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I spent some time yesterday listening to WCBS-AM, to get some last listening in before its demised. The programming was basically a retrospective look on the history of the station, going back to the 1930s. Sad to see it go—when I was living in North Carolina, I'd sometimes even listen to it at night. The range was almost 700 km, but it was a 50 kilowatt clear channel station, so it (often) worked.
@SteveBellovin
I struggle to find a good analog in the digital present day for the magic of finding a distant radio signal, enticingly degraded, hovering at the edge of human perception.
That experience is apparently a fleeting one in human history, just a brief century. I wonder what other similar experiences of the more distant past are completely unknown to us now?
@inthehands @mattblaze and I have talked about some complex mechanical things that we no longer do: railroad interlockings, lever voting machines, the cell door locks at Alcatraz, and doubtless many more I don’t know about. (Railroad interlockings make sure that signals and switch tracks only change state in a safe order. For example, a signal must be turned to STOP before a switch is lined against oncoming traffic.)
@SteveBellovin @mattblaze
If you want me to talk and never shut up, ask me about how a piano works! (The problem: finger pressure powers a hammer so it strikes strings, but the hammer must be free-pivoting (not coupled to finger) at the moment of the strike, and must then stop on the recoil without bouncing and not strike again until the finger releases from the key, at which point the hammer must be ready to strike again ASAP. No electricity allowed.)
@inthehands @SteveBellovin @mattblaze so much gorgeous human problem-solving embedded in musical instruments and such tools of human expression 
as someone who plays a very ancient instrument frequently dismissed as "simple" or rudimentary (lever harp) I find it simply tremendous that I am using a solution that was worked out so many thousands of years ago and still very much serves what I want today
@grimalkina @SteveBellovin @mattblaze
You play lever harp? That’s so cool!!
I once had a wonderful experience preparing a concert with a harpist who played a cross-strung chromatic double harp with levers, and she did some truly incredible things planning out her tunings for each piece. Found some of her pieces online (audio only, sadly): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-szsSYy3oQs
oh eff yeah how cool!!!! There are so many wild harps out there, I honestly feel like the constraints of the lever system introduce some really clever tuning+stringing setups almost like a big logic puzzle!! I do play harp, just for fun and just for myself :)
@grimalkina @SteveBellovin @mattblaze
So much of (most of??) the history of music is people discovering magic inside constraints.