Skiddish
Act 6: The Twilight Times
Moving to Brisbane for a short lived attempt at university marked a shift in my technological journey. I arrived armed with my trusty gaming PC and a two-bay Synology NAS, which housed backups of my ROMs, photos, and a movie collection of the most glorius telesyncs and 480p rips. Before long, I would build a media PC with XBMC running on Windows (it was dark times), turning my new space into a mini entertainment hub. Pretty much the only thing I remember about this setup was the cool ‘air keyboard’ which was like a remote that you could move around like a wii mote to move the mouse, and the behind tv lighting which came from the only kickstarter I’ve ever backed.
But life soon led me to reconsider my setup, I had everything i’d wanted but I didn’t feel fulfilled. I leaned more and more in to owning less and travelling light. Having bought a macbook for uni I was ready to move to lighter pastures, thus, I made the decision to sell both my gaming PC and media PC. Meanwhile, my Synology NAS remained, serving as a reliable vault for my personal files and film collection. This setup lasted me years, carrying me through trials and tribulations, I had dived in to OS X. I think mostly because of its weirdly accessible terminal and all the incredible stuff you could do with it.
The transition was more than just a hardware change; it was a lifestyle adjustment. My focus shifted from endless tinkering and modding to optimizing for both function and form. Though I had fewer devices, I still had more than I needed, showing me that sometimes less really is more. Through these years I was learning more and more about macos and subsequently some ideas which little did i know, were deeply rooted in the unix philosophy.