This name is so bad, I want to submit a formal complaint to make sure I don't need to see it plastered in every fifth Honda or Sony ad. Where does this go?
I'd love to hear some flavour on how this name got chosen and approved, but it's stuff like this that shows the Pepsi logo thing is probably disturbingly not a hoax [0].
Love my Thinkpad T15G:
- No major issues in Manjaro
- discrete graphics (3080 mobile).
Using the proprietary driver, graphics switching seems to work pretty well.
- 128gb ECC ram (has xeon 11xxxm)
- durable; survived around 45 flights; runs 120 hours a week.
- trackpoint!
- fits into a normal backpack
- the hulking mass builds core strength while traveling
Cons:
- Battery "life" is more like insurance against yoinking the charger.
- don't leave on lap under heavy load if you're a male hoping to maintain fertility
- not really easy to clean and keep clean; something about the rubberized finish gets noticeably dirty after a few hours of use following a thorough scrub, but I might also be a bit oilier than the average duck.
Aesthetically it's just the right amount of boring, but I know most like something a little sleeker.
Edit: formatting and additional con: Lenovo pricing is obscene without playing games using coupons, corporate portals, etc.
I think there almost needs to be a "Reacher Law", in that there should be minimal friction to participating in society aside from maybe cash and an ID.
I definitely find a default assumption of having a smartphone that's creeping in everywhere (android / iOS compatible & has an active data plan) to be increasingly cloying.
Currently, all I can do is politely decline and insist that I neither have the Play nor Apple store; I still find it uncomfortable even giving away my phone number.
I couldn't even get into my gym the other day, since they'd transitioned to app sign-in only (phasing out barcode tags); I'm forced to beg the attendant to look me up by phone number every time.
*EDIT: I hope ranting about smartphones in a cashless-ness thread isn't too off topic
Ive been doing some IT work at a cell phone store in a very low income area. There is a large number of people coming in to buy new phones or get their old ones repaired and many of them (especially the older ones) HATE that they need to have a smartphone. I hear at least one person a day complain about how they cant just have a normal land line anymore and need to have a smartphone to participate in society.
Also they REALLY dont like hearing about how the phone they have now is obsolete and theres no way to get parts for it, or its just too far gone and they'll need to buy a new phone. I feel for all of these people as I totally agree with them.
I’d posit it’s quickly getting easier to live without a car than without a smartphone in the US.
Plus, even if you live in an area where a car is required you have the option to opt out and move (housing crisis aside), which isn’t an option to avoid smartphone requirements.
Yeah, this sentiment covers for sure all of Gen X and Elder Millennials. If the back half of Millennials all turn 30 and it’s the same story we can pretty confidently say that it’s not really a generational thing.
I would love to ditch my car but it’s impossible in my city and I have no power to change it. I could move I guess but choosing lack of car over my friends and family feels a bit drastic.
and it also requires you to fully buy in to the city-centric lifestyle. Whether you like it or not there will always be a lot of people that don't want to live in an urban center or even a small town. For them, personal transportation is non-negotiable. Even people who live within walkable towns or cities will often prefer to have a car so that they can access other locations and services whenever they feel like it without having to rent or limit themselves to places accessible by mass transit. Cars just aren't going away, nor should we wish them to. I'm all for building more walkable and human scale environments, I enjoy them as much as the next person but I also want those places connected by good roads so that I can access, or leave, any of them freely.
I honestly doubt anyone who complains today about needing to carry a cell phone was in any way directly responsible for the decisions of automobile manufacturers, lobbyists, and marketing firms that brought us the car-obsessed culture we have.
The people who created the car-obsessed society died long ago. These people would be my parents' & grand-parents' generations. I'm in my 60s.
And before you ask, I hate having to have a smartphone. It is required to VPN into work, or to do so many things. I changed grocery stores rather than let them use my cellphone for the "loyalty" card.
I also hate living in a state where public transit is useless.
TL;DR - something about "get off my lawn" and "old man yells at cloud".
Do you seriously think it's easier for a 80-year-old to hop in a car to go somewhere than walk 10 minutes to the store in a more compact city or take the bus?
Plus, look at the Netherlands, geriatric people who've biked their whole lives and maintained good physical shape have no problem continuing to bike.
Walking to a store everyday to buy only their daily necessities would end up costing them a lot more than if they were buying a bunch of what they need in bulk, and nobody ( especially an elderly person) is going to walk home carrying around their items in bulk sizes.
Even for people lucky enough to live in those rare areas where you can walk to a grocery store, it's extremely useful to have access to a car you can fill up with large items.
There are many places where bus comes every half an hour, and there are on average 1-2 passengers on it. I think in those towns it would be cheaper for local council to just pay for Uber service for everyone who needs public transportation. No need to buy expensive buses, maintain bus stops, stations and depots, pay drivers and administrators salaries and pensions etc.
> There are many places where bus comes every half an hour, and there are on average 1-2 passengers on it
Well, no surprise there are so few passengers: the bus comes every half an hour! Make it once every two hours, and there will be no passengers at all.
"Every half an hour" is an option for the desperate. Also, that bus is probably stuck with cars when there's heavy traffic, while being slower than cars when there isn't. And it does not go exactly where you want to be. Would _you_ use such a bus service if you weren't forced to due to circumstances?
The answer for shitty public transport offering should not be eliminating public transport offering.
Well, it depends. Public transport only really makes sense when you have enough density.
If you have the typical North American rules that make density illegal, even the best public transport won't safe you. In fact, it might be throwing good money after bad money.
I just don't think non-poor people need subsidised Uber-rides nor any other handouts from the local council.
For clarity: the context was for local councils to give money to Uber instead of running a bus service. Which is plausible idea. I just don't think you need to be so specific: give people money, so they can buy goods and services they deem most beneficial (including Uber rides).
Now going one step further: only give the money to poor people. Welfare for rich people is a bit silly.
I'm all for giving more money to poor people, but how is that related to public transport? "Let's sell for scrap metal what's left of our public transit system and give the proceedings to the poor" would be a mad proposition.
I'm a regular user of public transport. I don't own a car, don't have a drivers license and call taxi/uber maybe once or twice per year. I am lucky enough to live in a place where that's not just possible, but easy, easier than driving a car. And I'm not poor. I can afford a car, just don't want to have one.
Public transport is not a handout to the poor, it is a service which makes life better for everyone. If yours is so bad only poor people would use it - maybe it's time to fix it.
For what it's worth, I never owned a car in my life.
(I currently live in Singapore, which has excellent public transport.)
My suggestion was conditional: if a city has already decided that Uber is better than public transport, then they should still not give Uber money. But instead, give the money to poor people.
However: public transport only really makes sense when you have enough density.
If you have the typical North American rules that make density illegal, even the best public transport won't safe you. In fact, it might be throwing good money after bad money.
I don't say that density needs to become before public transport. Just the opposite: you need to put transportation in place before people come. But you also need to make density legal before you think about public transport.
> I just don't think non-poor people need subsidised Uber-rides
I agree, if you're going to provide financial assistance it should go to those in need, but I don't think non-poor people need or want to be saddled with an added expense to replace the public transpiration services they already have and use.
I think there does come a point where a community can decide their public transportation costs more to operate than it's worth, but unless it's consistently losing massive amounts of money it's probably not worth it to take a valuable resource from the public just to save a bit of money. Especially if that community has any desire to grow.
> I agree, if you're going to provide financial assistance it should go to those in need, but I don't think non-poor people need or want to be saddled with an added expense to replace the public transpiration services they already have and use.
In places where public transport works and is used, I agree.
It's really not at all. In Japan, you just buy a debit card and swipe that every time you enter or exit a station. When it gets low, you stop at a vending machine and put more cash on it. It doesn't get any simpler, and it's totally anonymous.
Touch a piece of plastic when you start, toich again when you end. It’s not exactly complicated. You can buy the plastic for cash, or use the one almost everyone has in their wallet, or use a phone.
It may sound odd, but you are not bolstering your argument here. The parent is arguing for a way to ensure that participation in society is not bound by one's ability arrange for unrelated physical objects other than cash and ID to participate. And that is before we even get to how much having a car and cell phone governs one's life in US. Not everyone believes it is a good societal structure.
Note that I am not arguing one way or another, but outright dismissal is not an appropriate counter argument.
Yeah, the minimum you need to participate in US society is SSN, driver’s license number, working cell phone number, credit/debit card, health insurance, car, car insurance, proof of citizenship, permanent address, internet connection and W2 or equivalent.
I’ve needed all of these sans the car to interact with just government services in my state.
I've made it to my late 30s only owning a car for maybe 2 or 3 of those years. I've never felt the desire, my mom always commented it was odd back when I was a teenager... But I digress, it is very possible and it's easier than ever. I grew up on the rural west coast, moved inland to an agricultural area. Never living in a proper city by most metrics. Certainly I've missed some opportunities along the way, c'est la vie, but it is easier than ever and I'm meeting more and more people like me as time goes on. I also don't have a photo ID as a general rule, but that's a whole different can of worms and in some cases much more limiting than living car free.
Most people seem to create their own hurdles or embiggen real ones that they do face, certainly I do in my own ways so don't take that as a judgement just an observation. Choosing to go carless is not half the hurdle many people perceive it to be.
> I've made it to my late 30s only owning a car for maybe 2 or 3 of those years.
Similar. I spent part of my teen years in a children's home in the U.S. -- it turns out that even though the state may go in for a [driving] learning permit (pre-req for a driving license), it won't sign off for the license to drive. So I never got a license until older and dropped it later.
I'm definitely healthier for all the walking I still do :)
Tell that to some of my past prospective employers.
It's getting so bad, that some insist on being able to drive to work even if you live within 15 minutes walking distance.
"But what about bad weather?" They ask.
"I'll dress appropriately." I reply.
3 days later: Phone rings.
"We're sorry, but we decided to go with someone better suited for the job."
The job... was at a restaurant, as a cook. Cooks... don't need to be able to drive to work... usually. (There are maybe some jobs where driving would be ideal, or necessary, but let's be real here. Most don't need to be able to drive.)
I’m guessing “the bus was late” is a common excuse used by those who are frequently late to work. The issue here is that they mindlessly apply a filter of if you drive to work you pass if you don’t you fail. Employees with attendance issues can still use plenty of dumb excuses. A car itself provides several: car broke down, traffic was bad, snowy roads. Those issues don’t apply to someone who can walk in. Unfortunately not being a driver is not a protected class in the US.
I think far more common (in the fast food & retail industry) is the manager calling you up: "X called out sick, we need you to come in to do their shift, starting in 45 minutes." If the person lacks a car, then "I can't, buses don't run today" or "it will take me 90 minutes to get in by bus today".
I once worked where I lacked a car. There were 3 buses going there in the morning. The next bus going there left downtown Denver at 4pm. Between 0545 and 1600 there was no bus service to that destination. Missing the 0430, 0505 or 0545 buses meant missing work that day. When I finally managed to get a car (legal problems), I got a new job within a month.
But the problem is that most people are spineless and don't use the proper channels of authority that oversee these sorts of things to ensure that employers are held to proper standards. Heck, here in Canada we have a tribunal system to deal with human rights abuses, even in the workplace; not just societal. And it gets underfunded due to be under utilized due to the very lack of backbone I speak of. What I am saying right now is right from the horses mouth no less.
Yes, that means it's all our fault. People are afraid of losing their jobs, and so they do nothing; and so they get away with more than they should.
To be clear though for those on the other side of the fence.
I'm the employee who will usually say "yeah, sure boss. Just maybe give me some time to get down there, or cover my cab fare so I can get there faster."
Heck, one employer literally drove down to get me just to get the shift covered without any lost time.
But recently I've been getting flak from employers for even that sort of thing. (Getting a cab, or taking the bus I mean.)
So, I don't care anymore. We have rules for a reason, and you all can follow them, or uphold them. Which ever may be the case for whoever is reading this.
> But the problem is that most people are spineless and don't use the proper channels of authority that oversee these sorts of things to ensure that employers are held to proper standards.
In the US there is no authority that oversees these sorts of things. It's perfectly legal to make insane demands on an hourly employee's time. Hourly employees are lucky if they can get a set schedule and don't have to constantly check to see what days/hours they'll work because those hours can be changed at any time without notice. They can be expected to come in at any time to cover for other employees and fired if they aren't making themselves always available at the drop of a hat.
There are very few regulations preventing employers from abusing their staff and those only cover the most egregious abuses. Walmart (the largest private employer in the country) for example has been caught for things like refusing to pay workers for hours that they worked, for locking workers inside of buildings and refusing to let them leave, child-labor violations, knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, and serious OSHA violations that endangered the lives and safety of their employees. While they do get the occasional light slap on the wrist for violating what few protections workers have (often only after repeatedly violating them) even the largest and easiest target gets away with all kinds of abuses not covered under law.
Companies and entire industries spend massive amounts of money on bribing politicians so they can continue to exploit workers and even manipulate the workers themselves to be so anti-regulation and anti-union that they'll fight against efforts to improve the conditions that they themselves suffer under.
Workers being exploited in the US are not uncaring or spineless. They're just working against a system that has been carefully designed and refined over centuries to keep them powerless. We're starting to see some pushes for change though. There's been an increase in efforts to unionize, but just talking about unionizing can get you fired and laws have been changed so that unions don't always have the power they used to. In the meantime, folks still have to pay rent and eat, so they're forced to suffer under exploitative practices.
While I suppose that most people will be considering this topic under American rules and regulations; please note I mentioned Canada in my comment. That said, I accept that USA has all sorts of things to work out and get fixed. BUT, Don't look north for inspiration. It's not exactly better up here, cause the employers up here (except for the few good ones) take inspiration from your bad employers all down south of our border.
Let's just say that we have it just as bad in slightly different ways. The only saving grace for us Canadians (IMHO) is that we still have stuff like the old common law stuff in effect. (of which many of our citizenry is not aware of its actual legal standing, and so they don't make use of any of it.) {Also the libertarian free-man-of-the-land types make erroneous use of some of this stuff, which doesn't help either.}
I state it as such, because when I brought this all up with a lawyer to see if I had a case at all; he was surprised I even knew about some of the old common law stuff that employers legally are supposed to be obeying. This has to do with things like wrongful dismissal for example, where an employee has decided to say no to a bad boss, and gets fired for it. A lot of our current laws state that's already illegal as well depending on the situation; but even those old laws had details in them pertaining to things like severance pay. Long story short; some employers know about this, and will pay out extra weeks even under probationary period because it could land them in court if they don't.
So it is better up here in some ways; but that kind of stuff will probably never be enacted down there, because it would mean accepting that ol Britain was right about a few things.
It's that, and more. It's also that they want to be able to rely on being able to call you in at any moments notice without any potential for excuses like "Well, it's going to take an hour to get there, because of the bus." or "I can't come in right now due to the weather on such short notice."
Quite frankly, I think the entire restaurant industry (in Canada) needs to be audited for multiple reasons. Tax evasion, disobeying the law in regards to discrimination, etc. (Canadian laws) There may be some innocent owners caught in the crossfire, but if they truly are innocent in this case; they should be fine and worry free. It's not a line of logic I like to use in many things, but in this case it really is true.
If I can't walk there within an hour, or the bus itself takes more than an hour to get there; I won't even apply to the job. My method of thinking on this is that people with their own vehicle won't go much further than an hour away anyways, so why would I with a bike, my own two feet; or transit for that matter.
It's not like the people they are hiring with vehicles are going to get there much faster if they own a vehicle taking the same amount of time. The only time this won't be true is if they live so close they really should be walking instead to save money.
They'd probably agree with you. Having to pay to maintain a car (probably an awful one that has lots of problems) just to get anything done is distinctly bad part of being poor in America.
Hopefully they'll react as if you were an irrational pedant, because I have been participating in society without a car my entire adult life just fine.
That's because when they were young a 'normal land line' was the state of the art tech. Why were they fine using state of the art tech then? I guess older people at the time found it confusing and the people complaining to you probably thought they should get with the times.
Landlines were state-of-the-art tech more than a century ago; depending on when you define its invention it came at some point between 1844 and 1877 [1] and it was widespread by the second world war. There was a huge portion of the last century in which "just" having a landline was a relatively constant, relatively well defined utility and (from the consumer's point of view) the technology was mature and did not change much between arguably 1950 and about 1990. The rotary dial pulse dialling system was patented in 1891; the telephone I grew up using (in the 1980s) used essentially the same technology and pulse dialling gradually replaced it over the course of several decades. Most of the innovation took place on the side of the exchange, and the average telephone user probably noticed little other than changes in billing and a slowly decreasing frequency of talking to an operator.
Cellphones are completely different. My "daily driver" smartphone, bought in 2017 for ~1/4 of my monthly salary, is obsolete and I have rooted it in order to continue to install security updates. This has locked me out of my Danish bank account.
My mum's 1980s PSTN phone still works, even when the mains electricity is out, no technology change required.
My ex (and still one of my best friends!) was (is?) a first responder for the Pacific North-West (think oil-spills on mountains and other ecological problems). She was required to have a land-line. It was great that it would forward to a mobile, and lacking that, dump back to a battery-backed-up voice mail unit on-premises (possibly more).
OT: Her position seemed unique to me -- working for <whatever> $company, she would get alerted/activated for things in the Canada AND the U.S. And they would do the thing of "Where are You? ....... There's a heliport at X - we'll have a 'copter there in 15 minutes" and then I get to send her away clutch when I got home.
Blame the obsolescence of your cell phone on the Android ecosystem and Google’s poor stewardship of Android.
Microsoft also licenses its operating system to third parties and you PCs can get updated by the end user without having to worry about the OEM. Microsoft Windows 7 which just went out of support in 2020 ran on my 2006 era Mac.
As far as phones, Apple released a security patch for the 2013 iPhone 5s less than four months ago.
> You can either be stubborn about tech, or adopt a grown-mindset and learn about new things.
> Their generated developed this technology - it can't be beyond them to learn it?
My point is that, actually, no: nobody alive predates the popularisation of the telephone (the oldest person listed as being alive at the moment was born in 1904 – by which point there were ~3 m telephone subscribers in the US [1] https://www.technofunc.com/index.php/domain-knowledge/teleco...).
I think the point about being resistant to learning new skills is one thing, extreme poverty and the historically incredibly rapid widespread adoption of the smartphone is another. A smartphone from ten years ago is as good as useless for banking nowadays. If you're an 80 year old pensioner on a fixed income, it may well both be a significant proportion of your income, have taken a long time to learn to use and not exactly be understanding of your (statistically quite likely to be present) visual or fine manual dexterity difficulties, and I can very much imagine that you feel locked out of society for no good reason.
Depends on what you mean by “accessibility”… my 85-year-old aunt-in-law finds her iPhone 7 running iOS 15 to be far less accessible than her old iPhone 4 that probably stopped being updatable around iOS 7. All she wants to do is make phone calls, read texts and take pictures and view them in the order they were taken, and run those apps being foisted upon us. This is all becoming increasingly more difficult, and her careful notes that get her through her previous corner cases increasingly less helpful.
I am already dreading what fresh clever hell Apple is going to unleash upon her when she gets shoved off this one because enough “critical” apps won’t run on iOS 15 anymore.
My dad, early 70s, is still holding out with a flip phone (fortunately still available in 4G). His hands are quite useless on a touchscreen after 50+ years of concrete-oriented construction work, and I would LOVE to see Siri attempt to parse Deep East Texan.
Newer phones are better for accessibility if lower visual or aural capability or some types of movement capacity are your main limitations, but are worse for many others. Increasingly larger phones are an awful trend for my friend who has severe muscular dystrophy and limited strength and range of motion, and voice assistants are a cruel joke for her tiny little voice.
>Depends on what you mean by “accessibility”… my 85-year-old aunt-in-law finds her iPhone 7 running iOS 15 to be far less accessible than her old iPhone 4 that probably stopped being updatable around iOS 7.
Yes, I've heard the exact same thing from my iPhone-using elderly mother and my sister. The answer is simple: stop spending thousands on new iPhones, and get an inexpensive budget-model Android instead. They're quite simple to use. But my suggestions always fall on deaf ears.
> You can either be stubborn about tech, or adopt a grown-mindset and learn about new things.
When the UI changes randomly at regular frequencies, what can you learn? There is no knowledge to accumulate.
Hell, even the thing where stuff sorts by "most recent access" makes learning impossible. How do you find older things? (the "search" function is contrary to how the brain works, brains are wired to find things by location which doesn't work if there isn't a location because stuff is always moved by the damn magic elves).
> When the UI changes randomly at regular frequencies, what can you learn? There is no knowledge to accumulate.
Tech companies have the same level of respect for their users as slaughterhouses do for cattle. We are living in The Jungle, except it’s techbro computer shit instead of meatpacking.
> or adopt a grown-mindset and learn about new things.
Is newer better? Should people be required to buy an array of fragile and expensive devices just to function? How many things should they be required to maintain and how complex should they be?
Personally, I find that people complaining about cellphones needing charge, cellphones needing replacement and poor cellphone reception have a point. You didn't have that with landlines.
Back in the day, one would carry coins and use a phone box when needed. Nowadays everyone gets to carry a cellphone and pay 40 dollars minimum every month for the privilege. Cellphones are a regression, and we haven't even talked about the privacy aspect.
There's legitimate concerns around having to use your phone for everything, given how easy it makes for corporations and governments to track you, and how you're locked into a continuous upgrade cycle, and inundated with notifications and apps vying for your attention.
Covered by using my battery-drained iPhone (which I only have because I was being paid money to have it) as a beer opener. It's not a very good beer opener but gets the point across really well. Socioeconomic pressure works both ways.
The landline is special because laws require a line-powered phone system that can survive outages. It's a minimal and reliable layer of infrastructure which still makes perfect sense for people with limited communications needs.
Cell phones are pretty old. “Sprint” was an acronym for “South Pacific Railway Internal Network Technologies.” Used by passengers on railways since the 1920s.
This isn't true at all. The name "Sprint" wasn't chosen until the 70s and the initial business was alternative long-distance carrier, not a railway cell phone.
Mea culpa, searching for the actual original name “Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Network Telecommunications” pulls up a number of interesting stories about the origins of the company running telegraph lines along the rail tracks.
Example: https://www.npr.org/2012/10/15/162963607/sprint-born-from-ra...
However I do not see anything resembling cell phone service happening until the 1970s.
>Why were they fine using state of the art tech then?
Because they're not against "state of the art" or even the notion of "state of the art" things in general, they're against smartphones in particular.
People are also able to finding smartphones (and the requirement to have one for many aspects of dealing with the government and corporations) bothersome and annoying without having to (a) hate new technology in general, (b) have it be due to them being old.
Amazingly (I know right? Who would have thought!) this can be true even if some people back in the day disliked landlines.
It's almost like each technology is not just some magic miracle everybody should adopt with no downsides and all fun and games, but something that people can be pro or against it on a preference basis (in fact, some tech can also have bjective negative consequences and side-effects).
Case in point I always disliked smartphones, and they become a thing at the time I was a teenager. And I know kids who were born with them who hate them. So there's that.
In several ways such as reliability and call quality, land lines from several years ago are a far superior technology to current cellphones.
Of course most landline calls today go through dubious VoIP links and poorly maintained copper infrastructure, which is why I qualify with "from several years ago."
Were it not for this, I would go back to the landline that I enjoyed until recently.
It regularly strikes me as absurd that quality was so much better on an old landline. It's an odd trade-off for which I would never have voted.
Even still, my main complaint is over the loss of minor things like pay-phones. I think I'll always bemoan the idea of a telephone number being associated with a person, rather than a location.
FWIW my mom loves her smart phone. She would probably use this stuff. She does still have a land line too for actual phone use but uses the smart phone for other things.
However I won't use a smart phone for money or install an app for random things like a gym membership or a restaurant's menu. Never mind banking or medical stuff. It's really hard to verify what an app actually does under the hood and too many reports of even banking apps not getting SSL right and such. I know too much about how bad software development is security wise to trust any of this implicitly.
It's not the same. Not even close. Those old Bell Telephone phones were military grade. That is they rare broke down. 100s of slam!!! hang ups and they didn't flinch.
But drop your mobile device and not only are you f'ed, you have to invest in getting it fixed. And until then you're a social outcast.
To say nothing of the "sorry, you MUST update or else."
I'm between 20 and 40. I'm a full time software developer. I've written software and firmware in my spare time. I've soldered MCUs and debugged them with an oscilloscope. I know better than 99% of people how my phone works. The issue is not that I am unwilling to learn new things. The issue is that cash has been functional as a method of payment for at least 3 thousand years, and the reasons being given for preventing it from being legal tender objectively do not stand up to scrutiny. There is no cycle. You're just wrong. Oh, and I use cash for 100% of the transactions that support it, because I know what's good for me.
payphones were a thing and they could receive phone calls, so even if you yourself couldn't afford a landline you could still give and take phone calls.
Older generations have not been asked to replace their expensive tech every 3 years. My grandparents bought one phone and one TV set and kept them for the rest of their lifes. Something is wrong with today's tech and not with the elderly people who are not able to adapt as fast as zoomers.
Also, for older people, new technology was dangerous. New farm equipment, new machines, etc. So they were brought up with the mentality of 'if you don't understand EVERYTHING about this, don't touch it, on risk of life and limb'.
It's not that they are dumb or obtuse, in their world you have to understand the risk first, then you can use it. It's like the Japanese and baseball. In the USA it's balls then strikes, in Japan, it's strikes then balls. Older people think about strikes, younger people just think about balls.
I think it is apt and we are collectively ignoring how dangerous new technology and technological trends are or can be because we can use them without understanding anything about them (I'd argue even their creators understand little about them).
If they'd be complaining about their mobile phone bill being higher than their landline bill, fine - but that's not the case.
I'm pretty sure the last land line phone my parents bought was under 100 bucks and it would still be working just fine 10 years later (that is in addition to the fact that we kinda transitioned from analog to ISDN around 2000, and then back). Compare to a new mobile phone every 3 years if you want security updates.
Why do they need to have one? I dislike phone reliance (both in myself and others) and have spent periods without one. I think I've settled on having one for certain conveniences, but it's perfectly possible not to (especially if one 'HATE's it so much).
There are restaurants with only digital menus, there are bars that only take electronic payments, gyms that only have a digital membership card, parking lots only payable via app, during covid there were countries that required quarantine apps on entry.
Sure you could say "just don't go to those places" but then you're slowly withdrawing from society as these things gain in ubiquity.
This is doubly annoying as a tourist or immigrant: no, I don't have a local phone number, I don't have a bank account here, and I don't want to install $APP that is ubiquitous in your country but controlled by $Evilcorp.
Examples from several different countries: getting around without rideshare/taxi hailing apps, 'self check-in' gyms, Covid-related QR codes to get into restaurants, stores that only take mobile payments, restaurants where the menu is only available by QR code.
I hate digital menus. I don't like being on my phone when I go out for dinner (unless I'm by myself) and looking at a nice menu was part of the experience.
Seoul has been 'modernizing' bus stops. The route information, which used to be printed on posters at 1200 dpi, is now visible on large screens at 300 dpi, but the graphics have not been updated. As a result it is very challenging to see the details of most routes.
Dang. Literally none of those things exist where I live in the US. In fact, there's a food truck that comes through every once in awhile that is still cash-only.
> Sure you could say "just don't go to those places" but then you're slowly withdrawing from society as these things gain in ubiquity.
I do say that, that all sounds crap and I don't want any of it even though I have a phone. (And it isn't my experience, I believe it exists but it's absolutely not hard to ignore.)
Am I the only one who sees the hypocrisy in the ranter and general sympathy from HN code towards them.
"Normal Land Line" wasn't something that came from nature. It is a sophisticated technology invented by humans with the same User Interface flaws and Laggard-Ranting that every generation goes through.
When Mixed-Reality becomes popular, I'm sure there will be many complaining "why can't I just have simple smartphone" and there will probably some Gen Zers sympathizing with them and reminiscing about the simple days of smartphone.
Newsflash: Adaption and Evolution is the name of the game. I can understand if a disabled person complains inability to use gadgets(although smartphones have better accessibility features), but you can bet your bottom dollar, most of these people whine because they aren't curious about the world and stubbornly refuse to adapt and the rest of the world has to bend over backwards to accommodate them?
I'd be with you if these devices weren't hundreds of dollars with obsolescence lifetime treadmills measured in the ones of years and bound to a duopoly of corporate-controlled ecosystems that require opting in to onerous contract terms.
Just a few of those factors might not be so bad but with all of them it could become impossible to do legally-required things like buying car insurance without being effectively legally required to look at Google ads. Or renewing your passport without agreeing to a software EULA that forbids you from ever suing Apple for leaking your private data. All of this "it's just opting in to societal progress" crap is why Experian even ever had your data to leak[1] it in the first place, and why Google and Braze and every other tech company has it too.
You can buy a pair of shoes and a smartphone for about the same amount of money (pick your number!) and they'll wear out in about the same amount of time.
> If it doesn't get security updates, you really can't do online paying/banking with it.
Maybe you shouldn't, but in terms of pure ability you perfectly well can. (And somewhat ironically, if you take matters into your own hands and update the OS yourself, quite a few banking apps will then refuse to run for "security reasons", while at the same time they're absolutely happy to run on an outdated OS version.)
That’s mostly true for any Android phone after a year or two - or sometimes never.
All Android phones have shitty long term support - even the Pixels.
Of course iPhones are a different story with Apple releasing a security update for the 2013 iPhone 5s as recently as June of this year. But I’m not going to suggest an iPhone as an alternative.
On the other hand, developing countries manage with $30 unsubsidized phones and people use them for banking.
I'm happy to learn and adapt, the point is, I shouldn't have to. Any system which creates a history of who, was where, and when, aggregated in a single data source is incredibly dangerous and the primary reason I use cash transactions for everything. Cash has worked just fine as a form of legal tender for over 3000 years. I have a really hard time passing the reasons cited for deprecating it through Hanlon's razor.
A lot of things have worked out for thousands of years.
If you can use a computer, you can use a smartphone. It's just a form factor.
The amount of mental gymnastics some people go through to justify their irrational decisions is always mind-boggling --- and these are some of the smartest people
I'm a software dev, and I leave my phone at home as often as I can. I know how to use it. I've been contracted to write apps for both droid and iphone. Still I'd rather leave all tech at home. I'm not justifying it. I don't like being distracted.
I don't install apps because I 100% don't trust the devs who write apps. Or well I don't trust their bosses. Corners are cut and security and UX typically takes a back seat to "the funnel"
My gym (located right across the street from my house) requires me to check in via an app. I have no issues walking across the street and getting the clerk to manually do it for me. NO I didn't bring a phone to my workout.
That makes sense. Companies want a "maximalist", i.e. someone who's addicted to consumption. Such person has no other option but to continue working - their addiction demands it. Whereas a minimalist has a large degree of freedom and can often just ditch the job if it becomes too shitty.
I agree with you. It's getting harder and harder. Went to a restaurant Friday night with friends. Inside there are no menus, only QR cords and the UX is some of the worst ever (toastlab). There is also no way to pay except through the website which wants you to register an account. I don't want to be a dick to my friends but I also don't want to eat at this restaurant. The waiters said "put in fake info" and they acknowledged everyone complains about the menus. In the end my friends paid and I didn't have to bring up the issue.
I had a similar experience recently at one of my favorite restaurants. They do still have physical menus, but payment by default now works via scanning a QR code. This is especially frustrating, given that they only recently switched to a pretty cool POS handheld system that accepts contactless and allows tipping right at the touchscreen.
But it seems pretty clear why they are doing that: Besides saving some time for the waitstaff, I only now realized that by using Apple Pay, they get at least my name and email address… I wonder if I‘ll end up getting spam by either the restaurant or the POS vendor.
It also creates a completely new and entirely avoidable problem: I don‘t have strong signal in that restaurant, and they don‘t offer a wi-fi either. All in all, while the waiter probably saved 20-30 seconds (waiting for me to unlock my phone or get my card from my wallet, tap it, and select my tipping option), it took me almost 5 minutes to complete payment on my side.
Not sure about the name actually, but they do get the email address - that‘s how they were able to email me an invoice without me entering anything.
That said, my my email address does contain my name, and while I could configure an alias in my Apple Pay settings, I doubt that too many people would do so. Would be a nice way for Apple to use their email privacy relay feature.
You can of course pay via card or cash too, but the default experience is the waiter leaving the check with a QR code on your table, expecting you to pay by scanning it.
I‘ve seen a variation of this (in the UK) where they really only bring a QR code, and you can‘t even read the amount without a phone. Presumably you have to ask for a printed check if you want to pay by cash or card, introducing another unnecessary step into the process. (Coincidentally they also initially brought me the wrong QR code since they are only labeled very discreetly, momentarily shocking me with a large group‘s check.)
Well, that's just silly. The bill could have the full receipt, and a QR code easily enough.
The only reason to make it an either/or, is to try to force it.
I'd tip less, as a result too. Most places I worked at, has pooled tipping, meaning even the bus boy got some of the take.
But regardless, if my food is cold, or tasteless, I tip less too. My tip is some for the waiter's service, some for everything else.
And having to wait for a real receipt, and I presume eyerolling is part of it, would mean a lesser tip.
If someone thinks that unfair, then I say the same to them, as to the waiter. Find a different job, where the employer cares about customer satisfaction.
> When you begin a payment within an app, on the web, or within Apple Messages for Business using Apple Pay, to enable tax and shipping cost calculation your zip code, postal code, or other equivalent information is provided to the app, website, or merchant. After you authorize the payment, other information requested by the merchant, such as a device- or merchant-specific account number, your shipping address, or email address, is also provided.
This is for websites - “card not present” transactions. You have always had to share that information when using credit cards when your card isn’t present.
No one is arguing that web merchants should accept cash. The commenter I replied to was referring to in person transactions
I don't know where you are carving out an exception. The entire page is about what happens with Apple Pay. It doesn't say anything about "card not present"
Further, the response is about a restaurant that has a website you have to use. The website offers Apple Pay as an option. If you pick it your email will be shared. It says so on the page itself.
The parent comment was talking about in a restaurant
> But it seems pretty clear why they are doing that: Besides saving some time for the waitstaff, I only now realized that by using Apple Pay, they get at least my name and email address…
In the case of a card not present transaction, the merchant always asks for your address when using credit cards. Also the original submission is about “cashless societies” and the disadvantage of it. No one is complaining about merchants refusing to take cash for web transactions.
Yes, and I was adding to that comment, mentioning restaurants using QR codes not just for menus, but also for payments. This effectively makes restaurants using this system card-not-present merchants.
> No one is complaining about merchants refusing to take cash for web transactions.
Agreed, but why does a restaurant have to be a web merchant when there is a much more convenient alternative available?
Very on topic. Here in Sweden cashless payments using smartphones have largely replaced cash for person-to-person transactions.
The proprietary payment app in turn relies on a proprietary app for electronic ID which authorises bank transactions. And those demand a relatively recent version of iOS or Android and that the phone is not rooted.
The e-ID is only available to citizens and residents, which means that people such as foreign students or guest workers can't get one.
(And then the privacy and security issues of the e-ID system is a can of worms...)
It's the same in Denmark. I get charged extra by the bank for using cash and others look at me weird. I have a rooted Android phone and am privacy mad. Most Danes think I'm a weird foreigner (which, to be fair, I am!)
Conversely, loads of places in Germany don't even accept card payments. I go there occasionally for work and can't easily avoid getting at least some cash to make it through the week.
Completely on-topic. Phone-based identification is armed with too much capability inside the black box and limited means for the user to have a clue what is being leaked to whom.
I think there was just a thread here last week about how homeless people get their stuff stolen or lost all the time. 2 Factor keeps people out when you can't reliably Bring Something.
I don't generally want to say that too loud though because some politician will point out that they still have their eyes and fingertips so why can't we use biometrics instead.
99.9% of people have eyes and fingertips. If we’re going to require eye/fingertip authentication to function in society we need to solve for that last 0.1% as well.
Totally agree. Would add that it’s comical how perturbed people get when you’re buying something in person and they start asking you for your phone number/email etc. and your tell them no. You get this “does not compute” look, and a response like “well the system needs your phone number”!
Well, yeah, they aren’t going to tell you “the performance metrics on which I am evaluated are based on this, and the level of employee surveillance is intense enough that I know people who have been dismissed for making up info for customers that don’t provide it”, but...
>I hope ranting about smartphones in a cashless-ness thread isn't too off topic
I don't think so. Certainly it's hard to argue that at least a feature phone that you're willing to give out the phone number for is well-nigh mandatory.
As you say, go back not that many years and cash/travelers checks and appropriate ID (drivers license and/or passport) were really all you needed in general. In addition to phone, it's really hard without a credit card today as well.
I live in two countries, “I just got back to the country and don’t have a sim card with a US number yet” is a high status “I’m never giving you my fucking phone number”. For me it has the benefit of being true a lot of the time.
I’m stealing this for use on both sides of the pond.
I’ve run into, for real, the issue of “essential” apps in Germany not being available in the US App Store, like public parking for the commuter lot in a town on the other side of the country.
I don't get region restricted apps. Sometimes it might make sense, but 99% of the time it's just unnecessary and achieves nothing except annoy travelers. Is there some incentive for app developers to region restrict their apps?
The gym barcode keychain thingy worked perfect. It was indestructible! And now I have to have my phone in hand, on, bright, open app, click stupid button, line up phone.
Re: gym, when I signed up I didn't have a phone at all. After being asked twice, I finally lied and said yeah it's um at home.
There was an app called Stocard that I used at one point. I prefer to have minimal keychain items.
The problem with the app barcodes is simply that they are slow to load, nonstandard, and not open source.
I think a common standard, lightweight, open source app would be perfect. Stocard is proprietary, but at least it loads quick and organizes all of the cards in a uniform way.
I don't like these slow, buggy apps that bury their barcodes.
The brightness problem is real, and getting the angle right can also be a challenge, although that seems like an issue with the current quality of barcode/QR readers. I assume that could be solved if anyone cared.
Keychain barcodes are insecure, easy to damage, easy to lose, and provide zero real identity guarantee.
Phones at least can offer the level of identity guarantee that 2FA does, and largely solves those other problems.
I get and fully support what you're going for, but friendly reminder that (in America) having an ID can actually be somewhat difficult in a variety of circumstances where people are most vulnerable to being left out. It's actually kind of a hot button issue
Can you provide some details? The state where I am living (Illinois) goes through hoops to ensure that everyone can get an ID card, such as it being free if you are homeless.
One of the issues is the documentation required to get one - the most obvious is a birth certificate, because of course everyone born in the US would have one, right?
1) Many people who were born in the US didn’t actually ever get one! This is more likely to affect people who were not born in hospitals, particularly older, poorer people.
2) Where is it? The state you were born in, and probably* the county. If you’re now in a different state, the procedure for getting it sent to you could be tricky.
3) How do you get a copy? For Texas, that used to be up to the county where you were born, with all the variability that implies (Harris Co: 4 million. Loving Co: 100.) Now that’s “state records office”… with a catch. For any of you here, it’s marvelously simple and not that spendy. If you don’t have a credit/debit card and/or don’t use the internet… that’ll be $80 and “up to” an 8 week wait. No idea about any other state.
So what if you don’t have/can’t get a copy of your birth certificate? Every state is different, but they all accept some defined set of alternative documentation: school records, military records, medical records, attestation from the doctor/midwife that delivered you… all things that someone who is having a hard time laying hands on their birth certificate is sure to have to hand.
Thanks for this. It makes clear the series of cyclical complications that follows "I don't have an ID and need one, but I don't have a smartphone or credit card"
1) Don't have an ID, just provide your birth certificate. Oh wait... that wasn't issued to me
2) Well I can try to order my birth certificate mailed to me. Oh wait... I don't have easy internet access, no smartphone or internet at my house.
3) I got online at the library, time to order my birth certificate. Oh wait... I don't have a credit card to pay. Maybe my birth county lets me mail cash (risky), or maybe they require me to show up in person, and potentially spend $100s on travel, in addition to missing work.
4) Okay, I go to apply for a credit card or open a bank account to pay. Oh wait... I need an ID.
This is it. The cycle of ID. To top it off, good luck getting the spelling of your name corrected in your birth certificate if it doesn't match other legal documents, such as school records.
It was easier back before the mass electrification of everything, because if the local sheriff knew who you were they could vouch to the local DMV and you’d be good to go. Now everything is fraud proof and trickier.
And if you lose your birth certificate you may have to start all over again!
There are ways to get an ID via other methods and then build up but it can be tricky and difficult to navigate. And without a stable address it can be nearly impossible.
It is (was?) the case in my large (500k+) city in the 90's at least. If you were lacking all forms of identification to get an ID, you could use a neighbor or family member who had an ID to vouch for you.
I do believe it was the vouch + another form of identification, but I distinctly recall having to do this for a replacement ID when I couldn't find my papers after a move.
some things have those expire based on time. Off the top of my head NYC area passenger rail on Long Island Rail Road and Metro North have that for electronic tickets.
I agree on the cash point, but I’m not even convinced that ID should be required for minimal, daily participation in society. Maybe a lack of ID prevents you driving, buying alcohol, or voting, but if you accept those consequences, you shouldn’t have to provide ID to anyone.
If we're talking daily participation, you don't (or shouldn't) need ID. For one off events like registration or entry, then ID is a fair requirement (sometimes).
I don't know who is arguing for bank accounts without ID though.
I could see something reasonable being a surcharge for allowing access to an "archaic" system - however then that fee should be subsidized to the business, by the centralized organizations, as such "archaic" systems are necessary mechanisms to counter potential tyranny-captured of centralized systems by very bad actors.
just curious, what prevents you from getting an extra phone number and a phone just to go about your day to day needs? You need not share that number with anyone else? Heck, you can even switch it off, or silence it all the time.
I am a big believer in sticking it to these organizations that make these foolish assumptions. The burden of responsibility should be on them, since it is they who wants to get the money out of this transaction.
To add to that, the Touhou Loseless Music Collection torrent on the cat website is currently at 3.3 TiB, and features more than 1900 different circles (bands I guess?). I think if you count someone playing a song on a guitar as a cover he's probably not the most covered artist of all time, but if you measure it on availability of hobbyist covers, he might very well be.
Another data point: The Reitaisai[1], a convention focused solely on Touhou Project, where hundreds if not thousands of circles (groups) sell fan-made content, including music.
A lot of people argue that the Straits of Mackinac is just a very narrow section of a single large lake - in other words that Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are a single lake, not two lakes.
Service availability decreases with population density, and relying on subsidized last mile delivery for the economic elite is not a sustainable model for an entire society. The road network alone is a funding quagmire, to say nothing of hiding the infrastructure burdens of servicing sprawl into the eldritch horror that is the municipal bond market.
> Service availability decreases with population density, and relying on subsidized last mile delivery for the economic elite is not a sustainable model for an entire society.
I don't think this is strictly true. I don't like the model, but big box stores seem pretty sustainable (everyone drives to a distribution center for their goods). An actual last mile distribution system (a la Amazon) also appears to work pretty well. Neither of these are exclusively available to the economic elite.
> The road network alone is a funding quagmire, to say nothing of hiding the infrastructure burdens of servicing sprawl into the eldritch horror that is the municipal bond market.
I don't doubt that infrastructure costs decrease with density, but density doesn't keep urban municipalities from building infrastructure that they can't afford to maintain any more than other places. Quality of governance and density are almost certainly independent variables.
Service availability decreasing with population density is still old school thought. Rapid advances in technology over the years enable stretching infrastructure outwards. Who knows someday we may be extending our infrastructures to cover the whole globe and even to outer space. It is not subsidized and it is certainly not for the elite only. It is more about human aspiration. As a species we can look towards piling on top of each other or we can choose to expand and live a quality life according to one’s own aspiration. Look at the big picture.
I'm tempted to mentally file this under "so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should", if only for the visual of a future where an insatiable appetite for meat-derived hydrocarbons is satisfied by minmaxing factory farming sans any constraint that the outputs need to be suitable for human consumption.
Hopefully algae is the most efficient way to this.
It's definitely one of the more unsettling titles I've read recently, but this quote makes it a little less dystopian:
"The CWT-TP process is designed to handle almost any imaginable waste, including turkey offal, tires, plastic bottles, harbor-dredged sediment, old computers, municipal sewage sludge, cornstalks, paper-pulp effluent, infectious medical waste, and oil-refinery residues".
As a complete layman, it seems to me like a really neat way to handle waste and oil dependence in one go. I'm sure there's lots of reasons why it wouldn't be practical though.
I do love the idea of technologies that make resources (and waste streams) more fungible. Though the level of dystopos then is where we draw the line on "resources" and "waste streams".
"It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks and become one with all the people."
Still, technology that excites the imagination is always itself exciting.
I'd love to hear some flavour on how this name got chosen and approved, but it's stuff like this that shows the Pepsi logo thing is probably disturbingly not a hoax [0].
[0] https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...