Re:The curious tale of Bhutan's playable record postage stam...
by skrebbel on Friday April 17, 2020 @04:07AM
(#22897119)
> For decades, the stamps were dismissed by the philatelic establishment as tacky novelties and were, correspondingly, as cheap as chips, [...] valued at around £17, the equivalent of £28 at 2015 prices. But following their recent discovery by collectors of rare vinyl, particularly in the US, you will be lucky to pick a set up for less than £300.
I love how one group of collectors goes "tacky novelty!" and another group goes "amazing rare find!" over the same thing. It all makes sense, but it's still weird.
Re:The curious tale of Bhutan's playable record postage stam...
by Gravityloss on Friday April 17, 2020 @06:58AM
(#22897925)
“Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it’s a simple adventure story; others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe.”
Re:The curious tale of Bhutan's playable record postage stam...
by anticsapp on Friday April 17, 2020 @11:04AM
(#22899580)
This happens with splinter groups within record collector circles. I've seen LP collectors say "I would never go to the Allentown show, it's strictly 45s" and the 45 guys pick up a Public Enemy LP and you can kind of see on their face they're thinking "this is cool, but I would never buy it"
Re:The curious tale of Bhutan's playable record postage stam...
by runeb on Friday April 17, 2020 @03:34AM
(#22896984)
A similar interesting usage of a exotic medium for pressed music are the bone records or "rib records", apparently used to smuggle western music into Soviet [1]. I've also heard of pressing music into postcards, but cannot find a good source on that at the moment.
Re:The curious tale of Bhutan's playable record postage stam...
by BelleOfTheBall on Friday April 17, 2020 @04:27AM
(#22897222)
Wow, this is wonderful. How large are they actually? The article says miniature but, surely, a vinyl record would weigh a substantial amount even at a tiny size.
The designs on these are really intricate as well, I know that vinyl lovers tend to say that the addition of pictures hurts sound quality but in this particular case, a novelty set, I feel like it's more than justified.
Re:The curious tale of Bhutan's playable record postage stam...
by Someone on Friday April 17, 2020 @07:11AM
(#22897990)
I haven’t seen them, but I expect them to be similar to the records they used to give away as marketing gimmicks: so thin that they weren’t rigid under their own weight. You could roll them up.
If you decrease their diameter, weight would go down even further.
Re:The curious tale of Bhutan's playable record postage stam...
by carapace on Friday April 17, 2020 @01:08PM
(#22900837)
As if the Kingdom of Bhutan couldn't get any cooler!
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I remember an advertising gimmick in the 90's, plastic ribbons with tiny ridges that you attached to balloons and then you could pinch them and draw your fingers down, running your thumbnail over the ridges. The result was that the balloon acted like a speaker for the sound waves encoded in the ridges.
Re:The curious tale of Bhutan's playable record postage stam...
by INTPenis on Friday April 17, 2020 @06:57AM
(#22897919)
Techmoan needs to do a report on this. It's right up his alley. For those that don't know he's a youtuber with some very interesting technical factoids. Mostly about audio/video.
Re:The curious tale of Bhutan's playable record postage stam...
by reaperducer on Friday April 17, 2020 @02:40PM
(#22901645)
He's good for entertainment, but his videos almost always amount to "Here's a cool thing I bought on Yahoo! Japan, and here's some advertisements about it I found on Google Image Search." Followed by a tedious walk-through of the product manual.
Occasionally he does a repair video, but they're only the most basic of "repairs" like replacing a belt.
It's chewing gum tech. Not exactly high-thinking.
And then occasionally he talks about stuff he knows nothing about. For example, when he called the United States backward for still having FM radio stations, completely ignoring the fact that in his own country, the vast majority of radio broadcasting is on FM.
Then in another video he talks about digital radio in his country is sparse outside of the major cities. Meanwhile, the United States has continent-spanning satellite and terrestrial digital radio.
Re:The curious tale of Bhutan's playable record postage stam...
by FroshKiller on Friday April 17, 2020 @07:13AM
(#22897999)
He goes well beyond factoids. Many of his videos feature research of contemporary trade press about the equipment, real-world tests, and simple repairs.
Re:The curious tale of Bhutan's playable record postage stam...
by SamBam on Friday April 17, 2020 @09:49AM
(#22898951)
In what was is that the "original" article, and why the dismissive tone, as if OP ought to have posted that link? The one linked is significantly deeper, with more information, images, etc.
Re:The curious tale of Bhutan's playable record postage stam...
by cueo on Friday April 17, 2020 @04:32AM
(#22897243)
I would love to get a link to the full version of that music in the link. I know it's a version of Bhutan's national anthem "Druk Tsendhen" but couldn't find that exact one on YouTube.
I love how one group of collectors goes "tacky novelty!" and another group goes "amazing rare find!" over the same thing. It all makes sense, but it's still weird.
Metafilter: Cool even asleep.
The stamps have a diameter of typically 69mm, while larger ones are 100mm.
(Source: http://www.megaministore.com/stamps/asia/bhutan-stamps/bhuta...)
[1] https://www.npr.org/2016/01/09/462289635/bones-and-grooves-w...
Rib records are an even deeper rabbit hole: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribs_(recordings)
On vinyl postcards, there's at least one current label pressing them: http://www.vinylpost.co/releases/ (not affiliated).
There goes my morning...
The designs on these are really intricate as well, I know that vinyl lovers tend to say that the addition of pictures hurts sound quality but in this particular case, a novelty set, I feel like it's more than justified.
If you decrease their diameter, weight would go down even further.
Edit: these are called Flexi Disc (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexi_disc). you can even make records out of plastic-coated carton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardboard_record
- - - -
I remember an advertising gimmick in the 90's, plastic ribbons with tiny ridges that you attached to balloons and then you could pinch them and draw your fingers down, running your thumbnail over the ridges. The result was that the balloon acted like a speaker for the sound waves encoded in the ridges.
Occasionally he does a repair video, but they're only the most basic of "repairs" like replacing a belt.
It's chewing gum tech. Not exactly high-thinking.
And then occasionally he talks about stuff he knows nothing about. For example, when he called the United States backward for still having FM radio stations, completely ignoring the fact that in his own country, the vast majority of radio broadcasting is on FM.
Then in another video he talks about digital radio in his country is sparse outside of the major cities. Meanwhile, the United States has continent-spanning satellite and terrestrial digital radio.
https://www.youtube.com/techmoan
web2.0 was a mistake.
Can you elaborate on this statement? I don't understand what this refers to