Thanks, I missed that

Unless you’re coding from scratch it’s hard to not do this with any modern framework.

I think that word modern is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

A lot of systems simply aren’t modern. There’s always that mentality of “well, it’s been working for the last 12 years, let’s not mess with it now”, despite all the valid objections like "but it’s running on Windows2000” or “it’s a data breach waiting to happen”…

Hey, that’s not a bad name…

The brand seems to be “Tricklestar” (I have to admit I’ve never even heard of the brand, but it’s been working for years now).

I don’t deny the utility of a smartphone or PCs for that matter. My issue is with framing a techology device as a sort of metaphysical source of “liberty” and “empowerment”. Any tool can be used for bad or for good, it’s all up to us. There are pro/cons to digital hardware and services.

Hmm, that’s kinda interesting. I mean, I wonder what your definition of personal empowerment is? Like, to me if a tool isn’t the perfect example of empowerment, then I didn’t know what is. Like, on a desert island, once you have a blade, you can start to build yourself a shelter, etc. The blade can certainly be used for ill pursuits, but isn’t it still empowering? Hell, isn’t giving you the option of using it for evil also empowering? (Albeit empowering you to commit evil)

But I do see what you mean, the smartphone is a double edged sword. It’s easy to see all the ways that it did not change society for the better.

Also, I like your analogy to industrialization, spot on.

The love story in the movie “Her” is even more impressive. It’s impressive because it’s not even a robot, it’s just an AI voice and yet the love story is still compelling. And it also asks bigger questions, sure there’s the question of could a person fall in love with a machine, and is that ok? But it goes further to ask, if the machine is actually intelligent, what does the machine see in the humans? Do the machines actually still need the humans at all?

I think evolution would have led to a similar place without it.

I highly doubt it.

Nobody was taking that risk anymore. Every tech company that tried to reinvent the cell phone failed miserably, over and over and over. Every attempt was more pathetic and embarrassing than the last. Tablets were the same way, it became a running joke. Nobody wanted a newton, a Palm pilot, they were ridiculous.

Apple defined the form factor and the interface for the smartphone, and frankly, it was revolutionary, it was not a small jump.

I mean, a smartphone is a computer that people can afford and anyone can figure out how to use. Computers are definitely tools of empowerment and liberty. As a computer it’s a general purpose information tool, you can do nearly anything with it. For instance, you could look up information, communicate with people, take a class, design a website, run a business, do your taxes, keep a journal, borrow books, apply for a job, play games, sign forms, watch movies, read the news, write a book, check the weather, and literally thousands of other things. You might even say, whatever you want to do, there’s an app for that.

I don’t think calling smartphones a tool for empowerment and liberty isn’t really a stretch at all. Some people may not be old enough to remember when nobody had one, if that’s the case, then trust me, it was a different society then.

Yeah, lithium ion batteries are a real danger.

Does jellyfin do any kind of library sharing? Because that’s the killer feature that Plex has for me.

I have three friends who have Plex servers and between the four of us, I think we have all the content anyone could want.

Well, the first ones didn’t fly at all, they usually just killed the inventor.

That’s basically where we are today with fusion, they don’t work at all yet. Luckily it’s not killing people.

Agreed. Plus, when talking about that reactor you get to say “stellarator”, which is always fun.

I also learned that PC’s draw a lot of power lol. I used to sit on my PC all day, now I know how much it cost. Even the monitor turning off splits the power draw by half.

My state has a green energy initiative that gives us free home energy audits, mostly it means we get a lot of free led lights. But it also got us these nice automated power strips, you plug one item (the pc) into a control socket, and when that device turns off, it cuts power to the other managed sockets (monitors, speakers, etc). A really simple solution that must save a bunch of power.

You can’t legislate piracy away…