Calm technologies that excite me

令我心动的“平静科技”

I believe that technology should be an enabler, not a subjugator. The tinkerers that love messing with dials and diving into code should continue to do so! But otherwise, technology should help you do a thing and then stand back as you hold the reins of your human experience. I’ll try to write more about this later on. 我相信科技应该是赋能者，而非奴役者。那些喜欢摆弄旋钮、钻研代码的极客们当然可以继续他们的爱好！但除此之外，科技应该在帮你完成任务后就退居幕后，让你重新掌握自己作为人类的体验。关于这一点，我以后会写更多。

For now, though, my main gripe with my tech interactions is how everything has steps. I have to jump through multiple hoops to reach the one thing I want to do in the moment. And even when I am doing a thing, there’s always something else that’s trying to grab my attention — an SMS, a UPI reward unlocked, or a spam call for a credit card. Even when the device isn’t trying to distract me, I now have an inbuilt Distractor 5000 in my head that impulsively checks all communication channels, just because it can. The drawback of having a rectangle that can do everything is that it can do literally everything, all the time. That can be, safe to say, quite turbulent. 但就目前而言，我对科技交互的主要不满在于一切都变得繁琐。为了实现当下的一个目标，我必须跳过重重障碍。即便我正在做某事，总有其他东西试图夺走我的注意力——一条短信、一个 UPI 奖励解锁通知，或者推销信用卡的骚扰电话。即便设备没有试图干扰我，我的大脑里也已经内置了一个“干扰器 5000 型”，它会因为“可以查看”而冲动地去检查所有通讯渠道。拥有一台什么都能做的长方形设备，其弊端就在于它确实可以随时随地做任何事。可以说，这相当令人心烦意乱。

An image of happy times with my Kindle and iPod Shuffle. There was a brief Golden Age I experienced in middle school; I would use a Kindle for reading, my mom’s iPod Shuffle for listening to music, and the family computer for any Internet shenanigans. Time felt more dedicated and worry-free back then, even if that’s partly because I was still in school. :P （此处配图：我与 Kindle 和 iPod Shuffle 的快乐时光。）我在中学时期经历过一段短暂的“黄金时代”：我用 Kindle 看书，用妈妈的 iPod Shuffle 听歌，用家里的电脑处理各种网络琐事。那时的时间感觉更专注、更无忧无虑，尽管这部分原因是我当时还在上学。:P

Replicating that exact setup today would have its own problems, of course — music players would be more useful if they had Bluetooth, and e-readers would be more useful with an independent Internet connection (and without companies locking down the software). But we’ve gotten good at building devices that communicate well with each other, and can do more things when they are offline. What I dream of is an era of Focused Compute™, where devices target one human function and exist as a thin layer to smoothly do that function. 当然，今天如果完全复刻那套设备会有新的问题——音乐播放器如果有蓝牙会更好用，电子书阅读器如果能独立联网（且没有厂商锁定软件）也会更实用。但我们现在已经擅长制造那些能良好互联、且在离线状态下也能发挥更多功能的设备了。我梦想的是一个“专注计算”（Focused Compute™）的时代，设备只针对人类的一项功能，作为一层轻薄的介质，流畅地完成该功能。

What excites me is that we’re already getting there, from new competing entrants to old products that are being seen in a different light due to paths that software unlocks. I would like to highlight the ones that really stick out to me this year, and I’m closely tracking to buy. I also hereby give you full permission to gift these to me if you want. I won’t complain. :P 令我兴奋的是，我们已经在向这个方向迈进，从新的竞争者入局，到旧产品因软件解锁的新路径而焕发新生。我想重点介绍一下今年让我印象深刻、且我正在密切关注准备入手的产品。顺便说一句，如果你们想送我这些作为礼物，我完全同意，我不会有任何怨言的。:P

The Daylight Computer

Daylight 电脑

E-ink is very, very cool. It literally moves ink on the screen to change the picture, and doesn’t need any extra power to maintain the state of that ink. This leads to low power usage and a long battery life, but what I like the most is that these displays can have paper-like textures and still be visible in direct sunlight. They act more like paper that can change content instead of a greyscale display. The trade-off here is that the ink takes time to move, and changing content is slow. This has been fine for reading books, but not as much for anything else. Fast-moving content was left to normal displays, until Anjan Katta came along with Daylight Computing Co.. 电子墨水屏非常非常酷。它通过物理移动屏幕上的墨水来改变图像，且维持墨水状态无需额外电力。这带来了低功耗和长续航，但我最喜欢的是这种显示屏具有纸张般的质感，且在阳光直射下依然清晰可见。它们更像是可以更换内容的纸张，而非普通的灰度显示屏。其代价是墨水移动需要时间，内容刷新较慢。这对于阅读书籍来说没问题，但对于其他用途则不然。快速移动的内容通常只能交给普通显示屏，直到 Anjan Katta 带着 Daylight Computing Co. 出现。

This guy worked on a version of Transflective LCDs called LivePaper, which can still be visible under direct sunlight and maintains the speed expected from normal displays (around 60 frames per second). They’ve showcased it with their first product, the DC-1, which is an Android tablet with a comfy physical build that’s in line with their notion of building a “Calm Computer”. It comes with some homely textured accessories and has a very, very yellow frontlight. I love it. 他研发了一种名为 LivePaper 的半透反射式 LCD，它既能在阳光直射下清晰可见，又能保持普通显示屏应有的速度（约 60 帧/秒）。他们通过首款产品 DC-1 展示了这一技术，这是一款安卓平板电脑，拥有舒适的物理结构，符合他们打造“平静电脑”的理念。它配有一些质感温馨的配件，还有一个非常、非常黄的前光灯。我爱死它了。

“Why not go ahead and get it, then?” Well, the DC-1 is still their first iteration at trying out LivePaper displays and I’m observing it from afar. They also don’t currently deliver to India. And even if they did, the DC-1 is currently $729 USD (which is roughly ₹70,200 INR). That’s a lot for an Android tablet with large bezels and a greyscale screen. But hey, I’m excited for a future where reading blogs and documents doesn’t need me to look at some really bright colourful pixels. Imagine reading out in the Sun with this thing! “那为什么不直接买呢？”嗯，DC-1 毕竟是他们尝试 LivePaper 显示屏的第一代产品，我还在观望。而且他们目前还不向印度发货。即便发货，DC-1 目前售价 729 美元（约合 70,200 印度卢比）。对于一台边框宽大、屏幕灰度的安卓平板来说，这价格太高了。但嘿，我依然对未来充满期待——在那样的未来里，阅读博客和文档不再需要盯着那些刺眼的彩色像素。想象一下在阳光下用它阅读的感觉！

Restored/Modded iPods

修复/改装版 iPod

It was around last year when my YouTube algorithm slowly started moving towards videos of iPods being restored; sometimes receiving storage or battery upgrades. That slowly turned into adding USB-C, then having a custom exterior, and then rooting the operating system to be completely different. 大约去年，我的 YouTube 算法开始慢慢向 iPod 修复视频倾斜；有时是升级存储空间或电池。后来逐渐演变成增加 USB-C 接口、定制外壳，甚至通过 Root 系统实现彻底的改头换面。

As smartphones arrived, music players slowly reduced to either really simple ones with basic playback controls, or really sophisticated ones for audiophiles (by companies like Fiio). The mainstream was left to smartphones, and later on to streaming services like Spotify. I’d been fine with streaming music on the daily, until a few things merged into a giant snowball of reasons to move away from the green Wi-Fi symbol: 随着智能手机的到来，音乐播放器逐渐萎缩，要么是只有基础播放控制的极简设备，要么是发烧友专用的高端设备（如 Fiio 等公司生产的）。主流市场被智能手机占据，随后又被 Spotify 等流媒体服务接管。我原本一直习惯于日常使用流媒体听歌，直到几件事汇聚成一个巨大的雪球，让我有了远离那个绿色 Wi-Fi 图标的理由：

My recommendations all started… sounding the same. It was all the same drums and the same beat. There’s a video on this called “The Playlistification of Music” which I’d recommend. I stopped being able to discover different music unless I really went out of my way, as if Spotify was trying to keep me in a bubble. 我的推荐列表开始……听起来都一样。全是同样的鼓点和同样的节奏。有一个关于此的视频叫《音乐的播放列表化》（The Playlistification of Music），我推荐大家看看。我再也无法发现不同的音乐，除非我刻意去寻找，就好像 Spotify 试图把我困在一个信息茧房里。

I started being pushed more nonsensical music, as of late. Drew Gooden made a video on this called “The Music Industry is Broken”, which talks about how Spotify is literally, genuinely pushing AI artists in your feed — partly because they have created their own fake artist accounts where they earn from the streaming revenue. That sucks. 最近，我开始被推送更多毫无意义的音乐。Drew Gooden 做了一个视频叫《音乐产业崩溃了》（The Music Industry is Broken），讲述了 Spotify 如何在你的信息流中真实地推送 AI 歌手——部分原因是他们创建了自己的虚假歌手账号，并从中赚取流媒体收入。这太糟糕了。

On top of the above point, it’s known that the revenue earned from your listening is split between all artists you listen to, in proportion of your listening minutes. The more diverse your listening taste, the less money each of the artists receive from your streaming. And that’s on top of the shitty way music labels treat their artists through contracts, so Spotify eats up a lot of what would normally support your favourite artists. The final blow was when I heard about how the CEO of Spotify invested a large sum of money into military drones and… 除此之外，众所周知，你听歌产生的收入是按收听时长比例分配给你所听的所有艺术家的。你的听歌口味越多元，每位艺术家从你的收听中获得的钱就越少。再加上唱片公司通过合同压榨艺术家的恶劣行径，Spotify 吞噬了本应支持你最爱艺术家的很大一部分收入。最后一击是当我听说 Spotify 的 CEO 投资了巨额资金用于军用无人机，以及……