💾 Archived View for zaibatsu.circumlunar.space › ~visiblink › phlog › 20190211 captured on 2022-04-29 at 11:46:19.
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)
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I feel like I haven't written anything in quite some time.
So, here are my comments on a couple of different things
that I've read recently.
cmccabe wrote about the replacement of his employer-provided
BlackBerry[1] with a touch screen device. I read that 'rant'
-- and solderpunk's reply-rant[2] -- with some interest.
Unlike solderpunk, I'm not too worried about giving phones
too much attention. I love/hate mine. I love a few of the
functions, but some days hate the connectivity, which is
actually quite minimal in my case.
I have used a BlackBerry for years now. I maintained a
couple of threads on CrackBerry on using the Bold 9900
without BlackBerry's Internet Service, with tips on setup,
apps that work without BIS, creating service books to enable
MMS messaging, and syncing PIM. I moved that information to
my own website about a year ago. I've been toying with the
idea of moving those sites to my gopher server, and may do
so soon. It would involve a lot of gophermap creation, since
the pages are loaded with links, but I like self-hosting, so
it would probably be worth the effort.
As cmccabe noted, it is very difficult to switch away from a
physical keyboard. I also agree with solderpunk that a
removable battery and headphone jack are necessities. For
me, it's not yet necessary to give those things up. I only
text, email, and listen to music and podcasts on my phone.
Calling is a rarity. All I need is the equivalent of a
feature phone. Canada still has well-provisioned 3G
networks, so for now, the Bold 9900 (3G) is still usable,
and BB10 devices (with LTE) should be usable for many more
years (as long as they aren't incapacitated by the server
shutdown at the end of the year). If the BB10 devices do
work after the shutdown, they'll share a real benefit of
BBOS devices without BIS -- in that they connect to no
particular vendor's centralized server system. When I use
the Bold 9900, if I don't actually DO something, it uses
zero data. Days can pass with absolutely no usage. I like
that, for reasons political, philosophical, and economical.
* * *
On an unrelated note, snowcrash, you're definitely not alone
in feeling like you're spinning aimlessly around the wheel
of time. When I read your phlog entry[3], I thought, that's
me. Right down to the 15 years until I can retire. Maybe the
impetus is on us to do something different in our lives --
to break the cycle. I can't think of any other solution to
the endless and monotonous repetition.
[1] gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/0/%7ecmccabe/11-producer-to-consumer.txt
[2] gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/0/%7esolderpunk/phlog/phone-ranting.txt
[3] gopher://sdf.org/0/users/snowcrash/phlog/2019-02-08-0539_THE_WHEEL_OF_TIME.txt