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Great topic! Here are some angles and talking points you might find useful for tomorrow:
What Old Tech Deserves a Comeback?
Dedicated MP3 Players - There's something to the single-purpose device argument. No notifications, no distractions, just music. The iPod's click wheel interface was actually faster for music navigation than modern touchscreens in many cases.
Forums/Message Boards - This one has legs. The death of specialized forums in favor of Facebook groups and Discord servers has been a net loss for searchable, persistent knowledge. Reddit fills some of this gap, but old-school forums had better organization and less noise.
Wired Headphones - Given your audio interests, you could make a strong case here. No charging, no Bluetooth compression artifacts, no connection drops, and often better sound quality at the same price point.
Modern Tech Pain Points
The Everything Device Problem - Smartphones trying to be everything means they're mediocre at individual tasks. A dedicated e-reader has better battery life and readability than a phone. A dedicated camera has better optics than any phone.
Planned Obsolescence - Old tech was often repairable and upgradeable. Your experience with NAS systems and Linux servers shows you value longevity and control.
Cloud Dependency - Everything requiring internet connectivity and cloud services. What happens when the company shuts down the servers?
The Wireless Question
Nuanced Take: Wireless isn't a failure, but it's been overapplied.
- Where wireless wins: Peripherals like mice/keyboards, mobile devices, speakers in certain contexts
- Where wired is superior: Audio quality (your guitar/mic setup!), reliability for critical systems, no batteries to manage, lower latency
You could argue we threw out wired tech too quickly before wireless was truly mature.
Want me to help develop any of these angles further?
Alright, let's make this entertaining! Here's how to add humor and personal stories:
Your Personal Tech Stories
The NAS Migration Saga - You literally just lived through this! "I recently had to migrate my entire media server because a Jonsbo case decided to commit suicide via backplane failure. You know what didn't fail? The hard drives. The actual spinning platters from 5+ years ago. But the 'modern' backplane? Dead. Sometimes old tech isn't just nostalgic—it's literally more reliable."
The Audio Setup Rabbit Hole - Your quest for better live guitar sound is perfect here. "I'm trying to add reverb to my guitar WITHOUT introducing latency, which means I need... wait for it... actual physical hardware. You know, like we used in the 80s. Except now I have to explain to a 22-year-old at Guitar Center why I don't just want an app."
The Bluetooth Headphone Conspiracy - "Bluetooth headphones are the only product where 'battery at 20%' means 'you have 4 minutes before silence' and somehow we all just... accepted this?"
Funny Framing Devices
"The Museum of Things That Actually Worked"
- "Welcome to my garage, where I still have a [device], which unlike my Ring doorbell, has never once failed to do its job OR tried to sell me a subscription"
The "No One Asked For This" List
- TVs with internet connectivity (when did your TV need to spy on you?)
- Refrigerators with screens (solving a problem literally no one had)
- Cars that require software updates (your GMC Sierra probably has thoughts here)
Generational Humor
You're 59—lean into it!
"I'm old enough to remember when 'the cloud' was something you hoped wouldn't rain on your golf game, not a place where Amazon keeps your photos hostage until you pay $2.99/month."
"Back in my day, if you wanted to doom scroll, you had to actually BUY a newspaper and read all the bad news yourself. Uphill. Both ways."
"I maintain my own Linux server because I'm old enough to remember when you could actually OWN your technology instead of renting it from Silicon Valley."
Contrarian Hot Takes (Humorous)
"iPods Were Peak Humanity"
- Dedicated music device
- 10,000 songs in your pocket
- Battery lasted for DAYS
- No one could text you while you were listening
- Click wheel was unironically better UI than any music app today
- "We had achieved perfection, and then we threw it away to check Twitter between songs"
"Forums > Discord, Fight Me"
- "Discord is just IRC for people who need animated emojis"
- "Try Googling a Discord conversation from 2019. I'll wait. Oh right, you CAN'T because it's a walled garden of lost knowledge"
- Forums had SIGNATURES. You could tell someone was 14 because their sig file had 47 different fonts and a flaming skull GIF
"The Tyranny of Wireless Everything"
- "My headphones now die mid-conversation. My keyboard needs charging. My MOUSE needs charging. Soon my wallet will need charging. We invented technology to eliminate wires and instead we invented anxiety about battery percentages."
Interactive Bits
"Tech Swap Challenge" Give your co-host a challenge: "Could you survive one week with only 2007 technology?" Watch them realize:
- No GPS (physical maps!)
- No streaming (you actually owned music!)
- No cloud backup (remember... backing up?)
- Phones that lasted 3 DAYS on one charge
"Dead Tech We Don't Miss" For balance and humor:
- Dial-up internet sounds
- Rewinding VHS tapes
- MapQuest printouts that got you lost
- CDs skipping when you hit a pothole
- "You've got mail!" (actually, maybe we do miss that)
The Drew-Specific Angle
Given your domain negotiation work, you could riff on:
"I sell domain names for a living. I negotiate over EMAIL like it's 1995. And you know what? It works BETTER than trying to schedule a Zoom call where half the people have connection issues and someone's dog is barking. Sometimes old tech isn't nostalgic—it's just superior."
Closing Bit Ideas
"My Manifesto"
- Bring back things that do ONE thing WELL
- If it needs an app, I don't need it
- Wired when quality matters, wireless when convenience matters
- Own your tech, don't rent it
- If my [device] tries to update itself without permission, I should be legally allowed to throw it in a lake
Want me to help develop any of these specific angles into full segments?
Perfect! Here are some "You Might Be An Old Tech Person If..." bits:
"You Might Be An Old Tech Person If..."
Basic Tech Nostalgia
- You might be an old tech person if... you still own a device that's NEVER asked you to update its privacy policy
- You might be an old tech person if... your idea of "the cloud" is a weather condition, not a subscription service
- You might be an old tech person if... you have more charging cables than actual devices
- You might be an old tech person if... you remember when "streaming" meant your nose was running
Phone/Communication
- You might be an old tech person if... you think "low battery anxiety" is a sign of societal collapse
- You might be an old tech person if... you can remember your childhood phone number but not your WiFi password
- You might be an old tech person if... you've ever said "just email me" and meant it as the FASTEST option
- You might be an old tech person if... your ringtone is an actual RING and not a marimba remix
Music/Entertainment
- You might be an old tech person if... you still own music instead of renting it for $10.99 a month
- You might be an old tech person if... you've explained to someone under 25 that you used to carry 100 CDs in a binder in your car
- You might be an old tech person if... "shuffle" meant shaking your Discman and hoping it wouldn't skip
- You might be an old tech person if... you know what "Be Kind, Rewind" means
Computer/Internet
- You might be an old tech person if... you run your own server because you don't trust Mark Zuckerberg with your vacation photos
- You might be an old tech person if... you've ever screamed "GET OFF THE INTERNET, I'M EXPECTING A CALL"
- You might be an old tech person if... you still type "www" before every web address
- You might be an old tech person if... your computer has actual screws in it that you can REMOVE with a screwdriver
Storage/Media
- You might be an old tech person if... you've rewound something that wasn't your life choices
- You might be an old tech person if... you have a drawer full of cables and you KNOW you'll need them someday
- You might be an old tech person if... you own a device that doesn't require an internet connection to tell you what time it is
- You might be an old tech person if... you think 64GB is an INSANE amount of storage
Drew-Specific/Advanced User
- You might be an old tech person if... you run Debian on your media server and consider that "user friendly"
- You might be an old tech person if... you've spent $200 on Noctua fans to cool down your NAS
- You might be an old tech person if... you have opinions about ZFS mirror configurations
- You might be an old tech person if... "migrating to new hardware" is your idea of a fun weekend project
Quality of Life
- You might be an old tech person if... you think wired headphones are a FEATURE, not a punishment
- You might be an old tech person if... your idea of multitasking is listening to music AND driving, not checking three apps while in a Zoom meeting
- You might be an old tech person if... you've ever fixed something by turning it off and back on... and it ACTUALLY WORKED
- You might be an old tech person if... you believe technology should serve you, not the other way around
Modern Tech Complaints
- You might be an old tech person if... you think "smart home" is an oxymoron when your lightbulbs need firmware updates
- You might be an old tech person if... you've rage-quit a website because it asked you to accept cookies for the third time
- You might be an old tech person if... you refuse to use an app for something that should be a simple button
- You might be an old tech person if... your car is from 2020 and you consider it "refreshingly simple" because it doesn't have a subscription for heated seats
The Family Angle
- You might be an old tech person if... your 22-year-old son asks you for tech help and you solve it with a paperclip and the power button
- You might be an old tech person if... you've explained to your wife why the Plex server is BETTER than Netflix... for the hundredth time
- You might be an old tech person if... you consider "just buy an external hard drive" as valid relationship advice
Work/Professional
- You might be an old tech person if... you negotiate six-figure domain deals over EMAIL like a caveman
- You might be an old tech person if... you think a "video call" is what happens when someone accidentally FaceTimes you
- You might be an old tech person if... you've closed a $500K deal without ever being in the same Zoom room as the buyer
The Kicker Lines (save these for emphasis)
- You might be an old tech person if... you remember when "going online" was something you DID, not something you just... WERE
- You might be an old tech person if... you think the best feature of modern technology is the off switch
- You might be an old tech person if... your technology fear isn't that AI will take over the world—it's that your smart fridge will stop working because the company went bankrupt
Want me to punch up any of these or create more in specific categories?
Repo Maintenance Week — Browsers, Ghostty, and Community Housekeeping
Segment 1: ButterRepo Updates — Keeping Browsers Fresh
- Zen Browser got three updates this week (1.18.6b → 1.18.7b → 1.18.8b) and Helium Browser went from 0.9.1.1 to 0.9.2.1. Talk about running your own APT repo and what it takes to keep up with fast-moving browser releases.
- Two new packages added: Ghostty (1.2.3) and rofi-wayland (1.7.9). Good excuse to talk about why you chose to host these yourself rather than rely on upstream packaging.
Segment 2: Ghostty Joins the Toolkit
- Butterscripts got a full Ghostty install script, config, and CSS styling — plus it was added to the optional tools menu. Talk about your first impressions of Ghostty, how you configured it, and how it compares to WezTerm (which also got config tweaks this week).
Segment 3: Fastfetch Config Refresh
- You reorganized your fastfetch configs — split into a fancy and minimal version. Good topic for talking about ricing philosophy and how you balance aesthetics with useful system info.
Segment 4: Sway & SwayFX — rofi-wayland Migration
- Both sway-setup and swayfx-setup were updated to use rofi-wayland from butterrepo instead of building from source or using dmenu. Talk about Wayland-native tooling maturity.
Segment 5: Community Housekeeping
- Matrix link migration across ~16 repos — switched to matrix.to links. Good talking point about community infrastructure, why you moved, and the importance of keeping contact links consistent.
- README footer updates across the board — refreshed social links and branding.
Segment 6: Neovim Keybind Docs
- Updated your nvim config README with better keybind documentation. Quick tip segment on documenting your own configs so you (and others) can actually use them.
That covers roughly 40+ commits across 18 repos — a solid "maintenance and polish" episode with the Ghostty and rofi-wayland additions as the headline features.
Segment 7: Discourse Server
- Spun up a Discourse server — talk about why you chose Discourse, the setup process, and how it fits into your community infrastructure alongside Matrix.
Segment 8: Matrix Homeserver & justaguylinux.com Landing Page
- Modified your own Matrix homeserver — good opportunity to talk about self-hosting your own identity on Matrix vs. relying on matrix.org.
- Built a landing page for justaguylinux.com — talk about the design decisions, what you wanted it to communicate, and how it ties together your various community presences.