[tech] Living Analog

[bridgetester]

Can we live without digital technology?
Nick Galvin

Article Link

May 21, 2007Is it possible to exist without digital technology? Nick Galvin rewinds for two days

Comments

[zesty_pinto]

Suddenly, I feel glad that I like to go camping.

[thelala]

Somewhat ironically, I saw a comic once where a man was writing on an old typewriter and a little kid came up and said "Cool! A keyboard with its own printer built in!"

[bridgetester]

Yeah, and where you can literally wipe words off the page... ;)

What? This is guy is an engineering professor?

[montecristo]

"If you create something that relies on a naturally occurring underlying physics then it is normally analog," says Tim Hesketh, associate professor at the University of NSW's School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications. "The world is inherently analog - there are very few naturally occurring digital systems. Nearly all digital systems are man-made."

Hel-lo? Quantum Mechanics? You can't get more discrete than that!

There's a reason that CD sound quality is often sadly lacking, and it's not the technology itself...

[montecristo]

Analog recording methods wouldn't allow the pin-head music marketers to play the games they play with compression. They wouldn't tolerate the distortion. As an article I read just this morning points out: "In the days of vinyl, the needle would jump out of the groove if a track was too loud." Of course, the problem is not with the technology per se, rather, it is with the technology's potential to be abused by art-ignorant music industry marketing idiots who, in a just world, would be beaten to death with xylophone mallets.

Re: There's a reason that CD sound quality is often sadly lacking, and it's not the technology itsel

[bridgetester]

Here's some more rant material... ;)
http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/may07/Ardito.shtml