Smartphones: C or D?

no species will miss us

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/22/mobile-phones-french-school-ban

right on!

im actually for this

no species will miss us

definitely head lice will. dogs maybe, but they'd get over it.

just got my first smartphone, it's pretty good fun tbh. I got this Map My Walk app though, and walked 10.03 KM's this evening in just under 3 hours, and according this thing I have burnt 0 calories. It's obv not gauging all the hills involved, and how much I'm sweating like a bastard. Unless it's so smart it's been talking to my fridge today.

i've had a flip phone for the better of the last year after about 4 years with a smartphone. the lack of spotify/music streaming in the car does stink, and although my flip phone can play mp3s i just haven't been bothered to load more than a couple of albums on it. i thought i would miss having maps, but ive only been lost going someplace once and i figured out where i was eventually. ive generally taken to looking up directions before hand and either memorizing them or jotting them down if it's someplace totally out of the way (caveat: my wife still has her iphone, so this only applies when i'm driving by myself.)

there is a camera and it's not as bad as you might think (2MP i think) but it pales in comparison to what smartphones can do now.

the flip phone i have does have a basic browser, 4G, and can be a mobile hotspot. this came in handy when i had my laptop with me but no wifi on a couple of occasions. i check ilx on the broswer every so often when im out. more graphically-intensive sites are harder to use but are accessible in a pinch. the inconvenience is nice because im way less likely to mindlessly browse which was the primary impetus for downgrading (that and denying Alphabet my sweet sweet personal data).

tl;dr i got rid of my smartphone and i listen to streaming less, take fewer pictures, and do way less impulsive interneting. now i play more with my son and play guitar more and read more books so it's probably for the best.

Phones are clothes

I’m back on the kick of thinking these little gadgets are evil

They work great if you almost never turn them on.

would ye stop ffs

everyone needs a hobby

Smartphones have been a gamechanger for me. The local taxi company app prioritises people that order with it over phone bookings and the bus app tells me when the next bus is due from wherever the nearest bus stops are - within 20 metres or so. This stuff is amazing when you have an autistic travelling companion.

I am watching the movie eighth grade right now. Gotta say, it is not making smartphones look great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4r9-AmfaDs

the questioners at the end are people my age and they're such assholes. they think he is attacking millennials for some reason.

younger than me i guess-- they're like college kids but this was recorded several years ago.

probly shoulda put this here

"[Someone] leaves a house in upstate New York at 7 a.m. and travels to a middle school 14 miles away, staying until late afternoon each school day. Only one person makes that trip: Lisa Magrin, a 46-year-old math teacher. Her smartphone goes with her.

An app on the device gathered her location information, which was then sold without her knowledge. It recorded her whereabouts as often as every two seconds, according to a database of more than a million phones in the New York area that was reviewed by The New York Times. While Ms. Magrin’s identity was not disclosed in those records, The Times was able to easily connect her to that dot.

The app tracked her as she went to a Weight Watchers meeting and to her dermatologist’s office for a minor procedure. It followed her hiking with her dog and staying at her ex-boyfriend’s home, information she found disturbing. . . .

The database reviewed by The Times — a sample of information gathered in 2017 and held by one company — reveals people’s travels in startling detail, accurate to within a few yards and in some cases updated more than 14,000 times a day."

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/location-data-privacy-apps.html

if someone can extract a transcript of that Mark Fisher talk I'd be interested in reading it

presumably you have to have your 'location' setting switched on for this?

Ms. Lee had given apps on her iPhone access to her location only for certain purposes — helping her find parking spaces, sending her weather alerts — and only if they did not indicate that the information would be used for anything else, she said. Ms. Magrin had allowed about a dozen apps on her Android phone access to her whereabouts for services like traffic notifications.

But it is easy to share information without realizing it. Of the 17 apps that The Times saw sending precise location data, just three on iOS and one on Android told users in a prompt during the permission process that the information could be used for advertising. Only one app, GasBuddy, which identifies nearby gas stations, indicated that data could also be shared to “analyze industry trends.”

More typical was theScore, a sports app: When prompting users to grant access to their location, it said the data would help “recommend local teams and players that are relevant to you.” The app passed precise coordinates to 16 advertising and location companies.

A spokesman for theScore said that the language in the prompt was intended only as a “quick introduction to certain key product features” and that the full uses of the data were described in the app’s privacy policy.

The Weather Channel app, owned by an IBM subsidiary, told users that sharing their locations would let them get personalized local weather reports. IBM said the subsidiary, the Weather Company, discussed other uses in its privacy policy and in a separate “privacy settings” section of the app. Information on advertising was included there, but a part of the app called “location settings” made no mention of it.

she should fix those settings eh

It’s amazing this data hasn’t been abused more than it has. The tech companies could basically blackmail anyone if they wanted to, right?

Ms Magrin could tell her phone to only allow those apps access to her location when she has the app open, like anyone who doesn't want their location tracked 24-7 by anonymous tech companies. It seems she didn't find the notion alarming until the Times told her it was happening?

actually strike that, I can't be bothered to read the article, so I don't deserve to have an opinion

yeah i read the article. I just never switch my location setting on unless I want something to actually access it. So I'm assuming the apps I've given permission to access my location can only do this when the location setting is switched on?

I'm amazed that ppl leave this switched on tbh

https://thebaffler.com/latest/busy-doing-nothing-marz?fbclid=IwAR2fzWOPshz96LHU7UODZMLpdbgomGIOyWBq8hNgnU8I6v2VzW9zjAfB21Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNRqswoCVcM

the relevance becomes clear in the second half of the talk. just ordered her book

she quotes something deleuze wrote in 1995:

…we’re riddled with pointless talk, insane quantities of words and images. Stupidity’s never blind or mute. So it’s not a problem of getting people to express themselves but of providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say. Repressive forces don’t stop people expressing themselves but rather force them to express themselves; what a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, and ever rarer, thing that might be worth saying.

Like

On the other hand, don’t be bored, because it’s absolutely the most exciting time to be alive

deleuze: 'I think we'd all be better off if we were more silent, so I'd like you all to be quiet while I explain at length why I think this is true.'

yeah, we should just give ourselves over to an overwhelming flood of information that leaves us feeling scattered and lost.

what -- your worryposts?

if you feel like thats the human condition now then im not convinced that wouldnt have been your human condition whenever

"are we spending too long listening to bards?"

I need a new smartphone. my current one doesnt turn on anymore, and was a donation. I'm not sure what it is (definintely a Samsung, but i dont know the model, maybe a J4?). Anyway it was reasonably good. I have a crappy Alcatel PAYG as backup but its horrible to use!

Basically i dont want a piece of shit. I'll tether wifi to laptop so battery life is a consideration. Is 3GB ram suitable? is €150ish going to get me something that isn't a piece of shit?

There are some Samsung A6's for around €180 in the shop in the station. What i don't understand is there seem to be lots of different phones all called A6. This is far too irritating. They also have a Nokia 5.1 for around €150. Can i get anything cheaper than this or does it start to be a piece of shit again

moto g, xiaomi or huawei in or around that price point prob decent bets

Thanks, i saw some from the latter two brands. Is that a reasonable pricepoint? I'm worried the cheaper ones are just going to be garbage to use and I really want to avoid any irritation. Some are nearly €1000! unless it comes with more interesting callers I can't imagine what you're getting for that

everything available now

i tend to stay a few years behind cutting edge and unimaginative about what i need the phone to do.

android
decent processor
32gb internal storage
sd slot of at least that again
usb c, decent battery, quick charge a bonus

etc etc, ymmv

I think that describes exactly what I'm looking for! (and i totally forgot about usb-c, good shout). Only thing is i dont knonw what a good processor is (or how to know if it has decent battery / quick charge)

Got my first smartphone, a Huawei a couple of months ago and I really like it, and it was 200 quid

xiaomi mi a2 is worth a look. not underpowered, good quality, easily comparable to phones twice the price in the basics and a few premium touches.

dunno your buying options or location but id imagine €175 gets you 4gb/64gb version which is a good base model to do a few years without falling on its arse

Lisbon - and the shop here has that model for $187. Its now in pole position, just a case of if its in stock!

idk if its already widely discredited or just not that known, but i find trustedreviews do pretty helpful and niche lists to point me towards this kind of stuff so thats worth a look too.

I bought the Moto G7 Plus a couple of weeks ago - about £230 sim free. Decent smartphone at that price. You can get the G7 Power which has huge battery life for about £170.

Previously had the G5 which is still going strong and has been passed on to my daughter.

i had a g....2 i think back in about 2014 and it was a beast for the money alright, if i see a g6 even on offer in the next while id prob jump

idk if its already widely discredited or just not that known, but i find trustedreviews do pretty helpful and niche lists to point me towards this kind of stuff so thats worth a look too.

― deemsthelarker (darraghmac),

Part of my problem with this is the dizzying array of options is overload. Worten has 42 pages of smartphones! I'd try trustedreviews but thats just going to be more overload! I just want someone to tell me what phone to buy. At the end of the day, this has now happened and I'm going to (try and) buy a xiaomi mi a2!

nah listen, thats the thing, theyve prob got a list that sets out 'ten best budget android phones to buy 2019" or and end of year "best android budget phone" and maybe only one or two in that price bracket, and the full review will break down what it is and isnt good at, so its more a "three options, and in depth look for what might suit you" site- thats how i find it anyway

anyways, there yare youve enough to go on id say

Is everything 'sealed body' or whatever it's called now? I deliberately got the most recent phone where you can take the back off, take the battery out etc if it goes wrong as I'm wary of not being able to do this, but it's getting a bit past it now. or am I worrying about nothing?