2022-02-02: Frustrations

I hate throwing away old working things. Especially electronics. There is something deeply unsettling about junking perfectly good stuff. Most of the time I can repair stuff. I’m over qualified with computers… I can run Linux or weirder on it. I can replace components (to an extent).

In the last week I’ve had to throw away two things. An ancient iPod my parents gave me for getting to uni, and another old MP3 player. See Spotify has started to annoy me. Why does it have to load to load my music? Where are all my weird bootlegs collected over my life (oh Apple music ate them…)? Why must I use bluetooth—it lags and I have to charge the damn things can’t I just use my really good old headphones? No. Ah progress.

So hey I saw a little PCB board to get a modern M.2 hard disk into a classic iPod and a hack to add modern batteries! Brilliant!!! Kick it open and futz the mainboard trying to get it in and working (my own damn mistake and a mistake I made a few weeks ago fixing something else). Buggeritmilleniumhandandshrimp. Oh well.

The other MP3 player? A FiiO X5ii that lived plugged into a speaker for years until my partner got *really* into Sonos’s (awful sound can’t hear anything, and you can’t plug a cable in without buying a giant one that also sounds shit and they don’t work unless you enable a bunch of slightly dodgy internet settings)… used it as a DAC for years and then recently… just won’t turn on anymore. Tried reflashing firmware but it won’t boot that far. Maybe the screens gone? Maybe a chip? Who knows.

Argh! It is just so annoying. All I want is to play my own music! I don’t want to stream! I want it to work like its always worked… just drag music on and hit play! I don’t want ads for Spotify’s podcasts or suggestions… just my stuff. Why is it so complex to have something so basic? Frustrated.