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There was a post on HN a couple years ago that I should probably have dug up instead of vaguely gesturing at, but here we are. Anyway, it described the transition to digital technology as moving towards "magical rocks". They are amazing, perfect, and betray no hint as to their mechanism. They are excellent tools, in many ways better than their predecessors, but they don't tickle the brain the same way as a machine that wears its heart on its sleeve. Everyone can have an intuition about how a mechanical watch works. You can see it right there, watching as the gears spin, the balance swings, the mainspring uncoils. It's alive. Like watching a steam engine. It takes a lot more knowledge, and a lot more trust in things unseen, to build intuition around how electronics work. And I'm not sure it's ever quite as evocative, even while being perhaps more amazing. There are a million other arguments either way, but that's the one that's compelled me the most. And granted, I'm pretty biased, typing this with a mechanical watch on my wrist. |
Me too, except the bit about wearing a watch. I haven't worn one since my Seiko 5 died at about the same time that the magical rock telephones took off about 20 years ago.
Thanks for the 'magical rocks' phrase!