Wednesday, 1st June, 2022

I finished Stranger Things last night, it meant that I stayed up too late to finish the last one. So end up being tired, so I should go to bed early tonight…right?

Simply put, the burden of converting a digital signal, all those 1s and 0s, into an analogue one will be lifted from the rest of your kit and taken on by a component specially designed to do the job. A bit like having someone do your tax return for you so you can focus on more important things like going to the pub. What Hi-Fi on DACs

I’ve been thinking about a Ricoh GR3 for a long time. But then I remembered, I really like the deal aspect of buying used cameras, so why not get the 2013 GR model? Because then I look at the specs of the GR3 and go: “oh but it would be really good to have xyz that it has, and surely I can’t live without those…”. But the reality is, it will just end up being another box that sits on the shelf and then the pain of choice will grow even more. I guess not buying it would stop that pain of choice (because having it as my only camera doesn’t make sense - I think only ever the X100 series could do that, because I’ve done it, and it sits quite centrally in the various dimensions I’d use to make a decision.). It actually turns out to be an annoying camera to search for on the used market. Not everyone labels it with the year and you have to be careful not to find another model that’s the wrong one. I’m not sure exactly which model shows up but generally if it’s significantly cheaper then it’s an older model that I don’t want. Maybe the difficulty of it is also a sign.

I wonder how all these signs I see come to be. Natural phenomena, like separation of beads through shaking, or Gaussian distributions, or the seemingly convenient outcome of multiple items at the same time.

My audio journey also continues. This one is terribly framed. I don’t even know what I’m trying to do. Well not entirely true, I want to listen to more music that I like. I generally terrible at remembering artists and song names, but I remember album covers from 20 years ago. Even album spines from the CD rack. I can picture a favourite CD of mine that my mum had, I can hear the music in my head, but I can’t describe it or sing or hum or replicate it in anyway and the album cover is hazy when I try and concentrate on what it was. Perhaps that really means I don’t remember it but I remember the feeling of listening to it.

I think this is another “perhaps physical is better after all”, like paper, and books, and photos, and seeing people in person.

I want to see more pictures of inside people’s houses. Is that weird? Like a picture of their lounge, or room they hang out in. To see all the little trinkets and pictures, and sundries they choose to keep. I think it’s fascinating. I want to see them, but I’m nervous of posting pictures of my house.

Back on audio, I don’t want a big CD or otherwise collection of music though. It’s too much stuff, so that means digital files, and remind me how that’s better than Spotify? I suppose I own it forever and can freely move it around between devices etc. I can see it in a list that’s not 40 million songs.