Not everyone can afford a smartphone.
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Yes!
And it's not just money. Imagine trying to use a smartphone if you had Parkinson's, or age-related macular degeneration, or mild cognitive impairment. Imagine using one if you lived with an abusive partner who demanded your Pin and punished anything he saw and didn't like. Imagine needing to get rid of your smartphone to help beat your online gambling addiction, and then finding you were locked out of modern society.
We think too easily of new and shiny things, and we forget the people who don't fit the mould, who get left to fend for themselves.
I know elderly people who are not phone savvy who should definitely not have smart phones, especially not attached to anything like banking. I have elderly family members who would be excluded from eating at a lot of restaurants these days because the only way to pay and order is by scanning a QR code. On principle, I walk out of these places and tell them why.
Anytime participating in the basic functions of life and society requires a smart phone, it creates an exclusionary system. (Note I said exclusionary and not discriminatory because the last time I said "discriminate" some pedant who probably works for a surveillance company took umbrage.)
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@anon_opin @dbsalk Ditto for Facebook. If Facebook is the only way you communicate with customers, you won't be communicating with me because I won't be a customer.
one of the saddest things I see is when small businesses neglect their independent website for Facebook, and then don't even bother to update the bit of FB that you can see without having a login, to the point you don't even know if the business is still operating as their last post is 3 years ago!
I think the wider problem is a lot of business owners don't really *want* to communicate with their customers (and then wonder why they go bust within a few years)
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one of the saddest things I see is when small businesses neglect their independent website for Facebook, and then don't even bother to update the bit of FB that you can see without having a login, to the point you don't even know if the business is still operating as their last post is 3 years ago!
I think the wider problem is a lot of business owners don't really *want* to communicate with their customers (and then wonder why they go bust within a few years)
@vfrmedia @anon_opin @dbsalk I think you're right, at least on some level. But I also truly believe that small business owners think all they need to do to build a business is put themselves on a site like Facebook and sit back and wait for the customers to come. Same goes for Instagram and Twitter and anything else. They don't seem to care that these platforms do not give them exposure to ALL potential customers.
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Yes!
And it's not just money. Imagine trying to use a smartphone if you had Parkinson's, or age-related macular degeneration, or mild cognitive impairment. Imagine using one if you lived with an abusive partner who demanded your Pin and punished anything he saw and didn't like. Imagine needing to get rid of your smartphone to help beat your online gambling addiction, and then finding you were locked out of modern society.
We think too easily of new and shiny things, and we forget the people who don't fit the mould, who get left to fend for themselves.
@CppGuy @anon_opin @wendynather the same people who don't get this also think poor people are making "bad decisions" for spending money on a smartphone while poor.
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@vfrmedia @anon_opin @dbsalk I think you're right, at least on some level. But I also truly believe that small business owners think all they need to do to build a business is put themselves on a site like Facebook and sit back and wait for the customers to come. Same goes for Instagram and Twitter and anything else. They don't seem to care that these platforms do not give them exposure to ALL potential customers.
I deleted my FB, Messenger and Instagram accounts some months ago - one thing I noticed when I was using them is Messenger is *not* reliable for the level of real-time messaging you would need for a business transaction (even compared to SIgnal, SMS or a telephone call).
And FB will equally direct people to their competitors, and in a small country like England has 0 sense of geography/distance (this is a very common flaw with all USA developed social networks)
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one of the saddest things I see is when small businesses neglect their independent website for Facebook, and then don't even bother to update the bit of FB that you can see without having a login, to the point you don't even know if the business is still operating as their last post is 3 years ago!
I think the wider problem is a lot of business owners don't really *want* to communicate with their customers (and then wonder why they go bust within a few years)
@vfrmedia @mlanger @anon_opin @dbsalk
One further level of abstraction: a lot of business owners want to close down their business and sell off the land on which it's situated for housing (frequently much more lucrative than running a business could ever be); but they can't get planning permission unless they can convince the local council that they've really tried to operate the business and it hasn't worked out: going bust within a few years is exactly their intended outcome.
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@anon_opin @dbsalk Ditto for Facebook. If Facebook is the only way you communicate with customers, you won't be communicating with me because I won't be a customer.
A great approach until it's a company that has a monopoly on something essential. I moved house in 2022, and the water company in the area I moved away from would accept the notification that I was leaving *only* via WhatsApp,
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@vfrmedia @mlanger @anon_opin @dbsalk
One further level of abstraction: a lot of business owners want to close down their business and sell off the land on which it's situated for housing (frequently much more lucrative than running a business could ever be); but they can't get planning permission unless they can convince the local council that they've really tried to operate the business and it hasn't worked out: going bust within a few years is exactly their intended outcome.
@only_ohm @mlanger @anon_opin @dbsalk
I think in many cases (particularly in my part of England) its landlords who would be doing this, hence renting out a location to a risky enterprise wihch is likely to fail? Or in other cases the business owners are old and going to retire anyway, so they don't have that much trouble showing the Council they *were* running the business.
OTOH I see the same thing happen in sectors like automotive where there is high demand and many businesses seem to be constantly busy (or at least give the impression of being so by being hard to contact by normal means, although this is often because they don't hire admin staff any more and the same mechanics doing the work have to field the customer communications)
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I deleted my FB, Messenger and Instagram accounts some months ago - one thing I noticed when I was using them is Messenger is *not* reliable for the level of real-time messaging you would need for a business transaction (even compared to SIgnal, SMS or a telephone call).
And FB will equally direct people to their competitors, and in a small country like England has 0 sense of geography/distance (this is a very common flaw with all USA developed social networks)
@vfrmedia @mlanger @anon_opin @dbsalk as a business owner (with websites) I tend to try to spend more time running my business than dealing with either social media or my website.
Both are huge burdens that are neccisary to doing business while actively taking time away from the business in which I am trying to engage.
And i say that as someone who is good at these things.
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@vfrmedia @mlanger @anon_opin @dbsalk as a business owner (with websites) I tend to try to spend more time running my business than dealing with either social media or my website.
Both are huge burdens that are neccisary to doing business while actively taking time away from the business in which I am trying to engage.
And i say that as someone who is good at these things.
@ajroach42 @mlanger @anon_opin @dbsalk
thing is you still put in the effort, and have a physical presence which shows your businesses are definitely active - I can see that all the way from England!
Many businesses round here don't even do that, if you try and telephone them often no one answers, in some cases you could physically visit them but its not always feasible or worth the effort if they are some distance away...
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Not everyone can afford a smartphone. Stop making it the primary, and sometimes the only, interface for day to day services. It's like when companies move their customer facing information onto Discord. It's shit. Fucking stop it.
@anon_opin @dbsalk it’s also past time to regulate them as a utility!!!
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@only_ohm @mlanger @anon_opin @dbsalk
I think in many cases (particularly in my part of England) its landlords who would be doing this, hence renting out a location to a risky enterprise wihch is likely to fail? Or in other cases the business owners are old and going to retire anyway, so they don't have that much trouble showing the Council they *were* running the business.
OTOH I see the same thing happen in sectors like automotive where there is high demand and many businesses seem to be constantly busy (or at least give the impression of being so by being hard to contact by normal means, although this is often because they don't hire admin staff any more and the same mechanics doing the work have to field the customer communications)
@vfrmedia @mlanger @anon_opin @dbsalk
Funnily enough, both the automotive repair businesses that existed in my youth in the village where I live have gone down the "shut down and sell off the land for housing" route - in at least one case, with the local council being decidedly displeased about it.
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@zenia @anon_opin There should be options that don't involve computers.
@drahardja@ben @anon_opin @drahardja but I agree
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@zenia @Rastal @anon_opin the web is the most portable format (aside from plain text). Designed decently it works everywhere. The browser should facilitate accessibility. Be device agnostic.
@Tekchip @Rastal @anon_opin 100%
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@vfrmedia @mlanger @anon_opin @dbsalk
Funnily enough, both the automotive repair businesses that existed in my youth in the village where I live have gone down the "shut down and sell off the land for housing" route - in at least one case, with the local council being decidedly displeased about it.
@vfrmedia @mlanger @anon_opin @dbsalk
(and yes, both of those shops were always busy and in high demand)
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Not everyone can afford a smartphone. Stop making it the primary, and sometimes the only, interface for day to day services. It's like when companies move their customer facing information onto Discord. It's shit. Fucking stop it.
@anon_opin
And the selection of smartphones is pretty small if you consider Android and Windows spyware and Apple fascist supporters. -
Not everyone can afford a smartphone. Stop making it the primary, and sometimes the only, interface for day to day services. It's like when companies move their customer facing information onto Discord. It's shit. Fucking stop it.
@anon_opin Also, quit making it hard to reach a human when you have to call a company, "I want to speak to a human" should take you directly to a human. You should not have to say "I want to speak to a pharmacist" or anything like that. Ugh.
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@vfrmedia @mlanger @anon_opin @dbsalk
(and yes, both of those shops were always busy and in high demand)
@only_ohm @mlanger @anon_opin @dbsalk
A lot of automotive business owners end up burning out because their businesses are run so lean they don't have the money to invest in training or new equipment, and the "fun" jobs like performance, tuning and full restos of oldtimers you might see on YouTube are in reality rarer these days as many people with more cash get their cars on leases which forbid such mods, and the rest of the work is keeping peoples old sheds running which can often be thankless as few people are happy paying a garage bill..
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@anon_opin
And the selection of smartphones is pretty small if you consider Android and Windows spyware and Apple fascist supporters.@leeloo @anon_opin yup, on top of everything, that’s a real kicker: you can not gate entry to a service through the ownership of a device in an ecosystem that is, for all practical means, the exclusive domain of bad people who do as many bad people things as they can get away with.
participation in society can not depend on you having to buy into either weyland-yutani or cyberdyne systems.
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@dalias @zenia @anon_opin but garbage Androids are much less secure than dumbphones…
@mirabilos @dalias @zenia @anon_opin Yeah but poverty often excludes you from privacy protection, and dumb phones are either old stock or niche products while a mass produced truly bottom of the barrel android can be made for a few dollars and sold for $20 or less. If I had to choose between a dumb phone and a mobicel or whatever, I can bank, scan QR codes, install library and university apps, install an ad blocking browser... It's not a good experience but it does let me interact with society.
Gli ultimi otto messaggi ricevuti dalla Federazione
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@lisyarus to put it another way, the version on the left looks like it is like 20% of the way to being really slick diorama water, and the version on the right looks like it is 80% of the way to being windwaker water.
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@eniko (classics include Big Top https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Top_(video_game) , Prince of Persia 1 and 2, Doom, ZOOL and ZOOL2, Bananoid, Future Wars, Lemmings, Pipe Mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_Mania , Mortal Kombat 3, North vs South, Secret Service II)
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Lewdbrarian: Will that be all, sir?
Me: I... The other day I was thinking of an old jav idol... The one with the sexy...
Lewdbrarian: That is Sally Yoshino, sir.
Me: And... do we perhaps have any vi
Lewdbrarian: You should look in the gray drive, sir. I trust you remember the password.
Me: yes. yes.
Lewdbrarian: We do not have any video. But there are pictures saved from usenet. Just look under ..\Alt\Binaries\Pictures\Jav\Y\
Me: Thank you.
Lewdbrarian: Glad to serve, sir.
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@eniko OK so here's SOME that I keep in my DOSbox because of nostalgia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackthorne which I loved for the “shoot behind your back” gesture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiendish_Freddy%27s_Big_Top_o%27_Fun where you have to play circus tricks while a capitalist sabotages your actions because he wants to buy the circus.
HoverTank, a shareware game that you can find here https://cheesysoftware.net/alphaomega/index.html that allows hotseat 1vs1 play (it's tanks shooting at each other, very fast, very funny sounds)
and then some classics.
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@lisyarus I like the depth dependent water better. I think it wants to be fancier though, like maybe fake caustics in the shallows, blur the depths, something on the shore line, some surface wiggle + some specular highlights.
I think the reason the plain version doesn't feel like it is missing anything is because it doesn't really look like water beyond being symbolically recognizable as semantic water. The plain version would actually be better if it was opaque imo.
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Some other #MastoBlaster screenshots, from the emulator
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Lewdbrarian: I suggest a quick search to confirm, since this particular memory is over 40 years old by now.
Me (after check): Yup. Yup. It checks out.
Lewdbrarian: I am glad I could be of service, sir.
Me: Hey... Uh... You wouldn't happen to remember where we saw that last now, would you?
Lewdbrarian: I am so very sorry, sir. Records of VHS titles specially those not fully watched have been purged. Since we no longer own any tapes, or devices to play them. I hope you understand.
