Men are going to have an harder time finding a date when you add a 3+ year old phone into the mix ...

Ok, I'm trying to figure out WTF an older phone has to do with finding dates as a man?

If you're implying it is some sort of status symbol....the idea of a cell phone being a status symbol sailed many moons ago...it's just a commodity thing everyone owns these days.

I love playing games or watching shows that are post-future like Fallout or Horizon Zero Dawn where there's some ancient lost technology that are like magic to the main characters, and it's somehow 1,000 years old. And then you look at the current world of planned obsolescence and how quickly technology devices degrade over time, and I wonder if that fantasy future will ever come to pass where my phone will last a thousand years. What an amazing fantasy that is.

I often think about this with the trillions or more of digital images taken all over the world, on phones and dedicated cameras, where the images stay digital, never a physical copy made.

Many are lost each day due to lost passwords...memory cards breaking, etc...

And yet...we STILL have tin types and other physical early photography mediums still in great shape today and likely will last well into the future.

I have pictures from my parents childhoods....and even if images fade, I can find the film negatives and generate a new, good looking picture today to replace them.

We take more pictures today than any other time in history....only to never show them, and eventually lose them to the ether for a number of reasons.

More and more these days, even with my photography...it's not really a picture, until it is physically printed, preferably hanging on a wall.

This isn't news to iPhone users.

WOW.

I had no idea people upgraded every 2-3 years?!?

I went from the old flip phones to my first "smart phone" the iPhone 3GS.

I had that....till I got the iPhone 6S Plus....then eventually the iPhone 12 Max Pro.

Now that I think about it a couple of my friends have had various Android phones over the years...I just assumed they were klutzy and had dropped and broken theirs and were replacing them due to damage.....not planned obsolescence ?

It wasn't the US that militarized the South China Sea, fired missiles into Taiwanese airspace, threatened war with Japan over some uninhabited rocks, crossed the line of control and killed dozens of Indian soldiers, and is supporting Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.

I am a humor-impaired Aspie, and even I recognized it as sarcasm.

Doesn't matter if a car is EV or not... there are a ton of electronics in all modern cars and trucks, so an EMP would disable pretty much any vehicle, EV or ICE.

I know a number of people that keep older cars, in great running condition JUST to have something to drive in case a wide spread EMP happens.

And with cars a couple decades back...you can protect them, or fix them....it's the more modern ones that too much electronics in them that are at risk.

I'd have to think a full blown EV would just be more vulnerable to getting fried from so many access vectors they would really be at risk for anyone with a little electronic know how and bad actor personality.

...you know this cold war thing is new and largely pushed by the US.

Puh-lese.....China's acrimony and antagonistic attitude towards the US is NOTHING new...these levels have being going on at least from the 50's...perhaps as far back as WW2.

But definitely since the 50's-60's.

However, for some reason, the Nixon administration thought if we were more inclusive of China with rest of the world and we brought capitalism to them, they'd change.

They changed their tactics...and used what they could from capitalism to grow their economy, and used our freedoms against us....and have greatly increased their threat level to the US and the rest of the free world.

Unlike the west...China make LONG term plans....and sticks with them. Sure they may modify the tactics, but the goals remand long term.

Sadly, the west, can't plan past next Tuesday when it comes to anything meaningful, and it's being used against us.

I'm using the Android app. It asks for permissions for notifications, microphone (to engage in voice conversations with it), calendar, contacts, and location.

I've allowed notifications, require it to ask every time about the microphone, and deny access to calendar, contacts, and location and the app works just fine for me. I haven't seen any evidence that it's gained any access to any personal data. Android should generally be preventing that anyway, and the responses I get certainly don't indicate that it's scraping anything to provide a personalized experience. But anything you type in or say to the app in voice chat is definitely fair game for it.

The environment will "benefit" later, when the super-duper "AI" transcends humans and comes up with a solution.

Yep.

The Matrix.

What's to stop terrorists, or anyone ill-doer from making EMP guns...and causing havoc by stopping cars and trucks anywhere they wish?

Amazon is not even a part of the conversation for groceries due to the high delivery fees, at least for perishables.

Agreed...I just use Amazon for most all non-food purchases.

Nice advertisement for Costco. Don't forget to mention how their expiration dates are notoriously soon. That together with the forced bulk buying can result in a lot of wasted food. And every visit is a 2-3 hour investment in time. At least with Walmart you can order online and get pickup: in and out in 5-10 minutes.

I guess I could sound a bit like a Costco ad....I just really like the place.

I mean, if I had to move...deciding WHERE I would go, would depend on how close a Costco was to me.

And for expiration dates, most of that is BS....I watch for how my food looks, smells...and if it is fuzzy and blue (aside from bleu cheese).

My trips are not 2-3 hours....maybe can get 1.5 hours, BUT...that's just me meandering around the store shopping around to see what's new, etc.

Personally, I kinda like shopping...and especially so for food (I like to cook)...so, it's not really a chore for me. It's a good excuse to get out of the house.

I have large deep freezers, my own meat grinder, the means to vac-seal stuff....so, I buy and bulk and separate it out for meal portions.

And with some things, like fresh items...yep, at the end of the week or 2 weeks I may throw some of it out, but I find in those case (Lemons and limes for specific examples)...I still spend less on the big bag at Costco, that the little bags at the grocery store.

Nah, they would just hire more folk from not the USA.

A lot of these type jobs, would not legally allow for non-USA citizens to work on them.

Yeah, they were very stupid. I saw them. Why do you want me to go see you being stupid again?

Ah, insults....the sole tool of the mentally myopic.

They chose to use a non-private coin, so no fungibility.

It's been standard econ for hundreds of years that fungibility is a requirement of any successful current money.