Current music mood:
Artist: Basic Channel
Release: Phylyps Trak II
Title: Phylyps Trak II/II
Listen: Outside link: Youtube - current website.
Information: Outside link: Discogs - current website.
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Some general updates on what's going on in my computer life, and the state of this website.
There's some stuff that needs adding and stuff that needs updating.
I still need to make the page for my "new" CRT. A couple of Android devices have been retired from use, like my tablet which died into a permanent bootloop at some point this year. I've also replaced the Sony smartphone with a very old Android phone (running Android 2.x!), because its speaker all but died.
Some minor changes also need updating on what is connected to what. I've also updated all my Linux systems to Debian 13. Also, general specs of most of the machines are still not fully complete. lol
I'd also want to write the software section at some point. I've been putting it off since forever xD
Laziness and general life stuff gets in the way, since there is usually either something else that is of more important priority, or I'm beat after doing my daily activities. I need a specific mood and alertness level to start writing the HTML pages, plus for the spec stuff I need to be actually able to inspect whatever I'm writing about physically, and often I'm somewhere else or in another part of the house.
I mean, it's not like I have an obligation to write any of this. I doubt many people even care. Even if Neocities has any sort of algorithm, I couldn't be arsed about doing regularly scheduled updates to appease it - I don't need a job trying to asskiss a computer program -_-" But still... As I've said, this is more like a personal diary of sorts.
I've been encoding some audiobooks to OPUS. I've got some FLAC files, that I'm converting to OPUS. My recommendation from my testing, for audiobook or spoken word content, at least if there's no background audio for it, is to encode it to mono (1 channel downmixed from stereo, applied -50% volume reduction on left and right channels and mix the mono channel from that). Then use VBR option set to 32 kbps. It compressed the files down quite nicely, and from what I gather, it sounds basically transparent (indistinguishable from the FLAC files in a blind test.) At least on my "ignored-volume-level-warnings-as-a-teenager" destroyed ears xD
System #1 also needs to be dust-cleaned soon... Gotta buy some more air duster, maybe on the weekend... It's hitting its max temps (72c) and thermal throttling, when under a high cpu load. No biggie. It's just something that needs to be done.
The thermal paste on the CPU heatsink also really should be replaced, but I'm holding that one off until it's absolutely necessary, since that system is basically my rock and anchor - I've left it as is for a long time, and it brings me huge comfort that it's up and running just as I expect. So I avoid doing any extensive modification stuff to it. Don't wanna jinx it. I know it's kind of lame, but that's just how it is.
That brings to mind how much I enjoy software that has reached end-of-life, or using versions that don't update and change. Kind of like watching shows that have ended, or playing a video game that is never getting an update anymore. There's something about it that brings distance and comfort. Like it's a time capsule. In this chaotic world marked by exponential and accelerating change, I can boot those up and know that I'll be getting the same experience every single time. All the documentation about it, all knowledge about it, has already been studied, extracted, and made. It just is, theoretically eternally, as is. Must be why I enjoy Debian as my Linux distribution of choice.
Nothing else in life is ever quite like that. All nondigital things are everchanging. Especially everything human, aside from our ancient biological hardware, is changing so damn fast... Societal things...
Maybe it's a sense of control. Agency. In real life everything is a massive mess of interconnected wills and desires, so nothing is ever as simple as existing in a vacuum, where the only thing affecting any given things is what you want to do about it. Old software and hardware is as close to that as you can get, well, as long as you have electricity. (Yes, Joker, we do in fact live in a society. And the BOTTOM_TEXT is a lie - a LIE I TELL YA) Same thing is probably true for things like books, and heck, any old object, even if they're technically constantly changing at the atomic level, if kept in good condition the change is so slow it's functionally not bothersome.
Enjoying old things is fine in my book as long as it doesn't involve nostalgia, cause fuck nostalgia - nostalgia is mind poison.
Things will never go back to the way they were, and the past sucked in ways that the rose tinted glasses always filter out. And even if it didn't suck for you, it might have sucked for a lot of other people. It's an unwinnable battle to try to bring back the past anyway, since it's physically impossible. Every tiny little aspect that has happened since then has a butterfly effect on the future, on everything, and any given "glory days" can have only existed in that specific moment, with all the pieces falling in those exact places. It will never be the same. And that's why the only winning strategy is to embrace change. To move on.
Old things one uses or consumes should be taken as-is in the moment. Never mind how it made you feel in the past, but what can it give to you now? Separate the feelings you remember you had in the past, the feelings you have of longing for the past, from the objects and things of the past. Windows 98 is still a good OS to use, Thief The Dark Project is still a good game to play, early South Park is still good to watch. Did I enjoy them when I was younger? Sure, but that has nothing to with whether or not they are still good, or heck, whether or not they were even good back then. Some things were good back then, but have become obsolete. Some things were good back then, and are still good. Some things on the other hand, were never good, but we were blinded to it because we didn't know better.
Everything taken as is. Re-evalute everything, constantly. Keep only the good parts, and discard obsoletion. This should be applied individually, and societally, to everything. EVERYTHING. Especially to social constructs, as they become obsolete the fastest but tend to overstay their welcome the longest. Say no to stagnation, for the main thing of life as a process, is change itself.
Captain's log, end. Dave signing out.
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