Amaze Amaze Amaze

I have something to share.

"What's two plus two?" 

-Ryland Grace's computer system, Project Hail Mary

The above quote is the opening line of my new favorite movie. It pretty much sums up how I've felt interacting with technology this week. I've learned a bunch of super niche, random knowledge that I will never ever need to know unless I'm held at brain-point by an AI who says, "If you can't tell me what a bootloader does, I'm gonna end you right here because I know you don't care". Naturally, I'll explain what I mean by this, and why you shouldn't care at all and simply be entertained.

Many years ago, we moved to Lindon. Our lame-ahh seller took everything needed to power the home audio system we used to have, except the speakers. Why you would take everything except the part that makes the sound, I have no idea. I was thus given the speakers, since we had no use for them without the rest of the system. I looked them up, and discovered they weren't just any old set of speakers—they were audiophile speakers. Audiophile speakers are meant for audiophiles: people who care wayyy too much about creating the highest quality sound possible. In other words, I have a pair of super-high-end speakers.

I knew I wanted to figure out how to use them. Sometimes I play guitar through my computer (yes, you can do that), but my Macbook speakers make it sound sad. These would be a huge upgrade. Plus, I could listen to music that actually sounds right. I started researching. I quickly made a discovery. I had no idea that the world of speakers was so complicated. I assumed you just plugged them into the aux cord and they made noise. Nope. Not even close. Turns out you need an amplifier (I should've guessed), which has several really important specifications you must understand to prevent blowing the speakers up. I learned about impedance—pronounced im-PEED-ance, not im-puh-dence, made that mistake—and wattage minimums and maximums. I figured out what type of amplifier I needed for the speakers I had. Unfortunately, they are very expensive.

I did the scrappiest thing I knew how to do. I went to the BYU Surplus sale, and overheard an employee saying it was the busiest one he'd seen in years. Of course that would be the one I went to. They have soooo much random stuff in there. It was kinda cool to see a bunch of old technology just collecting dust cause nobody knows how to use it. Well, not everyone. I pretend to. I found a few amplifiers and looked them up. It turns out BYU had some extremely high-end amplifiers, although they were a bit dated. They would (hypothetically) work with my speakers. I bought the amplifier and a really weird cable for $20 and brought it home.

I quickly realized the giant metal box I purchased had absolutely no controls, meaning everything it outputted would be at full power. Not good for me. I learned that I needed a preamp to control the signal going into the amplifier. The amplifier turns the music's electrical signal into the voltage that moves the diaphragms inside my speakers. Luckily, I already had one of these, ironically, for playing guitar through the computer. This time, I would be turning computer-speak into sound, not sound into computer-speak. I bought speaker wire, hooked everything up, and prayed that a fire wouldn't start instantly upon hitting the power button. I connected my computer, opened a song... silence. I could hear static, but that was it. I found out about this really weird thing where playing dual-channel audio compressed to mono cancelled any symmetrical sound out completely. I was testing a song through a different input method, and for some reason all the vocals were totally gone. Vocals are recorded at the center of the mix, so they play the same amount in the left and right channels. When those signals travel down their wires and get smashed together into one signal, they completely annihilate each other, leaving only silence. Weird.

Long story short, after several hours of bashing my head in, I determined my Mac had a software bug that was preventing it from outputting any sound to a USB device. Absolute ragebait. I tested so much useless stuff. I brought the whole setup back to my apartment, wired everything up, plugged in my other computer... and of course it worked perfectly, first try. Now I have the most beautiful sounding set of speakers I've ever heard. Sabrina in 4K.

I've been scouring Facebook Marketplace, KSL, and Ebay for the last 18 months, keeping an eye out for my holy grail of computers: the Macintosh SE. This computer is from 1987, and I love the way it looks. I like that computers used to be made to make life easier, not harder. They were tools for a very specific purpose and only did what they were meant to. Although I love modern computers, we've lost some magic by making them too useful and feature-rich; now it feels like I can't do anything without a power cord plugged in. I'm not actually free, I rely on six foot copper wires. Anyway, I found one for sale. A guy in American Fork was selling one with a working keyboard, mouse, and internal SCI. I bought it. It looks stunning on my desk.

I have big plans for this device. I need to flash an operating system, and I think I'm gonna buy a really specific tool to make that easier. I want to be able to talk to the 1987 Mac and control my 2026 Mac Mini. I want to be able to ask questions to AI through the vintage computer. Guess what? It's doable. Turns out that serial connections have barely changed in 50 years. With a null modem, my Mac Mini can talk to my Mac SE and vice versa. This complicated sounding adapter connects the listening port of one computer to the talk port of the other. This lets me send data between devices, which means I can control one with the other. I am extremely excited about this. Learning to interact with these old computers teaches me why new computers work the way they do, and I have learned so many tiny things I would have never known otherwise.

Speaking of computers, my full-time research starts soon. I think I've decided on what I'm going to study, and you might be a bit surprised. I am too, but the more I think about it, the more right it feels. I think I'm going to study quantum computing (duh) as a tool to model climate change (huh?).

I also had a meeting this week with a guy starting a roofing company. He wants me to join as a founder and help him with the tech side of things. He's confident in his ability to sell the product, but he needs someone to build the technical aspects of the business. The tool we'd build would scan roofs and connect contractors to homeowners, particularly through automated texts. This does solve a problem, and I think I'd like building something like that. However, it feels kind of like just another way to get rich. As much as I want to get rich and have a giant mansion and five yachts, I would much rather work on something that helps heal the world. Bothering people to get their roof replaced so that I can make a cut of the profit? That doesn't fix anything. That doesn't make the world better for the next generation. Developing quantum models to combat excessive carbon in the atmosphere? That does. That might save the world from ourselves. There are enough people making lots of money and doing nothing useful with it. I feel like I should try to figure out a way to use my talents to benefit other people and hope that the green compensation comes as a side benefit. I do however have to eat every day, unfortunately, so I will have to find some way to supplement my schooling.

I think that's all from me tonight. My eyes are tired and I'd like to go to sleep.

will