I dropped a comment there where I said that while I spent hours researching the "perfect dumb phone", there's certain features that are nearly exclusive to a smartphone or just plain work better on a smartphone, including having a decent camera and GPS/map with me at all times.
IMO, I think it's easier to simply dumb down your existing smartphone by stripping it of all apps except for just the bare essentials. For example, my phone only handles calls, SMS, maps, camera, books, etc. No web browser, social media, fancy messaging app, or even an app store. Though this may change sometimes and I'll sideload F-Droid or some other app depending on my needs (like traveling). https://chuck.is/phone
This only seems applicable if the form factor itself is not a concern for you. If I was to change to a dumbphone, I'd want a long (multiple days) battery life even with moderate usage, physical keys and robustness as a start. Similarly, a good camera or GPS would be features I would expect and hope are excluded from the dumbphones. There's no way to achieve these by taking a smartphone and stripping out software -- there are hardware changes needed.
What you've described seems to me more a 'locked down smartphone' rather than a dumbphone, and the two are not synonyms imho.
Correct. My phone isn't a "dumb phone", but it is certainly "dumbed down". I think that the people partially adopting or experimenting with using dumb phones are doing so to curb habits or escape something. Oftentimes, I think this can be done by simply dumbing down their existing smartphone, or "locking down" as you put it.
This is exactly it. I of course have a web browser on my laptop. If I'm running errand, going to the grocery store, or going for a walk, I have never had a need for it other than wanting to satisfy some random curiosity. Not having a web browser on my phone for the last 4-5 months, I haven't run into any issues. If I'm simply bored, I have koreader installed which is synced to my ereader at home. If I do have that random curiosity pop up, I'll take a note and research it later.
The most obnoxious and frustrating captchas are the ones that make you count the dice and to choose the image with the dice that adds up to a specific number. You're given three images, but if you take too long solving, it gives you 10. I spent nearly 30 minutes trying to log into my Airbnb account. After having to deal with this, I said screw and closed my Airbnb account entirely (for this experience, as well as other reasons). I understand Airbnb is using a 3rd party CAPTCHA system, but trying to solve a math problem seems like something for a computer, not a human.
I moved my blog from Wordpress to just a static html/css site that I maintain myself, including the rss xml. It's certainly simpler and I've learned a great deal but maintaining even a personal website this way can be a pain (it's far too easy to not catch a typo and breaking something like rss). Jekyll is likely what I may end up switching to.
The content I interact with is plain-text (Markdown). I use Jekyll just as a tool. I have tried Hugo and way faster locally. However, Github Pages has Jekyll built-in and so I stayed with it. I rarely run Jekyll locally to write.
I've had my eBay account suspended two or three times. All of them was because of suspicious activity in that I was using a VPN. I had to connect with someone on their customer support team to get it unlocked. I guess that's understandable if someone else using the same IP address is doing something malicious, but I think this could all be avoided if they set up sane 2FA measures.
Just yesterday I logged in and it prompted me to choose how to receive a code - email or SMS. I chose email, received the code then entered. Then, they told me I had to authenticate again via SMS.
I really wish they would implement standard software based TOTP so I could use something like Aegis or passOTP.
This. I was born and raised in Portland and recently moved to Austin, having cycled and driven in both (though primarily in Portland). Both are often celebrated as being bicycle friendly, however in both cities, taking public transportation gives you a view into people's vehicles while you pass by and it's scary just how many people are texting or scrolling their social media feed while driving.
I think Austin is a bit more dangerous because 1) there are far more oversized pickup trucks driven by city people that reduce the driver's visibility (part of the whole "Texas identity" thing) and 2) the city finds it acceptable to allow/encourage cyclists onto streets where the speed limit is 55mph which are basically highway speeds (sometimes there are painted bike lanes, sometimes there isn't).
Within the first few months of moving to Austin, I had a middle aged woman aggressively cut in front of me while I was riding down a hill and yell at me for riding in the street (which is not only legal, it's required for cyclists). Then follow me home in her pickup truck and try to call the police. Police never showed up, likely informing her she was in the wrong.
I've been seeing this happen on YouTube more and more where they identify a video as being explicit and that I must login with a Google account. Not having a Google account means I can't view the video - even youtube-dl can't download it. There are other workarounds like viewing it on my phone via NewPipe or installing FreeTube on desktop.
fyi, yt-dlp has some workarounds for this that youtube-dl doesn't.
youtube-dl is more or less unmaintained these days (last proper release: december 2021), yt-dlp is the main fork. lots of development happened here in the last few years.
Even when logged in there are still videos I can't watch on YouTube. I don't have a credit card, only debit, and I'm not sending Google pictures of my ID.
Somewhat related, I had recently tried sending an email to legal@microsoft.com and my emails were rejected. I tried a couple of times using two domains and I could only assume they were blocked because I had "microsoft" in the username (so "microsoft@[mydomain].is" and "microsoft@[mydomain].xyz". I guess it's understandable as sending an email with "microsoft" in the username could be construed as a phishing attempt against Microsoft employees.
Personally, I find the vast majority of recipe websites absolutely terrible. It seems others have shared small and minimalist recipe websites, but the one that I use and haven't seen shared yet is https://plain.recipes.
I could see it's name as an impedance toward adoption in a corporate environment. The name "GIMP" certainly doesn't inspire confidence in someone who's never heard of it before. GLIMPSE, a fork of GIMP, certainly has a better name.
FWIW, "git" doesn't have an insulting meaning to most people in the US. "Git" can mean "go" in some US dialects. I would guess that the average person here has no idea that "git" has any kind of negative connotation.
On the other hand, in the US, "gimp" is always either an insult, a derogatory verb, or the open source project.
I dropped a comment there where I said that while I spent hours researching the "perfect dumb phone", there's certain features that are nearly exclusive to a smartphone or just plain work better on a smartphone, including having a decent camera and GPS/map with me at all times.
IMO, I think it's easier to simply dumb down your existing smartphone by stripping it of all apps except for just the bare essentials. For example, my phone only handles calls, SMS, maps, camera, books, etc. No web browser, social media, fancy messaging app, or even an app store. Though this may change sometimes and I'll sideload F-Droid or some other app depending on my needs (like traveling). https://chuck.is/phone