first known sound recording

"The voice of an unknown woman singing in a lamp-lit Paris laboratory nearly 150 years ago came to life Friday amid the crackles and buzz of a historic breakthrough recording made 17 years before Edison invented the phonograph."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/28/MNOSVSB9J.DTL&tsp=1

The recording:

http://www.firstsounds.org/sounds/1860-Scott-Au-Clair-de-la-Lune.mp3

Sounds more "right" to me slowed down to 0.9 of the 'original' speed.

Yeah, we knew about this last week, because the story has a funny side to it as well - thanks to a BBC newsreader....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7318173.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/28/nbbc328.xml

If you want to hear the ultimate piece of unprofessional newsreading (!) listen to the BBC audio....

We Americans must be far less restrained.  She giggles with such poise that it almost sounds like tears to my ears. 

You know, we've joked around about optical scanning and graphical conversion to sound -- starting with the photocopy machine -- and here is something most extraordinary and successful through a more refined process.

Although surely they would have done better had Andrew been part of the restoration team!

We Americans must be far less restrained.  She giggles with such poise that it almost sounds like tears to my ears. 

Okay, then it's the most professional-sounding unprofessional piece of newsreading... and there's a fair chance that you are correct about the tears - apparently when she loses it, she loses it completely...!

But the Beeb doesn't care - they are full of jokers. I mean, just look at today (yes they ran this as an item on the news too). (Just bear in mind what the date is):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/01/npenguin101.xml

Sweet!

"The film reveals nature's stunning glory in exciting and unexpected ways, so much so that it defies belief."

Yep, says it all.

Some pretty lovely special effects there -- don't miss the video, guys!

And a happy 1st to wiseguys everywhere!