Technology/Retro/PDAs, (sdf.org), 02/11/2019 ------------------------------------------------------------ I like PDAs. Sure, I've mentioned it on gopher, but no one here knows the true extent of my passion. That's OK though. It's good enough to be a fan. Lately, I've been in a rut in life. Mostly I waste time. A few hobbies have fallen by the wayside, and there are some projects that aren't getting done. Life has these times, it's nothing new for me, and it's not uncommon. But even in this rut, I can't bear to let my PDAs die. Today, I used my Psion 3a for a few alarms, to help me manage my time. The little guy is helping me get out of my rut; thanks Psion! If I hit "Menu" and "Info>Usage Monitor" I can see that I installed the current set of AAs on 7/18/2018. Man, way to be Psion, that's killer battery life, even though I've barely used you recently. My Dana.wireless is sitting atop a drum (still!) I haven't been using it, but I do keep it charged. Someone in gopher space recently did a batter mod to theirs, I'm not going to search out the link right now (rut, remember?) When my pack died, I just bought some NiMH battereis, took the old pack apart and soldered the little terminals on. It's a tight fit, but it works. The mod sounds cooler. That battery life is lame though, I have to charge the thing all the time. In the drawer are a few others. There's a T3 that I keep charged (it and the Dana die the fastest,) and a Handera 330 that I aquired recently (it has awesome battery life in the LiON pack!) In the other room there's a Palm IIIc that also has awesome battery life. The common thread here is keeping old PDAs charged even though I'm not really using them much. Why do I do it? I'm not really sure. I want to use them more, I just don't. There are too many other things to procrastinate doing. **** I'm not entirely retro. On my desk I do have a modern phone, tablet, and ebook reader. I keep them charged. I have a tiny Pi (the Red Consensus,) with a wireless keyboard. I keep the keyboard charged. Between these and the old PDAs, I feel like I'm always plugging something in. **** My wife found some article the other day about the social problems that are coming from smartphone use. A researched, scholarly article, likely peer-reviewed (though, I didn't look at it, she read it to myself and the kids; it sounded quite legitimate.) It made me think of the people on gopher (and elsewhere in pubnix) who have either talked about or have ditched their smartphones. Of course, I recalled the fact that I did the same a couple years back. I really, really enjoyed ditching my smartphone. I asked myself why I went back, and recalled that my current work requires itnernet and email all the time. How could I forget? I dislike my current work. That's why I'm trying to write more, so I can have something new to dislike! In my ideal world, I'd have a job that didn't require the internet all the time, and that didn't require a phone except on rare occassions. My dumb-phone excursion ended poorly because I simply couldn't do my work and fish (yeah, that's right, I went back to a smart phone so I could have the internet while I fished. I know, my life is difficult.) Really, though, I would love to disconnect. I'm a big baby, when it comes down to it. **** Reality. Reality is that people have to work to eat. Governments extend this responsibility so that people have to work to sleep in a bed, in a house, or exist at all (closing of the commons, if you will.) I'm no exception- far from it. Life is exceptionally good, but it's still a matter of churning out work so that I can feed the family. I'm not opposed to work. I actually love work, and feel that it is an essential part of life on planet earth. If my current situation falls apart, I'll do whatever I have to do to keep the family going. The very last thing that I want is to be lazy (though, I do that far too often.) **** That's enough rambling for today.