Reading this thread made me realize that I get to engage with this as a barista. I flip switches, press buttons, roll dials; I can get myself burned on heated metal or steam. I touch doodads on a gizmo to make a product, I get to operate it like a mechanist of yore. Not my ideal job but there is something to proper machinery

vinyl CDs

vinyl CDs

They're called records dagnabbit

There is something really gratifying about a record player though, the spinning is kind of mesmerizing and the warmth of the sounds and little imperfections in playback make it feel "realer" to listen to than digital to me

Listening to a good record in a dark room with a lava lamp is really comfy

This is probably why I have a fascination with pinball machines

Analog, mechanical things are almost always preferable to me. I even prefer carburetors when possible, even though they can be a pain to tune. I am a weirdo.

i enjoy the fickle nature of the Machine Spirits and digital tech gives them more places to hide amongst corporeality, although a lava-lamp makes a great divination medium as well.

I was definitely in more of an analogue phase at various points of my life. I remember someone snarkily making a joke on abacus(i?/es?) during a dnd game and I pulled one out of my bag.

For a while I've wanted to get a watch with a clear back so I can look at all the gears whirring around in there.

I also have a small film camera collection including an old FED Zorki 2. When you unlatch the film door you can see a bit of the inner workings spinning around when you take a shot and wind it.

I once saw an old X ray machine in the basement of a hospital. It was the most flash Gordon looking thing I have seen in my life. It took a good portion of my will power not to press buttons.

Fascination? No. But I rather have physical buttons instead of bullshit latency from touch screen buttons on cars and doors.

There's a thing about the tactile sensation and having moving parts at the macroscopic level that tickles my brain

I use analog vapes for weed sometimes and enjoy the process.

There's still a ritual to everything when heating things with an electrically-heated coil, but it is less hands on.

Even after an apocalypse destroys modern civilization and the world becomes a dystopia - people will still listen to vinyl... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI6pZlARN1A

As opposed to "invisible technology."

Think: seeing the gears and spindles of an old-school 19th-century engine versus having a computer screen and not seeing the tech inside the laptop or tablet.

Look up Chris Staecker on YouTube he does videos of antique computers like adding machines and Napiers bones

Kind of similar I guess: I really like "lower tech", pragmatic solutions to mechanical problems that need solving. Moving a cars windshield wipers with the vacuum produced from pistons or propelling the wiper fluid with the pressurized air from the spare tire is so neat. I get that it isn't ideal and has its own drawbacks, but it has character dammit. I'm just so impressed by old school, mechanical solutions that take thrift and thinking outside the box when the answer in the modern day is usually just add more parts and make everything more complicated

Not mechanical, but little semi-modular analog drone synths are in a similar wheelhouse. Because every knob has a dedicated function and, other than a few default routings, you’re directly patching the outputs to inputs themselves, it gets that feeling of visible connections and settings that you have tactile control over. Plus, because the emphasis is on textures/soundscapes, you don’t need formal music training to get good results.

Neutral Labs makes one, stylophone has one coming out in the near future, there’s a ton of boutique one-offs on Etsy. EDIT: have to add the Bastl Kastles, very portable and easy to learn.

There are some truly mechanical musical tone devices out there, but they tend to either be too large to be portable or are very limited.

I was kinda obsessed with Curta mechanical calculators when I first found out about them, and I still think they're amazing. When I first checked I think they were going for several hundreds of dollars on ebay. I just checked and some are going for several thousand. They really are pretty neat though.

This is where a lot of love for steam trains comes from I think

I love contraptions. the more levers and purpose, the better. I love bizzarre old cars and bikes that require 5x more rider intervention. Give me a start up sequence please.

I would highly recommend the book Analog by Robert Hassan (published by MIT Press) as it includes very interesting analysis regarding Marxism and its view on analog technology itself.

Prefer analog multimeter to digital. Sometimes watching how voltage changes is just as important as how much it changes. I prefer carb to fuel injected. Mechanical gas valves versus digital. Analog ‘push/pull’ amplifiers to class D digital amps. Analog knobs versus computer screen sliders.

Also, vinyl CD’s. Dumbass.