Wed, 16 Apr 2025 05:18:50 UTC
phone battery came in today. i... didnt want to install it. i like not having a phone. i dont *want* a phone. i dont *like* having a phone. i *enjoyed* having an excuse not to have a phone on me at all times. over the few days i didnt have a phone on me constantly i found i spent a lot less time doomscrolling since i couldnt just do it whenever i felt like it, i had to be at a computer. i also found myself using single purpose devices more often, which im really happy about. i love single purpose devices. i also used a notebook a few times?? thats like... good??? ive been meaning to get back to using my notebook and it just kinda happened naturally once i couldnt jot things down on the doom device. okay phones arent *that* bad but like, still. i didnt have enough time to fully explore single purpose devices to find solutions for all the things i needed to do but i used my ipod and a little voice recorder i have so thats neat. the voice recorder came out of an ewaste bin and has been mostly a novelty but its pretty neat! its an olympus something or another and its nowhere near as good of quality as my zoom h1 but thats fine because its not trying to be the same grade. the zoom h1 is more of a professional audio recorder sold as a voice recorder and i would think its primary use case is intended to be for like interviews and such. the olympus is smaller, lesser quality, and has... not less features but different features. its also nugget shaped. olympus v-90, look it up. good lil nugg. i pulled it out of an ewaste bin because it was silly but turns out i love it.
whenever i needed to communicate with people i grabbed my laptop or hopped on my desktop. now, i happened to not stray from a few specific places during these few days so this was a realistic solution, but i was thinking about how i would pull this off if i were going long term. i figure the easiest way for me to achieve this would be to carry a small laptop with me. i do have a tiny little thing, an hp mini 1000, but its not quite small enough to fit in my bag. ive been looking at the gpd pocket line of palmtops for a while now but theyre a bit pricy for me. ive never actually bought a computer new, theyre all basically table scraps. they serve me well. im actually writing this on the hp mini 1000 becuase i pulled it out to update it and just... decided to start writing? idk.
ive been looking at the concept of writerdecks recently and i think i want to build one. the idea is that theyre basically cyberdecks but solely intended for writing. im not a huge fan of converting an existing computer into a writerdeck but i might do it with the hp mini 1000 as a temporary solution. i think it would be neater long term to build something custom. i think it would be extra neat to use a crt as the display. ive always had this idea in the back of my head to start building strange computing devices and bring them to coffee shops or whatever to sit down and work on things. i guess ive sort of done that with my main laptop, a thinkpad r60 from 2006, but i like the idea of going full custom in a nonstandard form factor to turn heads. i think it would be really neat to make a writerdeck based on a commonly available monochrome 5 inch crt with a split ortho keyboard that clips to the sides of the device when not in use. i think that would really fit the purpose built device vibe.
back on the original topic, i think going a few days without my phone has changed how ill end up using it going forward. ill probably start to treat it more like a mobile computer that mostly gets used when im away from desktops or laptops. almost all of my communication has been moved away from sms and phone calls for a while now so not paying attention to my phone while at home should be pretty doable. my phone has also been on silent for well over a year now and that in itself has been a massive improvement on things. not vibrate, silent. combined with heavily gatekeeping which apps are allowed to send push notifications for which reasons has made it so my phone is effectively not allowed to interrupt me.
in the future i would like to incorporate many more single purpose devices into my workflow. i need to get a regular ass watch. all i have are smartwatches, which, despite running a custom os, are still smartwatches. i should get one of those calculator watches lol, those seem fun. just, "oh uh lemme check real quick" *beep beep beep beep beep* "yep, 4.06". doing it on your phone? weve all seen it. pulling out a calculator or doing it on your fuckin watch? power move. also i constantly try to check my watch to see what time it is but i havent worn a watch in well over a year. as far as other single use devices go, ipods are goated as always and carrying a notebook is severely underrated, especially if it has a little pocket in the back. yes i know notebooks arent "devices", no i dont care. they go in the phone replacement single purpose devices category.