Orbs, mostly. Sometimes spheres.
I tried that and found myself pondering the cylinder whose height is its diameter. Half way, you might say, between orb and cube, but is neither. The orb would fit inside it and it would fit inside a cube of similar height three different ways.
You’re probably only afflicted by this madness because it is your cake day. Congratulations!
Sometimes it feels like we’re running in rhombicosidodecahedrons
Whether I’m really going to be able to give up my smartphone lol. I just bought a “dumb” phone and am embarking on a 30-day experiment where I use that as my daily driver.
When I tried that, it lasted me for almost a year and a half, when I got a second job that required MFA and I needed to be more online in general due to juggling two jobs. And it was amazing!
What I eventually did however was to get a dumb phone that can do a wifi hotspot, and still carried my smartphone but without simcard and net access, and powered off. When I really needed to get a taxi or look up a way home when I overslept drunk on public transport and ended up who knows where, I could always just fire up hotspot, power on the smartphone and do stuff I needed. Cause when that happened first time, it was when I first realized how much dependent I am on smartphone and net access.
Thanks for reminding me, I just quit one of the jobs and I can afford to be more offline, so back to the dumb phone I go! Convincing my GF again that she has to text me instead of using discord will be hard, though … Or explaining that I really cant look up the fact she wants, or call a taxi quickly…
I still have a python bot that forwarded discord messages to my own bare html website, so I can chat with her with the basic web browser of the dumb phone.
What I eventually did however was to get a dumb phone that can do a wifi hotspot, and still carried my smartphone but without simcard and net access, and powered off
Literally my plan, lol. This one does hot spot, and I’m planning on keeping my old phone in my bag (rather than on my person) for when I need it.
I’ll admit I’m “cheating” a bit with this experiment. Was able to find a flip phone that runs Android Go (stripped down version of Android) so I can have my MFA apps and such. Won’t be installing much more than that, but at least it’ll reduce the amount of times I have to break out the old rectangle to get an MFA push / code.
I cheated the MFAs by switching what I could to SMS, Yubikey or just copying the MFA private keynto Bitwarden. Kind of defeats the point of MFA, but makes stuff definitely easier.
Anything that’s important however is on yubikey, however.
Also, good luck! Are you going through the Digital Minimalism book? I should refresh on it, every time I try it, it doesn’t last long, but I always get rid of one more stupid online habit that I don’t pick up when I inevitably return to my pre-reading the book intetnet usage. So, after already going through like 4 attempts in the last 3 or 4 years, my internet usage is slowly but surly changing for the better. But it’s more of a long run, rather than being able to get everything on the first try, in my experience at least.
If you’re not doing it because of the book/haven’t heard of it, I definitely recommend reading Digital Minimalism by Carl Newport.
What are you going to do in the bathroom? Just stare at the wall like a caveman?
I think more people will be able to do it than folks think. I have faith in you, Admiral Patrick!
I haven’t personally tried it, but I think the main thing smartphones offer is a way to get away from repetitive boredom of some activities, like riding in the subway or taking the bus.
There’s still alternatives. You can bring a book or a Kindle and read a book.
I think we all got way too used to entertainment being a finger-flick away, but there’s still entertainment to be had without a smartphone.
I’d like to see a resurgence of media-focused devices like iPods that are built for streaming music and TV and not much else, instead of it all crammed into one device.
How the world seems to be more and more fucked up every single day and how the vast majority of us simply don’t seem to care. Climate change, corporations quickly becoming the new States, politicians who just lie and lie with no consequences, AI being viewed as the magical cure-all for all these problems when really it’ll just make bad decisions easier to justify, and most of all, how people seem to view everyone else around them with more and more suspicion which eliminates even the faint hope we have of working together to solve some of these. Idk, take your pick, they all have the potential to be the death of us
I feel you in a big way, but to be totally fair: corporations becoming states has probably trended towards the better from a zoomed-out perspective, and political leaders lying all the time has probably only become more visible than ever.
The entities that were doing all the colonialism for the past several hundred years have been private companies, and they did huge amounts of slavery and genocide. Blackwater is bad, but the East India Company was worse. This is not to say that things are good now, only that they aren’t like worse than they’ve ever been.
And I think the present day has a greater expectation of political leaders being accountable to the people they govern than most of history. Back in the days of monarchs and oligarchs, there was no mass media to tell everyone they were lying and no likely consequences for the liars even if there were.
Again, I empathize a huge amount with what you’ve said & I am also disappointed that the world we’ve created isn’t better than it is. I just personally think that the above two are trending in a more optimistic direction, even if they’re still objectively pretty bad.
I agree that things have been worse in the past, mostly. I’m gonna paraphrase a video from Unlearning Economics I saw a while ago (pretty sure he was quoting someone but I can’t remember who):
Optimists look at the world and think, ‘this is the best it gets’. Pessimists know that we can always do better
Goddamn amen; the same exact things you expressed precisely my thoughts! It’s like I wrote your comment.
My wife just said you’re my soulmate lol.
How do I catch more trout? Should I switch to an ultralight fast action rod from my medium-light medium action rod? Do I need more braided line or should I just wait until I run out of this spool?
Should I be targeting bigger fish? How can I be sure they are there and what do I use to target them?
Do I care about catching fish, really, or do I just enjoy being out in nature, away from the office, and playing in the water?
My mortality! Hit 45 this year and it kinda feels like it’s all downhill from here.
Health is ok but that seems tenuous as I’m pretty out of shape so I feel like I’m not “set up” yet to be a healthy older person. When something does go wrong I’m not sure if I should worry about getting it treated or just live with it.
It seems futile to learn new skills and such since I’m not sure about the payoff (ROI).
Family/kids/job/money are all pretty great so I don’t have anything to complain about, but I’m still kind of feeling like I’m about to crest the hill of life and want to ensure I’m making the best of it and prepared for my eventual demise.
I don’t want to die! I really like being alive and kind of wish I had immortality (with a safety kill switch of course so I don’t have to endure the heat-death of the universe or get stuck inside a star somewhere lol)
I’m turning 45 as well. It’s actually a perfect time to learn something new. My interests have changed in 25 years. I no longer climb mountains, bike 200 miles a weekend or so anything too destructive. I’ve taken up woodworking and just got a kiln to learn pottery. I hope in another 20 years I will be a master of both and they will keep my mind healthy.
There’s a bunch of really badass people doing interesting things and discovering new things well into their 70s. The grandfather of a friend of mine picked up orientation running in his 80s - he’s now the national champion of his age group.
I think more than age, what one has to overcome is the reluctancy to try new things. I think this is natural to humans at any age; the difference is that when we’re young we’re forced to try new things as few things are now new. The more experienced we get the easier it is to fall into old habits, and he who’s not busy being born is busy dying, as Dylan said.
