💾 Archived View for midnight.pub › replies › 3259 captured on 2022-04-29 at 14:04:29. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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< chasing that elusive N900 successor
I use my phone (ancient Motorola G5s (I think) associated with "Republic Wireless"), oh, prolly something like 99% to play "spider solitaire"....
Semi funny - and almost related - story:
Just a couple nights ago I started running a minimalism fever, leading to deleting apps off the phone right and left, and unbeknowst to me managed to delete whatever was providing the phone's keyboard... didn't realize it until the next morning at work, leading to degrees of hysteria to figure out what of many keyboard providing/related apps may have delivered whatever the OS, because for a while there the only way I could enter text on the fucker was via whatever Google app provides voice to text... and thankfully it's possible to install play store apps from browser tabs, because I couldn't use the play store app at all anymore without a keyboard... ay yi yi....
It actually felt like cruel "reaping what a dumbass sows" punishment. Without it, any app/field needing text input led to some kind of transparent screen overlay showing just the word 'Penti'. :-)
I apparently needed some "penti chorded" keyboard, but installing the one app with that in its name didn't do the trick (even after reboot)... so I left that installed, fucked with some Microsoft "Swiftkey" app.. and I think one more.. and suddenly things were back to how they were.
But, you know... I'm just so fucking tired of being pseudo-chained to such a device. I've been a typist since high school (graduated - brace yourselves - 1979), so to me even an improvement over hunt/peck like "swyping" feels rather "happy horseshit" - and, yes, that *does* imply I detest text messaging. Not a fan of voice to text either, as words are invariably wrong, and having to proofread for and correct those fuckups still feels let's... call... it... "very Fisher-Price"....
I find these devices very empowering if used constructively
If its just for web browsing, then yes - there are definitely better things you could do with your time - but if you use to learn things, to communicate with your immediate neighbours (who might not speak the same language), to read books (z-lib is fantastic...), to practice learning drills (anki is amazing), I can't help but feel that these devices are a marvel to behold, albeit only when they are devoid of all bloat or spyware (which is a hard thing to accomplish in this day and age)