My mind is still running on a Pentium processor.
Apple has completed the "2-year cycle of Mac transition to Apple silicon" announced 3 years ago. As a child, I always craved having a personal computer, though called a PC, but preferably a Mac. Since it was a Mac, I couldn't play games on it, but I could write apps for it and release them on the app stores worldwide. How cool and beautiful!
However, from middle school to high school, I was actually always using an iPad 2 that my dad bought but barely used himself, and later a white iPhone 4S, handed down from my dad when he upgraded, both with A5 processors and 512MB RAM, so barely one app could run in the background. The flattened interface of iOS 7, the first time it was streamlined, was my "80s City pop" fantasy world - fantasizing about that life in my early twenties, mixed with hope and shyness, filled with implications, opportunities and progressive steps in the Phrygian mode.
Ten years have flown by in the blink of an eye. I graduated from campus long ago. In between, a young teacher from Zhejiang University lent me a Nintendo NDS - a Phrygian mode of youth from his era. The charm of Phrygian lies first in its being a minor key, thus not as bright as major, and second in it flatting the second note of the scale, thus having a slightly tipsy feeling from the start, adding some mellowness to the night.
I always wanted to try using lazy, vintage electronic music to meticulously interpret and depict that wonderful era of lying in an air-conditioned room in summer with eyes closed, yet able to imagine the aurora, in the timespan of an album.
However, I never had the patience in the end. On the borrowed Nitendo NDS, I finished "Extreme Escape 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors". I did not become a fountain of creativity after obtaining a bunch of "creative devices" I admired back then either. With the drastic increase in information density, I feel more and more that my brain is becoming vintage - that Mario vibe of forcibly installing SSD and large memory on old devices to make them limp on.
Yesterday, a buddy said he wanted to learn the electric guitar and asked if a 4,000+ yuan guitar was worth buying. I said I didn't know, I only play the acoustic guitar. Then I recalled that I used my first 500+ yuan guitar for 3-4 years, and when it finally could not meet my needs, I spent 3,800+ yuan to buy a full solid wood electro-acoustic that now just lies in the corner of my studio, gathering dust for a period before I pick it up and fiddle with it for a bit on various occasions.
These things belong to the kind that need no upgrading - they won't be forced into obsolescence due to technical advancement. Neither will the brain. Jobs, however, will.
Or rather, jobs won't either, if on the right path. Only labor will. I realized, at a very young age - around sophomore year of high school - that it's not easy for cool people to remain cool. What becomes outdated is an entire era. In that era, people fantasized about owning Pentium processors, using Windows 98, listening to Pu Shu's songs, riding light motorcycles, and slowly crossing over bridges from the railway. In my era, I fantasize about the magic of technology, embarking on a Herbertian adventure. Behind me, new eras are emerging one after another, like waves surging towards the beach, nurtured from the depths, eventually retreating into the soggy sand. And if the first few waves are small, there must be a big one waiting; after the big wave, there will likely only be much weaker ones, having lost formation after being disrupted by the retreating big wave.
At least judging by the name, Pentium doesn't necessarily seem inferior to Intel or Nvidia, just like Commodore 64 can compete with almost any modern computer. SCP-079 only runs on Commodore 64.
When I can finally break free from this oscillation around "development" and "obsolescence", I realize time is just those rows of waves, while I have yet to discover the vast ocean.
But even if I'm dumb enough to not see the ocean, it doesn't stop me from chilling on the beach listening to Lo-fi.
Lo-fi goes perfect with Pentium processors.
Race
July 18, 2023