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50% dumber. (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever happened to phones that just made phone calls?
Re:50% dumber. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's every phone, if all you do is make phone calls.
Re:50% dumber. (Score:5, Insightful)
I like having a computer I can carry in my pocket that makes phone calls. Can't see why any self respecting nerd would have a problem with them.
Re:50% dumber. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you only make phone calls and disable everything else then all you are left with is tracking, which happens on the other end anyhow.
50% more free (speech), privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:50% dumber. (Score:3, Insightful)
Paying a perpetual $1000 a year for the privilege is the problem I have with smartphones.
Big batteries at any cost (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, fuck thin phones. I want a 1.5-inch-thick phone that'll give me a full day of streaming video or geocaching if I want. Screw those tiny 50mm x 33mm x 5mm batteries, I want my phone to be half battery by volume. In an ideal world, it would also have an accessible battery-release button, so I can slide it out and slot in another in ten seconds or less, and charge the spare (or three) in my car or on my wall. Give it a little backup battery, say 15 minutes worth, to stay alive while the big one is being swapped and I'd be totally happy.
Re:Cheaper (Score:5, Insightful)
Because high end phones are PCs that also have to fit in a small case and operate on battery.
Re:50% dumber. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well... since management and users don't understand boundaries carrying something that enables me to work 100% of the time is a bad idea. Before anyone says well I wouldn't hire anyone that won't use email on their phone I will let you know that I refuse to work for anyone that expects me to answer email while I'm in the restroom or driving. Chances are if you stop mid-sentence to answer an email on your cellphone while doing an interview I will likely decline anyway.
Now when my kid stops mid-sentence or isn't listening because he got a text, email, or facebook post I get on his case for being rude.
When the clerk at the gas station doesn't look up from her cell phone long enough to tell me how much my purchase was and just holds out her hand I get annoyed.
Not that I don't like the idea of having a hand held computer that I can use anywhere it just doesn't work out the way I dream about it.
50% less destructible (Score:4, Insightful)
Its also interesting to note that people spend a a good amount of money on cases and screen protectors.
Even if an indestructible phone were larger, heavier, and more expensive out of the box than the average phone today, it may very well still be thinner, lighter and cheaper than the average phone + accessories.
open and fair (Score:5, Insightful)
50% more environmentally friendly production
50% less exploited workers
50% less conflict minerals
50% more opensource
Re:See cheap companies (Score:4, Insightful)
Buy a low end Nokia and shut the fuck up.
Cool, you like basic phones. Luckily Nokia cater for you, from the Nokia 515 which is dumb-with-extras down to the Nokia 100 that does not even have a fucking camera. Now do you really need to go on EVERY FUCKING SMARTPHONE THREAD and scream "but what about me!?!?!".
I'd understand if you were completely uncared for, but I can buy a Nokia 515, 100-and-something and a Nokia 200-and-something from my local small supermarket and if I go on the Walmart home page I can get pages of dumb phones at all levels of dumbness. Pages and pages of the damn things.
So I can only conclude that you don't care enough about wanting a dumb for to actually look for one. You just want to be a "cool" and special and scream "look at me; I'm not like everyone else!"
I guess you are right; you are not like everyone else. Everyone else is capable of looking at the market and finding a device that meets their needs without first crying on the internet.
User number? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm using /. beta, and oddly your user number doesn't show.
I figure you're a low hundred thousands user number anyway. You sound like an old dinosaur, who learned manners before 1970. Today, no one learns manners - the concept has been discarded from American life.
Have you ever stopped at a fast food restaurant, walked inside, and found that you were on "ignore" until the person with the head set had cleared the drive thru? The guy at the counter, waving money at those kids is far less real than the voices on the headset.
Re:50% dumber. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the hate for manual transmission? Arguably I can do more with a stick shift than an automatic.
Stick transmissions are less convenient and don't really get much more than marginal benefits compared to modern automatics and CVTs in terms of fuel efficiency or power, especially since most drivers don't shift as efficiently as an automatic system can. Most drivers over-rev, and learning to drive efficiently is a skill that takes time and effort. A stick shift is more or less just the illusion of control.
LoL, spoken like someone who has never driven a manual.
A manual gives you a hell of a lot more control as you can chose when to change gears. Control is a very important thing for someone who is a driver, not just a steering wheel attendant. There is no illusion, the control is quite real. When you have one of those flappy paddle automatics, you push a button and ask "mother, may I please shift now" and hope the car lets you. With a manual, there's no way for the car to say no.
They are also a lot cheaper in the long run. An automatic is $2000 more expensive to buy in most cars which at $$1.50 per Litre here in Oz thats 1333.333 Litres. Now using the Subaru BRZ for example, manual is 7.8L/100 KM and the Sports Automatic gets 7.1, so lets say you actually attain those figures (with the auto this will be very, very hard) the cost difference is A$2600, doing 20,000 KM a year the manual costs $2340 whilst the auto costs $2130, the difference is $210 a year. So it takes over 9 years to make that cost difference back on the auto and you just have to hope there are no transmission problems because Auto's are a lot more expensive than manuals to fix.
All figures quoted from Redbook [redbook.com.au]
Whilst we're on this subject, I like my gearboxes to work. Auto's are more susceptible to problems (just look at the marque 6 DSG in Volkswagens).
Further more, most automatic gearboxes dont let you choose when you change gear, nor rev match and almost always shift too late on inclines and declines. Then there are those with selectable gears that just dont work, like Ford's SelectShift. There's always a noticeable lag with Automatic transmissions you simply dont notice if you dont know how to drive a manual. So much precision is lost with an automatic, however most steering wheel attendants aren't good enough drivers to notice.
Manuals are for drivers, they give you control and responsiveness that auto's lack. Like the GP I can do a lot more with my manual than any automatic. The only real trade off is the fact you have to pay attention to what you're doing. Considering the amount of people who cant stay off their phones or stop stuffing their faces in traffic this is not a bad thing.
Re:50% dumber. (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, if you don't already have experience doing this, it's easy to insist that it has low value. Before I bought proper glasses that were comfortable on my face, I refused to wear corrective lenses and I was able to see to drive without them just fine (my vision is decent, I just can't read the road signs as far out) but when I began consistently wearing my glasses while driving, the advantage became clear and I feel pretty handicapped if I try driving without them.
The same naivete about manual transmissions can also be applied to high-performance engines. Having a motor with 130 hp vs. one with 200 hp is often mocked by those who think that "only someone wanting to put others in danger and race and drive recklessly needs more power," but you learn to appreciate it when you suddenly find that the more powerful motor changes your "a wreck is about to happen!" options from "slam brakes and pray" and "hope that you can steer in the other direction fast enough without losing traction or hitting someone" to then include "drop to third, stomp the gas, and get away from the hazard." I remember a few incidents where me rocketing away resulted in a dodgy driver who doesn't check blind spots before passing (as I'm being followed too closely to hit brakes) simply not running into me.
you're pretty arrogant (Score:4, Insightful)
The voices in the headset also represent real people, and they were there before you.
Do you think that people that walk into a fast-food place are more important than the people who are in the drive-through (and therefore almost by definition are in a hurry)?
Re:50% dumber. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:50% dumber. (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit, size is relatively unimportant.
Actually compared to finland, with it's low population density and extreme climate, 90% of the usa is piss easy to do.
It's just greed and cartel forming that are making it so bad and expensive in the USA.