Buckminster Fuller on a long thin wire | Hacker News Reader

Buckminster Fuller on a long thin wire

library.stanford.edu

60 pointsmaremmano21 comments

This is wonderful news! Interesting listening to their snippet of the recording and Fuller is talking about problems getting enough houses for people.

I’d be very interested to listen to more of these recordings. But this:

“The Fuller wire recordings can now be streamed in the Special Collections reading room at Green Library.”

You mean to tell me I’ve got to physically go to a library at Stanford to listen to this? Even the sample audio is an unlisted video. That YouTube channel doesn’t have the rest of the recordings. Disappointing. Perhaps I am misunderstanding but it seems the preservation was funded by a donor yet Stanford is keeping the recordings for those with the privilege to listen on site. Is that correct?

Seems that way, sad isn't it, we live in times of unparalleled connectivity yet there are more walls than gardens.

That seems to be the case for me as well. Unable to locate the recordings :(

One aspect of Buckminster Fuller that many people don't want you to know is that he had a number of politically incorrect opinions which are in the archives but would tarnish his public reputation if they were easily accessible. I believe this is the main reason that certain aspects of his records are kept behind lock and key as it were.

For example?

I would like to know as well.

I'd be curious to know if he ran afoul of the verboten PC topics (race, gender, sexuality); considering the era in which he lived and worked, it seems not-unlikely that he'd be a "product of his time".

At the same time, he clearly held many political positions which were much more controversial in his era, but that the left-libertarian-leaning HN crowd wouldn't find objectionable, whatever their status in the 2021 Overton window: staunchly anti-war, anti-corporate [0], and openly pursuing a post-scarcity utopia [1].

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/285349.Grunch_of_Giants

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1321401.Utopia_or_Oblivi...

You're defaming a dead man, the "many people" you claim "don't want you to know", the PC crowd, and yourself.

[citation needed]

Extremely frustrating. Relatedly, I just wrote at length to a museum director about wanting to see a painting in the collection. The painting has been warehoused for years, like thousands of other works. it's not in need of special preservation. it's simply not on display because their walls have no room and the artist isn't currently of any special interest (except that he's important enough to have his work hoarded?). What a shame! All works in all major collections should be digitized and on display. What's the point of our culture if it's not being transmitted!

You’ll love the Rijksmuseum then, they’ve digitized hundreds of thousands of works. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en

If you're interested in this obsolete format, Techmoan did a great video about wire recorders:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ihiTwJPCc

seconded. overall great content on this channel.

I still have a wire recorder :) I expect to go through the electronics (old solid state components with leads soldered together since it was made prior to circuit boards) in some down time, which seems to keep getting postponed...

Am I the only one, who finds the second sample has the more natural sounding equalization? The noise can be improved, but the third one sounds somewhat off, with too much hum in the lower frequencies. Sound quite tricky to figure out a true neutral curve.

https://music.washington.edu/magnetic-wire-recordings

"But the input circuit would have to be designed to take the exact level and impedance that was generated by the original head, and there would have to be a recalculation of what the original equalization curve of wire recording was. It probably would not work with a stock amplifier--Theoretically it would be best to rebuild a new amplifier to get the lowest noise specs, but if you only have a small number of wires to dub then it would be an expensive exercise for just a few items. With dozens or hundreds of wires it might be worthwhile. The old amps from those machines were very noisy, and are much worse now that their parts have aged so much."

Doing this purely digitally might of cause be easier these days.