Comment by prolikewh0a | Hacker News Reader

Comment by prolikewh0a | Hacker News Reader

I obliterated one of my smartphones last year after dropping it on concrete while getting off the bus. I freaked out, had no clue what to do since I was low income and couldn't afford anything for quite awhile.

For a few days it was like I was an addict, constantly feeling my back pocket vibrating, constantly reaching to check my phone. After a few more days, I felt very liberated. I felt very free. I started enjoying life more. I started noticing how much the world (at least USA) depends on their phones for everything. I would go out to Reddit meetups without my phone and notice times where everyone would have their heads down, checking various social media platforms and not talking to each other. People would ask how I lived without a phone. I noticed how dangerous the distraction is with people doing simple things like walking crosswalks with their heads down staring at their phones. I noticed a lot of the time the entire bus full of people were looking down at their phones, most doing nothing of any real meaning.

After a week or so I learned how to cope without. I would look up directions and bus routes on my computer before I left. I would check my bank account before I left to do anything that cost money. I brought a notebook with me to keep notes of things I thought about and wanted to look further into when I got home. I noticed new things I've never noticed and learned more about the city I live in, especially the streets and landmarks so I could get around without GPS. It noticeably helped my anxiety and gave me a viewpoint of the world that I feel I hadn't been a part of since the first iPhone was released.

I'm not saying smartphones aren't useful, but I strongly recommend to anyone to take a break from their phone. It really is eye opening in very beneficial ways.

that reminded me of how I decided to play Zelda BoTW.

Zelda has a 'Pro' mode where it hides all UI but the health. I was fully decided on using it through the whole game and I think it is the best way to play the game.

The absence of minimap is the biggest change. When you have your minimap is like when you drive with gps. You only wait til the map says you to turn, and after some turns staring at the minimap you get to your destination missing all that was in between. If you don't have the minimap you actually need to understand the map, know more or less where you are, where the landmarks are, and how to get through to your destination. In the end, the absence of minimap makes you learn better the world and the map, instead of relying on the digested info that the minimap gives you.

That is how I accidentally played the first 20-odd hours of Oblivion. I thought the compass at the bottom of the screen was it for nav, and didn't look at the keymappings and notice the 'map' key until well in to the game.

And after the initial wave of feeling dumb passed once I noticed my mistake, I also realized that I was actually having quite a lot of fun playing it that way. Although navigation was confusing at first, I learned my way around the map quite well, and by being forced to just look around instead of relying on, as you put it, GPS nav (a very apt analogy) I had a more immersive, enjoyable experience. There were times walking around where I would just stop and think, 'wow, this is really pretty'. And I am not completely sure I would have had that thought if I hadn't been forced to actually pay attention to where I was going in those early hours of play.

Woah, considering the "exploration" aspect of BoTW, this makes me want to play this game even more.

That's the only good way of playing The Witcher 3. They put lots of ui customization, but the defaults are overbearing, you watch ui not the world.

At least disable the "?" signs on unexplored areas and the path to next quest objective, game is much more enjoyable without them and not too inconvenient.

I quit playing the game 4 hours into the game, because i felt i was just staring into the map most of the time and not being engaged with the game.

I might give it another go, how did you go on about it ? did you just disable most UI stuff ? and is it still acutally playable ?

I left most stuff on, just disabled quest compass (arrows on minimap), gps (paths on minimap), and the question marks on the map/minimap (IMHO it's the most obviously bad setting - it changes exploration from "this looks interesting I go there" to "there's a question mark, let's see what's it about, oh just another smugglers' cache").

When I get a new quest phase I look it up on the fullscreen map and then just go there, it's playable enough. The dialogs describe places where you need to go usually, but not always well enough to get there without looking at the map at all.

I've seen people play with all ui disabled, even the health bar, but it wasn't convenient for me.

The game is very heavy on plot and characters, it has small tutorial in the castle, and then like 10 hours long bigger tutorial area before the world opens up for real, and you have to understand what's happening and who's who at least a little to enjoy it. Game introduces characters reasonably well, but there's so many of them it's easy to lose track.

Also, bonus tip - in some update few months after the premiere they added "alternative movement controls" - be sure to enable that in the settings if you play with keyboard and mouse. It's much more convenient than the default. It makes the animation of movement look less natural, but much more responsive (you can turn instantly instead of making a circle for example).

Hollow Knight drops you into the world with no maps at all, and it's very disorienting. It's hard to find save points, and when you die it's extremely tough to know where your soul (to get your coins/geo back) is located. You do learn some landmarks, but once you figure out how to get the maps, the game becomes a whole lot easier. Every new area throws you into it without a map.

My first question to anyone who says they can live without a smartphone: what do you use for two factor auth?

Depending on the service you are talking about there are quite a few non-smartphone reliant options like SMS or email.

SMS is like having someone shout your second factor off of a rooftop a few streets away, loud enough that you can hear it. There is 0 security on it and anyone with even a modicum of motivation can intercept it without you noticing (ever). This is bad advice.

Email is bad for similar reasons (although slightly less in terms of exposure if you use a good provider).

I thought bad guys could get your SMS only if they manage to clone your SIM or call provider to change the SIM by social engineering. In both cases service on my SIM will stop. Unless they are state sponsored, in which case they can just arm twist telecom provider to give them texts.

Could you please tell how they can sniff SMS without user ever noticing?

SMS interception is hardly a low bar for attackers. If you are being targeted by someone with these capabilities then there is a lot more you have to worry about. Many other 2FA mechanisms would be similarly vulnerable to an attacker with that amount of money and technology...

There are lots of ways, how about a Yubikey

That'd be a great answer. Sadly, it's not the one people I've met who've abandoned their smartphone go for. They don't use 2FA, or they use SMS where they don't have a choice.

I'm all for people taking control of their life, but having a smartphone can have a material impact on the security of the services you use, and abandoning that in order to stop yourself using Facebook as much is a Bad Idea.

Nothing makes me sadder than 2-factor that supports a phone but not my Yubikey. Yubikey is so much more convenient.

At my last job, I begged IT to turn on the U2F feature of our SSO product. Sadly, they did not, even though it was literally a checkbox in the service’s UI. I even sent them a link to the knowledge-base article.

Is two factor authentication something you can't live without, then?

My job requires it, for a start.

I wouldn't be able to do my job or access my bank without it, so I'd say yes, I can't live without it.

I use a VPN and every so often I can't log into my gmail without having a text sent to me, so it's pretty important.

My bank issues a physical token generator, where I have to insert my card, type in my pin, and then it displays the code on a little screen.

You are lucky that your bank still issues physical tokens. My bank started to require its app for authentication a few years ago, but it still offered tokens for presumambly elderly or "luddite" clients. Now it has announced that physical tokens will be phased out in 2019.

Variously: SMS; the "call my landline and speak the code to me" options some systems have; 2FA app on an android tablet; special purpose just-shows-a-number dongle. None of this is great, though. I believe you can run 2-factor-auth clients on a Linux box somehow, but I've never investigated that.

I just by accident and not trying, held onto my hard token and no one has noticed for my main user acct. But my other tokens for different domain accounts administrator accts are on my smart phone. I have it for only that reason. I much prefer candy bar nokia's.

I don't log in to secure websites on my mobile device. When I'm on my computer, I have a TOTP generator available. I do still receive some 2fa via sms, but if available, I always use email or TOTP.

I use sometimes an old Samsung Galaxy S Wifi personally, it's technically Android but it's more like an iPod than a smartphone.

This was really my only problem with not having my phone, but most if not all of what I use will send you an SMS with your 2FA so this could be easily replaced with a $9 flip phone, at least for me, but YMMV.

For work I use Winauth. I am a hourly corporate tech employee with no on-call duties currently so I don't have work Slack or any work 2FA on my personal devices.

I am looking into a yubikey or similar for the future.

I had the same experience years ago when I had to scrap my car. Felt lost without it for a week or two. But then I felt free. It was no longer my responsibility to ensure that a vehicle had fuel, that the tyres were inflated, oil filled. No one could ask me to run an errand that needed a car. I walked more and got more exercise, took the bus more and took a nap on the way home.

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