[Non-fiction]

I’m standing in the hifi section, wondering if I should buy this clock radio. My eyes flick from the price tag, back to the bullet point specs, back to the price tag again. I take in the sleek wooden exterior, the extra port for your iPod, the retro feel of it. Enticing.

I imagine the cost it would have taken to build, I try to gauge it. I mean, after all it’s not real wooden inlay is it? It’s a plastic veneer. Inside, the circuitry is brand spanking new, sheathed in plastic – sealed in amid Taiwanese air. The circuitry is old though, in another way.

But it’s digital. That must cost something… mustn’t it? How can it be so damn cheap? Continue reading “Meditations on a clock radio” →