Hi, we're here from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes.

I'm Cody Gough.

And I'm Ashley Hamer.

Today, you learn about how analog and digital media help us preserve our musical heritage

from a special guest, writer, musician, and podcaster

Damon Krakowski. We'll also answer a Lister question about why quickly rotating

objects like wheels and fans seem to rotate in the opposite direction.

But satisfy some curiosity.

It's time for the second half of our Sunday Sounds mini series,

where writer and musician Damon Krakowski

helps us examine the implications of the changing ways that we listen to media in a digital world.

He hosted the Ways of Hearing Podcast, and now you can pick up the book, Ways of Hearing, from the

MIT Press.

This week, Damon and I talk not about what you're hearing, but how audio is stored.

I'll kick off this exchange with a pretty outrageous story from the world of physical media.

I remember my first professional radio job was at a classical music station

98.7 W.F.M.T. and we had a lot of old, old reels sitting around and they wanted to digitize them they wanted to

you know preserve them and I remember very distinctly they would ask me hey go in the

back and put this real in a microwave oven and bake it to make the real

playable. Can you talk about that because you mention it in the podcast?

I forgot that that came up in the park.

Yeah, it was particularly there was one generation of tape that was particularly susceptible to this.

...