25/02/25 - failed idea

so i've been in the process of disconnecting from the internet and electronics in general, something i think the majority of us here in geminispace can relate to. a big part of this is, of course, decentralising the omnipresent smartphone.

recently, i fell rabbit hole of digital security - again, as many of us have - ended up switched over to grapheneos, and now (mostly) keep proprietary apps out of my main user profile. this has had amazing effects on my mental health and screen time, but still i wanted to go further.

beyond just changing the way i interact with my phone, i wanted to try moving certain things off of it altogether, so that i wouldn't always need to have the phone with me in the first place.

i wanted to try to use a dedicated mp3 player for music. this of course has the extra benefit of no longer needing to pay a subscription, and needing one less proprietary app on my phone.

so earlier this month when i was in spain, i took my chance and spent 8 euros on a cheap mp3 player. i knew it wasn't going to be anything high quality, but i figured it wouldn't matter too much. afterwards i was busy, and didn't get around to actually setting it up.

today, after weeks of anticipation, i finally imported some songs to it and connected my headphones. and lo and behold...absolutely nothing. no sound whatsoever. i took it apart, thinking it might be a simple faulty connection somewhere, but i didn't see anything obviously amiss, except that it simply would not produce any sound.

ah well. i guess i'll wait until the next time a suspiciously cheap mp3 player comes my way.

contact me at: tsukaj@tilde.club