Monday 1 June 2009

Technology. Just stop and think about it.

I did. And guess what? I don't understand it. Driving back from Scotland last weekend, Mrs L casually mentioned the path the music we were listening to had travelled to get to our ears. I was just humming away, then I had to stop and think. Uh-oh. But it is amazing. Recorded by musicians playing real instruments in a room somewhere, made of wood and metal etc, hooked up to microphones, the sounds travels as waves from the instruments and is picked up by microphones. Christ knows how but it is recorded onto a tape. Yes the music was old enough for a tape. The tape is digitalised into a series of zeroes and ones, and is somehow put onto a small shiny plastic disc. I then insert said disc into my computer, and those zeroes and ones go onto my hard disc, and from there are copied again onto the hard disc of my ipod. Don't get me started on hard discs - I have absolutely no idea, it just works ok? The ipod undertands the zeroes and ones, and so the digital signal is turned into an analogue signal and is broadcast in FM via a very small transmitter known as an itrip, and is picked up by the car radio which then transmits signals down a wire which wiggles a speaker cone in a very precise way which creates sound waves and hey presto we hear some music, and yours truly starts singing a bit. WTF??

For all I know. there are probably a number of gross inaccuracies in the above. If you spot some, rise above the urge to correct me, and just sit back and enjoy the music. As far as I am concerned, the world needs mystery.

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