Hardware Upgrade

Dearest Rachel –

I hardly need to remind you how, despite having a certain amount of financial privilege by the tail end of your life, each of us came from a certain frugal upbringing. Your parents, despite each being university professors (with salaries commensurate to such a position) never could shake off the effects of the Great Depression, and the need to ensure that they would have ‘enough’ to whether whatever it might be that life would throw at them in the unforeseen future. They imparted this ethic to you, in turn; you were a bargain-hunting, coupon-clipping, hold-onto-everything-because-it-might-come-in-handy-someday saver as you grew up, and those impulses only grew more pronounced as we attempted to weather our own set of storms throughout life.

By contrast, while my family respected a certain level of frugality (which, thanks to various points throughout my Dad’s employment history, including those first few years of starting his own business, where we had little choice but to be careful with nearly every penny, we were occasionally required to utilize regardless of our opinion of the quality), it wasn’t considered as much a virtue by us. Indeed, terms such as ‘tight’ and ‘cheap’ were considered terms of the highest opprobrium that my father (and his father) could bestow on certain people; it was generosity that I was raised to respect and cultivate, whenever possible (and when less financially so, to be given in terms of time and effort).

Moreover, given his experience in retail sales, my Dad had inculcated in us kids the value of quality in purchases. “Never buy on price alone,” was a motto of his, “value is measured in more than just money.” At the same time, even once he got to the point where he was ‘making it,’ from a financial standpoint, he opined that this principle cut both ways; just because a product was more expensive did not necessarily mean it was of superior quality; or, if it was, that the increase in quality (or option) justified the additional expense. My sister and I were expected to be judicious in our expenditures as we grew up; not to pay too little, and thereby have to spend more in the long run to make up for what our original purchases may have lacked; nor to pay too much for something with unnecessary bells and whistles, either.

Because of this upbringing, it’s been a little disorienting these days to have so much more leeway in terms of how thrifty I need to be when it comes to things I might want. This isn’t a complaint, mind you – considering that most people these days have to tighten their belts, this sort of lifestyle adjustment is so much easier (especially since it doesn’t necessarily require any change if I don’t feel the need to be more extravagant) – just an observation. But with that having been said, I sometimes feel the need to let you know about the things I’ve been doing that, once upon a time, would seem to be at the very least, a bit out of character – and, if you were still around, would probably involve some discussion between ourselves.

Now, you might remember that, when I set up my ‘office’ in my parents’ basement, I’d bought a fairly powerful (for the time) gaming computer. Not that I intended to use it for gaming, as such (although there were days that I did spend time doing so; I’m not gonna lie), but because I assumed that I would need a graphics-intensive machine in order to create illustrations and animations for the channel I dreamed of making. And despite that dream never coming to fruition, it’s served reasonably well for those and other purposes that I’ve used it for.

But with the rise in AI art (among other related possibilities) in the years since acquiring it, it’s proved to be less than fully capable of accomplishing everything I want it to in that field. Now, this isn’t an insurmountable issue; I have other, real duties that I deal with at the ‘office’ for which the machine is more than perfectly suited for; so I wind up doing most of my actual ‘work’ there, as opposed to hobby-related stuff (which I consider the study of AI-related functionality to be – at least for me, personally). But if I plan to delve further into the subject of artificial intelligence, I need to have a system capable of doing everything I want it to at some point, or I’ll never learn the more in-depth stuff I want to.

More problematic, however, is the fact that the machine at the ‘office’ is… difficult to start some mornings. It’s been this way almost since I first purchased it (which may be why I got it at such a bargain as I did, it having been an ‘open-box’ clearance item from the computer store); I’d dealt with the situation, at the advice of a tech expert at the store, by effectively unplugging it over the weekends (technically, I would switch off the surge protector/power strip it was plugged into, but the effect is identical), rather than constantly having it leeching electricity 24/7/365 and thus wearing out the system components. It would seem that even a computer needs a regular Sabbath.

But over time, even this precaution has proven insufficient, and it often needs to boot and reboot several times a morning. Sooner or later, the thing is likely to give out on me completely, so I need to be prepared. And why not prepare with something with enough ‘oomph’ to do everything I want it to, short of holding an actual verbal conversation (although who’s to say that isn’t on the foreseeable horizon?).

Which is where I found myself a little over a week ago, looking up decently-priced systems with AI-capable processors. One in particular grabbed my attention, especially since, when I went to the online store, it was being offered at a substantial discount from its normal list price there. Once upon a time, I would have to save up, and check with you about this, but now, I could just place it in my electronic cart, and have done with it. With the money I saved due to the discount, I could even get an additional internal hard drive, which was also on sale – and with 20 terabytes of storage, I would have plenty of room for just about anything (and a good thing, too, as the files used for AI art can get plenty large).

As an aside, I still remember back when I was in college, and how optical disks (what we now know as CDs) were just starting to become a thing. I recall how a colleague of my Dad’s, who’d aided me in getting me a summer job that year, was talking to me about how the grapevine among programmers was trying to figure out how to assemble enough code to fill one of these new data storage devices: imagine how much you could fit into the whole gigabyte a CD could hold! Amazing how everything has grown in size since; soon enough, we’re probably going to be of the belief that the next rung up the ladder, petabyte storage, is hardly going to be sufficient for personal use. But that’s in what might as well be the distant future, for now.

The hard drive arrived early last week, but as the computer itself wasn’t to be expected until this Monday (or would it have been Tuesday, given the holiday?), I couldn’t do much with it – and in fact, I didn’t even bother unboxing it, let alone taking a picture of it. But the night before Kevin’s commitment ceremony, I got an email informing me that the store’s fulfillment operations were running ahead of schedule, and I could expect it to arrive on Friday instead. This was why I was hanging around at home when Tim called about your ring setting having been completed; so as you can see, everything all came together at once.

But this was just the computer as ordered; I couldn’t install the hard drive. For one thing, it required a cable connection that didn’t come with it. Much like how, with our childhood today, batteries were never included, so too in adulthood, there’s always another peripheral that precludes plug-and-play, isn’t there?

Since, in a previous stage of his employment history, Logan had worked at a different location of the same computer store I’d gone for the cable (and had bought the machine I have at the ‘office’), I asked him if he could assist me. However, he simply worked in sales; he wasn’t part of the tech team. He offered to check with an old friend/colleague, but I didn’t press him about it. Instead, I went in to the store yesterday, to see if I could drop everything off and have them install the drive for me while I was out walking with Lars.

It turns out that, since we’ve bought so much from them in the past (and had several computers serviced there in the past), that we were still enrolled in the store’s service program – albeit in your name (and I really didn’t feel like correcting that at the time) – and the installation wouldn’t cost me a thing.

And that’s where things stand, honey. As always, I find myself wishing you could enjoy this new set up, but I assume that there’s plenty where you are to keep you busy and enjoying… life? afterlife? Whichever, I would assume that whatever little joys this earth has are as nothing in comparison, but still, they would be nice to share…

Anyway, until next time, keep an eye on me, honey, and wish me luck. Even though I have this all set up, I’m still going to need more along the way, I’m sure.