Skwid

Large pile of waffle incoming:

This was the way for me. I spent a good few years trying proper dumbphones, but I always needed an app for something. Carrying two phones didn't work, no off the shelf 'Smart, yet dumb' phone had the particular mix of features I needed.

The best half way house I found was a Nokia 2720, it runs Kai OS (Formerly Firefox OS), so very easy to throw a quick app together and add new features as needed. Unfortunately all the important apps were similarly thrown together, battery life was awful, calls, alarms and messages came through when they felt like it, the T9 predictive text was diabolically bad.

I went back to basic android for a while, tried all sorts of settings and methods to cut back, but I am just too vulnerable to their flashy attention grabbing tricks.

But the e-ink? Hot damn it worked. Everything I actually needed, and just enough friction that I don't use any more. The lack of colour certainly neutralises a lot of the attention grabbing tactics, but I think the real difference for me is the lack of fluidity. It's always just a device, and never reaches extension of self territory. It is truly refreshing how many times I've left the house without it and only noticed a few hours later.

As for manufacturers and quality, I went with a Hisense A9 as it seemed to have the best open source support at the time. It was a bit pricey considering the general specs, but when the screen is the bottleneck you don't miss the processor speed or camera quality. (I actually quite like the lousy photo experience, it feels a bit more like film, or early digital where you just have to shoot and hope it comes out ok)

Despite that, I've ended up sticking with the manufacturer ROM with just a few tweaks. Perhaps its selling all my data to the CCP, but it's rock solid and much more polished than any cheap android phone I've used previously. It's really well set up to get the best from the hardware too, in a way that the lineage port couldn't quite match.

If you think it might work for you, I'd definitely recommend giving it a try.

The main caveat I'd offer if you're trying to reduce your screen time is that it doesn't work if you primarily waste time reading. Reading is a joy with this, and I am much more likely than before to pick up an e-book or finish a long article I'd otherwise have skimmed.

Other quirks of the A9 if anyone is considering it: - The GNSS receiver is atrocious, it regularly fails to get a fix in clear open fields. - It's a small battery, low power phone. I usually get most of a week out of a charge, but one heavy background app can drop that to less than a day. Discord was the worst until stopping all background activity, WiFi hotspot is also pretty brutal on the battery. - The stock OS has a deliberately very limited notification system. Get used to intentionally checking for messages every now and then - Doesn't play nice with non-chinese carriers. Out of the box I had intermittent SMS, no VoLTE and regular call drops. All fixable via shuffling some files around over ADB though, see XDA for the how to - All specs are OK. The camera is OK. The speakers are OK. The processor processes. That's all you get. - Some apps are just not E-Ink friendly. Spotify and google maps are the worst I use regularly. Scrolling, full screen movement, contrast and dark themes are the enemy. They are both totally useable, but it can take more than a glance. - No IP rating, I don't go swimming with it but it sure rains a lot here and I don't like having to care + The 3.5mm output is gorgeous, sounds fantastic with any headphones I've tried. Easily the best of any smartphone I've used + It is very nice E-Ink. Lots of totally useable apps for the A9 would not be so on a lesser screen. + Though I rarely use it, the frontlight is very nice to have and intuitively controlled

pali pona a! ike mi wan li ni: suli pi sitelen lon lipu ni li sama ala e sitelen kama jo. ni li pona tawa sina anu seme?

Nice work! My only complaint is that the downloaded picture is lot bigger than the preview for me, is that as expected or is it maybe making some bad assumptions about DPI?

I do this once or twice a year in a borrowed/hired auto car. Usually about 10 minutes into the drive when I've got used to it, and started to drive more naturally. Approach junction, throttle back, stamp full uncoordinate force of left foot on to 'clutch' pedal, send passengers through the windscreen.

If you disable javascript it scrolls normally. There's also no text, or images, but you can scroll past all the pretty background colours

I don't know what everyone's complaining about, it seems perfectly accurate to me: https://flipbook.page/n/8e369afba8ea4563a739b58105c3c3d8

I suspect the more significant difference here is the selection pressures. Take a good look at any part of a bird and you'll see millions of years of selection for reduced weight. The cost of weight is just so much greater when you're flying. Interesting too that bats tend to have lower neuron counts than say rodents. Did dinosaurs have a more weight efficient brain before flight, or were they forced to shrink before re-evolving that complexity in a smaller package?

I have as much respect for Claude as any other LLM product. Which is to say, approximately none. But if I needed a spark plug I'd walk over and buy a spark plug.

Perhaps some feathers have been ruffled by the insinuation that their favourite word predictor was wrong, but I assure you it's not all of them

When I last had the misfortune of using devops copy and pasting text from a work item would take the background colour with it, though not the text colour. Colleages in dark mode would rearrange some sentences, and I'd be left with black text on almost black background.

Genuinely baffling incompetence

I'm standing my ground on optimal base, but I will absolutely be using those hex pronounciations in future

I'm more of a seximal man myself: https://www.seximal.net/

Perhaps the messaging was different where you lived, but I don't believe any credible professional was suggesting those outside healthcare wear masks for their own protection. Mask mandates are to reduce the risk of others catching covid from you, a considerably easier task for which even cloth masks are usefully effective. There's a reason surgeons masks are still used.

I see a lot of advice being given in these comments, and I find it a little alarming that my own preference hasn't got a mention. Just leave them be? I've had plenty of wasp nests in sheds, roof spaces, garages etc and never had a problem peacefully coexisting with them. Almost everyone I've spoken to about it shares this sentiment, and generally wouldn't do anything about it unless it was in an especially risky location.

I get the impression most commenters here are from the US, whilst I live in the UK. Am I naive to the aggression of American wasps, or is it just more acceptable to kill creatures you find bothersome over there?

Does anyone with experience both sides of the pond have any insight?