Digital Analogue

Black vinyl

This weekend my mom brought up my grandparents' old record player, and a big box of records. I'm probably among the youngest people in the country to really remember records as more than a historical curiosity or a retro fad, and even at that, it's with the vagueness of any childhood memory. But I do get a certain nostalgic pleasure—no doubt partially external nostalgia, but with enough of my memory to be real—out of sliding the record out of its sleeve, balancing it on my hand and placing it on the turntable, switching the player on using an actual physical switch that engages a mechanical process involving gears and levers and a tiny piece of diamond to play music. If I switch off the speakers, I can still hear the music playing, tinny and soft, just from the stylus vibrating in the groove.

And then I run upstairs to blog about it. So, no luddite me. :)

"Of course, there are many mathematicians who are more or less honest. But almost all of them are conformists. They are more or less honest, but they tolerate those who are not honest." --Grigoriy Perelman