I wandered through an antique store today. There were lots of examples of long out of date technology, but I was especially taken by the Edison cylinder players.<\/p>\n
I seem to have a complex emotional reaction to these machines. On the one hand, of course, I look at them and I think “how quaint”. After all, they predate even phonograph records, which are stackable and therefore far more practical.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, the Edison cylinder is the very first of its kind: A way to reliably record music and speech so that it can be listened to later.<\/p>\n
It is the most primitive and therefore quaint example of sound recording, yet also the most far-reaching and brilliant break from everything that had come before. A physical manifestation of the very first moments of a brand new future.<\/p>\n
I guess that’s true of the very first example of any truly disruptive technology: Lenoir’s engine, the Fleming Valve, Shockley’s transistor, Sutherland’s “Sword of Damocles”. By today’s standards they seem weirdly primitive.<\/p>\n
Yet such artifacts are, in fact, the very definition of the cutting edge: The precise moment when everything changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I wandered through an antique store today. There were lots of examples of long out of date technology, but I was especially taken by the Edison cylinder players. I seem to have a complex emotional reaction to these machines. On the one hand, of course, I look at them and I think “how quaint”. After … Continue reading “Antique store”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17395"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17395"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17398,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17395\/revisions\/17398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}