This post has been scheduled in advance to be published during my digital detox period.
Here are some analog tools I'm using during that time.
The watch and barometer were given to me by my father, and belonged to his father. The barometer was sold in Aussig an der Elbe, the town in Czechoslovakia where the Pollatschek (later Polt) family lived until 1938. It is now known as Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic.
I don't use the term "analog" as a general alternative to "digital." I think it strictly applies only to devices that represent reality through analogies, through similarities. The movement of the watch hands is analogous to the rotation of the earth. The position of the indicator on the barometer is analogous to the air pressure. The height of the mercury column is analogous to the temperature of the air.
Pens and typewriters aren't "analog" technology in this strict sense. I'm looking for a better term—a word that would express a contrast to the digital, while including some positive, illuminating conception of what these things are.
That sure is wonderful to have the barometer and watch handed down through your family. Digital is not needed in many things including monitoring the weather. I never gave thought until now as to how to classify a typewriter and many other things that are neither digital or analog. Even a play on Luddite by creating a new word does not seem to fit.
ReplyDeleteHow about ''mechanical'' technologies?
ReplyDeleteYour thermometer and your barometer are beautiful!! <3
ReplyDeleteI always wanted devices like those ones!! <3
Fortunately, I know how to read and use a barometer. :D
I didn't know you had Slavic heritage! That's amazing! :D
Analog... Pens and typewriters...
The movement of the ballpoint pen is analogous to the idea inside your head (specially if you draw with it). xD
The key you press, the letter is printed and the stroke you make are analogous to the speech you're developing in your mind, letter by letter (or character by character). xD
Fortunately, I know how to read and use a barometer
ReplyDeleteHello, that's very easy: on the dial it says rain to one side an sunny to the other side.. The air pressure makes the pointer move.. High pressure is nice weather, low pressure bad weather, rain or storm.
Goodluck finding one..
Greetings indro
I have almost that exact thermometer mounted on my deck, visible from my kitchen window.
ReplyDelete