Monday, May 31, 2010

The earphone case

Yesterday my dad was going through our old effects and technologies from yesteryear. One of the things that he found from the distant past was my old PDA that I got from the disability student allowance; that broke after a very short time. My dad asked what to do with it; I wasn't sure myself. The device seemed to have lost its functionality. If Only I could get my phone to work properly and then I'd deem a PDA to be obsolete, since my phone functions mostly in the same way. The phone even has a stylus.

Another thing that my dad found were the old ADSL modems, boy, that really brought back some darned memories. Believe it or not we are on the third wireless modem, and at least the 4th or 5th DSL modem. We've taken fast internet for granted in this household, 8 years is a long time; but in a way, it seemed to go by very quickly. Quickly like internet speed, ha ha.

I remember the old Wi-Fi's that dad used to have in the house, the first one didn't even fucking work; but then again, wireless laptops were the preserve of the super rich back then. By generation 2 wifi modem we had gotten a little used to it and my DSA (disability student allowance) gave me a laptop with a wifi modem inside; it shorted out after a while but go figure; it was new.

By generation 3, wifi was a given. Everything is bloody wifi; my phone is wifi; my MP3 player is wifi; even fucking ebook readers can be wifi these days (see recent release of iPad). Tehcnology these days, eh?

The thing that brough it most home to me was a round latex-plastic-y soft thing. I recognised it after a while of my dad holding it. It was a coil, or a wrapping around device for earphones. What really astounded me was that I didn't have earphones that had that coiling thing for about 7 years. It took me back to the days of college. I used to have a CD player, and it wasso advanced it had this unique encoding system that could turn a CD (if customised) into a data storage unit for music that lasted up to 24 hours long. I don't know how long that is in tracks but that was a fucking super charged device, even compared to the MP3 players of that era; which I must admit, were still infantile during the day.

During the days of college I was so busy with my exams and academic work that I lost track of all the technological advances, it only dawned on me by the time I started university how things advanced, and that added to my sense of despair back then. I felt that the world was moving so far forward that I was losing track and stuck in a past that, while by my own standards now was basically yesterday (I now consider last year as basically yesterday); it was an eternity ago when I was still in college.

I graciously accepted my dad's offer of those used earphones. At the moment I use a discarded cylandrical tube (I think it used to keep alka selzer type bubbly tablets) for my earphones. I have decided to use the old 2003 style earphone holder with the earphones that I think I've owned since about 2007-2008. Now those sennheisers, are another story!

I found it nice to write a nostalgia post. I thought this is an insight on how sentimental I can be.

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