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    stig avatar stig 3 years ago | link | on: My year with a distraction-free iPhone (and how to start your own experiment)

    He never addressed why he feels the need for a smartphone if he’s going to limit its capability to that of a feature phone. Surely that’s just paying an order of magnitude more for a tenth of the battery?

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      tedu avatar tedu 3 years ago | link

      Look at the apps he kept. iPhone camera is better than any feature phone. I think you can play MP3s on some phones? But iPhone certainly has better options and a much more refined interface. A couple utility apps that don’t have much time suck potential, but can be really convenient when you need them.

      Sure. It’s not like you can’t call a cab with a dumbphone, but the experience is nothing like uber (especially if you’re in a different city and don’t know the number off hand).

      The interface on a smartphone (large, clear, bright touchscreen) works better than a 12 button numpad, even for the simplest dumbphone tasks, like texting or even scrolling through contacts.

      I agree the article could have done a much better job addressing exactly these points. He even mentions people asked why not a feature phone, but then just blows past the question without answering.

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        dmxt avatar dmxt 3 years ago | link

        I need to disagree with you about iPhone camera. There is plenty of Android flagship smartphones with much better camera than what iPhone have.

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          ap avatar ap 3 years ago | link

          You need to disagree, but whom with? tedu said the iPhone camera is better than any feature phone, not better than any phone. (And since the question was “why not a feature phone then?”, that is relevant; whereas the cameras on other smartphones are not.)

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        dmxt avatar dmxt 3 years ago | link

        I’m assuming that he either:

        • Already had an iPhone when he started the experiment
        • Distraction-free iPhone is actually nicer than a “dumbphone”
        • iOS or Android is the only OS that can run those applications which he decided to keep (refer to #4 in the article)

        Myself I’m planning to do the same thing, the only difference is that I have an Android device. I’m currently doing something similar before reading that article, I’ve deleted all social applications like Instagram, VK, Twitter, etc from my phone. It also helped me to get up earlier in the morning because there’s nothing to do or check on my phone. Maybe I should write an article about it.

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          stig avatar stig 3 years ago | link

          I was considering going one step further, by replacing my iPhone 5 with a feature phone. (I wrote about my smartphone addiction here.) I have tried simply deleting social apps, but I find myself just using the equivalent mobile web apps instead. However, this article points out you can disable safari using restrictions. I am giving this a go, as the I would really miss the camera on my iPhone if I were to give it up.

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            stig avatar stig 3 years ago | link

            I have given this a go for a couple of months and I am happy with it. My wife went the route to fully downgrade to a “feature phone” and is not happy with that. (Messaging in particular is croaky. Increased battery life of feature phone doesn’t make up for it.)

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        dmxt avatar dmxt 4 years ago | link | on: Stop trying to innovate keyboards. You're just making them worse

        At least they got Fn & Ctrl position right… oh wait there’s no Fn. Regarding that, Fn replacing Ctrl position is a common keyboard design mistake that is often found in cheap keyboards, macbooks, et cetera.

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          jcs avatar jcs e-mailed 4 years ago | link

          Doesn’t everyone just make Caps Lock a Control so you don’t need to awkwardly move your pinky down to the lower left?

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            vjoel avatar vjoel 4 years ago | link

            Not Control exactly, but…

            $ cat .Xmodmap
clear lock
keycode 66 = Hyper_L
remove mod4 = Hyper_L
add mod3 = Hyper_L

            Then you can use your window manager to bind CapsLock + RightArrow to “go to workspace to right” and so on.

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          kyle avatar kyle e-mailed 4 years ago | link | on: New-user downvoting

          I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to prevent downvotes for “green” users (as marked on /u/). It would give new people some time to get used to the community here.

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            jcs avatar jcs 4 years ago | link

            I’ve implemented that as a compromise. No karma needed, just wait a week and downvote privileges are granted. If it still is a problem in the future, the privileges can be granted based on karma.

            1. 1
              whyrusleeping avatar whyrusleeping 4 years ago | link

              I feel like instead of a time based delay, users should gain the downvote ability after reaching a certain level of karma.

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                don avatar don 4 years ago | link

                If it’s time based, people don’t have control over it and might get bored and not come back. Not that the goal should be discouraging people from returning.

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                  whyrusleeping avatar whyrusleeping 4 years ago | link

                  Which is why making it karma based would be better. It would encourage users to contribute to the community on order to gain the privilege of downvoting. An extension of this idea is rate limiting downvotes based on karma. Users with lower karma can only downvote once a day, etc

            2. 2
              SeanTAllen avatar SeanTAllen 4 years ago | link

              How about if down voting cost karma?

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                dmxt avatar dmxt 4 years ago | link

                No, it will discourage users from downvoting spam content, etc.

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                  SeanTAllen avatar SeanTAllen 4 years ago | link

                  I don’t see what value karma currently has. It’s just a bauble right now. If it isn’t a status symbol but rather a measure of trust earned and to then be used, it doesn’t have to discourage.

                  HN requires a base level of karma to take certain actions after which, it has no value and you see the “I got karma to burn” response.

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              dmxt avatar dmxt 4 years ago | link | on: Childhood amnesia kicks in around age 7

              Interesting read. I have two snapshots of memory when I was 2 years ago and a few when I was 3 years old, I’m certain about age because of the location when it was taken. I also can’t remember if I remembered something well when I was 6 year old.

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                jm avatar jm 4 years ago | link

                See with my kids, I think that the memories they “think” they have of early childhood are often from having seen pictures-of or later discussed the event.

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                dmxt avatar dmxt 4 years ago | link | on: Flat Design vs. Realism

                To be honest, I expected a useful and informative article regarding flat design and realism, not a vidya game.