After Being Reborn, I became a firefighter again?

Chapter 511: Chapter 409: What are Multiple Types of Disasters and Major Emergencies? (6K2)

Fang Huai was also shouting fiercely.

Dota, after playing only two rounds, he didn’t want to play anymore.

In fact, he had stopped playing this game in his mid-twenties before his rebirth. He got everyone into it because he noticed too many were playing pay-to-win games and he didn’t want them to waste money. Moreover, he could find a trace of familiarity from before his rebirth in these more traditional games.

But the true hallmarks of the new era had already arrived.

In the afternoon, a little after three, he took a leave to go out and bought two iPhone 3Gs, sending one to Yang Shaoqing.

He had wanted to buy the first generation, having grown accustomed to full-screen phones. But with no other choices at the time and the first generation not even supporting 3G, it seemed unnecessary.

2008, China was changing, and so was the world.

As Fang Huai went to buy the phone, he also carefully observed which technologies he needed and how far they had developed.

The cell phone is the great fusion of recent industrial technology advancements; nothing represents the last 30 years of technological development better than it.

He went out to buy a cell phone, but in reality, he was looking for inspiration.

Yet after making his rounds at the mall, Fang Huai felt a bit distressed.

The gap from what he wanted was quite large.

Everyone was still obsessed with design.

At that time, visiting a cell phone retail space would show you what artistic creativity run amok looked like; it felt like you were entering an aquarium with all the colorful, thick bricks, flip phones with rotation, sliding phones with rotation, slide-out keyboards, slide-out side keyboards, screens on both sides with a big spinning motion...

They touted their uniqueness with slogans like "the front wheel doesn’t turn but the back wheel does", making a communication tool as complicated as a Luban lock— the more complex, the more awesome.

Some even started embellishing phones with gold trim for gimmicks.

When he visited the store, he actually saw a bunch of young people marveling at a Motorola 2002 V70 model upgrade, the Aura, calling it a revolutionary product with a small, round screen the size of a watch, featuring a rotary function, all for 16,000 yuan.

There was also a gold-plated version, with the whole device weighing 170 grams, priced at 25,000 yuan.

This year the price of gold fluctuated around 200 yuan. Forget gold plating, with 25,000 yuan, 125 grams, you could make a pure gold phone casing.

You could outright rob people, and still give them a phone— what a kind-hearted person.

In an age where a cellphone could still symbolize status, many were dazzled by the plethora of cool designs, trying to find the right one that fit their ideals. But what happened was, they’d buy one today, and tomorrow an even more explosive design would come out, leaving everyone worn out from trying to keep up.

Old Joe took a different approach with simplicity as the ultimate sophistication, putting an end to the chaos. He reset the design mindset and finally steered the competition in cell phone design towards the internal core.

At least, the money customers put into cell phones was promoting industry and not just art.

Without getting into national barriers, Apple’s annual rapid updates have made a significant contribution to the entire world’s electronics industry.

Of course, the domestic cell phone market at the time did not really consider national borders. China’s electronic consumer goods were still in an era of wholesale imitation. ZTE, Coolpad, and Bird were still developing products targeted at the middle-aged and elderly markets; they hadn’t even begun to appeal to younger consumers.

Too bad, no 3G cards. In April, China Mobile launched a 3G network trial in eight cities, but it wouldn’t be until after New Year’s Day that the three main operators would begin to roll it out nationwide.

The pace of the times was crystal clear with the purchase of a cell phone.

Fang Huai signed up for a 12 yuan music package which included 50MB of data. The internet speed was frustratingly slow, QQ had yet to arrive on the iPhone system, games needed to be purchased, and they were quite expensive—one game was 9.99 US dollars.

Damn, at this time, the father of Android— the Linux system, as well as the Symbian and Microsoft systems, were all on QQ 2008 Olympics edition. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

These past two years, in the realm of software ecosystems, apk is the true king.

Fang Huai could only study the 2-megapixel camera for a while, feeling it could be useful for taking photos and preserving evidence at a fire scene, essentially serving as a portable camera.

It was just missing the video recording feature, which left him slightly disappointed.

After playing with it for a while and losing the sense of novelty, he then called Brother Yang.

Yang Shaoqing was receiving such an expensive gift from Fang Huai for the first time; 3950 yuan. She hesitated for a long time until Fang Huai mentioned he had also bought a couple’s phone sticker to go with it, which he’d use himself, and only then did she shyly give a peck and agreed to accept it.

The phone was expensive, but with the addition of a couple’s sticker, it gained an ideological label and became priceless.

...

In the evening at the Squadron Department entrance, a whistle sounded.

"Everyone! To the Party and Government meeting room, assemble!"

"Damn, a meeting on the fourth floor?"

Zhao Jinchen immediately shouted, "Who is responsible for cleaning the Party and Government meeting room? It hasn’t been used in a while, right? Hurry up and clean it!"

"It’s Squad Leader Fang’s area!"

The fourth floor, aside from the gym, was hardly used for anything else, so the cleaning areas there were almost all assigned to the Old Soldiers, needing only to be cleaned once every week or two.

The Party and Government meeting room was locked up all year round. Such a gold-standard cleaning area that was cleaned maybe once every month or two could only belong to an older squad leader like Squad Leader Fang.

The most awesome cleaning area in the whole Squadron was the storage room at the very end of the 1.5-story corridor in the Communication room. It probably wouldn’t have its door opened even once in a year.

That area was the Logistics Officer’s.

He probably didn’t even know about it himself.

"...A few new recruits, hurry up and help Squad Leader Fang clean, march there on the double, quick quick quick!"

At that moment, laughter was heard, "Why bother cleaning the mess, just start the meeting. Come on, upstairs."