In Praise of Things Analog

or Christmas this year I bought myself an aneroid barometer. It is, in many ways, an utterly frivolous purchase, the same as my 2021 . Time was that such things were essential to safe navigation. But those times are long gone now that employing the same technology. I love getting out of bed in the morning and gently tapping the glass to see what the needle is up to. I love the idea there’s a little vacuum chamber somewhere in there responding to the selfsame air I’m standing in. I never grow tired of, say, seeing the needle starting to go down and then—sure enough—seeing the sky cloud up and the rain start to fall a short while later. There’s an immediacy to the thing that simply can’t be duplicated merely looking at numbers on a computer screen.