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Dumber phone

nomasters.io

331–340 of 347 posts

Re: Dumber phone

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just ordered one! "Smartphone" going in the bin.

Possibly too late but make sure you buy the latest 3G-enabled version. The 2017 initial release could only connect to 2G networks.

They assured me it wouldn't be any problem to make calls and send messages because of that.

Re: Dumber phone

#334
post #109
post #44

For me it's the browser. What I did yesterday on Firefox for Android: - installed uBlock Origin (also First Party Isolation and HTTPS Everywhere), - disabled JavaScript via about:config javascript.enabled, - and added .css| rule to uBlock Origin (I would still like to disable CSS entirely, this only half works). Basically I would like to have "links2 -g" [0] for Android. There is also an extension for Firefox to auto…

When the first Motorola Droid came out, I found a "tricorder" app with a lot of the sensor data output with a LCARSish UI. It may have since been lawyered out of existence.

Is there demand for a tricorder app? Sounds like a cool weekend project

Re: Dumber phone

#335
post #109
post #44

For me it's the browser. What I did yesterday on Firefox for Android: - installed uBlock Origin (also First Party Isolation and HTTPS Everywhere), - disabled JavaScript via about:config javascript.enabled, - and added .css| rule to uBlock Origin (I would still like to disable CSS entirely, this only half works). Basically I would like to have "links2 -g" [0] for Android. There is also an extension for Firefox to auto…

When the first Motorola Droid came out, I found a "tricorder" app with a lot of the sensor data output with a LCARSish UI. It may have since been lawyered out of existence.

Trycorder. It is still around, I think I most recently installed it from F-Droid

Re: Dumber phone

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because then FOMO takes over This is the real problem, not the phone or its apps. You need to eliminate FOMO from your life. You'll be much happier for it. I don't have a recommendation on how to do that. For me I came to the realization and acceptance that there is always more. More work, more knowledge, more news, more parties, more potential friends, more opportunities, etc. It never ends and it's impossible to…

This similar mindset helped me break away from playing League of Legends all of the time. Just understanding that I've been through it all and nothing new or different would happen helped me to just move on. I didn't have to accept the toxic community.

I don't know what it is about league, but it seems to attract the absolute worst of people. Most of the gaming communities I am a part of are very welcoming and friendly. I went to a tournament for league once and the team that beat us came over to gloat and remind us of every mistake immediately afterwards. They only stopped once my wife started actually crying from the verbal abuse.

Needless to say, I cut my losses with that community.

Re: Dumber phone

#337
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask any psychologist wether being part of something is a need.

Being part of something is a need, but being part of a specific community is a want.

I'll grant that as a theoretical rule, but most communities are not tech communities. Suppose that you're able to pick one which is not dependent on any undesired proprietary/attention-sucking/etc. medium but is still interested in the things you're looking for. (Many communities are not very fungible.) One day:

“Hey, I like what we're doing, we should set up a group for it to make it easier to keep up with events and stuff.”

“Telegram? That's what everyone else seems to use.” “Yeah, I've already got that on my phone.” “Me too.” “Yup! And I've got this great sticker pack I want to show you…” “Hey, can you show me how to install it?” “Sure, it's easy, just…”

“Awesome, I'll set it up.” (tap, tap, tap)

(Substitute Facebook, or Discord, or whatever else.)

Gradually people just kinda forget to post things anywhere else, because it's convenient and lets them post from their phone and they get all the encouraging responses they wanted there, and so it gradually becomes common knowledge that that's the place. The choice of platform isn't in their community identity, so the default is whatever people gravitate to that doesn't require doing something unusual.

If you don't integrate psychologically with the popular platforms, you're not really choosing to not be part of a specific community, because that's what “popular” means: you're choosing that the set of communities you can explore in the first place is whittled way down, and your membership in any you do find is now precarious. “Pick a community that doesn't do that” not only raises the difficulty at the beginning, but it also doesn't save you later.

Re: Dumber phone

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll be much happier for it, but can you afford it? If you've got the kind of social life and communication you need, great. And I agree that many people who are in an accidental too-much-FOMO situation probably didn't need all the extra tweets and whatnot flung their way and it's mostly junk. In that case, just turning most of it off is a reasonable idea. But if you're in a position where the communities you need…

Are these some sorts of business communities where you're actually working for a tangible reward to further your career? Even if they are, this sounds really crazy and wrapped around an axle to me, if this is your steady state level of interaction, especially if this is multiple communities you're talking about. If you're bootstrapping yourself as part of a marketing or sales push, you can dedicate a time slot to wor…

Ignoring the “business” part of your comment, because that's far from the only reason to want to have broad social ties:

Dedicating a time slot in the usual sense is very socially costly if they've gravitated to a presenceless, fast-moving platform, because psychological consensus and topic closure operates more on the perceived speed of communication of the group. If 90% of the other people respond within an hour, and you get there eight hours later, the conversation's moved on, so if everyone else is in the habit of checking their phone every fifteen minutes, there's pressure for you to be too. So, yes, you can “dedicate a time slot” at the end of every pomodoro, if that's what you meant.

This is more true in “channel”-based environments where “new in thread” is inconvenient or unavailable. If you're not careful, you can even be disruptive. Even on slow-moving, old-style Web forums, “necroposting” is considered rude; a chat-like medium with little to no threading support can just lower the threshold for it from weeks to hours if there's enough activity.

For the other part, I'll grant that “get a word in on something important” was badly worded, though I can't think of a better phrase this instant. I was imagining things like “we've changed the meetup location because someone raised a problem, is this okay with everyone or does someone need a ride” or “I'd like comments on which direction I should go with the next part of this piece” or “I'm going to see if some of us can do X together tomorrow, I want three more people, who's with me”. All of these can easily render your participation irrelevant if you show up too late, and “too late” is by default defined by what's usual and convenient, not by abstract considerations of what's good for people's habit formation.

Re: Dumber phone

#339
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the first Motorola Droid came out, I found a "tricorder" app with a lot of the sensor data output with a LCARSish UI. It may have since been lawyered out of existence.

Trycorder. It is still around, I think I most recently installed it from F-Droid

It's not in the store, but apk's are around.

Re: Dumber phone

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The browser is the time-sink for me too. Unfortunately, iOS makes it difficult to get Safari out of your life. My dream is a content blocker that requires you to unlock it in order to browse the time-sink sites you choose to greylist; and each time you unlock it, unlocking gets more arduous.

You can use Configurator to disable Safari among other things. Had a pared down 5c a while back that I made distration free :)

Thing is, I don't want to block it entirely. Sometimes you just need to look stuff up. Just limit time spent on time suck sites. The real problem is that there's no way to tell the OS to open links from other apps into a different browser that you can add better controls to.
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