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nOStalgia

Recently I’d been investigating some retro computing resources; there was a retro computing swapmeet nearby a month or so ago that I went to check out, and (while not retro-computing per se) an amateur radio hamfest I explored. I’d also been reading some books on the development of the personal computer (The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal, iWoz, Shareware Heroes, and The Secret History of Mac Gaming). I’d also discovered Infinite Mac, but ultimately I fished my old iMac DV out of storage as well as an old Titanium PowerBook G4 I had once bought on eBay to see what I could do about updating and upgrading them to run old games that I used to enjoy playing ages ago.

The iMac was one that my family had bought around senior year of high school (it might have been a graduation present? I also got a digital video camera around that time because my sisters and friends and I would make videos of ourselves using our old analog video camera but now we could import and edit our films with iMovie), but I had bought this particular PowerBook model a few years ago because it was the most powerful Mac I could get used that was self-contained that could also boot directly into OS 9. Though the PowerBook was much faster than the iMac – 867 MHz G4 vs 400 MHz G3 – and had a more advanced video card than the iMac, I had more of a soft spot for the iMac being as it had belonged to me and it felt more enjoyable to use; the PowerBook’s battery no longer held a charge, the keyboard was all mushy compared to what I’ve grown used to, the only place for it on my desk meant its screen was further away than the iMac’s screen was in the same footprint, and the fan on the PowerBook would loudly spin up after a few minutes of use.

I had apparently already maxed out the PowerBook with as much RAM it could hold as well as an 240 GB SSD drive split between OS 9 and Mac OS X and had previously also bought an external SSD with both Firewire 800 and USB 3 connections so I could use it with both old and new computers, but I saw the iMac still could use some upgrades and ended up maxing out its RAM to 1 GB and popping in a 120 GB SSD and a new PRAM battery. Despite the iMac being fanless it sure made quite a racket with its spinning hard drive, so once I got it all upgraded I thought it was the perfect thing for my retro computing needs, despite the occasional “bzzt”s and “zzap”s of old capacitors not having power for years and one or two sudden unexplained shutdowns.

I had made notes while reading The Secret History of Mac Gaming of old games I had forgotten about or wanted to try, and just managed to go through my collection of MacAddict cover disc ISOs to save all the game installers as well as other odds-and-ends from its premier issue’s CD through 1 year after OS 9’s “funeral”, but no more than a day after I finished saving what I wanted for easy access I discovered the iMac no longer powers up. Alas. And just days after the original iMac’s 25th anniversary, too! I think my cat Freddie is a likely suspect, as he was Not Thrilled that the iMac had taken up residence in his napping spot on my desk and stared at it for several minutes the other day.

A cat looking annoyed at an iMac on a computer desk

Anyway, now I’ve got my broken, upgraded iMac just sitting around. I’ve already removed the SSD I just recently put in, but otherwise it’s ready for electronic recycling. I had bought a new PRAM battery for my PowerBook as well but turns out I bought the wrong voltage, so that computer will keep forgetting things like the current day and time until I’m able to source a new one. I’m still not thrilled about the fan in the PowerBook, though; I may keep a lookout for an old Power Mac G4 cube and a 15″ Apple Studio Display for my end goal of having a quiet, fanless Mac that runs OS 9 that doesn’t need a giant CRT monitor. Emulation would be an option for some of my needs if only everything that I wanted to do worked in an emulator, but a few of the games that I tried didn’t work properly or at all.

Just using OS 9 again for the first time in a few years made me wish for something like OS 9 but with modern technologies. Give me an operating system with the design of OS 9 and the multithreaded capabilities and other modern affordances of current MacOS. Something about the whole retro experience just felt more fun.

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Boring ways to treat yourself

After work today I wandered Costco for a bit. I had made an appointment to get my tires rotated, but I also had recently received a member rewards rebate certificate for my spending over the past year. Since it had to be spent on something in the warehouse (as opposed to through the website) I figured I’d spend my time waiting for the tire techs to do their thing by window shopping and seeing what I wanted to buy to treat myself. I did go in with a few thoughts of what I’d probably want to buy but some are more boring than others. Coming in at #1 on the boring scale:

A new thermostat!

I had replaced my apartment’s thermostat with a Nest not that long after I first moved in 12 or so years ago; the previous tenant had smoked inside and when I’d come back home from being away for just a day or two my unit smelled like stale air with a whiff of cigarettes, so I bought the Nest for its automatic fan feature where it would run the HVAC fan for 10 minutes of every hour if it hadn’t run for at least that long already. I later added a remote sensor to it and put that in my bedroom, but I haven’t been too thrilled with the sensor setup. If I could say “at 11 PM use the bedroom sensor to determine the temperature, and at 5 PM switch to the thermostat, but if it’s a weekend then use the thermostat starting at 9 AM”, it’d be perfect, but I can’t. I can only tell it “use the thermostat in the living room to determine the temperature between 4 PM and 9 PM each day, and the bedroom sensor at all other times”. It’s not so bad when I’m working from home at my desk in my bedroom, or if I’m in the living room from 5 to 9 PM, but from 9 PM until I go to bed I start having to fight with the thermostat to get a comfortable temperature in my living room and having to strain to hear the TV over the HVAC fan running frequently is starting to get a bit old. You wouldn’t think there’d be much variation in such a small apartment but it’s amazing how much of a temperature differential there is between my hallway where the thermostat is and my bedroom! So, I considered changing the thermostat to an Ecobee. Apparently the Costco package comes with two sensors that detect motion as well as temperature, and it has a “follow-me” setting where it uses the room you’re in to determine which sensor to use for temperature sensing. Imagine that! I was eager to buy it and found it in stock at the store, but after walking a few laps of the warehouse and texting with the ladyfriend I decided to hold off on it for now at least, as it’s not something “for me” and I don’t own my unit, and I was wanting to find something that felt more like a treat for myself. Which brings me to #2 on the boring scale:

A new trashcan!

After doing some renovations to my apartment (new paint job, fixing some damaged walls, taking care of other odds and ends that have bugged me over the years), I thought it’d be nice to have a more aesthetically-pleasing trash can and had been eying the SimpleHuman dual trash-and-recycling bin. Unfortunately while I saw it online I didn’t see it in my warehouse, so no luck buying that today.

A few other things that I had considered were a new AppleTV for its Thread capabilities as my HomePod mini sometimes occasionally has issues with controlling my Thread-enabled outlets and I hoped that something with a hard-wired internet connection would be more responsive to Siri requests, or if not that then perhaps a pair of new AirPods Pro; though I’m happy with my existing pair, as I drove to the store I was listening to Accidental Tech Podcast, and I heard Casey say that’s how he spent his free money. Unfortunately neither was in stock at my warehouse, so oh well.

Since I’m in no rush I’ll just have to wait for another day to see if something catches my eye, but at least my tires are rotated and I got some grocery shopping done. Even though using my rewards to pay for groceries would be the most practical thing to do, I think doing that’s even more boring than a new thermostat!

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Venti vent

Today was A Day. Didn’t sleep well last night at all, discovered mid-commute that my transit card had become inactive for some reason and so I had to buy a new one (it may have been reported as missing/lost/stolen by someone who’s not me??), my mask broke, my coffee order was screwed up (or at the very least tasted horrible, as if they had dumped a ton of artificial sweetener in), and realized I forgot my headphones for plugging into my work computer for joining conference calls (I figured that I could just dial in to the meeting from the phone and then was incredibly confused why I was hearing myself through my laptop and hung up… turns out I could have just muted my computer, but my brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders at this point). Nothing catastrophic and all just little things that are easy to laugh off after the fact, but this morning was just one. thing. after. another. and having a bad coffee order after all that was just the final straw (or should that be “final wooden swizzle-stick”? “final plastic stopper that plugs up the coffee lid”?).

After I texted my ladyfriend to vent (did I tell you I have a new ladyfriend?? I’ll have to tell you more about us some other time), she offered to place a new Starbucks order for me for lunch to try to help make things better. When I went to pick it up I discovered she had added a cake pop to the order as a surprise for me because she figured I needed a pick-me-up. 🥰

After work I had my usual therapist visit. It’s quite nice having seen my therapist for ages since she knows quite a lot about me and what’s gone on in my life over the years, so as I was telling her about some things that I had been thinking recently she cautioned me against looking back with rose-colored glasses. I also mentioned to her about some old blog posts that I had discovered by chance when I was tweaking my site for returning to blogging and she recommended looking back on old entries occasionally to remind myself of how some things Used To Be. That’s a great idea, and ensuring I make myself a usable log of recent developments in my life is another good reason to try to update here regularly.

Anyway, I’ve zonked myself with ZzzQuil to hopefully help myself get a solid night’s rest so time to hit the Submit button before I fade away…

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The slow data society

I’ve been slowly reassessing my relationship with technology. Ever since Twitter (and Reddit… and what feels like the internet as a whole…) went down the tubes, I feel like it’s given me the chance to do a reset and be more mindful about what I’m using these services for.

Though I signed up for Mastodon, I don’t post on there anywhere near as often as I did with Twitter. Some of it is me being lazy. Would I post more on Mastodon if I could migrate my toots to my own instance? Almost definitely. But as of now, I can’t, and I’m too reluctant to set up my own instance at this time. (Do I want the hassle of maintaining my own Mastodon instance? Almost certainly not.)

Though I generally lurked on Reddit rather than actively participate, I’ve been avoiding using it partially because I’m still disappointed how they cut off third-party app access, and partially because I don’t want to use it now that I can’t use my app of choice.

Since it’s not as easy or appealing to mindlessly browse now, I’ve been spending more time reading books and other long-form writing, rediscovering my RSS feed reader, and generally being more intentional about what and when I’m engaging online. Hopefully that translates to more writing on here.