Author Topic: I despise the modern phones and internet  (Read 21459 times)

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Offline tooki

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #100 on: December 16, 2022, 06:18:09 pm »
I wonder if the high resolution screens make things worse, in that they tempt you to look at smaller things that you should be comfortable with.
While I understand what you mean about the risk of making things too small and then struggling to focus on them, that is far outweighed by the improved readability of text at high resolution. One shouldn’t be aiming to fit more on the screen, but to use scaling to use more (smaller) pixels to draw the same thing.

At work I now have two 28” 4K displays, with Windows configured to 150% scaling. And it’s gorgeous. Text is just plain easier to read.

They sure look good, but you have to focus better.
Our eyes always seek to optimize focus. Blurry low-resolution images cause eye strain precisely because our eyes are working hard attempting to find focus that cannot be found because the image itself is blurry.

A sharp image (or sharp text) has high contrast and thus makes focusing easier, reducing eye strain.

Low light reduces contrast, which is why reading with insufficient light is tiring. (To the point that there are workplace regulations regarding minimum light levels.) Wildly excessive light is also tiring, but this is rarely a problem, since indoor lighting tends to be insufficient, not excessive.

A book tends to be lower resolution (even though it's printed at 600dpi or whatever, the text is low-res)
This is the diametrical opposite of how it is. Maybe you’re using “low-res” to mean something other than what it actually means.

(Talking about traditional offset lithography printing and direct digital press.)
Books are printed at very high resolutions: either 1270dpi or 2450dpi. Especially on good, smooth paper, text is exceedingly sharp. And because of how offset printing works, any microscopic jaggies that theoretically could be present get smoothed out by the time the ink is transferred to the paper.

Laser and inkjet, which are sometimes used for small-scale book printing (especially on-demand), while varying substantially in sharpness, are never quite as good as offset or digital presses — for text. (For photos, inkjet beats every other surviving technology that prints using ink or toner onto paper. Only silver halide is really superior, and dye-sub is no longer made in larger print sizes. But I digress.)

whereas a computer screen has many tiny things to attract your eye.
Are you referring to pixels, subpixels, or GUI widgets?
« Last Edit: December 16, 2022, 06:22:44 pm by tooki »
 

Offline Siwastaja

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #101 on: December 16, 2022, 07:40:49 pm »
But that's mostly because the vast majority of the population prefers to operate this way. I don't want to walk into my bank and talk to a teller, I want to pull out my smartphone, open my banking app and manage my money that way.

True, but you have to separate the two cases:
(1) helpful digitalization,
(2) harmful digitalization.

Former is done to reduce the mental or concrete load of tasks. Latter is to increase it, by either making existing things more difficult, or introducing completely new tasks. Highly confusing, because on surface, it can be hard to say whichever it is!

For example, filling in tax forms online is obviously helpful, compared to filling in paper forms, especially when you also have the paper form option available. On the other hand, having to install an app on your phone so you can go to LIDL and then instead of simply paying, you are now playing with your phone, wasting everybody's time, just to get a reduction in the price increase that was associated with the introduction of said bullshit app. It was total 180 deg, before that LIDL was actually proud of their concept of having no such bullshit, but selling to everyone for decent price.

The day they introduced it, the public reaction was almost 100% rejection, everybody hated it. They realized it and had to make long and cringeworthy TV ad series where they made fun of the situation, basically their argument was "we know you hate it, but it's not too bad, and you don't have to use it if you don't want, just pay more for your shit, PS. **** you".

But such public rejection was never seen with online banking. Everyone was so relieved they save a lot of time and effort.
« Last Edit: December 17, 2022, 09:19:08 am by Siwastaja »
 
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Online PlainName

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #102 on: December 16, 2022, 08:11:29 pm »
Quote
Quote from: PlainName
A book tends to be lower resolution (even though it's printed at 600dpi or whatever, the text is low-res)
This is the diametrical opposite of how it is. Maybe you’re using “low-res” to mean something other than what it actually means.

Yes, couldn't think how to describe it better. Text tends to lack tiny detail, so although it's high DPI it's could also be much lower and still be readable. And, in fact, we can even read it when we can't really see it perfectly enough to distinguish the letters.

Quote
Quote
They sure look good, but you have to focus better.
Our eyes always seek to optimize focus. Blurry low-resolution images cause eye strain precisely because our eyes are working hard attempting to find focus that cannot be found because the image itself is blurry.

Yes, that's part of my problem. I have long focus, so something close than arm's length needs glasses. I can normally manage a phone screen by deliberately not focusing, but sometimes I relax and my eyes try to focus on something that's too close, so I get eye strain and the next day it's all headache. So a high DPI screen looks great but that greatness encourages focusing on the tiny detail you really don't want to.

Quote
Quote
whereas a computer screen has many tiny things to attract your eye.
Are you referring to pixels, subpixels, or GUI widgets?
Er, by GUI widgets do you mean anything that isn't text? The window furniture, single-pixel wide lines, etc. That kind of thing which you don't find in books.
 

Offline AndyBeez

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #103 on: December 16, 2022, 08:32:35 pm »
Well here's a real world example of why the internet is becoming sh** : A delivery supply company of ours is ceasing their tried and tested mobile text and email tracking notifications in favour of push notifications on WhatsApp. So no more texts and no more emails. Instead we need to load WhatsApp on compatible devices and then join their WhatsApp group to receive information about our deliveries. For compatible devices read not a PC, not a laptop, not older mobile that can receive text messages, and certainly no other device on the network that's been popping emails since 1992. Their rationale is customers only ever use WhatsApp on iPhones these days.  :-//

Did you know WhatsApp was a messaging service conceived to be ad free? And that now, owned by Zuckernerd's Meta [data for sale] company, it has replaced Facebook Messenger? Which is why WhatsApp is now the most prolific push advertising platform on the web? So why the change from our soon to be ex-delivery supplier? That old excuse; the IT supplier is, "doing an upgrade." They are, we're not.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2022, 08:35:39 pm by AndyBeez »
 

Offline james_s

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #104 on: December 16, 2022, 08:57:50 pm »
Well here's a real world example of why the internet is becoming sh** : A delivery supply company of ours is ceasing their tried and tested mobile text and email tracking notifications in favour of push notifications on WhatsApp. So no more texts and no more emails. Instead we need to load WhatsApp on compatible devices and then join their WhatsApp group to receive information about our deliveries. For compatible devices read not a PC, not a laptop, not older mobile that can receive text messages, and certainly no other device on the network that's been popping emails since 1992. Their rationale is customers only ever use WhatsApp on iPhones these days.  :-//

Did you know WhatsApp was a messaging service conceived to be ad free? And that now, owned by Zuckernerd's Meta [data for sale] company, it has replaced Facebook Messenger? Which is why WhatsApp is now the most prolific push advertising platform on the web? So why the change from our soon to be ex-delivery supplier? That old excuse; the IT supplier is, "doing an upgrade." They are, we're not.

That really is ridiculous. I've never used WhatsApp and don't intend to start now. SMS is universal, all mobile phones support it.
 

Offline jonovid

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #105 on: December 16, 2022, 10:12:29 pm »
it takes time to realize the time we are in.
when money becomes non-fungible tokens & or part of a phone.
when science fiction finally becomes science fact
with all the horror of a bad 1950s sci fi movie
dolly the 2.0 sheep may well have two heads & one all seeing eye with imbedded wifi.
with a newly discovered financial black hole is a country in Eastern Europe.
when the doomsday clock times out. & nobody noticed it!
it takes time to finally realize the time we are in.
Hobbyist with a basic knowledge of electronics
 

Online thm_w

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #106 on: December 16, 2022, 11:14:19 pm »
Sure but they are getting harder and harder to find so when you search 90% of results are now is this app/cloud stuff you have to filter through, and often you don't find out you need an app until after you already bought it.   I was looking at a Trendnet one that looked promising and was available here in Canada, only to read the doc and find out you need an app.   I'm in Canada so it's even harder to get stuff here as we just don't have as good of an online retail selection as the states does so it's slim pickings for everything.  Have not been able to find a place that sells Hikvision for example as they do have good reviews.   I know there's Amazon but lot of fakes/hacked ones on there so I tend to avoid Amazon for stuff like that. 

Routers are a new one to me but I did run into that and I fear it will become a trend too, was setting up internet for someone and that ISP's setup was super proprietary and you had to download and use an app just to configure the modem/router.    I run a custom rom on my phone so couldn't do it so had to use the customer's phone.  Super annoying that they just assume everyone has a regular phone. Not to mention how you're stuck relying on highly proprietary software/environment and your whole setup could be rendered obsolete if they stop updating it when you get a new phone.

Drones, action cameras etc are bad too.   It seems to be a trend with so many devices now.

Sure, most of the results are cheap crap which should be avoided, start by not sorting by price.
If you read the user manual for this Trendnet camera, they show how to log in to the web interface directly: https://www.trendnet.com/support/support-detail.asp?prod=210_TV-IP1314PI
Most standalone cameras are going to have an app, because it IS a pain for the average person to set them up, find the IP, etc.
Costco has Swann (some are rebranded hikvision parts) and others, anything with a HDD would generally run standalone without needing an app. If you can't spend the time to find a genuine hikvision elsewhere.
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Offline tooki

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #107 on: December 16, 2022, 11:32:54 pm »
Did you know WhatsApp was a messaging service conceived to be ad free?
It still is.

And that now, owned by Zuckernerd's Meta [data for sale] company, it has replaced Facebook Messenger?
It has not. Both still exist and are completely separate. You can’t even send messages between them.

Which is why WhatsApp is now the most prolific push advertising platform on the web?
Is it? I’ve never seen that, unlike sms spam.
 
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Online thm_w

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #108 on: December 16, 2022, 11:34:49 pm »
For example, filling in tax forms online is obviously helpful, compared to filling in paper forms, especially when you also have the paper form option available. On the other hand, having to install an app on your phone so you can go to LIDL and then instead of simply paying, you are now playing with your phone, wasting everybody's time, just to get a reduction in the price increase that was associated with the introduction of said bullshit app. It was total 180 deg, before that LIDL was actually proud of their concept of having no such bullshit, but selling to everyone for decent price.

Try printing the barcode out and sticking on your phone.
It won't work for ticketmaster, but surely it would work for a grocery store.
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Offline james_s

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #109 on: December 17, 2022, 01:49:16 am »
Try printing the barcode out and sticking on your phone.
It won't work for ticketmaster, but surely it would work for a grocery store.

I'm not a fan of stores that give you a discounted price if you give them your phone number. Fortunately I have found a workaround years ago, in this region at least just use the phone number for Microsoft headquarters, 425-882-8080. So many people have worked there and used their work phone number to sign up for things that I have yet to encounter a place that didn't have that number on file. In most cases they don't even list the name, in one case a confused clerk at a shoe store looked at me skeptically and asked if I was Alfonzo Finch. Um, sure.  ;D
 
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Offline Wilksey

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #110 on: December 17, 2022, 02:10:43 am »
It is true that we rely on our "smart" phones more than ever every shop seems to have their own "App" which lets you scan barcodes to get deals or whatever, banking can still thankfully be done on the computer, MFA which requires an authenticator "app", etc.

The list is long and plentiful as to what uses our pocket computers these days, even needed one to book a desk using the "hotdesk app" in my previous place of employment, ludicrous.

I don't upgrade every year I am still rocking my Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, with a £10 a month Voxi plan, I don't need the latest 20 core quantum computing chip to make and receive calls or texts.

If I dropped £1200 on a phone i'd treat it like i'd just dropped £300k on a Ferrari, i'd never take it out!

Apparently (don't have it so don't have the issue) there is a way to allow your phone to make payments without authorising them which has caused great delight for pickpockets / thieves / scummies with a "widget" to take payment without you knowing just by hovering near you, I saw a post on Facebook advising people to turn that feature off.

I mainly use my "smart" features for Geocaching and showing online collection emails to the folks behind the counter.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #111 on: December 17, 2022, 03:15:51 am »
I'm on my second smartphone ever. My first iPhone 4 I bought on sale after the new model came out and I used it for around 4 years. Eventually it got hopelessly slow and I upgraded to a 2016 iPhone SE around 2018 when it too was on sale after a new model came out. I've had them in a protective shell since day 1 and both phones still look like new.
 
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Offline Wilksey

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #112 on: December 17, 2022, 04:05:19 am »
I'm on my second smartphone ever. My first iPhone 4 I bought on sale after the new model came out and I used it for around 4 years. Eventually it got hopelessly slow and I upgraded to a 2016 iPhone SE around 2018 when it too was on sale after a new model came out. I've had them in a protective shell since day 1 and both phones still look like new.
My phone history is very similar, I used to have Nokia's my first was a 3210, then I got a 3G Flip phone which was absolute abysmal to use, I also had a Sony Ericsson K800i for my work phone, I got rid of the flip phone and got a Nokia n95 then I "upgraded" to my first smart phone a HTC Desire, then I got the Samsung Galaxy S3, I used both of those phones till they didn't boot up any more, then I got the S6 Edge which I still have, got a wanky iPhone8 for a work phone, no idea how to use it, just bings and bongs at me so I turn it away and ignore it till it rings or I have to do MFA.

I've done some Android development and ran the apps on the S6 and my old Samsung A6 work phone which I no longer have.  I did some J2ME dev on the K800i back in the day, never got into Symbian development on the Nokias though.
 

Offline madires

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #113 on: December 17, 2022, 03:34:55 pm »
I'm using Reolink Lumus cameras with 64GB SD cards and in my OpenWRT router I've set it to block the camera from accessing the internet. Works fine with both my laptops windows OS and my android phone and the quality of the software is good. and it doesn't complain that it cannot access the internet.

From a network security and operations point of view it's a good idea to goup all devices you don't trust into separate VLANs or SSIDs, each with its own network and firewall zone. At first it takes a bit more effort to set everything up. But later on with more devices it will pay off.
 
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Offline Kasper

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #114 on: December 17, 2022, 04:21:57 pm »

I'm not a fan of stores that give you a discounted price if you give them your phone number.

I often tell businesses I dont like giving out my phone number and they always promise to protect it as if they have any idea what that means.

I recently got a new phone number for my business and it got so many junk calls and texts that I changed it.  Repeated that a few times and had similar results each time.

Makes me glad I've resisted peoples attempts to take my personal phone number over the years.  It doesn't get nearly as much of that garbage.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #115 on: December 17, 2022, 07:27:02 pm »
Robocalls have completely ruined the telephone as a means of communication. I finally set my phone so that if a number is not in my contact list it doesn't even ring.
 
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Online SiliconWizard

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #116 on: December 17, 2022, 07:36:34 pm »
Robocalls have completely ruined the telephone as a means of communication. I finally set my phone so that if a number is not in my contact list it doesn't even ring.

Yep.
 

Offline Kasper

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #117 on: December 17, 2022, 07:46:31 pm »
I use call control.  When people phone me, they are told to press a number before the call gets through.  Works well.

It comes with a webform to enter safe numbers that bypass it.
 

Offline Red Squirrel

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #118 on: December 17, 2022, 09:23:15 pm »
Robocalls have completely ruined the telephone as a means of communication. I finally set my phone so that if a number is not in my contact list it doesn't even ring.

I never get any of that on my cell but when I had a landline it was bad.  I wonder if the DNCL system just works better on the cell network here.  I do get the odd telemarketing call but it's from companies I do business with, trying to sell me more stuff so those don't get blocked, and I can't actually block them because they could potentially call for a legit reason.   Telus is bad for that. I have my alarm system through them because they bought out ADT so now they keep calling me to switch my cell plan over. 
 

Offline Red Squirrel

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #119 on: December 17, 2022, 09:24:39 pm »

I'm not a fan of stores that give you a discounted price if you give them your phone number.

I often tell businesses I dont like giving out my phone number and they always promise to protect it as if they have any idea what that means.

I recently got a new phone number for my business and it got so many junk calls and texts that I changed it.  Repeated that a few times and had similar results each time.

Makes me glad I've resisted peoples attempts to take my personal phone number over the years.  It doesn't get nearly as much of that garbage.

I noticed some places often ask for a postal code, so I always give them a fake one that ends in 1A1.  Funny thing is, I've seen it on web forms etc where it prefills that postal code for me because the systems think that's my real postal code. Shows how much our data really gets shared around - even false data!
 

Offline Monkeh

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #120 on: December 17, 2022, 09:28:02 pm »

I'm not a fan of stores that give you a discounted price if you give them your phone number.

I often tell businesses I dont like giving out my phone number and they always promise to protect it as if they have any idea what that means.

I recently got a new phone number for my business and it got so many junk calls and texts that I changed it.  Repeated that a few times and had similar results each time.

Makes me glad I've resisted peoples attempts to take my personal phone number over the years.  It doesn't get nearly as much of that garbage.

I noticed some places often ask for a postal code, so I always give them a fake one that ends in 1A1.  Funny thing is, I've seen it on web forms etc where it prefills that postal code for me because the systems think that's my real postal code. Shows how much our data really gets shared around - even false data!

You know your browser does that, right?
 

Offline james_s

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #121 on: December 18, 2022, 12:03:07 am »
I noticed some places often ask for a postal code, so I always give them a fake one that ends in 1A1.  Funny thing is, I've seen it on web forms etc where it prefills that postal code for me because the systems think that's my real postal code. Shows how much our data really gets shared around - even false data!

Why bother with a fake postal code? Seems like that's too broad to disclose much about you anyway.
 

Offline Red Squirrel

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #122 on: December 18, 2022, 12:17:50 am »

I'm not a fan of stores that give you a discounted price if you give them your phone number.

I often tell businesses I dont like giving out my phone number and they always promise to protect it as if they have any idea what that means.

I recently got a new phone number for my business and it got so many junk calls and texts that I changed it.  Repeated that a few times and had similar results each time.

Makes me glad I've resisted peoples attempts to take my personal phone number over the years.  It doesn't get nearly as much of that garbage.

I noticed some places often ask for a postal code, so I always give them a fake one that ends in 1A1.  Funny thing is, I've seen it on web forms etc where it prefills that postal code for me because the systems think that's my real postal code. Shows how much our data really gets shared around - even false data!

You know your browser does that, right?

I always hated how browsers are so leaky and seem to disclose lot of private info.   Though as far as location goes it seems to at least prompt me, so I always say no. Most sites seem to think I live in the GTA, and I've had some think I live in the maritimes.

Phone is a whole other issue, they leak even more info and they usually have me right down to the city, even with location service turned off.   I doubt that setting does much other than disable active location data usage such as GPS related apps. Background location checks are probably still let through.   I use a custom rom so it might be a tad better but I noticed if I open some sites I will see adds that know what city I'm in.  Creepy how much of our data just gets leaked to 3rd parties all the time.
 

Offline Wilksey

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #123 on: December 18, 2022, 01:40:55 am »
Most IP Addresses are geolocated these days, but mine tells me i'm nowhere near my home town, so it's not accurate.
 

Online PlainName

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Re: I despise the modern phones and internet
« Reply #124 on: December 18, 2022, 01:44:02 am »
Quote
Why bother with a fake postal code? Seems like that's too broad to disclose much about you anyway.

Depending on where you are, the post code may identify a single  house. But it's like most data: on its own it's not so hot, but combine it with other data and the you might as well drop your pants and bend over.

Quote
Robocalls have completely ruined the telephone as a means of communication.

Chappy over here rented a premium rate number and hands that out. Apparently robocalls and the like more than pay for it.
 
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