Living without a personal smartphone

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creaothceann
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Re: Living without a personal smartphone

Post by creaothceann »

Garth wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 10:26 pm (It's kind of irritating when people on forums post pictures so big you have to do a lot of side-to-side or up-and-down scrolling because they couldn't be bothered to scale the picture down to a reasonable size that would still give all the resolution needed for what they're trying to show.)
That's arguably perhaps more of a limitation of the forum software...
assemblyx69 wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 10:49 pm I just assume most people prefer to shutdown their PC than to hibernate or sleep mode
It seems that since Windows 8 the OS itself is hibernating by default.
My current setup:
Super Famicom ("2/1/3" SNS-CPU-GPM-02) → SCART → OSSC → StarTech USB3HDCAP → AmaRecTV 3.10
Pokun
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Re: Living without a personal smartphone

Post by Pokun »

I think Android and Apple phones uses d-input. I have an 8bitdo Pro 2 and it has 4 different settings: D-input (Windows works with this mode if the software supports it), X-input (acting like a Xbox 360 controller, works well in Windows of course), Android (which is d-input especially for Android and Mac/iOS) and Switch (also d-input and works like a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller but with regular force-feedback instead of HD-rumble).

BTW the d-pad is almost identical to a SNES d-pad which makes not have the problems the original Switch Pro Controller has with its d-pad. This is the first IBM-PC joypad I've bought that is actually good.
Joe
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Re: Living without a personal smartphone

Post by Joe »

Garth wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 10:26 pmYou have to watch out for when science gets hijacked by politics or profit motives.
You can tell when it happens because the study will either intentionally use data with confounding variables or intentionally avoid investigating the original question. (For example, Monsanto funded many studies that proved the safety of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, but intentionally avoided studying Roundup.)
Garth wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 10:26 pmSo many doctors, scientists, and researchers today are using the internet to propagate the truth, taking advantage of the fact that corrupt industries and politicians don't have full control of the internet.
And so many conmen are using the internet to propagate lies, taking advantage of the fact that legitimate experts don't have full control of the internet either. Remember, information spreads more quickly when it makes people angry, even when that information is false, and "there's a conspiracy to oppress me" is the sort of thing that makes people angry. (And quite often, these conmen are being paid by those same corrupt industries to give the appearance of working against the industry to add legitimacy to their false claims.)
Garth wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 10:26 pmThat's like saying, "You can't believe everything you read in books (including those you had in nurses' training or medical school)!"
True! That's why, when we learn new things, we publish new books that correct the mistakes in the old books.
Garth wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 10:26 pmyou have to take in information from many different sources
How do you categorize your sources? How do you know when two sources are different, and not the same person propping up two "independent" publications that happen to agree with each other? How do you know that your "many different sources" include many different viewpoints?
Garth wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 10:26 pmDon't just discount them all and trust the same medical industry that told us in 1953 that smoking was proven safe and has given us lots of other disasters too.
The medical industry was paid by tobacco companies to claim that smoking didn't cause cancer. Actual doctors and scientists only ever claimed that they weren't sure, because cigarettes were still new and hadn't been widely studied yet. (And it didn't help that tobacco companies would outright lie and use fictional doctors in their advertisements to give the appearance that medical science agreed with them.)

For comparison, cell phones and wi-fi have both been around long enough that we would know if they were anywhere near as dangerous as cigarettes.
Garth wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 10:26 pmI'm 63 and have never had a situation where someone's emergency required getting hold of me while I was out.
Then you have had good luck so far. Congratulations! I hope your luck continues.
Garth wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 10:26 pmMy desktop PC takes only about 40 watts and I never even suspend it, let alone shut it down,
How much does that add to your electric bill?
Pokun
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Re: Living without a personal smartphone

Post by Pokun »

We have long known that mobile phones were a potential health risk, but the discussion became a lot more quiet in recent years. I remember they eventually said that the new phones were much safer and the discussion died down, but that was only the word on the street.
creaothceann
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Re: Living without a personal smartphone

Post by creaothceann »

Pokun wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 2:49 pm We have long known that mobile phones were a potential health risk, but the discussion became a lot more quiet in recent years. I remember they eventually said that the new phones were much safer and the discussion died down, but that was only the word on the street.
They can heat you up (a bit), but so does sunlight
My current setup:
Super Famicom ("2/1/3" SNS-CPU-GPM-02) → SCART → OSSC → StarTech USB3HDCAP → AmaRecTV 3.10
unregistered
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Re: Living without a personal smartphone

Post by unregistered »

Pokun wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 2:49 pm We have long known that mobile phones were a potential health risk, but the discussion became a lot more quiet in recent years. I remember they eventually said that the new phones were much safer and the discussion died down, but that was only the word on the street.
Hmmm… mobile phones WERE a potential health risk. The first ones used the technology in unwise manners bc the industry didn’t have any concrete experience; mobile phones were new. But, they have been around for quite a while now; the industry has had ample opportunities to fix/suppress those problems. I believe one of the problems had to do with the constant activity between cell phone and tower. Cell towers have been updated and updated since. So, maybe that’s better for us.

Wifi & the G things have been updated quite a few times. We have 5G now. I imagine 5G is safer than 1G… but I haven’t researched that.


And, who’s to know if that research text would be truthful? I do agree that constant cell phone use is terrible. “Outside” exists, so be sure to enjoy it. :) Direct interaction with good people is super healthy. The indirect cell phone is an avenue for contact too, but it’s just an avenue… :)
Drag
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Re: Living without a personal smartphone

Post by Drag »

The reason I'd be willing to believe "modern RF poses less health risks than older RF" is because we used to have X-ray radiation concerns with CRTs.

To oversimplify, in the 60s, CRTs could produce X-rays, but a minuscule amount compared to what you'd need to regularly expose yourself to in order to start feeling physical effects, which would require unusual and unreasonable situations.

Even so, it still lead to health and safety regulations created to lower these emissions even more. That's good, because even if CRTs were safe, they're now more safe. The emissions kept dropping with each decade, until the 2000s, when LCDs started replacing everything, nullifying the issue.


Conveniently, people don't like when kids sit in front of TVs or computers all day, so the radiation thing smells like a convenient, science-sounding argument to turn to, compared to more boring (but more realistic) arguments like "you're getting less physical activity", or "you're straining your eyes", or "you're forgetting to stay hydrated", or "you're specifically choosing to look at stuff that makes you upset instead of the more productive stuff that's also on here".

...and arguments against wifi and cell signals have the same feel to them. "We hate this thing, how do we convince people to make it go away?"

Ok sure, smartphones are now gone, and everyone is convinced to go "outside". What exactly is there to do outside these days? :P
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Jarhmander
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Re: Living without a personal smartphone

Post by Jarhmander »

Sports.
((λ (x) (x x)) (λ (x) (x x)))
Pokun
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Re: Living without a personal smartphone

Post by Pokun »

Yeah I remember seeing discussions in old newspapers from the '60s or '70s (or sometime near that) regarding concerns of having a job were you used a CRT monitor, people were interviewed and some women said they wouldn't work with a CRT if they were pregnant. I asked my parents and they said, yeah that discussion died down when CRTs became safer.
I guess there should be people now that have worked with older CRTs their whole lives and still live so that research could be done to see how big of a problem it really was by checking up on these people, and see if you can make any connections with CRT monitoring and certain health issues.


When I was a kid I was told not to play too much video games or I'd get square eyes.
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TmEE
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Re: Living without a personal smartphone

Post by TmEE »

According to the study attached, it is very difficult to measure anything above background levels even when misoperation is induced. There's some good info in it, well worth reading.
Attachments
CRTemissions.pdf
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unregistered
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Re: Living without a personal smartphone

Post by unregistered »

Drag wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 5:15 pm What exactly is there to do outside these days? :P
Hmmm… there’s countless things to do outside. :)

Examples from me:

i.) There is an outside water filter next to our house. The original pipe transferring water between it and our house became problematic bc the water filter output is higher than our house’s water input. And the pathway’s original brilliant plumber installed a bunch of copper pipes using three 90° ells. (An ell is a short bent pipe with two openings that you fill with straight pipes.) And the lowest ell was installed a tad lower than the ell feeding water into our house. So, when the water was off for freezing temperature, even though the pipes were drained, it accumulated in that lower corner. Two winters ago that lowest ell burst. I tried soldering the hole closed, but that didn’t hold in December bc I had wrapped the insulation with duck tape; the duck tape doesn’t last and so it broke apart allowing the insulation to separate and so that soldered hole in the “repaired” ell burst again. Happily, after much research, that was fixed by borrowing my uncle’s grinder. I was then enabled to cut most of that pipe contraption away, removed two of the ells and a bunch of the pipe, and installed a short piece of pex pipe diagonally, connected with a 90° Sharkbite ell and a 45° Sharkbite ell. Ells usually require soldering to keep them in place and to keep the water inside the pipes. But Sharkbites don’t require anything for install; you just insert the pex or copper pipe and it holds and functions just fine! :) The new insulation has been wrapped with electrical tape. Praise God!! :mrgreen: It’s much better now. That was all done outside.

ii.) My Uncle has built a vineyard on his property. He has learned and is equipped to make wine too. Yesterday I finished trimming his grapevines. Vineyards are outside.

iii.) I did run a lot while trying to loose weight. Kept at it even though I couldn’t run very far without walking; eventually I can now run a mile just fine without walking. Don’t run much anymore, but running should be done outside, at least for me; don’t have an indoor track. :)

iv.) Bike riding, kite flying, picnics are outside. Picnics are actually fun. :)
Pokun
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Re: Living without a personal smartphone

Post by Pokun »

Yeah I also prefer to run outside (when I do run) as opposed to on a conveyor belt (which is good for warming up in the gym though) or an indoor track. Preferably in a floodlit trail track in the woods, not in the streets. I also practice traditional Ryukyu karate & kobudo (though that's generally inside a dojo).
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Re: Living without a personal smartphone

Post by unregistered »

Pokun wrote: Wed Feb 01, 2023 8:39 am I also practice traditional Ryukyu karate & kobudo (though that's generally inside a dojo).
Really cool! :D My sister has a black belt in karate and taekwondo; my body isn’t flexible enough for martial arts… and I didn’t want to improve my flexibility that much. :)
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Re: Living without a personal smartphone

Post by Pokun »

I was as flexible as an anvil when I started goju-ryu karate (think Heihachi's style in Tekken) long ago. :)
You also get away not being an acrobat in traditional martial arts more as we don't use things like high kicks. High kicks makes little sense in self-defense (it's about at least as risky for the user as the opponent) so there are not as much pressure to be able to do high kicks as in modern styles like shotokan or taekwondo. Though some people like high kicks, and there is nothing that says you can't practice them anyway just to become more flexible in general.

Jump-kicks is another thing not done traditionally, but some people likes to add them for flavor as they look cool.

Another thing that is different is that we also practice with weapons (Okinawan kobudo which includes nunchaku, tonfa and sai, lots of cool weapons). Karate doesn't literally mean "empty hand" as many people think, just figuratively. Emptiness is a zen thing and "hand" is just an archaic way of saying something like "art" (kara originally meant an ancient China so karate meant Chinese art/techniques originally).
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Re: Living without a personal smartphone

Post by Garth »

@unregistered: Even without camera or microphone, your phone's location is being tracked and recorded all the time.  They know exactly where you've gone, what route you took to get there, how fast you went at various points, etc..  Even if you turn off the GPS, the cell sites use triangulation to get a pretty good idea.  I've seen videos however about other parts of surveillance, and they say that there's deceit going on there, and when you think you're turning things off, they still have sneaky ways to get the information they're looking for.

A problem with touchscreens is not just that you don't get some kind of pleasant click, but that you cannot feel where the keys are, so you have to look, full time.  You cannot touch-type.

For a calculator, I use my HP-41cx which I bought in 1986, for its ability to control equipment on the workbench.  I don't use it for control much anymore; but the programs I've written that I use most have been in it continuously for about 30 years, never having to re-load.  No modern device lasts that long.  I'm kind of a power user, with lots of modules in it.  Calculators on PCs and smartphones are generally made for people who don't want to be bothered with learning anything that would be associated with being a power user.

This is supposedly the information age; yet today's young people are more ignorant than ever.  It's just amazing how ignorant they are, in spite of how many hours a day or week they spend of their phones.

@assemblyx69:  The argument about a laptop being easier to steal doesn't seem to hold water.  Especially with women whose pockets are probably not as deep as men's, I always see their phone sticking out of their back pocket (if it's not in their hand), and it would be super easy for someone to grab it and run.

@Joe:  The fox has been given the job of guarding the hen house.  The "experts" you want to trust, like the FDA, CDC, FCC (which has been bought and paid for by the cell-phone industry) are the fox, and independent parties who are proving they know what they're talking about, but whom you don't want to listen to, are exposing them.  The cell-phone industry has spent far more on lobbying than any other industry in history, including the tobacco industry.  You wrote:
How do you categorize your sources? How do you know when two sources are different, and not the same person propping up two "independent" publications that happen to agree with each other? How do you know that your "many different sources" include many different viewpoints?
Obviously you have not been reading them.
For comparison, cell phones and wi-fi have both been around long enough that we would know if they were anywhere near as dangerous as cigarettes.
I give you lots of lectures and videos to digest and use as a springboard for further study (as I always recommend to people), but you don't want to accept it.
My desktop PC takes only about 40 watts and I never even suspend it, let alone shut it down,
How much does that add to your electric bill?
About fifteen cents a day.  How much does your cell phone cost you per day?
pokun wrote:We have long known that mobile phones were a potential health risk, but the discussion became a lot more quiet in recent years. I remember they eventually said that the new phones were much safer and the discussion died down, but that was only the word on the street.
Your cell phone's manual (which nobody reads) probably says to keep it at least 5/8" away from your ear/face/body to meet the FCC standards; but those standards are nowhere near as stringent as those of other countries.
creaothceann wrote:They can heat you up (a bit), but so does sunlight
The link completely misses the point.  The signal doesn't have to be anywhere near strong enough to be ionizing or heating to do single- and double-strand DNA breaks.  Further, the pulsing used by cell-phone and WiFi and bluetooth signals makes these signals far more damaging than simply having an unmodulated pure sine wave at the same frequencies and power level.

Here's another page I came across last week:
https://www.activistpost.com/2023/01/4- ... umans.html
Please watch the embedded video lectures and documentaries about the research, what other countries have done, the corruption in the government agencies and the burying of study results that would hurt the industry profits, etc..
http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
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