None Of This Is Difficult
But am I calm?
There’s a cyborg anthropologist by the name of Amber Case, who speaks and writes on the subject of calm technology. You know — the kind of tech that doesn’t frustrate you by getting between you and whatever you’re trying to do and insisting that it’s being helpful — calm technology is theoretically possible, I say.
I don’t know Amber Case, but I met her once, and I’ve heard her speak, and I follow her work. I thought of Amber Case this morning as I reached the half-way point in the first of my two simple tasks for the day.
I went online last week, to a well-known shopping site that I’ll leave out of this story, and bought myself a Zoom H1 essential “stereo recorder for creators”. [You can probably guess why, and the clue’s kind of in the name anyway.]
My new purchase is a simple (ha!) little recording device. Yesterday, I couldn’t put it off any longer. I got it out of the box, downloaded the manual, fiddled with the settings … and (as it turned out, successfully) set it up to record.
Then, not late at all, I went off to my appointment with the person I’d arranged to meet and record.
Reader, I did it. I made a recording. It worked. It sounded good.
So this morning, all I had to do — this was task number one — was transfer the recording to Audacity, edit it, and pass it on.
I’d recorded a .WAV file. Enormous. I needed it to be an .MP3 file.
Audacity couldn’t export it as an .MP3 file without a plug-in. I went online and pressed the obvious big red DOWNLOAD arrow. Got something that I deleted before running my anti-virus software.
Tried again. This time, downloaded the plug-in.
Took a break. Made coffee. Breathed deeply while staring out of the kitchen window at the back garden. Thought of Amber Case. Thought: none of this is difficult. But am I calm?
Even the most manageable obstacle course, I thought to myself, is still an obstacle course. I wrote that down — using a pen and a scrap of cardboard torn from a cereal packet. Old tech.
Went back to my desk. Did my edit and exported an .MP3 file.
My second task of the day was to edit — try to edit — a recording somebody had sent me last week. I’d set it aside because I didn’t recognise the file format, couldn’t get Audacity to open it, and — bleuh! Don’t need this.
That was when I’d faced up to reality and bought my H1 essential to do my recording myself.
The recording I needed to edit — wasn’t on my desktop. I searched for it — not anywhere. I went to my emails, found the one, clicked on the attachment — oh, right, I remember, it was a link to a download — and got a message. “This link has now expired.”
But I could retrieve the file if I signed up for a premium account.
I closed the download page. I sat for a moment looking at my inbox.
And that was the moment — the perfect moment — when the email arrived. The email from — but you’ve guessed already, haven’t you? They had a suggestion for me. Several suggestions, actually. But the subject line was: Zoom H2n.
Last week, I bought the Zoom H1 essential. So this week, maybe I wanted to buy the Zoom H2n? It’s a “stereo surround-sound portable recorder”. To go with my “stereo recorder for creators”.
I could carry both of them!
Excuse me. I’m going to go outside now, to the back garden, and I’m going to do some weeding.
