May 10, 2013

• Copper Filled Cables

  I bought this laptop back in 2007 or so, while I was in South Korea.  In it’s day, it was a real workhorse– nowadays, running linux, it still manages to get the job done, but sometimes it shows it’s age a bit.  The internal wireless stopped working one day, after acting a bit suspicious for several months.  No efforts to reinstall drivers or find a software side problem revealed anything.  So right now, I’m using a good, old fashioned 40 foot ethernet cable, even though I’m typing this literally one meter away from the router.

   

  I like using ethernet cables though.  To have something physically joining my computer to the internet feels solid and powerful.  I know that wireless technology is pretty awesome nowadays– in fact, the latency and packet loss is so low on most connections that over the past few years, I’ve been able to play online using the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 without significant “lag frag” issues.  But I’m getting old fashioned perhaps.

   

  I realise that as time passes, I’m becoming more like the kind of old people that I used to make fun of when I was younger.  I’m reminded of the passages from Baz Lurmhan’s “Sunscreen Song” where he talks about nostalgia, and how we remember things to be better than they are now.

   

  I am happy that I can use this 2007 machine, 6 years after he was born, and it still kicks like a mule.  I bought a netbook in 2012 for a fraction of the cost, but despite some of the glam features on it that this full sized laptop doesn’t do, it just doesn’t match up when I want to do something simple: like blog.

   

  The differences are minute.  Everyone’s got netbooks now, including me– [CM] and I both have smartphones, we even have a Kindle and an iPad.  But when it comes to some old fashioned activities, like writing for the sake of it? My old 2007 machine beats all the so called convenience and mobility of everything else.

   

  The first reason is because the screen is just so huge and comfortable.  I don’t get that claustrophobic feeling that I do when I am using my netbook, and I don’t have to keep flipping virtual keyboards on and off on the mobile devices.  At the same time, i don’t feel wasteful with a too huge external monitor.  Here on my 2007 rig, I just feel like things are just right.

   

  
  CM asks me sometimes if maybe it’s time that I get a real desktop, because my papers are only going to get longer, as will the nights.  But writing on this machine, in a way that I’m unashamed to admit, is like writing with a friend.

   

  When CM first moved to Australia and I was in still in Canada, unsure if I’d be accepted for law school, this machine was the one that I patched and scripted to get Skype to work in Linux properly (you might not understand the trouble, now that Skype technology is so pervasive– but in fact, it’s very difficult to get skype to work properly on a Linux machine sometimes).  This computer is what bridged the distance between CM and I while we did a 22-hour time difference long distance relationship for about half a year.  We got onto many fights, I shed many tears over this keyboard.  We also shared a lot of happy moments.  I wrote that very first personals ad by which I met [CM] on these keys.

  I wrote applications and papers on this machine, and I will continue to do so this year as my papers and application season starts up again.

   

   

  I suppose the thing is, like many other things, I get attached to the objects that I interact with.  Not in a collector hoarder sort of way where I get more and more of things– like friends, the closer I become with something depends on how useful it is to me.  Just recently actually, I was using this laptop to do video editing for a Litigation assignment.  Despite being past it’s prime, running linux on it was worked wonders for keeping my machine running lean and fast– so even for some moderate video editing, it didn’t fare too badly at all.

   

  The WiFi did die about a month ago– permanently.  I’ll be sad when I one day have to retire this rig.

   

   

  I think that caring about a thing is important.  It’s what’s missing in a throw-away society where we can get everything instantly.  In my opinion, no, you can’t solve all problems by just throwing money at an issue.  We’re lead to believe that getting something newer or faster or smaller is always better– that’s not true.  That just gives you a different package to deal with the same problems, problems that have head on solutions if only we’re willing to take the time to invest in our ability to deal with a problem, instead of our equipment.  Generalisations don’t hold true everywhere, that’s for sure– but from a sustainability standpoint, would it really hurt us so much if we used something a bit longer before throwing it out?

  • 4:09 am
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