This is Joe, from the year 2220.
Date: Oct 25th, 2220.
Hi Internet! My name is Joe Bennett. I finally got around to setting up the Classic Computer Toolkit I got from Helen, a millennial enthusiast I met at the vintage convention earlier this year. It comes with a very charming traditional laptop, one of the classic “MacBook” devices. It also comes with a bulky rectangular box called a “router”, with detailed instructions on how to plug it into a simulation of the classic Internet and everything. The setup was not that difficult, but it really has taken me some time to get a hang of how to use the different interfaces on the screen (not at all like the modern ones — back in those days, it was common for computers to do something completely different from what the user had in mind, so you can imagine the frustration). It’s all in great fun. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a huge millennial enthusiast! Anything from the early 2000s, maybe even up to the 2090s, fascinates me.
The MacBook needs to be plugged into a wall through something people used to call a “brick” charger. This was way before general wireless charging became a thing. Looking through archives of data from the laptop’s manufacturer, Apple, I learned that those bricks were worth a fortune. I’m talking $69.0 at the time (something like $96.30 today). That’s enough to outfit an entire house with wireless charging now. Anyways, I’m glad we had set up some wall outlets that are not just decoration at the coffee shop (once in a while you get the types that want the full vintage experience, not just the looks). They are the funniest thing, you literally plug your device into your building. Also, the laptop talks to the Internet through the long forgotten WiFi, which you actually have to setup manually on the device (no universal neuranet back then). Arturo, a regular at the coffee shop, was marveling at the device when he noticed that the charging brick gets super hot! To the point where it is uncomfortable to touch.
I was explaining to Arturo, and some other curious eyes that had gathered around the MacBook, that it was very common for people to bring a device like this one to a coffee shop and work from there for hours at a time. I find it amusing since nowadays people come here to get away from work. I guess that’s why they say people from the 2000s were always working. Someone’s kid asks, “what are those black rectangles with letter labels?” Oh here we go. The keyboard is one of the most iconic human-device inputs of the time, a natural development from the typewriter days. My engineer friends tell me that they even had ways of representing carriage returns in computers. It’s a pattern I’ve noticed many times while learning about history, people always frame new things in terms that are already familiar to them. I remember Yuto, my friend who’s a very successful engineer working on neuranet, mentioned that this caused problems because different people had decided to represent the carriage return differently. I digress, we were talking about the keyboard. The keyboard was the best way to input words into a machine, and it remained so for many decades. It took a lot of work to get even voice as an input to work reliably enough, and then most people realized it is awkward to talk to a machine more than a few command sentences. The sound of typing with a keyboard is unmistakable, and immediately evokes nostalgic feelings. That’s why I often ask our in-house audio gal to mix it with the ambient music. The MacBook’s is fairly quiet, but we also have a mechanical keyboard in-store that does the proper “clack” sounds. Sometimes people say my coffee shop is half a museum, you can probably see why. Can you believe that back then there were people that passionately collected these keyboards, customizing the keys and feel extensively? I guess before we could directly use our thoughts as inputs, people would find other ways of making the experience feel personal.
After using the laptop for a while, I found a nice blogging website looking through the content that Helen told me to check out, and I’ve decided to start creating posts regularly, perhaps as a kind of personal journal. I’m not entirely sure where my writing goes after pressing “publish” (it is a simulation after all), but it makes it all the more exciting!
A little bit about myself: I was born on June 18, 2175 in New York City, and I have been here since. I own a coffee shop called Joe’s (I know, it is a corny name, but I couldn’t resist), where I spend most of the week. It combines my two big passions: coffee and millennial history. We have all the characteristic elements of an early-2000s coffee shop: the steam espresso machine (a restored la Marzocco machine, actually!), the friendly baristas, and the freshly baked goods. It’s become well known for a truly special experience of a different time. I’ve been running Joe’s for about 15 years now, and it’s been by far the best job I’ve ever had. Because it is located near a hyperloop station, I get to meet people from all over the world every day. I think that’s the best part of my job: getting to hear so many stories and learning so many diverse things. Even though we can communicate with anyone instantly and access humanity’s knowledge with a single thought, it’s never been more important to meet new people face-to-face. I have two kids, Kepler and Ginny, and a beautiful wife Elisabeth. Kepler is the oldest, at 15, and Ginny is 14.
On the first photo of this post, you can see I have decorated the entrance with two posters of space tourism. As per the theme, they are actually posters created in the late 2010s. The Jupiter one was made by NASA, and the Mars one I’m not sure, but it is signed “Michael Murdock” at the bottom. They are specially interesting to me because of how different people’s perceptions of space exploration were like back then. You can see the optimism of the future in each one, especially on the depiction of Jupiter, with hot air balloons gliding around. Of course, now we know that such an exploration of the gas giant would be impossible because of the massive gravity and pressure. On the other hand, the Mars Republic is alive and well, so I would say we have come very far regardless!
The reason I’m so captivated by the past is not that I’m unhappy with the present. Not at all. It is perhaps because the past was so challenging and complicated that I find it so interesting. Most people today forget that two hundred years ago we were facing the great climate crisis, widespread geopolitical instability, and the compounding unintended effects of technology, but those problems were very real. At the same time, it is so heartwarming to find tidbits of positivity, and historical records of the many good decisions that got us out of that mess and into what is now a brighter future. I think it’s important to remember that there was no magical cure for any of those issues, and that what really got us past them was a lot of hard work and tough decisions. Through my coffee shop, and the many conversations I have with my patrons, I share the many things I’ve learned about history, and this blog seemed like a good place to write them down. Since I want to keep the laptop at home, I might install a traditional desktop computer at the shop so people can browse through it! If one of my collector friends has one, that is.
I can’t tell you how excited I am to be finally writing on the Internet! I hope you can join me next time.
/ Joe
~optimistic futuristic~
