else had. So the CD was a soundtrack of the movie Mamma Mia!, or as far as I remember not the real soundtrack, but at least the songs from the movie. And this made me also play the songs from this movie on my computer as I downloaded it quite some time ago. And next to this I also decided to download the movie as I really like it and like to see it in high quality. So yesterday or so the download was finished, so tonight I decided to watch the movie. And right from the start it caused a lot of memories and emotions boil up. The first thing I noticed was that the music was of high quality, the ‘5.1 thing’ or something. So I decided to move the back speakers on the couch as I wanted to enjoy the full experience of the music, of the technical quality of the music. And the quality of the movie on the screen and the quality of the music made me realize that over the last decades somehow technology has progressed a lot. And that it is kind of a miracle that I can watch a movie on a TV with a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels in high quality sound with six speakers, six music channels. And I downloaded this movie for free over the internet, it is stored on the hard disk of a server somewhere in our office and it is streamed over the network in our house to the TV. And also the music I played earlier this week and that I am playing right now is stored on the hard disk of a computer and I think I also downloaded for free.

Memories

And this music means a lot to me, as my ex-partner was an ABBA fan and seeing this movie brings back a lot of memories from the trips we made together, especially to Berlin, when we played CD’s on the way in the car. And I remember those days as a very good time, as the time I enjoyed life the most, which was probably true when we first met, the first few years, the years that seem to bring back all those good memories. And the movie kind has the same subject, where Donna kind of goes back to ‘the good time’, which of course was also not  really a good time, in perspective. And I did like ABBA before as before I met Nico I also owned LP’s from them. And so many emotions came up watching this movie and even right now, as I’m still crying. One thing that came up, next to the holiday memories, was that Nico once said that most of the songs of ABBA are about lost love, about love that is over. And I never realized that before he said that, and after being confronted with that I was never able to listen to the music I did before. And the song mostly related to that is Our Last Summer, which at that time was just one of my favorite songs, somehow even ‘our’ ABBA song, the ABBA song I related to our relationship. And it is still one of my favorite songs, especially the version from the ABBA Teens and now also the version from Mamma Mia!. And somehow it is still related to my previous relationship in a positive way, as we were supposed to grow old together. But we didn’t, still weird.

Musical

Wow, and so many things in my head now. I just want to keep on writing, tell my story, tell everything that is in my head right now. Like that I really admire how someone was able to use those ABBA songs to make a musical out of it, where those songs fit so perfectly that you would almost believe they were written for it. But of course it must be the other way around and what amazes me most is that many songs are being used in a way different from their original meaning, their original context. And I always thought the musical was written by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson but today I saw in the trailer that it was written by Catherine Johnson,

Growing (old?)

And it’s so weird to hear all those songs now, that were part of my growing up, my years as a teenager and a student, and later in the years of my first relationship. And weird that that is now so long ago and that things like ABBA mostly are only there for a relatively short number of years, where it was a big thing. And looking back a big thing for me as a teenager, as a student, where now I guess most younger people wouldn’t really know what ABBA is or was. And realizing now that the generation before me had other artists, other music they grew up with. Or not only music, but also other things. And that scares me sometimes, that I just prefer to use Windows XP on a standard computer with a 4:3 screen and don’t like to use a tablet or a mobile phone as a computer or to access things on the internet. And that goes even further, as I don’t like the recent structures for websites as these structures are more focused on mobile use with a relatively small touch screen and less for a computer with a mouse with a normal screen. So yes, somehow I’m starting to feel old, that there are things I’m just used to and comfortable with, where the younger generation seems to prefer other things. And no, not old in the sense of outdated or something or not willing to adapt to newer technology or something. Just old in the sense of being used to certain things and preferring not to change as the stuff I grew up with just suits me well and the newer stuff just does not suit me so well. But somehow weird, realizing to be of middle age and that there is a generation after me, that there are generations after me. And at the same time realizing that there were generations before me.

Amazing

And I know I am often complaining about things not working, especially recently my internet. But being an engineer and knowing a bit about statistics it is amazing where we have arrived as humanity, e.g. being able to produce a TV with 1920×1080 pixels where all those more than 2 million(!) pixels, screen areas are just working, for years, without ever one of them failing. And that’s only part of the story, because that same TV has quite some chips and cables and whatever is needed to produce an image on the screen and to produce sound we can hear, in the case of the movie I was watching tonight even six channel music. And a lot of software, developed by many, many people over many, many years.

And the strange thing of our time is that especially the digital stuff is practically for free, as it can easily be copied, not only from computer to computer, but also over the internet. And copying is already as old as I am, as when I was a teenager I copied music from the radio or borrowed LP’s or CD’s to cassette tapes. And computer programs from floppy disk to floppy disk. Or later from CD to CD. And right now from DVD to DVD.

And another strange thing is that many products are also very cheap, like you can’t imagine how anyone can earn from it (anymore). Which I guess is also true, as we produce very many things with machines and in places were labor is cheap.

Distribution

And related to that I was, and the last year(s) often am, thinking how all these things can be produced while at the same moment paying the people who make or do all those things a decent salary. And this is a subject I wrote about more and will write about more. As being a software developer I am also confronted with cheap labor as software can be developed anywhere in the world now, even though the same thing has been going on for decades or maybe even hundreds of years: growing international competition. And having grown up in an industrialized, Western country I was on the good side of all this. But now living in a so called developing country I also see the other side of ‘Western efficiency’. And looking at the world as a whole, at the world economy, I start to believe more and more that we need some kind of different model to distribute the wealth, to distribute everything that is available in the world, either being products, digital stuff or services. Although the last appears to be the easiest, although with my experience with large companies delivering service type products the efficiency model doesn’t seem to work so well.

And looking at my download of the movie Mamma Mia! or other movies, do I feel guilty? No, not really, especially as I guess it may be very hard to buy that movie locally in the same quality, although that is something worth checking. And in the end I guess I even prefer movies in digital format as they don’t take up space but just reside somewhere on a (very small) hard disk.

But yes, somehow this creates, must create a problem for the movie industry. And my main worry is that if the movie industry can’t earn enough, there won’t be new movies of high quality anymore. But somehow famous actors seem to be still very rich and also movie studios seem to do well.

But somehow I believe we need some other model, as the giving side as the receiving side both seem to suffer. No, maybe not on the highest level with the most famous, large companies. But on the middle and lower levels.

Let’s find a way!

So let’s find a way, as we are close to a time humanity has always striven for: having goods and services without having to work for it. And technically we can, so why not organize it in a way everybody can benefit from it?

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