In a 1990 interview, Steve Jobs famously stated that personal computers were "a bicycle for the mind". A deeply personal tool that could multiply the possibilities of its user, become a trusted partner, an extension of yourself.
I sit in front of a Mac all day and that's not how it feels.
Computers are immeasurably more powerful now than in 1990. My computer can do a 1000 things at once. But I can’t.
I can't focus. Notifications keep piling up, messages and e-mails and entertainment are always a mere Cmd+Tab away. It's like some invisible boss kicked me out of my office and forced me to work in an open floor plan. I want my office back.
I don't want to be notified. I don't need a tour of your new features. I should not need a break. I just want to feel at peace. Content, slow but steady.
The way I feel when I ride my bike.
Yet my computer feels indispensible. I panic at the mere thought of being deprived of it. And it’s so comfortable that I spend most of my time using it anyway, even when a much simpler tool would be enough.
I get angry and frustrated if anything slows me down. Without WiFi and the cloud, I am gasping for air. My hugely powerful Mac is suddenly useless when it's cut off from this huge, sprawling, wasteful infrastructure I have no control over.
That's not a bicycle. It's an SUV for the mind.
this is a bicycle
I have been dreaming of a modern version of the bicycle we were promised. This is not about nostalgia (I remember how frustrating computers could be) nor about ascetism (I like comfort). But raw CPU power and always-on connectivity did not make computers any more comfortable or useful, in my experience. I want my computer to be a tool, and I want to be the judge of what I consider progress.
So I bought a Thinkpad X61s for 40€.
The X61s was released by Lenovo in 2007. The CPU got hot and the fan got loud, the screen sucked, battery life was poor. On the plus side it is a joy to type on, it has no webcam, and a physical switch to turn off all wireless – because at the the time, connectivity was expected to be intermittent.
Most of all it is cheap, compact and durable, repairable and modular. The maintenance manual shows how to replace any part. It is slow, but it can be kept in working condition for decades.
Now this is a bicycle.
What if, instead of buying an SUV, we could retrofit this old bike with a pedelec? What if we could build our own kind of progress and comfort - a progress that would mean focus and peace of mind instead of constant advertisement and surveillance?
hardware
I wanted to give this computer what had felt like meaningful hardware progress (and not a mere spec bump) since its release, while trying my best to mitigate its shortcomings, namely poor battery life and a tendency to get too hot.
software
The goal was simple: getting a desktop OS that would be light enough for the hardware but could still run modern software.
closing thoughts
The tech industry wants us to think of our devices as disposable. They are actually pretty hard to dispose of, and their service life can extend way beyond the prescribed update cycles. I believe maintaining and repairing the hardware we already have is both a right and a duty.
The good news is that modularity and repairability appear to be back in style for laptops. It is a small step in the right direction but it will not solve anything on its own. The power race rages on, while our dependency to commercial online services only deepens.
I am not campaigning for everyone to go buy a 20 year old laptop and spend hours tinkering with it. This is obviously not a very wise use of your time and money. But I wanted to make the point that just about any "obsolete" or "underpowered" laptop can be enough once freed from the burden of always-on connectivity. It's cheap. It's available. You probably already have one. Just get it out of its drawer and embrace its limitations.
PS: Yes, I could have installed Void Linux on my Mac and called it a day. A car sure can go 15km/h, but how do you feel when you get stuck behind one of those pesky cyclists who, bafflingly, appear to be enjoying themselves at such a ridiculously slow pace?
get the zine!
