I'ma.Live.Wire
For reasons unexplained by science, I recently started watching a ton of YouTube videos. Often, it's post-bike-ride viewing that is fairly mindless (yet interesting and well-made; shade unintended) as I lie there exhausted, but not always.
In August or September, I found a new account that I've been speeding my way through – Techmoan, which is a delightful romp thru old technologies, many of which I've never heard of. As a lover of history and technology, dude's videos often seem tailor-made for me.
One of the videos was about the wire recorder – a '40s-era Dictaphone-like machine that recorded on – dig this – fine stainless-steel wire † .
In the video, Techmoan-さん mentions that there is at least one modern link to the wire recorder: a CD was released containing the only fully-recorded concert by Woody Guthrie ‡ : "The Live Wire – Woody Guthrie In Performance 1949". In my September-listens post, you can see that I listened to it (promptly) after learning it exists.
It's incredible, and if you're looking for something to listen to, do check it out. Guthrie remains a national treasure, and the technicians who worked on the CD were able to pull decent sound from it – which I imagine is remarkable, based on the snippets of (otherwise-unrelated) audio included in Techmoan's video.
Hear hear to old tech, new videos, and rediscovered treasures.
† I didn't even know stainless-steel wire was a thing, but of course it is.
‡ I think this is true, but it could be overstated.