Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

homunculus-argument:

You know that thing where you see a gorgeous view (left) and try to take a picture of it, but your phone camera is a joyless fucking nihilist who refuses to see the beauty in anything and only sees this (right)

01f1de93829162a154089209202b470dcad010b8  020842c90464fe859395871583565e69979a8378

​

homunculus-argument:

As a more thorough demonstration, today the road looked like this:

12d2a1c3d814de4f384d5d1ae33c5487833b8ee0

(blatant paint-over of my own photo, because I needed you to see what I saw)

And my phone camera made it look like this:

3daf7ff71669ba2c74412ae68847c4ac26b4add8

​

kezcore:

prev tags WHAAAAT

f28609b77d01a8c94e4e643089b81bb7564df547

​

altruistic-meme:

ok im gonna explain it anyway bc of this sO HERE IS MY QUICK BREAKDOWN

[please note my breakdown IS android specific bc that’s what i have, however i know that the settings should be SIMILAR for an iphone. i just couldn’t tell you the exacts]

GO TO THE “MORE” SETTING (should be visible as soon as you open your camera)

5322924510075b7fb346a77c8c2fc3df1c81601f

GO TO “PRO”

efc27e02f28e5e16e4df61e6119a7309deabba9a

PLAY WITH THE ISO, THE SPEED (shutter speed) AND THE WB (temperature)

49706d7c9081a9cf0913d241e22834aaa4cbd6e2

a HIGH ISO will help brighten your photo, a LOW ISO will help dim it.

a FAST shutter speed will DARKEN your photo, a SLOW shutter speed will make it LIGHT. this will also have an effect on how your photo takes!!! the slower your shutter speed, the steadier you need to hold your phone or it WILL become blurry, but it allows more ambient light and is thus recommended for taking photos of, say, stars. a fast shutter speed is how you take photos of objects in motion, but it lets almost no ambient light in (this is where you would want to up your ISO!)

the WB/temperature will shift your photo from being more warm toned to more cool toned.

here are some examples i took of the same sky. each photo has a different ISO, Speed, and WB:

f86c12bd868b83b810191bbd24e6cc52bd6b50bd
29a892fca1d8bd20c35bb95d9f7e8277bbb3cf4e
e9ab42b54a7cae06c96dc2f875c3d99034d4c565

and here is a much more subtle example where I was messing only with the ISO and shutter speed:

fffdeb6dcb01c4f15ea7b4b13453649e26466580  6e0b799e14202011b5b34c3570e0d647ad6318c9

finally, here is one compared to a photo I took at the same moment with just my phones normal camera:

dec51c9a4908a83b0921b4f9837a3ae8e2ec5e16  8f39863a68543b07830774a4a07fd6c781a050f3
(you can REALLY see the sun rays peering out over the clouds in the photo on the right, which is what i was trying to photograph!)

As you can see, the difference are HUGE even when they’re subtle!!!

your regular phone camera SUCKS but it DOES come equipped with the right settings to take gorgeous photos. you just have up know what to look for!!!!!

[sidebar: NONE OF THESE PHOTOS ARE EDITED BTW!!! this is exactly how the phone took them!!!]

Tags:

#the more you know #art #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

{{previous post in sequence}}

brin-bellway:

maryellencarter:

heroofthreefaces:

riseofthecommonwoodpile:

riseofthecommonwoodpile:

smartphone storage plateauing in favor of just storing everything in the cloud is such dogshit. i should be able to have like a fucking terabyte of data on my phone at this point. i hate the fucking cloud

this is gonna make me sound very Old Man Yells At Cloud but i just hate how many things in my life assume i will always have access to a quick, reliable internet connection and almost cease to function without it. Obviously certain things Have To Have An Internet Connection, but i want to be able to listen to music if my service is bad. i want to still watch movies if Netflix is down. i want to have a working map when i can’t get a cell signal. nearly every tech product these days bears the fingerprint of the extremely internet-rich places they are developed, high rent offices in Seattle, San Francisco, etc.. I think often the idea of the internet not being available is so remote to them it doesn’t even factor in to development. i remember when the Xbox One was debuted and Microsoft was almost mockingly like “if you don’t have reliable fast internet, then don’t bother buying this”, and there was such backlash they completely went back on so much of that. But now that attitude is just the tech norm.

I don’t trust the cloud.

This makes me happy I don’t use my phone for going online

i mean you can get a terabyte phone but it costs like $1600 USD (give or take a couple hundred, idk, i’m not looking it up)

what really pisses me off is that the samsung flagship phones have completely phased out their sd card slots. you can’t get a cell phone with expandable storage anymore

Yeah, it’s such bullshit that it’s a whole ordeal to dig up a model with a microSD slot now.

I *do* have a 2020-model phone (a slightly different model of which is still in production) with a half-terabyte microSD† in it. (For CAD$155 instead of CAD$70 I could have gotten a full terabyte of microSD, but I didn’t have the budget. Mind you, I *could* upgrade later, without having to replace the whole phone…) But that’s because a microSD slot was my single highest priority when deciding what model to buy, absolutely non-negotiable: if I’d cared any less, I’d probably have ended up with a Pixel or a OnePlus.

—

Hmm, I wrote an extremely outdated guide to orienting your phone setup around not having reliable Internet access in 2015, and a substantially outdated guide in 2018, so it sounds like I’m due for another one. Be right back.

[three months of on-and-off tinkering later]

Okay, here’s “Tips on Offline-First Smartphones, 2023 Edition”.

—

†Some of the specs for that phone model you’ll see around will say it takes “up to 128 GB”, but don’t be fooled: 64 GB – 2 TB microSDs are the same backwards-compatibility tier. If a phone can take 32 GB, it might not be able to take 64, but if it can take 64 it can take 2048.

Tags:

#bringing this back since I’ve seen some of the more despairing versions of this thread being passed around again recently #and yes‚ I do have a copy of my Tumblr on my phone #multiple copies‚ in fact: [a tumblr-utils output] and [a scrape of my WordPress mirror converted to Kiwix format] #(and technically also the text-only export from WordPress but I *really* don’t want to have to bootstrap from that one) #(that one is very last-resort) #(cheap‚ though: 6.8 MB) #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #disappointed permanent resident of The Future #proud citizen of The Future #Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #fun with loopholes #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

snarp:

Google Query: “best low-end compact Android phone for fucked up arthritic little hands in 2023”

Top Result: “Tech Truths (techlies.com)Best Small Phones of 2023 – 1 days ago – Our reviewers fucking loved the Samsung Galaxy Cookie Sheet, at 8″x13” and $1,800″

Tags:

#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #disappointed permanent resident of The Future #Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

{{previous post in sequence}}

riseofthecommonwoodpile:

smartphone storage plateauing in favor of just storing everything in the cloud is such dogshit. i should be able to have like a fucking terabyte of data on my phone at this point. i hate the fucking cloud

​

riseofthecommonwoodpile:

this is gonna make me sound very Old Man Yells At Cloud but i just hate how many things in my life assume i will always have access to a quick, reliable internet connection and almost cease to function without it. Obviously certain things Have To Have An Internet Connection, but i want to be able to listen to music if my service is bad. i want to still watch movies if Netflix is down. i want to have a working map when i can’t get a cell signal. nearly every tech product these days bears the fingerprint of the extremely internet-rich places they are developed, high rent offices in Seattle, San Francisco, etc.. I think often the idea of the internet not being available is so remote to them it doesn’t even factor in to development. i remember when the Xbox One was debuted and Microsoft was almost mockingly like “if you don’t have reliable fast internet, then don’t bother buying this”, and there was such backlash they completely went back on so much of that. But now that attitude is just the tech norm.

​

heroofthreefaces:

I don’t trust the cloud.

This makes me happy I don’t use my phone for going online

​

maryellencarter:

i mean you can get a terabyte phone but it costs like $1600 USD (give or take a couple hundred, idk, i’m not looking it up)

what really pisses me off is that the samsung flagship phones have completely phased out their sd card slots. you can’t get a cell phone with expandable storage anymore

​

brin-bellway:

Yeah, it’s such bullshit that it’s a whole ordeal to dig up a model with a microSD slot now.

I *do* have a 2020-model phone (a slightly different model of which is still in production) with a half-terabyte microSD† in it. (For CAD$155 instead of CAD$70 I could have gotten a full terabyte of microSD, but I didn’t have the budget. Mind you, I *could* upgrade later, without having to replace the whole phone…) But that’s because a microSD slot was my single highest priority when deciding what model to buy, absolutely non-negotiable: if I’d cared any less, I’d probably have ended up with a Pixel or a OnePlus.

—

Hmm, I wrote an extremely outdated guide to orienting your phone setup around not having reliable Internet access in 2015, and a substantially outdated guide in 2018, so it sounds like I’m due for another one. Be right back.

[three months of on-and-off tinkering later]

Okay, here’s “Tips on Offline-First Smartphones, 2023 Edition”.

—

†Some of the specs for that phone model you’ll see around will say it takes “up to 128 GB”, but don’t be fooled: 64 GB – 2 TB microSDs are the same backwards-compatibility tier. If a phone can take 32 GB, it might not be able to take 64, but if it can take 64 it can take 2048.

​

necarion:

I am told it legitimately (to a small degree) helps with waterproofing. Because a very small number of users like to swap out the SD cards regularly, like for photos and stuff for easier transfer. And some number of them are bad at it and tend to break the waterproofing around the card slot, which makes the phone less safe if dunked.

Now, this seems (a) true, and (b) like total bullshit. I don’t think I’ve ever met a person who talks about regularly swapping SD cards. And the ones who are doing it for semi pro photography stuff are generally going to be types who are more careful (or use, like, real cameras).

Right now you can get a 1TB SanDisk SD card (a better brand) for $100 USD. I’m sure the memory isn’t quite as fast as whatever is integrated into the phone. But also, 1TB can easily be fitted into that footprint. I’ve also seen chromebooks recently sporting 64GB, which is absolutely unacceptable and clearly them trying to offload like 5 year old stock. And honestly, that is part of it – the lower end processors or memory are outdated stock they are trying to get rid of. But also, since the base model seems to have been stuck at 128 for about 3 years, they are obviously still *making* the 128 for phones.

There is that point that upgrading storage (128gb to 256 gb for $100) does subsidize the lower models of phone. But also, this could easily be done for 512 to 1024GB for a $150 markup for similar profit margin (the cost to upgrade 128 to 256 sd card is about $10, from 256 to 512 is $25, and 512 to 1024 is $50.

(sorry about the additional delay: it’s been a weird couple of months)

—

The waterproofing complaint has the same vibe to me as, like, when people complain about the Internet connection being slow on an airplane, or that their laptop battery only lasts for five hours. All this time I have been taking for granted that these aren’t things it’s feasible to do (except *maybe* for the ultra-rich?), and the way I find out that things have changed is by overhearing people complain about the exceptions where things *do* still work the way I thought they did.

I just double-checked and indeed my phone model is not waterproof, exactly as I had unconsciously assumed of a delicate bundle of electronics with replaceable internal components.

—

(also there was a while there where I was having some file-sync issues and *was* regularly pulling my microSD card so that I could plug it into my laptop and sync it through there, but I’ve sorted that out now)

—

And yeah, I don’t feel like I have a good grasp of the reasons for what’s going on with internal storage.

Tags:

#101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #reply via reblog #adventures in human capitalism #disappointed permanent resident of The Future

{{next post in sequence}}

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

maryellencarter:

heroofthreefaces:

riseofthecommonwoodpile:

riseofthecommonwoodpile:

smartphone storage plateauing in favor of just storing everything in the cloud is such dogshit. i should be able to have like a fucking terabyte of data on my phone at this point. i hate the fucking cloud

this is gonna make me sound very Old Man Yells At Cloud but i just hate how many things in my life assume i will always have access to a quick, reliable internet connection and almost cease to function without it. Obviously certain things Have To Have An Internet Connection, but i want to be able to listen to music if my service is bad. i want to still watch movies if Netflix is down. i want to have a working map when i can’t get a cell signal. nearly every tech product these days bears the fingerprint of the extremely internet-rich places they are developed, high rent offices in Seattle, San Francisco, etc.. I think often the idea of the internet not being available is so remote to them it doesn’t even factor in to development. i remember when the Xbox One was debuted and Microsoft was almost mockingly like “if you don’t have reliable fast internet, then don’t bother buying this”, and there was such backlash they completely went back on so much of that. But now that attitude is just the tech norm.

I don’t trust the cloud.

This makes me happy I don’t use my phone for going online

i mean you can get a terabyte phone but it costs like $1600 USD (give or take a couple hundred, idk, i’m not looking it up)

what really pisses me off is that the samsung flagship phones have completely phased out their sd card slots. you can’t get a cell phone with expandable storage anymore

Yeah, it’s such bullshit that it’s a whole ordeal to dig up a model with a microSD slot now.

I *do* have a 2020-model phone (a slightly different model of which is still in production) with a half-terabyte microSD† in it. (For CAD$155 instead of CAD$70 I could have gotten a full terabyte of microSD, but I didn’t have the budget. Mind you, I *could* upgrade later, without having to replace the whole phone…) But that’s because a microSD slot was my single highest priority when deciding what model to buy, absolutely non-negotiable: if I’d cared any less, I’d probably have ended up with a Pixel or a OnePlus.

—

Hmm, I wrote an extremely outdated guide to orienting your phone setup around not having reliable Internet access in 2015, and a substantially outdated guide in 2018, so it sounds like I’m due for another one. Be right back.

[three months of on-and-off tinkering later]

Okay, here’s “Tips on Offline-First Smartphones, 2023 Edition”.

—

†Some of the specs for that phone model you’ll see around will say it takes “up to 128 GB”, but don’t be fooled: 64 GB – 2 TB microSDs are the same backwards-compatibility tier. If a phone can take 32 GB, it might not be able to take 64, but if it can take 64 it can take 2048.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #oh look an original post #disappointed permanent resident of The Future #Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #fun with loopholes #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers

{{next post in sequence}}

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

bulbous-oar:

rustingbridges:

has anyone else noticed it becoming less straightforward to keep apps updated on android or is this just me

I feel like the update all button used to be prominent in the google store and now it’s buried under twelve menus and I can never remember where it is

in theory google should just sneak the updates on to my phone but for whatever reason this does not reliably happen

wow we have very different experiences

i’m constantly trying to prevent google from sneaking updates onto my phone, mostly unsuccessfully

i don’t want 11 of the 16 GB my phone has to be spent on app updates for google-sponsored spyware and an ever-growing black box “System”

if I could just close off the internet entirely except for the browser and the individual apps I use, that would be amazing

>>if I could just close off the internet entirely except for the browser and the individual apps I use, that would be amazing

I use NetGuard for this and I recommend it.

You might be interested in the rest of this comment I wrote on the subject, too.

Tags:

#Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #the more you know #reply via reblog #disappointed permanent resident of The Future #fun with loopholes

birdblogwhichisforbirds asked: How would you suggest replacing apps that require gps to work? Before smartphones I never went anywhere by myself unless I’d been shown the route multiple times by someone else. (This is due to Brain Problems, which I can explain more if necessary.) “learn to read paper map” is not workable advice for me. Should I get a gps that’s compatible w walking (do those exist)? Or do I just have to accept being spied on if I ever want to go anywhere alone (still better than being dependent real ppl imo)

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

ms-demeanor:

No need to explain more, brain problems is brain problems and sometimes you need a particular tool to get around them. It’s not your fault for needing the tool and that’s part of why I’m so angry that protecting your privacy falls so heavily on the users instead of the manufacturers (my beef with smart homes: let me show you it – smart home devices are incredible for lots of disability reasons but not a one of them is really secure, so if you require smart home devices to improve your quality of life or make you more independent you’re forced to allow these invasions to your privacy)

So some GPSs do have good routing stuff that works with walking – Garmin comes to mind, and I know there’s stuff that’s a bit more “users shared this” than “google is watching you” out there among sporting/adventure/outdoor users.

But what you’re describing is a legitimate problem with mapping software that has to check back in with cell service or internet service instead of using simple GPS – it’s something that has really irritated me about using google maps over the years: I should be able to load a map then turn off my cell service and have it run along on GPS only (see many trips I’ve taken that have cell service for 98% of the drive then I have to rely on guessing for the last 2% because the gps isn’t updating because I’m out of cell tower range).

I think your best bet if you keep using your phone is probably to do something like disable location on most of your apps and then only enable your mapping app when you’re using it (and make sure that ad locations is off and don’t use the highly specific locations). Strangle the permissions as much as you can.

HOWEVER this ask got me to do some research and it looks like OsmAnd might be a good solution – it has offline maps for drivers and for pedestrians and the description of it includes some of my favorite tech-related words: “robust open-source” – the maps are totally open source though the app is not so keep an eye on those permissions too but at the very least any info collected doesn’t go straight to google.

(navigating offline maps is good though, this is super good, I’m going to install and test this app because I WANT THIS.)

Tags:

#yes this #OSMAnd is so good #the interface is kind of a Lot sometimes but you can pretty much just ignore bits you don’t want to deal with #and I love having offline maps that *don’t fucking expire WTF Google* #and! if you run into a problem with the map data‚ you can just *go on OpenStreetMap and fix it* and it’ll be in the monthly map updates #I’ve also heard some praise for Organic Maps‚ though I haven’t tried it myself #I used MapFactor’s OSM-based version for a while and it was fine #so if you’re not particularly seeking open-source apps and don’t like the other two maybe try that #recs #Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #maps

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

jadagul:

fnord888:

transgenderer:

mostly like switching from mac to windows but losing imessage sucks. being able to text from my computer was so convenient. afaik theres no windows equivalent for interfacing with my iphone, or even an android. maybe if i had a windows phone? pain, suffering, etc

I believe Google Messages for Web will let you send text messages from a desktop. It definitely does if you have Google Fi but I think it works if you link your phone number from another carrier as well.

You can sync any android phone (I think? Definitely the Pixels, and I assume others) to your desktop via messages.google.com. I think that doesn’t work for iphones though.

There might be other solutions as well but I don’t know them.

I hear KDE Connect has Windows and iOS versions. I use it (well, the Linux and Android versions) and it’s great.

Tags:

#Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #reply via reblog #recs

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

jadagul:

This passage from the ACX Society of the Spectacle reader review really struck me:

Now our role models are media creations. Some are literal fictional characters (James Bond); others are nominally real people (Kylie Jenner). But both are merely representations – images usurping an essential formative role. ‘William Shatner’ and ‘Robert Downey, Jr.’ are only marginally more real than Captain Kirk and Tony Stark, yet they occupy way more headspace than people that live down the street.

Most people can name more celebrities, in more detail, than people they’ve known in person. I know the names of Will Smith’s kids – I don’t even know if my best friends from high school have any.

Like—is that true? Can that possibly be true? How does that happen? It’s asserted as if it’s just obvious, and it seems like a shocking claim to me.

(Now, the entire review feels like this somewhat. But this passage really stood out as sounding completely insane to me.)

This struck me as one of the *relatively* sane bits of that article, although I think it says more about rootlessness than it does about [knowing a lot about celebrities]. I *don’t* know whether my best friends from middle school have kids, because I live in a different country from them now. I think I *would* have heard if my friends from high school had had kids, but if we had all scattered to the winds it would be another story. I have spent over *three months* trying to start getting to know people down the street, and in that time the volunteering group in question has held exactly one meetup that they *both* remembered to tell me about *and* didn’t cancel. (I shudder to think how hard it would be if there hadn’t even *been* a volunteering group already in place.)

—

To me the completely insane part was this bit:

“We’ve all felt the shockwaves of the Internet explosion.  Life is *different* now. It takes an act of will to put down your phone so you can focus on the TV.  Low battery is an emergency. Losing signal is bereavement. Navigating without GPS is an anxiety attack.

Do you remember what it was like, not so long ago?  How exciting it was to play videogames with someone a thousand miles away? How cool it was the first time you streamed a movie on an airplane? That sense of possibility and promise, like all the world was in the palm of your hand?”

In order of appearance:

1. If I have access to a TV (implying that I’m at home), why am I on a phone and not a laptop?

1a. I generally do have my laptop open while watching TV, *because* I generally only watch TV as a social activity with online friends.

2. I frequently go entire days without touching my phone; on most days that I interact with my phone I do so for only a minute or two; on most days that I interact with my phone for more than five cumulative minutes it’s because I’m updating its software or local files. Note that I have it set to sync SMS messages to my laptop over KDE Connect, so I do not need to touch my phone to notice that I have received a text or even to respond to it.

3. Low battery is an occasional annoyance. The worst-case scenario is that because my phone is dead I don’t notice the text from my boss offering me an extra shift on short notice, which *did* almost happen to me yesterday but fortunately I still had 6% left. I suppose I shall be *slightly* more careful, given that reminder that functioning phones are *occasionally* unexpectedly important.

4. *Despite* low phone battery not majorly featuring in my life, I carry two USB cables, a small solar generator, and an AC adapter at all times whenever leaving my home. Surely someone who cared desperately about maintaining phone charge should be, if anything, *more* careful?

5. I didn’t even *have* a SIM card for over *six years* after getting my first smartphone. Even now, my data plan is 250 MB per month: an occasional backup, not remotely something I can afford to leave on all the time. Everything about my smartphone is oriented around Internet access being erratic and/or heavily rationed: the *point* of a smartphone, for me, is that it can be made largely self-sufficient, that you can keep your digital belongings not only with you but *accessible* even when you are far from home and signal alike.

6. I did not have GPS until 2014, and I assure you that navigating without GPS was *always* nightmarish even when I *hadn’t* experienced anything better.

7. I *do* enjoy watching over a friend’s shoulder from two thousand miles away while they play a video game and we chat about it, although our schedules haven’t worked out lately.

8. Wait, streaming movies on airplanes is possible now? Since when? I was last on a plane in 2015 bold of OP to assume I can afford to travel and that was definitely not a thing, although it *was* a downmarket airline so maybe fancy planes could arrange for it. Do they still call it “airplane mode”?

9. The world *is*, almost literally, in the palm of my hand.

Tags:

#Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #reply via reblog #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #proud citizen of The Future #adventures in human capitalism

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

rustingbridges:

rustingbridges:

I’ve really got to figure out how to actually use open street maps

@brin-bellway the sticking point that inspired this post was that I make fairly heavy use of google maps’ various annotation features. including the synchronization with contacts, but also various lists of things I’m interested in

I used to have annotations set up on some OSM based app, but that app decided to be expensive and I haven’t figured out how to do this on the one I’ve currently got downloaded (osmand+).

but the main one is that the search doesn’t seem to work very well and the directions often seem a bit wonky. so any time I’m in looking up directions and in a hurry I don’t want to fuck around with it, and just use google maps. which is most of the times I use google maps. and so because I never use it I never get comfortable enough with it to use it under pressure. so here we are

I never use Google Maps annotations, so I’m not sure if I can really help you there. I do use uMap [link] sometimes: is that the sort of thing you mean?

The search and directions can be a bit wonky, yeah, although I like how any map problem I run into is only ever a problem once (because I go on OSM and fix it when I get home). Nice to get the warm prosocial fuzzies.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #maps #recs #for historical reasons I will go ahead and tag this #Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #even though I now have a 2020-model smartphone