happy chaos freedom machine

 Wired has this great story about the slow percolating return of vinyl records:

Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD’s Coffin

As counterintuitive as it may seem in this age of iPods and digital downloads, vinyl — the favorite physical format of indie music collectors and audiophiles — is poised to re-enter the mainstream, or at least become a major tributary.

Interestingly, it is the “download and vinyl” release format that Radiohead just used that might actually kill CDs. Also interesting is the mention of the “loudness wars” — the urge to compress the audio when mastering to CD so that the volume can be increased — degrading the fidelity of the sound on CD. You can’t twiddle that knob when mastering to vinyl, so the sound ends up better. Amazing example of how it takes limitations to get a human to use creativity and produce quality.